IEM Katowice 2016 team preview: Fnatic

The Swedes are one of the favourites to take the title home, let's take a close look at their recent form.

Fnatic's roster:

Jesper "JW" Wecksell

Robin "flusha" Rönnquist

Freddy "KRiMZ" Johansson

Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer

Dennis "dennis" Edman

Honorary member:

Hannah "hannahmeister" Kajbjer

Recent achievements:

1st - ESL Expo Barcelona

1st - StarLadder i-League StarSeries XIV Finals

1st - ESL ESEA Pro League Season II Finals

Brief overview:

The core of this team stretches back to the early days of CS:GO, with all of the current Fnatic stars playing under LGB eSports and managed to beat the old Fnatic line-up (back then reigning major champions) in the quarter-finals of IEM: Katowice 2014. Shortly after that the two teams merged, with Fnatic being the ones holding onto the majority of their roster. Under the leadership of Markus "pronax" Wallsten the team managed to win two major titles in a row, as well as reach the finals of another one. It is also worth mentioning that the first ever CS:GO major was also won by Fnatic, but, only two members of that team remain on the current roster. The team would also go on to maintain a streak of dominance and win many more tournaments since the line-up was created.

Many people were sceptic about the departure of the team's IGL - pronax - and would go on to state that the era of Fnatic has concluded. However, with the addition of olofmeister and KRiMZ's old teammate - dennis - the team has only been growing in strength, reaching the finals of every event they've attended after making the change. The first few months saw flusha's drop in form, many suspected it was due to the role of IGL he had to take on, however, recent performances of the player himself and every one of his teammates shows that everyone can have an off day but the other four players are ready to pick up the slack.

Each of Fnatic's players is incredibly skilled and can carry the game on his back, it doesn't matter if one of the players isn't playing well, the others will push him through and despite a few rough patches after the change, everyone seems to have settled in well into their respective roles. Fnatic are also one of the teams that have a very deep map-pool, playing pretty much every single map in the rotation and being able to win them against any team in the world. The combination of all; skill, tactics, deep map-pool and the ability to manipulate the veto process makes them the biggest favourite to defend the title they won a year ago at the Spodek Arena in Katowice, Poland.

Fun Facts:

Ever since the roster change the team has reached the finals of every single event they've attended and won five out of six of them.

Fnatic are currently on a five tournament win-streak as well as on a ten game win-streak.

Fnatic are the only team to have won three majors as well as two major titles in a row (Katowice 2015 and Cologne 2015).

All of Fnatic's players are former CS 1.6 players, including their coach Viktor "vuggo" Jendeby.



Images courtesy of Helena Kristiansson/ESL (1) (2)

QUICKPOLL Will Fnatic be able to continue their dominance with a vicotry at IEM Katowice? No, they will fall short to other top teams

Thank you for voting! Yes, they will continue their excellent form and win

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