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NIP sign Aleksib; Plopski benched

Aleksib has signed with Ninjas in Pyjamas, the Swedish organization has announced. Nicolas “⁠Plopski⁠” Gonzalez Zamora has been benched from the team to make room for the new addition. The 25-year-old was allowed to explore his options by G2 at the beginning of the summer break in mid-July, and he was benched the following month after Rasmus “⁠HooXi⁠” Nielsen took his place on the team.

The Finnish in-game leader is now set to take over the reins in Ninjas in Pyjamas from Hampus “⁠hampus⁠” Poser and the team’s communication will from now on be in English, NIP COO Jonas “⁠calc⁠” Gundersen revealed in a statement.

Aleksib lands a new team following his benching in G2

Gundersen further added that the change was made after the team showed “signs of stagnation.” Despite being one of the more consistent teams when it comes to making it deep at the biggest events, Ninjas in Pyjamas have repeatedly fallen short of their goals of clinching a big title.

The Swedish-Danish mixture most recently suffered their toughest exit in months, placing fifth in Group A of ESL Pro League following an atrocious start to the round robin stage that saw NIP go 0-6 in maps across the series. During the tournament, Fredrik “⁠REZ⁠” Sterner was seen taking over primary AWPing, a role he will transition into full-time moving forward, HLTV.org has learned.

“When there’s signs of stagnation, new energy might be needed to keep progressing and we think the timing is right to make a larger change than usual; bringing on Aleksib as IGL and moving our communication to English,” Gundersen said.

“Under the leadership of djL, we’re excited to see how this new constellation will evolve with new roles and ideas, and will continue our quest towards growing into a championship contending team.”

The move comes just in time for the roster lock for the upcoming Regional Major Ranking event, where Ninjas in Pyjamas will fight for a place at the IEM Rio Major. Aleksib will make his debut with the team at the event taking place in Malta from October 4-9, in a group featuring the likes of FaZe, Cloud9, G2, and Astralis.

Ninjas in Pyjamas now have:

Sweden Hampus “⁠hampus⁠” Poser
Sweden Fredrik “⁠REZ⁠” Sterner
Denmark Patrick “⁠es3tag⁠” Hansen
Sweden Ludvig “⁠Brollan⁠” Brolin
Finland Aleksi “⁠Aleksib⁠” Virolainen

Sweden Daniel “⁠djL⁠” Narancic (coach)

Sweden Nicolas “⁠Plopski⁠” Gonzalez Zamora (benched)
Denmark Nicolai “⁠device⁠” Reedtz (on leave)

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