Watson: At TI13 afterparty, Cloud9 gave us time until 12:00 to decide whether we stay or leave Rumors
2025-03-22 06:36:00Gaimin Gladiators player Alimzhan "watson" Islambekov shared details of his move to the new tea,. According to him, Cloud9 put a strict time limit at The International 2024 afterparty. The Dota 2 roster had to decide whether they would stay or not in less than a day. He spoke about that in an interview with Russian content maker KD Cast on YouTube.
We had a team talk after elimination from TI and decided to change Fishman. After that, there was a completely different dialogue at the afterparty: if we don't tell Cloud9 management by twelve [ESN: presumably, midnight] that we want to stay, they will look for others. Many [players] wanted to consider other offers. <...> It turned out that [C9] had already started looking for other players. And after that, Gladiators approached me. We talked, and a couple of weeks later I received a response that I suit them.
[KD Cast: They asked about you before Riyadh Masters]. They only messaged me a few times. They didn't invite me, they only asked, "How are you? What are you doing?" [Did they ask if you'd like to play with them?] No.
Watson finished 5-6th at The International 2024 as part of Cloud9. After the tournament, the team was rebuild without watson and Fishman, and registered for the next event as C9. They later withdrew, and according to their coach Astini, the organization put a deadline for signing contracts. When they couldn't agree on details, Cloud9 canceled the deal. This happened only a week after TI13. The homeless lineup was later signed by Parivision.
Gaimin Gladiators with watson didn't have significant results. Their appearance in the grand final of BLAST Slam #2 was the best after the signing of the new carry. Recently, the team also replaced Melchior "Seleri" Hillenkamp with a stand-in, Arman "Malady" Orazbaev.
