smooya to be benched by fnatic - Report

After an underwhelming start to the year fnatic have reportedly made the decision to remove the AWPer from the active lineup.

The news comes from a report published today by Dexerto stating that the AWPer has been benched following fnatic's 9-12th place finish at IEM Katowice. The player himself has also hinted at the move in a series of tweets.

In an additional tweet the writer of the report, Luís Mira, stated that the decision had been made even before the team had been eliminated from the tournament.

In some sense this move is not much of a shock considering the drastic dip in form that both Owen "⁠smooya⁠" Butterfield individually and fnatic as a team have experienced coming into 2022.

Having joined the squad in October of 2021 smooya initially impressed, helping the team to win DreamHack Open November after a mere month together and averaging a 1.22 rating up to the end of the year.

Since then however form has soured with the team struggling to make an impact either at Funspark ULTI Finals or IEM Katowice, and smooya individually has dropped to a 1.01 average rating since the start of the year.

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smooya on individual drop-off: "All my life I've been a selfish player, so I thought I'm going to try to reel it in"

fnatic have already made moves to secure the services of a new AWPer, with a decision expected soon.