On the evening of February 16, the eSports organization Natus Vincere announced they are not working with Victor GeneRaL Nigrini anymore. In other words, he got kicked again. The reason for this decision is very simple and reasonable. NAVI completely failed the first season of Dota Pro Circuit 2021/22, taking only fifth place in the regular season. Because of this, the team will not even be able to take part in the regional finals, which will be held from February 18 to 20. Obviously, the team had to make all the possible changes to get back on track. Natus Vincere decided to terminate the contract with GeneRaL since his vision of the game did not coincide with that of other players. Victor himself agreed with this. Now NAVI has 10 days to find a replacement for GeneRaL. While the Natus Vincere players are thinking about who can be invited to the team in the current situation, we decided to prepare our own top of the players who can replace Viktor in the “born to win” camp. Who Natus Vincere will take to replace GeneRaL and who has the most chances to shine in the new team - read in the following topic by Cybersport.Metaratings.ru.
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New changes in Natus Vincere
The last roster of Natus Vincere was formed in September 2021. To many, this decision seemed strange, since teams in Dota 2 are usually assembled after The International, not before it. However, NAVI players said that they managed to put together an excellent line-up, and they would not want to change anyone in it, even if worthy contenders become free after the main tournament of the year. Everything suited Natus Vincere, and such an optimistic approach was rather inspiring.
Unfortunately, since the beginning of the season, Natus Vincere cannot boast of any achievements. The team's best result is 2nd place in the sixth season of Dota 2 Champions League 2021. At the same time, NAVI completely failed during Dota Pro Circuit 2021/22. During the whole season, the team was able to win only three matches, and then against the teams that firmly settled at the bottom of the standings. In this regard, according to the results of the league, the composition of the Born to Win took only fifth place, which did not allow him to take part in the regional CIS final, which starts on February 18.
As we have learned now, immediately after the defeat in the regular season, coach Ivan ArtStyle Antonov left the team. At the same time, he remained at Natus Vincere, but now he will occupy some other position.
Meanwhile, the NAVI roster with GeneRaL managed to lose in the seventh season of the Dota 2 Champions League, taking only 5-6th place in the tournament. Apparently, this was the last straw that prompted Natus Vincere to change the roster. Team captain Aleksey Solo Berezin made a statement, explaining why GeneRaL got kicked out.
Vitya is a great teammate. I think that no one really have doubts concerning his skills. He has a strong character pool, even if he doesn't really fit into this meta. Now there will be a patch, I'm sure that Vitek will shine. It's just that fundamentally different views on the game - first of all, me and him. Therefore, the most obvious solution for a change in the team was this. The remaining four players are ready to continue playing together, looking in the same direction. We have several options for the development of events. Obviously, we need a hard-liner now. We will watch a large number of players to choose the guys who will suit us, who will fit into the team's style of play.
The captain of Natus Vincere specified that there are other options for the development of events, where changes will occur not only in the third position. However, according to Solo, the remaining NAVI players are as motivated as possible and are ready to work on themselves in order to win with this particular roster.
The roster-lock for teams participating in the second season of the DPC will be February 27th. This means that Natus Vincere has only ten days left to find a suitable player for the third position. In the meantime, we decided to put forward a list with our assumptions: who NAVI will take in the place of GeneRaL.
Resolut1on
Last year Roman Resolut1on Fominok played in HellRaisers. At first, things were not very good in the team, but in the second season of the DPC, they began to play at a fairly good level and even managed to reach the first division. However, during the qualifiers for The International 10, the team failed, after which the organization announced a disband and began to reassemble the roster. It was then that Resolut1on played for the last time in a professional Dota 2 team. After a disappointing defeat and a kick, he decided to take a short break in his career.
I won't be playing next DPC season. I decided that I wanted to get out of this 9-year-long crazy marathon of professional Dota in order to look at the situation from the other perspective, reboot and learn to live every day without chasing results. My professional burnout was due to a string of unsatisfactory results. And now the first thing I want to do is to work it out and understand in which direction to move on.
More than six months have passed since then, so now Resolut1on may well return to service. There is nothing to say about the fact that he is ideal for Natus Vincere. Roman played for a long time in Virtus.pro with Alexey and Vladimir, and with Ilya, they are just good friends. Resolut1on will definitely be able to fit into the new team. And as an offlaner, he improved quite a bit during the year of playing in HellRaisers. At the moment, it seems that Resolut1on is the best option for NAVI in the current situation.
