NAVI will switch from a CIS team to an international project ahead of CS2‘s worldwide release, according to the latest reports in this off-season.
NAVI is currently in talks with Ninjas in Pyjamas’ benched in-game leader Aleksib and with GamerLegion’s star player Ivan “iM” Mihai, according to reports by Dexerto and 1pv.fr on June 21. These negotiations were leaked on the same day it was reported that NAVI is also close to signing Apeks’ rifler Justinas “jL” Lekavicius.
Should all these transfers go through, s1mple and b1t would be the only players to remain in NAVI after this off-season. Both of them played a crucial role in NAVI’s success throughout 2021, a period in which they won several tier-one tournaments including the PGL Stockholm Major in November 2021. Rookie Andrij “npl” Kukharsjkyj is reportedly being kicked and long-standing member electroNic is reportedly pursuing a move to Evil Geniuses.
Related: Live Counter-Strike 2023 roster tracker: CS:GO signings and rumors ahead of CS2 release
Aleksib was shot-called for international teams OG, G2, and most recently NiP after his departure from ENCE in 2019. He most recently led NiP to qualify for the BLAST Paris Major in May but has been moved to the bench to open space for the return of Swedish IGL Hampus Poser.
IM, on the other hand, was a relatively unknown player until the BLAST Paris Major. The Romanian rifler was GamerLegion’s best player throughout the $1.25 million event and one of the reasons the tier-two team surprised just about everybody and went all the way to the grand finals. He raced against ZywOo for the MVP award but ultimately saw the French superstar win it after Vitality beat GamerLegion 2-0 to win the Major.
NAVI has just a few days to finalize all these transfers in time for BLAST Premier Fall Groups in July as the roster lock for the competition is due on Thursday, June 22.
