Three out of five players from the NIP roster were moved to the bench today, NIP announced in a press statement.

Alongside the benching of Kristian "k0nfig" Wienecke, Patrick "es3tag" Hansen, and Daniil "headtr1ck" Valitov, NIP has also chosen to shake up the coaching staff parting ways with coach Daniel "djL" Narancic and analyst Thomas "haste" Dyrensborg,

To fill the void left by these departures, NIP has promoted Max "maxster" Jansson, Leo "Silence" Ingvarsson, and Maoz "BluePho3nix" Paz from the Young Ninjas project. Additionally, Björn “THREAT” Pers joins as coach on a temporary basis.

In a letter to the fans, NIP looks ahead to a future, where the organization is “well-positioned to capitalize” on the opportunities to come.

- We expect the next few months to present many interesting opportunities and we are well-positioned to capitalize: we have a strong financial position, top-tier infrastructure and a ton more data on what makes a good CS2 player. Most importantly, though, we have an established philosophy of practicing and managing all the things that constitute vibes, and a player mindset that fits that philosophy. A few months from now, a new squad of Ninjas will rise from the ashes, and the whole team is working with a clarity of purpose that infuses us with hope for the future. Whether it all works out, we cannot predict — but we expect our fans to keep holding us to account. That is the purpose of this letter: for you all to be able to follow along as we try our damndest to make it back to the top, where we belong.

You can read the full statement [link:{"url":"https://nip.gl/pages/a-letter-from-nip-management","isNewTab":true,"text":"here"}].

k0nfig

headtr1ck

es3tag

Ninjas in Pyjamas

NIP has definitely gone through some challenges with its roster in the previous two years. Still, adding Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen and Daniil “headtr1ck” Valitov brought stability to the team. However, with Hampus “hampus” Poser stepping back due to personal reasons and k0nfig coming in, the team had to adjust once again. In recent years, Ninjas in Pyjamas have struggled to maintain their form. But, despite poor results in recent months, the coach of Ninjas in Pyjamas has high praise for their young Ukrainian AWPer. According to their coach, Daniel “djL” Narancic, the team has made significant progress.

- We haven’t had a stable roster for a while now, which did hurt us a lot in the long run. Having a stable roster now feels good, even though the results haven’t gone our way yet and we’ve lost against teams we shouldn’t have, I’m still confident that we will be a strong team in the future if we keep on working on the important aspects of the game, the NiP coach told [link:{"url":"https://blast.tv/article/csgo/blast-spring-showdown-NIP-djl","isNewTab":true,"text":"BLAST.tv"}] before the event. 

Daniel “djL” Narancic confirmed the unstable roster. But, he also believes that the team will become a top-tier contender in the future.

- headtr1ck is like a sponge, he really wants to learn and I still think it is early days for him, he needs to fail and he needs to learn from his mistakes from the games he is playing. I think that in the future, he will be one of the strongest AWPers in the world. He is young, he grinds a lot and it’s easy to talk to him about his mistakes. We’re still trying to make him as comfortable as possible.

Danyyl "headtr1ck" Valitov stats during the past three months - 1.07 Rating / 0.56 DPR / 66.3 ADR / 0.68 KPR / 0.93 Impact rating. 

Ninjas in Pyjamas is currently playing in the BLAST Premier Showdown Europe 2023. The mixed European roster managed to take down OG in their first game at the event to secure the Semi-finals. Cloud9 is the team waiting for NiP after they dominated Copenhagen Flames in their opening match. 

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Ninjas in Pyjamas will have to watch the rest of IEM Katowice from the outside. The roster was eliminated today after losing two matches at the event.

Today it was the reigning Major champions from Outsiders that was on the other side of the server. NIP started brilliantly by destroying Outsides on Vertigo. NIP won their T side 14-1!

Then Overpass came into play. Here Outsiders regained their composure. The CIS team only really had issues with Daniil 'headtr1ck' Valitov, who continued to be a nuisance for Outsiders throughout the match. The Ukrainian AWPer played a great game and is the big positive thing for the Swedes to take out of the event.

