Did you watch IEM Katowice last week? Of course, you did, no true CS:GO fan would miss it. It was the tournament full of unexpected moves and wins (for some more than for others), especially since none of the biggest names finished on top, but Russian underdogs Gambit Esports bagged the final win instead.

Many news outlets have dubbed them the “surprise winners”, but how accurate is that, really? It would be something you could’ve thought if you’ve been paying attention only to the biggest names in CS:GO, but just one look at Gambit’s latest results reveal that this scenario, in which they win 1 million dollar prize pool tournament, isn’t so far off.

Russians Dominate And Gambit Esports Are The New Leaders

They’ve beaten their fellow countrymen who have been getting all of the international attention in the last few months, Virtus.pro. They’ve also beaten many more, practically every big name you can think of.

And it seems as though something is in that Russian water since the Russian trifecta has been dominating the world of CS:GO. Because besides the mentioned authoritative rosters, let’s not forget Na’Vi who are still second in the HLTV’s world rankings (Virtus.pro currently third and Gambit rose to 4^th from 19^th place where they resided mid-February). One more addition to the fact that CIS region teams are on fire is Spirit, team currently placed 8^th and is being called the “CS:GO sensation”. The reason behind it is their very successful run at the IEM Katowice, where they’ve beaten G2, Heroic and Astralis, only to be stopped in semi-finals by their regional foes and the biggest stars of the moment, Gambit Esports.

This is the highest ranking for Gambit in their history and they have been grinding and working their way up in CS:GO since 2016, although not without disruption. Their most successful year was 2017 when they famously won PGL Major Krakow, but they’ve been struggling ever since. In October last year, they’ve made a big change and it seems to finally be the change for the (much) better: they’ve promoted their Youngsters roster and made them their main roster. Since their main CS:GO team has practically been inactive for more than a few months, and since their young academy roster has been proving themselves on the world stage, it was a somewhat logical move.

How Did They Manage To Do This?

But how did they manage to win arguably the most popular tournament in CS:GO all of a sudden? Well, many people would probably firstly mention Hobbit aka Abay Khassenov, team’s captain and the only Kazakh among the Russians. He was there for all of the team’s biggest wins, including the last one, and he is certainly the backbone of the operation. Also, his young teammate, 19-year-old AWPer Dmitry sh1ro Sokolov, won the title of the IEM Katowice’s MVP, because of his crazy stats (he was at the top of five different leaderboards), but also because of his consistent attribution throughout the whole tournament.

Since this new Gambit Esports team (formed of Gambit Youngsters and Hobbit) has basically just entered the big scene a few months ago and they are now already 4^th in the world after winning the biggest tournament of the year (they’ve also entered as the last seed, by the way), it’s safe to say that everybody should start paying attention to them.

Their next test will be ESL Pro League Season 13, so we’ll soon see how things in this highly ambitious and flourishing roster develop. It starts in only a few days so pay close attention and play along for free on our Pick6.