Team Yandex support Martin "Saksa" Sazdov commented on the team's advancement to the playoffs of BLAST Slam #7 in Dota 2. According to him, the team confidently defeated Team Spirit largely due to the bans against carry Ilya "Yatoro" Mulyarchuk.
Sazdov shared how Yandex prepared for this match:
— Martin "Saksa" SazdovObviously, it was a bit disappointing, as we hoped to go through directly, without these "last chance" matches. But for today, we prepared like this: we intuitively expected Spirit, and all we knew in advance was that we needed to ban Drow Ranger against Yatoro in the first stage. That's all the preparation (smiles). We had great ideas about what Spirit wanted and who they were going to counter our heroes with. Our coach and Malady did a tremendous job in preparation. Plus, Spirit is not one of those teams that likes to surprise with crazy strategies. They pick their heroes, know what they like. It results in an honest, open "Dota". This is not LGD, which can flex anything, and you don't understand what's happening until the last pick. So in that regard, drafting against Spirit is not that difficult.
At BLAST Slam #7, Yatoro picked Drow Ranger four times and won on all maps. In the series against Yandex, the opponents banned this hero twice, after which Sazdov's team confidently closed the match. Their next opponent will be Team Falcons – the match will start at 12:00 MSK on June 4.
BLAST Slam #7 is taking place from May 26 to June 7 in a mixed format, with a prize pool of one million dollars. This is the last major tournament before the qualifiers for The International 2026, which will take place in June.
Let us remind you that Team Spirit will head to the European qualifiers for The International 2026, as they did not receive a direct invitation. Earlier, streamer and analyst Maelstorm noted that after the departure of the core, Team Spirit's Dota 2 roster has been less likely to come back from behind.