Esports director of Team Empire, StrangeR, talks about Dota 2 roster, R6 roster and CIS pro scene

Greetings to all Team Empire fans and everyone who watch this video. I’d love to talk about the issues and questions regarding Team Empire current rosters. We are filming this video from the place where new Empire teamhouse is located. It’s cottage village in Moscow. I’d love to start by telling you why did we move to new teamhouse. When the first wave of COVID-19 has started Many LAN tournaments were in danger.

00:50 - And the single thing of bringing our players to bootcamp became a really hard task. Because our players are from different countries. That’s why we decided to leave the previous teamhouse for some time, until the problems will be solved. It’s been hard to reject our previous teamhouse, because everyone got used to that house. Everyone loved it, and it was really comfortable there. But we had to do this and then we started to look for new teamhouse. To tell you the truth, new teamhouse is much much better than the previous one. By it’s location and other things. By the comfortability level, by gaming zone, by the amount of rooms. And by infrastructure as well. This settlement is closer to Moscow. It has trade malls, shopping centers, other places. And it’s really near to capital. It is in fact a good thing. Let’s talk about rosters now, starting with Rainbow Six. The reason why we are here.

02:01 - This is what you prefer to watch and will continue to do so on the next tournaments. Frankly speaking, we failed Stage 1. It was total disaster. And I can understand now why this disaster happened in the first place. Sure, we had a replacement. We replaced karzheka with Always and our squad needed time to perform as a team. And we were unable to find bootcamp like this one. Because we needed more time to find something good like this. And that happened for a reason. We’ve decided to take a rent.

02:38 - At the beginning of Stage 2 we’ve rented one of the bootcamps. For 2 or 3 weeks, If I recall correct. It’s nothing special for us. That’s our standart amount of time for bootcamp. But the mistake was… that I’ve underestimated the importance of this bootcamp. While we were playing on bootcamp, we’ve performed much better. We’ve won the first game vs Virtus pro, If I remember correct. And even the games that we lost we’ve showed the good performance. And when we’ve closed the bootcamp and moved away, our results had significantly got worse. So, what have we done between Stage 1 and Stage 2? First of all, we’ve decided that Stage 2 and all upcoming tournaments our R6 roster will play on bootcamp. It’s the key point! It’s out of the question! Secondly, we’ve enhanced our coaching roster. As you know, we’ve got analyst joining our ranks — Evgeniy “Zheka” Bohanov.

03:53 - Previously he was a part of Team Unique as R6 player. And now it’s obvious from the job of our coach Oleg and And Evgeniy as analyst. They are working pretty tight as a team, they are doing useful things for the team. It was very helpful addition and I think it has empowered our roster overall. Third thing: we’ve changed the roles. As many of you noticed after the tournament, JoyStiCK was not a fragger. Although everyone still remember who good he is as Smoke player. But this in-game role switches helped team a lot as a result. The start and the end of bootcamp — it’s like two different teams. Our team’s performance is on peak right now. All the games we’ve played… we did really good. And even when we’ve lost Well, we have some issues with some maps. But we also have time to fix them.

05:08 - I’d love to talk about the problem with lost internet connection. It’s a nightmare that happened 30 minutes before the official game on EU League. And we had no options to fix it or solve it in any possible way. This cottage settlement is situated in the place where it is really problematic to connect a secondary internet provider. But we’re working on it! But still, on the next day after this problem has happened we improved our current internet connection.

05:45 - We’ve taken the measures to be secured in case of this problem ever repeating again. And then we’ve added the second radio channel as reserve option. It’s not like the fully operational fast ethernet connection, but the ping is still decent and the game is playable. There are no problems with that. For the future, we’ll be able to solve such issues. We’ll try to add new ethernet channels here. New options, new providers. Because it’s really important. Well, all these things has led us to advancing to Major.

06:26 - But it’s still very disappointing that we’ve missed the chance to get to EUL December Finals. It’s the sum of few factors here. Stage 1 results, technical problem with that game vs Team Vitality. I can’t be sure for 100% but The possibility of us winning vs Vitality was very high. But we’ve got it covered. About our slot on Six Invitational 2021. We need to win the Six November Major to get that slot. If we will win it, we’d be a part of SI 21, if we’ll take 2nd or 3d place we would need to check the other factors and whole situation. But it’s up to us now.

