fnatic's general manager, Joe Miller, announced on the fnatic website that “the teams recent slumps at AEF, TEX and i34 meant it was time for a change.” The teams highest finish of the summer was fourth at the-eXperience in Roskilde, Denmark.

The decision to remove Martin 'mintR' Rödjer (middle) and Rickard 'zEm' (bottom right) Intveld was necessary according to Daniel 'tidde' Asp, who felt “that over the week's we've been splitting up as a team and been divided into groups.”

fnatic had originally bested SK Gaming's attempt to sign the Swedish squad earlier in the year and it paid dividends when the squad finished first, ahead of The Last Resort (TLR) who would later join Meet Your Makers (MYM), at the Crossfire Devotti Challenge 4 (CDC4) in Enschede, Holland.

zEm returned from a holiday in Thailand, early and at his own expense, in order to play with the team at the Multiplay i33 event. fnatic finished fourth but later picked up their performance by winning the Championship Gaming Series (CGS) Kick-off tournament in Birmingham, England, against big name rivals Dignitas.

Summer LAN achievements:

7-8th Antwerp eSports Festival
4th the-eXperience
9-12th Multiplay i34

With two desperately poor performances from the fnatic team, the lowest at the Multiplay i34 which was not only a below-par finish but the worst of the three events confounded the need for change. “Whenever things are going great people are happy, when things go bad however, someone has to be responsible and this time it was me”, explained 'mintR'. He had earlier admitted to Stuart 'TosspoT' Saw, the owner of Crossfire and director of QuadV, “if we don't do well here then I have to consider what I'm doing because a team like fnatic deserve the best.”

fnatic.CoD4
Johan 'LINQAN' Lindqvist
Marcus 'odyx' Nilsson
Daniel 'tidde' Asp

The removal of both mintR, who described his time in fnatic as “the best of my gaming career”, and zEm casts a cloud over the team as they were among the most respected and known players in the CoD franchise though many are happy to see, that unlike MYM, fnatic is still retaining their squad. Joe Miller finished to say that the team would be announcing its replacements soon, speculation as to who the two likely replacements will be include 'zsilts', a former player and 'rivve' who currently plays for Begrip.