Despite headtr1ck's fine performance, NIP lost both Overpass and also Inferno. On the last map, it was NIP's CT side that let them down losing nine out of ten rounds in the second half of the map. 

Outsiders are still alive in the tournament and will face OG tomorrow in the lower bracket semi-final in Group B.

Ninjas in Pyjamas - Outsiders 1-2 | IEM Katowice

MVP: {cflag:UA} Daniil 'headtr1ck' Valitov - 1.38 rating / 63-37 K-D / 81.5 ADR

Outsiders

IEM Katowice is shaping up to be a very interesting event with several of the top teams performing at their highest level. One of them is Team Vitality who started the year going flawlessly through BLAST Spring Groups. Today they added the fourth victory in a row in 2023 with a clear 2-0 victory against NIP.

The match kicked off on Mirage, where NIP actually started well. But at 2-6 down, Vitality stepped up. The French/Danish/Israelian roster won all the remaining rounds in the first half which seemed to break the spirit of NIP who lost their map pick 16-10.

On Inferno, the bad news continued for NIP. Mathieu 'ZywOo' Herbaut was on fire which left absolutely no doubt about the outcome of the match. Vitality won 16-9 with ZywOo going 24-14 in K-D.

For NIP the most troubling sight was the lack of impact and kills from their new AWPer Daniil 'headtr1ck' Valitov. The Ukrainian only scored a rating of 0.59 for the two maps combined. The Swedish Ninjas drop down to the lower bracket with today’s loss.

Ninjas in Pyjamas – Team Vitality 0-2 | IEM Katowice

MVP: {cflag:FR} Mathieu 'ZywOo' Herbaut – 1.49 rating / 47-31 K-D / 92.4 ADR

ZywOo

Team Vitality

That’s how long since Ninjas in Pyjamas won their last big trophy in CS:GO - [link:{"url":"https://twitter.com/HLTVorg/status/1607723097263669248","isNewTab":true,"text":"the longest drought of any top-tier team"}]. But that is not something that scares the Swede’s new and young AWPer Daniil "headtr1ck" Valitov.

No that does not scare me. Because it’s like giving extra motivation [for me] to give NIP more trophies and finally let them win good tournaments, and I will do my best, headtr1ck said to us in an interview and continued:

- They [NIP] are so excited, every player and coach they are excited. We have very strong aimers and I see how they want to work and how they want to play, and I think everyone is excited.

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headtr1ck could well end up being an angel sent from heaven for NIP as the team has lacked a permanent AWPer for quite some time after both Fredrik “REZ” Sterner and Patrick “es3tag” Hansen has taken up the important duty of handling the big green.  

- I think we now have all the pieces to the puzzle. If we develop together and if we create a good game, we have very solid chances to raise trophies.

- You play for your chance to show yourself against the best players, and it’s a very good feeling finally to play against the greatest players and not only watch them play, headtr1ck said. 

You can watch the entire interview with headtr1ck in the video below.

headtr1ck's first match for NIP was a true baptism of fire as he and the team had to square off against the CIS giants and headtr1ck's former team Natus Vincere. The Bo3 series also went in the favour of NAVI, despite a strong fight for headtr1ck who ended the match as NIP's highest-rated player. 

A feel good win at BLAST World Final capped off the year in style under difficult circumstances and finally there is a modicum of belief in Rasmus 'HooXi' Nielsen’s vision. Propelled by the rookie of the year in Ilya 'm0NESY' Osipov, G2 enjoyed sporadic success throughout the year but failure to qualify for the IEM Rio Major left them in dire straits, lacking direction and doubting leadership. Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač, famed for his angst toward his IGL’s seems to have turned a corner, putting trust in his Danish friend and long may it continue because G2 are finally exciting to watch again.

