Arguably the biggest signing in CSGO history, Nicolai ‘dev1ce’ Reedtz might be headed for an early exit from Ninjas in Pyjamas’ CSGO roster. The Dane joined the prestigious org in April of 2021, after spending 5 years with Astralis, winning 4 Majors, and a plethora of other trophies.
According to new findings by 1pv.fr and Dexerto.com, dev1ce may have to cut his 3-year contract short as he is keen for an exit from the team. Disappointing results and a bad patch of form have left ‘The Tom Cruise of CSGO’ with little to celebrate about.
NiP’s woes were visible from the get-go as they continuously rotated one player, not finding a permanent 5th player. First, it was ‘ztr’ from Young Ninjas who was then replaced by ‘LNZ’. After the PGL Major, he was replaced by Patrick ‘es3tag’ Hansen from Cloud9. But even the addition of another Dane couldn’t help Nicolai as he was visibly disappointed by the performances.
NiP lost to Team Liquid, a team on their last legs was able to knock them out of BLAST Premier Fall Finals at the Royal Arena and it was frustrating for dev1ce and for all of NiP. Their best finish was at IEM Fall EU RMR, where they defeated ENCE to take home the trophy. But it had little value as it was a qualifier for the Major with a limited prize pool.
CONTINUOUS WOES
Dev1ce came to NiP with the intention of building a legacy, having achieved almost everything with Astralis. It was equated with the transfer of Cristiano Ronaldo to Juventus when he first joined, with the desire to win trophies all over the world.
But it wasn’t meant to be as NiP bombed out of the Stockholm Major in 5-8th place, losing to G2 in front of their home crowd in the quarters. They barely scraped through the legends stage as well as Copenhagen Flames came close to knock them out in the top 16 itself but they finally made it through but that was where the hype ended.
Even after roster changes the team couldn’t find their rhythm and lost to Liquid at Fall Finals, were second best to Vitality at IEM winter, and 7-8th at BLAST Premier world finals. A part of it was due to dev1ce feeling ill and being asked to sit out the last 2 tournaments.
It was dev1ce himself who had asked to leave Astralis in early 2021 and they approached NiP seeking a transfer. Dev1ce had moved to Sweden quite a while back and it was rumored that it was partly due to him wanting to stay closer to home that he chose NiP. He was in a relationship with Emilia Hult at that time and lived with her in Stockholm.
As per dexerto, after going their separate ways, dev1ce has moved back to Denmark and lives in Copenhagen.
RETURN OF THE KING?
Dev1ce was instrumental in his side’s success throughout his 5-year tenure and was their star player. He won 4 majors and was the MVP in two of them as Astralis completely reinvented how the game was played and no one could topple them at their peak.
Since his departure, Astralis have found little to no success. Their best performance has been a 3-4th finish at IEM Cologne 2021 and BLAST Premier Fall Finals. The AWP role at Astralis is still in question even after the signing of Philip ‘Lucky’ Ewald. He started out as an AWPer for the Danes but his performances were not up to the mark as Astralis failed to make playoffs of EPL S14 and a 13-14th place finish at the Major was no good either.
Since the signing of ‘blameF’ and ‘k0nfig’, IGL ‘gla1ve’ has taken over the primary AWP role. What is more interesting is that ‘Lucky’ isn’t even the secondary AWPer as ‘k0nfig’ is given priority over him.
With dev1ce’s renewed interest in Astralis, he might just be what Astralis need as he knows the team through and through and can be a clear upgrade over Lucky. This would free up gla1ve to focus solely on IGL-ing if he gets his star AWPer back.
NiP will look to make back some of what they spent on his transfer, which was reportedly close to $715,000 US Dollars. Dev1ce was signed on a 3-year deal but seeing how things are turning out, NiP will definitely look to make back some of that if Nicolai is to leave the org.
Stick with us for more updates on this move.
