Vitality confirmed the signing of Fnatic’s former star Counter-Strike rifler William “mezii” Merriman on Nov. 8.
The 25-year-old Brit will fill the void left open by the benching of Magisk on Nov. 3 as he’s reportedly on his way to join zonic’s project at the Saudi organization Falcons. The arrival of mezii comes as mere confirmation as CS2 fans already knew he was close to joining Vitality after the BLAST Premier Fall Final rosters were made public earlier this month.
Mezii has been playing professionally since 2017 but became more famous after he joined Cloud9’s “Colossus” roster in September 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Though that project didn’t bear fruit, mezii made a name for himself as he was undoubtedly the best player on the team.
Since then, the Brit played four months for Endpoint in 2021 and had been a part of Fnatic’s roster since August 2021. Mezii played numerous roles, including being the in-game leader after Alex McMeekin was benched in May 2022. Mezii most notably led Fnatic to a top-eight finish at the IEM Rio Major in November 2022 and transitioned to a pure rifling role in July 2023 right after Fnatic signed dexter, becoming the team’s star player.
On Vitality, however, mezii will once again have to prove his versatility as he’ll most likely take on the anchor roles that belonged to Magisk on the CT side. The 25-year-old has some big shoes to fill, considering that Magisk was a key element of the team that most notably won the BLAST Paris Major in May, the final one played in CS:GO.
Mezii will make his debut for Vitality at the BLAST Premier Fall Final, a $425,000 LAN tournament in Copenhagen, Denmark. Vitality will be fighting for a share of the prize pool against FaZe Clan, Complexity, Cloud9, Natus Vincere, Astralis, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and Heroic.
