Gambit Esports has returned to the World stage but this time with an even scarier roster.



Gambit Esports has been terrorizing the LCL scene. Securing 1st place in the Summer Split and winning the LCL Open Cup, Gambit is still a team to be feared. Previously known for their unparreleled aggression as 'Moscow 5' back in season 3, Gambit was famous for their "See hero, Kill hero" mentality.



Now with the return of Worlds for this year, Gambit is ready to remind the world why they should be a team to watch out for. Due to their busy practice schedules and Play-Ins, we were only to grab a text interview with the team of Gambit.



Below are the interview responses from Gambit Esports.



¤ Congratulations on making it to Worlds! How has Korea been so far?



It’s a cool country. You feel great when you are here, there’s nothing to cause discomfort. Delicious food. We’ve been here for a week, got over a jet lag already.





¤ How many times have you guys been to Korea for bootcamp? To my knowledge, it is Lodik's first time in Korea?



It’s the second time our team is boot camping here, the first time was this Winter. Everyone else has been here before even on their own or with other teams, but it’s first trip for Lodik to South Korea.





¤ Gambit has shown amazing results in the LCL. You guys placed 1st in the Summer Split and won the LCL Open Cup. What lead to Gambit's success this year?



We’ve changed our coach going into this year and got a new AD Carry this spring. Lodik played a big role in it. Our team started playing differently when he joined. He’s a very stable player and part of our success lies on his shoulders.



Even when we were playing poorly as a team, there were individual players who stepped up or were simply solid. We had to snatch some of our victories away from our opponents.



Our coach ATRemains, first and foremost, brought the structured approach to practice.









¤ Many regions have different playstyles. China has the "let's fight and hope we win" style. What style does Gambit or the LCL region have?



We are trying to play smart and steady game with emphasis on objectives but can’t always manage it. Our players are like artists in a sense, who can get inspired and come up with creative calls during a game. Other LCL teams struggle with it. The only area with sometimes experience issues with is our early game.



Our region has improved come Summer split. Our biggest rivals were Team Just, the second best team in the region. They’ve been steady for an entire season, and we had to reverse sweep them in the semifinal. M19 were stomping everyone throughout both round robins. Teams were struggling to find a way to approach them. Dragon Army beat us both times in BO1. Overall, there’s been a vast improvement within our region.





¤ What are the differences playing in the LCL region and solo q compared to Korean solo q?



From our experience in Korean SoloQ players are better in terms of mechanics but worse in terms of decision making. If someone pings on a map in Korea, everyone immediately follows, even if it’s a bad call. On EUW you have to spam pings to attract attention.



Ping in Korea is much lower. It’s a big difference in terms of gameplay as well. Overall the games are faster. All objectives are contested.



It would be interesting to gather say 100 players from EUW and 100 players from Korea to see, which style would prevail.





¤ Diamondprox and Edward, you guys have been apart of Gambit since it's rise in season 3. What was the journey like till now?



Diamondprox: We’ve been together through ups and downs. We’ve had winning and losing streaks. We’ve overcome a lot.



Edward: Me and Diamond have been playing together ever since 2012, but there were times, when we were on different teams for a total of two years or so. Our common path since 2017 has been tough and experience of playing together earlier in our careers doesn’t mean as much now, since we’ve grown and changed as players. I can say one thing for sure. It’s fun playing together.









¤ Gambit was famous for their "see hero kill hero" mentality and playstyle. Is this still true?



To an extent. The game has obviously evolved since then. We don’t prioritize kills, but we’ll certainly punish those who are out of position in-game.





¤ What makes Gambit so unique? What will you have over the other teams?



We are brave and fearless. If someone gets caught, we usually tend to save them. Sometimes it puts us even further behind, but sometimes we can make an epic outplay in numerical disadvantage.





¤ There were a couple of roster changes this year and the year before that. How has the team adjusted?



We only had one roster change. Lodik replaced Blasting in Spring. This roster change was beneficial for us. Lodik immediately showed that he’s ready to be stable on almost every ADC. He performs well mechanically in all kinds of team fights and skirmishes. ADC as any other player is required to communicate, and we are still working to help him improve in this area. He has never played on this level before, so it’s new for him.



He performed well at MSI. We were worried he might choke, but he withstood the pressure and outperformed opposing ADCs on an individual level.









¤ Edward, out of the previous Gambit rosters how would you compare this year's roster to the previous ones?



If we talk about our legacy line-up, it’s hard to compare, since back then we were the favorites to win every competition including Worlds. I wasn’t there during Summer Split of 2013. I left the team to play for Curse in NA. Our first line-up was confident, and we knew what’s going on. We were ahead of meta or at least understood the current one.



2014 was the worst year for our team. Alex Ich left us. We had to play in relegations. Even though we won 3:1 in relegations, we were close from getting eliminated from LCS. It was tough.



2015 was more successful, we recruited Cabochard instead of Kubon and Betsy instead of NiQ, who had a collapsed lung. With P1noy as our AD Carry we had good potential, but lacked something. We lost to Unicorns of Love in Spring quarterfinal, who went on to win two games in the final against fnatic. Who knows, we might have been a top 4 team at the time in Europe.



Forg1ven replaced P1noy in Summer. It was probably our best English speaking line-up. We had a poor start, but improved over the split. Unfortunately, Forg1ven got banned and we weren’t able to win a couple of games to qualify for playoffs. We didn’t have a sub ADC. It was really frustrating. Another support player Moopz had to play instead.



As for our first line-up in LCL with Blasting, we didn’t realize at the time that it will be so difficult for us to play at the international stage. Blasting struggled against stronger teams, and he was playing more passively. Blasting wasn’t able to do his job in team fights.



Now we have Lodik and are doing much better. Our performance at MSI speaks for itself. I hope that we can improve our form to perform well at Worlds, so that people will speak fondly of this five-man line-up in the future.





¤ What are your predictions going into Worlds? How far do you think you can go?



Hard to say. There are a lot of factors to take into account. Our own play and preparation is one of them. It’s hard to rate us against the teams we haven’t faced yet. Watching a team play and playing against it are two completely different things. It’s going to be difficult if other teams perform at their peak level. We can make predictions, once we see every team play. Our current form is better than it was at last Worlds.









¤ Are there any teams/players you guys want to face/avoid for as long as possible?



If your goal is to make it far at Worlds, you obviously want to avoid the strongest teams for as long as possible. However, at this point, you don’t know how strong is every team in particular. Got to see them play first. We want to avoid playing against teams from China and Korea. We lack experience of playing against them, but we are open to scrims.





¤ What are your goals and expectations for Worlds this year?



First and foremost, it’s not about how far we can get at Worlds but simply an opportunity to grow as a team and players. Playing on stage and scrimming against the best teams from all over the world for as long as we can is an invaluable experience.





