fnatic's Strategy Lead: "The debate was between jackasmo and CYPHER or jackasmo and KRIMZ"

fnatic's Strategy and Analysis Lead, Ross "RossR" Rooney, has shed light on the team's decision to bench CYPHER in favour of jackasmo.

fnatic underwent a change in recent weeks, benching their recent addition Cai "⁠CYPHER⁠" Watson in favour of Nikita "⁠jackasmo⁠" Skyba, mere days after they had secured their qualification for StarLadder Budapest Major.

The move was met with derision by some of the community, with the ire centered on the perceived unfairness of the decision on CYPHER and, to a lesser extent, the potential role issues presented by the swap.

In the wake of their decision fnatic have released a video interview with their Strategy and Analysis Lead, Ross "⁠RossR⁠" Rooney, to shed some light on the player swap, as well as provide insight into the current state of fnatic's CS team more generally.

RossR began by admitting that the benching of CYPHER "was a very difficult decision," and that there was a "bit of uncertainty about how the roles were going to work" heading into the team's campaign at CS Asia Championships.

"Never easy considering the circumstances and having just qualified for the Major, and all of the positive sentiment around the team," RossR admitted. "Where jackasmo fitted into that is that we knew that it was someone we liked and had been admiring for such a long time."

Interestingly, RossR revealed that the debate regarding the roster was not a straight choice between CYPHER and jackasmo, but rather between CYPHER and Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson.

"The debate was between whether we would move forward with a combination of jackasmo and CYPHER, or with jackasmo and KRIMZ," the 35-year-old stated. "The decision was the majority of the team and staff wanted to try jackasmo and KRIMZ together. There's a natural synergy there between the two of them, in terms of their character and how well they work together."

The issue of roles was mentioned in the community criticism regarding the move, and it was an issue that played on RossR's mind as well. "We left it open prior to Shanghai because there was the concern there around stylistically how would we without CYPHER, without someone who is going to scale onto bombsites and create space for the rest of the team, make that work."

However, fnatic's relative success at CS Asia Championships, as well as jackasmo's profile as a young and still mouldable player, saw the team opt to stick with the 18-year-old.

"Ultimately jackasmo is a baby in real terms in Counter-Strike," RossR stated. He later clarified, saying that "from a statistical standpoint jackasmo has the attributes to do more than the roles he was doing in Passion UA, where he was put into passive anchor roles, and is more capable to do other things. We make allowances for that and see that at 18 there is a lot of room for growth for a player, which is why we wanted to take a chance on jackasmo."

"It's clear that we have been able to make it work and that there were more than just signs of life in Shanghai for the group, that they have performed quite well, adapted, and the change up in roles has worked reasonably well, and the group was happy to go into Bucharest with the same five."

RossR went on to say that, whilst the decision was a difficult and perhaps uncomfortable one, those are the decisions that need to be made in a competitive environment.

"It was a marginal decision, which is why it can be from an outside perspective perceived as would it not be more amicable and equitable to start the same five players that have qualified us to the Major? We are fighting for our lives in Counter-Strike. It's been a really poor year for fnatic in Counter-Strike, let's not mince words.

"... We have to make decisions at times that we think are going to be for the betterment of the roster, whether that feels nice or is a comfortable decision to make doesn't matter, what matters is that we are doing what's best."

RossR concluded by saying that, after the team's performance at CS Asia Championships and a few days of practice, the decision was clear.

"The group is quite universal now in their belief that this is a group of five players that can play together and deliver a level of performance that is exciting and very competitive. That's something I don't think we've been able to say for quite some time."