End of an Era for Russian LoL Royalty

On June 4th 2013 it was officially announced that Support player  Edward "Edward" Abgaryan had left Gambit Gaming, a move which marked the end of an era for competitive League of Legends.  Over their 19 months playing together the five man line-up of  Darien,  Diamondprox,  Alex Ich,  Edward and  Genja, had amassed over 378,000 USD in prize money won, been victorious in five offline events and never placed below fourth in their 12 offline tournaments played.

Once considered the world's best team, and one which had shifted the course of meta-game a number of times, Gambit was still considered one of Europe's top two teams and an elite contender on the international scene.  With Edward's departure the European scene lost its greatest ever five man line-up and the world lost one of the all-time great line-ups to have played competitive League of Legends.

This is the story of five Russian players who rose up as underdogs to the top of the European scene, dominated all challengers for a span of half a year and then managed to change with the times and passing of the meta-game, still retaining their spot as one of the world's best through to the end of their time together.  This is the story of LoL's Russian royalty.

Gambit Gaming's D4rker NOT confirmed to stay on team after DH

While Gambit Gaming's former teammate "D4rker" will be assisting the team in Dreamhack, there's no mention of him staying with the team after Dreamhack ends. After Edward has made the shocking move from Gambit Gaming over to North American team "Curse Gaming", The team has picked up "D4rker", a former teammate for the team back in their "Moscow 5" era. While he will be accompanying them for the first week of LCS at Dreamhack, there are no claims that he will stick with the team afterwords. Here's a quote directly from the statement after Edward departed from the team:

With only eleven days left until the start of LCS EU Summer, we have begun to search for candidates for a vacant support role. As of now we haven't signed a new player, but we have started practicing with Andrey "Darker" Plechistov. Should we manage to prepare his visa in time, he is going to represent us at LCS EU DreamHack - the first stop of LCS EU Summer, taking place in Sweden from 15th to 17th of June.

We've also received word from an unnamed source that he is not confirmed as a fifth, even though that is what is listed from LoleSports. The future of Gambit Gaming's roster as a full entity is still uncertain.

Edward leaves Gambit Gaming