New Navi Roster Features Familiar Faces with Return of No[o]ne GeneRaL and Solo

Fans of Navi rejoice! Navi have just announced their renewed roster, following a two month hiatus. In a release on their website, the lineup consisting of familiar faces was revealed.

Navi's "new" roster is as follows:

The announcement also promises an interview with Artstyle and a vlog with the new team on their YouTube in the coming days.

This latest update comes after the previous roster was made inactive, citing "unsatisfactory performance" in the CIS TI10 Qualifiers. The organization then parted with a large part of the previous roster. This included the departure of Akbar "SoNNeikO" Butaev, Roman "RAMZES666" Kushnarev and Vladimir "RodjER" Nikogosyan.

This new iteration sees the return of GeneRaL, who had parted ways with Navi unceremoniously earlier this year. Coming off the bench are No[o]ne and V-Tune, who will reprise their roles in Carry and Mid respectively. Rounding out the roster is Solo, and ALOHADANCE who will fill the support roles.

Despite both being veterans of the CIS scene, this will be the first time the supports will play for Navi. Solo comes over from NoTechies, a team that competed in the Lower Division of the CIS DPC Regional League. Out of the new roster, it might be ALOHADANCE who raises the most eyebrows. He has yet to play professionally this year, after choosing to focus on streaming in late 2020.

Regardless, the entire lineup has at one point proven their skills in the competitive gauntlet. As with every new roster, their compatibility will be the true hurdle they face.

The year so far has been a rollercoaster in terms of changes for Navi. Between the controversial GeneRaL kick earlier this year, followed by Bogdan "Iceberg" Vasilenko and Andrii "ALWAYSWANNAFLY" Bondarenko's leave as well - there've been no shortage of shuffles. Through it all, it seemed that the team had a lot of internal issues, which bled into their performance as well.

In that vein, Navi hopes to establish some order with ArtStyle at the helm. He will be in charge of commanding the team as their coach, and maintain discipline, the release states.

All-in-all, the choice seems to be a good one. ArtStyle has not only won TI1 with Navi, he's also worked with many of the players before. Most significantly, he coached the dominant iteration of VP that Solo and No[o]ne were on.

Whether they can return to that form will be a question that only time will tell.

For more Dota 2 news and updates, stay tuned to esports.gg.