Valve renames Spirit Breaker in honor of Team Spirit after TI

Spirit Breaker was key to Team Spirit’s success at The International 2023, and Valve has found a fun way to commemorate the championship in-game.

The International is finally over after nearly a month of competition, and Valve is celebrating the event even after its resolution. Team Spirit claimed its second Aegis of Champions in dominant fashion, tearing through the group stage and upper bracket to end it 3-0 over Gaimin Gladiators. 

Such a win deserves a reward beyond the prize pool, and Valve has delivered a new kind of in-game tribute.

Team Spirit Breaker is taking over pubs after TI 2023

Valve has temporarily renamed Spirit Breaker to “Team Spirit Breaker” to commemorate the team’s victory at The International 2023.

From now until an unspecified date, the hero’s name has been changed to reflect the squad’s victory at the Climar Pledge Arena in Seattle. The rename isn’t just a simple cosmetic swap, either. Pinging out his abilities in-game will ready Team Spirit Breaker in chat, and typing Team Spirit in the hero menu will pull him up to view.

The change is an obvious pun based on the squad and the hero, but there’s a deeper connection between the two as well. Team Spirit picked Spirit Breaker twice in the group stage and twice in the playoffs, including for the final game in the grand finals series. Offlaner Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov would likely have played him even more if it wasn’t so frequently banned. As the tenth-most contested hero of the event with multiple high-stakes appearances, Spirit Breaker is emblematic of the tournament as a whole.

Valve didn’t comment on the change when it added the champion stickers for sale, so it’s not clear how long the easter egg will remain in the game. All we know for sure is that he’s currently the second-most popular hero in the game. Fans are appreciating the nod.