| Nickname: | Dendi |
| Country: | Ukraine |
| Top 3 Heroes: | Pudge, Magnus, Invoker |
| Real Name: | Danil Ishutin |
| Born: | 1989 |
Dendi is one the most popular Dota 2 progamers, if not THE famoust Dota 2 progamer:
He has a great and funny personality and he also attract through his creative and unorthodox playstyles!
About Dendi:
Dendi’s Strength:Dendi is flexible and fast, he loves to play with the BenQ set which allows him to release his full power in his matches.
Dendi’s E-Sport Dota 2 Story: How Dendi became the King of Hooks:
Dendi, the most heard name in the whole Dota 2 community: A player with his concepts and unorthodox playstyle. Dendi is the most creative person among all professional Dota 2 players, Because of his unique skills and tremendous ideas.
Dendi started his professional Dota 2 career with one of the most notorious teams: Natus Vincere – also called NaVi. Let us get into the flashback…
Dendi’s History
Dendi was born in a small city of Ukraine, called Lviv. Same like Sumail the youngest Dota 2 millionaire, Dendi also started his career from a net cafe along with his friends. The reason behind playing games in a Net cafe instead of his home is a bit funny:
Dendi had a computer in his home, however, his brother got married, moved to another city, and took the PC with him! 😉
Like almost every other pro player, Dendi started his gaming career with Counter-Strike. Later on, he moved to Warcraft 3 and nailed all the players in the neighborhood. It was the time Dendi realized, he has as a future in gaming…
Dendi started participating in local Warcraft 3 championships. He won a lot and became a famous personality in Lviv.
Dendi started his gaming career at the age of 17 with a barely standing team called Wolker.Gaming.
Dendi’s Journey towards Team Natus Vincere (NaVi)
After joining Wolker.Gaming in 2006, Dendi’s appearance change the fate of the team: They participated in some major tournaments and even won them.
However, this collaboration did not survive for long: In 2008 Dendi left the WG and frequently switched to other teams.
In 2010 Dendi finally joined the Na’Vi and started as a support player.
In 2011, Na’Vi became one of the most competitive teams in the Dota 2 community: They won The Dota 2 International 2011 and got a massive prize pool of $1 Million US dollars!
At that time, Dendi got two titles: He was the winner of the Dota 2 International 2011 and also the best pudge in the world! Dendi nailed the whole tournament with his epic, breathtaking hooks. He did not let the mid enemy player stand in the lane. Frequent hooks (Of courses 99% were perfect) shattered the confidence of the enemy team.
How Dendi advanced from Support Player to NaVi’s Team Captain
If you are playing Dota 2 since 2014 or back then you may have experienced a meta: Pudge as a mid hero.
After the successful win in The International 2011, Dendi started playing as a mid lane player in team NaVi. He was not a support player anymore, his game knowledge was high and the team wanted to completely profit from that. With the given picks Dendi was going mid and was the top scorer of the team.
Of course they picked Dendi’s god Pudge as often as they could: Dendi was the main reason behind the Pudge mid-meta. Before that, pudge was only picked as support or roam. Dendi was a trend changer from the start on!
When did team NaVi started falling apart?
With Dendi’s epic hooks, NaVi nailed almost every Premiere Tournament, one after another. In The International 2012 and 2013, NaVi finished as the runners-up. Still a significant success for them. The International 2014 also went well. However, the disaster started after Ti 4. In the Ti 5 and Ti 6, NaVi ended up badly in the 16-17th place. That was the most devastating time for Natus Vincere and they did not even qualified for The International 2017.
At that time the Dota 2 audience forgot about Dendi and came up with new favorite players.
NaVis Fall:
NaVi faced their first significant loss in 2014. After losing The International against Cloud 9, Kuroky and Puppey left the team and were searching for new options.- In 2015, Funn1k retired from team NaVi. The vacancy was closed by DKPhobos fast, who loved to get this opportunity. However, because of some internal affair, DkPhobos left NaVi after the few days of joining and rejoined his former team (ASUS.Polar).
