Natus Vincere is putting together a VALORANT team for the first time, the organization announced today. The CIS esports org unveiled the signing of its first player, 17-year-old Russian Kirill “Cloud” Nekhozhin.
Cloud started playing professionally this year and has already attended several VCT events, helping his former team CrowCrowd qualify for the VCT CIS Masters Stage One in March, where they fell in the semifinals to forZe. Na’Vi will continue to build a roster together with Cloud, and even though the organization has a list of potential candidates, the team is also open to trying out any player who’s competed in Challengers or Masters tournaments.
“VALORANT has developed greatly in the world since its launch,” Na’Vi’s COO Aleksey “xaoc” Kucherov said in an official statement. “Although the discipline is still at an early stage in the CIS, things are looking promising. Therefore we want to develop the game in our region. Our goal is to bring as many top-ranked players to the world championships as possible.
“In the next 1-2 months, we will be doing tryouts of different players and watching the results of the VCT qualifiers, after which we will work out the final roster.”
Cloud said he’s extremely honored to become a part of Na’Vi and to have the opportunity to make history with the VALORANT team. It’ll take some time until the team starts competing, but Na’Vi seems eager to challenge some of the most established CIS teams, such as Gambit and forZe.
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