AS Monaco Gambit Release Dota 2 Roster

AS Monaco Gambit has released its Dota 2 division on Monday, May 2, amid the uncertainty of the future of the CIS esports scene.

The Russian esports organization announced that it’s releasing its entire Dota 2 roster. That includes Albert “alberkaaa” Chernoivanov, Artem “Lorenof” Melnick, Andrei “meLes” Romanov, Aleksandr “Immersion” Khmelevskoi, and Sergey “HappyDyurara” Horonzhiy.

The decision, while a shocking one, makes sense for the Russian organization. The last few months were filled with uncertainty for the Eastern European Dota 2, leaving the organizations in a rough spot.

“Today, we bid farewell to AS Monaco Gambit Dota 2. Team’s players and coach enter free agency. We would like to thank them for representing our organization and wish them luck in future endeavors,” read the announcement.

Due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the EEU Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) got put on hold and postponed indefinitely. And even though the upper division got to play its playoffs, it’s still unclear what will happen with the lower division, where AS Gambit Monaco compete in.

AS Monaco were last seen competing in DPC back in January, when they placed seventh. Since then, the Russian squad has attended Dota 2 Champions League 8 and 9.

The team finished both tournaments in seventh-eighth place, which isn’t great. However, the team has shown some promise in the past and has proven to be a competitive roster.

While we know that Gambit released its Dota 2 roster, it’s unclear whether the players will stay together. The quintet has achieved reasonable success over the year, and they even came close to securing a spot in the EEU DPC upper division.

So even though they’re without a team, the ex-Gambit squad should be competitive as soon as the Eastern European DPC continues. While it’s likely for the former Gambit squad to compete as an independent stack, they might also get picked up by an esports organization.

The latter option does seem slightly more unlikely, however. Financially supporting teams in the current times could be difficult for smaller organizations, mainly due to the uncertainty of the future of the CIS esports scene.

For the same reason, Gambit decided to release its roster and are likely looking to downsize. The recent events further confirm this.

Just last month, Gambit released its CS:GO roster, which joined Cloud9. Meanwhile, Gambit Esports also parted ways with its entire Fortnite squad.

Even though Gambit released its Dota 2 squad, the Russian esports organization still fields one more Dota 2 roster. It features Alexey “Smiling Knight” Sviridov, Maksym “mellojul” Pnev, Vasilii “AfterLife” Shishkin, Oleg “sayuw” Kalenbet, and Nikita “Pantomem” Balaganin.

Gambit’s main Dota 2 roster has recently placed second in Dota 2 Champions League 9, but they weren’t invited to DPC EEU Regional Playoffs. That is because the team failed to re-qualify for the DPC upper-division in January,

Then, Gambit finished the second division in eighth place, with a 3-4 record, just two wins short of a top-two finish.

While the Eastern European DPC scene is still recovering, the competition continues as usual elsewhere. All other regions have already concluded their DPC stages, unveiling the teams that will represent their DPC region at the next Major.

ESL One Stockholm 2022 is set for May 12-22 in Stockholm, Sweden. The first DPC Major of the season will welcome 14 teams and feature a $500,000 prize pool, with $200,000 reserved for the champions.

The Major will welcome OG, Gaimin Gladiators, Team Liquid, Tundra Esports, Mind Games, Fnatic, BOOM Esports, T1, EG, TSM, Thunder Awaken, and beastcoast. BetBoom Team and Team Spirit are joining the list, as the top two teams from the EEU DPC.