NAVI Parts Ways With GeneRaL

NAVI has undergone a roster change following a poor showing in Tour 1 of the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) Eastern Europe (EEU) 2021-22: Division 1. In a blog on its website, the organization said that it had parted ways with offlaner Viktor "GeneRaL" Nigrini. GeneraL is now a free agent and open to offers from other teams. NAVI also revealed that coach Ivan "Artstyle" Antonov had stepped down from his duties in mid-January, however, he remained with the organization. Artstyle's new role within the organization is unknown at the moment.

NAVI looks for a new offlaner after it bids farewell to GeneRaL

In its blog post, NAVI pointed out its lackluster performance in Tour 1 and cited a disconnect between the players' ideas of the game as reasons for the roster change. “During the matches of the last season, it became clear that the players’ views on the tactical component in Dota 2 differ significantly. The situation only worsened after the end of the bootcamp when the players went back home,” the organization wrote.

GeneRaL's departure reduces NAVI's team to four players.

1. Alik "V-Tune" Vorobey

2. Vladimir "No[o]ne" Minenko

3. TBD

4. Ilya "ALOHADANCE" Korobkin

5. Alexey "Solo" Berezin

Additionally, with Artstyle no longer available as a coach, Solo is now responsible for “preparation, drafts, and game plan.” Artstyle's new role within the team will be announced soon.

Solo talks about GeneRaL’s departure and the search for a new offlaner

Solo spoke in detail about what led to GeneRAL's departure in a video posted by NAVI. He stated that the game understanding of the players was not aligning, and the issue was magnified once they left bootcamp and started playing online. As efforts were made to eliminate this disconnect, it became evident that "it was hard or even impossible to do," said Solo.

In Solo's view, GeneRaL is a great Dota 2 offlaner with a broad hero pool. He mentioned that the current meta didn't fit GeneRaL well, but he believes he will come out on top in the next patch. However, due to Solo and GenerRal possessing radically different views of the game, the change had to be made. Solo stated the remaining four players, including him, are committed to working together.

Since No[o]ne and V-Tune are core players with greedier styles of gameplay, Solo mentioned they were now looking for an offlaner who would primarily make space for the two cores.

He also acknowledged that the team might undergo more roster changes in the future, based on performance, but for now, all four players were sticking together.

This was GeneRaL's third affiliation with NAVI. He was initially a part of the team from February 2016 to September 2018 and then from September 2020 to April 2021 when he was moved to the team's inactive roster. In April 2021 as well, the player had been removed from the active lineup because of internal issues within the team. Five months after being removed from the active roster, he was reinstated to the lineup with a revamped roster in September 2021.

Besides Tour 1 of the DPC 2021-22 where NAVI finished fifth, its revamped lineup also finished seventh-eighth in the OGA Dota PIT Season 5, second in the Dota 2 Champions League S6, and fifth-sixth in the Dota 2 Champions League S7 in the last four months.

NAVI now has about ten days to figure out who its new offlaner will be since the roster lock date is on 27th Feb.

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