NAVI remove Solo from its Dota 2 roster

The Ukrainian organization Natus Vincere made the first adjustment to its Dota 2 roster following their disappointing performance in TI11. The organization has removed Alexey “Solo” Berezin, the Captain of the team.

Natus Vincere has parted ways with  IGL Alexey “Solo” Berezin, ending his one-year stint with the team. The move comes just days after the end of the team’s unsuccessful 2021/2022 season, which saw them miss out on the biggest and most prestigious Dota 2 event of the year The International 11. The team first missed earning a TI11 direct invite after a poor performance at the regional qualifiers and then fell to the Last Chance Qualifiers.

 

NAVI excelled in the group stage of the Last Chance qualification, taking first place without dropping a single best-of-three match. The playoffs, however, saw a sharp decline in their performance. The team were eliminated after losing to T1 and Xtreme Gaming, effectively killing their chances of attending TI11. NAVI posted a warm farewell on Twitter, but reports claim that its members were unhappy with Solo’s captaining style, which they deemed sometimes rigid.

Is there internal strife behind the move?

CyberSports.ru reported that Solo and NAVI had internal issues and that the team might have broken up even before the TI LCQ. Solo’s captaincy style is reportedly seen by the team as being authoritative, which ultimately led to tension between the IGL and the teammate. According to the report, Solo refused to make compromises, and as a result of his assertive leadership, Ilya “ALOHADANCE” Korobkin departed the squad, supposedly not on good terms.

 

Moreover, many fans noticed Solo’s lack of involvement in picks during the event; instead, it was primarily Georgii “swedenstrong” Zainalabidov speaking with team coach Gennady “GuessWho” Filatov. The reports further claimed that the hope of attending the TI had kept NAVI and Solo together over the past few months. However, it is time for them to part ways now that International 2022 is no longer a possibility.

While his time with NAVI wasn’t particularly successful, the IGL did have a tremendous record playing for Virtus.pro in 2017 and 2018. The Russian Dota 2 player not only led Virtus.pro to ESL One Hamburg 2017 championship title but also conquered the European region to advance his squad to The Internationals 2017, where they placed 5th-6th. The Russian team maintained its dominant play in 2018, taking four consecutive A-tier competitions (ESL One Katowice, ESL One Birmingham, The Bucharest Major, and The Kuala Lumpur Major) to record the team’s most prosperous year in Dota 2 esports to date.

The team received a straight invitation to The International 2018 thanks to their accomplishments on the DPC circuit, which propelled them to the top of the DPC ranking. Again, the team delivered a brilliant performance on the international stage, but couldn’t win their first-ever world championship, finishing in 5th-6th place.

Header: Adela Sznajder/ESL Gaming GmbH