Photo via BLAST Premier

Natus Vincere parts ways with CS:GO stand-in sdy and temporarily promotes academy player

What is next for NAVI?

Ukrainian CS:GO rifler Viktor “sdy” Orudzhev has parted ways with Natus Vincere today following a long stint as a temporary stand-in for former in-game leader Boombl4.

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It’s unclear at this moment who NAVI will sign to replace sdy permanently. As of now, the organization added its NAVI Junior player, Andrii “npl” Kukharskyi, to the main roster, who will be a full-time player of the org at IEM Katowice 2023 and other January events. Npl already participated in a few NAVI matches during BLAST Premier World Final 2022, though he only produced a 0.67 rating during the three maps at the event, according to HLTV.

The organization is avoiding signing new Russian players since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 and is trying, instead, to focus on the Ukrainian pool of pros. The organization has an academy team full of Ukrainians and one of them could make their way to the first team if NAVI chooses to follow what teams like MOUZ did this year.

Although sdy didn’t come to take the in-game leadership in NAVI, he did play a more supportive role in his stay with the CIS powerhouse rather than being set up to get multi-kills all the time like s1mple and b1t.

Overall, sdy played eight tournaments with NAVI, including BLAST Premier: Spring Finals 2022, where the team claimed first place. He was also a part of the second-place journey during IEM Cologne 2022, for example.


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Leonardo Biazzi
Staff writer and CS:GO lead. Leonardo has been passionate about games since he was a kid and graduated in Journalism in 2018. Before Leonardo joined Dot Esports in 2019, he worked for Brazilian outlet Globo Esporte. Leonardo also worked for HLTV.org between 2020 and 2021 as a senior writer, until he returned to Dot Esports and became part of the staff team.
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Mateusz Miter
Polish Staff Writer. Mateusz previously worked for numerous outlets and gaming-adjacent companies, including ESL. League of Legends or CS:GO? He loves them both. In fact, he wonders which game he loves more every day. He wanted to go pro years ago, but somewhere along the way decided journalism was the more sensible option—and he was right.