Team Spirit’s Dota 2 roster has announced the signing of support prospect, Alexey ‘not me’ Kosmynin, removing Nikita ‘panto’ Balaganin.
The move means that Alexandr ‘rue’ Filin has moved to Position 5 to make space for his fellow 22-year-old as soft support, switching to the Safe Lane.
Spirit panto-mime over for now
Team Spirit announced the release of panto following a slump, which has seen the team regress as a unit and as individuals.
The Team Spirit captain seemingly could not record the ship as the team failed to lift a trophy since the Esports World Cup 2025, itself the first Tier 1 victory for the roster since March of the same year.
The result is almost a year without silverware, despite several deep runs in tournaments, including second place at PGL Wallachia Season 6, DreamLeague Season 27, and Fissure Universe: Episode 8.
Instead of becoming a positive trend, that series of second-placed finishes seemed to break the roster, with only one top-four placement in the last six events, including a 7th-8th place finish at PGL Wallachia Season 8.
Team Spirit provided the following statement regarding panto’s departure:
“We would like to thank Nikita for the time spent in our main roster, however the current development vector and the recent results both mismatched our expectations. Team Spirit wishes panto luck in his further career! We’re highly likely to meet again on the server very soon.”
Team Spirit bets on Ter 2 prospect
With the roster unable to recover from its dip, Team Spirit has opted for a change of leadership and fresh young talent, butwhere that leadership will now come from is not known.
What is known is that not me will take up the Position 4 duties, in a serious step up for the 22-year-old. The Support has barely played in Tier 2, never mind Tier 1, recently playing in Premier Series for Yellow Submarine, finishing 9th.
Prior to his few events with Yellow Submarine, the Russian had played for One Move across two stints, largely playing Tier 3 online events and qualifiers.
However, it would not be the first time that CIS Tier 3 talent has proven themselves in Tier 1, with Spirit being the chief beneficiary of the Yellow Submarine pipeline, which developed Spirit players, rue, Ilya ‘Yatoro’ Mulyarchuk, and Magomed ‘Collapse’ Khalilov.
One would hope that rue especially appreciates that connection as the most recent graduate, despite having to move positions to enable the new lineup to function. That in itself represents another risk, as Spirit takes dramatic steps to try to break their malaise.
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Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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