- The CS:GO veteran Nikola “LEGIJA” Ninić is making a switch to VALORANT
- His career spans nearly a decade, playing and coaching for many world-class teams
- LEGIJA’s new employer, Bleed, is aiming to become a major regional organization
After almost a decade of professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, both as a player and a coach, Nikola “LEGIJA” Ninić is making a move to VALORANT.
LEGIJA Switches to VALORANT
Nikola Ninić, more commonly known as LEGIJA by competitive CS:GO fans is one of the field’s most prominent veterans. With almost ten years as a professional player, and later as a coach, he has built up a massive amount of experience, which the Serbo-German pro will now use in his new coaching job at Bleed. The organization, a European-Singaporean team, announced LEGIJA’s signing recently.
The signing of LEGIJA is not random at all. The 31-year-old professional has vast experience in FPS games as a whole. He began his professional career in 2012 and has played for teams like MOUZ, NRG, BIG, and Envy. His first coaching job was in 2015, leading Nihilium Gaming’s roster. After bouncing as a coach in other teams, he returned to playing in Ex-Method, NRG Esports, and BIG. In 2018 LEGIJA became part of BIG’s organizational staff, teaching its CS:GO roster until August 2018. From January 2020 to March 2021, he went on to coach Team Envy’s players. In the last few months before him joining VALORANT, he worked intermittently for BIG.
With This Acquisition, Bleed Aims for the Top
Bleed is a relative newcomer to the competitive VALORANT scene, fielding its roster in September of last year. The Singapore-based organization started expanding into the European market with the signing of veteran Swedish FPS player Jacob “pyth” Mourujärvi, as well as Max “maxie” Lönström, an in-game team leader, also from Sweden. Pyth was supposed to join OG, but talks seem to have broken down, so Bleed has now snatched him instead.
Bleed will compete in the VCT Southeast Asia (SEA) in the 2022 season and is counting heavily on the imported talent from Europe. LEGIJA and pyth’s large amounts of experience should come in handy as Bleed aims to become one of the best contenders in the region. Despite their impressive new roster composition, Bleed is still untested at the big scene, having attended only minor regional events last year.
The European-Singaporean currently has eight players in its VALORANT roster, but pyth and maxie have yet to play any official matches. There is still the possibility Bleed might let some of its players go or if it will look to experiment with different starting lineups throughout the season.
