You know what they say, once a ninja always a ninja, and dev1ce seems to have taken that to heart. He’s thrown a smoke bomb and vanished right before Astralis’ last event of the year.
Astralis fans and haters alike were looking forward to Elisa Masters Espoo 2022 being the expected re-debut of dev1ce. Unfortunately, both will have to wait until at least 2023 for his second coming. The Danish organization released a statement saying they “don’t want to force anything”. Also announcing dev1ce’s short-term replacement to be Astralis Talent player Kristou.
A player with a 0.99 HLTV 2.0 Rating is a bit of an odd choice. Although he has been seen pugging with dev1ce quite a few times. Which couldn’t possibly have played a part.
And to be fair to Kristou, he isn’t the first statistically underwhelming Astralis Talent player to be promoted. He’ll be reuniting with former teammate MistR, who stepped into the team to replace k0nfig not too long ago.
As for why dev1ce isn't playing, we don’t know. Could it be that not playing an official for a year has actually affected him? Or is Astralis hiding their true potential for the next premiere event they’ll partake in? Hopefully, we get to find out soon.
But for now, dev1ce will continue to go silently into the night. Until 2023, when the memo he isn’t a ninja anymore finally reaches him.