B1ad3 explains why NaVi did not continue with sdy

After the controversies surrounding NaVi’s terrible elimination from the IEM Katowice 2023, many team members have come out to make different statements.

The first of them was Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyljev himself, who pointed directly at Andrii “npl” Kukharskyi and Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy for being scared on stage. Now, we have team coach Andrij “B1ad3” Ghorodensjkyj explaining why NaVi preferred to play with a rookie than the experienced Viktor “sdy” Orudzhev.

NaVi sees the future with young players

The popular Ukrainian organization, NaVi, had to make a quick and, above all, drastic decision when using sdy and npl as substitutes last season. The team had to decide on one of them, and they did. NaVi decided to keep the young NaVi Junior player, npl, instead of the experienced sdy for the BLAST Premier World Final 2022.

Many fans point out that NaVi preferred the 17-year-old because of sdy’s terrible results during his stint in NaVi. However, even though the player had a 1.00 rating during his time in the organization, that was not why the decision was made. Instead, according to the team’s Head Coach, B1ad3, it had to do with the organization’s philosophy when signing players. B1ad3 said:

“Sdy wanted to stay on a more or less long contract, but we were looking at the future with young players, not him. I don’t think he will develop much more. He might improve a little bit, but he didn’t fit our style with his playing skills and his style. We would never sign a player over 25. Of course, he would have had a chance if he had played incredibly and not made mistakes. Of course, we would have kept him.”

Npl could be NaVi’s future

Navi’s Head Coach stated that npl has all the potential to progress and become a great player. Let’s remember that he is the second player in the organization’s history who managed to keep a spot in the team’s main lineup after Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy did it in 2020. Now, b1t is one of the best players in the world at his position, and B1ad3 hopes that npl will follow in his footsteps.

No doubt we should mention that G2 Esports wunderkind Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov was part of NaVi Junior in the past. However, B1ad3 also highlighted that at the time (2021 season) NaVi dominated the scene, and with s1mple’s outstanding AWP, the young Russian didn’t fit the team.

The 17-year-old NaVi managed to secure a spot in the BLAST Premier Spring Final and reach the semifinals at IEM Katowice 2023. So far, npl has a rating of 0.93, according to HLTV, after 26 maps played in 2023 with NaVi.

On the other hand, npl will also be able to take much more experience when NaVi plays ESL Pro League S17 during February and March 2023. Let’s remember that NaVi is in group D against very good teams such as Liquid, Astraslis, ENCE, Team Spirit, Rare Atom, and forZe.

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