The team “Fnatic” is actually one of the best LoL teams in Europe, but things are not going well at the moment. After losing star player Rekkles, the top team League of Legends is now facing a sell-off: the team’s best player, jungler Selfmade, is apparently leaving Fnatic and will be replaced by a young top laner.
This is the situation:
- Fnatic is the largest e-sports team in Europe and also the most successful. They won the first world championship in LoL and numerous times the European league. Between 2018 and 2020 alone, they were crowned champions twice and finished as runners-up three times in the LEC.
- However, things did not go well in 2021: Before the season, Fnatic lost long-time star Rekkles and replaced him with young German Upset. This combination only led to a disappointing 5th place in the league.
- Then it became known: two of their best players, jungler Selfmade and top laner Bwipo, declined to extend their contracts early, which were set to expire in 2021. Signs have since pointed to goodbye and rebuilding. It was thought that Fnatic would at least have a good summer split ahead. But it looks like the rebuilding is starting now.
Fnatic is apparently selling its best player
This is what’s happening now with Fnatic: The strongest remaining player at Fnatic was the jungler, 21-year-old Polish player Oskar “Selfmade” Boderek. Many consider Selfmade to be one of the best junglers in Europe and a great talent.
But he has apparently played his last game for Fnatic. According to reports from the US site dotesports on May 11, Team Vitality has reached an agreement with Fnatic to buy out Selfmade from his contract (via dotesports).
Selfmade is set to become the new starting jungler for Team Vitality. Team Vitality is planning a major restart after finishing last in the LEC during the Spring Split: they apparently want to build their team around Selfmade.
How is Fnatic replacing him? This is even stranger. As has now been officially announced, Fnatic has signed a new 19-year-old top laner: Adam “Adam” Maanane (19). The Frenchman comes from the lower-tier team Karmine Corp.
As Adam said in an interview, veteran Bwipo, who played successfully in the top lane for Fnatic for years, will now move to the jungle and has already begun training for it.
Adam hopes he can learn a lot from Bwipo in the top lane if he remains on the team.
Fnatic is promoting the signing of Adam as an investment in the future: with him, they want to start the next 10 years of LoL.
Fnatic makes “hard decisions,” wants players who “commit”
This is what people are saying about it: A message from Discord that was spread on Twitter indicates that Fnatic enforced this change.
Selfmade says on Discord: They actually wanted to continue with the roster from the first half of the year, but Fnatic then signed Adam and told Bwipo he could either switch to jungle or leave.
The head of Fnatic comments on this tweet: they only had 2 players under long-term contracts and one more split to play. Thus, “hard decisions” had to be made.
At Fnatic, they want to win everything, and for that, they need players who also fully commit.
From this, it can be inferred: those who don’t sign with us long-term will not be part of the plan anymore, and will be replaced. The players apparently would have preferred to play the next split “with the old team,” but Fnatic wanted to begin the new start now.
This is what’s behind it: It appears that Fnatic is downgrading some of the last remaining strong positions after the mid-lane and bot-lane have been weakened over the years. The big bright spot of the last 2 years was actually Selfmade. Now he is leaving the team:
- The best player in the jungle is being replaced by a top laner who must learn the position anew.
- The top laner is being replaced by a 19-year-old talent.
It seems as if Fnatic has written off the rest of 2021 and now wants to make the best of the situation: Before giving away Selfmade “for free,” they prefer to sell him.
For 2022, they apparently want to reorganize and have already found a replacement for the top lane in Adam, but no long-term replacement for the jungle yet.
The sale of Selfmade has not yet been officially confirmed, but everything looks like Fnatic is facing a tough half-year ahead.
Fnatic confirms: Selfmade is leaving. Bwipo is moving to jungle
Update May 27, 10:22 AM: The developments described in the article have now been officially confirmed by Fnatic. The confirmations came last night via Twitter, just hours after the article was published:
- Selfmade is leaving the team immediately.
- Bwipo is moving to jungle.
The LoL team from Schalke is also making controversial transfer decisions:
Schalke is making a controversial decision in LoL: fans consider the transfer as bad as in football.
