Taking a look at the brand new Gambit Dota 2 roster

Gambit Esports recently announced their brand new roster for the upcoming 2020-2021 season. With the long overdue International 10 fast approaching, Gambit is certainly looking forward to building a reliable powerhouse squad to compete in the upcoming season.

The people in charge have decided to completely overhaul the team with only Danial “XSvamp1Re” Alibaev remaining from the old roster. Everyone else is “new” and ready to earn their keep.

© Gambit

Gambit Dota 2 roster for 2020-2021

Much like the Great Chinese Shuffle earlier in September, Gambit has their objective set for their own region. To become a CIS powerhouse team that can truly challenged Virtus.pro and NaVi.

As European teams grow stronger by the day, it was probably a wise decision for Gambit to start afresh.

Looking at the roster, we see many unfamiliar faces from the region, such as yy, Lorenof and meLes. For the most part, we have not seen these new blood in action, so that’s one thing to look forward in Gambit’s prodigies. Alongside, is an unexpected addition into the line-up, Albert “eine” Garaev.

Eine was formerly the hard support player for VP.Prodigy. Unlike its parent team, Virtus.pro, the sister squad was the talk of the town after showcasing flawless performance at OGA Dota PIT S3 Europe and Pushka League S1. In both tourneys, they fell short only to Team Secret, the proclaimed strongest team in the world.

Yet, here he is out of VP.Prodigy, a team that made it into the headlines as rookies of the year. With no announcements from VP yet, the future of VP.Prodigy and Virtus.pro remain uncertain.

A year of stale performance

Gambit never really shared a good success story, thus far. After their former player Danil “gpk” Skutin threw a tantrum and refused to bootcamp, Gambit had to bench him and deal with the consequences. Apparently, gpk had received an offer to play for Virtus.pro and wanted out of Gambit’s roster, despite being under contract.

Needless to say, Gambit’s days were pretty rough this year. A trip further down memory lane, at the International 2019 CIS qualifiers had Gambit carry player, Andrey “Afoninje” Afonin rage quitted mid-game. The result was his team being forced to forfeit the match. This eventually led to Gambit falling just short of one victory from qualifying for the International back then.

Although Afoninje was immediately kicked after the fact, words could not describe the disappointment that Gambit’s captain, fng, was feeling. To this day, the incident became Gambit’s most infamous spotlight, and fans bashed the player for ruining the teams shot at glory.

As for fng, it seems like he has found his place in Alliance after several impressive runs as a stand-in. Yet, the legacy he left at Gambit and the consequences are felt to this day.

Gambit’s Redemption arc

Putting aside their rough past, perhaps the new line-up might just be the light at the end of the tunnel. If its a Gambit Esports’ redemption arc we are after, four new players and an experienced leader to guide them, could the Cinderella story we are all after.

Anton “yy” Shkredov gave us some promising plays this season from Position 1, while Andrey “meLes” Romanov is an off lane enigma according to most analysts in the region. There is a strong possibility this team gels extremely well in months to come.

We expect the team is bootcamping hard currently, as they have no matches or events on their schedule as of yet.

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