During one of ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023’s commercial segments, Mira "Ephey" Riad sat down with Team Liquid players Michał "Nisha" Jankowski and Aydin "iNSaNiA" Sarkohi and Gaimin Gladiators’ Melchior "Seleri" Hillenkamp and Quinn "Quinn" Callahan. During the interview, they talked about a range of topics and memories from Bali Major 2023.
However, when Ephey asked iNSaNiA if there were any teams that he wanted to see fail, iNSaNiA jokingly replied that he prays for “Gaimin Gladiator’s downfall every waking minute.”
iNSaNiA’s Prayers Against Gaimin Gladiators Answered?
During the ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 Day 5, ahead of the Team Liquid vs BetBoom Team series, two Team Liquid players and two Gaimin Gladiators players sat down with Ephey to talk about various topics. However, one particular question from Ephey allowed players to give some very interesting answers.
She asked the Team Liquid players, “Are there teams that you look at and it would be so funny to watch them fail, or do you not have that?”
Replying to this, iNSaNiA laughed and jokingly said, “I pray for their [Gaimin Gladiators] downfall every single day. Yesterday they lost game 1 against iG [G2.iG] and I was like ‘Yeah! Their mentality sucks, it's over yeah! You know? They're out. We're gonna play them tomorrow.’”
iNSaNiA finished his sentence and joked by saying, “I pray for their [Gaimin Gladiators] downfall every single waking minute.”
It seems like INSaNiA’s prayers were finally heard as Azure Ray managed to pull off a miraculous reverse sweep at the grand finals of the ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 and claim the title as its own, denying Gaimin Gladiators the last win of 2023 and its seventh title of 2023.
Team Liquid and Gaimin Gladiators can easily be named the biggest rivals in Dota 2 of this year. Both the teams went head to head in the grand finals of four tournaments in 2023: The Lima Major 2023, DreamLeague Season 19, ESL One Berlin Major 2023, and Bali Major 2023.
Although Liquid managed to reach the finals of these four tournaments, Gaimin Gladiators always emerged victorious and denied Team Liquid the championships in all of them. Notably, Gaimin Gladiators also knocked out Team Liquid from The International 2023 during the lower bracket quarter-final.
This is not the first time Team Liquid has joked about its love-hate relationship with Gaimin Gladiators. Earlier, when Neta "33" Shapira joined the ranks of Team Liquid, Samuel "Boxi" Svahn of Team Liquid playfully told 33 that the first step of being a part of Team Liquid is to hate Gaimin Gladiators. "Anyway, the first step of joining Team Liquid is hating Gaimin Gladiators," Boxi playfully remarked.
