Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Counter-Strike:Global Offensive team Gambit Gaming is set to add former Natus Vincere (Na`Vi) in-game leader Daniil "Zeus" Teslenko and Tengri rifler Abay "HObbitt" Khasenov to its lineup in the coming weeks, sources close to the players tell ESPN. Zeus and HObbitt will fill vacant positions left open by the departures of Ivan "spaze" Obrezhan and Dmitry "hooch" Bogdanov, who have parted ways with the team over the past few weeks.
Zeus has been inactive, aside from competing with Team Ukraine in various Olympic-style events, for the past few months since being replaced by Ukranian star Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev on Na`Vi after ELeague Season 1 playoffs in July. Meanwhile, HObbitt has been playing on Kazakhstani team Tengri, which is currently competing in the closed qualifier for Russian tournament Epicenter.
Gambit Gaming currently holds "Legend" status from a previous top eight finish at ESL One Cologne 2016. This will grant it an automatic berth and high seed at the next Valve-designated major tournament, which will occur in Atlanta in January and will be hosted by Turner Broadcasting and WME|IMG's ELeague.
Gambit has had mixed international results since its fifth-eighth placement at Cologne. It lost in the last chance qualifier of ELeague Season 1 to Virtus.pro and took last place, alongside fellow CIS squad Flipsid3 Tactics, at DreamHack Bucharest in September. It also failed to qualify for ESL One New York after a loss to German team mousesports and failed to qualify for ELeague season 2 in the European preliminary rounds.
These results moved Gambit to bench spaze on Sept. 24. On Sunday Oct. 2, the team also released hooch, the player announced on Twitter, in a move that was "not [his] decision."
Gambit Gaming declined to comment on this report.