GuardiaN leaves Na’Vi, enters CS:GO free agency

Legendary AWPer Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovács is back on the CS:GO market. The Slovakian sniper has been released from his contract with Natus Vincere and has officially entered free agency.

In his announcement, GuardiaN said he’s open to “any offers” and that he’s willing to “grind back [his] way to the top level events.” This focus and mentality emulate from the letter he penned for Dexerto in September after he was benched on Na’Vi.

GuardiaN’s second stint with Natus Vincere in late 2019 came to a quick end in early 2020 when he struggled to perform on the AWP for his old side. He was benched in favor of Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy and the AWPing duties were transferred to superstar Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev. GuardiaN says he’s been working on his individual game non-stop since being benched and claims he’s ready to return to CS:GO and break his Major curse.

You don’t have to go too far back to see GuardiaN at his best. During his time with FaZe Clan from late 2017 through 2018, GuardiaN’s AWPing was a pivotal part of that team’s success. Prior to that, he was Na’Vi’s rock for almost four years. He was a top-20 player in the world, according to HLTV, for six straight years from 2013 to 2018.

GuardiaN’s “Major curse” refers to the three separate times he’s reached a Major grand final only to come up short in the final series. This happened in back-to-back Majors at DreamHack Cluj-Napoca 2015 and MLG Columbus with Na’Vi, then with FaZe at ELEAGUE Boston 2018.