Team Spirit wins TI15 to lift a record third Aegis of Champions
Team Spirit has defeated TEAM VISION in the grand finals of TI15, The International 2025. In a full five-game series on Aug. 23, Spirit pulled out all the stops and narrowly defeated an incredible VISION team in a back-and-forth series in Shanghai, China.
With Spirit’s victory, Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk and Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov become the first ever three-time TI champions, and Team Spirit becomes the first ever organization to lift the Aegis three times. For teammate, Denis “Larl” Sigitov, he joins the two-time winner club and for Aleksandr “rue” Filin and Alexey “not me” Kosmynin, they claim their first TI championship.
Image Credit: Valve
Team Spirit wins TI15 in a back-and-forth classic finals match
Team Spirit’s journey to finals meant clawing their way from the lower bracket to the top. Just yesterday, the team were on elimination point, having been knocked down by TEAM VISION on the second day of the Playoffs.
But after besting Team Liquid, BoomBoys, and Team Yandex in an undefeated streak of six games, they made it to the finals again. While all almost all predictions pointed to TEAM VISION, it was seemingly already ordained that Alan “Satanic” Gallyamov, Volodymyr “No[o]ne-” Minenko, and coach Clement “Puppey” Ivanov were going to lift the Aegis of Champions. Team Spirit had something to say about that. Defying the prediction brackets, Spirit kicked off game one with a decisive victory. The problem was clear: A drafting issue meant that VISION had inexplicably put Satanic, their star carry, on a weak, slow farming Ember Spirit.
VISION try to secure their legacy
Game two, and that problem got fixed: Satanic on a Lifestealer pick, and seemingly impossible to kill. The drafting 5d chess that was going on between Puppey and Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov meant that this series was going the distance.
Spirit claimed game three with Yatoro on Terrorblade, only for VISION to hit back with Evgeniy “Noticed” Ignatenko showing up on a crucial Doom pick. Tied at 2-2 we entered the final series with everything on the line.
Team Spirit lift the Aegis at TI15. Image Credit: Valve
But the final game’s final pick, a Jugganaut for Satanic, may go down in history as a classic blunder, and a new curse for TI. Last year, Wang “Ame” Chunyu picked Jugganaut against Team Falcons, losing the resultant game. And in 2026, the curse struck again, with Satanic losing against Spirit.
Vision, admittedly, played far better than Ame and co in last years finals, but ultimately, the combo they needed to pull off just to lock down Yatoro seemed impossible to pull off. With the game going past 60-minutes, max-level neutral items in play, and full inventories, Team Spirit secured their third Aegis
Yatoro: “I hope I win four or five”
Talking to interviewers after the victory, Yatoro was magnanimous about the win. Asked if he ever thought he’d win three after lifting the first in 2021, he answered “I hope I win four or five.”
With the victory, Team Spirit claim at least $1,426,422 of a more than three million dollar prize pool, although that amount may rise slightly over the next few days.For Team Vision, Parivision, questions will need to be asked about drafting decisions which handicapped their star carry in the game that should have crowned the 18-year-old Satanic a TI champion.
Featured Image: Team Spirit lift the Aegis at TI15. Image Credit: Valve
Michael is a eight-year veteran of the games writing space, but has being playing them for as long as he can remember. With bylines across the internet, he’s used his expertise to cover esports, prediction markets, mainstream gaming, streamers, and more besides.
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