The renowned Counter-Strike mastermind, Andrij "B1ad3" Ghorodensjkyj, has been scratching his head for a long period of time due to the evident and quite obvious problems at Natus Vincere.

Before the start of the 2023 season, NAVI revealed that they were promoting academy player Andrij "npl" Kukharsjkyj to the main squad, which meant a farewell to the more experienced Viktor "sdy" Orudzhev.

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A decision, NAVI’s head coach has opened up about in a recent [link:{"url":"https://players.com.ua/news/eksklyuzyv-andrij-b1ad3-gorodenskyj-pro-prychyny-porazky-v-pivfinali-pik-formy-sdy-ukrayinskyj-kibersport-i-vijnu/","isNewTab":true,"text":"interview "}]with players.com.ua. Here B1ad3 explains that they saw no “prospects” in sdy despite him wanting to sign a longer contract.

- We didn't see prospects in him, we see prospects in young players. (…) He can get a little better somewhere, but he doesn't fit our style or skills in the game, we still need something else.

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B1ad3 sitting behind his two superstars (electronic and s1mple)

Further on in the interview, B1ad3 comes along why NAVI decided to pick up sdy as a stand-in following the departure of Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhaylov in May last year, saying that NAVI won’t take a player a player who has turned 25 on a permanent contract.

- It was the best option at the time, B1ad3 said. 

- Everything is simple here, there should be no illusions. We would never take a player who is 25+ on a permanent basis. Of course, he had a chance, if he played incredibly well and everything was great, he made no mistakes and everything was great, of course, we would have kept him.

B1ad3 then continues to talk about NAVI’s strategy on the breeding of young CS:GO talents and how to implement them on their star-studded main team – alongside the likes of s1mple and electronic.

- The organization and we in the team realized that we need to have a very strong player in two years, for example, and we decided to give this chance to young Andriy [npl], who will be able to progress.

- In general, NAVI works in such a way that we give young players a chance. First it was Valeriy [b1t], it could have been m0NESY if we hadn't dominated, but we really dominated and there was no room for him.

You can read the entire interview with B1ad3 here (in Ukrainian).

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Natus Vincere

NAVI is out of IEM Katowice after a semi-final loss to Heroic. But with wins against Cloud9, Team Liquid, and Outsiders earlier in the tournament, there were also a lot of good things to carry forward for the team. 

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And while all eyes are on the new addition of the team, Andrij "npl" Kukharsjkyj, it was a couple of the more experienced players in Denis 'electroNic' Sharipov and Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiy that heavily underperformed in the semi-final. After the match Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyljev commented on the performance in the match against Heroic, and the Ukrainian did not hold back.

- Overall (the tournament) was nice, but on stage, some of the players still shit in their pants. The way some players played and communicated today was just awful to watch and hear.

The NAVI captain also gave praise to Heroic, who outclassed NAVI on the day.

- Today we played a much better team 100%. Individually they played really, really good and hit some insane headshots, but as a team, they just rolled us. They snowballed us on their T-side.

NAVI's next tournament is ESL Pro League, where they will play in Group D.

s1mple

electronic

B1tGOD

The young and talented NAVI player, Andrii “npl” Kukharskyi, gave a post-match interview following the team’s 2-0 victory over Liquid at the IEM Katowice 2023 tournament. The victory secured their spot in the upper final of Group A, which kicks off today at 16:00 (CET).

In the interview, npl talked about his personal development as a player since he joined the main squad in the beginning of this year. Despite his young age of just 17 years, npl has already made a name for himself in the world of competitive Counter-Strike.

The 17-year-old NAVI player remains humble and focused on improving his skills. In the interview, he stated, “I still have a lot of work to do”. He recognizes the need for continued growth and development, both as an individual player and as a member of the NAVI team.

Watch the full post-match interview with NAVI’s npl right here:

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b1ad3 reveals why NAVI picked npl over sdy going into 2023

s1mple: On stage some players still sh*t in their pants

npl: I still have a lot of work to do

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