At the beginning of the week news portals 1pv.fr and Dexerto published reports that Nikolai «» Ridtz is planning to leave NIP and return to Astralis. Citing multiple sources, they mention that the Dane is now looking to get rid of his three-year contract with the Swedish team.
The return of device would be very favorable news for Astralis, because after his departure in April 2021, its management failed to find a suitable sniper. However, a long-term contract with NIP may prove to be a difficult hurdle to overcome. Sources estimate the cost of the transition to the Swedish cyber sports organization in the amount from 700 thousand dollars to a million dollars. It is not known what part of this payment NIP will demand as compensation for the player's return to Astralis.
NIP's performances at recent major tournaments have shown that device's relationship with the team has not been very productive. At the BLAST Premier Fall Finals, she was defeated by Liquid, and at the PGL Stockholm Major, she failed to rise above 5 – 8th place. Despite individual successes (such as the fact that device won the MVP title at IEM Fall), NIP's performances in 2021 are hard to call successful. The departure of head coach Bjorn «THREAT» Pearce and the addition of Patrick «es3tag» Hansen to the lineup, which added to the difficulty of game communication due to the language barrier, didn't make things any easier either. Device ended up missing the last games of the year – as reported by team management due to health issues.