Who knows what form BIG are going to show up in and it feels like they haven’t fielded the same five players at consecutive tournaments as long as I can remember. Seemingly they are back to the full roster here but it’s all a bit up in the air and the Germans will be praying for the inevitable carry performance from Florian 'syrsoN' Rische. IEM Rio went about as well as could be expected, but not even a single map win during the best-of-three phase showed their true colours. BIG’s talismanic IGL, Johannes 'tabseN' Wodarz can never be truly put away, and BIG certainly have a chance of making it past the knockout stage if it all clicks into place.

2022 didn’t actually end all too well for Na’Vi with failure in the quarter-finals of the last four big events, including the Major, prompting the move culling Viktor 'sdy' Orudzhev for rookie Andrii 'npl' Kukharskyi. The CIS squad are never far from greatness thanks to Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev but as we’ve seen over the years, he cannot go it alone and I'm not sure this change is quite the answer to their problems. You cannot ever count out the GOAT though, and the expectation remains that he will continue to be the catalyst to their success.

A new superstar young CIS AWPer. Where have we heard that before? The latest chapter in the seemingly never ending machine cycle of NiP roster moves has finally secured a true AWPer, but will the language barrier prove too much to handle? Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen is once again tasked with collating raw talent, and sculpting it into title contention, but I don’t have much hope that they will hit the ground running here at BLAST. A great match to kick it off though, and the Ninjas are more than capable of taking down a rebuilding Na’Vi.

The closest group by far and any combination to progress can be argued for, but G2 and Na’Vi are expected to duel it out for the coveted top spot.

Group C kicks off on the 20th January with G2 taking on BIG.

huNter

Krimbo

nipl

G2 Esports

Natus Vincere

The best and most promising Counter-Strike talents come from Ukraine - At least if you ask the Top 20 best players from last year.

In HLTV’s annual ranking of the best players in a calendar year, they also ask each player to give their bid on an upcoming player who they see has the biggest chance to receive the same honour as themselves. For 2022, a big group of players agreed on one particular name; Daniil “headtr1ck” Valitov.

The new NIP AWPer was picked no more than seven times by superstars like Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov, and Benjamin “blameF” Bremer. In the list, headtr1ck were joined by three countrymen from Ukraine, leaving the CIS nation as the country with the most representatives. You can find every ‘Bold prediction’ down below.

[image:{"source":"cloudinary","publicId":"Gamle billeder/322829159_5494387297356829_1493937948680676573_n_qm4yqz","originalWidth":1280,"originalHeight":720,"customWidth":"100%","customHeight":"100%","cloudinaryAssetData":true,"cloudName":"pley-gg","format":"png"}]

Credit to [link:{"url":"https://twitter.com/NerdsCS/status/1614365804254089216","isNewTab":true,"text":"@NerdsCS"}] on Twitter.

Besides the luxury of having some of the best talents in the world, Ukraine also has the very best player in the game in Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev. A title that was written in stone this weekend at HLTV’s award show where he received his third Top 1 ranking in his career.

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Danyyl "headtr1ck" Valitov was revealed as the new AWP player for Ninjas in Pyjamas today.

- Daniil is an exceptionally promising young AWP talent that we're incredibly happy to have onboard. He's a great fit to our whole organization, and we're very happy to add him to our lineup. 2023 and beyond is looking promising!, Jonas Gundersen, COO of NIP says on their website.

The new signing will fill some big shoes on the NIP roster after the departure of Nicolai " dev1ce " Reedtz. During the last year, the Dane was inactive for NIP leaving the AWP duty in the hands of Patrick "es3tag" Hansen and Fredrik "REZ" Sterner.

It has been reported for nearly two weeks now that Ninjas in Pyjamas are looking to sign Daniil “headtr1ck⁠” Valitov from NAVI Junior.

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A confirmation of the transfer hasn’t hit the news yet, however, today [link:{"url":"https://www.dexerto.com/csgo/sources-nip-secure-headtr1ck-for-blast-premier-spring-groups-2023322/","isNewTab":true,"text":"Dexerto "}]can reveal that the Swedes have registered the 18-year-old AWPer on the lineup for the upcoming BLAST Premier Spring Groups later this January.

