Team Empire Preview: ESL One Manila
The Team Empire which will participate at ESL1 Manila will be completely different to the one that qualified. The newly formed side was announced after players from the former roster left for other teams.
The disbanding started when Empire released Alexander “XBOCT” Dashkevich on 1 March. Two weeks later, Gleb “Funn1k” Lipatnikov left for Team Spirit before long-standing player Ilya “ALOHADANCE” Korobkin and Alexander “NoFear” Churochkin joined Virtus.Pro.
The last player to leave was the captain, Roman “Resolut1on” Fominok, who had been with Team Empire since 2013.
The new roster was announced on 25 March and is entirely composed of Russian players.
The team added a young Support duo of Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov and Rinat “KingR” Abdullin, who have both gained experience playing in lower tier teams but have yet to play at a high level.
Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev and Vasily “Afterlife” Shishkin joined the ranks of Empire after being released from Team Spirit following a disappointing performance in Shanghai.
Notably, Roman “Scandal” Sadotenkov will return to the team where he started his pro career back in 2011 after two years of absence following a dispute with the management.
Current roster:
Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev – position 1
Roman “Scandal” Sadotenkov – position 2
Vasily “Afterlife” Shishkin (c) – position 3
Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov – position 4
Rinat “KingR” Abdullin – position 5
Recent achievements:
StarLadder i-League Invitational European Qualifier – 9-12th
Dota Pit League Season 4 – 5-8th
Captains Draft 3.0 – 5-6th
Win rate (patch 6.86)
57.8%, 41 wins, 30 losses
Current roster win rate (April)
40%, 2 wins, 1 draw, 2 losses
Top 5 most picked heroes (patch 6.86)
| Hero | Pick % | Times Picked |
| Vengeful Spirit | 47.9 | 34 |
| Invoker | 39.4 | 28 |
| Oracle | 27 | 38.0 |
| Spirit Breaker | 33.8 | 24 |
| Witch Doctor | 33.8 | 24 |
Top 5 most banned heroes (patch 6.86)
| Hero | Pick % | Times Banned |
| Io | 67.6 | 48 |
| Chen | 54.9 | 39 |
| Invoker | 50.7 | 36 |
| Lone Druid | 50.7 | 36 |
| Oracle | 42.3 | 30 |
Being composed entirely of Russian players, the team shouldn’t have any problems with communication, which is often an issue in more international outfits.
Apart from Scandal, the team is quite young and inexperienced so, despite not being the captain, he will provide the necessary guidance and composure for his less experienced teammates.
Having played a couple of games already, the team is comfortable with playing late game rosters that try to gain advantage by capitalizing on early game aggression. The team also likes to use split-pushing strategies, utilizing some of the more popular heroes such as Earth Spirit.
Playing for Team Spirit in the Shanghai Major, RAMZES666 has already gained some experience on the big stage. He is a very good Ember Spirit player and his new teammates have already tended to rely on that.
In a search of stability, Empire saw quite a few players moving in and out over the past six months. The new roster seems promising but it is yet to be seen how they will perform together on the big stage.
While the team hasn’t had any notable performances recently, the first half of 2015 was quite successful for Empire, as they won some Premier tournaments and did very well in others. However, the roster back then had a core group of players who had played together for a long time. Stability is something that they don’t have yet and it is hard to see them doing anything memorable in Manila because of this.
Dafabet will be providing competitive odds on ESL One Manila.
