In a post on Twitter, the player revealed that he no longer felt motivated to participate in professional CS:GO and, as a result, decided to leave the esports scene indefinitely.
“I’m grateful for the incredible 10-year journey in esports. It’s amazing to reflect on the exceptional experiences that came from competing in such a beautiful sport. I feel privileged to be able to retire at the age of 24 and look back on the great memories from the past years,” Zero wrote.
“I have lost interest in competing and as a result, I am no longer driven to improve my skills in CS. I am not interested in pursuing something solely for money.”
Zero gave fans a hint of what he had planned for the future, writing that it was the right moment for him to “explore other passions”. The 24-year-old added that he wanted to spend some of his time on self-study and would stream some of the said studies for interested fans.
While announcing his future plans, Zero disclosed that he would reminisce on his time in esports fondly. He also thanked all his former teammates and coaches.
Zero ends his pro career after 10 years in the field and is popularly known for his stint with HellRaisers between 2016 and 2017. During his time with the team, Zero played alongside Martin “?STYKO?” Styk, Tom��? “?oskar?” ??astny, and Kirill “?ANGE1?” Karasio.
The player competed in his first ELEAGUE Major with HellRaisers in addition to several Major qualifiers. The team also won the Copenhagen Games in 2016 and got second place in the 2017 DreamHack Open Tours with him on the squad.
Zero played for GamerLegion in tier-two tournaments from 2020-2022. His most recent CS:GO game was with SINNERS, where he played in place of OG-bound Adam “?NEOFRAG?” Zouhar. The player stepped down from the lineup last month due to personal reasons.
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NEMIGA vs HELLRAISERS Dota 2 BETTING & MATCH DETAIL |
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Best Odds: | Nemiga $1.40 at GG Bet | HR $2.75 at GG Bet |
When: | January 8, 2023 | 14:00 MSK |
Watch Live: | Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/paragon_dota) |
It happened again. HellRaisers fought their way into the upper bracket of CIS DPC and rebuilt its roster; however, this time out, HellRaisers’ new lineup looks very good. The addition of Nikita “Daxak” Kuzmin, Gleb “depressed kid” Zyryanov, Vladislav “Antares” Kertman, and Alexey “Solo” Berezin makes a lot of sense and could help HellRaisers emerge as one of CIS’s top Dota 2 squads.
A big addition is Daxak, who had a rough ending to the 2022 season with BetBoom Team but looked good throughout the year. And then there’s also Dota 2 veteran Solo, who got traded from NaVi and will play a key role in HellRaisers’ climb to the top.
Nemiga Gaming are the only team in the DPC (besides Tundra Esports) that didn’t make a single roster move. The only change ahead of the 2023 season was the signing of Alexei “j4” Lipai, who joins Nemiga as head coach.
The decision to keep its roster intact gives Nemiga Gaming a huge advantage over other EEU DPC squads, so it’s not too crazy to believe that Nemiga can win the opening tour of the season. But even though we’re confident in Nemiga’s performances early into the 2023 DPC season, it’s hard to pass on HellRaisers at $2.75.
NATUS VINCERE vs DARKSIDE Dota 2 BETTING & MATCH DETAIL |
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Best Odds: | NaVi $1.95 at GG Bet | Darkside $1.79 at GG Bet |
When: | January 8, 2023 | 17:00 MSK |
Watch Live: | Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/paragon_dota) |
Ahead of the 2023 Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) season, Natus Vincere parted ways with captain Alexey “Solo” Berezin and no.2 Volodymyr “Noone” Minenko to make room for Arman “Malady” Orazbayev and Nikita “Nicky’Cool” Ostakhov, formerly of HellRaiers and Project Armor. Losing Solo stings a bit, but overall, NaVi have a competitive roster with the right mix of young and experienced players.
Their next opponents, Darkside consists of the former BetBoom Team core in Vladimir “RodjER” Nikogosian and Akbar “SoNNeikO” Butaev, who teamed up with Vladislav “DkFogas” Frolov, Maxim “re1bl” Afanasyev, and CIS Dota 2 legend Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev. The latter will play a major role in this team’s success alongside re1bl, who had a great past season when he made a name for himself as one of the future CIS Dota 2 esport stars.
