NAVI Withdraw from the Singapore Major as Mag Gets COVID-19

The Ukrainian organization Natus Vincere has announced that their Dota 2 coach Andrey "Mag" Chipenko received a positive test for COVID-19, while some of the other players caught a fever. For this reason the team will not be able to participate in the upcoming Singapore Major.

Earlier NAVI revealed that their players Bogdan "Iceberg" Vasilenko and Andrii "ALWAYSWANNAFLY" Bondarenko caught the coronavirus and would be replaced by Roman "RAMZES666" Kushnarev and Andrey "Mag" Chipenko. Interestingly enough, RAMZES was already on his plane to Singapore when NAVI decided to withdraw from the event and found out the news upon arrival.

NAVI, who placed second in the DPC’s Upper Division in CIS, were supposed to play in the group stage. The organizers of the major have updated its format, so that one additional participant of the Wild Card stage will advance to the groups.

ONE Esports Singapore Major 2021 is scheduled for March 27th – April 4th and is the first Dota 2 LAN-event since the beginning of the pandemic. A number of teams will have to compete at it with stand-ins, including Nigma, Quincy Crew, and T1.