Ghostik
Andrey Ghostik Kadyk spent the entire last DPC season playing in Team Empire. It was he who was the leader and captain of the team, who assembled a new squad of young players and was going to lead them to victory. Unfortunately, nothing came of this venture. Team Empire took last place in the regular season and fell into the second division, which, of course, is a failure. In the meantime, rumors have already appeared that only one player will remain in Team Empire after the off-season break. And it's not Ghostik.
Ghostik, like Resolut1on, could be a perfect fit for Natus Vincere. He plays well in third position and at the same time, he has tremendous experience in playing in various lineups. And Andrey had no obvious conflicts with any of the NAVI players. If desired, he would have been able to join the roster of "born to win" without any problems. But, apparently, Ghostik himself thinks otherwise.
Petushara
Vladislav Petushara Kozlovsky became the star of the CIS scene after the last qualifiers for The International, where he reached the grand final as part of Team Empire and almost beat Team Spirit. It was then that this player became known to the general public. During the qualifiers, Petushara played very cool, which attracted attention. It seemed that any club would tear him off with his hands, but in the end, Vlad joined Team Unique.
After some time, the club sold the Dota 2 roster to the rapper, and now Petushara plays in a team called Mind Games. It doesn't have a bad line-up, but it's clearly not very promising. Mind Games is at the bottom of the first division standings and next season has every chance to fly to the second. Therefore, it is unlikely that Vlada keeps something in this team. If an offer comes in, then Petushara will definitely join Natus Vincere. And he, as already mentioned, is a really good offlaner (one of the best in the CIS), so NAVI must consider his candidacy.
AfterLife
Vasily AfterLife Shishkin is another good offlaner who plays in a mediocre team. At the end of the season, Gambit Esports took fifth place in the second division of the CIS, which cannot be called an outstanding result. At the same time, there are no prerequisites for the fact that next season something will change, and the team will play any better.
Despite all this, AfterLife still plays nice and thanks to good relations with Natus Vincere players, he could easily join this team. However, Gambit Esports is unlikely to want to give away a valuable player just like that, and NAVI is now in no position to buy someone. So getting AfterLife into the camp of "born to win" is a big question.
Funn1k
Gleb Funn1k Lipatnikov is a real veteran of the esports scene, which DPC spent the last season in the first division of Europe as part of Coolguys. The team failed, did not win a single game and fell into the second division. Immediately after that, the roster announced a disband, and Funn1k became a free bird.
Theoretically, Gleb can join Natus Vincere. Moreover, once he has already played for this eSports organization. It is not clear what kind of relationship he has with the current NAVI players. But in terms of skill, he is in no way inferior to the same GeneRaL. Frankly speaking, Gleb is not the best option for the "born to win", but at the same time not a bad one. He can be considered for the role of offlaner.
Lil me alone
They say that fate does not exist, but Ilya Lil me alone Ilyuk proves the opposite every time. On the same day, when Natus Vincere kicked GeneRaL, Ilya again announced the search for a team. Moreover, he said that he was ready to play in the third, fourth and fifth positions. Just what NAVI needs.
Last time there was a serious conflict between Ilya and some current Natus Vincere players, but it happened about four years ago so all the players should have forgotten about it long ago. Frankly speaking, the chance that Natus Vincere will invite Lil me alone is extremely small, but it's still possible. Just imagine how much content there would be after that. Yes, and the roster would have turned out far from the worst.
Nightfall
Egor Nightfall Grigorenko is currently playing in Evil Geniuses, so he will not go to Natus Vincere even under the threat of death. He just doesn't need it. However, the regional final of North America starts tomorrow, in which EG participates together with Egor. If the team fails and takes the last or penultimate place, then there is a high probability of changes in the composition. In this case, it is Nightfall that can get under pressure. Then he will be kicked out of the team.
This is where Natus Vincere appears from around the corner, offering the young player a lucrative contract with excellent conditions. In this scenario, Nightfall may well join NAVI and play one or two seasons for this team. And there you look and Vitaliy Save- Melnik will join the “born to win”. This is going to be an interesting team.
