Team Empire announces its Dota 2 roster for the upcoming season. Out of five players who tried to qualify for The International 2018 only Yaroslav Miposhka Naidenov is staying.

It is worth mentioning that Miposhka, who played support role for a long time, will start new season as an offlaner. Oleg sayuw Kalenbet and Igor Maden Modenov will play positions four and five respectively.

Sayuw is rather unknown to the professional Dota 2 scene. His most notable achievements are first place of Sunday ES.bet Invitational #1 with test roster of Team Empire and second place of KFC Battle 2018 with Marlerino eSports.



Maden played for Effect last season. With Igor's help team managed to qualify for ESL One Katowice 2018 and Dota 2 Asia Championships 2018.

Our core duo will be represented by Zaur Cooman Shakhmurzaev and Vladimir Chappie Kuzmenko. Chappie is a well-known player for all Team Empire fans. Together with Vladimir our team managed to qualify for The International 2017 and Dota 2 Asia Championships 2017.

Cooman played for Gambit Esports, Effect and Double Dimension. He performed at ESL One Katowice 2018 and WESG 2017.

Support Evgeniy Chuvash Makarov and coach Arseniy ArsZeeqq Usov are leaving Team Empire, while Aybek Naive- Tokaev will be subbed out. Organisation is ready to discuss possible transfer of Kazakh player. Our new coach is Egor JotM Surkov who worked with Team Empire last year.





Team Empire esports director Alexander StrangeR Solomonov spoke on the matter:

«The results of last season clearly showed that radical changes are needed. This time we used very thorough approach to forming our new squad. We tested players on different roles in different combinations. I am very happy with our final roster.

Egor JotM Surkov is back as our coach. This time we had an opportunity to build our squad around the coach, and we did that. Egor played great role in forming this team and he fully trusts in each of our guys. I think that this is really important.

I will write my thoughts on each player later. Right now I want to say thanks to each and every player of our new roster for believing in management and organisation. Many of them had other offers, but finally players chose Team Empire, believed in each other and ideas offered by our coach. I am sure everything will work.

I wish all the best to everyone who left our team. I want to say huge thanks to fn and Ghostik, long-time leaders of Team Empire. Also I would like to say thanks to Arszeeqq for his work during TI qualifiers. I am glad we got to work together, it was very interesting and useful experience. We parted ways with mutual understanding and I am confident that coach of such level will not stay without work in CIS or Europe.

Finally, I would like to say that our main target this season is achieving good results and we are looking forward to work towards that goal from the very first tournament. We don't want to wait for spring».

Dota 2 team manager Dmitriy Korb3n Belov released his commentary:

«First of all, I would like to wish all the best to every player who left Team Empire during this transfer period. Big thanks to you, guys, for being a part of Empire together with me. Huge thanks to Arseniy, you are the coach with a capital C.

Our new page starts with five nicknames mentioned above. During my work I have some disputes with Vladimir Chappie Kuzmenko, but now, thanks to Alexander Solomonov, we left all our conflicts in the past.

This reshuffle was really hard for me due to very high competition, but in the end we managed to get all the players we wanted. I am very happy to start new season with this exact squad of professionals. As it was said in one really good anime: "The magma of our souls burns with a mighty flame!"

Thanks, love each other and cheer for Team Empire!»

Igor Maden Modenov shared his emotions:



«I am very happy to play for Team Empire this season and will do my best not to disappoint our fans!»

Oleg sayuw Kalenbet also spoke on the matter:



«Being invited to Team Empire is a huge responsibility and personal challenge for me. I want to say thank you to everyone who believed in me. I will do everything possible to justify this trust».



Team Empire Dota 2 roster for season 2018/19



Zaur Cooman Shakhmurzaev

Vladimir Chappie Kuzmenko

Yaroslav Miposhka Naidenov

Oleg sayuw Kalenbet

Igor Maden Modenov

