Winstrike Team

Professional esports club with rosters in Counter-Strike, Dota 2 and other games. Participated in renowned global tornaments including The International and CS: GO Majors

In 2018, after four intensive years at Riot Games, I felt need of a new challenge in my life. I've been building esports infrastructure, launching leagues and organizing events my whole career. It was time I launched an esports club. So, I left Riot Games and dived into a new esports endeavor.

That's me presenting Winstrike Team

Together with my partner Jaroslav Komkov, I co-founded a professional esports club Winstrike Team as Chief Operating Officer. I was in charge of the launch, strategy and all day-to-day operations of a new organization. Finance and legal, hiring and people management, team structure, strategic partnerships, business development, esports competitive success and many other areas were under my responsibility.

I built a team of several departments. Content department was in charge of media content creation, interviews, video features, photography and special projects. Communications department was responsible for making our players stars by managing SMM and PR areas. Commercial department was focused on revenue streams. Sports department was achieving the best possible esports results by managing players' motivation, training process, scouting and their overall everyday life.

As our first move, we signed rosters in Dota 2 and Counter-Strike. Right after, our Dota 2 team qualified for The International 2018. We launched huge marketing campaign, presented our logo and uniform in collaboration with Outlaw. It was one of the most vocal esports startups in the recent history of Russia & CIS. Thereafter we signed rosters in various games: Overwatch, Fortnite, FIFA, PUBG and others. Our CS: GO team participated in FACEIT Major London 2018 and IEM Katowice Major 2019. Our PUBG team was playing at PUBG Europe League and FACEIT Global Summit 2019.

We arranged a refined lifestyle of our teams with bootcamps, physiotherapists and psychologists. We created dozens of media assets, attracted multiple sponsors, gained hundreds of thousand followers, launched mobile app and merchandise. Winstrike Team was (and still is) a unique and ambitious project with passionate people in its core.

Logo

The Winstrike logo was inspired by the logo of FlyToMoon team, the first Dota 2 mix we signed into our organization. The logo was basically a rocket, so we wanted to keep the succession. NBA logos were also a source of inspiration for us. Winstrike Team coat of arms turned out very dynamic, recognizable and symbolic.

Visual style

We chose visual style that would match the spirit of our organization: modern, upscale, daring, captivating, an eye candy. But at the same time we needed to properly integrate our sponsors and deliver the message. In my view, we pulled this off successfully.

Winstrike x Outlaw

Outlaw (or 'Аутло' in Russian) is an avant-garde Russian fashion brand, which is very popular among younger generation. They had similar values and mission to Winstrike, so we made a collab as part of our launch campaign. Outlaw created one-of-a-kind uniform for our team in 'underground' style with space-related design. The Cyrillic spelling of Winstrike was pioneering and widely discussed in the industry.

Merchandise

Besides uniform for the pro-players we also created a dedicated Winstrike Team merchandise lineup. The first collection was inspired by the combination of digital space and real life. Each item was an artifact for gaming enthusiasts, but at the same time it was casual enough for everyday life. Made by the players for the players.

Competitive

Winstrike Team rosters earned more than $ 520,000 as prize winnings and participated in more than 50 leagues and tournaments. Among them were the most well-known esports championships in the world, such as The International and CS: GO Majors.

Media

We created enormous amount of content with our players: interviews, sponsors' activations, video diaries, photoshoots etc. One of the main goals for us was to turn our pro-players into celebrities, so we did our best to achieve that.

Credits

Winstrike CEO
Winstrike Agency GM
Winstrike Team COO
Content Manager
Head Managers

Commercial Manager
CS:GO Team Manager
Dota 2 Team Manager
Sports Director
Head of Media
SMM Manager
Videographer
Head of PR
Head of Sales
Sales Managers

Account Director
Account Manager
Event Manager
Arena Manager
Marketing Manager
HR Manager
Head of Legal
Legal Counsel
Head of Administration
CFO
Finance Manager
Senior Accountant
Graphic Designer
Logo Design

Jaroslav Komkov
Lina Komkova
Oleg Sukalkin
Maria Gunina
Adalyat Mamedov
Andrey Kvasnevsky
Marat Vasiliev
Pavel Chuvashev
Sergey Bykovsky
Artem Panchenko
Nikita Erunkov
Yulia Rudakova
Alexander Komkov
Irina Rusakova
Vadim Kerimov
Sergey Kudinov
Maxim Korneev
Yulia Ovodkova
Galina Pavlyukova
Andrey Chaschin
Vlada Khorina
Anastasia Belikova
Eldar Salahetdinov
Igor Serebryakov
Angelina Lunina
Irina Petrova
Fedor Rybasov
Nelya Tarasova
Larisa Koryakovtseva
Roman Bib
Alexander Sidorov