- AS Monaco Gambit had a very disappointing 2021
- The organization posted a tweet about returning AS Monaco to the inactive status
- It turns out there’s been some miscommunication, but AS Monaco will still miss some tournaments
Gambit Esports announced initially that its Dota 2 roster will be inactive, but later on admitted there’s been a miscommunication error, and that AS Monaco will just miss some initial events.
Gambit Esports Causes a Stir Among Fans
Gambit Esports’ Dota 2 roster did not have an easy time last season, not achieving anything significant during the year. The roster also changed its composition twice, but in the end, the team still finished in seventh place during the 2022 Dota Pro Circuit Winter Tour regional league in Eastern Europe.
The poor performance prompted many to think that the player lineup is going to be moved to the inactive roster. These rumors began with a tweet from Gambit Esports themselves, saying “As Monaco Gambit squad has been moved to inactive. We'll let you know later about the future of the roster.”
However, it turns out the roster is not being moved to inactive. It is instead simply not going to participate in the seventh season of D2CL. Shortly after the original post that confused many fans, Gambit Esports responded to it, making things clearer, and apologizing for the misunderstanding.
AS Monaco Gambit Had a Bad Season
Over the last year, the team had a huge drop in performance, despite starting out decently well. The first roster finished both seasons in third place and earned invites to both Majors. However, things started to change when core players No[o]ne and SoNNeikO refused to join the team for the WePlay AniMajor last June. Instead, the two went on to play under Natus Vincere’s banner.
What followed is, perhaps predictably, poor performance at the event. The team, playing with substitute players included in the last moment, was the first eliminated from the event.
Later on, Gambit tried remediating the situation by signing lbert “alberkaaa” Chernoivanov, Andrei “meLes” Romanov, and Sergey “HappyDyurara” Horonzhiy during the offseason. Management hoped that by rebuilding the team around core players Aleksandr “Immersion” Khmelevskoi and Artem “Lorenof” Melnick, but in the end, this was still in vain.
It seems that now Gambit Esports will take its attention off AS Monaco Gambit and focus on its secondary team that kept the traditional Gambit Esports name. Led by veteran Vasilii “AfterLife” Shishkin, this secondary team finished fifth in the EEU's Division II.
It is still too early to say if AS Monaco Gambit will return sometime later this year, or if the organization will rely solely on their secondary team for this year’s tournaments.
