How fnatic can become trophy contenders once more

Their roster has been constantly changing from season to season as the team has never truly found a solid core since their move away from their Swedish Counter-Strike roots. Each one of those changes has brought in another mediocre player to don the famous orange and black jersey, with only mezii being the outlier as an exceptional talent. 

Until now.

The recent arrival of blameF is one that should set fnatic fans’ tongues wagging. blameF is one of the best players in the world and the organisation hasn’t had a star of his calibre since olofmeister left, well, except for Brollan during the AUG/SG meta. 

The Dane is a real coup for the organisation, and even more excitedly, his arrival seems to suggest a change in transfer policy. The most recent changes before that had been cheap moves, clearly designed with the idea of flipping those players for profit further down the line, but blameF arrives with an ambition for trophies, and that suggests that fnatic may dip into the transfer market again soon.

So, with that in mind, who can fnatic turn to in order to set themselves up to become a contender for titles once again?

Killing two birds with one stone

Looking at fnatic’s team there are two clear issues. 

The first is that afro simply isn’t a tier one AWPer. The Frenchman may have shone in tier two on national teams, but he has failed to make the step up to tier one, and although he may pass the eye test, he certainly doesn’t pass any real, statistical metric. 

The second issue lies with the team's IGL, bodyy. Similarly to afro, bodyy shone in his respective role on French teams, and while he has proven he is a competent in-game leader, we struggle to see potential in him to lead the team to trophy contention in the future. 

Fortunately for fnatic, a player has recently become available that would be a perfect fit for both of those roles: cadiaN.

cadiaN is one of the best IGLs in Counter-Strike, even if his time with Liquid may have put that in doubt. His system is entirely unique, and Liquid may not have bought into it, but any team that does is sure to see a huge leap in their performances.

His AWPing may have taken a hit in CS2, but we have to consider the fact that he hasn’t yet played on an actually stable team since the release of the game, and it’s entirely plausible we see the former HEROIC leader back to his best on a team that actually values his presence.

This change doesn’t mean that both players should depart, bodyy could still be an incredibly valuable member of the team. bodyy is a respectable player in an individual sense, and he has also been willing to sacrifice his own ratings in order to enable blameF to succeed. A player like this is an absolute must for blameF to be able to operate in his role, and it’s also the exact type of soldier cadiaN found in TeSeS during their time together on HEROIC.

With MATYS already helping provide the star power alongside blameF, fnatic would already have everything they need to perform at a tier one level consistently, and cadiaN would have his jabbi and stavn duo that are so integral to his system.

Let’s just hope they don’t stab him in the back this time.

Securing the future

Throughout all the roster changes there has been one constant: KRIMZ.

The veteran Swede is an icon of the organisation and of Counter-Strike himself, and he is far from an issue on the roster. However, he is ageing, and although he is still a very serviceable rifler who will continue to be serviceable for the next year or two, there is a player available that would both secure the future of the team and raise it’s ceiling.

That player is Altekz, the former Astralis and Preasy player who is set to be one of the biggest Danish stars in CS2. 

A very comfortable anchor and lurker, Altekz has huge potential and at 20 he is a full decade younger than KRIMZ is. Even better yet, he’s also currently a free agent, and given the cost that is likely to have come with the signing of blameF and the potential signing of cadiaN, he could be a cheap way of massively raising the skill ceiling of fnatic.

Altekz is already a player capable of performing to the same level as KRIMZ, but if he were to play under cadiaN and be moulded by the IGL, he could become a player capable of far surpassing KRIMZ. He could even reach the levels of sjuush, which is the final profile cadiaN would need in order to recreate the HEROIC system that was so successful in the final years of CS:GO.

It would hurt to see KRIMZ go, but not as much as it hurts to see a team like fnatic still struggling after all these years.

It’s time for fnatic to rise to the top once again, and this is how they do it.