Team Empire, who failed to qualify for the Main Event at The International 6, have announced their new roster.
Team Empire’s TI6 story ended in Phase 1 of the European Qualifier after a disappointing 4-5 finish. They picked up a win off fan favorites Alliance, but that was the sole consolation to be had during the round robin stage, dropping games against Main Event participants Escape Gaming and Team Secret. Despite securing an invitation from Valve that allowed them to bypass the open qualifiers, Team Empire went home with nothing.
Captain Roman 'Scandal' Sadotenkov was the first to leave Team Empire, kicked for undisclosed reasons. He was followed by Roman 'RAMZES666' Kushnarev and Vasily 'AfterLife' Shishkin, who both opted to leave the organization. In a span of three months, Team Empire lost their offlaner, their carry, and their mid, leaving only supports Yaroslav 'Miposhka' Naidenov and Rinat 'KingR' Abdullin.
One week ago, however, the team began rebuilding. On September 05th, Team Empire tweeted that Andrey 'Ghostik' Kadyk had replaced Scandal in the offlane. And on September 12th, Team Empire added mid player Sergey Alexandrovich ‘G’ Bragin (also known as God) and readded support-turned-carry Ilya ‘ALOHADANCE’ Korobkin, who helped Team Empire secure a Top 12 finish at TI5.
The finalized Team Empire roster is:
Ilya 'ALOHADANCE' Korobkin
Sergey 'G' Bragin
Andrey 'Ghostik' Kadyk
Rinat 'KingR' Abdullin
Yaroslav 'Miposhka' Naidenov
Former teammate RAMZES666 has been picked up by Virtus.pro, but Scandal and AfterLife remain teamless.
