Gaimin Gladiators Eliminate Quest Esports From Riyadh Masters 2023

A controversial elimination match between Gaimin Gladiators and Quest Esports occurred today, where the Gladiators came out on top and eliminated Quest from the tournament.

Game 1

Game 1 started very passively, with both teams looking to find farm and patiently waiting for their item timings. Things started to get interesting at the 35-minute mark when Quest Esports decided to try their hand at pushing Gaimin’s high ground. 

A massive team fight broke out under the Tier 3 tower. In hindsight, the team fight looked pretty decent for Quest, but all five players from the team stopped moving for a few seconds and then disconnected in the middle of the fight, with TA2000’s Terrorblade dying before the pause. 

If the Quest members did not disconnect, it looked like TA2000 could have gotten Sunder off to go back to full health after killing Ace’s Underlord. But because of the crash, he ended up dying instead. After replaying the clip a few times, it looked like he wouldn’t have enough time to cast it anyway.

After reconnecting, No!ob mentions that his full BKB duration was wasted because of the crash, asked the Gladiators to let him live, and that TA2000 shouldn’t have died as he could have used Sunder to go back to full health. Dyrachyo kept saying that Terrorblade would have died anyway and said “no way” in response to No!ob asking not to be killed.

In the end, the fight wasn’t replayed, and right after the game unpauses, Malik’s Mars gets a clean spear onto dyrachyo’s Juggernaut, and the follow-up damage from Quest was enough to get the kill. TA2000, then all chats “FAIR PLAY.”

Despite all of this, the Gladiators could still defeat Quest after a very long team fight at the top area to secure Roshan and end the game.

Game 2

The second game seemed like the Gladiators would quickly sweep Quest and send them out of the tournament, as the reigning champions had a 21,000 net worth lead at 35 minutes until dyrachyo’s huge Medusa got picked off next to Quest’s Tier 2 tower.

Dusa’s death gave Quest a way back into the game, and they could claim the Aegis and cut the net worth lead by half. Another team fight broke out after Quest took Roshan, where they convincingly won the fight and killed off four Gaimin heroes, including the Medusa again.

The game was completely even, but in the 41st minute, TA2000’s Faceless Void got caught hitting a Tier 1 tower. Two Black Holes from Malik were quickly canceled, and a miscalculation from TA2000 didn’t help either. The Gladiators won the fight, and the game completely swung back in their favor. 

After an extended amount of time, the Gladiators could build up a massive net worth lead, and despite some Divine Rapier action from No!ob’s Snapfire, it wasn’t enough to defend, and the Gladiators could end the game.

Here is TA2000's comment after the match:

"In general, the situation on 1 map was very funny, the fight starts, we have 5 comps knocked out in the middle of the most important fight, I was killed, none of us pressed the buttons, and in the end the admin says well you are unlucky guys go next. We were in such a **** just.... happens."

Quest Esports has been eliminated from the Riyadh Masters in 7-8th place and will take home $500,000. What would have happened if they didn’t crash in the middle of the team fight? I guess we’ll never know.