The Dota 2 millionaires of 2021

It’s the end of the year and as we all prepare to welcome 2022 with open arms, we can’t help but take a look at the highest earning Dota 2 players of 2021.

Dota 2’s prizepool dynamics is highly skewed with The International’s prizemoney surpassing every event held throughout the year — including Valve’s own DPC sanctioned leagues and majors.

Accounting for nearly 98% of the total prizepool, The International, has turned the champions into overnight millionaires.

Valve

Let’s take a look at the (un)surprising millionaires of 2021.

• Miroslaw “Mira” Kolpakov ($3,696,652.43)
• Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naydenov ($3,695,573.33)
• Alexander “TORONTOTOKYO” Khertek ($3,695,573.33)
• Magomed “Collapse” Halilov ($3,695,573.33)
• Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk ($3,695,573.33)

Surprised? Nawww .. not really.

The first five players in the list belong to the same team — Team Spirit; The International 10 Champions.

A bunch of five players barely being able to scape through the entire DPC 2020-21 season became overnight millionaires after a superb display of skills and grit at TI10.

From qualifying to TI10 through the gruesome Eastern Europe qualifiers to defeating every opponent along the way from the lower bracket, Team Spirit were in true spirit the underdogs.

Valve

• Chunyu “Ame” Wang ($1,158,680.00)
• Yiping “y`” Zhang ($1,158,680.00)
• Ruida “Faith_bian” Zhang ($1,158,680.00)
• Zixing “XinQ” Zhao ($1,158,680.00)
• Xiang Jin “NothingToSay” Cheng ($1,118,780.00)

Meanwhile, the last five players in the list belong to the .. wait for it .. same team — PSG.LGD; The International 10 Runners up.

Unlike the TI10 champs, PSG.LGD had a wonderful DPC 2020-21 season, and were a staple at the top the ladder until the very end — except at TI10 of course.

Heavy favourites going into TI10, the Chinese behemoth looked extremely scary throughout the year and won numerous accolades.

However, at the last hoorah, they were unable to close the deal and lost to Team Spirit in a thrilling five-game-series in the grand finals of TI10.