“This year is the hardest I’ve ever seen in Dota” - EWC 2026 participants spoke about their opponents

Participants of the Esports World Cup 2026 shared their opinions about their opponents as part of a video for the official English-language broadcast of the tournament.

No[o]ne : I think we can do really well, but this year has been very difficult. There are a lot of good teams now. This year is the hardest I've ever seen in Dota.

You can call it Tundra Esports [1win Team. — Approx. ed. ] and Team Yandex, probably. These are top 1 and top 2. But at the same time, many other teams have grown a lot this year. And each of them can defeat anyone at the Esports World Cup 2026.

Yatoro: I don't feel any pressure because we are title defenders.

I would say that the strongest team right now is Team Yandex. Team Yandex was pretty cool at the last BLAST tournament, they played very well. I think these are the strongest guys now.

SabeRLighT-: I think many of the teams are underrated. We'll see. Maybe we can surprise some people.

Ws: We're going to crush everyone at the Esports World Cup 2026. We are very well prepared.

Esports World Cup 2026 for Dota 2 takes place from July 7 to July 19 in LAN format in Paris, France. Twenty-four teams are competing for a prize pool of $2,000,000.