Esports

Fnatic Finalise Counter-Strike Roster With Fear and Burmylov

By Tit Krajnik

11 Jan 2025

Tit Krajnik 11 Jan 2025

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Fnatic have announced the signing of two new Counter-Strike players
Rodyon "fear" Smyk and Denis "Burmylov" Buraga join the team
Fnatic will debut their 2025 Counter-Strike team at BLAST Bounty Spring 2025: Closed Qualifier

Fnatic sign fear and Burmylov

Fnatic have announced the signing of Rodyon "fear" Smyk and Denis "Burmylov" Buraga, bringing their Counter-Strike roster to full strength.

The Ukrainian duo joined Fnatic as replacements for Tim "nawwk" Jonasson and Alexandre "bodyy" Pianaro, who left the team during the offseason.

These roster changes see Fnatic move from fielding experienced players to adding two younger talents, bringing down the average age of their roster to 24.5, with Freddy "KRIMZ" Johansson as the oldest member at 30 years of age.

However, the drastic change in the ideology makes sense, as Fnatic have not found much success with their previous roster iteration, struggling to make much noise in the Counter-Strike scene.

Fnatic ended the 2024 season with just two tournament titles from two B-Tier tournaments, RES European Series #1 and #6. Their only other notable accomplishments included a runner-up finish at FiReLEAGUE Global Final 2023 and a semifinal run at RES Regional Champions.

The Black & Orange found more traction in the latter months of the year and qualified for Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 with a sixth-place finish in Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024: European RMR A.

However, their Major campaign was cut short, as Fnatic crashed out of the tournament in last place.

Now, the European squad will count on younger players to help them find more success in 2025. And while the two arrivals might lack the experience of older players, they showed good things last season.

Burmylov comes from MOUZ NXT, where he averaged a 1.05 rating over a 12-month tenure and helped the MOUZ academy team win two silver medals at CCT Season 2 Europe Series 3 and RES Regional Series 3 Europe.

Fnatic's new in-game leader, fear, was last a member of Passion UA, who he led to Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024, with wins against Virtus.pro, Astralis, and Team Spirit in European RMR B.

With two new arrivals, Fnatic will start fresh and aim to build on their showings in 2024. The new-look roster will debut at BLAST Bounty Spring 2025: Closed Qualifier, where they got invited as a replacement team following The MongolZ's withdrawal.