IC x Insanity

IC x Insanity is a British organization that entered Dota 2 in August 2025 with a roster nobody had heard of and somehow qualified for the Esports World Cup 2026 less than a year later. The team is a patchwork of Eastern European and Mongolian talent—Ukraine, North Macedonia, and Mongolia—built through constant roster experimentation and the kind of stubborn persistence that either ends in a breakout or burns out completely.

Early Formation & First Steps

Inner Circle started its Dota 2 journey in August 2025 with an initial lineup of laise, 423, Se, daze, and niche—a mix of Eastern European and Mongolian players that had been circling the tier-2 scene individually without finding a home. The results were modest. The EPL season 30 ended in 7th. CCT Season 2 Series 5 gave them their best early result—a 4th-place finish and $2,000 in earnings, which barely covers travel costs but matters when you're trying to prove you belong.

In September 2025, the org announced a complete roster overhaul, bringing in the full TNL stack—Yowaai, Dualrazee, Norma, Fernans, and Flacko. The announcement was made in Ukrainian, which tells you something about where the org's roots in the Dota 2 scene actually are. Then AVULUS, the Western European org that had housed players like Nisha and qojqva, disbanded their Dota 2 division in November 2025, and IC x Insanity picked up parts of what was left. By April 2026 the org announced yet another rebuild—"Попереду багато викликів." ("There are many challenges ahead")—with the roster of 423, Stojkov, Laise, Se, and Fernans.

Rise and Competitive Breakthrough

Twenty-seven players in under a year. That's the headline stat for how turbulent this roster has been. But the current core—423 on carry, Stojkov in mid, Laise in the offlane, Fernans, and Se on supports—found enough stability to do something the previous lineups couldn't: qualify for the Esports World Cup 2026. They came through the Eastern Europe regional qualifier in the 3rd-4th bracket, which isn't a glamorous path, but it's a path. EWC 2026 is the result, and for a team that barely existed twelve months ago, that's not nothing.

Playstyle and Reputation

Honest answer — this roster is too new in its current form to have a fully defined identity. What the team has shown across its various iterations is an ability to grind through open qualifiers and direct-invite events in the Eastern European circuit without ever fully breaking through to the next level. The core of 423, Se, and Laise has the most continuity of any combination in the team's history. Stojkov from North Macedonia is one of the more unusual national backgrounds in the CIS/EE scene. FerNans provides Ukrainian flair in the support role. Whether this specific combination has the ceiling to compete at EWC and beyond is the question the 2026 summer is going to answer.

Fun Facts

ICxI went through 27 players across less than a year of competitive Dota. That is genuinely one of the most turbulent roster histories of any active team in the scene — not because the org is chaotic by nature, but because finding the right combination in Eastern Europe's competitive environment is harder than it looks.

The September 2025 roster announcement was made in Ukrainian. The April 2026 announcement — for a British organization — was also in Ukrainian. IC x Insanity's identity is Eastern European regardless of what flag is on the org's website.