S1mple Talks About NAVI's Current Situation and Future of CS:GO Roster

The Ukrainian esports organization, Natus Vincere (NAVI), has been vocal about its support for Ukraine in the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia. After their operations got affected by the forced invasion, NAVI has finally managed to resume its work once again, slowly returning to normalcy.

NAVI's CS:GO roster was also affected as its three Ukrainian members continued staying in Poland, unable to go back home, while the Russian players returned to their family.

Giving an update on the team's situation, Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev in a recent interview with NAVI gave an update on what the entire team has been doing since its semifinals exit from the IEM Katowice 2022, its preparation for the ESL Pro League Season 15, and the future of the CS:GO roster.

S1mple gives an update about the team's situation and future of the CS:GO lineup

Talking about NAVI's performance against G2 Esports in the semifinals of IEM Katowice 2022, s1mple said that though the team was there to play when they started losing on the first map, "everyone was too quiet in the comms".

By the time they started going on the second map, it was a bit too late and G2 ended up winning the match by a '2-0' scoreline.

"Overall, yeah, it was not as frustrating to lose the tournament as it usually was because it was not the worst news," remarked s1mple.

Following their exit from the tournament, all the Ukrainian members hopped on a train and reached Warsaw, Poland where the Kinguin Esports Performance Center is located. S1mple said that this is where everyone who could not travel home or fled Ukraine was residing, including the members from NAVI.

"We are already accustomed to the area, malls, shops, laundromat, and we know how to get to these places without using a GPS," added s1mple.

All this had an impact on the team's practice and training, with s1mple not playing CS:GO for about two weeks as he did not feel motivated enough.

"All in all, as for CS, I 've been doing a pretty good job gaining form, in Valorant as well," said s1mple, who returned to practising along with the entire NAVI lineup on 15^th March.

After practicing against Team Vitality, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and other tier-two teams, s1mple thinks that the individual form of all the players is good but they are still a bit sloppy in some rounds that are guaranteed wins.

On a personal note, the Ukrainian AWPer revealed that he has received a lot of support from everyone, asking him about his family, friends, and loved ones, but he is tired of them asking him the same questions because the answer is always the same.

Talking about his family s1mple said that "I asked them to leave and they were about to go, but someone did not go - I will not say who - while others did. I asked them to relocate but they did not listen to me".

Recently, NAVI's CEO Yevhen Zolotarov when talking about the organization's future had said that "We (NAVI) are not going to work with people who live in Russia and who pay taxes to the Russian Federation".

When s1mple was asked about the future of NAVI's CS:GO roster, all he could muster to say was "I don't know, it is a difficult situation. But I think there will not be (any roster changes). I guess it will be okay, I hope it will be okay".

NAVI starts its ESL Pro League Season 15 campaign later today in 'Group-D' which consists of teams like AGO, Heroic, Astralis, Complexity Gaming, and Evil Geniuses. With s1mple showing confidence that NAVI will qualify for the playoffs, it will be interesting to see how the roster performs.

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