After splitting with star iddqd at the end of October, Fnatic have decided to pick up a rising star from Ninjas With Attitude, Hafficool. The new flex dps player will be playing on a trial basis for Fnatic at DreamHack Winter in Sweden in just over two weeks, and then MSI MGA Championship in London less than a fortnight later.
Hafficool has not been offered a salaried full-time spot in the Fnatic roster yet, as the team have had little time to practice over the BlizzCon break. He will be trialling for the team throughout the next month as they grind towards DreamHack Winter and MSI MGA. Afterwards, the break between the two events and MLG Vegas will give Fnatic an opportunity to reassess the situation with Hafficool. He will be hoping for a similar success story to Hidan in his trial with Misfits at the Overwatch Open.
When asked the terms of the trial, custa said:
We're essentially bringing [Hafficool] there for those tournaments to see how he performs and how he gels with the team.
There's no set criteria for him to gain a spot in the team, we're just looking for someone who fits the role we're after. Regardless of win or loss we just want someone that we're comfortable playing with, if that's Hafficool only time will tell.
The recent roster move for Fnatic, splitting with their star talent iddqd, stunned fans and left many questions unanswered. Fnatic had been slowly cementing their place over the previous two months as the second best North American side, but evidently everything was not so rosy on the inside. After reaching the finals of the North American arm of the Overwatch Open and then dominating the qualifiers for DreamHack Winter, the team decided that the BlizzCon break was the right time to make changes.
iddqd, known for his star performances on McCree and Tracer in particular, was forced onto Mei for large portions of recent tournaments due to the shifts in meta. buds’ Reaper play was sublime to help deliver them some good wins over domestic competition, but the team had always been hampered by the overlapping hitscan talents on their dps duo. Fnatic lacked a player who could flex onto projectile heroes such as Genji and Pharah, and even iddqd’s Mei felt like a bad allocation of resources. With iddqd no longer on the roster, Fnatic were in the market for a complementary partner to buds who could shine on flex dps, particularly Genji and Mei, whilst still being competent on other heroes when the team needed double hitscan.
Hafficool is best known for his years playing in the top European TF2 team, but after the switch to Overwatch he had breakthrough performances playing for Ninjas With Attitude. His hero pool perfectly matches with Fnatic, at his best on Genji, Mei, McCree, and Tracer. With buds favouring Reaper, Roadhog, and a smattering of other hitscan heroes such as Widowmaker and McCree, the team now has a wider hero pool and can swap onto a range of dps partnerships.
This is the fourth player who has left NWA for greener pastures in the last month, despite the team seeing great success for a new roster. NWA had multiple best-of-three wins over teams such as Dignitas, LG, melty, ANOX, and other tier two European sides but couldn’t find an organisation in time to keep hold of their talented players. Both supports swapped to Dignitas, flex SPREE left for Luminosity, and now Hafficool has gone to Fnatic.
NWA’s loss is Fnatic’s gain. Despite losing a star player in iddqd, the overall unit was held back at times by inflexibility which may now be improved. If Hafficool can perform at a high level and synergises well with buds, the team could be on track to improve over their previous form. Any improvement will push this team into scary, world-class territory, with the former roster ranked as 6th in the world.
custa spoke about their upcoming tournaments and international opponents:
We're confident going into these LANs, these are the first events that a lot of the top dogs (Envy, Rogue etc.) aren't attending so we're confident in our ability to take 1st place. We don't believe these roster changes will affect us at all, and hoping that it takes us to the next level.
I think [playing against international competition] will be exciting. We played against a lot of European teams at Gamescom during bootcamp and at the event, and it always provides new and exciting matches when different regions collide. NiP, misfits and Kongdoo are 3 completely different teams, so we're going to have to go into these events playing our own game and show what we got.
Fnatic will face real challenges at DreamHack Winter and the MSI MGA Championship. They qualified for DreamHack Winter as first seed from North America and are joined by compLexity, a side that they are favourites to win against, but the European teams of NiP and Misfits are two of the best teams in the world. Misfits recently won the stacked Overwatch Open while NiP have been gods online, frequently beating Misfits and all other European competition in recent tournaments.
At MSI MGA Championship, they must overcome upcoming team Rise Nation as the North American representative along with NiP from Europe and KongDoo Panthera, an all-star roster from Korea. If Fnatic come away with the win in either of these two events they will have proven themselves against some of the best teams in the world with their new player, but the US side will be looking to take it one step at a time.
The roster Fnatic is currently fielding is:
- Casey "buds" McIlwaine (DPS)
- Hafþór "Hafficool" Hákonarson (DPS)
- Matthew "coolmatt69" Iorio (Flex)
- Warsi Faraaz "Stoop" Waris (Tank)
- Scott "custa" Kennedy (Support)
- Oliver "Vonethil" Lager (Support)
- Robert "Roflgator" Malecki (Coach)
Discord