Fnatic Add HEAP On Trial

Fnatic announced the addition of former Dignitas player Ludvig “HEAP” Alonso to its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive roster. The 22-year-old Swede joins the team only on trial ahead of the REPUBLEAGUE Season 3.

Fnatic have finalized its CS:GO roster with HEAP, who joined the team on Monday, June 20, as the fifth player. The Black & Orange decided to add the Swede on trial after completing his trialling process with the team.

Reportedly, HEAP has been trialling with Fnatic for the past month and has proven to be the right fit. However, Fnatic still need to see HEAP perform in an official match; therefore, the organization added the Swede on a trial basis for the upcoming event.

The addition of HEAP follows a major roster overhaul of Fnatic, who are in the middle of rebuilding the CS:GO lineup following a disappointing start to the season.

Fnatic started with the roster changes very early, when they benched Owen “smooya” Butterfield in February and eventually parted ways with the Births AWPer in March. Shortly after, Fnatic also released Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin, leaving the team with just three active players on the roster.

At the end of March, Fnatic added Valentin “poizon” Vasilev and Peppe “Peppzor” Borak on trial, hoping to form a stable roster, but things did not play out. Instead, the team opted to make further roster changes in May, when they removed poizon and Peppzor, and benched Alexander “ALEX” McMeekin.

With only two active players, Fnatic essentially started from scratch but did not need long to find replacements. At the start of June, Fnatic announced the signing of former Copenhagen Flames players Nico “nicoodoz” Tamjid and Fredrik “roeJ” Jørgensen, bringing them back up to four players.

Now with just one more vacant spot, Fnatic hope HEAP will be able to fit in with the team and complete the tedious and drawn-out rebuilding process, which started nearly six months ago.

HEAP is a 22-year-old Danish CS:GO player who started his career in 2018 with a stack named stranglerz. Over the first two years of his career, HEAP has played mostly for smaller teams and appeared only in lesser tournaments.

He signed his first professional contract in February 2020, when he joined Begrip Gaming, with who he has achieved plenty of success. Even though the team mainly competed in regional tournaments, Begrip Gaming have won numerous titles, including Svenska Elitserien 2019 Spring – Finals and the Fragleague Season 2.

After proving his worth at Begrip Gaming during his relatively short five-month tenure, HEAP got picked up by Dignitas, who added him to the roster in October 2020. HEAP has been the starting player of the roster ever since.

Even though HEAP did not achieve much with Dignitas, he at least gained valuable experience competing at the highest level, piling his trade alongside CS:GO veterans such as Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg and Adam “friberg” Friberg.

However, HEAP’s tenure with Dignitas came to an abrupt end recently when Dignitas decided to pull the plug on its CS:GO division. Nevertheless, HEAP did not need long to find a new home at Fnatic, where he is now on trial, looking to secure a permanent spot on the team.

HEAP will debut for Fnatic at REPUBLEAGUE Season 3, where the Black & Orange will face off against Into the Breach in the first round of Group B. For Fnatic, REPUBLEAGUE Season 3 marks the eighth tournament of the year and a chance to win the title, having failed to achieve anything in the last seven.

Fnatic’s best performance of 202 came at the start of June when they placed top-six at the Pinnacle Cup Championship but weren’t nearly as successful elsewhere. Most notably, Fnatic failed to qualify for the PGL Major Antwerp and even missed out on IEM Dallas with a seventh-eighth place finish in the European qualifiers.