Team Spirit identified the main issue with Riyadh Masters 2024 that made the tournament dull

Dmitry "Korb3n" Belov, manager of  Team Spirit , stated that Riyadh Masters 2024 appeared dull and lost popularity among viewers due to the lack of unpredictability in the tournament.

He shared this in his Telegram channel.

"Many commentators and players mentioned that the tournament was boring, and it's not just about the finals. The blame is placed on the BO2 groups, the aura meta, and Liquid's inability to challenge GG in the finals for the second year in a row. But the essence of the problem is a bit different. Yes, part of it is about the meta, but not the auras"

Korb3n emphasized that the issue isn't with the tournament's schedule or the number of matches but rather something deeper. According to the  Team Spirit  manager, viewers were expecting comebacks and unpredictability, but they didn't get them during the viewing.

"What we love about Dota is comebacks and unpredictability. No one is interested in watching a game where you can confidently predict the winner by the 10-15 minute mark. Riyadh was exactly that kind of tournament. Throughout the Riyadh event, starting from the group stage, there were only 5 comebacks, one of them from Spirit. That's 3% of the total number of games (160), not counting the play-in. In comparison, at PGL Valhalla, comebacks happened in 33 out of 111 games—30%. The difference is obvious"

He explained that previous tournaments had a better situation, with many matches ending in genuinely unexpected ways. Korb3n noted that by the 15-minute mark, it was already possible to predict the winner.

"This led to boring matches with a bland aftertaste. If you know the winner by the 12-minute mark, the game becomes dull, and convincing yourself that a comeback is imminent doesn’t work, because out of 160 games, only 5 had comebacks"

Recall that earlier, Korb3n explained why  Team Spirit  chose not to participate in one of the major Dota 2 tournaments.