Fnatic removes JW from active roster, is going international

Jesper “JW” Wecksell, the long-standing member and primary AWPer for Fnatic, has been removed from the team’s active roster. 

The three-time major winner and former major MVP became one of the most notable names at the professional level of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive while spending the majority of his career to date with Fnatic. Entering the pro scene in 2013, JW signed with Fnatic and in the same year won a major tournament. In the following years JW claimed many trophies and was ranked in the top 10 CSGO players in the world three times. 

The Swedish esports organization posted a video on Twitter accompanying the announcement in which Andreas “Samuelsson” Samuelsson, the team’s head coach, expressed his gratitude towards JW.

“A lot was possible because of how Jesper is as a human being, as a worker, as a teammate, and as an ambassador for a company like Fnatic,” Samuelsson said. 

JW’s three-year contract with Fnatic will end in early 2022. 

The organization announced JW’s benching on Twitter in tandem with plans to rebuild as an international team. With Maikil “Golden” Selim’s benching in early July, JW’s departure leaves the team with only three active players: Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson, Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin, and Jack “Jackinho” Ström Mattsson. No statements regarding the future of these remaining players have been made. 

The decision to reconstruct the team and look for international talent likely stemmed from the squad’s poor performance thus far in 2021. Fnatic started the year at a respectable ranking of 10th in the world, but dropped down to 47th as of July. The last four tier-one tournaments Fnatic attended resulted in only lackluster showings, with the team failing to make it past the earliest stages of the event. The once-dominant organization has found itself at the lowest sustained period in its history. 

The team is scheduled to play in the upcoming ESL Pro League Season 14 tournament. Replacements for JW and Golden have yet to be publicly announced, though new players may already have been chosen behind the scenes.