Team captain of Virtus.Pro, Yaroslav 'NS' Kuznetsov, posted a blog on VK (Russian Facebook) to address the hundred of users questioning him regarding the possibility of Ars-Art joining his team.
Below is the translation of the blog by ingik:
More than 100 users have posted the same question to me, “Will Smile play for your team?”. I thought that I should answer everyone here. Sergey aka Smile is an amazing player and person. We played together for about 2-3 years in different teams and it was always a pleasure. But this doesn’t mean that we will use our personal sympathies and immediately destroy everything that we have built for months.
At the moment, Virtus.pro Dota 2 has a nice playstyle and a strong roster. I, as a captain and my players did not consider changing anything with all these shuffle going around. Our hard work for six months will not be in vain and restarted just by changing our roster. The Virtus.pro squad won’t be going through any changes, unless something extraordinary happened to one of our players, all the way till TI3 100%. It is only after that we might have some shuffles but we are not looking that far ahead yet. We are training and playing our best.
I wish Smile the best and I am sure such a talented player can easily find a suitable team or perhaps create his own one. Anyway, I don't think he will be retiring from Dota, so all the fans just have to wait for him to return to the pro scene.
At the moment, Virtus.pro Dota 2 has a nice playstyle and a strong roster. I, as a captain and my players did not consider changing anything with all these shuffle going around. Our hard work for six months will not be in vain and restarted just by changing our roster. The Virtus.pro squad won’t be going through any changes, unless something extraordinary happened to one of our players, all the way till TI3 100%. It is only after that we might have some shuffles but we are not looking that far ahead yet. We are training and playing our best.
I wish Smile the best and I am sure such a talented player can easily find a suitable team or perhaps create his own one. Anyway, I don't think he will be retiring from Dota, so all the fans just have to wait for him to return to the pro scene.
Since, Ars-Art has responded to NS' blog in an interview by Virtus.Pro TV (In Russian) and stated that he will perhaps look to take a break from competitive Dota 2 for a month or two.
Time will tell if Ars-Art will return to the competitive scene.
Ars-Art has played together with NS in several different teams over the years and was considered the core member prior to DotA 6.48 era in Virtus.Pro.
Source: NS' blog
