HEROIC TI 2025 team profile: Consistently unpredictable

Recovery time is over, and The International 2025 should be the stage where HEROIC show their true colours.

This will mark HEROIC’s second appearance at The International. The Norwegian organisation made its entrance in the Dota 2 space at the beginning of 2024 by signing a South American roster and got to show their banner at TI from their first year on the scene. Three of the players who brought HEROIC to TI for the first time last year are still on the roster and will look to improve their 9/12th final placement from TI 2024.

João Gabriel "4nalog" Santos, Elvis "Scofield" Peña, and Matheus "KJ" Diniz have become HEROIC’s backbone. They’ve been on the team since the very beginning and went with the organisation through highs and lows. They’ve won under the HEROIC banner the first ever Dota 2 Championship title, not only for the organisation, but for the whole South American scene. That happened in October last year when they lifted the PGL Wallachia Season 2 trophy in Bucharest, Romania.

A lot has happened since then, and throughout 2025, HEROIC seemed to be in a continuous recovery mode.

Taming the beast project failed

“Winning a tournament should boost confidence, but sometimes players take it the wrong way and create expectations,” said 4nalog in an interview with BLAST a few weeks after winning his first tier 1 tournament. “When these expectations are not met, players become frustrated. One player's particular frustration ignited the internal team issues,” he added.

In the one month between PGL Wallachia Season 2 and BLAST Slam I, HEROIC went from champion status to getting eliminated in the group stage at DreamLeague Season 24 and losing the qualifiers for ESL One Bangkok 2024. The player 4nalog was referring to in his interview with BLAST was Parker. Although a truly talented carry, Parker had troubles integrating not only with HEROIC but with seemingly all his pre and post HEROIC teams. He was benched on the HEROIC roster after the Bangkok qualifiers.

Yuma "Yuma" Langlet stood in for BLAST I, where HEROIC immediately made progress and reached a top 8 finish. After that event, Yuma became a full member of the team, but the troubles didn’t stop there, and entering 2025, HEROIC also replaced Cedric "Davai Lama" Deckmyn, who also seems to be a tad too intense sometimes, even for the SA spirit. Adrián "Wisper" Dobles took his place in the offlane, and so HEROIC started their road to TI 2025 with a full South American line-up.

Heroic roster

• Yuma "Yuma" Langlet
• João Gabriel "4nalog" Giannini Santos
• Adrián "Wisper" Dobles
• Elvis "Scofield" Peña
• Matheus "KJ" Santos Jungles Diniz
• Coach: Igor "kaffs" Estevão

Helping each other

Wisper joined HEROIC after spending a year in Europe at OG. His time on a different continent, embracing a different culture and learning a new language, was described as “rough” by his teammate KJ, who said in an interview with PGL that the team needs to also figure out how the team should enable such a talented player as Wisper. Besides that, Wisper himself has to learn how to relax again and feel at home, as he came back to SA with a bit of PTSD, KJ said, half joking.

All in all, HEROIC took their time to rebuild and recreate the strong bond needed for a team to work as an oiled machine.

It’s not a secret that consistency is something any SA team lacks. HEROIC are no different, but according to 4nalog, their inconsistency is at an individual level rather than at the macro play, strategies and drafts. “Each player needs to identify their inconsistency and address it. While Heroic isn't consistently bad, we've had some poor tournament performances. We need to figure out what makes us better and brings us consistency, and we are actively working on it,“ said 4analog for BLAST.

HEROIC have been all over the place these past few months, leading to TI. From top 4 to the middle of the pack and the bottom of the groups, they experience it all. Now it’s time to focus and channel the champions’ form. They are all experienced players, who on a good day can beat any team, and if they can keep their emotions in check at TI 2025, we might get to see them reach the playoffs and step onto the Barclays Arena stage.

More TI 2025 team profiles

• NAVI: The rite of passage
• Nemesis: Filipino passion meets TI pressure
• Aurora: Eclipsed by titans
• Wildcard: Swing for the fences