b1t

Valerii “b1t” Vakhovskyi is the thread that runs through modern NAVI. The Ukrainian rifler came up through the organization’s academy, won a Major at 18 alongside s1mple and later won another with an almost completely new team, making him the only player to lift both of NAVI’s Counter-Strike Major trophies.

Few players have stayed with one top team through as many changes. Since his promotion in December 2020, NAVI have replaced every other player in the lineup, changed in-game leader, switched from Global Offensive to Counter-Strike 2 and gone from a CIS core to an international roster. b1t has been in the starting five through all of it.

Player profile

• Name: Valerii Vakhovskyi
• Born: January 5, 2003
• Nationality: Ukrainian
• Role: Rifler (support and anchor)
• Team: NAVI (since December 2020)
• Former team: NAVI Junior (2019 to 2020)
• Major titles: PGL Major Stockholm 2021, PGL Major Copenhagen 2024

Before NAVI

b1t was introduced to Counter-Strike as a child. “I was little when I saw my uncle play it. Got attracted by the gameplay,” he said in a 2022 interview republished by NAVI. Before esports took over, he spent eight years in wrestling and started college to study programming, according to Sports.ru.

His route into NAVI was almost accidental. In 2019, he was playing FACEIT with friends when someone shared an application link for NAVI Junior. “Somehow it ended up with me applying through it,” he said. Once he was in the academy, he stopped going to college.

From the academy to the main roster

b1t joined NAVI Junior in September 2019 at the age of 16. Fifteen months later, on December 20, 2020, NAVI promoted him to the main team and briefly ran a six-man roster with Egor “flamie” Vasilev, who had been part of the team since 2015. In April 2021, NAVI benched flamie and made b1t a full-time starter.

The move paid off immediately. In his first year on the main roster, b1t won BLAST Premier Global Final 2020 (played in January 2021), IEM Cologne 2021 and the Intel Grand Slam Season 3, which made him the youngest player ever to complete the Grand Slam at 18 years and 250 days.

His aim stood out from the start. Sports.ru called him the game’s leading headshot player in 2021, with 67.5% of his kills that year coming from headshots.

A Major at the first attempt

In November 2021, NAVI won the PGL Major Stockholm without dropping a single map, beating G2 2-0 in the final. It was b1t’s first Major appearance. Playing alongside s1mple, electroNic, Boombl4 and Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy, he was not the team’s headline star, but his clean, efficient rifling made him one of the standout players of the year. HLTV ranked him ninth in its top 20 for 2021, and he was named PC Rookie of the Year at the Esports Awards.

The title did not satisfy him. Eight months later, at IEM Cologne 2022, he set out his goal in an interview with Escorenews.

First of all, I want to win more Majors than Astralis. I want to win as much as humanly possible. Then I want to win as many Intel Grand Slams as possible, and other tournaments as well.

The last link to the s1mple era

NAVI’s 2022 season brought a Major final in Antwerp, lost 2-0 to FaZe, and b1t finished 16th in HLTV’s ranking. The results then dipped, and in June 2023 NAVI rebuilt the team around a new structure. electroNic and Perfecto were benched, and the organization signed in-game leader Aleksib, Mihai “iM” Ivan and jL. When s1mple stepped down in October 2023 and was replaced by w0nderful, b1t was the last player left from the Stockholm lineup.

The switch to English as the team language did not scare him. “I’m still young and I was looking forward to the international changes positively, because I like challenges and wanted to learn English a couple of years before,” he later told HLTV.

The new NAVI needed only nine months to win a Major. At the PGL Major Copenhagen in March 2024, the team beat FaZe 2-1 in the final, and b1t became a two-time Major winner with two almost entirely different rosters. On the way there, he produced one of the clips of the event, a 1v3 clutch that PGL shared during the tournament.

Many called the title a surprise, because NAVI had not been dominant before or during the event. b1t rejected that reading when he looked back on the year with HLTV.

I’m pretty sure that a team winning any event can not be a fluke. We did a lot of work at our bootcamp.

From star rifler to anchor

b1t’s role has changed with the team around him. In the s1mple years, he was a young rifler known for his headshots. Under Aleksib, he took on more responsibility for holding sites and closing out rounds on the defensive side. HLTV named him its Anchor of the Year for 2024, the same year he returned to ninth place in its top 20.

The best example came in July 2024. In the Esports World Cup final against G2, NAVI lost the first map in overtime before b1t took over on Nuke and Inferno, and he was named MVP of the event, the first of his career. He described the difference between his two ninth-place seasons himself.

If you compare ’21 and ’24, I have more experience, knowledge, and a better understanding of the game. It’s two different players, for sure.

Since 2025

b1t made the HLTV top 20 again in 2025, in 20th place. That year, NAVI promoted Drin “makazze” Shaqiri from the academy to replace jL and reached the semi-finals of the StarLadder Budapest Major. The trophies returned in 2026, when NAVI won ESL Pro League Season 23 in March and IEM Atlanta 2026 in May, before going out early at the IEM Cologne Major. During the run in Atlanta, b1t told Dust2.us what the Pro League title had meant.

Before Pro League, we didn’t win for two years. I’m hungry to win trophies.

Biggest results

• PGL Major Stockholm 2021: 1st
• PGL Major Copenhagen 2024: 1st
• Intel Grand Slam Season 3: winner
• IEM Cologne 2021: 1st
• BLAST Premier World Final 2021: 1st
• BLAST Premier Fall Finals 2021: 1st
• BLAST Premier Global Final 2020: 1st
• Esports World Cup 2024: 1st (MVP)
• ESL Pro League Season 23: 1st
• IEM Atlanta 2026: 1st

Major record

Individual awards

• HLTV top 20: 9th (2021), 16th (2022), 9th (2024), 20th (2025)
• HLTV Anchor of the Year 2024
• HLTV MVP, Esports World Cup 2024
• Esports Awards PC Rookie of the Year 2021

Settings and gear

These are b1t’s settings as listed by ProSettings.net, last updated in March 2026. Pro players change their setup from time to time, so check the source for the latest version.

His crosshair is a small, static green cross without a dot or outline. To copy it, paste these commands into the console:

cl_crosshairstyle 4; cl_crosshairsize 2; cl_crosshairthickness 2; cl_crosshairgap 1; cl_crosshair_drawoutline 0; cl_crosshairdot 0; cl_crosshaircolor 5; cl_crosshaircolor_r 0; cl_crosshaircolor_g 255; cl_crosshaircolor_b 0; cl_crosshairalpha 255; cl_crosshair_t 0; cl_crosshair_recoil 0

Trivia

• His nickname comes from a song. He told Sports.ru that his brother once played him a popular track called “Bitmeyker”, and he later set his name to B1t. It was stylized as B1T and B1t before he settled on b1t.
• He brings a small plush goat to tournaments as a mascot. At the PGL Major Stockholm, the organizers wanted it off the desk, but b1t got Valve’s permission to keep it, according to Sports.ru.
• Valve rejected his first autograph for his Major sticker because it looked like an advertisement for Bitcoin, Sports.ru reported.
• He won a Major at his very first Major appearance, in Stockholm 2021.
• He is the youngest player to win the Intel Grand Slam, at 18 years and 250 days.
• He is the only player who was part of both of NAVI’s Major-winning lineups in 2021 and 2024.

FAQ