NAVI: s1mple, electronic agreed to new deals until 2022

Both players have recently signed contract extensions with the CIS giants.

Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev and Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov have committed their futures to Natus Vincere after putting pen to paper on new deals until the end of 2022, HLTV.org has confirmed. This puts an end to speculation about the duo's contract situation, especially that of s1mple, whose previous deal was set to expire at the end of this month.

Both players have been key figures for NAVI since signing for the organisation. s1mple was recruited from Liquid in August 2016, while electroNic joined the team over a year later, in November 2017, in a transfer from FlipSid3 Tactics.

s1mple has made HLTV.org's top 20 player of the year ranking for each of the past four years, finishing top of the pile in 2018. With 10 MVP medals, he is joint-second with Kenny "⁠kennyS⁠" Schrub and Christopher "⁠GeT_RiGhT⁠" Alesund on the list of players with the most individual awards. Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz heads the list with 15 MVP honours.

electroNic finished fourth in 2018's player of the year ranking and sixth in 2019's list, though he picked up his first MVP medal only this year, at the ICE Challenge, in London.

Natus Vincere are likely to enter the new year inside the top three in the world rankings following a series of deep runs during the final stretch of 2020. The CIS team's highlight of the year was the victory at IEM Katowice — the last Big Event held on LAN before the coronavirus pandemic hit.