With the 2016 World Championship coming to a close soon and the off-season around the corner, it’s time to look back at another season of League of Legends for Fnatic. It was one with ups and downs for sure but luckily there were plenty of exciting matches to be enjoyed.
Coming into the season, Fnatic had just finished their World Championship run in the semifinals of the tournament after falling to the Koo Tigers. To say expectations were high for LCS was an understatement, as even after the departure of Huni, Reignover and Yellowstar, the team was still expected to be one of the best in the Western League of Legends scene.
The 2016 Spring Split: A New Roster
The Spring Split didn’t get off to a flying start as expected. Bringing in Spirit and Gamsu in the off-season as well as Noxiak, meant that the team was still sorting out their communication throughout the first weeks of the split. Extra pressure fell on Rekkles as he had to take on the role as main shotcaller and get used to playing with a new support, taking him out of the comfort zone he had established with Yellowstar still on the team.
Luckily Fnatic wasn’t the only team still sorting themselves out and they managed to go even most weeks and pick up their first 2-0 victory in Week 4. In Week 5 it was decided to swap out Noxiak for Klaj as communication in the bot lane did not seem to improve and adding an extra Swedish player was meant to create more synergy in- and outside of the game.
The change paid off for Fnatic as they went on an incredible run to former glory during Intel Extreme Masters Katowice. Dropping their first game, the team fought their way through the lower bracket where they found their Season 5 level of play, hugely through Rekkles who introduced Jhin to the European/International scene for the first time and absolutely dominated with the champion. The team did not drop a single game and drew Rekkles targetted bans toward the end of the tournament. They were unsuccessful in defeating SKT in the finals but this was generally considered an impossible feat to begin with. It was now up to a revitalised Fnatic to secure the rest of the split and their sixth LCS title.
The team showed improvement after Katowice but did not manage to consequently win games, finishing in an overall 6th place with a 9-9 record. This qualified them for playoffs where they ended the split in third place, right after Origen and G2 Esports and just above H2K.It was clear that more changes would have to be made and that there was a long road to go before securing a ticket to Worlds or even winning the Summer Split.
The 2016 Summer Split: Return of the King
New hope would be introduced when it was announced that Yellowstar was returning to the lineup after previously leaving for the North American Team SoloMid. With Fnatic fans hyped as old teammates got reunited and Europe’s best shot caller returned home it was destined to become an amazing split.
Fnatic’s summer start had some hiccups but went smooth overall and after a few weeks the team managed to reclaim the top spot in the standings for the first time since the 2015 season. With LCS now in a best-of 2 format, the pressure was on for Fnatic to perform consistently across all games. A failure to do so eventually resulted in the replacement of Gamsu by G2 top laner Kikis in Week 4. The change did not work out as intended and Fnatic started dropping in the ranking towards the final weeks of the season, struggling to pick up 2-0 victories and the maximum amount of points linked to them. Fnatic eventually managed to clinch the final playoffs spot just barely and would have a few weeks to practice.
During that time, Deilor stepped down as head coach and was replaced by the former assistant-coach NicoThePico, who was tasked with getting the team back in shape in a very short time period. The squad couldn’t turn things around quickly enough though, and they ended up going 0-3 in the playoffs against H2K and 0-3 against Unicorns of Love in the last chance Regional Finals. This meant that Fnatic would miss their first World Championship since Season 2.
The year did not turn out as expected for Fnatic and while we saw some truly great victories during the two splits, we also saw losses that could have been avoided. There is, however, always the 2017 season and while the new roster will most likely not be revealed until November or December, we do have faith that the team will be fully prepared to once more fight for glory and LCS dominance in the season to come. Good luck!
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