In a shock move before the Stage 3 start, Fnatic have benched Hikaru "Li9ht" Osawa, Naoki "Yura" Takamoto, and Masashi "Siru" Miyamoto all at once. This move comes ahead of Etienne "Mag" Rousseau's return to the playing roster after visa struggles throughout most of the 2022 season so far.
Li9ht shed light on his situation on Twitter, implying that his relationships with Strategic Coach Théo "Phenomene" Hentgen and team manager Kazuhide "GuNBoY" Kawamura had broken down.
The move leaves Fnatic with just three players in the active roster for now, though two more are certainly lined up behind-the-scenes despite just six days of the transfer window left.
Li9ht and Yura had been with the team since it was under the GUTS Gaming banner, with Li9ht having joined in Sep. 2019 and Yura in Feb. 2020. Siru, meanwhile, only joined Fnatic ahead of the start of Stage 2.
Since securing their move to Japan with their new Japanese roster, formerly of GUTS, Fnatic struggled somewhat. They finished Stage 1 of the APAC North Division in seventh place, though they improved to fourth in Stage 2. In the Japan League, the story was similar -- a quarter-finals finish in the Season 1 Playoffs was repeated in Season 2.
Fnatic have invested heavily into Japan after their original plan to shift their Australia-based roster in 2020. A total of $17 million in investment was raised in 2021 and was led by Marubeni Corporation, one of the largest conglomerates in Japan.