- The player ArtStyle was fighting with severe illness and often fell out. Funn1k decided to get back into the team on August 27, 2015, but it did not go well again – NaVi faced a shameful defeat in The International 2015.
- At the end of 2015, only Dendi and SoNNeiko were left in the team. So, both of them decided to revive the Team NaVi again.
- On September 3, 2018, Team NaVi announced Dendi as their captain.
Starting of with Natus Vincere was tremendous, but with time, other good teams overwhelmed NaVi and made their name.
Dendi is Navi, Navi is Dendi:
While other pro players changed their e-sport Dota 2 team frequently, Dendi was always faithful to support NaVi: NaVi did so much for Dendi and his career, and when Dendi started to wear the yellow team jersey, jackets and merch from Navi it got quite popular. NaVi’s clothes and designs are eye-catching and Dendi was the biggest representer, he was the one making them famous.
It started to be a win-win situation for both, and from all of the Dota 2 pro teams, the bound between the brand of a team and a single-player was the strongest in case of Dendi and NaVi. If you say NaVi it’s clear to mention Dendi asap, Dendi is Navi and vice versa! 😉
Only today he’s not anymore in team NaVi, read below why. 😉
Dendi, the best Pudge in the World:
Dendi is primarily famous for his epic creations during a tournament: Dendi is one of the calmest players, he knows how to control his fear even in devastating conditions.
Some people think Dota 2 is an unbalanced game, but it’s not. It only becomes unstable when you cannot overwhelm the enemy. In the Ti3 winner finals, Dendi did the same thing and people started calling Dota 2 unbalanced, which is, of course, wrong, it’s all about the gameplay and strategy.
Dendi’s epic fountain Hooks won the Dota 2 International 2013 Finals:
In the TI3 winner finals, NaVi was against Tong Fu. Of course, Dendi picked pudge and Puppey chose Chen. The starting of the game went bad. NaVi was utterly pushed to the wall, and there was no sign of winning the match. Tong Fu was on a 7000 gold lead. Bamm! An idea hit Dendi’s nerve. It was risky and complicated to try, but it was the only way to win the match.
It was time for a combo, Dendi called Puppey to use his Chen’s Test of Faith (teleport ability) on him. Puppey was a bit confused in the start, but he trusted the best pudge in the world. Dendi said to use the Test of Faith on me whenever an enemy is near us. Puppey used the ability and right before the ability triggers. Dendi hooked the enemy and damn!!! He took the enemy straight to the fountain along with Dendi. Hell YAA! 😀 The fountain damage was hitting the enemies down. Puppey and Dendi together made seven successful hooks. Team Tong Fu started trembling and lost a winning match!
What happened after the match?
It was something. No one has ever seen in the Dota 2 history. Team Tong fu Started blaming each other. Tong fu supporters started yelling unfair, glitch, bug, rematch, Disqualify NaVi. However, Valve new it was not a hack or unbalanced play. Dota 2 Dendi just used his brain and led the team to win. The coach of the team, Tong fu was yelling at the media. On the other hand, team NaVi was celebrating their victory.
After the TI3, many players started abusing this strategy. The valve was bound to call it as a glitch abuse, so they changed the working of the Pudge’s Meat Hook. In September 2013 update, Valve changed the functioning of the hook. Now it only drags the enemy from where it was hooked, not to his current location.
That TI3 match became one of the most successful and memorable matches in the Dota 2 tournament history…
Superstar Dendi surprised the TI5 with his Pudge costume!
After every International Tournament Valve holds a 10 v 10 all-star match. The best part of this match is that five players of each team are professional Dota 2 players. Rest of the five players are picked up randomly from the crowd. Maybe you get a chance to play in the next all-star match! 😀
Two captains were selected, Team Big Daddy Notail and Team Chuan. Now it was time to pick team members from the crowd. One by One, each teammate was picked from the crowd. At the Last pick, Chuan saw a guy wearing Pudge costume he found it exciting and picked him up.