The esports betting sites have priced Darkside as a favourite, which sounds right, but even $1.79 looks a bit too generous. This is a solid team with a substantial upside, and while you can say the same for NaVi, the latter have a lot more to prove.
B8 vs KHAN Dota 2 BETTING & MATCH DETAILS |
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Dota 2 Odds: | B8 $4.03 at GG Bet | KHAN $1.21 at GG Bet |
When: | November 18, 2021 at 13:00 CET |
Watch Live: | Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/team/epicenter) |
Khan are 2-2 after four rounds in this season of the Dota 2 Champions League . While we can’t say they are one of the bottom teams since they’ve beaten Nemiga Gaming and Team Empire, they also can’t be viewed as proper contenders due to their losses against Brame and Creepwave.
While we don’t know where to place Khan, it’s fairly easy to evaluate B8, who are evidently one of the weakest teams at the tournament. You can forgive them for losing against Creepwave, but it’s hard to defend B8 for getting swept by NoMarci and Nemiga Gaming.
There’s always room for an upset, but it’s hard to believe that B8 can defeat Khan. This bout has a 2-0 sweep written all over it, and we’re getting good odds with the top esports betting sites on that outcome.
V-GAMING vs HELLRAISERS Dota 2 BETTING & MATCH DETAILS |
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Dota 2 Odds: | V-Gaming $1.59 at GG Bet | HL $1.63 at GG Bet |
When: | November 18, 2021 at 19:00 CET |
Watch Live: | Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/team/epicenter) |
HellRaisers have managed only two wins from four outings, and even those came against NoMarci and HYDRA last week. Since then, they have played only one game, losing 0-2 against Team Empire.
V-Gaming are in a similar spot with a 3-2 record; however, unlike HellRaisers, they won against Team Empire on Tuesday (2-1). What’s more, V-Gaming are the only team at the tournament to take a map away from Creepwave.
V-Gaming had an iffy start to the Dota 2 Champions League tournament, losing to HYDRA (1-2) last Monday, but they have since looked much better, suggesting that Aybek “Naive-” Tokayev and his crew might have found their stride. Based on recent showings, V-Gaming should win, but it will likely be a closely contested three-map series.
FANTASTIC FIVE vs HELLRAISERS Dota 2 BETTING & MATCH DETAILS |
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Dota 2 Betting Odds: | F5 $8.00 at GG Bet | HR $1.06 at GG Bet |
When: | April 22, 2021 at 13:00 MSK |
Watch Live: | Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/esl_dota2) |
?The latest odds at esports betting sites suggest HellRaisers should win this match 94.2% of the time, which is way too high. While the favourites are the more established and successful team with better players, the odds on Fantastic Five are too good to ignore.
We’re still in the online era of Dota 2 where results are as unpredictable as ever, so there is no real reason to have one team priced as $8.00 underdogs. What’s more, F5 didn’t look all that bad in their loss against Team Empire on Sunday.
HellRaisers are no strangers to losing against much weaker opponents, and they have played only two games across the last month. At these odds, we��re ready to take a shot on the outsiders.
TEAM EMPIRE vs PROSTI ESLI Dota 2 BETTING & MATCH DETAILS |
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Dota 2 Betting Odds: | Empire $2.25 at GG Bet | Prosti $1.57 at GG Bet |
When: | April 22, 2021 at 16:00 MSK |
Watch Live: | Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/esl_dota2) |
?We’re not too big on Prosti Esli in this matchup. It’s not that we believe they’re a bad team, but they shouldn’t be priced as low as they are for this contest.
Team Empire have had their fair share of struggles this year, but they should improve now that they have Ivan “VANSKOR” Skorokhod in the roster. His impact has already been felt, as Empire looked far more organised in their 2-0 sweep of Fantastic Five last week.
Empire still have a lot of issues they need to fix, but they’re facing a team whose only official match was a narrow 2-1 victory against the struggling B8. Back the outsiders for the win.
