Will Na’Vi make any roster moves after BLAST Premier World Final?

Over the past few months, Natus Vincere lost their top position in the CS:GO global rankings and fell all the way down to the fourth position. Other teams wouldn’t be that worried about it but for Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, this is unacceptable. And it’s understandable why.

S1mple will likely win the CS:GO player of the year award again and in 2021, his team was by far the best in the world. He and his teammates had worked really hard to achieve this but it didn’t last very long. As soon as Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhaylov was benched, Na’Vi’s success was under threat again.

Na’Vi’s 2022 season in CS:GO

Na’Vi have managed to win a single S-tier tournament in 2022, which shows how much their performance has deteriorated from the year before. Apart from the title they claimed at BLAST Premier: Spring Finals, they mostly failed to achieve their goals.

To be fair, Na’Vi did play in two other Grand Finals at S-tier events this year: PGL Major Antwerp, and IEM Cologne. They also finished in the top eight at five more tournaments:

• IEM Katowice
• ESL Pro League Season 15
• ESL Pro League Season 16
• IEM Rio Major
• BLAST Premier Fall Finals

These results would satisfy most of the other teams, but Na’Vi have a winner’s mentality. They cannot just ignore the fact that they went from winning seven S-tier tournaments plus the Intel Grand Slam in 2021, to winning just one in 2022. When you have the greatest CS:GO player of all time on your roster, you obviously want more.

The weak link

Right now, people suspect, and the statistics pretty much confirm this hypothesis, that the weak link is Viktor “sdy” Orudzhev. He did not play badly since he joined Na’Vi, but the team’s results declined and it’s hard to blame anyone other than him.

Or, to frame it differently, it’s hard to find a way to improve the current roster other than by replacing him. The other four players are among the world’s best at their respective roles and play with exceptional determination.

Just recently, Valerii “b1t” Vakhovskyi surpassed the $1 million mark from tournament prizes at the age of just 19. His stats, as well as those of almost all of his teammates, are incredible. So how can the situation be improved?

Na’Vi’s new experiment

Na’Vi want to experiment with Andrii “npl” Kukharskyi at BLAST Premier World Final and test his abilities. At just 17, this NAVI Junior player seems capable of replacing sdy if everything goes well. But can it, at this competitive level?

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