It's black times for CS:GO Gambit fans: the team has officially ceased to exist as of April 24, 2022. The five gamers were sold to the Cloud9 (C9) organization along with their manager, coach and analyst for a cash sum of $1 million.
This event has already been called unprecedented in cybersports. Indeed, it has never happened before that the club management refused to continue working with the team, which is among the top three in the world.
So at the moment, fans of the Russian team Gambit CS:GO can only remember the golden days, savor the highlights from the winning tournaments and cherish the hope that the history of Gambit has not been completely interrupted, and the club will one day again come to great victories.
What happened?
The story with the sale of Gambit's roster dates back to the beginning of the Russian special operation and the sanctions that followed, which affected, among other things, Russian cybersports organizations. The essence of the restrictions is that Gambit is not allowed, as a sports team, to be a participant in tournaments held in countries that support sanctions, which is at least 95% of all competitions. Although, Gambit CS:GO players could independently take part in the competition without displaying a flag, i.e. in neutral status. Actually, they took advantage of this to enter the Antwerp major in 2022.
However, the club was not interested in such a scenario: the neutral status of gamers did not allow them to earn money on sponsorship advertising, as well as on stickers. In addition, the team's sponsors began to refuse to cooperate.
In general, in the face of plummeting revenues, the club had nothing left but to put the Gambit CS:GO lineup up for sale in March 2022. Within a month, the offer was responded to by C9, who was interested in returning to Counter Strike and eventually took advantage of Gambit's stalemate.
Accomplishments
In the nine year history of the organization, we can highlight 2 years in which the team had a phenomenal performance.
2017 – win in the Krakow Majors, which has been the pinnacle of the team's success thus far. It was then that the most important match was played in the finals of Gambit CS:GO against Brazilian cybersport club Immortals. It should be noted that analysts did not consider Gambit not only a favorite, but even «a dark horse» majors, capable of springing a surprise. The more unexpected was the victory of the team, which did not have top gamers in its roster, but took its own due to the amazing understanding between the players and teamwork. By the way, it was the first success of the team from the CIS at the majors.
2021 once again showed that forge victories team Gambit CS:GO is very helpful to the Polish land. At IEM 2021, held in Katowice, the club achieved another major success. In the same year, based on the opinions of 2 authoritative organizations in the world of Counter Strike, Gambit was recognized as the best team in CS:GO.
Golden squad that won the Krakow Major
Almost no one believed in these guys, but nevertheless, they won. Let's remember who they are:
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The captain of the CS:GO Gambit team at the time was «Zeus» (real name – Daniel Teslenko) from Ukraine. He is considered to be a legendary person in the cybersports community: rarely anyone managed to win the world championships in the old Counter Strike 1.6, then move to CS:GO and once again succeed, now at the majors.
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«AdreN» or Dauren Kystaubaev from Kazakhstan. Quickly becoming addicted to different things, for a while I couldn't decide between Counter Strike and Dota. Because of this, before getting into the lineup Gambit CS:GO was characterized by unstable play.
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«HObbit» or Abay Hasenov from Kazakhstan. Took over the riffler position at the club. He became the discovery of the Krakow Major, in many ways it was Abay who dragged the coveted gold for Gambit.
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Rustem Telepov, better known in cybersports as «mou», played in Gambit as a sniper. All of his accomplishments in Counter Strike are tied to this club.
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«Dosia» or Mikhail Stolyarov became the first representative of Russia to win at the majors and get into the top twenty gamers of the world in Counter Strike until 2015.
Will the CS:GO Gambit team be revived?
At this stage, the forecasts are disappointing. Top experts believe that the Antwerp Major 2022 will be the last one, where there is a significant chance of winning the CIS teams, and then there is a high probability of disintegration of gamer teams. The reason cited is the toxicity of Russian players due to sanctions imposed on Russia. Teams will get rid of Russians in every possible way or require them to move to another country, and Russian clubs are likely to be banned from applying to participate in cybersports competitions.
So the sale of players Gambit CS:GO – is only the first swallow of the impending degradation of Russian cybersports. From the current situation, we can conclude that Gambit's return to Counter Strike will only take place if the sanctions are lifted. Judging by the political news such a thing is impossible in 2022.
So loyal fans of Gambit, perhaps, should at least temporarily cheer for Cloud9, where the entire roster of Gambit CS:GO players has moved to, or become a follower of another team.
Interesting facts about Gambit's star players
First. The highest career «HObbit» scores are tied exclusively with Gambit. What's amazing is that after achieving any cyber athlete's dream – of winning a major in 2017. – Abay suffered a huge slump in his game, left the club and spent three years wandering around different teams. The second period of Gambit's heyday in CS GO occurred in 2021, when the Hobbit returned and played more confidently and reliably than before.
Second. «Zeus» before he became a Gambit CS:GO player had no luck with trophies in Global Offensive. While possessing excellent leadership skills, he was poor in individual performance. In fact, his poor playing skills were the reason he parted ways with the Navi, failing in several majors. Zeus was rumored to have said after leaving that he would win the damn major sooner or later. In the cybersports world, Zeus' words drew a derisive reaction, which was further amplified when he moved to the star-studded Gambit CS:GO team. What happened next is well known, and it made skeptics bite their tongues.