Sergey "starix" Ischuk is no longer a part of Spirit's roster, the organization has announced today. Vladyslav "arch" Svistov will be stepping in for the time being as a temporary replacement.

A five-month-long playing stint with Spirit has come to an end for Sergey "⁠starix⁠" Ischuk, who joined the side after leaving the position of Natus Vincere's head coach in March.

starix will no longer be a part of Spirit's roster, but is still tied to the organization

Spirit pointed out a "lack of progress and the results over the past few weeks" as the reason for the change, with their recent results being failed qualification attempts for events such as DreamHack Open Denver, where they went out to HellRaisers, and WCA 2017, where they were eliminated in the closed qualifier by AVANGAR.

The last match starix played for the side was against Binary Dragons, with the Serbian side picking up a 2-0 victory over Spirit to eliminate them from Hellcase Cup 6.

In the official announcement, Spirit point out that the decision to depart the active roster was a mutual one, with the team manager Ruslan Bugrin stating that, even though he is no longer a player, starix is still a part of the organization:

"The decision was not easy, but Sergei and I talked and came to the conclusion that [leaving the roster] would be better for the team and for his personal growth. Sergei is still in the organization, we offered him several options for further cooperation. Now everything depends only on Sergei, he needs some time to make a decision. "

To fill in for starix, Spirit will be using Vladyslav "⁠arch⁠" Svistov, who was recently released by Prophecy after a season of Gfinity Elite Series.

Spirit are now: