s1mple: "It looks like I hate sdy and I want to remove him, but it was never true"

NAVI's star Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev commented in a conversation with journalists ahead of the start of BLAST Premier World Final 2022 on the speculation around bringing on Andrii "npl" Kukharskyi as a replacement for Viktor "sdy" Orudzhev. According to the Ukrainian esports athlete, he is not the initiator of any reshuffles in the roster, while his emotional attacks on the teammate at the recent LAN tournament are not a manifestation of hostility, as was interpreted in the community.

At the last BLAST there was some emotion towards sdy. I always believed that for three or four months that we need to keep sdy because he can play better. From a camera perspective, it looks like I hate this guy and I want to remove him, but it was never true.

Will we stick with sdy? I don't know. I believed before, but it depends on how npl is going to play. As I said before, the organization needs to decide how we want to play our next season because we still don't understand 100%.

s1mple also spoke about the newcomer to NAVI's senior roster. He praised the young player for his impressive skills and confidence in the game.

npl surprised me with how he played. Yeah, we had him on bootcamp at the last BLAST in Denmark, but he didn't play. He was watching, and he had a lot of confidence that he was ready to sit and play. Basically, he will play some maps and some maps we'll play sdy.

He has a lot of confidence in-game. I think he has very good aim and his understanding of the game, for example, is better than b1t's when he came to the team. He's also very calm in-game, he never shows emotions or anything, even in life he's just focused and just playing. He's trying to learn a lot.

Previously, NAVI coach Andrey "B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy said that the team would go to BLAST Premier World Final 2022 with a six-man roster. npl is expected to replace sdy on some maps.

BLAST's final event of the season will take place on December 14-18 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. You can follow up on the tournament on our website via this link.

Origin: www.hltv.org