The squad has been somewhat overlooked since failing to qualify for TI6. The months leading up to that qualifier had been good for them with a 3rd-4th at ESL Manila and a showing at the Manila Major. Their 9th-12th place finish could have been chalked up to having the eventual 1st and 3rd place teams in their group. While they lost to
OG twice, they beat 
compLexity Gaming 2-0 before being eliminated.However,
Team Empire's roster began to fall apart as the summer progressed and they weren't seeing much success... until now.The current roster came together in January and their first big qualifier together has been a success. Their chance may have come thanks to a pair of bad days for
Virtus.pro in which the favourite team lost internet and were apparently DDoSed, but even so Empire's performance came as a pleasant surprise here.A long-awaited victory
The deciding game was a best of three against
Effect (formerly known as Rebels), who also had an impressive run in this qualifier. Effect took the first game of the series, and the next two games were fairly close, but Team Empire came out on top.
Rostislav 'fn' Lozovoi took all the glory in the second and third games of the series, finishing with the same kill score both times (11-2-11), first on Magnus, then on Sniper.CIS Qualifier Playoff round
Team Empire will be up against some tough competition in Shanghai. With the CIS qualifier wrapped up, all the teams headed to the DAC 2017 LAN have been decided. They are:
Evil Geniuses
Team Random* OG Newbee Invictus Gaming VGJ.Thunder LGD.Forever Young iG.Vitality
Team NP Team Faceless* Team Liquid Team EmpireThe DAC main event will take place March 28-April 4th in Shanghai and features a $500,000 USD prize pool.4
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