One of the biggest stories of the year in the European LCS was when Fnatic’s star marksman Martin “Rekkles” Larsson was benched following the first week of the Summer Split. Without him, the team shot to first place in the standings, but now Rekkles is back to claim his spot on the roster.
Fnatic announced in a tweet today that Rekkles will be starting for their match against Giants Gaming tomorrow. Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau, who has been playing in the bot lane in Rekkles’ absence, will be rotating back to his traditional top lane, while top laner Paul “Soaz” Boyer will be sitting the match out.
Fnatic also released an interview with Rekkles on YouTube. In it, Rekkles revealed that he wasn’t even practicing with the team while they were in Los Angeles preparing for the Rift Rivals tournament in July.
“When I was in [Los Angeles] with the team, I wasn’t playing any scrims, and I wasn’t even sitting in the same room so I felt very disconnected and basically had no idea about anything that was going on in the team,” Rekkles said. “It’s a big gamble that they’re taking, bringing me on board again.”
Rekkles also said he took some time off to work on his champion pool and mentality to prepare for his return to the LCS stage. The one week he did play this split, the team went 1-1, though Rekkles was relegated to playing supports and not his traditional marksmen.
After Fnatic signed former G2 Esports top laner Ki “Expect” Dae-han, Rekkles’ spot on the roster seemed to be in jeopardy. Now that AD Carries have been buffed, though, it might be time for Rekkles to prove that he remains the best marksman in Europe, and maybe even the west.
Update August 9 1:05pm CT: Fnatic coach Joey “Youngbuck” Steltenpool tweeted that the team had been practicing with multiple rosters since the start of the Summer Split.
