Fnatic in 2023 - A Tale of Two Halves

Fnatic had a mixed 2023. While the British organization reached Worlds, it was a monumental struggle with multiple between-split roster changes, coaching staff changes and even the need for a temporary substitution during the Summer Finals.

Fnatic had a Winter to forget, finishing 9th place in the regular season with a 2-7 record, only beating KOI and Excel. They failed to qualify for the group stage entirely, a stark contrast considering 3 of the team that competed at the previous years’ World Championship remained with the org. Fnatic switched up their Bot Lane and Head Coach for 2023; notably with ADC Carl Martin “Rekkles” Erik Larsson returning after 2 years away, joined by Support Rúben "Rhuckz" Barbosa and Head Coach Gonçalo "Crusher" Pinto Brandão replaced Jakob “YamatoCannon” Mebdi who had been Fnatic’s Head Coach for the previous 2 years.

Nothing clicked for Fnatic in Winter, the normally S-tier Mid/Jungle of Marek “Humanoid” Brázda & Iván "Razork" Martín Díaz faltered and couldn’t continue their strong form from 2022, and Rekkles & Rhuckz were arguably the worst Bot Lane of the split.

Spring was a Split of transition for Fnatic, out went Wunder, Rhuckz and Crusher and in came Top Laner Óscar "Oscarinin" Muñoz Jiménez, Support Henk "Advienne" Reijenga from academy team FNTQ and Head Coach Tomáš "Nightshare" Kněžínek. Results did improve for the team as they managed to reach groups after a 6th place finish and a 4-5 record.

Despite having huge potential, Oscarinin initially struggled, needing 4 games to even get a kill, while tallying up 24 deaths in the process. Fortunately, he turned it around in the next 4 games posting a KDA of 25/10/30 and being instrumental in turning their 0-4 start into a 4-4 record and qualifying them for the Group stage.

Spring Groups unfortunately didn’t pan out for Fnatic as they were resoundingly beaten in both Bo3’s, first by Astralis and then by eventual Spring split champions MAD Lions, both by a 2-1 score.

In the Astralis series, while Fnatic had more overall kills, they were bested in Game 1 by the ever consistent ADC Kasper "Kobbe" Kobberup on Xayah, who outclassed Rekkles in most metrics, notably Kobbe’s total damage being over double that of Rekkles’ Varus (31.8k vs 14.8k). Game 3 was sealed at 30 minutes by a clutch TP from Mid laner Adam "LIDER" Ilyasov’s Irelia, resulting in an ace and a momentum swing that was insurmountable for Fnatic to curb.

Versus MAD, despite the series being extremely sloppy, Fnatic were outclassed in Games 1 & 3, MAD’s Jungler Javier "Elyoya'' Prades Batalla especially completely outclassed Razork on his Vi. In the one game Vi was banned, Elyoya struggled on the less playmaking style tank Jungler Sejuani giving Fnatic their only victory.

This, however, was still seen by fans as far below expectations for players such as Humanoid and Razork who while stronger than winter, were still inconsistent from game to game.

Like Spring, Summer came with major changes to the roster; Bot Lane duo Rekkles and Advienne were replaced by Oh "Noah" Hyeon-taek and Adrian "Trymbi" Trybus respectively.

Korean ADC Noah spent most of his career in KT Rolster, a Korean organization that competes in the LCK and its academy leagues. Noah notably spent 2021 sharing the ADC role on a “10 Man roster” that made a roster change almost every series, predictably this didn’t allow the team to gain any sense of consistency and KT Rolster failed to reach the Play-offs on either split. Noah then moved to Europe to join Serbian-Polish Ultraliga Organisation Zero Tenacity, where he dominated the Spring season, going 15-3 in the Regular season and beating Orbit Anonymo 3-1 in the Play-off Finals.

Trymbi on the other hand spent his entire LEC career on Rogue and its 2023 iteration, KOI. After being promoted from Rogue’s then academy team AGO Rogue after it won EU Masters 2020 Summer, not losing a game in the Knockout stage. The Polish Support swapped teams with outgoing support Advienne after spring, this move was seen by a vast majority of fans and personalities as Fnatic getting the better support.

These roster changes, along with Razork and Humanoid forms reaching close to previously seen highs and Oscarinin becoming a consistently top tier Top laner meant that Fnatic quickly established themselves near the top of the LEC, finishing the regular season in 2nd place with a 7-2 record.

The Group stage was also successful despite Fnatic losing one of their 3 series, double elimination giving them the buffer, a buffer that was vital to saving their season, Fnatic lost to SK Gaming 2-0 in their first series, notably with SK’s Top Laner Joel "Irrelevant" Miro Scharoll outclassing Oscarinin in both games.

The loss to SK meant a series with the team that knocked them out of the Spring group stage, MAD. However, Deja Vu would not repeat itself as Fnatic would beat MAD 2-0, mostly thanks to Humanoid’s Jayce in both games, with a combined K/D/A of 22/8/12 and 2 Quadra kills in Game 2. Victory meant yet another rematch with SK Gaming, this time however, Fnatic came out on top 2-0, this time with Noah and Oscarinin having an especially good series, especially in game 2 where both players had high kill counts. With this series win, a result that Fnatic fans couldn’t foresee after winter and spring; qualification for the Summer Play-offs.

