NIP releases Gunnar !

Ninjas in Pyjamas or NiP is a Swedish Esport team. They have announced that NiP has parted ways with North American DOTA 2 players Nico “Gunnar” Lopez. Gunnar had been playing for NiP since September of 2019. He played the role of carry in the DOTA 2 team. The team hasn’t been performing very well recently. Sources say that Gunnar has been released due to the lack of results. NiP crashed out of the WePlay! Bukovel Minor in January 2020. They finished at the bottom of the table alongside FURIA. 

The replacement for Gunnar is yet to be decided. NiP have announced that tryouts will be held to find the replacement players. Team captain, Peter “ppd” Dager says that this change might seem a little odd but it is for the best. The team also announced that they will be moving back to Europe in order to improve their game and practice regimes. “Moving forward for NiP. Dota2 we will be playing the next qualifier in the European region,” Ppd said. “By relocating to Europe we will practice consistently against the best teams in EU and CIS and focus on gradual improvement rather than rushing all of our practice in a 1-week boot camp before a qualifier or LAN.”

Some are hoping that NiP will bring back its former player Marcus “Ace” Hoelgaard.

Ace was replaced by Gunnar in 2019. Ace has good history with the team, he had a successful run with NiP helping them win the OGA Dota PIT Minor in April of 2019. Later he also aided them team’s victory in StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor season two in June 2019.  

NiP’s decision of moving back to Europe might just be the right one. Given the fact that European teams are much stronger than North American ones, NiP will have no choice but to revamp and improve their game style. By doing so they can get back to winning tournaments like before.