Dev1ce is finally back in Astralis’ Counter-Strike roster after months and months of rumors surrounding his transfer from NiP.
The Danish sniper spent a lengthy time on Ninja’s bench due to mental health reasons.
Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz has spent a year of his career recovering from both depression and anxiety, and will now be a part of the active roster alongside former major-winning teammates, Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander and Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth.
In a Danish interview with TV2, which Dot Esports has translated, the Dane said he leaned on several close friends to work through his health concerns. “I have had a lot of help from a lot of talented people, and they have given me a stable base that I can fall back on.”
The sniper said that, due to his “rather long sick leave and a difficult course of stress at the end of my period in NiP,” he had a period dedicated to self-focus. He shared his “anxiety and depression,” paired with periods of struggling to sleep, made his out-of-work life difficult. The struggles eventually pushed him to take a leave of absence in Counter-Strike.
The time off means his time at Astralis won’t be the same, dev1ce says. ”I have a handle on how to handle various symptom and I’m not worried about it at all.”
Now that he’s shifting back to Astralis again, Dev1ce will have to prove himself once more. His move to NiP midway through 2021 was seen as a chance to show that he could perform without the help of his Astralis teammates, which he did.
Despite his performance on both teams, the sniper hasn’t played a match since NiP beat Godsent in Dec. 2021, but he has been grinding FPL in his downtime.
Once known as “Mr. Consistent”, dev1ce’s reintegration into Astralis has been seen as a fix for the Danish roster’s modern troubles. The only performing player on the squad is Benjamin “blameF” Bremer, so if he can bring back his old form, dev1ce will be a welcome addition.
With Astralis failing to qualify for the IEM Rio Major, there are roughly three weeks for the roster to practice before the Elisa Masters Espoo 2022 starting Nov. 16.
