Nemiga have announced the benching of captain Aliaksandr "1eeR" Nahorny, with former Spirit Academy player Nikita "robo" Dushin coming in to replace the Belarusian on a trial basis.
"1eeR once again led the team during a challenging time, performed reliably, and gave it his all, probably even exceeding 100%," the team's coach Anton "boX" Burko said in a statement. "However, as in any other sport, there comes a time when it's necessary to try new approaches and fundamentally change the structure of the game."
The news sees 1eeR removed from the starting lineup for the second time this year, after the 24-year-old found himself benched and transfer-listed in January following the signings of Aleksandr "KaiR0N-" Anashkin and Daniel "syph0" Ageyev.
By February Nemiga had reinstated 1eeR as the team's captain, with coach boX stating the organization had "discovered that process of adaptation for a new captain to the team's current structure would require significantly more time than the organization could offer."
Upon 1eeR's return Nemiga went on to have a successful season, winning a number of online competitions like ECL Season 51 Europe Cup 2, BC Game Masters Season 1, and CCT Europe Series 1, culminating in a peak VRS ranking of 29th in the global standings.
Despite their positive results, Nemiga have turned to former Spirit Academy player robo to take over as the team's captain for the new season. The 20-year-old arrives with nearly two years in Spirit's academy system under his belt, but he was most-recently turning out for ex-RUBY.
With ex-RUBY robo managed to post some solid results in Europe's online scene, notably taking second-place in CCT Europe Series 4 whilst defeating Gentle Mates and Virtus.pro along the way.
The new-look Nemiga will debut within the next week as they take to the server for BLAST Bounty Season 2.
Nemiga are now:
Maksim "sowalio" Beketov Aleksandr "KaiR0N-" Anashkin Beksultan "khaN" Ospan Daniel "syph0" Ageyev Nikita "robo" Dushin (trial)
Anton "boX" Burko (coach)
Aleksandr 'KaiR0N-' Anashkin
Nikita 'robo' Dushin
Gentle Mates
Alejandro 'alex' Masanet
Alejandro 'mopoz' Fernández-Quejo Cano
Pere 'sausol' Solsona Saumell
David 'dav1g' Granado Bermudo
Angel 'repk3ys' Gracia Navarro
Nemiga
Aleksandr 'KaiR0N-' Anashkin
Aliaksandr '1eeR' Nahorny
Maksim 'sowalio' Beketov
Beksultan 'khaN' Ospan
Daniel 'syph0' Ageyev
Anton 'boX' Burko
Aliaksandr '1eeR' Nahorny
Spirit Academy
Vitaly 'VILBy' Zakharyuta
Kirill 'Kiryasoo' Solovkov
Yury 'kidofpain' Sokal
Nikita 's1nside' Besedin
Kirill 'k0gaSs' Emelyanov
Vladislav 'Flash_1' Bykov
Beksultan 'khaN' Ospan
Maksim 'sowalio' Beketov
Daniel 'syph0' Ageyev
Anton 'boX' Burko
Virtus.pro
Nikolay 'mir' Bityukov
Vladimir 'b1st' Krasikov
Dias 'F0R3VER' Kutubay
Alexander 'AquaRS' Kovalev
Vadim 'tO0RO' Arkov
Dmitriy 'ProbLeM' Martinov
ex-RUBY
Nikita 'robo' Dushin
Vladislav 'H4SAN4TOR' Tuchin
Maksim 'sh1nejezzz' Vinogradov
Marat 'shocky' Karabanov