S1mple is worried about Na’Vi’s communication

Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev was recently asked about his team’s new roster and how he thinks they will do. The only thing that seems to worry him is how they’ll communicate, which is understandable given Natus Vincere’s long history of using just Ukrainian and Russian players.

Over the years, s1mple has had many teammates. He, of course, is irreplaceable and easily the biggest reason why Na’Vi became such a strong organization in CS:GO. But the rest of the squad can be changed.

Roster changes

In the team’s most recent roster transformation, three players were removed.

• Denis “electroNic” Sharipov
• Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy
• Andrij “npl” Kukharsjkyj

Arguably, the third of these players should have been removed because he was too young and inexperienced to compete alongside someone like s1mple. But the other two are highly skilled, so it’s a bit strange that Na’Vi decided to remove them. Perhaps the fact that they are Russians has something to do with the decision. Or perhaps not.

What is certain is that their place was taken by three players from three different countries: Finland (Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen), Lithuania (Justinas “jL” Lekavicius), and Romania (Ivan “iM” Mihai). This means that Na’Vi is now an international team that will be forced to communicate in English at all times. And the question is: can this work?

Welcome 🙏 https://t.co/xrMadUcfHX

— Sasha (@s1mpleO) June 30, 2023

Why Na’Vi are likely to succeed

We’ve already seen Team Vitality competing with an international roster and they didn’t seem to have that many problems. And keep in mind that French players are not exactly in love with English either. Ukrainians may not speak it very well, but they’re not the only ones.

In s1mple’s case, we’ve seen offering interviews in English over the years and he seems to be doing fine. If his teammate, Valerij “b1t” Vakhovsjkyj understands the language as well as he does, there shouldn’t be any issues.

It’s not yet clear how well jL speaks the language. We do know, however, that both Aleksib and iM understand it very well.

The language barrier might be an issue in the first few months, but the raw talent of this Na’Vi roster is so high that it will likely more than compensate for this deficiency.

Many believe that iM has the potential to be almost as good as s1mple. As for Aleksib, he’s already demonstrated his skills as an IGL. He just didn’t have a strong enough team to implement his plans to perfection.

Header: Natus Vincere