HellRaisers will clash with SJ Gaming this Tuesday in the opening Group B match of Nine to Five #3 CS:GO tournament which will mark their first meeting in almost nine months.
SJ Gaming will begin their journey through the third season of Nine to Five in Group B alongside HellRaisers, Tikitakan and Nexus Gaming, meaning they are likely to secure the top seed if they manage to win their opening game.
More: Best CS:GO betting sites.
Looking back at SJ Gaming��s form, they were seen participating in only two CS:GO events in July. At the start of the month, Tony “arvid” Niemel? and co. made it to the semi-finals of Finnish Esports League Season 8, where they had to admit defeat to HAVU Gaming (1-2), thus finished third-fourth.
After a two-week break, SJ Gaming took a swing at CSGOFAST.COM Cup #5, where they took down Singularity (2-0) and Touch the crown (2-0), but lost to FATE Esports (0-2) in the semi-finals and with that secured their second top-four placement of the month. The clash with FATE took place on Friday, July 24, which was also their last fixture to date. This means SJ Gaming have not played a single official game in over two weeks, so it’s safe to say they will be a bit ring rusty heading into the opening match of Nine to Five.
Unlike SJ Gaming, who decided to take a break from competing and played only five games since the start of July, HellRaisers accumulated 13 games in the same period with reasonably positive results.
Since the start of July, HellRaisers attended the first, second, third and sixth week of Eden Arena: Malta Vibes and while success was hard to come by for the CIS roster, HellRaisers at least deserve some praise for their top-four placement at Eden Arena: Malta Vibes – Week 2 and a 61.5% win rate (8-5) across the last month.
Despite their success, HellRaisers are no longer the same team we know from their golden days in 2016 and 2018. In the latest global rating update, HellRaisers are ranked only 56th, which is not all too shocking, considering Dmitriy “jR” Chervak and his crew played mostly lower-rated teams throughout 2020 and usually struggled when faced against decent opposition.
HellRaisers finished the first iteration of Nine to Five in 21st-24th place after suffering two losses to Nexus Gaming and showing some struggles against BIG Academy roster (2-1), which is not too inspiring ahead of this match.
There was some improvement on the side of HellRaisers since then, however, the issue with this team is that they do not field a proper carry player. In-game leader jR is currently the highest-rated player on the roster with 1.07 average rating across the last three months, followed by Vadim “Flarich” Karetin with 1.05. The remaining three players all average about 1.00, which is not bad, however, it’s also nothing more than mediocre. On a positive note, no player on HellRaisers is under performing.
We are not too impressed with HellRaisers and their overall quality, but for this match, they are rightfully priced as the favorites. Even though HR failed to impress against stronger CS:GO teams, they were at least somewhat consistent in defeating low-tier teams, which makes us believe they can do it again here.
Not only have HellRaisers proven they can defeat teams of SJ Gaming’s quality, but they also hold a significant advantage when it comes to playtime across the last month.To top it all off, HellRaisers have a better map pool and also hold better results on all of SJ’s best maps.
Clean sweeps are relatively rare in the online CS:GO, but here, are predicting nothing less than a 2-0 win for HellRaisers.
The newly announced OGA Dota PIT 2020 Online tournament for European and CIS teams is set to get underway this Wednesday with an opening fixture between HellRaisers and OG.
Although OG assembled their new roster over three months ago, we have only seen their full lineup in action twice – at the open and closed qualifiers for ESL One Los Angeles 2020 Europe, where they lost only one map across both events. The COVID-19 pandemic has made it impossible for such a diverse team to field a complete squad, so they have been forced to use stand-in players over the past few weeks.
At the WePlay! Pushka League, which concluded last week, OG finished in ninth-10th place with a 2-4 record, but that was no shock given Irakli “W1sh-” Peranidze was filling in and Yeik “MidOne” Nai Zheng was forced to play with 190+ ping. OG have yet to unveil their lineup for OGA Dota PIT event, but Topias “Topson” Taavitsainen has returned to Europe this weekend and is expected to play.
