Panto on haters: “Let them sit at home, call me names and watch me play”

MOUZ support Nikita 'Panto' Balaganin, in an interview, assessed the format of the Esports World Cup 2026, spoke about adapting to new players and the English-speaking roster, and also talked about how he copes with negativity on the Internet.

[Published with the original spelling and punctuation preserved]

To be honest, I don’t think the format is very strict. Because, essentially, you have six teams in the group. Usually in each group you can identify a couple of outsider teams that are likely to leave the tournament. That is, this format is more favorable for the favorites, because from first place you go straight to the playoffs, and if you take second, third or fourth place, you still have the opportunity to go to the playoffs. Therefore, I think this playoffs favors strong teams.

[Have you managed to get used to your teammates? ] Yes. I was already familiar with many of them. I actually played with yamich in my first team Winstrike. I managed to play with Crystallis when I was a stand-in in PARIVISION, back when he was there.

I didn’t play with BOOM, but I knew him from public and official pages. Therefore, this command was already clear to me. It seemed to me that, in principle, due to the fact that they had some confusion with the fifth position, perhaps I was the very puzzle that they were missing in order to start showing stable, good play again, as they did in the first half of the season.

And in general, now at EWC I began to take more responsibility for the approach to the game, for the ideology, for the heroes. And it seems to me that this is bearing fruit from the first matches.

[ How different is the work process in a foreign organization compared to those where you were previously? ] In the CIS, people play Dota 2 more, especially in public. More QBs can play. The European mindset is more like this, on chill, I would say.

But at the same time, these people always try to learn something more positive. That is, do not say a lot of negativity, even when you lose, but either remain silent or say something positive. Although it seems to me that sometimes this can be a disadvantage: if you are always silent and do not say what you think to your face, then this can be bad at a distance.

But over a short distance, say, a couple of months, I think it’s not so bad that people don’t burn out from each other and continue to work productively.

For me it was quite simple. Because, firstly, when you play Dota, European publics and tournaments, if you go to talk to someone, you still speak at least basic English - according to Dota. But besides that, I studied English a lot. At school I had it three times a week, and at university I studied business English for four years. I have enough vocabulary and knowledge to communicate fluently in this language.

[Do you communicate with yamich in Russian? ] Mostly in Russian. But if we are together and the whole team is with us, then 90% of the time we communicate in English, because not everyone is comfortable listening to foreign speech nearby.

It's all the same somehow. During my career as an eSports player, I received a lot of hate, especially from media figures. When I first started, I was constantly being sent clips of someone trying to hurt or insult me. For example, there is NS, who seems to have been insulting me my entire career.

But I'm moving forward. Every year I compete more and more often at major tournaments, my results are improving. I'm developing not only as a player, but also as a drafter and captain - and I'm enjoying it all. Let them sit at home, call me names and watch me play.

Earlier, Nikita 'Panto' Balaganin commented on the draw against Team Spirit, and also discussed the difficulties of finishing games in modern Dota 2.