ARS ART officially Joins Virtus Pro

Ten days ago Virtus.Pro announced that Sergey "ARS-ART / Smile" Revin is going to be a temporary stand-in, since Alexander "Santa" Koltan had been benched. Whereas today, on April Fools' Day, they state that Sergey has become a full-time player. Even though it can be regarded as a joke, our editorial staff tends to believe that this is a legit announcement. At least, it is not as absurd as el'Pride claiming to drop their male and female Dota 2 squads and sign Gambit Gaming's League of Legends team.

Why do we think it is true? First of all, Virtus.Pro managed to step their game up significantly over this short period of time. They were crowned as The Defense #3 champions, having defeated Fnatic.EU in the Grand Final this Saturday. Moreover, yesterday VP finished second at their own Russian Dota 2 League, having lost to Dignitas.

 

Secondly, all of us could see what Ilya "Illidan / Airman" Pevcaev meant, when he said that Sergey allows them to create more openings around the map. It can be exemplified by his blink-stun initiations on Nyx Assassin in the first game of The Defense #3 Grand Final. Additionally, it is worth highlighting his play on Jakiro in both Grand Finals - Sergey created a lot of space and time for his team with perfect stun positioning in team fights.

 

Last, but not least. There are no real openings for ARS-ART in other CIS powerhouses. Even though he had played in international rosters before, it seems like it is not worth refering to it - VP have proven to be a fearsome opponent, so there is no reason to leave "The Bears".

 

Virtus.Pro roster:

 

 Yaroslav 'NS' Kuznetsov

Sergey 'KSi' Kuzin

Oleg 'Crazy' Kolensichenko

 Ilya 'Airman / Illidan' Pevcaev

 Sergey 'ARS-ART / Smile' Revin