TI 2026 Winner Is Here: Full Bracket and Grand Final Breakdown

The International 2026 wrapped up in Shanghai with Team Spirit lifting the Aegis of Champions, defeating Team Vision (PARIVISION operating under Valve's branding restriction) 3-2 in a five game Grand Final.

Before the bracket started, our playoff Pick'ems guide laid out predictions for every stage of the tournament, from the Upper Bracket opener through the Grand Final. With the full bracket now final, it's worth going stage by stage to see exactly where the guide tracked reality and where it didn't, before diving into how the championship series played out map by map.

For anyone following along for the next event, GoCore's Pick'ems lobby is already building toward its next leaderboard cycle.

Upper Bracket: A Clean Start Undone by One Upset

Upper Bracket Round 1 went almost exactly to plan:

• Team Spirit over Iron Wing: predicted correctly, Spirit won 2-0
• Team Vision over BoomBoys: predicted correctly, Vision won 2-1
• Team Yandex over Team Liquid: predicted correctly, Yandex won 2-0
• Team Falcons over Nigma Galaxy: predicted incorrectly, Nigma Galaxy won 2-1 and eliminated the defending champions from the winners' side

That fourth result was the single moment that reshaped the rest of the bracket. Upper Bracket Round 2 (the semifinals) saw Team Vision beat Team Spirit 2-1, exactly as predicted, but the guide's other semifinal call, Team Falcons over Team Yandex, never had a chance to happen.

With Falcons already eliminated from the winners' side, Yandex instead faced Nigma Galaxy and won 2-1. The guide's pick of Vision to also win the Upper Bracket Final held up in outcome, since Vision beat Yandex 2-1, but the predicted opponent (Falcons) was wrong for the same reason.

Lower Bracket: Right Winners, Wrong Pairings

This is where the Falcons upset kept rippling outward. The guide predicted Lower Bracket Round 1 as Iron Wing vs. BoomBoys and Team Liquid vs. Nigma Galaxy. The first pairing landed exactly as called, with BoomBoys winning 2-1.

The second did not, since Nigma Galaxy was still alive in the Upper Bracket at that point. Instead, Team Liquid faced Team Falcons, who had just dropped from the winners' side, and Liquid won 2-1.

The Lower Bracket Quarterfinals followed the same pattern. The guide predicted BoomBoys over Team Yandex and Team Spirit over Nigma Galaxy.

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Neither exact matchup occurred, since Yandex was still competing in the Upper Bracket and Nigma Galaxy had only just dropped down. What actually happened was BoomBoys beating Nigma Galaxy 2-1 and Team Spirit beating Team Liquid 2-0, meaning both of the guide's predicted winners still advanced, just against different opponents than named. From there, the bracket path lines up cleanly with the original predictions.

The Lower Bracket Semifinal was BoomBoys against Team Spirit, exactly as predicted, and Spirit won 2-0. The guide predicted Team Falcons in the Lower Bracket Final, but with Falcons long gone, Spirit instead faced Team Yandex and swept them 2-0, matching the guide's predicted winner if not the predicted opponent.

Counting the Predictions: 10 of 14

Scoring on whether the guide's predicted winner actually won their real match at each corresponding stage, regardless of which opponent they ended up facing, the guide went 10 for 14.

The four misses were the Falcons over Nigma Galaxy call in Upper Bracket Round 1, the Upper Bracket Round 2 pick of Falcons over Yandex (a matchup that never happened), the Lower Bracket Round 1 pick of Nigma Galaxy over Liquid (also a matchup that never happened), and the Grand Final itself, where the guide backed Team Vision.

Grand Final: Five Games, One Aegis

Team Spirit came out swinging in Game 1, taking the opener and putting Vision on the back foot for the first time all tournament. It was the first sign that Spirit's Finals experience and third meeting familiarity with Vision might count for something in a series everyone expected the favorites to control.

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Vision answered immediately in Game 2, leveling the series 1-1 and reasserting the form that had carried them through an undefeated Group Stage and two prior series wins over Spirit at this event. The response reminded everyone why Vision entered the Grand Final as the heavy favorite.

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Spirit pulled back in front in Game 3, putting themselves one map away from a third Aegis of Champions. The win kept the pressure squarely on Vision, who had not trailed in a series all tournament until this Grand Final.

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Vision refused to fold, taking Game 4 to force the series to a decider. It set up a winner take all Game 5 between the two best teams in Shanghai, with Yatoro and Collapse one win away from an unprecedented third TI title for Team Spirit and Vision one win away from the Aegis in just their second year of existence.

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Spirit closed it out in Game 5, and once again a Juggernaut pick was unable to carry Vision to the Aegis in a deciding game, echoing the same storyline from TI 2025's own Game 5 finish. The result gave Spirit their third International title and denied Vision what would have been a historic championship in their first appearance on Dota's biggest stage.

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Three Times the Charm: Yatoro and Collapse Make History

With the Grand Final win, Illya "Yatoro" Mulyarchuk and Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov became the first players in Dota 2 history to win three Internationals. Both were part of the young Yellow Submarine core that Team Spirit signed at the end of 2020, and both have now lifted the Aegis of Champions with the same organization on three separate occasions, at TI 2021, TI 2023, and now TI 2026. No other player in the game's history has managed the feat even twice with a single roster core intact across that many years, let alone three times.

Yatoro's path to this milestone started as an 18 year old carry making his TI debut at TI 2021, where he set the tournament record with five main stage Rampages in a single event, a mark that still stands. He backed that up at TI 2023 with another dominant showing, including a Rampage on Faceless Void in the Grand Final against Gaimin Gladiators, and has continued to be one of the most consistently dangerous carries on Dota's biggest stage across three different championship runs.

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Collapse's contribution has been just as central to the story. His offlane play, built around signature heroes like Magnus and Mars, was a driving force behind Spirit's lower bracket run to the TI 2021 title, and he continued to anchor the team's identity through the TI 2023 win. At TI 2026, Collapse and Yatoro again formed the backbone of Spirit's championship run, this time overcoming a Grand Final that went the full five games against a Team Vision squad many had pegged as the tournament's biggest favorite.

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One name deserves to sit alongside Yatoro and Collapse in this conversation: Yaroslav "Miposhka" Naidenov. Miposhka was on the active roster for both of Team Spirit's previous championships, winning TI 2021 as a player and captain and TI 2023 as a player as well, before stepping into a coaching role and returning to Spirit ahead of TI 2026. His third Aegis came from the coach's seat rather than the server room, but the achievement is the same. Like Yatoro and Collapse, this is Miposhka's third TI title with the same organization, and he belongs in the same three-time champion conversation even though his most recent win came in a different role.

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TL;DR

• Team Spirit won TI 2026, beating Team Vision 3-2 in a five game Grand Final
• The playoff Pick'ems guide correctly predicted the winner in 10 of 14 matches
• Nigma Galaxy's Round 1 upset over Team Falcons was the guide's only true bracket miss, and it reshaped every matchup below it
• The Grand Final swung back and forth through all five games before Spirit closed it out, with a Juggernaut pick again denied in the decider, echoing TI 2025
• GoCore's Pick'ems lobby remains open for the next round of predictions