SAWO and Sunset Lover: A 7-Year Journey to the Trophy

Even a couple of days later, Team Spirit’s victory at a major international MLBB tournament still feels like a miracle that’s hard to believe. At the 2026 Mid-Season Cup, not a single team from the “big three” regions made it to the finals, and 16-year-old Zaur “zaur egoist” Magomadov became the youngest MSC champion.

There’s another compelling story here—Stanislav “SAWO” Reshnyak and Kemiran “Sunset Lover” Kochkarov have been playing together since the very beginning of Mobile Legends history in our region. As a duo, the players have spent seven long years making their way from their debut EECA tournament to one of the world’s most prestigious trophies.

The star duo’s journey began when hardly anyone in the CIS knew anything about esports, let alone Mobile Legends itself. In Asia, the game had been around for nearly three years by that point, and professional tournaments had been held for about two years. But the first chance for our players—as well as for those from other Western regions—to prove themselves came much later.

On August 24, 2019, the Deus Vult roster—featuring SAWO and Sunset Lover—defeated Royal Blood (Danil “Wizer” Schneider’s team) with a score of 3–1 and earned the right to represent the Russian region at the M1 World Championship. The LAN finals at a Moscow shopping center—a small stage, banners, and wooden tables—hardly anyone could have believed that in just a few years, this mobile game would become one of the most popular in the world. 

And it’s also hard to believe that this duo would not only stay together for seven long years but also dominate the regional scene throughout that time. Apart from Stas and Kemiran, Wizer is the only participant from that final who remains active in MLBB—he watched Team Spirit’s victory on Saturday alongside 10,000 viewers on his personal Twitch channel. Among the M1 players, only a few are still actively competing, and at the top level, only Jaypee Gonzalez “Jaypee” De La Cruz of Team Liquid and Bigetron MY’s gold laner Muhammad “CikuGais” Fouad. But even they have switched teams several times and had dozens of teammates since 2019, while SAWO and Sunset Lover have remained together all this time!

It seems amazing now how this duo overcame all the obstacles at the beginning of their journey. If in 2026 our region had (albeit not without its challenges) the support of top organizations, interest from sponsors, and a fan base, then all we had to do was believe in MLBB’s future. Believe in it even after returning from M1, when there were no tournaments or ways to earn money in the region. Believe in it during the COVID-19 era, with only small online events. We had to believe in 2022, when the CIS region was left without a slot for the M4 World Championship, and the SAWO and Sunset teams themselves were left without support from the NAVI organization. But while dozens of other talented players were leaving the game, the DeVu duo continued on their path.

And they didn’t just keep going: discussing the legendary duo at a press conference after the MSC finals, Team Spirit coach Nikita “Coldstar” Morozov noted that the guys had maintained a keen interest in the game even after such a long time.

SAWO has said more than once that it’s extremely difficult for a team from outside Asia to make a name for itself on the world stage—and that’s certainly true. Not only did the SEA community already have a head start in terms of experience at major events, but the esports ecosystem outside the major regions developed more slowly. While the powerhouses battled each other all season, the best CIS team—even with complete dominance in the region and maximum effort—still came up short.

However, this story might never have happened if SAWO and Sunset Lover had simply remained leaders in a region far from the center of MLBB esports. However, with each passing year, DeVu’s roster performed stronger and stronger at the M-Championship: in fact, it was thanks to our duo that interest in Mobile Legends competitions began to grow in the EECA region. Returning after a one-year hiatus in 2022, Deus Vult sensationally took fourth place at M5, defeating Cambodia’s See You Soon along the way. And a year later, they repeated that result with 16-year-old Anton “Hiko” Pak in the gold lane—one of the rising stars of the new generation of Russian-speaking MLBB players.

This, by the way, is yet another reason for their triumph in Paris. SAWO and Sunset Lover showed that they aren’t just able to assemble the most promising players thanks to their status as regional leaders—they know how to bring out talent, as demonstrated by Hiko and now by zaur egoist. Who knows how these young players’ careers would have turned out if two players with such immense experience hadn’t crossed their paths? 

In essence, even back then, Stas and Kemiran had already built a full-fledged Tier 1 MLBB team—likely the first outside of Asia. The guys learned to adapt to the top teams, even those from the “Big Three”; they sought out and integrated new players into their system; and through sheer perseverance, they secured the backing of a major club like Team Spirit. After that, all that remained before their triumph—which feels like a sensation—was to take one final (albeit very difficult) step: closing the gap with the top teams from Indonesia and the Philippines. 

The EECA region’s long-standing problems haven’t gone away: the distance from Asia prevents them from training against the best, the competition in our region doesn’t satisfy Team Spirit’s players, and interest in the game within the Russian-speaking community still isn’t as high as in the three countries most important to MLBB.

In the long run, the Philippines still hold the lead—but Team Spirit has proven that it can beat the MPL leader in a single match. What’s possible in a single match is also possible over the course of an entire tournament: the team just needs a few more circumstances to fall in its favor. The event in Paris turned out to be exactly that: the meta shifted significantly a few days before the start of the Mid-Season Cup, and the format allowed Team Spirit to face a team from the “big three” only once. Add to that the European atmosphere, which was more comfortable for our players: the time zone, culture, language, and much more.

This in no way diminishes the tremendous effort put in by the Team Spirit players. It does not downplay their achievements or the exceptionally high level of their play. It’s simply that circumstances at the Esports World Cup favored the “Dragons,” just as they did at M7 in Indonesia, where the finalists from Alter Ego prevailed over Aurora Gaming PH, which has struggled this season. 

The fact that SAWO and Sunset Lover were able to seize the moment and capitalize on these opportunities—both in-game and otherwise—makes this duo world-class players, without any qualifiers or caveats. The tournament that these two guys from Team Spirit have been working toward for seven long years is proof that they’ve been doing everything right. 

During the victory press conference, SAWO specifically highlighted his partnership with Kemiran:

Sunset Lover replied: 

It seems that after seven years, this story has come to a beautiful conclusion—but for Stas and Kemiran, it’s just the beginning. Starting tomorrow, Team Spirit will begin its quest for another major trophy: The Games of the Future in Astana will host 7 of the 8 MSC playoff participants and could usher in a new era—an era that has been with us for 7 years now!