Sanatic’s hype vs. Yatoro’s dynasty: TI15 put Dota 2’s best carries in an anime-style clash

Team Spirit has officially become the first Dota 2 team to have lifted the Aegis of Champions three times, doing so at TI15 in Shanghai last week. Their conquest this time around was a little harder than their previous one, as they had to take down tournament favorites TEAM VISION 3-2 in the Grand Final of the event.

This big win meant Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk and Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov became the first three-time TI winners in history. Though both players did their fair share of work, I think Yatoro’s story throughout the event was more interesting to follow, as he was directly up against Alan “Satanic” Gallyamov, who was looking like the best carry player at the event. 

The Grand Final really showed us an anime battle between the greatest carry in history and the greatest carry of today – but are both of those titles still accurate after the Aegis was lifted? 

Anyone who’s followed the Dota 2 scene a couple of months before TI would agree that TEAM VISION’s 18-year-old carry, Satanic, has been looking like the strongest carry player in the world. 

Satanic’s name has been hovering around as a top-tier carry for over a year or so, but 2026 felt like it was finally his year. With the help of his newly-appointed coach Clement “Puppey” Ivanov, Satanic was putting on monstrous performances and farming at lightning speeds, carrying his team to win the title at DreamLeague Season 29 and the recent Esports World Cup. 

The teen was clearly the talk of the town heading into TI15, and TEAM VISION also entered the event as the favorites to win it all. When TI15 actually started, the hype wasn’t just talk, as Satanic was breaking records left and right, allowing TEAM VISION to steamroll the competition and cruise through the Swiss Stage with a 4-0 record, also taking down Team Spirit along the way. 

On the other hand, we had Yatoro, who showed up to Shanghai with a pretty different story. He already had two Aegises to his name, but we haven’t really seen the flashy Yatoro we all knew this year. Team Spirit had a turbulent season, with their carry player having pretty quiet performances leading up to the biggest event of the year. 

Though Yatoro was still regarded as the greatest of all time, he really felt like he was human this year, and wasn’t one of the highest-rated carries before TI15 started. Even the likes of Alimzhan “watson`” Islambekov and Ilya “Kiritych” Ulyanov looked better than him throughout the year. 

As a result, many fans and analysts had Team Spirit written off this year. Even community content creator Dota2PowerPoints had them pretty low in his pre-event Power Rankings, and he wasn’t crazy – I didn’t expect Yatoro and company to do well either. 

Lo and behold – this was the exact matchup we got in the Grand Final. TEAM VISION took the quickest path to the top two, retaining their undefeated streak at TI and even took down Team Spirit for the second time, sending them to the Lower Bracket. 

Team Spirit had to claw their way through elimination match after elimination match, winning three matches in a row, all 2-0 victories, to earn their rematch. 

It’s also poetic that Satanic originally came from Yellow Submarine – Team Spirit’s pseudo academy roster, which is where Yatoro started out his career, too. The kid even played for Team Spirit while Yatoro was taking a break for a little bit.

Now, Team Spirit had to take down the monster they developed themselves for that third Aegis. 

Unfortunately, we weren’t immediately treated to a Yatoro vs. Satanic showdown in the first game, as TEAM VISION was severely outdrafted. Satanic was forced into an uncomfortable Ember Spirit pick, letting Spirit take the first game.

The second game was really where we got to see the two butt heads. Even though they still lost the game, we got a glimpse of Yatoro’s outplay potential when the pressure is highest, when he juked Satanic and the rest of TEAM VISION.

Still, Satanic’s Lifestealer ended up being too much to deal with, pushing the series into a tied 1-1 affair. 

Game 3 was when we saw Yatoro back in his prime with one of the best Terrorblade performances I’ve seen in a while, with some clutch Sunders sprinkled in. His counterpart, Satanic, was also playing really well on Shadow Fiend, but Yatoro’s near-flawless 10/1/12 performance proved to be way too much. 

At this point, TEAM VISION had its back against the wall, down 1-2 in the Best of 5 series. Many 18-year-olds would crack under pressure, but Satanic still stood tall with another strong performance on Lifestealer while Yatoro didn’t find much impact on Templar Assassin. This forced an all-important fifth game for all the marbles. 

In Game 5 of the TI finals, you can’t expect anyone to play perfect Dota, as everyone is probably shaking inside the booth. When the pressure was at an all-time high, I believe this was where Yatoro took the lead in the carry-to-carry showdown. 

Satanic had an extremely good start on Juggernaut and was set up to carry the game for his team. However, he got picked off alone at the 28-minute mark, throwing away his lead – this is not a death I’d expect Satanic to normally feed off, but I guess the nerves really got to him. 

It was an extremely close game that could have gone either way, but Yatoro ended up coming out on top – but with a little help from his teammates. In the final fight, the supports interfered between their duel, as Aleksandr “rue” Filin’s Nightmare that saved Yatoro in the final fight.

Still, maybe Satanic also lost a little focus near the end, as he walked into a max-range Sacred Arrow which led to his dieback. 

Of course, Yatoro claimed the Aegis over Satanic this time around, but the debate on who’s the best carry this year shouldn’t be settled based on that.

It’s tempting to give Satanic a pass on his Grand Final performance here – TI15 was his first TI Final appearance, and the kid is only 18 years old. However, that argument doesn’t really hold up against Yatoro, who also won his own TI debut at the exact same age at TI10. 

Still, there’s a real difference between the two events – Satanic is playing in a sold-out Shanghai arena, with 18,000 fans screaming at all times, while Yatoro’s coronation happened in an empty stadium due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that year. 

Well, if we’re talking GOAT, this comparison between the two isn’t even close – Yatoro already had two Aegises before the tournament started, and now he has three over Satanic. This shouldn’t even be a conversation, as Yatoro is definitely the greatest carry of all time.

But, “greatest of all time” and “best carry of the year” are two different things, and I’d actually give the second one to Satanic. He has been more consistent this entire season and also won more trophies than Yatoro. 

Satanic didn’t even play badly at TI, he was diffing everyone (including Yatoro, twice), until the Grand Final. He just lost one game, which happens to be the one that mattered most, but that’s it. We’ve all lost Dota 2 games before. 

So call it what it is – Yatoro won the title and remains the GOAT, but Satanic was arguably the best carry player in the world this year, and we can’t scratch that off from a single game loss. I’m sure we can all agree that Satanic still has a very long career ahead of him, and this TI15 final should only power him up.