Gambit Esports have been on the news lately, first their new partnership with AS Monaco and now a second Dota 2 roster! The CIS organization signed Live to Win and now they have two Dota 2 squads, is that even allowed by Valve?
Earlier this week we saw the beginning of another beautiful partnership between an esports organization and a football club. Gambit Esports and AS Monaco joined forces in the esports scene with a brand-new name and teams in both Dota 2 and Fortnite.
Head of the Esports division at MTS Irina Semenova, commented:
The partnership with AS Monaco will allow us to offer a unique experience to football and sports fans. With the creation of the AS Monaco Gambit team, we become the first Russian Esports club to establish a relationship with a foreign team. This is a great opportunity to develop our activities.
AS Monaco FC General Manager, Oleg Petrov added:
We are delighted to launch this partnership with Gambit Esports. The creation of our joint team, AS Monaco Gambit, allows us to take a new step in this sector by joining forces with a reference on the international Esports scene. Esports is a very fast-growing market and an important pillar of our digital development. This orientation responds to a twofold objective: to enable us to diversify our activities by addressing a different, young and highly connected audience, while supporting the club’s internationalization strategy by developing our presence in key territories.
There's one other famous Dota 2 organization that has partnered with a football team and that's the Chinese LGD Gaming. Their deal with Paris Saint Germain began in 2018 and ever since then they've been dominating the region. Whether Gambit and Monaco will be as successful remains to be seen. The collaboration made news again yesterday with another big announcement - a second Dota 2 roster!
Our lower division roster will continue playing under Gambit-2 tag and will face @B8esportsGG in a few hours.Make sure to support both of our squads
— Gambit Esports (@GambitEsports) February 11, 2021
AS Monaco Gambit Dota 2 signed over the roster of Live to Win which consists of:
- Kiyalbek "dream" Tayirov
- Vasilii "AfterLife" Shishkin
- Aleksandr "Immersion" Khmelevskoi
- Akbar "SoNNeikO" Butaev
Rostislav "fn" Lozovoi is missing from the Live to Win squad and it's unclear whether he'll be joining at some point later. In the meantime, Vladimir "No[o]ne" Minenko is standing in for the Gambit roster.
Two rosters in the same DPC?
It seems that Gambit won't be dropping their old team for the time being and they'll continue to compete in the Lower Division. In the meantime, they've also secured a spot in the Upper Division by signing Live to Win. Another big question that arises from all this is about the two teams playing in the same league. To put it simply - yes. Here's Valve's take on the matter.
Can teams from the same organization play in the same league?Yes. However, as in previous years, only one team from one organization can qualify to TI. If two teams from the same organization qualify to The International, the organization must either remove all of their ties to one of the teams, or only the top team will be eligible.
The only possible problem that might come from all this is if both rosters qualify for TI, something that's unlikely to happen at this point, considering one of them is in the Lower Division. What do you think about the AS Monaco Gambit partnership and the new team? Will they skyrocket? Drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter!
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