After six years with Natus Vincere, longtime fragger Egor ‘flamie’ Vasilev is now a free agent. He was benched from the starting lineup back in April 2021 when he was replaced by Valerii ‘b1t’ Vakhovskyi. Unfortunately for flamie, Na’Vi became the best team in the world when he left.
Over the past six years, when Na’Vi was brought up in conversations, two players always came to mind. Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev was the number one name in people’s minds. After s1mple, flamie was always the next man up because he was the secondary star.
They were Na’Vi’s pillars but flamie was too inconsistent. They performed well in events but flamie was quickly growing into a liability at the end of 2020. This led to the team signing a sixth player (b1t) and then it turned into a permanent move when flamie was benched after a stretch of further poor performances in 2021.
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Flamie is free to prove himself elsewhere
While it is sad that flamie has to go away from Na’Vi, this is a chance to prove himself for another team. He is one of the best players from the CIS region but he knows he has so much to improve upon. At 24 years of age, flamie is still young and he has so much untapped potential there. He was once Na’Vi’s most explosive player and a new situation can unlock that flamie again.
Even if he was kicked out of the starting lineup, flamie’s contributions to the Na’Vi mission over the years will not be forgotten. Na’Vi COO Aleksey ‘xaoc’ Kucherov released a statement about flamie’s exit. The six-man lineup was not possible anymore and with flamie’s contract expiring, they didn’t re-sign him.
Xaoc said, ‘Taking these factors into consideration, as well as Egor’s contribution to the development of the discipline and the club in general, we have decided to give flamie the status of a free agent, so he doesn’t come across possible restrictions for his further development. Despite the fact that Egor is a NAVI veteran, he is young, motivated, experienced, and has a fantastic aim. These characteristics are definitely demanded in ambitious teams’.
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Na’Vi is stronger than ever
Over the past few months, Na’Vi has turned into the best team in the world. They just won the Intel Grand Slam which is one of the biggest accolades that a team can get. Only two squads have managed to do it before Na’Vi which were Team Liquid and Astralis. That is a special company for the young Na’Vi squad.
S1mple and the rest of the squad are pleased with how they’re playing. 2021 has been a strong year for Na’Vi and this is largely due to their decision to replace flamie with b1t. The latter fills a better role on the team because flamie is too similar to both s1mple and Denis ‘electronic’ Sharipov.
This team has so much untapped potential and they are already the best team in the world. With s1mple as their primary star, anything is possible. However, the rest of the team deserves credit because they finally found a way to help their superstar player win trophies. The IGS is a big achievement. The Valve Majors is the only accolade that they haven’t won and Na’Vi deserves that.
It will be fun to watch this Na’Vi squad for the foreseeable future. Hopefully, flamie can also reach that level when he joins his new team sometime soon.
