Team Empire released Scandal

Team Empire has released Roman “Scandal” Sadotenkov from their lineup. After a sub-par and disappointing performance in the TI6 regional qualifiers, the team has chosen to make a change in roster for the upcoming roster lock. Empire has not identified a replacement yet and Scandal’s future plans are still unclear.

Team Empire removed Roman “Scandal” Sadotenkov from the roster last night. The announcement came as a surprise to some, that assumed any roster changes from the newly rebuilt CIS team would not include the veteran and decorated player.

Scandal had played previously for the organization between 2011-2013 and rejoined the team in March 2016. He is known to be one of the best mid players and most recently played for various CIS teams such as YeS, Fantastic Five, Virtus.Pro Polar, NVMI, Power Rangers and Rox.Kiss.

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.

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.

With the dissolution of Virtus.Pro two weeks ago and Vladimir “No[o]ne” Minenko reporting to go inactive for some time, there are plenty of potential new players for Team Empire to choose from and places for Scandal to find a new home.

Team Empire roster changes Winter 2015-Summer 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 new roster:

Roman “Ramzes” Kushnarev
Vasily “AfterLife” Shishkin
Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov
Rinat “KingR” Abdullin