Afterlife leaves Team Empire; Two official players remain

Vasily “AfterLife” Shishkin has parted ways with Team Empire after six months with the team. His departure brings the team down to only two official players. AfterLife has not revealed his future plans and the organization has not released information on possible replacement.

Team Empire has announced that Vasily “AfterLife” Shishkin has parted ways with the organization.

I am not part of Team Empire anymore. That was awesome six months. I’ve played in the best team so far. Thanks to Korb3n (team manager). I hope you will know about my future in a few days

On August 5th Roman “Ramzes666” Kushnarev, the young star of Team Empire moved to Virtus.Pro leaving the team with 3 players as Roman “Scandal” Sadotenkov was removed from the roster earlier in July.

Both Dmitry UnderShock Bolshakov and Andrey Ghostik Kadyk had joined the team as stand in’s, however it was confirmed by the organization to Dotablast last month that the two players were on a stand in/trial basis.

Teams have until September 4th to release players from their current rosters in preparation for the upcoming season. New players can then be added between September 4th-18th. The rosters will become locked on September 18th, at 12:00AM PDT.

Most recently Team Empire clinched their first championship title in months – wiping out Vega Squadron 3:0 in the Grand Finals of the Global Grand Master at the end of July.

Team Empire roster changes Winter 2015-Spring 2016

Team Empire’s lineup was given new life just in time for the Winter Major roster lock. Former teammates and Na’Vi players, Gleb “Funn1k” Lipatnikov and Alexander “XBOCT” Dashkevich joined the squad in due time to compete in the Game Show Global eSports Cup playoffs in Lithuania and finals in Moscow.

The team managed to seize the championship title, their first in seven months and had some promising results.

Roman “Resolut1on” Fominok then parted ways with Team Empire to play with the North American team, Digital Chaos. This surprising and unprecedented move of a CIS player to a North American team has put the Dota 2 community in disarray and left Team Empire with another gaping hole to fill.

On March 2nd, the Russian team parted ways with Alexander “XBOCT” Dashkevich after only three months. XBOCT has initially joined the struggling team as a stand-in for the Game Show Global eSports Cup.

To fill the space left by the departure of XBOCT, the organization has added Andrey “Ghostik”Kadyk – most recently of T.RoX three days later.

Gleb “Funn1k” Lipatnikov parted ways with Team Empire after three months and joined Team Spirit. His departure came on the heels of XBOCT’s exit from the squad, leaving the once CIS giants down to two.

In the aftermath of the spring shuffle, the changes continued for Team Empire with only two days left before rosters locked again. Alexander ”NoFear” Churochkin departed the team for Virtus.Pro quickly followed by Ilya “ALOHADANCE” Korobkin hours later as the last member to join Virtus.Pro and last to leave Empire.

Team Empire roster changes Spring 2016-Summer 2016

Team Empire had rebuilt their entire roster in March to include bringing back Scandal – after dissolving their previous lineup completely during the Manila Major/TI6 roster lock period.

The team included Roman “Ramzes” Kushnarev, Vasily “AfterLife” Shishkin,
Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov and Rinat “KingR” Abdullin.

Since then, the team had demonstrated new life and improvements in their performances. The team has taken third place in ProDota Cup EU #5 and 3rd-4th place at ESL One Manila. The CIS squad has been hedging on their new found structure to build them new heights and had not disappointed in the first months. Empire had given fans spectacular games when they bested Team Secret twice and a third/fourth place finish at ESL One Manila. They followed up with a remarkable fourth place finish at WePlay LAN and then qualified for Nanyang Championships season 2.

Shortly after the team started to slide slightly, taking 9-12th at Manila Major and being eliminated early on in the TI6 EU regional qualifiers.

Current Official Team Empire roster

Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov
Rinat “KingR” Abdullin