Back in June 2022, the old EYEBALLERS banner was revived after 14 years of inactivity by two of Counter-Strike's most coveted players in Jesper "JW" Wecksell and Robin "flusha" Rönnquist. The two Swedes have since then struggled to find success with the new roster in the Tier 2 scene of CS:GO with a lot of finishes outside of the playoffs at the tournaments.

Yesterday EYEBALLERS announced Peppe “Peppzor” Borak as a new addition to the roster. The 20-year-old Swede will replace Leo "Svedjehed" Svedjehed on the roster.

Peppe “Peppzor” Borak takes the step from Fnatic Rising to EYEBALLERS after having spent nearly two years at Fnatic, where the Swede has played several matches on the main roster as well. Now he will play with some of Swedish Counter-Strike's most prominent names.

– I’m extremely happy to have been given this opportunity. EYEBALLERS is a legendary organization. JW, flusha, and I share the same ambition, we want to compete for the biggest trophies and I believe this transition will help me immensely to reach my goals, says Peppzor in a press statement.

On paper, the signing of Peppzor is a big upgrade for the Swedish Organization.

- We have had our eyes on Peppzor for quite some time now, and we are delighted to be able to announce the recruitment of such a prominent rifler, says Jesper “JW” Wecksell, co-founder and CEO of EYEBALLERS.

Peppzor

EYEBALLERS

The 20-year-old Swede, Peppzor, who spent most of his time in the fnatic Rising jersey, is no longer a fnatic player and will start seeking new opportunities. He joined the team at the beginning of 2021 as a sixth player, but after the team went through roster changes, the 20-year-old had to battle out for the academy team, while being the main squad’s primary stand-in.

"As my time in fnatic has come to an end I am now a free agent. It has been a wild ride with a lot of ups and downs but through this, I have grown a lot as a person and a player during these times. But now it’s time to move on in my career and I can’t wait to see what the future holds.”

During his time in fnatic, Peppzor helped fnatic Rising secure their first WePlay title, and also played an important role when the main team won the title at Elisa Masters Espoo.

Fnatic

Fnatic Rising

Alex "ALEX" McMeekin and Valentin "poizon" Vasilev have been moved to fnatic's inactive roster the organization informs on their official page. "ALEX" has been the IGL of the roster since August 2021, where he has led them to wins at Dreamhack Open 47, and REPUBLEAGUE Season 2. "poizon" has only been a part of the squad for a couple of months as a stand-in at ESL Pro League 15 and the qualifiers for the PGL Major and IEM Dallas.

Peppe "Peppzor" Borak will also be leaving the pro squad to return to the fnatic Rising academy roster. The young Swede also joined the roster as a stand-in around the same time as "poizon".

The British organization also announces that they are in the late stages of signing new players to the roster and that updates will be coming in the following weeks.

ALEX

poizon

The Bulgarian sniper who goes by the name of Valentin "poizon" Vasilev seems to have finally found a new home after his time with Complexity. After securing third place at the ESL Pro League Season 15 with fnatic, he has officially been welcomed into the organization on a trial basis. The 23-year-old AWP'er has been competing with fnatic as a stand-in since the beginning of March this year and has, all in all, posted great performances for the organization.

In the same official announcement, posted on fnatic's Twitter page, the future of 19-year-old "Peppzor" was also spoken on. fnatic has announced that the Swedish academy player will continue to play with the current fnatic roster "for the next months of events" and state the following in the announcement: 

The signing of "poizon", albeit on a trial basis for now, and the decision to keep "Peppzor" as a stand-in for the main fnatic roster, sees the Sweden-based organization begin to reform their roster after the sudden departure of "smooya" and perhaps more crucially their previous star player in "Brollan". 

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The current fnatic roster looks as follows: 

{cflag:SE} Peppe "Peppzor" Borak (Stand-in)

{cflag:BG} Valentin "poizon" Vasilev (Trial)

It was a heavily decimated Fnatic roster who arrived in Düsseldorf last week to compete at the 15th season of ESL Pro League. The Swedish-based team were set to play without their star duo in Brollan and KRIMZ, as they also lacked a permanent AWPer due to the release of Smooya.

Fnatic ended up picking their two Fnatic youngsters, Peppzor and Banjo, alongside the former Complexity AWPer, poizon, as replacements for the $823.000 event. Something that worked out pretty well for Fnatic, as they managed to take down G2, MOUZ and LFO to secure a playoff spot. 

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Before the final round of Group A, Fnatic head coach, Jamie “keita” Hall spoke with ESL to talk about playing with three stand-ins and still managing to qualify for playoffs.

- I can’t say that we had the time to have 1-on-1 sessions with them (stand-ins). He literally landed on the day we were playing. We have been lucky that we had late games so we could practise before the games, looking at previous games and correcting stuff as we go, keita said to ESL and continued:

- They have just done a great job adapting on the fly, learning from their mistakes and improving their confidence as they go, the Fnatic head coach concluded.

You can watch a part of the interview down below. Here keita also touches on his coaching style and how he sees himself as a coach.