When the match was about to start, the host came to the pudge costume guy and told him to remove his mask. It was a shocking point for the whole audience.
Darummmmmmmm! Dendiiiiiii, It was Dendi below the cover, and the entire crowd was shouting like hell. Dendi gave the tournament a complete turning point.
Dendi created humor in the whole match he turned a tense match into a fun match. Unfortunately, Team Chuan lost the match, however: Dendi won the hearts of the crowd.
Fresh Meat!
Dendi’s E-Sport Earnings and Progaming Career Income:
Dendi won many tournaments along with his team. Unfortunately, at that time most of them had a small price pool. It was a time when Dota 2 was still growing and the main events where also hyped but a bit smaller.
The Dota 2 prize pool in 2011 and 2012 had been $1.600.000 compared to today in 2019 with a 33 million dollar prize pool, it’s like 20 times higher.
The big prize pool matches of Dota 2 started coming after 2015. You can check the price pool evolution of the Dota 2 Internationals here.
Total E-Sport Earnings of Dendi:
The total earning of Dendi from 101 tournaments is $798,387.20. The number will increase over time, this is written down at the end of 2019. The prize money amount is quite small because Team NaVi did not win any major or Premiere tournament after 2015. Maybe we will see a change in numbers after The Dota International 2019. Let us hope for the best.
On the Dota 2 Toplist with the most E-Sport Income Dendi is on place 105:
Dendi is close to the top 100 of the most earning Dota 2 players:
Dendi’s Top 10 Matches with the highest prize pool:
| Year | Position | Tournament | Prize pool |
| 2011 | 1st | The International 2011 | $1,000,000 |
| 2013 | 2nd | The International 2013 | $632,364 |
| 2014 | 1st | StarLadder StarSeries Season 8 | $62,000 |
| 2014 | 7-8th | The International 2014 | $518,889 |
| 2015 | 13-16th | The International 2015 | $55,289 |
| 2015 | 9-12th | Dota 2 Asia Championships 2015 | $45,863 |
| 2016 | 13-16th | The International 2016 | $103,000 |
| 2016 | 7-8th | The Manila Major 2016 | $105,000 |
| 2017 | 4th | DreamLeague Season 8 | $70,000 |
| 2019 | 2nd | Cobx Masters 2019 Phase II | $20,000 |
Is Dendi streaming Dota 2 on Twitch? What is his Channel?
Dendi, is quite active on Twitch, his channel name is twitch.tv/dendi he has over 600.000 followers and is really famous! Checkout his stream and see what he is doing! His Dota 2 stream is funny and entertaining. 😉
What is the Current Status of Dendi?
Dendi is still one of the famous Dota 2 pro players in this world! We just love him, what is he currently doing?
Did Dendi leave Navi?
2016 to 2018 were a disaster for NaVi. Dendi gave his best and tried to tolerate each loss but the shameful defeat in The International 2018, broke his patience. In September 2018 Dendi left NaVi and went in search of a better team.
Which team is Dendi in right now?
After a few months, Dendi joined the Team Tiger, like you can see on the image from 2019. However, it did not go well so he left Team tiger in April 2019.
Currently, Dendi is playing with team Lithium. He is mostly playing as a support player. Let us wish him a Goodluck!
Does Dendi still play Dota 2 professional?
Yes, Dendi is still playing competitive professional Dota 2, you can follow him on his stream to see what he is always doing and planning. He is making good money through streaming, but of course, the long rollercoaster with team NaVi wasn’t too easy for him.
Is Dendi taking part in the International 2019?
No, unfortunately, he is not an active player of Dota 2 The International 2019. Let’s look forward to new competitions with our lovely Dendi… 😉
