It hasn’t been a good year for the Dota 2 team Natus Vincere. There have been difficulties but now, it seems that they are focused on preparing for the new DPC season. The team has brought in some new players and even a new coach.
NAVI had a good start during the recently concluded DPC season. In fact, they managed to qualify for the Singapore Major. Due to some health concerns, they had no choice but to decline from participating in the Major. Things just started to go down from there.
The Past Season
Despite bringing in Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev, the team only managed to get a sixth-place finish at Season 2 of the Upper Division for Eastern Europe.
To increase their chances of getting to The International 10 through the qualifiers, they signed Akbar “SoNNeikO” Butaev and Vladimir “No[o]ne” Minenko. Although starting at the Upper Bracket, they were later dropped to the Lower Bracket and then promptly eliminated. NAVI had to settle for 5th-6th place.
With this, the future of the team became uncertain and when SoNNeikO left, the entire roster was put on inactive status. Later on RAMZES666, Vladimir “RodjER” Nikogosian, and even coach Andrey “Mag” Chipenko left the team.
Renewed Roster
It turns out NAVI only needed a couple of months to recover and have a new beginning. Two new players have been signed that completed its roster:
- Alik “V-Tune” Vorobey
- Vladimir “No[o]ne” Minenko
- Viktor “GeneRaL” Nigrini
- Ilya “ALOHADANCE” Korobkin (NEW)
- Alexey “Solo” Berezin (NEW)
Support System
It’s not only a new roster as NAVI has also brought in new people for its back-end. Serving as the new manager is Alexander “Lk-“ Lemeshev, who previously worked with Vega Squadron and Team Unique.
Ivan “ArtStyle” Antonov, meanwhile, has been signed as the new coach and general manager. NAVI shared in a statement that ArtStyle was, in fact, responsible for this new roster, and they’ll be starting the monthly boot camp later this month.
There’s no question that the name NAVI has a long history in competitive Dota 2. After all, it was the first team to ever win The International. The question now is whether this new roster can surpass those past achievements and carve their own.
What do you think?
