Vitality will have their in-game leader back in action at the prestigious event.

Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire has returned to activity after taking a short break from competition earlier this month, the player and Vitality have announced. The French veteran is set to play in IEM Katowice, where the team will play their first match against OG on Thursday at 19:00 .

apEX is back after a short break

The in-game leader was put on the sidelines by coach Rémy "⁠XTQZZZ⁠" Quoniam in the middle of the team's campaign in the BLAST Premier Groups so that he could deal with personal issues, shortly after Vitality lost a one-sided match to Complexity in the tournament. With Nabil "⁠Nivera⁠" Benrlitom stepping in, the team went on to lose a close encounter with Evil Geniuses to go out in last place and fall to the Spring Showdown.

Nivera is now expected to return to the role he has been fulfilling for the past three months, playing only on three maps: on Dust2 and on Nuke instead of Kévin "⁠misutaaa⁠" Rabier and on Inferno in Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon's place.

With the team back to status quo, Vitality will hope to return to form at the biggest tournament of 2021 yet as they're set to take on the double-elimination Group B, featuring the aforementioned OG, FaZe, Liquid, FURIA, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Natus Vincere, and Virtus.pro.

Ninjas in Pyjamas #15 Fredrik 'REZ' SternerHampus 'hampus' PoserTim 'nawwk' JonassonNicolas 'Plopski' Gonzalez ZamoraErik 'ztr' Gustafsson Kévin 'misutaaa' Rabier Age: 18 Team: Vitality Rating 1.0: 0.95 Maps played: 220 KPR: 0.63 DPR: 0.66 Evil Geniuses #9 Peter 'stanislaw' JarguzTarik 'tarik' CelikVincent 'Brehze' CayonteEthan 'Ethan' ArnoldTsvetelin 'CeRq' Dimitrov Vitality #3 Richard 'shox' PapillonCédric 'RpK' GuipouyMathieu 'ZywOo' HerbautKévin 'misutaaa' RabierNabil 'Nivera' Benrlitom FaZe #17 Finn 'karrigan' AndersenHåvard 'rain' NygaardMarcelo 'coldzera' DavidRussel 'Twistzz' Van DulkenHelvijs 'broky' Saukants Richard 'shox' Papillon Age: 28 Team: Vitality Rating 1.0: 1.09 Maps played: 1801 KPR: 0.74 DPR: 0.66 Virtus.pro #5 Sanjar 'SANJI' KulievTimur 'buster' TulepovAlexey 'Qikert' GolubevDzhami 'Jame' AliMareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis Liquid #7 Gabriel 'FalleN' ToledoKeith 'NAF' MarkovicJonathan 'EliGE' JablonowskiJake 'Stewie2K' YipMichael 'Grim' Wince Natus Vincere #1 Egor 'flamie' VasilyevOleksandr 's1mple' KostylievDenis 'electroNic' SharipovKirill 'Boombl4' MikhailovIlya 'Perfecto' Zalutskiy Complexity #8 Justin 'jks' SavageWilliam 'RUSH' WierzbaKristian 'k0nfig' WieneckeValentin 'poizon' VasilevBenjamin 'blameF' Bremer Time is adjusted to your selected timezone Nabil 'Nivera' Benrlitom Age: 19 Team: VitalityS Rating 1.0: 1.11 Maps played: 190 KPR: 0.73 DPR: 0.62 Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire Age: 27 Team: Vitality Rating 1.0: 1.03 Maps played: 1764 KPR: 0.72 DPR: 0.70 FURIA #11 Andrei 'arT' PiovezanYuri 'yuurih' SantosVinicius 'VINI' FigueiredoPaytyn 'junior' JohnsonKaike 'KSCERATO' Cerato Rémy 'XTQZZZ' Quoniam Age: 32 Team: VitalityC OG #13 Nathan 'NBK-' SchmittValdemar 'valde' Bjørn VangsåAleksi 'Aleksib' VirolainenIssa 'ISSAA' MuradMateusz 'mantuu' Wilczewski