In the Summer play-offs, although Fnatic wouldn’t progress far, they were successful in their goal to qualify for Worlds. They dispatched Team Heretics 3-1, but lost 3-1 to Excel in the subsequent series, this would give Fnatic 120 Championship Points, giving them a total for the year of 150, 3-way tying them with SK Gaming and KOI. One of these teams had to be eliminated, and it was KOI as they accumulated the least amount of points in the Summer split. Fnatic had pulled off a minor miracle, qualifying for Season finals by the skin of their teeth.

Fnatic came alive in the Season Finals, finally showing some of the raw talent at their disposal, being only 5th, they were placed in the loser’s bracket without the luxury that is double elimination to fall back on. After the first winner’s bracket matches, Fnatic drew Excel after their 3-0 loss to MAD. In a nail biting 5 game series, Fnatic emerged victorious and qualified for at least the World Qualifying Series (WQS), a Bo5 series that pitted the 4th seeds from Europe and North America for the last spot at Worlds, something everyone would absolutely want to avoid.

Fnatic would be dealt a blow before their round 2 match up, Top Laner Oscarinin injured his hand and required surgery, meaning Wunder would be needed to deputise for him for the Summer finals, this initially worried people as Wunder hadn’t played a pro game since Winter, but Wunder quickly shut up any criticism after showing that he hadn’t lost any of his talent, becoming an excellent deputy that Fnatic wouldn’t have qualified for Worlds without.

The game which would determine EU’s 4th seed would be Fnatic vs Team BDS, who came off a 3-0 series win against SK Gaming and had qualified for their first ever international competition. After a stressful 5 game series, Fnatic were victorious, pushing Team BDS to the WQS and an eventual showdown with NA’s 4th seed, the Golden Guardians.

Guaranteed EU’s 3rd seed at worlds Fnatic didn’t rest on their laurels, after a taste of victory, they wanted to win it all, standing in their way in the loser’s bracket final was MAD, in yet another 5 game series, where Fnatic were at a real risk of being reverse swept after going 2-0 up, Fnatic showed up where it really counted and won Game 5, notably with Wunder being a raid boss in the final fight on Renekton holding up the backline almost single handedly, dropping to single digit health before a well timed stopwatch into Q for a heal that allowed him to escape and end the game with a perfect KDA.

Victory against MAD meant one thing however, a final showdown with the ever present G2 Esports. And despite 3 Bo5 victories that all went to 5 games, they were no match for G2, falling 3-1 in Montpellier. Take nothing away however, Fnatic even reaching here was a far cry from months earlier when they failed to reach Winter groups, many fans didn’t expect such a turnaround, but if that didn’t happen, this article wouldn’t be here.

The only good news for Fnatic fans was that Oscarinin would make his return after hand surgery that made him miss most of the Season finals.

The 2023 edition was a Worlds to forget for EU fans, none of our teams got out of the Swiss Stage, Fnatic in particular managed to beat GAM Esports and Cloud9 but would fall to LNG, BiliBili Gaming and Weibo Gaming, all of China’s LPL, eventually being knocked out after losing their round 5 Bo3 against eventual finalists Weibo Gaming.

With 2023 in the past and the offseason over, Fnatic have made 1 change to their roster, with Support Trymbi being replaced with Noah’s compatriot Yoon "Jun'' Se-jun who like Noah has LCK experience, but only on a weak KDF roster that finished last in the LCK. Fans have had a mixed reaction to Trymbi being replaced, seeing him as a vocal shot caller and strong voice for any team he is on, but on the other hand understanding that having another Korean will help Noah, who speaks surprisingly good English for someone who has only spent a year in Europe. It remains to see who will take up the shot calling role that Trymbi has vacated.

Fnatic have also extended the contracts of Razork and Humanoid, to 2026 and 2025 respectively. Razork and Humanoid have become a staple for Fnatic fans, being with the org for 2 years now and quickly becoming fan favourites. Everyone knows the raw potential of these 2 players, capable of battling with the worlds best on their day, the issue is inconsistency has crept in, especially throughout 2023, evidenced by the extremely slow start. If Razork and Humanoid can come out in 2024 firing on all cylinders, they will be a very dangerous threat capable of potentially winning the LEC as a whole.

Finally, Top Laner Oscarinin is staying with the team, despite his aforementioned rocky start during his LEC Baptism of Fire, he has grown to become a lynch pin for Fnatic, someone that is reliable and can play many styles, from Tanks to Mages to Bruisers, meaning he can play anything meta will throw at him, especially since League of Legends is heavily changing in 2024 with the removal of Mythic Items and Heavy changes to the Map and Objectives, but that is beyond the scope of this article.

One thing that is for sure though, is Fnatic have some of the most dedicated fans in all of League of Legends, and Esports as a whole. They will certainly need all the “Spam This Static” in Twitch chat that they can get to fire them up and make the team know the fans are behind them all the way.