Virtus.pro have officially removed Ilya Perfecto Zalutskiy from the active roster. The former Natus Vincere anchor, who joined the team in the summer of 2025, failed to stabilize the squad’s performance and became another casualty of the prolonged results crisis affecting the Russian organization.
Lack of a stable game model
Signing Perfecto looked like a strategic move: tier-1 experience, a Major-winning background, a disciplined playstyle, and strong team-oriented fundamentals. Reality, however, proved far harsher. Virtus.pro never managed to build a stable game model, and the team started 2026 without a single victory at HLTV-tracked events.
The decision to bench Perfecto became a logical conclusion to this period, although it is far from being the only issue within the roster.
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Why Virtus.pro came to this decision
According to the organization’s official stance, the current roster configuration did not allow the team to unlock its potential or achieve consistent results. This became the key argument following internal discussions between the players and management.
In effect, Virtus.pro acknowledged that the experiment with Perfecto as one of the core elements of the system did not work, regardless of his individual level.
Perfecto’s statistics: not a failure, but not a solution either
Over the past three months, Perfecto played 15 maps with a 1.02 rating, which looks respectable on paper. His Utility rating of 90 and Clutch score of 48 underline Ilya’s classic style: control, support, and playing for results rather than highlights.
However, for a team losing match after match, this was not enough. Virtus.pro needed impact, leadership, and a stable structure — not just clean support play.
A disastrous start to 2026 as the point of no return
The beginning of the new season was catastrophic. Virtus.pro lost to teams such as Nuclear TigeRES, Nemiga, WW, and RUSTEC, failing to win a single match recorded by HLTV.
At the same time, the team rapidly lost ranking positions: from peak spots in the top 20 to dropping outside the top 40 — a particularly painful fall for the Virtus.pro brand.
Temporary pause and the search for a new leader
The organization also announced a temporary competitive pause. The main goal is to find a new IGL and an optimal roster configuration. This indirectly confirms Virtus.pro’s core problem: the lack of a clear in-game identity and leadership during matches.
Perfecto, who partially filled the role of a tactical backbone, was unable to fully close this gap.
Current state of the Virtus.pro roster
At the moment, Virtus.pro remain with a reduced roster and multiple open questions about the future.
Active roster:
- Evgenii ‘FL1T’ Lebedev
- Petr ‘fame’ Bolyshev
- Vladimir ‘b1st’ Krasikov
- Vadim ‘tO0RO’ Arkov
- Dmitriy ‘ProbLeM’ Martinov — Coach
The team has effectively entered a rebuilding phase, where every next decision could become decisive.
What’s next for Perfecto
The player himself has confirmed that he is open to new offers and is considering continuing his career specifically as a defensive midfielder / lurker. Given his experience, trophies, and reputation, interest from tier-1 or stable tier-2 teams appears more than realistic.
Perfecto on the bench
Perfecto’s benching is not just a decision about one player, but another symptom of Virtus.pro’s systemic crisis. Seven months of experimentation produced no results, the start of 2026 only exposed deeper issues, and the team is now forced to begin rebuilding almost from scratch.
For Perfecto, this is a chance to reboot his career in a more stable environment. For Virtus.pro, it is yet another attempt to find a formula that will finally stop breaking under the pressure of real matches.
