At Dota 2’s The International 7, Team Empire beat Evil Geniuses 2:0. However, Team Empire will have to settle for 7th place and a $615,692 cash prize after being eliminated by Team Liquid in round 3 of the lower brackets.
Team Empire is a Russian based eSports team established in 2004. They are known as one of Russia's and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) largest and best known professional gaming organisation.
The International takes place every year, is one of the biggest eSports tournaments and has millions of online viewers. Thousands of fans gather at TI every year to watch and support their favourite teams battle it out to claim the winnings and prove who’s the best. This year there was a $10,836,175 million cash prize for the first place winners. This prize was won by the Netherlands team, Team Liquid.
Team Empire was part of the sixteen teams to play in a double-elimination over six days, 8 teams compete in the higher bracket and 8 teams compete in the lower bracket. Lower bracket games are elimination matches so there are no second chances.
In the first round of lower bracket games Team Empire won against Cloud 9, 1:0 (best of one). This then moved them to the second round where Team Empire faced off against the well known team Evil Geniuses which Empire ended up winning 2:0. Then on their third round, Team Empire’s winning streak came to an end when they lost 2:0 to Team Liquid.
Evil Geniuses were considered to be one of the strongest teams, looking at their track record at TI events. After beating Evil Geniuses, fans would have thought Team Empire would have increased chances at winning the TI7 however, it was not enough as Team Liquid proved to be extremely strong this year beating Team Empire and winning The International 2017.
The head coach for Team Empire is Edgar Serkov (JotM). The Dota 2 team is made up of 5 players which are Yaroslav Naidenov (Miposhka), Andrey Kadyk (Ghostik), Rostislav Lozovoi (Fn), Vladimir Kuzmenko (Chappie-) and Vladimir Nikogosyan (RodjER).
