Professional player and streamer Vladimir "RodjER" Nikogosyan responded to criticism from Bogdan "Iceberg" Vasilenko. He believes that the midlaner made him the scapegoat when Vasilenko and Andrey "ALWAYSWANNAFLY" Bondarenko was kicked from the NAVI Dota 2 roster.
“I half-jokingly said that Iceberg was stronger than SumaiL in his prime. Then I mentioned that he had a poor understanding of the game. But I was referring to the Tier-1 level. On the Tier-2 scene, we performed well. We did quite well during our time with NAVI and FlyToMoon. We placed in the prize positions but struggled against strong teams – we had clear problems.
When things went south at NAVI, the decision was made to remove AWF, Iceberg, and GeneRaL. When it came time to kick Bogdan... We didn't do it right away; we gave him a chance. He begged and promised to improve.
We gave him a chance, and afterwards, he says we're all villains. Well, specifically, he called me an idiot. Iceberg doesn’t talk about the others, he's very cunning. When he and AWF were kicked, they thought, "Damn, what's going on? We’re top players in our minds. Why are they removing us? This doesn’t align with our world at all."
The team included me, RAMZES, V-Tune, and Mag. They couldn't blame Alik because he was their friend and young. RAMZES is a media giant and a respected player. You can't go against him; you wouldn't stand a chance. They didn’t want to blame Mag either because they'd known him since the early days of Dota. So Iceberg thought, "There's that cunning Armenian. Let's blame him. Why did he kick us? Who are you, anyway?"
I had a good relationship with them. This topic keeps coming up, and I'm tired of talking about it. But it's funny when it does. Some people think I join teams just to destroy them. Those people are fools.” - Vladimir "RodjER" Nikogosyan
Previously, Iceberg criticized RodjER on stream. He called his former teammate a piece of trash in Dota and outside of it. Bondarenko was upset that Nikogosyan commented on his poor understanding of the game.
Iceberg and RodjER played together for NAVI and FTM from fall 2020 to spring 2021. During this time, they won the OGA Dota PIT Season 4 and placed second at ESL One Germany 2020.