Gaimin Gladiators Withdraws from The International

In an extremely odd turn of events, it seems that Gaimin Gladiators will be withdrawing from The International 14, due to begin on September 4th.

The announcement came via a post made by the official TI X account and stated that after talking with the players, they were “unable to come to an agreement with their organisation that would allow them to participate” and that a replacement team will need to be found.

In response to the announcement, Nick Cuccovillo, Gaimin Gladiators’ co-founder and president confirmed that the roster won’t be competing at TI14 due to “some internal matters between the players and the organisation” that made it impossible. He also confirmed that he cannot provide more details because of the legal considerations at this time.

GG’s bundles aren’t available in game

Despite the org posting a tweet about the countdown to Hamburg a mere 5 hours ago, there is some speculation that this isn’t exactly brand new information to the TI organisers. Ever since the team and talent bundles dropped in Dota 2, Gaimin Gladiator’s has been curiously unavailable. This meant that fans were unable to purchase their badges, sprays, loading screens, emoticons or chat wheels.

While at the time, I pretty much wrote this off as Just Valve Things, there may have been more to it than that. There has been no official information given by Gaimin Gladiators themselves but if it’s really the case that they simply couldn’t reach an agreement, this has got to hit hard for a team that has placed 2nd at TI the last 2 years in a row.

Who will replace GG at TI14?

That’s the question everyone is going to be asking right about now. According to the announcement, the organisers are searching for a suitable replacement team. Gaimin Gladiators initially received a direct invitation to TI so there’s no clear cut team to fall back on from a regional qualifier. However, GG play in the Western Europe region so it would make sense for the replacement to be from the same region.

Now if we’re going to cast our minds back to the regional qualifiers for Western Europe, Navi and Nigma Galaxy were the two teams that made it through. But coming in third place was none other than OG, a team that is almost living in infamy at this point for their fall from grace over the last couple of years despite still being the only team to ever win The International twice consecutively. Now may be the time for them to redeem themselves. It sure would be one hell of a narrative.