SEE ALSO: BEST DOTA2 BETTING SITES
HellRaisers enter the OGA Dota PIT tournament on the heels of a very shaky run in the Pushka League. While they managed to top their group with a 5-1 record, Alexander “Nix” Levin and co. crashed and burned in the playoffs with losses to Ninjas in Pyjamas and Virtus.pro.
Inconsistency has been the main theme for HellRaisers throughout 2020. In March, Nix and his crew made it to the WeSave! Charity Play finals, only to lose to Nigma (2-3), while they completely underperformed at Parimatch League Season 2, where they finished third following a humiliating 0-2 loss against FlyToMoon.
HellRaisers have proven before that they can exploit the weaknesses of the stronger teams, due largely to the vast experience of Gleb “Funn1k” Lipatnikov and Vladimir “RodjER” Nikogosyan. When it comes to raw quality, however, HellRaisers are somewhat lacking.
These teams met in mid-April at ESL One Los Angeles 2020 – Online: Europe & CIS, where OG came out ahead with a convincing 2-0 win despite fielding Neta “33” Shapira and Sebastien “Ceb” Debs as stand-ins. While they enter this match with a different roster, we can still use that result a strong indicator.
If OG stomped HellRaisers with 33 in the team, they should have no difficulties now that Topson is back in the fold. The Finnish star might be a bit rusty considering he hasn’t played a competitive Dota2 match since February, but his quality alone takes this team to a different level.
Even if we consider the worst-case scenario, where Topson will not be able to play for OG, the outright odds on OG are just too high for us to ignore.
HellRaisers and Winstrike will clash on the battlefield this Thursday in the closed qualifiers for the Rio 2020 CIS Minor Championship. The qualifiers will feature 16 CS:GO esports teams who will duke it out for eight tickets to the Minor tournament, where the top two teams will be awarded New Challenger Status for the Major and the third-placed squad will earn a spot in the play-in stage.
HellRaisers are entering qualifiers billed as one of the favourites to pocket a top-eight finish, however, luck was not on their side in the draw, as they are set to face Winstrike in round one, and possibly forZe in round two.
HellRaisers rebuilt their CS:GO roster back in September when they signed Vadim “Flatich” Karetin, Igor “crush” Shevchenko and Alexander “scoobyxie” Marynych, who teamed up with ?ygimantas “nukkye” Chmieliauskas and Kirill “ANGE1” Karasiow, who is set to celebrate his six-years anniversary with the team on Saturday, March 7. In October 2019, HellRaisers also signed Alexander “Lk-” Lemeshev as their head coach.
Since acquiring a new roster, HellRaisers appeared in several tournaments, but without much success. In October, they crashed out of both WePlay! Forge of Masters Season 2: Online Stage and SECTOR: MOSTBET and later in November had unsuccessful ventures at Qi Banja Luka 2019: European Qualifier and ESL Pro League Season 10 – Europe, finishing 17th-20th and 11th-12th respectively.
ANGE1 and company picked up the pace towards the end of the year, however, when they finished fourth at WESG 2019 CIS and second at DreamHack Delhi Invitational, although they failed to make much noise at IEM Katowice Open qualifiers where they finished fifth-eighth and ended the year by dropping out of LOOT.BET/CS Season 5 due to “unforeseen circumstances” despite securing a playoffs berth.
In January HellRaisers parted ways with scoobyxie and replaced him with former pro100 AWPer Ivan “AiyvaN” Semenets. Shortly after, the Ukrainian squad appeared at DreamHack Open Leipzig 2020: European Open Qualifier, but failed to make it past hREDS in round one, to which they added yet another disappointing run at FLASHPOINT Season 1: European Qualifier in mid-February, finishing at a 25th-32rd place.
Winstrike are entering this bout with an incomplete roster, as they have only three permanent members in Vl��d��sl��v “bondik” N��ch����rchuk, Aleksei “El1an” Gusev and Viktor “Lack1” Boldyrev, who are joined by Aidyn “KrizzeN” Turlybekov as a stand-in player and Abay “Hobbit” Khasenov, who arrived at the team in October 2019 as a loanee from HellRaisers.