Something that heavily implies that a deal between NIP and NAVI has been made for the promising sniper. On the team, he will replace Patrick “es3tag” Hansen who got benched in December with this move also making room for Fredrik “REZ” Sterner to return to his previous role as a rifler.

Linus “nilo” Bergman and Max “maxster” Jansson, two talents from Young Ninjas (NIP’s academy team), are also on NIP’s team sheet for BLAST Spring Groups, Dexerto reports in their article.

NIP is set to field the following lineup at BLAST Spring Groups 

{cflag:SE} Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin 

{cflag:FI} Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen 

{cflag:UA} Daniil "⁠headtr1ck⁠" Valitov

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Natus Vincere Junior

Who will NIP target to become the next Swedish Ninja? And will it be an AWPer? The questions are many and the answers are few. 

Two days after the announcement of the benching of Patrick "es3tag" Hansen NIP are still to comment on what kind of player, that they are searching for.

This tweet could be a good indication though...

According to Dexerto's Luis Mira, it could be the former NAVI Junior AWPer, Danyyl "headtr1ck" Valitov that could be the move for NIP. Danyyl "headtr1ck" Valitov was put up for transfer in September by NAVI.

Another option could be Copenhagen Flames' AWPer Iulian "regali" Harjău, who has been very impressive during the last six months. Another AWP'er that became a free agent just yesterday is Aleksander "hades" Miskiewicz. The former ENCE player could also be a solid guess of who will wield the big green for NIP next season.

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The talent scene in professional Counter-Strike has never looked brighter than right now featuring a myriad of upcoming and youthful talents. Every month we are presented with new promising youngsters who have managed to climb through the ranks and 

Players like Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov, Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, and Helvijs “broky” Saukants are just a tiny fraction of talents who have made it to the very top of CS:GO.

We have asked the renowned CS:GO expert and caster Henry “HenryG” Greer to pick his three most exciting and upcoming talents in the game right now. And by the looks of the current CS:GO landscape it’s no surprise that all of them are from one specific region – the CIS.

1. Ihor "w0nderful" Zhdanov - 17 years old

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2. Danyyl "headtr1ck" Valitov - 18 years old

[image:{"source":"cloudinary","publicId":"Gamle billeder/headtr1ck_NAVI_1_tsjjqx","originalWidth":1422,"originalHeight":800,"customWidth":"100%","customHeight":"100%","cloudinaryAssetData":true,"cloudName":"pley-gg","format":"jpg"}]

3. Artem “ArtFr0st” Kharitonov - 21 years old

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w0nderfu1

Artfr0st

The current #1 team in the world will have to play without Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhailov in the opening round of ESL Pro League Season 15. The Russian was tested positive for Covid-19 at the airport on his way to Düsseldorf.

To replace him NAVI has flown in Daniil "Headtr1ck" Valitov. The NAVI Junior player will have to play from his hotel room, where he is currently in isolation after being called in at the last minute. 17-year-old Daniil "Headtr1ck" Valitov's last game in a competitive match was at the WePlay Academy League back in mid-January, so it will be interesting to see, what kind of shape the youngster is in.

NAVI will play the first match of Group D against the Polish team AGO at 12.30 (CET) today.

	30 days	90 days
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headtr1ck

Player stats

Articles mentioning headtr1ck

NIP announce benching of es3tag, k0nfig, and headtr1ck

NIP coach on headtr1ck's potential: One of the strongest AWPers in the world

Outsiders eliminate NIP from IEM Katowice

Vitality continues promising start to 2023

headtr1ck on NIP’s long title drought: I’m not scared about it

BLAST Spring Group C Preview

Ukrainians lead the way! Top 20 ‘Bold predictions’ 2022

NIP sign headtr1ck as new AWPer

New signing reportedly a part of NIP’s BLAST Spring Groups roster

Is this the new NIP AWPer?

HenryG picks his three most exciting CS:GO talents right now

NAVI without Boombl4 in first matches at ESL Pro League

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