Team Empire parts ways with legendary XBOCT

Team Empire have 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 and has stayed with the team since. Team Empire has had mixed results in the last few months. The organization plans to announce the new player in time for the Dota Pit Season 4 LAN scheduled to take place March 19th. Rumor has it that former member Maxim “yoky-” Kim will be brought back on. However, the organization has not released any official confirmation.

It is sad to start spring with the news like this, but we are parting ways with @EmpireXBOCT || https://t.co/sk9lDHozdr

— Team Empire (@team_empire) March 1, 2016

Team Empire has announced that the organization is parting ways with the legendary Alexander “XBOCT” Dashkevich.

We can say that this roster had its ups and downs: under-performing at WCA 2015 and Major qualifier, and at the same time qualifying to ESL One Manila, DotaPit and winning at BTS Europe #2.Despite his new role, XBOCT always played his best, especially on his fearsome Faceless Void. However, team performance wasn’t stable and after some recent results, the team made a hard decision to change the roster.

The team had been struggling leading into the Game Show Global eSports Cup in November with numerous roster changes and sub par performances. Looking towards Gleb “Funn1k” Lipatnikov and Alexander “XBOCT” Dashkevich, the team started to make some improvements and gain achievements.

XBOCT had just separated from Na’Vi in mid-October, after almost 5 years with the organization. At the same time, Funn1k was also released.

Despite a strong start, taking the championship title for Game Show Global eSports Cup, they then placed 5-12th at The Defense, 5-8th at D2CL Christmas Charity Magic and WCA 2015, they failed to qualify for the Shanghai Major, placed 5-6th in the Captains Draft 4 and took the championship title for BTS Europe 2 and qualified for ESL One Manila.

Team Empire will announce the new roster in time for the Dota Pit Season 4 LAN scheduled to take place starting with March 19.

XBOCT has not made any further announcements regarding his future status.

Roster changes since TI5

Team Empire

After a well-deserved break following The International 5, Team Empire announced a part of their roster changes for the new season, on August 25th, when they parted ways with Maxim “yoky” Kim and Andrey “ALWAYSWANNAFLY” Bondarenko and welcomed former XX5 and Molodoya Komanda player, Ivan “ubah” Kapustin and former Aspera player Andrey “The_apathy” Aleshkov.

However, the roster lasted only about one month and in early October, the team welcomed back Yoky, and Alexander “NoFear” Churochkin as the captain and confirmed their Open Qualifiers lineup to include nofear, Resolut1on, Silent, yoky and ALOHADANCE.

The organization then went through yet another shuffle in early November when Maxim “yoky” Kim parted ways with the team for the second time since The International 5. Team Empire then welcomed Victor “GeneRaL” Nigrini into the squad and reassigned the captain role to Roman “Resolut1on” Fominok.

GeneRaL only stayed with the team for approximately three weeks before departing, followed quickly by the departure of Airat “Silent” Gaziev in early December.

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.

Team Empire current roster:

Gleb “Funn1k” Lipatnikov
Ilya “ALOHADANCE” Korobkin
Alexander “NoFear” Churochkin
Aleksandr “Flow” Sazonov substitute