What Should Team Spirit Do? Were the tN1R and zweih Transfers a Mistake? Will zont1x and magixx Return?
Discussions about roster changes in Spirit started a year ago, but the team decided to play with their previous lineup at the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 and changed their minds about making changes after winning. After that, the Dragons had a decent first half of the 2025 season, taking BLAST Bounty S1 and PGL Astana, but Vitality’s dominance forced them to reconsider shuffles once again. The arrival of zweih in place of magixx brought results – championships at IEM Cologne and BLAST Bounty S2, but then the team began to noticeably regress. Very recently, the Dragons didn’t even make it out of groups at IEM Chengdu, showing far from impressive CS. Now Team Spirit is facing heavy criticism with various reasons and arguments being cited. Let’s figure out if things are really that bad for the Dragons, try to put ourselves in management’s shoes, and find a way to solve the obvious problems.
Why Did the Roster Changes Happen?
Information about zweih’s replacement was presented as “we lack firepower,” and while the Dragons immediately won two trophies after Ivan’s arrival, it’s unlikely anyone would say it was specifically his merit. Everything was as before: donk destroys the entire server, sh1ro cleans up = Spirit wins. There was no impression that zweih influenced the team in any way, either from a gameplay or moral perspective. However, there were no obvious failures on his part either. It felt like Spirit needed zweih more for an emotional shake-up rather than a real solution to specific problems and tasks.
But in August, news came from HEROIC that someone had activated the buyout option in tN1R’s contract and he would soon change teams. Andrey was undoubtedly the main star of the team in every sense and stood out significantly, so potentially any organization could have wanted him. As is now known, it was Team Spirit, as they urgently needed a new player to replace zont1x. According to the organization, Miroslav needed a break to deal with personal matters. Okay, the player asked for a break, you have magixx under contract, so why rush headlong to buy out tN1R for $1,500,000? It’s a mystery, but we’re used to Spirit’s management not doing anything without reason, so let’s dig deeper.
What is Spirit's Current Problem?
Let’s stop beating around the bush – the current team doesn’t have enough space on the server. Yes, this is exactly the story Falcons faced in the beginning, when m0NESY, NiKo, and kyousuke couldn’t decide who would carry. Now the Dragons have an excess of players who prefer to play as primary fraggers – four at once, and even the captain himself, having played as a star player in the past, likes to show aggression and find openings for his team.
Therefore, all the headache now falls on the team’s coach – hally, and only he is responsible for everything happening in the team. It’s clear that they’re trying to make zweih into another magixx, and tN1R is trying on the lurker role, which is completely unfamiliar to him. Andrey often doesn’t wait for teammates and opens too early, or conversely delays so much that teammates don’t wait for his flanking entry. The Belarusian player understands everything himself but believes that all problems are more than solvable:
“Bad play on my part at this tournament, not much to comment on. I’ll say just one thing: you can criticize as much as you want – I don’t care. Then you’ll be changing your tune yourselves.”
Undoubtedly, such things are developed over time and regular practice, but fans can’t help but ask the question – “What if it doesn’t work out?” If you go to the team’s page right now, you’ll see how two bench players have a higher rating than both newcomers, and everyone starts raising the alarm in unison.
Are zweih and tN1R Really Not Cutting It in Tier-1?
First of all, we need to understand what’s happening within the team itself and what the chemistry is like. If zweih is quite calm and quiet (like zont1x), then tN1R is clearly trying to become the main hype man and moral engine of the new collective. It’s commendable that the newcomer took on such a role, but has the rest of the collective accepted this? In team comms for the second tournament in a row, sarcastic phrases directed at Andrey slip through like “Good call, Andrey, almost got it” after a lost round. Or the captain’s sharp responses to attempts to cheer up the guys in the match against FaZe. It seems the players themselves haven’t fully adapted to each other even on a personal level, let alone in terms of gameplay.
It’s no secret that a good team can’t just be professionals, they should be almost like a second family. Remember prime Astralis, NAVI 2021, current Vitality, MOUZ, or FURIA, who earn most of their victories thanks to a positive microclimate.
When donk and sh1ro boil over after every miss – this is not good, and perhaps the team needs to bring back the psychologist, who also took a break from working with the team. It’s also worth considering implementing bootcamps, even though the team managed without them before. You now have a new team that requires a new approach, and problems need to be solved not only on the server – that’s 100%.
Should Everything Be Rolled Back?
The main call from fans is to return Borya and Miroslav to the main roster. In our view, the chance of this is incredibly small, as the organization initially bet on a long-term perspective. It feels like management decided that magixx and zont1x gave this roster everything they could and it was time to let them go.
We won’t hide that we partly agree with the opinion that last season’s roster looked much better than the current one. But in any case, deviating from the chosen course even before halfway through is definitely not a winner’s choice. Yes, admitting mistakes is not a sign of weakness, but was assembling a new roster a mistake? All competitors around were strengthening, Vitality looked unreachable, and simply sitting and doing nothing would most likely have been an even more fatal decision.
CS history has seen these comebacks many times, but we don’t remember cases where it led to something great. It’s no secret that donk was and remains Spirit’s main weapon, with which any game and even championship can be won. So Danya hasn’t gone anywhere and demonstrated this at IEM Cologne and BLAST Bounty S2 already with zweih in the lineup.
Does This Roster Have a Future?
This is probably one of the few questions that no one can answer, because everything depends on the players themselves. We’re sure hally, as a coach, has a plan and vision for how this team can become the best in the world. Whether the players will cope with the task at hand is a completely different conversation. Honestly, deleting comments and closing posts from zweih himself is one of the warning signs that needs to be extinguished and worked on right now.
We don’t want to add fuel to the fire, but a lot depends on Vanya right now, as after the transfer from Nemiga, his role changed the most dramatically. He needs to fundamentally adapt to the support role, which far from everyone can do. Even magixx himself said that he restructured in many aspects and sacrificed a lot to accept and understand his tasks in the collective. Demanding a young newcomer achieve similar results in a couple of tournaments is simply unfair.
Chopper, as an experienced player, should take part of zweih’s responsibilities and start coordinating the team from the back. The main stars of the Dragons should also calm down and accept the fact that a new expedition to climb Olympus is now beginning. Yes, falling always hurts, but it’s better to realize the current situation and look at things adequately with a cool head. Right now you have many problems that need to be recognized, accepted, and slowly started to be solved.
Author: Alex
Alex is an author and esports observer with more than seven years of experience. He specializes in analyzing new releases in the world of computer games, gaming services, and in-game economies. Alex shares practical experience and an expert perspective on the development of gaming, helping readers understand complex mechanics and stay up to date with the latest news.
