sbdush on Level UP’s qualification for the Esports World Cup 2026: “No one was emotional; there were no cheers.”

Level UP coach Sergey “sbdush” Fatullaev spoke on a podcast with Viktor “CloudFox” Kulichevsky about the emotions following their qualification for the Esports World Cup 2026, the tournament favorites, and named the tournament’s “dark horse.”
On the emotions after qualifying
You know, when I won the EPL for the first time in my life, there were more emotions. That’s how I’d put it. There were no emotions at all. I was watching the game on [a messaging app]. Someone streams the game to me, and I watch it—obviously with my mic turned off, so no one gets the wrong idea. And I decided to turn on OBS to record it, to capture the emotions. No one was feeling anything; there were no cheers. But the next day, the emotions started rolling in. And they were all negative. Because that means we now have to deal with visas, find an organization to help us with that, and find an organization that, ideally, would run a boot camp for us.
On why we qualified for EWC 2026
If we qualified, it means we were better in these qualifiers than the teams we beat. Maybe we got lucky. You know, maybe Jupiter was in Venus for someone, and because of that, their game didn’t go well; someone had a bad breakfast and played poorly because of it, and someone didn’t get enough sleep. What can you do? That’s life. So we got a good night’s sleep, had a delicious breakfast, and everything aligned perfectly for us.
On the favorites for the 2026 Esports World Cup
It’s not at all clear, to be honest. Who’s going to be good and who’s going to be bad right now? I think Team Spirit should do well, as long as they don’t start having internal conflicts. Team Spirit, Falcons, BetBoom Team, and Liquid could all perform well. I don’t think the Chinese teams will do well, to be honest. For some reason, I just have a feeling about it. But then again, I could be wrong, and everything could turn out the opposite way.
On OG as the “dark horse” of the 2026 EWC in Dota 2
I think OG could do well. You watch them play, and it would make sense to do one thing, but they do another. But it’s very important to understand that to break the rules, you have to know the rules and how to break them. In other words, this means they can also play logical Dota 2.
The 2026 Esports World Cup for Dota 2 will take place from July 7 to 19 in Paris. Team Spirit received an invite as the winner of the previous tournament; 12 other teams qualified based on their ESL Pro Tour rankings; and the remaining 11 teams qualified through regional qualifiers, including Level UP.
Photo by Sergey “sbdush” Fatullaev.


