Natus Vincere Dota 2 Roster Change
Fan-favorite Dota 2 team Natus Vincere (Na’Vi) is making a change to their roster just three months before The International.
The team recently announced the release of Nikola “LeBron” Popović due to a series of unsuccessful performances. LeBron was the hard support player for Na’Vi before his release.
Despite their previous success as an International champion squad, Na’Vi’s results have been lackluster recently. Their best performance with LeBron was a fourth place finish at GESC Thailand in March. However, they had a disappointing 12th place finish at Epicenter XL last week.
LeBron will be returning to Elements Pro Gaming, his previous team from 2016.
As a result of this roster change, Na’Vi will have to play in the CIS-region open qualifiers for The International 2018. This is due to a rule that states teams cannot receive a direct invite or a regional qualifier invite if they change their roster after the roster lock.
Na’Vi will be focusing on bootcamping for the China Supermajor in June and will not be participating in ESL One Birmingham in May.
New Addition to the Na’Vi Roster
To fill the gap left by LeBron, Na’Vi has recruited Russian support player Fedor “velheor” Rusihin, who previously played for SFTe-sports. While velheor has a high ranking on the CIS servers, his professional record is fairly limited, making him a risky choice for the team.
Despite this, Na’Vi is expected to make it through the open qualifiers and advance to the regional stage without significant difficulty.
Keywords: Natus Vincere, Dota 2, roster change, International, Na’Vi, LeBron, Elements Pro Gaming, bootcamp, China Supermajor, ESL One Birmingham, open qualifiers, regional stage, velheor.