Gambit Esports was crowned champion of the IEM Katowice, one of the most important tournaments of the entire CS:GO scene. That’s the team’s story.
Gambit has a longer history than many CS fans would suspect. The victory at the IEM Katowice was not the first big victory in Counter-Strike for Gambit. Time to immerse yourself in the history of Gambit and see how it all began.
Once upon a time there was a team…
The organization started in January 2013 with a League of Legends roster. At that time, she took over the Moscow Five team and took her first steps in the sports scene. Only three years later they also brought a CS:GO team into the boat.
Gambit purchased a roster at the time, which consisted mainly of former HellRaisers players. They started with a very decent performance at the 2016 MLG Columbus World Championship, where they finished in 9th-12th place at the main event. In qualifying, they had prevailed against teams such as Renegades and Cloud 9.
Gambit CS:GO spent February acquiring US visas, preparing and participating at MLG Columbus Major Qualifier. https://t.co/jSWaAVn4Cc pic.twitter.com/cQo3hVIH5D
— Gambit Esports (@GambitEsports) December 13, 2016
New players brought fresh air
Over the course of the year, the lineup changed a bit with the separation of Jan “wayLander” Rahkonen. Also Dmitry “hooch” Bogdanov had only a short career with Gambit, he was released after half a year. The two players who took the empty places were Danylo “Zeus” Teslenko and Abay “Hobbit” Khassenov.
Hobbit is still one of the team’s most important players. With these players in the repertoire, Gambit was able to impress quickly and win the Acer Predator Masters 3, where they won the Best of Five final in just three maps against Team Kinguin.
But that’s not enough: Only eight months later, they were the first team from Eastern Europe to win the CS:GO Major in July 2017. There they prevailed 2-1 against the South Americans of Immortals. One of the best players in the team was Rustem “mou” Telepov, on whom his team could rely in the entire tournament.
However, we would like to point out that the whole team performed incredibly well. Only Zeus and Mikhail “Dosia” Stolyarov were occasionally criticized for following. Zeus and coach Mykhailo “kane” Blagin left the organization a little later, which nobody knew before.
Why I left Gambit.
Read: https://t.co/g2qvKMCzOR
— Zeus // My book is OUT NOW (@ZeusCSGO) August 9, 2017
A premature drop
in performance The decision to leave the team was made by Zeus because Gambit wanted to kick his coach. So he was out, too, and they found a home with Natus Vincere just a month later. At this time, Gambit’s performance also declined. None of the performances matched those from 2017.
