On December 10, the Swedish NIP team announced that Nikolay “device” Ridtz will not appear on the roster for the final stage of IEM Winter. He will be replaced by a sniper from the youth team, Love “phzy” Smiderbrant. He will play in the semi-final match against G2.
The esports organization explains that device “felt unwell the day before and the doctor advised him to rest and recuperate.” Its representatives clarified that the test for COVID-19 turned out to be negative, but despite this, the player was given time to rest.
The prospect of performing without a device will significantly complicate the situation for NIP, since Riedtz previously took third place in the individual rankings at IEM Winter, second only to Nikola “NiKo” Kovacs and Jami "Jame" Ali, who played noticeably fewer cards. Now NIP can only hope that device will be back in action in time for the last tournament in which it will take part this year – BLAST Premier World Finals starts just two days after the end of IEM Winter.
Meanwhile, nineteen-year-old phzy faces the biggest challenge of his career. Over the past three months, he has posted an average rating of 1.11, but has never played against a top-20 opponent during that time. Thus, the match against G2 will be his first performance at this level.
