Fnatic CSGO go international, add ALEX and mezii

The ex-Cloud9 duo meet again, this time at Fnatic.

fnatic csgo
Photo: Fnatic

Fnatic on Twitter have announced the addition of Alex “⁠ALEX⁠” McMeekin and William “⁠mezii⁠” Merriman to their CSGO division. The duo will now replace Maikil “Golden” Selim and Jesper “JW” Wecksell on the active squad. 

After three months of inactivity, ALEX returns to action at Fnatic and will take up the reigns as the team’s In-Game Leader while mezii joins the now International-Swedish side after the latter had represented Cloud9, led by the former Brit. 

ALEX and mezii both joined Cloud9 as a part of Henry “HenryG” Greer’s project dubbed as the “Colossus” in the second half of 2020 alongside Ricky “floppy” Kemery, Ozgur “Woxic” Eker and Patrick “es3tag” Hansen. Across their time with Cloud9, the team had its own ups and downs, eventually having decided to put their CSGO division on hold earlier in March. 

Through a press release, Head Coach Andreas “⁠Samuelsson⁠” Samuelsson stated,

Following that search, I’m very pleased to announce that we have signed Alex,  who we feel fits perfectly into that role within the new international structure. Alex is highly skilled, has a vast amount of experience, and is renowned for his professional IGL approach.

To build on that, we also wanted to fulfill the role of the hungry up-and-coming player who shared our drive and ambition. At this point, we’d been following William for a long period of and we felt that he has everything it takes to become one of the best rifle players in the game. Not only do we feel that William is extremely very versatile, but paired with great communication skills and is regarded as a proficient teammate, we feel he has huge potential.

At the end of July, Fnatic intended to field an international CSGO roster after they parted ways with Golden and JW in the wake of lacklustre showings across a plethora of tournaments including IEM Summer 2021 and FLASHPOINT Season 3. 

As said above by Fnatic’s Head Coach, the Swedish Organization had their eyes on mezii as he had a wondrous year, having played for Cloud9 and Endpoint before signing up for Fnatic. After Cloud9 ceased their CSGO operations, William averaged with a rating of 1.22 across his time at Endpoint, an impressively better stat for the Brit when compared to the same with the Los Angeles-based team. 

ALEX inarguably seems to be the perfect piece of the puzzle for Fnatic as they need a stoic captain going ahead and someone who would set up an example for the rest to follow. His previous triumphs with Vitality include championships at the ECS Season 7 finals, EPICENTER 2019, and Cs_summit 4. 

Fnatic will debut with their new roster at the ESL Pro League Season 14, scheduled to start from August 16.

The team now looks like this:

  • Freddy “⁠KRIMZ⁠” Johansson
  • Jack “⁠Jackinho⁠” Ström Mattsson
  • Ludvig “⁠Brollan⁠” Brolin
  • Alex “⁠ALEX⁠” McMeekin
  • William “⁠mezii⁠” Merriman
  • Sweden Andreas “⁠Samuelsson⁠” Samuelsson (Head coach)
  • Jesper “⁠JW⁠” Wecksell (benched)
  • Maikil “⁠Golden⁠” Selim (benched)

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