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The professional Swedish CS: GO AWPer Jack Strom Mattsson, who is better known to the competitive CS: GO community under the nickname Jackinho, was recently benched by the British-Swedish multigaming esports organization Fnatic.
The official Twitter account of the Fnatic team posted an announcement confirming that the young Swedish talent just recently became inactive in the result of the decision made by the famous esports company:
CSGO Roster Update: @Jackinhocs has been moved to the substitute roster. We want to thank Jack for his plays and performance this last year.
In the coming months, we'll explore new options for our AWP role and build further towards the results we expect and want. pic.twitter.com/LalQ6rDZsX
— FNATIC (@FNATIC) October 9, 2021
The official announcement states that Jackinho was moved to the substitute position in the CS: GO team, as the organization was in search of the new AWPer player for the roster.
This article discusses the results of the Fnatic team with Jackinho on board and the addition of smooya to the roster, keeping in mind Fnatic’s victory in the Summit 7 event and other results at the recent IEM and ESL tournaments.
Jackinho
The 22-year-old has competed for the team since January 2021. Mattsson started his professional CS: GO career five years ago, when he first became a part of the Nordic Knights team in 2016.
Before eventually joining the ranks of Fnatic and trying to fill the void which was left after the departure of the legendary Robin “flusha” Ronnquist, young Jackinho competed for other well-known mostly Swedish CS: GO teams, such as Property, UK’s nerdRage, Visomvet, and Prima Esport.
The Swedish AWPer’s biggest professional achievement to date was winning $50,000 prize money with Fnatic team at the cs_summit Season 7 online CS: GO tournament which was held in January 2021.
cs_summit 7
Being part of the Summit series, the cs_summit Season 7 championship was organized by the Beyond The Summit organization — an esports content production firm located in Los Angeles, United States.
Fnatic started their path in group A of the event, as they managed to beat both EU roster of Complexity Gaming and OG from Denmark. The Bo3 between Fnatic vs Complexity Gaming finished 2:0, and Fnatic vs OG match ended 2:1. In the playoffs of the event, Jackinho’s CS: GO team was stronger than Cloud9.
The next Fnatic vs Cloud9 quarterfinal Bo3 match ended with the 2:1 score in favor of the Swedish boys. The Fnatic vs Heroic semifinals ended 2:0, also in favor of the first squad.
At the Summit event, Jackinho’s Fnatic team was able to make it through the brackets almost flawlessly. The fully Swedish roster managed to climb all the way to the finals.
In the last tournament’s match, they were finally defeated 0:2 in the Fnatic vs Virtus.Pro clash by the mostly Kazakh roster of the Russian multigaming esports organization. VP team grabbed $100,000 for their first place finish at the summit 7 event.
IEM Katowice 2021 results
Fnatic team did not hit the mark with their performance at the Intel Extreme Masters Season XV — World Championship event, or the IEM Katowice 2021 championship.
The Swedish team first lost their Fnatic vs OG match 16:9 in the play-in phase of the IEM series Katowice event, and then they managed to lose again in the lower bracket.
The Fnatic vs MIBR match resulted in the early elimination of the Fnatic team from the CS: GO event originally based in Poland.
ESL Pro League Season 13
Jackinho’s Fnatic team was pretty lackluster at the March-April 2021 ESL Pro League Season 13 event. Fnatic won only one game and lost five matches in the group D of the ESL Pro League competition.
The team finished in fifth place in the group, just below team Endpoint, and was unable to make their way out of the group phase of the ESL event.
In the group matches, the Fnatic vs Team Liquid Bo3 ended 0:2, while even the underdogs in the Fnatic vs Endpoint matchup were better than the Swedes — again 0:2 score in the next Bo3 series.
The Fnatic vs Evil Geniuses games on the next play day were on the brighter side, as Swedes triumphed 2:1 against the likes of the North American esports organization.
Their final group game was Fnatic vs Astralis, and again it was a 0:2 loss for the Swedish CS: GO organization.
Intel Extreme Masters XVI – Summer
At the Intel Extreme Masters XVI — Summer event, the Swedish team performed even worse. Fnatic lost both of their tournament’s matches. First game was the 10:16 Bo1 series against Virtus.Pro on Vertigo.
And the next Bo3 match was also lost 1:2 to the likes of the Ninjas in Pyjamas CS: GO team. In the result of the Fnatic vs Ninjas in Pyjamas match, the first team placed only 13th-16th at the IEM series event, earning $4,000.
ESL Pro League Season 14
Speaking of some of the more recent results, the Jackinho’s Fnatic team showcased a rather poor display at one of the more recent main ESL CS: GO events – the next $750,000 ESL Pro League Season 14 tournament.
