After a year spent overseas in North America, EMEA's prodigal son, Ardis "ardiis" Svarenieks, has signed with Natus Vincere Natus Vincere Europe Rank #20 ANGE1 Kyrylo Karasov Shao Andrey Kiprsky Ruxic Uğur Güç hiro Emirhan Kat koalanoob Gianfranco Potestio .
The Latvian first cemented his name in the professional scene by taking home the Masters: Copenhagen trophy back in 2022 by blitzing through the lower bracket and besting Paper Rex Paper Rex Asia-Pacific Unranked mindfreak Aaron Leonhart Jinggg Wang Jing Jie f0rsakeN Jason Susanto d4v41 Khalish Rusyaidee something Ilya Petrov in the finals alongside the current NAVI core.
After winning EMEA their first trophy of the year, the – back then – FunPlus Phoenix FunPlus Phoenix Inactive SUYGETSU Dmitry Ilyushin Zyppan Pontus Eek ANGE1 Kyrylo Karasov Shao Andrey Kiprsky ardiis Ardis Svarenieks squad attended Champions as the team slated to take it all. However, the roster failed to live up to expectations. The team stumbled against XSET XSET Inactive in the group stage before suffering two losses to DRX DRX Korea Unranked Flashback Cho Min-hyuk (조민혁) MaKo Kim Myeong-gwan (김명관) Athan Na Ha-jun (나하준) freeing No Ha-jun (노하준) HYUNMIN Song Hyun-min (송현민) to end their tournament run with a fourth-place finish.
With their season over and ahead of franchising, the core of FPX signed with NAVI, while ardiis took on new challenges in a different region with NRG Esports NRG Esports North America Unranked FiNESSE Pujan Mehta s0m Sam Oh Verno Andrew Maust mada Adam Pampuch Ethan Ethan Arnold . Although ardiis' new team had a notable debut in 2023 at São Paulo's LOCK//IN, they were unable to remain among the top-contending teams throughout the year. A fourth-place finish at Masters: Tokyo was NRG's best placement of their 2023 VCT, as two losses against Bilibili Gaming Bilibili Gaming China Unranked B3ar Yang Zhanxiong (杨瞻雄) whzy Wang Haozhe (王昊哲) Levius Lu Yinzhong (卢胤中) rushia Wang Xiaojie (王晓杰) nephh Marcus Tan Knight Liu Yuxiang (刘宇翔) in Group C at Champions denied the team a spot at playoffs.
With previous roster changes within NRG resulting in the departures of Sam "s0m" Oh and Pujan "FiNESSE" Mehta, ardiis' exit from the team leaves Austin "crashies" Roberts and Victor "Victor" Wong as the only remaining active players.
A team of world champions reunited once more, Natus Vincere Natus Vincere Europe Rank #20 ANGE1 Kyrylo Karasov Shao Andrey Kiprsky Ruxic Uğur Güç hiro Emirhan Kat koalanoob Gianfranco Potestio is now:
- Kyrylo "ANGE1" Karasov
- Andrey "Shao" Kiprsky
- Pontus "Zyppan" Eek
- Dmitry "SUYGETSU" Ilyushin
- Ardis "ardiis" Svarenieks
- Erik "d00mbr0s" Sandgren (Head coach)
- Oliwer "LATEKS" Fahlander (Assistant coach)
Preview image courtesy of Riot Games/Colin Young-Wolff.