Earlier in November, Winstrike also parted ways with their coach Ivan “Johnta” Shevtsov, who left to coach a stack dubbed ProjectX, which later got signed by CR4ZY. As his replacement, Winstrike brought in an experienced Counter-Strike pro Dmitrii “hooch” Bogdanov.
Since signing Lack1 and acquiring Hobbit and KrizzeN, Winstrike produced a mixed bag of results, which include second-place finish at WESG 2019 Central Asia: Kazakhstan, seventh-eighth at WePlay! Forge of Masters Season 2, as well as a silver medal at LOOT.BET/CS Season 5 back in December. In the last two months, however, Winstrike failed to see much success outside top finishes at European Open Qualifiers for DreamHack Open and FLASHPOINT Season 1.
HellRaisers and Winstrike have met once before, back in April 2019 during WePlay! Forge of Masters Season 1: Regular Season, when HellRaisers came out ahead with a commanding 16-5 win. However, we can’t look at that result for this betting preview, considering a lot has changed since. In fact, the only three players who were involved in that fixture and are still with the teams are ANGE1 and nukkye at HellRaisers and bondik at Winstrike.
Comparing the two rosters, Winstrike are in a significantly better form and it’s also worth noting that Winstrike members are averaging 0.11 higher rating compared to HellRaisers. Based on the map pools of the teams, we might see Overpass, where HellRaisers hold a 75% win rate over eight games, while Winstrike won 67% of their six games played on it, but are on a four-map win streak, which suggests they should enjoy a slight advantage.
Odds suggest HellRaisers should be the favourites, but we would like to think otherwise. Not only are Winstrike in better shape and boast with higher rating of their members, but they also field former HellRaiser member in Hobbit, which should give them the needed advantage to edge out a win.
HellRaisers and Nordavind will meet on the battlefield this Tuesday in Week 1 of the European ESEA Season 33: Premier Division, where we will see 20 CS:GO esports teams duke it out for a ticket to the LAN finals and one of the two spots at the Season 33 Global Challenge.
HellRaisers earned their place at the online tournament by finishing 11th-12th at ESL Pro League Season 10 – Europe back in November, marking their first appearance in an ESEA event since the Ukrainian CS:GO team won the Season 21 Europe Finals in May 2016. A lot has changed in the intervening years, but Kirill “ANGE1” Karasiow is still the in-game leader. He is joined by ?ygimantas “nukkye” Chmieliauskas, Vadim “Flarich” Karetin, Igor “crush” Shevchenko, and Ivan “AiyvaN” Semenets, who arrived in December as a replacement for Alexander “scoobyxie” Marynych.
HellRaisers made a short appearance at the DreamHack Open Leipzig 2020: European Open Qualifier, where they crashed out in round one after suffering a 14-16 loss to Helsinki REDS. In late January, HellRaisers also took a swing at the LEGENDS.BET L33T CUP, where they swept Axis twice and Copenhagen Flames to secure a spot in the playoffs.
Nordavind enter ESEA S33 following a successful run through Europe Minor Championship – Rio 2020 Open Qualifiers #2, where the Norwegian squad defeated NoPlan (16-2), IQFIGHTERS (16-6), FATE Esports (16-8), ex-Virtus.pro (16-8) and PACT (2-1) to book a spot in the next stage of Rio Major qualifiers.
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Earlier this month, Ruben “RUBINO” Villarroel and his men also took a swing at the European open qualifiers for the inaugural season of the newly announced FLASHPOINT CS:GO league, but they lost their opening fixture against Team Secret (1-2) and thus crashed out of the event on day one.
The Norwegians saw a fair amount of success in domestic tournaments last year, finishing second at Telialigaen – Spring 2019 and Telialigaen – Fall 2019, third at the UCC Summer Smash and first at both the LOOT.BET Smack My Beach Cup and ESEA Season 32: Advanced Division – Europe.
Unlike HellRaisers, who have made only one change to their roster in 2020, Nordavind have acquired two new members in ex-Gamer Legion rifler Kevin “HS” Tarn and former Heroic AWPer Niels Christian “NaToSaphiX” Sillassen. The latter also played as a stand-in for mousesports at cs_summit 5, where he claimed his first CS:GO LAN title.
