At the weekend Valve hosted the finals of its annual The International tournament following a brief hiatus in 2020.

Following a dominating win streak in the upper bracket, Paris Saint Germain LGD (PSG LGD) were looking like the favourites going into the final. Their opponents, Team Spirit, had a dominating run through the lower bracket knocking out favourites Team Secret, Invictus Gaming and former two-time champions OG.

The domination did not stop in the grand final as Team Spirit quickly snatched two games from PSG LGD in the best of five series.

In game three PSG LGD fought back hard, taking a while to come online, but then decimating Team Spirit. The fourth game saw PSG LGD dominating from the get go and wrapped up with a shocking 20 – 1 kill score and 26 000 gold net worth difference.

Team Spirit looked shaken but entered the final game of the match with a strong hero pool picking. While the game looked close, Team Spirit picked off PSG LGD’s core players leaving them unable to buy-back or fight as the team who had never made it to an International headed for the throne and victory.

Despite being first timers at The International, Team Spirit has now won the largest prize in esports history, a cool $18 208 300. For second place PSG LGD walks off with $5 202 400.

After watching OG dominate in the last two iterations of The International, it was great to see the Cinderella story of Team Spirit, especially when you consider the team was crammed into a room that would pass for a broom closet.

https://twitter.com/Team__Spirit/status/1445037012449439749

Congratulations to Team Spirit and PSG LGD. Despite the troubles of the last year we witnessed some incredible Dota over the last two weeks and it was incredible to see Team Spirit reach new heights with every match.

Just goes to show, with enough determination, you can quite literally do anything. Even win a massive esports tournament nobody expected you to.

You can watch highlights from the grand finals below.