Envy bench FugLy

Envy have announced the benching of Jacob "⁠FugLy⁠" Medina from their active roster, while also indicating that "additional roster change information" is soon to follow.

FugLy has been a part of Envy's roster since March 2019, when he first joined the team alongside Sam "⁠s0m⁠" Oh and Bradley "⁠ANDROID⁠" Fodor. The roster failed to have any results of note during the course of the year as they attended just four offline events, consisting of two ESL Pro League Americas group stage appearances and a pair of last-place finishes at IEM Chicago 2019 and DreamHack Masters Malmö.

In a lengthy TwitLonger, FugLy spoke in detail of his time on Envy, mentioning that he was only informed of his benching on January 14 and that he was "kept in the dark for all of the off-season" regarding his future on the team.

FugLy also pointed towards frustrations within the team as early as August, shortly after the team had brought in Aran "⁠Sonic⁠" Groesbeek from ATK. With the South African player taking up AWPing duties, FugLy revealed that the majority of the roster — "everyone but one person" — felt that it would be a good idea to remove Noah "⁠Nifty⁠" Francis, with the players making a WhatsApp group to discuss the potential change.

According to FugLy, Nifty found out about the creation of the group the following day and removed Sonic from the team with "no hesitation" and without discussing the move with the rest of the team.

FugLy went on to explain about how, as part of his original signing with Envy, he confirmed that he would not have to move to a team facility as he already had a place of his own in Arizona. The organization began to hint towards that no longer being the case in September, and confirmed in December that FugLy would "either move to Dallas or be kicked off the team."

The 25-year-old agreed to move into a team house on the condition that he would have help to get the process going, and was told that further details would be discussed in the coming days. Additionally, Nifty contacted FugLy to talk about his thoughts on the team and who they should retain heading into the next year, with FugLy indicating that he thought they should keep Ryan "⁠ryann⁠" Welsh but that he was on the fence about ANDROID, asking Nifty to also consult ryann about the potential change.

"December 20th, I get another call from Nifty," FugLy wrote. "No news about ANDROID yet, ryann has not been contacted from Nifty. We just talk about me moving and that if I am ready/not ready to commit to Dallas. I just said I was waiting to hear back from Envy. I messaged Envy the same day asking for an update and was told I would hop in a call with them over the weekend.

"December 23rd comes along (not the weekend, by the way, but Monday) and I get a message from ANDROID that he has been cut. Weird...I message ryann and ask if he knew about this because I told Nifty to talk to ryann first. Nope. He just found about it as he got cut. I get a call the same day from Envy. They say, 'It's the holidays now, we won't know about your stipend until early next year'.

"January comes along, I message Nifty on the 3rd of January about potential players, which he responds and agrees that 'that' player might be a good option. Even names another potential pickup we [could] get."

After assuring one week into January that he was willing to move and confirming with Nifty that he was part of the team's composition, FugLy says he continued to be left in the dark, up until he came across a DBLTAP article on January 13 that reported talks between former Space Soldiers member Buğra "⁠Calyx⁠" Arkın and Envy. After contacting the organisation once again, FugLy was told that he was being benched, a move that, according to him, ryann "had no idea about".

"I felt I was still very naive even after the whole Sonic situation where everyone on the team knew it was f****d and it was not a team but one person making every decision for himself and no one else mattered, which the organisation is OK with," FugLy said in closing. "They want him running the show as Nifty and Envy are very close."

Envy are now:

Noah "⁠Nifty⁠" Francis
Ryan "⁠ryann⁠" Welsh

Bradley "⁠ANDROID⁠" Fodor (benched)
Jacob "⁠FugLy⁠" Medina (benched)