Get to Know: Danil “Dendi” Ishutin

Danil “Dendi” Ishutin is a professional e-Sports player. He was born in Lviv, Ukraine on the 30^th of December, 1989.

His early career revolved around Warcraft 3 and Counterstrike and he competed and won in many Warcraft 3 tournaments. He eventually turned professional in 2006.

Later on he discovered DoTa and Dota2 and that pretty much presents the staple of his career thus far. It also presents his most frequently played matches. He is most famous for his DoTa and Dota2 endeavors. He is amongst the 50 highly payed e-Sports players currently in the world and of all time.

Today, Danil Ishutin “Dendi” represents an example of functionality, creativity and team work in the ever expanding e-Sports and gaming markets. He is a legend in the eyes of all DoTa and Dota2 players. He will remain as such for all the years to come.

Early Career

As mentioned earlier, he started his early career by spending long hours in gaming sessions held in internet cafes and similar places. After he started playing Warcraft 3 and Counter Strike he started developing a real love for gaming and the competitiveness in it.  Therefore he started enrolling in minor tournaments.

In the early days, most of these tournaments were held in internet cafes or similar venues. Management of these venues doesn’t have access to a bigger budget or a long list of powerful sponsorships. This was however a pretty good way to start and achieve all the skills and know-hows. These were needed while assembling a professional or semi-professional team. This was actually the plan all along.

Thus, Dendi managed to be ambitious and clever enough to combine entrepreneurship with his love for gaming. He actually started making his own team. He wanted to make a strong team specialized in Warcraft 3 so they can take on larger tournaments and events.

His First Semi-professional Team

The business idea started to arise when he started growing the love for the competitiveness in live gaming after his experience with the smaller events he participated in. He wanted to see first-hand how would it all look on a larger scale. That was probably one of the primary goals of making the team in the first place.

Adding an extra pinch of entrepreneurship proven to be a very clever and lucrative idea, as Dendi later on managed to assemble his first semi-professional team.

They have mostly participated in Warcraft III tournaments but later on, as the craze for the heroic DoTa and Dota2 was bigger than ever they have steadily paved the path to becoming Dota pros.

This exactly was what ignited the spark in Dendi’s career as he will soon receive his first serious offer to join a certain team that is on a whole bigger level.

First Professional Team and Other Teams (Dota)

As Dendi’s team appeared to be a complete success, it started gaining local and international attention. The e-Sports market was booming at the time. Dendi was of course most interesting due to him being highly skilled in DoTa so he was struck with an amazing offer that represent a complete game changer in his career thus far.

He was invited to join his first professional e-Sports team “Walker.Gaming” in 2006. This represented a turning point in his career and a complete game changer. He was invited to their best Dota team and he has integrated perfectly and at once.

The decision to include Dendi to the WG roster proved to be a good one. The same year they have managed to take third place on the MYM Prime Nations. This was marked as the biggest event Andy has ever participated in during that time.

Just a year later they have managed to enter the grand finale of the MYM Prime Defending, which pinpointed Walker.Gaming on the world e-Sports market and gained them additional international success.

This success meant so much that they have gained a long list of new business offers. These include mergers and acquisitions, complete buy-offs, more sponsors of course and so on. Eventually this success led to the merger with Kingsurf.International, and was later re-named to Ks.int.

From that point onward Dendi is a full time member of Ks.int. until he joined DTS in 2008. He though returned to Ks.int. for a few months, and after a few months he re-joined DTS yet again. This happened for unknown reasons, but it can definitely be called an interesting job swap.

He remained in DTS until 2010, and then he started a career that was more revolved around Dota 2

DOTA 2 Career

After DTS, Dendi actually joined Natus Vincere in 2010. This has turned a new page in his career book, as the new membership meant doing more of Dota 2. That was perfectly acceptable for Dendi and this new mutually beneficial relationship is proven to be of mega importance to both Natus Vincere and Dendi.

They have actually made a massive achievement just a few months after Dendi joined. They have managed to win The International 2011. Therefore they continued their steady success in good scores on the International competition through the years of 2012 and 2013.

Unfortunately, in 2015, Natus Vincere announced that they will be disbanding. This decision came swift, but there is good news as well!

It was announced at the end of 2015 that Dendi along with his team mate SoNNeikO will be re-vamping their old Dota 2 team!

Dendi’s Net Worth

It is reported that Dendi managed to participate in over 82 tournaments. Dendi has made a staggering $ 732,549.40 in prize money alone.

He has gained very stable financial gaming situation that started being visible from his early years of competitive gaming. He has started from really low standards to sky high standards when it comes to the monetization of competitive gaming. As mentioned earlier, the best decision he could make was made out of a combination of business and love for gaming. This was resulting in the creation of his first ever team.

That team represents the turning point of his successful financial endeavors. He managed to make his team compete in bigger events that brought more lucrative future deals.

He is also on a steady, full time paycheck by Natus Vincere and his sponsors.

Interesting Facts On Dendi

It is reported that Dendi has the title of first person in history to participate in six Internationals. This is making him the record holder in those respects. There is no gamer in history who has achieved this.

It is theorized that the strange job swaps from Ks.int. and DTS were out of those reason. He go back just to achieve a good performance during an international. So he can make 6 in a row and become world record holder.

It is also reported that Dendi is the 44^th highest payed professional gamer in the entire e-Sports  industry. He is also highest payed professional in the history of gaming of the gaming industry.

In 2014 he was accredited with the title of “the richest Dota 2 player to ever live” as well.

He actually managed to win a staggering $ 200k from one tournament alone. For one person to achieve that it pretty much represents that the person means business! That tournament was The International 2011 just as he joined his newly met team Natus Vincere in late 2010.