Na'Vi announce new international CS line-up
Ukrainian esports organisation Natus Vincere (Na’Vi) has announced its new Counter-Strike:Global Offensive (CS:GO) roster, forming an international line-up around its superstar player Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev.
New beginnings
Last week, rumours surfaced that North American esports organisation Cloud9 was interested in the power duo of Denis "electroNic" Sharipov and Ilya "Perfecto" Zalutskiy. At least from Na’Vi’s side, the exit of the two, as well as Andrij "npl" Kukharsjkyj's departure from the active roster, has now been confirmed, marking the end of an era for one of the game’s most influential teams.
During 2021, Na’Vi’s team had been the most dominant team of the year, winning some of the most prestigious tournaments of the year in the PGL Major Stockholm in 2021 and the Intel Grand Slam Season 3.
Replacements had to be found and the organisation landed on Lithuanian rifler Justinas "jL" Lekavicius, entry Ivan "iM" Mihai, and polarising in-game leader Aleksi "Aleksib" Virolainen.
Aleksib’s recent career history has been a talking point in the community. Joining Na’Vi, the Finn has now gone through four different top organisations in approximately one and a half years, playing for brief stints with G2 Esports and Ninjas In Pyjamas with mixed success.
Still with the organisation is the major-winning head coach Andrii “B1ad3” Gorodenskyi, who had previously spoken highly of Aleksib’s abilities as a leader before.
While it remains to be seen how this move to an international roster will work out for Na’Vi, the move could be considered a solid assortment of the available talent with the potential to make the loss of electroNic and Perfecto hurt less.
The full team looks as follows:
- Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev
- Aleksi "Aleksib" Virolainen
- Valerii "b1t" Vakhovskyi
- Justinas "jL" Lekavicius
- Mihai "iM" Ivan
- Coach: Andrii "B1ad3" Gorodenskyi