At the end of the week, Vitality announced that Belgian eSports player Nabil “Nivera” Benrlitom. A twenty-year-old player decided to switch to Valorant – namely, to the corresponding Liquid division, where his brother already plays.
The Belgian has been on Vitality's roster for the past six months, but remained on the bench after the team decided to return to a five-man roster in March. This was largely the result of Valve's policy, which established tournament rules in which teams receive penalties for roster changes during rating tournaments.
However, last year the use of an expanded roster seemed very promising, and Nivera's participation in Vitality was one of the brightest examples. During several tournaments, the Belgian player usually replaced Kevin "misutaa" Rabier or Richard "shox" Papillon, depending on what maps the team had to play on. It was this strategy that allowed the team to win at IEM Beijing-Haidan Europe and then at the BLAST Premier Fall Finals, as a result of which it remained at the top of the world rankings for several weeks in November-December.
However, at the beginning of 2021, the results of Nivera and the team as a whole worsened, and since the spring the player remained in the reserves even during the period when Vitality was looking for a replacement for one of the players. Now Nivera hopes to continue his career in Valorant.
