Team Empire Hope promoted to organization’s main Dota 2 roster

Team Empire has remained a steadfast presence in CIS Dota 2 since the game’s inception. But as of late, there wasn’t much going for the organization and only two players were on its roster. 

But it’s always important to have hope—or, in this case, a secondary roster called Team Empire Hope that has been performing well enough to be promoted to the main roster. 

Since signing a new roster in December, Empire has been letting Empire Hope compete in as many tournaments as possible and has found relatively positive results. Since bringing on Sergey “Ecnart” Slobodyanyk as the team’s captain in January, the team has placed in the top eight of all but one event they have competed in. 

The team hasn’t exactly set the world on fire, but Ecnart and his team have performed admirably, even qualifying for a spot at BEYOND EPIC.

“Tomorrow will be exactly six months since the moment we opened the youth Dota 2 roster,” Empire esports director Alexander “StrangeR” Solomonov said. “The BEYOND EPIC qualifiers were an exam for the team that the players successfully passed. With which I congratulate them and gladly inform [you] Team Empire Hope [has] become the main squad of Team Empire in Dota 2.”

StrangeR goes on to note that all of the players have been re-signed to new contracts, but the team has decided to move on from position one player Evgeniy “tatakae” Repin. Instead, another young player, Alexey “Smiling Knight” Sviridov is joining the team after leaving Yolo Knight. 

1.  Alexey “Smiling Knight” Sviridov
2.  Alexander “Lightless” Potapenko
3.  Alexey “Mastery” Vinchevskiy
4.  Dzhama “jAMES” Abdurashitov
5.  Sergey “EcNart” Slobodyanyk (captain)
6.  Arkadiy “Akella” Enivatov (coach)

The newly dubbed Team Empire will be competing as a massive underdog at BEYOND EPIC and will try to earn their keep as the headlining roster for the organization against some of the best teams in Dota.