HellRaisers guts Dota 2 roster, looks to rebuild around Lil

Fariha Bhatti Published 14/11/2020

CIS organization HellRaisers has decided to part ways with three members of its active Dota 2 roster. After a series of disappointing results, the team has benched mid-laner Arslan “xannii” Shadjanov and offlaner Gleb “Funn1k” Lipatnikov, and released hard support Rinat “KingR” Abdullin.

After a decent start to the season HellRaisers has seemingly hit a wall, posting consistently poor results over the last few months. This is the fourth roster change for the team in the last three months. KingR’s release comes just a little over two weeks into his stint with the organization. On the other hand, Funn1k and xannii were a part of the roster HellRaisers announced in January. Both have been benched and put up for transfer, meaning the organization is actively taking offers for the players from other organizations.

While HellRaisers has bounced in and out of Dota 2 over the years, the team isn’t going away for any length of time. HellRaisers CMO Alex Slabukhin released a statement that the team will be coming back before long.

“What does this mean? Now we will build a roster with Nix and Lil and over the last week there are already different options, now there is a discussion. I hope to present the lineup soon,” Slabukhin said.

The latest iteration of the team has performed very poorly, coming in plast place in both Dota Summit 13 and Epic League Closed Qualifiers. For a relatively prominent organization, these results were unacceptable.

The team will now focus on building its roster around captain Alexander “Nix” Levin and former Virtus.pro star Ilya “Lil” Ilyuk moving forward. Lil himself joined the team a little over a month ago, but his experience on Dota 2’s biggest competitive stages will be invaluable if HellRaisers wants to climb back to the top. Announcements regarding new additions to the team should appear in the near future.

Fariha Bhatti

About Fariha Bhatti

Fariha Bhatti is a long-time gaming writer who loves competitive FPS games and slots with particularly fun themes. She got her start playing classic games developed by SNK, from legendary fighting game series The King of Fighters to challenging platform franchise Metal Slug. She now spends most of her time playing Valorant and Counter-Strike 2 while working her way through new slot releases to find her next favorite. Fariha has been published at PCGamesN, TalkEsport and ONE Esports.

View full profile

Read Also

Dota 2

Yandex to repeat?: BLAST SLAM VIII preview, predictions, and more Michael Hassall If you can believe it, we’re already on the eighth edition of BLAST SLAM, as BLAST SLAM VIII kicks off tomorrow (Sep. 29) pitting 16 of the world’s best Dota 2 teams against each other in what promises to be the first big challenge of this young season. Let’s face it: At PGL Wallachia, we were missing a lot of the heavy hitters. No TI15 champs, no PARIVISION, not BetBoom, ...

Dota 2

Unstoppable Yandex crush NAVI in one-sided PGL Wallachia finals Michael Hassall Team Yandex has swept the grand finals of the PGL Wallachia Season 9 Dota 2 tournament, defeating Natus Vincere (NAVI) in a 3-0 drubbing this past weekend (Sep. 27). As predicted, the revitalized Yandex, hot off the signing of former Team Falcons star Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf, crushed their youthful opponents in a three-game sweep in the best-of-five finals. Here’s how it happened: After upsetting the star-studded LGD Gaming roster (albeit ...

Dota 2

Team Yandex to win it all? PGL Wallachia Season 9 Finals preview and predictions Michael Hassall The first big event after TI15, PGL Wallachia Season 9, wraps up this Sunday, Sep. 27, and it’s set to be a hell of a show. After a solid week of action, with some surprise eliminations along the way, we’re down to just three teams from the original 16. Team Yandex, LGD Gaming, and Natus Vincere (NAVI) remain, having battled through some big upsets to get there. Yandex are hot ...

Dota 2

MidOne to Play for Team Liquid at BLAST Slam 8, Replacing Nisha: Permanent or Stand-in? Owen Harsono Like most other Dota 2 teams, Team Liquid have also undergone roster changes after The International 2026, replacing Ace for Wisper. However, a swap in offlaners wasn’t the end, as veteran mid-laner MidOne has been registered under the team ahead of BLAST Slam 8, taking Nisha’s spot. Is MidOne only acting as a stand-in, or is this going to be a permanent move? Here’s what we know. On September 25, ...

Dota 2

PGL Wallachia Season 9 Playoffs preview and predictions Michael Hassall PGL Wallachia Season 9 is the first major tournament since the 2025/2026 Dota 2 season came to its conclusion at TI15, and with the roster shuffle still, well, shuffling, and top teams skipping the event while they get things finalized, it’s been an unusual tournament so far. With some surprising names in the playoffs (especially if you’ve been following the scene for the rest of the year) and the absence ...

Dota 2

ESIC hand down ruling in EWC Dota match-fixing case: Lifetime ban for coach as DarkMago gets a nickel Michael Hassall South American Dota 2 player Gonzalo "DarkMago" Herrera will be banned for five years from competitive Dota 2, with his coach Juan "Vintage" Angulo banned permanently, following the results of an The Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) investigation. ESIC handed down the findings and rulings from its investigation into match-fixing allegations leveled at members of South American Dota 2 team PlayTime during the Esports World Cup on Sep. 10, in a ...

News

Polystrike Turns a Dota 2 Mod Into a Standalone Tactical Shooter Hannan Mundia After the community-made mod found success within the community, developer and publisher Robin Entertainment has decided to turn Polystrike into a proper standalone game. Community-made mods of games finding success within the respective game’s community is nothing new. However, only a handful of those mods are able to go on and become a standalone game. One of the more recent examples is The Forgotten City, which started as a mod ...