Natus Vincere have announced the joining of Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, who replaced founding member and former in-game leader Danylo “Zeus” Teslenko on the roster. For the past few weeks, after Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev’s tenure in Liquid came to an end, rumours spread around the community about his new home, with Natus Vincere being the biggest favorite. Na`Vi have now confirmed the move, as we see the 18-year-old replacing founding member and former in-game leader Danylo “Zeus” Teslenko. s1mple found a new home in Natus Vincere Teslenko has been part of Natus Vincere since the organization’s inception in December 2009, following which the team went on to become the team of the year 2010, winning all three major events (WCG, ESWC, IEM IV Global Finals) and multiple other tournaments in Counter-Strike 1.6. In the past few months, Natus Vincere have been unable to replicate some of their success from late 2015 and early 2016, when they won IEM San José, DreamHack Leipzig 2016 and CounterPit Season 2 Finals. Their latest results include a semi-final finish at ELEAGUE and more importantly a 5th-8th place at ESL One Cologne after placing second at the previous two Majors, MLG Columbus and DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca.
“I am really happy to join this great organization and be part of my favorite lineup with the world’s best players on it. I will do everything I can to achieve big goals together with the team.” Kostyliev said in a statement on navi-gaming.com.Na`Vi now have the following six:
Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovács Denis “seized” Kostin Egor “flamie” Vasilyev Ioann “Edward” Sukhariev Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev Sergey “starix” Ischuk (coach)Natus Vincere now have a month to prepare for their LAN debut with the new lineup, which will be the $300,000 SL i-League Season 2 Finals taking place in Nanjing, China from September 7-11.