TORONTOTOKYO’s “ez game” at TI10

TI10: Team Spirit knocks out two-time champions OG

In the fall of 2021, Bucharest hosted The International 10. OG arrived as reigning two-time champions, hoping for a third straight title. Team Spirit, a roster from the CIS region, was fighting its way toward the trophy through the main event’s lower bracket.

The teams met in lower bracket round three, a best-of-three where the loser went home. As esports media reported, the match took place on day four of the main event, October 15, 2021. Spirit won both maps, OG finished 7th–8th, and the dream of a third consecutive championship was over.

A winning fight and “ez game” in game two

In game two, Spirit led the series 1–0. After a successful fight, TORONTOTOKYO typed a short “ez game” into all chat, which both teams can see. Russian-language outlets wrote that he killed four OG players in that fight; English-language ones described it as Spirit’s decisive team wipe.

Sources differ slightly on the details: one English-language meme roundup claims Spirit were already down a map at that point, but the final 2–0 score rules that out. The message came in the second game, when Spirit were one step away from winning the series and advancing.

Ceb, Aui_2000 and the sportsmanship debate

The reaction was immediate. OG offlaner Ceb asked fans not to go after the Spirit player: “Don’t hate on in-game banter.” TI5 champion Aui_2000 asked on Twitter that same day, October 15, whether typing “ez game” in a TI match was really acceptable sportsmanship.

On November 2, 2021, Aui_2000 returned to the topic in a long TwitLonger post, writing that he found the message distasteful, specifically because it was in all chat while a team was being eliminated from The International. Many fans, on the other hand, sided with TORONTOTOKYO and cemented his “gigachad” image.

The phrase quickly made the year-end lists: esports.gg ranked it fifth among the top 10 Dota 2 memes of 2021. The player himself later talked about trash talk as a kind of art in an interview at PGL Wallachia in 2024.

TORONTOTOKYO at PGL Wallachia

The catalog card does not show a frame from the match itself but a photo of TORONTOTOKYO at PGL Wallachia 2024. The player, with silvery-lilac hair, sits at a computer wearing headphones and a gaming jersey.

The photo was taken almost three years after TI10, so it shows the author of the phrase rather than the moment it appeared. The catalog has no frame of the all-chat message itself.

How people caption “ez game”: examples and related memes

Today, people write “ez game” when someone pointedly makes short work of a serious opponent, whether in a game, at work or in an argument. These examples are made up for illustration: “Crammed for finals in one night — ez game,” “Beat the friend who spent a week bragging about his rank: ez game,” “Assembled the wardrobe from the manual on the first try. ez game.”

Related memes include Team Secret captain Puppey's “Stay down,” also aimed at OG at TI10, and Team Spirit's practice room, where the team's road to the title began. Emo's question mark from the 2021 Singapore Major is another related example of all-chat trash talk.