Carlos “Ocelote” Rodriguez Santiago announced on Twitter that Martin “Wunder” Hansen, Martin “Rekkles” Larsson, Mihael “Mikyx” Mehle are set to leave G2 Esports before the start of the 2022 season.
The G2 Esports owner confirmed that the majority of the organization’s starting roster is leaving in the near future alongside the coaching staff and the majority of the team’s support staff. This comes after multiple rumors that big changes were set to come to the team after missing out on the 2022 League of Legends World Championship.
The 2019 MSI champions and Worlds 2019 runners-up organization finished the 2021 Summer Split in fourth place, falling 3-2 to Fnatic and came in third in the spring. 2021 was G2 Esports’ first time missing Worlds since 2015.
Along with the massive G2 Esports roster changes, it was announced the team will be overhauling its behind-the-scenes team. Longtime head coach Fabian “Grabbz” Lohmann and new strategic coach Sng “Nelson” Yi-Wei will be looking for other teams in the near future, along with the majority of G2 Esports’ support staff. The departures of Rekkles and Wunder aren’t surprising, as Wunder repeatedly teased on Twitter that neither of the Martins was going to be on G2 in 2022.
The 2021 iteration of G2 was meant to be a supercharged return to the super-team’s peak following the departure of Luke “Perkz” Perkovic moving to the LCS’ Cloud9. Instead, it slowly became a relic outclassed by younger, hungrier rosters like Rogue and the back-to-back champions MAD Lions. While the departing members may not have had the best splits of their careers, all three of them stand as top competitors in their region.
Filling shoes the size of Wunder, Rekkles and Mikyx is a challenging prospect and it will be interesting to see what G2 does for its 2022 roster. Meanwhile, European organizations suddenly have 3 star talents on the market while G2 looks to rebuild their reputation as Europe’s conquerors by constructing their new roster around Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski and Rasmus “Caps” Borregaard Winther.
The 2021 roster never lived up to its astronomical potential and failed to secure G2 any new titles.
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