Fnatic explains why CYPHER is out of the Major: "There's a natural synergy between [jackasmo and KRIMZ]"

After Cai "CYPHER" Watson confirmed yesterday, October 23rd, that Fnatic decided not to play the StarLadder Budapest Major with him, the organization found itself under massive backlash. After all, CYPHER helped Fnatic qualify for the event only to lose his place to Mykyta "jackasmo" Skyba.

But, Fnatic revealed today that the dispute for the fifth spot wasn't between CYPHER and jackasmo, but actually between the Brit entry-fragger and Freddy "KRIMZ" Johansson.

Fnatic explained the thought process behind removing CYPHER in a lengthy video presented by Ross "RossR" Rooney, the organization's Strategy and Analysis lead.

RossR admitted that the decision to bench CYPHER was hard, but they felt that jackasmo fitted into the team.

The Ukrainian youngster joined the team as a stand-in for Fragadelphia Blocktober, and helped them to win the tournament and qualify for the Major. He also played with his fellow countrymen Rodyon "fear" Smyk and Dmytro "jambo" Semera, previously in Passion UA.

As the video went on, RossR revealed that Fnatic was between CYPHER and KRIMZ, and that they opted for the latter despite the role issue concerns.

The debate was between whether we would move forward with a combination of jackasmo and CYPHER, or with jackasmo and KRIMZ.

The decision was the majority of the team and staff wanted to try jackasmo and KRIMZ together. There's a natural synergy there between the two of them, in terms of their character and how well they work together.

We left it open prior to CAC because there was the concern there around stylistically how would we without CYPHER, without someone who is going to scale onto bombsites and create space for the rest of the team, make that work.

However, after seeing the team reach the CS Asia Championships 2025 quarterfinals with jackasmo and KRIMZ, Fnatic made their decision.

According to RossR, jackasmo is a "baby in real terms in Counter-Strike," and he's capable of taking different roles other than being an anchor like he was in Passion UA.

[We] see that at 18 there is a lot of room for growth for a player, which is why we wanted to take a chance on jackasmo.

It's clear that we have been able to make it work and that there were more than just signs of life in Shanghai for the group, that they have performed quite well, adapted, and the change-up in roles has worked reasonably well, and the group was happy to go into PGL Masters Bucharest with the same five.

After making his point, RossR reaffirmed that the decision to cut CYPHER for the Major was difficult, albeit adding that it's part of the nature of a competitive environment such as Counter-Strike and that Fnatic had a "really poor year" all-around.

It was a marginal decision, which is why it can be from an outside perspective perceived as would it not be more amicable and equitable to start the same five players that have qualified us to the Major?

We are fighting for our lives in Counter-Strike. It's been a really poor year for fnatic in Counter-Strike, let's not mince words [...] We have to make decisions at times that we think are going to be for the betterment of the roster, whether that feels nice or is a comfortable decision to make doesn't matter, what matters is that we are doing what's best.

The group is quite universal now in their belief that this is a group of five players that can play together and deliver a level of performance that is exciting and very competitive. That's something I don't think we've been able to say for quite some time.

CYPHER hasn't made any comments after the video featuring RossR went live this afternoon. The Brit will have to settle for just receiving the Major stickers and the money that comes from them, instead of actually competing in the tournament.