Saksa Shares His Expectations for Team Yandex's Performance at The International 2026

Martin “Saksa” Sazdov is optimistic about Team Yandex’s chances at The International 2026, believing that his teammates possess a high level of individual skill and game understanding.

The player shared this opinion on Twitch.

"Team Yandex’s greatest strengths are individual skill and game understanding. Also, I kind of cursed myself before TI and EWC, so...

I used to believe in the curse, but now it doesn’t really matter to me. The curse is real because people’s egos grow after a win before TI, which makes them easier to break."

According to Martin “Saksa” Sazdov, the player does not believe that winning a major tournament before The International automatically leads to defeat at the main event of the Dota 2 pro scene. Saksa is confident that players simply become too overconfident after success, which makes them easier to beat.

As a reminder, Martin “Saksa” Sazdov previously spoke out about issues with the tournament schedule in professional Dota 2.