Fnatic to rebuild around Mushi, Ohaiyo as Miduan, 343, Dj depart

Zheng “Miduan” Yeik Nai and Adam Erwann Shah “343” bin Akhtar Hussein have officially parted ways with Fnatic, following the departure of Djardel Jicko B. “DJ” Mampusti. At this time both Chai “Mushi” Yee Fung and Chong Xin “Ohaiyo” Khoo remain with the organization. Fnatic placed fourth at TI6 with an impressive run through the brackets.

Fnatic have officially announced that three of their players have parted ways with the organization.

Djardel Jicko “Dj” Mampusti was one of the first players to make an exit from their team in the post TI6 shuffle. Only hours after the Valve announcement of the new Fall Major team registration dates and changes to the process, Dj left the Fnatic roster.

He has since been seen playing with Execration and heavily rumored to be joining them. Dj’s departing statment also supports the idea:

After living overseas for 2 years, I wanted to rest a little bit and spend most of my time in the Philippines. I’m now considering playing locally instead of playing outside my country. To my former team, I want to say thanks for everything. I really learned a lot of things by playing with you guys. Good luck in your future.
I will miss Malaysia, our bootcamp and all the players, our hardworking manager Eric and the never-ending support of the Fnatic organization, especially CGO Patrik. Right now I’m just going to enjoy some rest, stay away from Dota for a little while and eventually join a team here in the Philippines.

Zheng “Miduan” Yeik Nai plans to continue to compete and try new teams/places out while Adam Erwann Shah “343” bin Akhtar Hussein acknowledges that this past year has been an incredible but “tiring” experience – resulting him taking a break from competition.

Both long time teammates and Fnatic members – Chai “Mushi” Yee Fung and Chong Xin “Ohaiyo” Khoo appear to be remaining with the team which will need to rebuild according to Fnatic manager Eric “reinn” Khor Wei Soon.

Fall Major registration

For the team registrations this year, there is a two step or phase registration period including drop phase and add phase.

Teams have 17 days (now until September 4th) to release players from their current rosters for the upcoming season. This is an active process unlike previous seasons where the entire team was automatically dropped. Therefore players must leave the team or the management needs to remove any players that will not continue competing with the team. Any players that are still remaining on the team after September 4th are automatically locked in to the team.

New players can then be added to the roster between September 4-18th (two weeks) – locking on September 18th at 12:00AM PDT. This includes re-adding players that left or were dropped in the first phase.

Fnatic

Fnatic at the Manila Major © PGL

Showing up to the Shanghai Major in a completely different form, Fnatic started to take on a new life. In the last few months, they secured multiple LAN spots through victories in the regional qualifiers: ESL One Manila, EPICENTER Moscow, ESL One Frankfurt 2016 and SL iLeague StarSeries s2. They won BTS Series 4 SEA and followed up with a championship title at the SEA Kappa Invitational Season 1.

In May, Fnatic announced an update to their roster, including the long awaited return of Chai “Mushi” Yee Fung to competitive play. His return stimulated a domino effect of changes in the Fnatic roster – including Adam Erwann Shah “343” bin Akhtar Hussein’s move into a primary role on the team and the departure of Wai Pern “Net” Lim.

Without missing a beat, The Summit 5 SEA qualifiers became the second consecutive LAN qualifier Fnatic seized in one week, shortly followed by securing their place in the SL iLeague StarSeries s2.

The Malaysian-based team finished the Manila Major with a commendable 5th-6th place, then placed 7th-8th at ESL One Frankfurt 2016, followed by a 5th-6th place at the Summit 5 and third at StarLadder i-League StarSeries Season 2.

Fnatic took fourth place at TI6 after a spectacular run and showcase of talent.