Here’s a hint: all five have played in the same team and won The International together.
With The International hitting multimillion-dollar prize pools every year, there’s bound to be some high rollers among the pros. Unsurprisingly, the richest Dota 2 pros also happen to be International champions as well, and we’ve got the top five right here.
5. Topias “Topson” Taavitsainen – 5,712,547 USD
Despite being the fifth richest Dota 2 pro, the Finnish Mid Laner has had a relatively young career. He started in 2017 with SFTe-sports and while he wasn’t a breakout star he was definitely a solid player. The year after that he won his first International, which skyrocketed his net worth quite a bit.
Since then he’s had brief stints in other professional Dota 2 teams. He was a stand-in for T1 back in 2022 and was an emergency replacement for Tundra Esports for 2023.
4. Sebastien “Ceb” Debs – 5,884,044 USD
As one of the oldest veterans in the game, it comes as no surprise that Ceb would find a spot on this list. His career started all the way back in 2011 with Team Shakira, notably placing fourth in Dreamhack Winter 2011. A few years later he would attend his first International in 2013 with Quantic Gaming but would fail to make it out of the Wildcard stage. Funnily enough, this got him the record for the longest gap between International appearances (from 2013 to 2018).
Since then, Ceb’s professional career has been a whirlwind of upstart teams peaking and dipping at time and again. Even after all the success he’s had in the later stage of his career, he’s shown no signs of stopping.
3. Anathan “ana” Pham – 6,026,305 USD
Young and ambitious, ana made the big decision to drop out of high school and move from Melbourne, Australia, to Shanghai, China, in 2015 to pursue a career as a professional Dota 2 player. While his tenure in China was short-lived, he had an impressive showing which attracted the eyes of OG. This would be his home team for the majority of his career and where most of his big wins would come from.
ana’s time with OG saw many first-place finishes in Major and Minor tournaments alike. It’s what’s allowed him to have such a high value despite mostly staying with one team.
2. Jesse “JerAx” Vainikka – 6,484,511 USD
Another veteran who’s been stomping around the pro scene since 2013. JerAx has consistently performed in whatever team he joined but like ana, the bulk of his success comes from OG. With four appearances in The International and many more for Majors, JerAx has had a rather star-studded career.
It’s unfortunate that he fell out of love with Dota 2 in the last few years. If his passion for the game remained he surely would have been able to push his name even further.
1. Johan “N0tail” Sundstein – 7,167,802 USD
Sitting at the top of the high rollers, N0tail has been playing professionally even before Dota 2. He had a professional team already waiting for him in Fnatic after transitioning from Heroes of Newerth in 2013 and has played for big esports organizations ever since.
It was only when N0tail established his own team, known as OG, that his career peaked. He’s won four Majors and two Internationals with OG and is the only Danish player to win The International. No wonder he’s earned the heftiest sum among all Dota 2 pros.
Fun Fact!
The top five richest Dota 2 pros were all part of OG’s miracle 2018-2019 roster. This is the team that, despite all odds, became the only team to win The International twice and back-to-back.
Banner photo taken from Liquipedia.
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