At the EPL S14 online event, Fnatic squad placed only fourth in their respective group C, losing to the other strong CIS and EU CS: GO teams, such as Natus Vincere and mousesports.
The Fnatic vs Natus Vincere matchup finished 0:2 in favor of the CIS giants, then Fnatic vs BIG games were won 2:1 by the Swedes. The Fnatic vs FaZe Clan matchup was surprisingly won 2:0, and the Fnatic vs mousesports game was lost with the 0:2 score.
The final group C match at the ESL Pro League Season 14, which was Fnatic vs EG, finished 2:0 in favor of the Swedish-British CS: GO team.
The Swedish organization managed to make it to the playoffs phase of the EPL Season 14 event, but was not able to proceed further. In the first round, Fnatic managed to lose 0:2 to the likes of the US’ squad of Team Liquid, who moved on to the quarterfinals of the EPL event.
Intel Extreme Masters Season XVI – Fall: Europe
Recently, Fnatic finished with the 0-5 record in group D at the Intel Extreme Masters Season XVI — Fall: Europe event. Fnatic first lost to FaZe team with the 16:5 score.
In the Fnatic vs Double Poney Bo1 series, the Swedish organization managed to lose the match 13:16 on Nuke to the up-and-coming CS: GO team from France.
The next Inferno game Fnatic vs Fiend also ended with the 12:16 loss in favor of the underdog Fiend squad from Bulgaria. The NiP team then outclassed the Swedes 16:7.
The final nail in the coffin of the Fnatic roster featuring Jackinho was put by another modest Bulgarian team SKADE on Mirage. The somewhat exciting Fnatic vs SKADE match finished during the overtime in favor of the second team — 17:19.
smooya
Following the recent results, the Fnatic team just recently announced that replacing Jackinho on the roster will be Owen “smooya” Butterfield, who is one of the best CS: GO players in the United Kingdom.
The famous 22-year-old AWPer who is currently sitting inactive in the Movistar Riders, originally Spanish esports organization, looks like a decent addition to the Swedish-British squad of the Fnatic organization.
The British player competed for multiple CS: GO teams like Endpoint, UK’s CeX and Radix, exceL esports, Belgium’s team Epsilon, Germany‘s BIG squad, also Chaos Esports Club and c0ntact Gaming teams originating from the US.
smooya won Gfinity Elite Series UK — Season 1 with Epsilon in September 2017, and earned about $50,000 for the first place finish. The Epsilon Esports vs Prophecy finals finished with the 3:0 score in favor of the smooya’s team.
One of the British sniper’s main achievements was probably placing second with a $50,000 prize at the offline ESL One: Cologne 2018 championship in July, one of the ESL One series LAN events, where the smooya’s BIG vs Natus Vincere finals finished with the 1:3 score in favor of the multigaming esports organization from Ukraine.
What’s next for Fnatic?
Can smooya save Fnatic and be able to perform even on par with the former Fnatic AWPer Jesper “JW” Wecksell — the iconic 26-year-old Swedish sniper, who made history for the FNC team and GODSENT since 2013?
It seems that in the current complicated situation, the Fnatic team was able to fall so deep that rising just a bit to the top now looks like not that much of a task, especially after the recent results such as the epic 0-5 fail at the Intel Extreme Masters Season XVI — Fall: Europe event.
The Fnatic team, especially when considering their current disappointing form, can definitely use the help of the British sniper, who earlier found some love in the esports community.
smooya will presumably stand-in in the sniper role for the Swedish organization at least for the upcoming Intel Extreme Masters Season XVI — Winter, or the IEM Winter 2021 closed qualifier tournament.
Playing with smooya, Fnatic already went on to the closed qualifier event, placing second at the Intel Extreme Masters Season XVI — Winter: European Open Qualifier 1, which ended on October 10.
In the open qualifier event, the Swedish team was able to finish right after the FunPlus Phoenix roster of the strong European players competing for the prominent Chinese multigaming esports organization.
Fnatic were comfortably heading forward through the lower part of the bracket, beating teams such as GamerLegion and K23. The final Fnatic vs Nigma Galaxy match in the fourth round or the semis stage of the event ended with the 2:1 score in favor of the Fnatic team.
The main European closed qualifier tournament for the main IEM Winter 2021 event is set to start in six days on October 18. Two of the closed qualifier tournament’s winners among the participating eight CS: GO teams will earn their slots for the main IEM Winter tournament.
The $250,000 tournament, organized by ESL and hosting 18 best European CS: GO teams, which is also a part of the Intel Grand Slam series, starts on December 2.