Team Vitality bid farewell to 3 of their members as they lost to NaVi in the Consolidation Final of BLAST Premier World Finals. It was reported after the PGL Major in Stockholm that Team Vitality will be making roster changes in 2022 and the players’ reaction and comments all but confirmed that this was the last event for the team.
The journey was labeled ‘Last Dance’ by fans and experts alike as Vitality had an incredible showing at BLAST Premier Fall Finals where they came second. They also won IEM Winter as ZywOo secured his first MVP of 2021 and came 3-4th at BLAST Premier World Finals.
According to 1pv.fr and Dexerto, the roster changes Vitality will make consist of the removal of Richard ‘shox’ Papillon and Jayson ‘Kyojin‘ Nguyen Van from the active roster while coach Remy ‘XTQZZZ’ Quoniam would be relieved of his duties as well.
The rumored trio to replace them would be the core of Astralis consisting of Peter ‘dupreeh’ Rasmussen, Emil ‘Magisk’ Reif, and coach Danny ‘zonic’ Sørensen. The three Danes have been on the bench of Astralis ever since Christian ‘k0nfig’ Wienecke and Benjamin ‘blameF’ Bremer joined along with coach ‘ave’. Their contracts expire in 2022 January and they will reportedly be signing for Team Vitality as a package deal.
The goodbye was very emotional for Dan ‘apEX’ Madesclaire in particular as seen in the post-match interview. It was XTQZZZ who has been with Vitality since the start. He helped shape ‘apEX’ from an entry fragger to an IGL while also helping greatly with the development of ‘misutaaa’ and ‘Kyojin’ when they joined. There was mutual respect from both sides as they shared a group hug after the game.
Meanwhile ‘shox’ was reported to join Team Liquid while ‘XTQZZZ’ is rumored to sign for G2 esports. He said he will be back for 2022 and fans expect great things once he joins the star-studded lineup of G2 who are already planning big things for 2022. Kyojin’s future is currently unclear.
If things go as planned, Vitality’s roster for 2022 will be:
- Dan ‘apEX’ Madesclaire
- Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut
- Kévin “misutaaa” Rabier
- Peter ‘dupreeh’ Rasmussen
- Emil ‘Magisk’ Reif
- Danny ‘zonic’ Sørensen (coach)
