Vitality have announced that Justinas "jL" Lekavicius will be serve as a substitute for the team at BLAST Open Porto and PGL Masters Bucharest, replacing William "mezii" Merriman and Dan "apEX" Madesclaire whilst the pair are on paternity leave.
In their announcement Vitality did not confirm which events mezii and apEX would be missing respectively, but an earlier report by Sebastien "KRL" Perez indicated that mezii would miss BLAST Open Porto and apEX PGL Masters Bucharest.
The news comes amidst a period of tough results for Vitality who, after winning five events on the bounce earlier this year, have now gone three events in a row without a top-four finish.
For jL this represents another opportunity to put himself in the shop window following his departure from Natus Vincere in July, having already served on MOUZ as a stand-in earlier in the year.
Should mezii and apEX miss the events as previously reported, Vitality would field the following rosters:
BLAST Open Porto:
Dan "apEX" Madesclaire Robin "ropz" Kool Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut Shahar "flameZ" Shushan Justinas "jL" Lekavicius
PGL Masters Bucharest:
William "mezii" Merriman Robin "ropz" Kool Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut Shahar "flameZ" Shushan Justinas "jL" Lekavicius
Natus Vincere
Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen
Mihai 'iM' Ivan
Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiy
Ihor 'w0nderful' Zhdanov
Drin 'makazze' Shaqiri
Andrey 'B1ad3' Gorodenskiy
Shahar 'flameZ' Shushan
Mathieu 'ZywOo' Herbaut
Sebastien 'KRL' Perez
Justinas 'jL' Lekavicius
Robin 'ropz' Kool
MOUZ
Ádám 'torzsi' Torzsás
Lotan 'Spinx' Giladi
Dorian 'xertioN' Berman
Oldřich 'PR' Nový
Adrian 'xelex' Vincze
Dennis 'sycrone' Nielsen
Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire
William 'mezii' Merriman
Vitality
Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire
Robin 'ropz' Kool
Mathieu 'ZywOo' Herbaut
Shahar 'flameZ' Shushan
William 'mezii' Merriman
Rémy 'XTQZZZ' Quoniam