Malik joins Quest Esports as their new offlaner

Quest Esports announced the latest update to the roster, a mere three days before the team competes at the upcoming Riyadh Masters. Abdimalik "Malik" Sailau will join the team as a temporary offlaner, on loan for the team from NAVI. Quest also informed fans that GuessWho will be coaching the team moving forward.

Quest Esports had an active week of updates for their Dota 2 team. They announced the release of their former offlaner Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf, as well as the departure of coach Alexander "Accell" Litvienko. It's two significant changes for the team, just days before they compete in the biggest Dota 2 tournament this year.

Malik is a more conservative offlaner compared to ATF

It's been a meteoric rise for OG's former offlaner. (Credit: OG Esports)

It's hard to talk about Quest's new offlaner without comparing him to ATF, who managed to shine on the team in his short stint with them. Loaned from Nigma Galaxy for the third Tour of the 2023 DPC season, in the two months he played with Quest, ATF managed to place third in the final tour of the DPC, securing a spot at the Bali Major.

At the Major, ATF continued to impress on his signature heroes Timbersaw and Mars. He also expanded his hero pool, with incredible performances on Broodmother and Doom.

Malik has a different playstyle entirely, with a more traditional approach to the role. While ATF focuses on crushing his lane and becoming a one-man army, Malik is more of a team player, with an emphasis on initiating team fights and buying utility items.  The new offlaner has an impressive resume, as he managed to climb from Division II to Division I twice this year on two different teams.

Quest Esports hires GuessWho to replace Accell

GuessWho molded GPK into who he is today. (Source: Quest Esports)

It's not only the starting lineup that is receiving big changes on Quest, as they are also making adjustments to the support staff. After seven months with the team, Accell will be leaving and replaced by GuessWho.

There isn't a lot of information about the team's new coach, apart from some comments made by other pros in the past. GuessWho focuses on developing midlaners and is one of the people responsible for shaping Danil "gpk" Skutin into the player he is today, according to an interview by Alexei "Solo" Berezin.

"Gena [GuessWho] is really great. We've never met before, although he is a long-timer and even played HoN professionally. Maybe he was one of the best in that discipline in CIS, but it was a long time ago. After that, he was manager in Vega Squadron, and later became a coach. If I got it right, he was especially focused on midlaners and trained gpk~ during the TI9 qualifications."

With all the changes to the team just a few days before the Riyadh Masters, it will be fascinating to see how Quest performs after dominating the Bali Major. Will they rise with their new lineup? or did they make a mistake in replacing a couple of critical members? Only time (and watching Riyadh Masters) will tell.

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Feature Image Source: Quest Esports