Vitality have confirmed that Justinas "jL" Lekavicius will play as a stand-in for the team at two upcoming Counter-Strike events, BLAST Open Porto and PGL Masters Bucharest, HLTV reports.
Lekavicius is covering for William "mezii" Merriman and Dan "apEX" Madesclaire, each of whom will miss one of the two events while on leave. Vitality did not specify in their announcement which player will be absent from which tournament. An earlier report by Sebastien "KRL" Perez indicated that mezii would sit out BLAST Open Porto and apEX would sit out PGL Masters Bucharest.
On that basis, Vitality would field two different line-ups across the two events, with the rest of the roster unchanged in both cases.
- BLAST Open Porto: Dan "apEX" Madesclaire, Robin "ropz" Kool, Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut, Shahar "flameZ" Shushan and Justinas "jL" Lekavicius
- PGL Masters Bucharest: William "mezii" Merriman, Robin "ropz" Kool, Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut, Shahar "flameZ" Shushan and Justinas "jL" Lekavicius
A stand-in role during a rough patch
The addition comes during a difficult stretch for Vitality. After winning five events in a row earlier this year, the team have gone three consecutive events without reaching a top-four finish, and the two tournaments jL joins for arrive with that run still unbroken.
For jL, the two events are another chance to play in front of prospective employers. He left Natus Vincere in July and has been without a permanent team since, having already served as a stand-in for MOUZ earlier in the year. Stand-in spells at two events of this level give him a further stretch of tier-one Counter-Strike on his record ahead of the next roster window.
Neither Vitality nor jL has indicated whether the arrangement could become permanent, and the announcement covers only the two named tournaments. Vitality have not announced any further roster changes, and have not said when mezii and apEX are expected back in the active line-up.
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