NAVI’s era is officially over

“The CIS shuffle is dark and full of secrets” - the immortal words of Outsiders’ Qikert, who clearly knew more than the rest of us.

Everyone assumed that after NAVI mentioned they wouldn’t work with anyone who paid money to the Russian government, electronic and Boombl4 would soon be leaving.

Both have wives, families, and lives in Russia - Perfecto too had his whole life there, though less was known of his backstory. So, when NAVI announced this week that Boombl4 was out - with no mention of the other two - we were confounded.

Not at the idea that maybe electronic had decided to stay; but at the fact NAVI just brushed over it.

Regardless, perhaps the bigger story is the departure of Boombl4. The guy came in as a relative no-namer from Winstrike and departs NAVI as not only a Major winner, but a Major winning IGL.

Whatever you think of the guy, he’s led a team to the biggest trophy in CS without dropping a map, and then to another Major final after that.

Just as NAVI looked to be on the cusp of serial greatness, extraneous forces pulled them apart and denied them one of the scariest eras we might have ever seen. Potentially.

It also denied us what could have been the greatest Major final of all time; because nobody could convince us that NAVI in Antwerp was at peak performance.

Quite who replaces him is another matter; there are few Russian-speaking players who aren’t Russian around. I mean there’s YEKINDAR, but… they wouldn’t, would they?

Who’s going to IGL? Perfecto? s1mple?

Or just vibes?