According to journalist Luis Mira's sources, Natus Vincere star Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev will miss the Intel Extreme Masters Sydney 2023 due to problems with his documents. This information was also confirmed by the his brother Alexey.

It is reported that the Ukrainian player's documents for EU residence are not yet ready. If he went to Sydney, there was a chance that he would not be able to return to the EU. It should be reminded that Aleksandr will be replaced by the team's head coach Andrey "B1ad3" Gorodenskiy. Justinas "jL" Lekavicius will most likely play the role of sniper.

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For B1ad3, IEM Sydney 2023 will be the first LAN tournament in 2100 days. The 26-year-old coach's last match was against AVANGAR at the ELEAGUE Major 2018 Challengers Stage. Then his FlipSid3 team lost 16:7 on the Train map and left the major with a score of 0-3 in the Swiss.

NAVI's first opponent in Sydney will be Apeks, for whom IEM Sydney 2023 will be the first LAN tournament in the updated roster. Recently, Ådne "sense" Fredriksen replaced Martin "STYKO" Styk in the roster. The match will start on October 16 at 4:30 EEST.

Header image: ESL Copyright | Adam Lakomy