Yaroslav "NS" Kuznetsov frankly expressed that the person who really caused Team Secret to decline was not Khalid "Crystallis" Arets but Clement "Puppey" Ivanov. "Quite the opposite, I guess," he said.
The former professional player and streamer made this comment during a stream on Twitch.
“Puppey has struggled in the past, that's undeniable, but he was playing with a 'disabled' Crystallis - who couldn't win any while with Puppey, so everything really bad. People have said a lot, 'Oh, if Puppey just needs a good carry, he'll be fine.' But then Crystallis decided to join 'Banda Nuna' and they won ESL One Bangkok. So the question is, who is really the saboteur in this situation? So what if it's not a carry? I don't think anyone expected Puppey to be the one actually holding Crystallis back, but given what happens, that seems about right.”
According to NS, Team Secret's captain may be the reason why Crystallis never became the player everyone expected and became the team's main problem. He pointed out that as soon as Crystallis left the team, he won ESL One Bangkok 2024.
What's interesting is that as soon as Crystallis joined PARIVISION, he started achieving outstanding results at tournaments. Many former esports players have even publicly apologized for what they said in the past, for lack of a more reasonable explanation.
It should be noted that NS has also been in conflict with Valve regarding aspects of the Frostivus 2024 event in the Dota 2 game.