Natus Vincere has released a statement that team coach Andrii "B1ad3" Gorodenskyi will play in place of team star Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev in Sydney.
The best player in the world in 2022 will miss the first major CS2 lan. What is interesting is that the statement does not state the reason why s1mple will miss the tournament, which is why we are left to speculate whether it is an injury, personal absence, potential internal problems in the team, or the most extreme reason - s1mple's departure from the team, about which there have been no rumors so far, so this theory seems the least likely.
S1mple has spoken publicly about his dislike of CS2 on several occasions, which has caused a public outcry, and whether this is in any way related to the unexpected change in the team is anyone's guess.
The sniper role will be taken by Justinas "jL" Lekavicius, a newcomer to the team who joined Na'Vi three months ago.
IEM Sydney kicks off on Monday October 16th, and a total of 16 teams will battle it out for a prize pool of $250,000 and the first ever LAN CS2 title. Na'Vi came to the tournament as one of the favorites, but now they will have an extremely difficult task in a weakened squad.
