HellRaisers part ways with Gilgir, add ROdjER to Dota2 team
Just over a month after announcing their new Dota2 roster, HellRaisers unveiled they will be removing Georgiy "Gilgir" Svistunov from the team and replace him with Vladimir "RodjER" Nikogosyan, who will take over number four position for the next set of Dota Pro Circuit qualifiers.
The announcement surfaced earlier on Saturday, March 7, when HellRaisers took on Twitter to unveil RodjER as the new arrival to the team. The experienced Dota 2 veteran will now join forces with Alexander "Nix" Levin, Arslan "xannii" Shandjanov, Gleb "Funn1k" Lipatnikov and captain Yaroslav "Miposjka" Naidenov.
RodjER made his first appearance in the Dota2 competitive scene in December 2013, when he won StarLadder ProSeries Season 8 with Clave Gaming – a team he played for up until March 2014, when the whole roster left for Aware Gaming. In October 2015, RodjER teamed up with Hard'N'Play and later played for Prodota Gaming, GUS Gaming, Flipsid3 Tactics, Skorokhod+4, Rebels and Effect.
In May 2017, RodjER teamed up with Team Empire which marked a breakthrough in his career, as he achieved his first international success, finishing seventh-eighth at The International 2017. RodjER played a pivotal role in Team Empire's success and other teams were quick to spot the immense potential the Russian support holds. It was only a matter of time before RodjER would join a major team and it happened in September 2017, when Natus Vincere signed RodjER as a replacement for Malthe "Biver" Winther in the support role.
With his new team, RodjER went on to achieve remarkable success throughout DPC season, claiming numerous respectable finishes at top-tier tournaments, including a golden medal at Adrenaline Cyber League and WESG 2017 Europe Finals, silver at Midas Mode – Europe and top-four finishes at DreamLeague Season 8 and MDL Macau. Unfortunately, RodjER's venture with NaVi came to a close in January 2018, when NaVi and Virtus.pro decided to swap RodjER with Ilya "Lil" Ilyuk.
With Virtus.pro, RodjER continued to achieve remarkable success in the DPC scene, while also playing for Russian national Dota 2 team. With Russian squad, RodjER won World Electronic Sports Games 2017 and WESG 2018 Russia by OMEN Finals, while also finishing fifth-sixth at The International with Virtus.pro. RodjER remained with Virtus.pro into 2019 and although the Russian squad established themselves as one of the top teams in 2018/19 DPC season, Virtus.pro fell flat at The International 2019, where they finished ninth-12th.
In November 2019, RodjER got released by Virtus.pro and teamed up with Winstrike up until February 19, when the organisation disbanded their Dota 2 roster due to unsatisfactory results. RodjER will now look to relaunch his Dota 2 career with HellRaisers, who acquired him as their new support player.
“Today we announce the replacement for HellRaisers in the Dota 2 department,” read the announcement.
“The team releases Georgy “Gilgir” Svistunov, and Vladimir “RodjER” Nikoghosyan, who previously performed under the Team Empire, Natus Vincere, Virtus pro and Winstrike tags, is joining the team. We are confident in strengthening the squad and look forward to the upcoming matches of our team!”
Although RodjER failed to achieve any notable results since leaving Virtus.pro, his arrival to HellRaisers is a massive move from the Russian squad, who added another proven veteran to their roster alongside Funn1k and Miposhka. What's more, with Miposhka as the team's captain, RodjER won't have to worry about leading the team and instead get a chance to focus on his gameplay and helping the team as a support player.
With a new-look roster and three veterans on the team, HellRaisers show a lot of promise and although they failed to impress in the last few weeks, the expectations will be high for this squad as they venture off into EPICENTER CIS qualifiers, slated to take place later in April.
HellRaisers Dota 2 team is now:
Alexander "Nix" Levin
Arslan "xannii" Shandjanov
Gleb "Funn1k" Lipatnikov
Vladimir "RodjER" Nikogosyan
Yaroslav "Miposhka" Naidenov
