Virtus.Pro preliminary roster led by Solo

Virtus.Pro preliminary roster has been assembled for the next season already. The lineup features notable and famous CIS players being led by Vega Squadron’s Alexey “Solo” Berezin. Ilya “Lil” Ilyuk, Sergei “G” Bragin, Alexander “XBOCT” Dashkevich and Vladimir “No[O]ne” Minenko are expected to join the mix.

Earlier today the Virtus.Pro preliminary roster had beenannounced.

The composition features notable and veteran CIS stars being led by Vega Squadron’s Alexey “Solo” Berezin. Expected to join him is; Sergei “G” Bragin most recently of the last Virtus.Pro roster, Ilya “Lil” Ilyuk from Polarity, Alexander “XBOCT” Dashkevich most recently from Team Spirit and Vladimir “No[O]ne” Minenko from Vega.

Virtus.Pro CEO, Anton “Sneg1” Cherepennikov, has warned that the formation can change at anytime and contracts have not yet been signed.

We have not yet signed any contracts with the players. In fact, we’re still discussing the possibility of creating such a roster. Everything can change in any moment. I’m also concerned about maintaining the proper sports management for the team. This is one of the most important and responsible tasks for me. Players are already warned about the physical trainings, daily regime and sports discipline.

On June 30th, Sneg1 had dissolved the entire Virtus.Pro roster after the team’s lamentable track record this season and failure to qualify for The International 6.

At that time he had also dismissed the team’s manager, George “drAmer” Faleev, and VP’s Sporting Director Sergey “Diver233” Pisotsky. Their duties within the organization were temporarily performed by Sneg1, who was slated to personally manage the entire process of putting together a new roster.

Only a week later Sneg1 had already expressed frustrations with developing a new team.

Virtus.Pro 2015-2016

Virtus.Pro at TI5

Virtus.Pro came in a commendable 5th-6th place at last year’s International championship and walked away with close to 1.2 million dollars. After that, they struggled to find even minor success moving forward.

On December 2nd, 2015, Virtus.Pro replaced Ilya “Illidan” Pivcaev with Airat “Silent” Gaziev. At first, the new chemistry seemed to have worked out. Immediately following the changes, the CIS squad placed second at The Summit 4 and won the D2CL Christmas Charity Magic tournament. Starting with January, 2016, something appeared to have snapped within the team. They slipped back, claiming 7th-12th places.

After a disappointing 9th-12th place at the Shanghai Major, they tried to mend what they thought was broken. They swapped Lil and DkPhobos for NoFear and yoky-, moved Silent to the substitute position and brought in ALOHADANCE. Unfortunately, the changes in their roster didn’t put an end to their bankruptcy of achievement.

The team continued to have a lamentable track record, failing to qualify for the Manila Major. They admitted to cheating in The Summit 5 European qualifiers Grand Finals and were disqualified. Their most recent “non-success”: they failed to qualify for The International 6, after placing 6th in the Round Robin stage.

Virtus.Pro preliminary roster

Alexey “Solo” Berezin
Ilya “Lil” Ilyuk
Sergei “G” Bragin
Alexander “XBOCT” Dashkevich
Vladimir “No[O]ne” Minenko