Smooya left Fnatic, his fourth team in two years

The 22-year-old esports player Owen Butterfield AKA “Smooya” has left Fnatic, which was his fourth team in the last 2 years.

 

The British Sniper was benched for little more than a week and he is free from his contract with Fnatic and a free agent now.

 

Smooya used Twitter to announce his departure from Fnatic, followed by a stream where he answered questions regarding his departure.

 

After Jack “Jackinho” Ström Mattsson left Fnatic, Smooya joined them on a trial basis in October. The British Awper had a significant impact on the team, putting up strong individual performances and assisting in the team’s win.

 

Fnatic performance with Smooya along their side.

 

The team performed really well and won the DreamHack Open defeating the BIG by 3-0 in the Finals. Fnatic also won the Republeague title with Smooya on the squad, defeating Eternal Fire in the finals by a score of 2- 1. But it was the peak of Fnatic with Smooya and both the team and Smooya failed to perform consistently. 

 

Fnatic manages to secure an early win against G2 by the score of 2-1 but, in the second round, Fnatic was outfoxed by Faze, who also turned out to be the Champion of the tournament.

 

But that was not the only defeat Fnatic faced at IEM, In the lower bracket Astralis Smashed Fnatic for a 2-1 victory. Smooya went from a 1.22 rating in 2021  to a  1.01 rating in 2022, according to HLTV.

 

Smooya was benched ahead of the European Regional Major Ranking (RMR) open qualifiers. After being benched, Smooya formed a mixed squad to compete in the European RMR open qualifications but has yet to qualify for the PGL Antwerp Major Europe RMR.

 

Since leaving BIG in early 2020, Smooya has had a difficult time finding a squad to join. He has played for Chaos, contact Gaming, Movistar Riders, and Fnatic, but has never stayed with any of them for more than six months.

Regali joins Fnatic roster for upcoming tournaments

 

Lulian “Regali” Harjău was brought up from Fnatic Rising to fill the vacuum and the current roster of Fnatic includes Freddy “Krimz” Johansson (Rifler), Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin (Rifler), William “Mezii” Merriman (Rifler), Lulian “Regali” Harjău (AWper) and the IGL of the team Alex “ALEX” McMeekin. 

 

The team is currently competing in the PGL Major Antwerp 2022 Europe RMR Open Qualifier 3 and will face NIP  on 10th March and G2 and MOUZ  on 12th March in the ESL Pro League Season 15. It would be exciting to see how this new squad performs in Major events like ESL.

 

An announcement was made by ESL officials. According to the announcement, organizations with apparent ties to the Russian government will not be allowed to compete in its Pro League events.

 

So far,  Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, have also been suspended from ESL events. Virtus pro and Gambit are the two teams that are identified for exclusion but more can be suspended. We have a complete article on this, you can check it out by clicking here.