NAVI’s sdy to remain in CS:GO lineup until at least November

Ukrainian rifler Viktor “sdy” Orudzhev will be Natus Vincere’s fifth CS:GO player throughout the upcoming Major cycle. The organization said today that the former MAD Lions and Team Spirit member will remain until at least the end of IEM Rio Major in November.

Sdy was called in to replace Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhaylov after the former in-game leader was benched due to “high reputational risks”, following the team’s runner-up finish at PGL Antwerp Major. Since then, sdy has attended two events under the NAVI banner and helped them to win BLAST Premier Spring Final in June and finish in second place at IEM Cologne.

The former MAD Lions and Team Spirit player has played fairly decent in those two events, despite not contributing too much in terms of fragging output. Sdy, however, took some difficult spots and consistently got multi-kills that netted rounds that NAVI would otherwise lose.

“The next tournaments are BLAST, EPL, and the next Major and we’re planning to keep sdy for these and then decide what to do,” NAVI’s head coach Andrey “B1ad3” Horodenskyi said, pointing out that sdy’s long-term status with the team still depends of his performances.

B1ad3 is confident that if sdy manages to improve his game and adjust to the team’s playstyle, NAVI will be able to win tournaments in the remainder of the season. The CIS powerhouse next event will be the BLAST Premier Fall Groups, in which they were drawn into the same group of G2, Team Liquid, and Complexity.