s1mple says electroNic \u201cneeds time\u201d to grow into NAVI IGL role Jo\u00e3o Ferreira\/DexertoNAVI star Aleksandr \u2018s1mple\u2019 Kostyliev has confirmed that Denis \u2018electroNic\u2019 Sharipov has taken over as the team\u2019s new in-game leader ahead of the BLAST Premier Spring Final. The confirmation comes just two weeks after Dexerto revealed that NAVI were considering handing the team\u2019s reins over to electroNic following the removal of Kirill \u2018Boombl4\u2019 Mikhailov from the starting lineup. electroNic will have his first big test as the team\u2019s IGL at the BLAST Premier Spring Final, which NAVI are attending with former Spirit player Viktor \u2018sdy\u2019 Orudzhev as a stand-in. Speaking to reporters at a press conference during media day, s1mple stated that electroNic should perform well in the role of in-game leader given his extensive knowledge of the game. He also noted that the team will stick to the system that has been in place for years. \u201cWe still have our old setups, we only changed some roles,\u201d s1mple said. \u201cI think electroNic has more ideas [than Boombl4], and his understanding of the game without B1ad3\u2019s help is much better. \u201cBut Boombl4 worked with B1ad3 for so many hours and B1ad3 taught him so many things that electroNic doesn\u2019t now. So he needs a bit more time.\u201d With a stand-in that hasn\u2019t played at the highest level in months and a new in-game leader still getting used to the role, NAVI have an uphill task to repeat their grand final appearance from BLAST Pro Series Lisbon 2018. s1mple revealed that the team had just a week\u2019s practice for this event, which he hopes is enough for them to reach the playoffs. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure the crowd will cheer for NAVI and we will try to win if we make it there.\u201d Future fifth player NAVI\u2019s lineup beyond the BLAST Premier Spring Final is uncertain as the team will be using this event as a measuring stick for the lineup with sdy. According to s1mple, the former Spirit player is \u201cdoing a great job in practice\u201d, but they still need to see how he performs in important games \u2013 which will determine whether he stays on with the squad. One player who has been earmarked as a potential replacement for Boombl4 is Virtus.pro\u2019s Timur \u2018buster\u2019 Tulepov. But one stumbling block to a move for the Kazakhstani player is the fact that NAVI are unwilling to conduct business with Virtus.pro, a Russian organization with alleged ties to the Kremlin. This means that buster would have to figure out a way to be released from his contract, though Virtus.pro have made it clear that they will not let any of their players leave \u201cunless a proper fee is paid\u201d. \u201cI\u2019ve never played with him,\u201d s1mple said of buster. \u201cPerfecto knows him better. The main issue is that NAVI cannot buy a player from a Russian organization because Virtus.pro pays taxes and we know what it means to pay taxes. \u201cWe asked buster at the beginning if he could buy himself out of his contract. We\u2019re still deciding who will play [at IEM Cologne].\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
s1mple says electroNic \u201cneeds time\u201d to grow into NAVI IGL role Jo\u00e3o Ferreira\/DexertoNAVI star Aleksandr \u2018s1mple\u2019 Kostyliev has confirmed that Denis \u2018electroNic\u2019 Sharipov has taken over as the team\u2019s new in-game leader ahead of the BLAST Premier Spring Final. The confirmation comes just two weeks after Dexerto revealed that NAVI were considering handing the team\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38899\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}