HS arrived at Nordavind as a replacement for Haris “H4RR3” Had?i? and NaToSaphiX took over from H?kon “hallzerk” Fj?rli, who joined former Ninjas in Pyjamas legends at the newly formed Dignitas CS:GO roster.
While we agree that HellRaisers are the stronger team, the odds make us believe esports bookmakers slightly underestimate Nordavind.
These two last met at the GG.Bet Chicago Invitational in June 2019, where the Ukrainian squad won 16-8. Since then Nordavind have acquired two new members and HellRaisers have added three new players to their roster, meaning the previous results don’t hold any weight for this betting prediction.
HellRaisers will enter the match with better form than Nordavind, who have played only a few matches with their new core, but the Scandinavian side’s new-look roster is performing well.
Both sides have the same favourite map, Overpass, where HellRaisers hold a 54% win rate in 13 games. Nordavind have won 71% of their seven games played on the map and are also on a five-game winning streak there. Nordavind have a better record on Inferno (70%-40%) and Nuke (71%-44%), but they are at a heavy disadvantage on Mirage (0%-60%), Train (0%-50%) and Vertigo (25%-80%).
Because this will be a best-of-one (Bo1) bout, we expect the teams to stick to what they know and pick Overpass. For that reason, we believe Nordavind will keep the match to within three rounds and maybe even pinch the win.
Modus Unity and HellRaisers will lock horns for the first time in history this Wednesday in week one of the Dota 2 Parimatch League Season 2 Round Robin stage.
Looking back at Season 1 of Parimatch League, HellRaisers snuck through to the LAN Finals with a 3-4 record. In the playoffs they lost to Virtus.pro in round one of the upper bracket but managed to dust themselves off quickly and defeated Team Spirit and jfshfh178 in the lower bracket, thus climbing their way to the grand finals. HellRaisers were no match for Virtus.pro, however, and lost the deciding series 0-3.
Since their last appearance in the Parimatch League back in November, HellRaisers took a swing at DreamLeague Season 13 CIS Closed Qualifiers, where they did not make it out of the group following a 0-1 defeat against Virtus.pro in the tie-breaker. The CIS squad also finished third at WePlay! Bukovel Minor 2020 CIST Qualifiers and crashed out of the Maincast Winter Brawl in the quarter-finals, where the Russians lost to OG Seed.
Following a streak of underwhelming results, HellRaisers opted to rebuild their roster by adding three new players in former Team Unique member Arslan “xannii” Shandjanov, ex-Aachen City Esports player Gleb “Funn1k” Lipatnikov and newcomer Georgiy “Gilgir” Svistunov. The trio replaced Nikita “Elmo” Lomanov, Pavel “bowbowbow” Mostakov and Oleg “sayuw” Kalenbet, who all parted ways with the team on Monday, January 27.
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The new roster made its first appearance in competitive play at the Hainan Master Spring Invitational – CIS Qualifier. There, Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov and the company defeated FlyToMoon, Team Unique, forZe and Cyber Legacy to punch their ticket for the main event, which has been postponed indefinitely due to the coronavirus outbreak in China.
Standing on the other side of the arena will be Modus Unity, who formed in March 2019. Their roster consists of some lesser-known players including team captain Stanislav “��ڧܧڧ���” Yarosevich, Nikita “young G” Bochko, Vladislav “DkFogas” Frolov, Sergey “TSA” Timchenko and Dmitriy “kickeed” Pilyaev.
Since their formation, Modus Unity have made several appearances in minor tournaments and qualifiers. In December 2019, the CIS squad finished second at Mango Tango League Non-Pro Division A and won the Parimatch League S1 Relegation battle with two commanding 2-0 triumphs over Nemiga Gaming and Empire Hope (formerly Imperial Pro Gaming). At the end of the year, Modus Unity also took a swing at Maincast Winter Brawl but without any notable success, besides the 2-0 win over Danil “Dendi” Ishutin’s stack.
Other notable results came earlier in January, where Modus Unity finished eighth-11th in the Hot Price League and fifth-sixth at OMG.BET Cup 2. At both events, ��ڧܧڧ���’s squad failed to make it out of the group stage.
