1win Acquires Tundra Esports Dota 2 Squad

Tundra Esports shared a surprise announcement today. Their Dota 2 roster was completely let go of and transferred to 1win. The timing of the statement is somewhat unusual, as Tundra Esports has qualified for both EWC and The International this year. 

Let's take a stroll back to Tundra Esports most impressive performances in Dota 2, and perhaps speculate on why the players have moved on to a new orinization.

Tundra Esports biggest achievements in Dota 2

First place at ESL Birmingham

This has definitely been one of Tundra Esports best years. They started the year strong with a first place finish at DreamLeague Season 28, putting them in first place of the EPT leaderboards. They followed this up with a fantastic run at ESL Birmingham, winning every match in the playoffs.

With back-to-back victories in two ESL events, Tundra solidified their position at the top of the EPT leaderboards and secured an invite to both EWC and TI 2026. Their victory was particularly notable, as it was in Matthew "Ari" Walker home country.

Four Blast Slam victories in a row

One of Tundra Esports' defining traits is how they dominated Blast Slams in the past. The lineup won four Slam titles in a row, from Blast Slam 2 to Blast Slam 5. Resulting in a total of USD $1.2 Million in just one year from one tournament orginizer.

Winners of The International 2022

The crowning achievement of Tundra Esports is winning The International 11. This was the last TI to feature a Battlepass, resulting in a massive near USD $19 million prizepool. Of which Tundra took nearly half of. It was a fantastic run by the squad, as they went 9-1 in the playoffs, including a dominant 3-0 victory over Team Secret in the finals. 

Now to be fair, of the current Tundra players, only Neta "33" Shapira was part of that lineup. Still it remains a crowning achivement for the orginization.

Why is Tundra Esports leaving Dota 2?

Despite massive success in the Dota 2 world, Tundra Esports is leaving the scene. The timing is very interesting as well, with the squad heading into the two biggest events of the year, on strong momentum.

So why is Tundra leaving? the short answer is we don't know. Neither Tundra nor 1Win shared why. So there is no official reason. But the most likely one is that money is becoming harder and harder to justify in the Dota 2 world.

Two notables players in the past have spoken about player salary in Dota 2. Travis "Castaway" Waters informed us a few years ago that players in SEA ask for USD $10,000 per month. While more recently, David "Parker" Nicho Flores said that his salary with heroic was USD $15,000 a month. 

These are frankly...well absurdly high numbers per month. Particularly for the countries these players play for. Castaway's estimation would put any player at almost 10 times the average salary in Malaysia. For Parker, it is closer to 15 times the average salary in South America. And to note, while both these players were successful to a degree, both had some issues finding success.

So how much would a team like Tundra cost to maintain? a team living in europe (much higher cost of living) with far more success to their name (bigger demand). Twice as much as Parker? triple? we can only estimate.

In business, money is often the answer to most questions and we can bet (heh heh) that 1Win has a lot of it, perhaps enough to fund a successful Dota 2 team for a while.

But this does raise a scary question. If a team that wins two Major events in one year is not sustainable, well.... what is?

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Featured Image Source: Tundra Esports.