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The famed Ukrainian multigaming esports organization have recently announced their new Dota 2 roster. The previous iteration of the Na’Vi lineup failed to qualify for The International 10 main event and also had multiple issues during the Dota Pro Circuit 2021 season.
Na’Vi Dota 2 roster is set as following:
- Ivan “ArtStyle” Antonov (Coach)
- Alexander “Lk-” Lemeshev (Manager)
- Alik “V-Tune” Vorobey
- Vladimir “No[o]ne” Minenko
- Viktor “GeneRaL” Nigrini
- Ilya “ALOHADANCE” Korobkin
- Alexey “Solo” Berezin
ArtStyle and Na’Vi’s legacy
One of the most exciting parts of the official announcement is that legendary Ivan Anotonov, officially known as ArtStyle, will once again rejoin his former team.
The 32-year-old Dota 2 old-school player, who is sometimes nicknamed in the community as “Ivan Balanar”, has started his professional esports career way back in the old days when Dota 2 hadn’t been released yet.
Anotonov began his esports path around 2009 in the previous iteration of the esports title called DotA Allstars, after joining the lineup of DTS Gaming as a safe-laner, with the full roster consisting of ArtStyle, Dendi, LighTofHeaveN, NS, and Dread.
Ivan transitioned to playing Dota 2 tournaments after joining Natus Vincere in 2011. ArtStyle famously competed in The International 2011. Na’Vi performed brilliantly, only losing 1 map throughout the whole tournament in the final, where they dominated the Chinese powerhouse EHOME (820, QQQ, X!!, LaNm, SJQ) with the 3-1 score and secured the $1,000,000 prize.
ArtStyle played for other teams such as Darer, Eclypsia, HellRaisers and again returned to the Na’Vi lineup in 2015-2016. He then joined Virtus.pro as a coach in 2017. Anotonov also coached Winstrike Team, EXTREMUM, and PuckChamp.
According to Na’Vi’s official page, ArtStyle has directed the formation of the new lineup, which has already visited the team’s office, and is already gathering at the bootcamp in Kyiv to start practicing for the next season later this month.
Lk-
The team’s new manager is Alexander Lemeshev, known as Lk-. The 28-year-old Russian is a former competitive Counter-Strike player, who previously managed and coached ANNOX, ALL-IN, Vega Squadron, HellRaisers and Team Unique.
The biggest achievement in Lemeshev’s professional career was second place at one of the B-tier tournaments called DreamHack Delhi Invitational, when he coached HellRaisers in 2019.
V-Tune
Alik Vorobey, better known in the Dota 2 community as V-Tune, is a returning safe-laner for the Ukrainian team. Vorobey played for Na’Vi from 2020 up until July 2021, when the roster went inactive. V-Tune reached 10K MMR in March 2020.
One of his best career results in the end of 2020 was taking first place at OGA Dota PIT Season 4: Europe/CIS, when his Na’Vi team took a convincing 3:0 victory over OG and secured a prize of $62,535.
No[o]ne
No[o]ne, or Vladimir Minenko, is one of the strongest midlaners in the CIS region. He is also a returning player for the organization. He reached the 10,000 MMR mark on the ladder in March 2020 as well.
His biggest professional career achievement was placing second with Natus Vincere, losing to Team Liquid in the finals of ESL One Germany 2020, securing $80,000.
GeneRaL
Viktor “GeneRaL” Nigrini is also a returning player for the roster. Nigrini started his professional career in 2015, competing for notable teams such as Team Empire and Elements Pro Gaming.
GeneRaL played for Natus Vincere as an offlaner since 2016. In the same year he managed to secure a prize of $135,000 after winning StarLadder i-League StarSeries Season 2 with the score 3:1 in the final match against Team Secret.
In 2020 Viktor once again returned to the roster but left in April 2021. He is one of the CIS players to reach 10,000 MMR goal in Summer 2020.
ALOHADANCE
The fourth position of the new roster occupies Ilya “ALOHADANCE” Korobkin. He is a popular Dota 2 player, streamer, analyst and event broadcaster. Ilya just recently joined The International 10 Eastern Europe Qualifier broadcast as an analyst.
He started competing professionally in 2013, playing for teams such as FlipSid3, HellRaisers, Team Empire, Virtus.Pro, Vega Squadron, Winstrike Team, and FlyToMoon.
Korobkin’s biggest achievement was placing 9-12th at The International 2015 with Team Empire. In the main event, his team first lost to Chinese powerhouse LGD Gaming 2-1, and then went down 0-2 to South Korean team MVP Phoenix, securing the respectable prize of $221,155.
Solo
Concluding the roster with the fifth position is no other than Alexey “Solo” Berezin, who is an old-school captain and support player. Alexey started playing Dota 2 professionally for one of the most legendary esports organizations Moscow Five in 2012.
The 31-year-old then played for notable teams such as Eclypsia, RoX, which interestingly enough stands for “Russian Society of Cybersport”, Virtus.pro, Team Empire, Vega Squadron, and NoTechies.
Berezin has a huge fan base and is most known for the “322” betting accident. Solo is a heavily respected figure in the Dota 2 community. His Twitch stream was super popular back in the days long before streaming became “mainstream”.