jL Will Cover Vitality’s Upcoming BLAST Open Porto and PGL Masters Bucharest Runs

Vitality has not publicly assigned the two absences to specific events, though earlier reporting linked mezii to BLAST Open Porto and apEX to PGL Masters Bucharest.

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Vitality announced on August 4 that Justinas “jL” Lekavicius will stand in for the team at BLAST Open Porto and PGL Masters Bucharest. He will replace William “mezii” Merriman and Dan “apEX” Madesclaire while the pair are on maternity leave.

Vitality did not specify which player would miss each event in its announcement. Earlier reporting had mezii missing BLAST Open Porto and apEX sitting out PGL Masters Bucharest.

Potential Vitality rosters

If those assignments hold, Vitality’s BLAST Open Porto lineup will consist of:

Dan “apEX” Madesclaire
Robin “ropz” Kool
Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut
Shahar “flameZ” Shushan
Justinas “jL” Lekavicius

For PGL Masters Bucharest, the expected roster will be:

William “mezii” Merriman
Robin “ropz” Kool
Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut
Shahar “flameZ” Shushan
Justinas “jL” Lekavicius

The temporary change comes during a difficult stretch for Vitality. The team had won five events in a row earlier this year, but it then went three consecutive tournaments without reaching the top four.

For jL, the move provides another chance to compete at the highest level after he left Natus Vincere in July. He had also served as a stand-in for MOUZ earlier this year, and will now prepare for two more assignments with one of Counter-Strike 2’s strongest teams.

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Counter-Strike 2 is a free-to-play multiplayer tactical first-person shooter developed and published by Valve. Released in September 2023, it is the fifth main entry in the Counter-Strike series and serves as a direct replacement for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on Steam. Two teams, Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists, compete in objective-based rounds across modes such as bomb defusal and hostage rescue. Built on the Source 2 engine, the game introduced volumetric smoke physics, revised weapon handling, and a new sub-tick server architecture. It inherited all cosmetic items from its predecessor and features both a map-specific Competitive mode and a numerically ranked Premier mode.