Esports bookmakers have HellRaisers priced as heavy favourites, which is understandable when they are facing a squad built from unproven Dota 2 talent. With that in mind, we can’t really debate whether Modus Unity can win here, but rather if they can cover the +1.5 map line.
If we look at HellRaisers’ results from their last eight best-of-three (Bo3) bouts, we can see that they won six of them and produced a clean sweep in only two – once against Team Unique and once against their academy team. While that might suggest HellRaisers are prone to drop at least one map in their Bo3s, we must take into consideration they defeated teams such as Cyber Legacy, forZe and FlyToMoon, all teams that have defeated Modus Unity.
What’s more is that HellRaisers are on a four-game winning streak, which should give them the needed momentum to deliver the goods. For those reasons, it’s safe to assume HellRaisers are far more likely to cover the line than Modus Unity.
Arslan “xannii” Shadjanov, Georgiy “Gilgir” Svistunov, and Gleb “Funn1k” Lipatnikov have joined the prominent CIS organisation, with Nikita “Elmo” Lomalin, Pavel “bowbowbow” Mostakov and Oleg “sayuw” Kalenbet leaving after short stints.
Xannii previously played for Team Unique and Vega Squadron. While he has enjoyed a few standout performances, he is yet to achieve any notable results in his Dota 2 career so far.
Funn1k is a veteran Dota 2 player and former member of Natus Vincere, where he played from 2013-2015. Since leaving NaVi he has turned out for Team Spirit, LQ, Double Dimension, M19, MEGA-LADA E-sports and Aachen City Esports, albeit without any notable international success.
Out of all arrivals, Gilgir is the biggest enigma. The popular Twitch streamer and content creator has never played on the Dota Pro Circuit, meaning his arrival at HellRaisers will be a completely new experience for him.
Alongside the three new players, HellRaisers also released Kirill “Alagon” Pavlik and appointed Alexandr “Accell” Litvinenko as head coach. Like Gilgir, Accell has no previous DPC experience.
“We fell just short of making it to the Minor in the previous qualifiers. Many were upset, but we didn��t give up. Throughout January, we��ve been putting together a lineup and trying different players, which was mostly on Nix, who I fully trust. The roster comprises both experienced guys and new blood,” said HellRaisers CEO Alex “Magician” Slabukhin.
HellRaisers returned to Dota 2 pro scene in September 2019 with the signing of Alik “V-Tune” Vorobey, Alexander “Nix” Levin, Dmitry “DM” Dorokhin, Ilya “ALOHADANCE” Korobkin and Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov.
The new squad won bronze at WePlay! Reshuffle Madness 2019, finished fifth-eighth at the DreamLeague Season 12 Europe Open Qualifier, fourth at the MDL Chengdu Major CIS Closed Qualifier, and pocketed bronze at DOTA Summit 11, all in less than two months. The team also went on to qualify for the Parimatch League Season 1 playoffs by finishing fourth in the round-robin stage.
Not satisfied, HellRaisers’ management made several roster changes towards the end of November. They released DM, V-Tune and ALOHADANCE, who was benched due to an alleged unwillingness to practice with the team, and signed up Elmo, bowbowbow and sayuw.
The new quintet finished second in Parimatch League Season 1 but failed to qualify for the Leipzig Major after finishing fifth-sixth at the DreamLeague Season 13 CIS Closed Qualifier. HellRaisers also lost their shot at the WePlay! Bukovel Minor after crashing out of the CIS qualifiers in lower bracket finals. That failure was followed by a short-lived appearance at Maincast Winter Brawl, where they lost to OG Seed in the quarter-finals.
After a streak of underwhelming results, HellRaisers opted for another overhaul of their Dota 2 roster and brought in xannii, Funn1k and Gilgir to join Nix and the team’s captain, Miposhka.
HellRaisers Dota 2 roster:
– Alexander “Nix” Levin
– Arslan “xannii” Shadjanov
– Gleb “Funn1k” Lipatnikov
– Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov
– Georgiy “Gilgir” Svistunov
– Aleksandr “Accell” Litvinenko (coach)