Vitality Discusses Six Man Roster While s1mple Carries NAVI: How Will These Teams Deliver?
Team Vitality has had a consistent year placing second in multiple events and peaking at first back in August. The dominant French roster picked up Kévin "misutaaa" Rabier near the start of 2020 and their newest player has paid off. With plans to stay on top, Vitality recently signed Nabil "Nivera" Benrlitom, a nineteen-year-old from Belgium who’s mostly played at a C-Tier level. The newest rookie was added to form a new six-man roster. Nivera also happens to be the younger brother of Adil "ScreaM" Benrlitom - looks like CS:GO runs in the family. Another top-five team that’s been popping off this year is NAVI, who placed first at IEM Worlds with huge help from Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev, the legendary AWPer who continues to put his team on the map. Because of this, the discussion of a possible burnout is in play.
VITALITY'S SIX-MAN ROSTER
With ten grand in earnings, Nivera plans to follow in his brother’s footsteps. After facing success with Team Heretics, Nivera was contacted by Vitality. He performed with a 1.10 player rating, and has already won three events in his two years of performing. At ESL One Cologne he even played against Vitality. Heretics got swept with an 0-2 finish and later lost to Fnatic. Nivera didn’t produce any impressive plays and even bottom fragged. His player tournament rating was 0.82 and placed second to last. Things went a lot smoother for Nivera at the ESL Championnat National. Heretics won the tournament with a 4-0 finish and Nivera even pulled off a 1.64 player rating. The only difference was this tournament consisted of B-Tier teams, whereas ESL One was an S-Tier event.
Vitality is a million-dollar org and has given Nivera a chance to make a name for himself. As of this week, Vitality will start their six-man roster to prevent risks of burnout. With the addition of multiple events throughout 2020, Vitality doesn’t want to overwork their roster. Despite multiple second-place finishes, Vitality wants to stand on the podium in CS:GO. A handful of players are in need of rest and time away from their monitor. Combining hours of practice with six-figure events, Vitality has to focus on their team's needs. Talk of Nivera being placed on the main roster has been shut down, and for now, he’ll simply serve as a sub to reduce burnout within the main roster.
With that said, Vitality still has a few players that need work. Vitality’s youngest player misutaaa usually performs at an average level - sometimes that just isn’t enough. When ZywOo doesn’t top frag, misutaaa tends to fall off, making the rounds a lot harder to secure. Even though Vitality’s coach XTQZZZ said Nivera won’t take a main slot, it doesn’t mean he won’t outperform the team's newest hire - he might show a hidden talent being the newest rifler. Maybe he just didn’t perform well at ESL One due to the team he was on. Since joining Vitality there are now zero excuses to be made. Nivera will either put numbers on the board or drop down to B-Tier CS:GO.
Click to enlargeS1MPLE CONTINUES TO CARRY
Considered one of the best players of all time, s1mple tends to take most of the workload when playing. He’s able to hit both consistent and crazy AWP shots within close-quarter situations. While being a top-level sniper, s1mple isn’t afraid of using an AR once in a while. He’s capable of using any weapon dealt to him and it definitely shows. Because of his nonstop success, s1mple will most certainly become a victim to burnout. An issue that multiple Tier 1 players have faced in the past, such as Xyp9x and most recently oBo. He’s received multiple top ten player awards from 2016 to 2019, and with an insane 1.27 player rating, the numbers prove he’s a team carry.
At the IEM World Championships NAVI ploughed through the loser bracket, going undefeated in the playoffs, and resulting in a first-place finish and a quarter of a million dollars. At this event alone, s1mple had a 1.38 player rating, almost unheard of at such a huge tournament. NAVI haven’t discussed new players to reduce burnout, while s1mple continues to push himself every single game. At the BLAST Premiere Fall event, NAVI wasn’t able to beat OG throughout two sets. Within all ten matches against both NiP and OG, s1mple top fragged on his team. It looks like NAVI will just continue to rely on frags instead of consistent teamwork.
This year has been extremely busy for the CS:GO community. It almost seems there is a tournament going on every single day. A lot of players are tired and it’s starting to show. With the end of 2020 coming up, bigger events are already being planned for December, meaning teams will have little rest between tournaments, and must continue their endless push to win it all.
Images via Team Vitality | Natus Vincere