We still have few weeks to strengthen our weak points. To fix problems, make our strengths more stable and so on. And to show what we are capable of. That’s all for Rainbow Six. I’d love to say a few words regarding our recent announcement of VALORANT team. This esports discipline is starting to become popular and considering Riot Games planes we couldn’t miss the opportinity. We’ve made a first step and now we will see. If these new players will fulfill our hopes. And how the pro scene will develop further. Because I think that VALORANT will be able to become a real competitor for other most popular shooters. In the next year. Or at least start to becoming a real force. As for the Dota 2 roster. You all have many questions regarding this topic. I would say that you need to fall down in order to get up. Sadly but these words are adressed to our team.

08:25 - We’ve signed Team Empire Hope roster in December 2019. And this roster performed well, at least it seemed this way. But mostly it was because of coach’ and manager’s efforts. To tell you the truth, the players did not mix very well. And not all of them wanted to play with each other. That’s why we have 3 player on team for now. They are our core performers: our carry Alexei Smiling Knight. It is Oleg Sayuw, support 4pos. And support 5pos Sergey Ecnart. We are testing two other positions right now. We are playing with those players for a long amount of time. And it’s nearly 100% possible that we will play the next soon-to-come tournaments with them.

09:25 - But they are still not announced, so no more words! One of them is BTS, and the second is still not announced, but it’ll start early November. Many of you wish to know what has happened with Lightless. The player who won games for our team. Why is he not on roster? The situation is pretty clear: Sasha was our force and our weakness. He played as mid player and prefered carry characters. And he often won games for the team when the team helped him to perform well. Meta has changed. Mid characters has changed as well. And now it’s hard to play greedy characters. It’s hard to build drafts around it. It’s hard to bring such characters on mid lane. Sasha told me a long time ago that he would love to change position. To try and play pos1 carry. He didn’t want to play as mid player anymore, he has no motivation for that right now. Who knows, maybe he’ll want to get back to it someday? After the agreement with Lightless he’s playing pub games now, training his skills.

10:49 - He still remains as the part of Team Empire. I vaule this player pretty much. And I think there’s a bright future for him. But right now he’s benched because we’ve picked Alexei Smiling Knight as our carry and we have no plans right now to replace him. And Lightless don’t want to play mid. Names of other two players that we’ll add to our roster will remain in secret right now. One of them is well-known to you because we’ve played with him before.

11:27 - And the second nickname can’t hardly tell you anything. Overall, I like what I’m seening during trainings and practice games now. It’s good to watch. And about the time before DPC tournaments. And any other tournaments with Valve’s support. We still have time before that. And I hope that we’ll be able to develop some strats during that period. That we will be able to understand what to do next. To make plans for the future. I would love to comment the situation regarding Dota pro scene. Everyone keep saying that Dota is non-profitable. My colleagues and other managers. I totally agree with that. It’s so hard to monetize Dota. But if you’ll count the amount of CIS clubs that keep investing into Dota. That open new rosters, sign new players, keep the existing players on contracts. Even opening the second Dota rosters. Many things are still not announced yet. I can count about 16 clubs like that.

12:45 - And Dota is still keeping in high regard in CIS region. There is obviously a scarce amount of talented players. There are not enough players who play mid lane. Some difficulties with offlane players. In my opinion, soon, and I’m talking about the early 2021, new starts will appear on these positions. Well, some of the new blood keep appearing right now, if you’ll check the announcements. Upcoming tournaments will show the combat efficency of new rosters. I would love to know if RAMZES will get back into CIS region. Will he be a part of any team? The return of Roman will improve our esports scene greatly. For now EU region looks much stronger. There are more battle-hardened teams that we have in CIS. I truly hope that in near future all of us, esports organizations from CIS region, will be able to change this situation for the better. To help our pro scene become more stable. Because we have many talented players here. This is it for Dota.

14:01 - Please wait for our upcoming games, root for us, show us your support! And everything’s gonna be fine!.