Cover-Credits:
- Vitality will revert back to a five-man roster ahead of ESL Pro League Season 13.
- They have announced that Nivera will be stepping down from the team's active CS:GO lineup.
- Nivera was Vitality's sixth player who used to sub in for misutaaa or shox between Vitality's matches.
The French esports organization Vitality will be reverting back to a five-man CS:GO roster as they bench their extra player Nabil “Nivera” Benrlitom. Vitality who were the pioneers of running a successful six-man lineup have taken the decision to remove Nivera from the team, due to the recent rule changes introduced by Valve. The penalty system discourages the concept of substituting players during a tournament, making the whole process highly inefficient. Nivera who used to be brought in to play for Vitality on certain maps, mostly in place of Richard “shox” Papillon or Kévin “misutaaa” Rabier will be sitting out the currently ongoing ESL Pro League Season 13 as well.
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Vitality bench Nivera and reverts to 5 man roster
A recent report by 1pv.fr had stated that Vitality might not be too keen on using Nivera in ESL Pro League Season 13 and a few other upcoming CS:GO tournaments. Due to the recent rules introduced by Valve which penalizes teams for each substitution that they make during a Regional Major Ranking (RMR) tournament, Vitality has gone back to strengthening their five-man core
In an official statement released by the organization, It announced that Nivera would be stepping down from the team’s active roster. They acknowledged the fact that they had a good experiment with the six-man iteration, during which Nivera really boosted the team’s strength on Dust 2 and Inferno.
In October 2020, Vitality became the first-ever CS:GO team to make an official mid-match substitution. It was Nivera taking over for misutaaa on Dust 2 during the BLAST: Premier Fall 2020. Since then, Nivera has gone on to help the team secure first place finishes at IEM Beijing Online: Europe 2020 and BLAST Premier: Fall 2020, along with several other promising results.
Closing in on RMR tournaments, Vitality was running out of time to make their six-man roster viable for the upcoming Major. So they had to make a change and went ahead by cutting Nivera from the team, who was the latest player to join the organization.
Nivera might have departed the team for now, but there is still a chance that Vitality might sign him once again in the future “if things were to change”. Vitality went ahead to add that “We stay firmly convinced that six-man roster is the best way to help the CS:GO competitive scene grow even bigger”.
The 19-year-old has also said that it was an “incredible experience” playing with Vitality and that he learned a lot from them. For now, he is motivated to continue playing CS:GO competitively and is open to both a loan or a transfer.
