NAVI has drastically changed its longtime brand identity as a Ukrainian or CIS team in Counter-Strike on June 30 with the signings of three international players—the Finnish in-game leader Aleksib, the Romanian rifler Ivan “iM” Mihai, and the Lithuanian rifler Justinas “jL” Lekavicius—for CS2‘s release this summer.
The incoming trio will play alongside the only two Ukrainian players left, the s1mple, the GOAT, and b1t. Aleksib, iM, and jL replaced longtime members electroNic and Perfecto, who are on their way to move to Cloud9 according to reports, while the future of youngster Ukrakinian rifler Andrij “npl” Kukharsjkyj remains unclear.
Not every CS:GO fan has seen the changes NAVI promoted with optimism due to the radical change of forcing s1mple and b1t to communicate in English all of a sudden, Aleksib’s lack of titles since he departed ENCE in 2019, and the uncertainty around iM and jL’s capabilities to deliver consistent results against tier-one opponents as they did at the BLAST Paris Major in May.
But there’s at least one specialist in favor of this new project. Jacob “Pimp” Winneche, one of the most renowned CS:GO analysts in the world, is excited to see how this unprecedented international lineup will unfold and thinks this is a matter of make or break for Aleksib.
“Aleksib now has three quality rifle players that all have an aggressive element to their play,” he said on a June 30 video. “I actually love this lineup. I think it has a lot of potential, and I think Aleksib has the players right now, and there’s no excuse whatsoever for him not to make this work.”
Related: Live Counter-Strike 2023 roster tracker: CS:GO signings and rumors ahead of CS2 release
Pimp wasn’t the only professional CS:GO analyst to weigh in on NAVI’s roster changes, but he was perhaps the only one that is confident about this new project. Other specialists like Mathieu “Maniac” Quiquerez and Sudhen “Bleh” Wahengbam seemed more curious and preferred to not share their opinions right now.
“I have so many questions, the least I can say is that curiosity is through the roof on that one,” Maniac wrote, after raising several question marks. “Of all the lineup changes this is the one that piques my interest the most, followed by Cloud9’s,” Bleh wrote.
NAVI will play their first professional tournament with Aleksib, iM, jL, s1mple, and b1t at the BLAST Premier Fall Groups. The 12-team event will run from July 13 to 23.
Of course, one tournament is insufficient to gauge performance, but it will give us a more solid idea of what direction NAVI’s first international project in CS since the organization was founded in 2009 is going.
