When was the last time we saw Team Empire in a major Dota 2 event? Today, we’ll take a look at the organization’s history and find out what went wrong and when.
Switching to Dota 2
Over the years, Team Empire has seen rosters in multiple games. Notable examples include League of Legends, HoN, StarCraft II, Heroes of the Storm, Call of Duty and others. Currently, they are represented in only two games – Dota 2 and Rainbow Six Siege.
Perhaps a little known fact: Team Empire were initially competing in Heroes of Newerth (HoN) before making a switch to Dota 2 in 2011. Back then, HoN was considered the spiritual successor of the original Dota, so it came as no surprise that the game was blooming. Transitioning from HoN to Dota 2 wasn’t hard as the games were quite similar in a lot of aspects. A lot of pro HoN players made a switch and had varying degrees of success.
Team Empire’s golden years
Initially, Team Empire struggled to find their place in the Dota 2 scene. However, that quickly changed in the years to follow. During the 2013-2015 era, Empire were at almost every event, often facing other top organizations like Virtus.pro, Natus Vincere, and Fnatic. They even managed to qualify for The International in two consecutive years, 2014 and 2015, showing that they had what it takes to be there.
A lot of the famous CIS players have at some point been part of Team Empire. The last good performance for the organization came in 2017 when they finished up 8th in The International. They got eliminated by the champions-to-be Team Liquid.
No clear lineup
Not happy with their results, Team Empire changed players in their rosters on a regular basis. It came to a point in November 2018 when the organization created a second roster called Team Empire Hope.
Starting today Team Empire will be represented by two squads - Team Empire Faith and Team Empire Hope.More info: https://t.co/Gf9W3KSTAv
— Team Empire (@team_empire) November 10, 2018
The original one was renamed to Team Empire Faith. Veterans of the team remained in Faith, while Hope became home for some young talents. Ironically, the latter would often perform much better than the former. Hope would also outlive Faith in the months to follow and remain as the sole squad of the org.
This split was partly due to the change Valve made. It stated that no organization can send two teams at The Dota 2 International. Sadly, Empire never made it back to the prestigious event.
Tier 2 Dota 2
The last two years have been the worst for the team in both number of events they participated in and winnings. Team Empire have failed to qualify for a major Dota 2 tournament in 2019 – their last big event was EPICENTER XL back in 2018. Currently, the team resides mostly in the Tier 2 Dota environment. Their most recent appearance was in OMG BET Cup 2. Team Empire Hope made a good run but eventually got eliminated by Vikin.gg, taking the third place in the event.
With the Dota 2 2020 season not even halfway through yet, there’s still plenty of time for surprises. Team Empire are veterans on the scene and they definitely have the potential to be great again.
