Ninjas in Pyjamas has acquired well-regarded CS:GO in-game leader Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen to join its growingly international roster, moving three-year veteran Nicolas “Plopski” Gonzalez Zamora to the bench.
In a statement today, the NiP organization via COO Jonas Gunderson said that “signs of stagnation” within the NiP camp led to this change, in hopes that “new energy” would incite improved form. Along with the move to acquire aleksib and bench Plopski, the team is also changing the in-game communication language to English.
Once an all-Swedish team, NiP has signed Danish AWPer Patrick “es3tag” Hansen and now Finnish IGL aleksib in the past year. Just months ago, NiP also added to the roster by signing former Fnatic prodigy Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin. The trio of aleksib, es3tag, and Brollan will be flanked by Hampus Poser and long-standing member Fredrik “REZ” Sterner.
Aleksib became available for transfer after being moved to the G2 Esports bench in mid-August. He had only joined the roster at the beginning of 2022 after previous stints with ENCE and OG but has yet to replicate the same amount of success he found leading ENCE in 2019 since. G2 moved Aleksib to the bench alongside signing jks and HooXi.
Plopski will be moved to the NiP bench and will be made available for transfer offers, with the NiP organization hoping to “facilitate his next move.” Superstar dev1ce, who joined NiP in a blockbuster transfer in April 2021, has remained on the NiP inactive roster since the start of 2022.
NiP is just coming off a 2-3 performance at ESL Pro League season 16, falling short of the playoffs. Their next event is a major one: the IEM Road to Rio European RMR event.