[twitchClip:DistinctHonestDiamondMoreCowbell-huAK_wVQNmz_SNLZ]

1. NIP | 12 Points / +45 Round difference

2. Entropic | 12 Points / +18 Round difference

3. Fnatic | 9 Points / +15 Round difference

6. Looking For OG | 0 / -77 Round difference

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Brollan

KRIMZ

Banjo

smooya

To close the day at ESL Pro League, the Australians of LookingForOrg faced the international lineup of fnatic. Both teams came into the match looking for their first win after having lost their games on day 1.

The match got started on LFO’s pick of Dust2, where fnatic secured an early lead of 4-0 on their CT-side before the Australians were able to answer back. Led by “ap0c”, the Aussies came back into it, and nothing but a single round separated the two teams at halftime.

Fnatic, who had the lead at the half, kept extending it after the break, but LFO came back immediately to equalize it just like in the first half. At this point, fnatic looked utterly lost for answers and LFO drove it home at 16-13.

After a loss on the first map, fnatic, and especially “Peppzor”, stepped their game up massively on Inferno. They took a convincing 11-4 halftime lead and looked much more comfortable than they did on the first map where “poizon” was the only one really showing up.

Fnatic quickly found map point at 15-4, and an eleven-round comeback was way too big of a task for the Australians, who had to concede the second map at 16-8.

With Dust2 and Inferno out of the way, it was now time for the deciding map: Overpass. The teams were exactly evenly matched after ten rounds as no team could seem to get the upper hand. “HaZR” tried hard to get LFO into a winning position, but it was “mezii” and “poizon” on the CT-side that managed to bring their team to a lead of 9-6 at the break.

LFO had a really hard time in the second half and were only able to take one round with them, meaning that fnatic took a dominating victory of 16-7.

fnatic - LookingForOrg 2-1 | ESL Pro League Season 15 (Group A)

13-16 (Dust2) | {cflag:AU} ap0c – 1.58 Rating / 28-15 K-D / 112.5 ADR

16-8 (Inferno) | {cflag:GB} mezii – 1.41 Rating / 18-10 K-D / 84.8 ADR

16-7 (Overpass) | {cflag:GB} mezii – 1.91 Rating / 28-15 K-D / 148.1 ADR

MVP: {cflag:GB} William "mezii" Merriman – 1.34 Rating / 58-45 K-D / 98.9 ADR

ap0c

mezii

HaZR

With only one map to be played the choice fell upon Mirage, and had GamerLegion starting on the CT-side, while fnatic took on the role of the terrorists.

The match started out well for the now international lineup of fnatic, taking a solid early lead of 5-1. GamerLegion quickly answered back with a little run of their own to even out the score, primarily carried by an excellent fragging performance from "iM". It was the more experienced side of fnatic that came out of the first half with the best result though, being up 9-6.

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fnatic extended their lead by two rounds after switching to the CT-side, but were abruptly stopped in their track by a GamerLegion that seemed to have their number in the second half. The "ALEX"-led squad managed to once again equalize the score at 13-13 after a 1v3 clutch from stand-in "Peppzor". The rest of the rounds belonged to GamerLegion who managed to get over the finish line at 16-13.

fnatic – GamerLegion 0-1 | PGL Major Antwerp 2022 Europe RMR Open Qualifier 4 (Grand Final)

13-16 (Mirage) | {cflag:RO} Ivan "iM" Mihai – 1.86 Rating / 35-19 K-D / 122.8 ADR

GamerLegion

fnatic has revealed its new fnatic Rising roster built around the main team’s substitute player, Peppe “Peppzor” Borak, and former team analyst, Kevin “Kevve” Bohlin, who will serve the squad as in-game leader. The Swedish organization states that the academy team will serve as a dynamic roster that will rotate between players and young talent throughout the season.

The roster that consists of young players from Germany, Romania, and Portugal, was revealed just hours ahead of the start of WePlay League. fnatic Rising squad will compete against the secondary teams of several other elite organizations, such as NAVI Junior, Astralis Talent, and Young Ninjas. They will make their debut on Monday at 21:00 (CET).

“Our goal is to operate under one unified structure across the main roster and this new academy team, this will allow us to ensure there is a key transfer of knowledge and experience between the two.”

 Team director, Andreas “Samuelsson” Samuelsson said in a statement.

Kevve

regali

prosus

Fnatic's 2021 has so far been a letdown for the fans of the legendary Swedish Organization.

The roster has failed to impress in any of the Tier 1 events, that they have participated in finishing last at both IEM Katowice Play-in, ESL Pro League Season 13, and lastly Flashpoint 3, where the team got eliminated last night after two straight defeats.

After the match against Complexity, Ludvig "Brollan" Brolin commented on the slump on Twitter.

The reactions after the match were also remarkable.

[twitchVideo:flashpoint/clip/VastImpartialFerretPMSTwin-uZzTLm6ywlU1HbXM]

Fnatic's lackluster 2021 can also be seen on the World Rankings, where the Swedes are down to 25th place in the world far from the glory days of the Organization, who is the second most successful in CS:GO history with three Major's in their trophy cabinet.

Perhaps a roster change could be the solution. Not long ago the Swedes announced the addition of Peppe "Peppzor" Borak as their new sixth man.

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After having slumps in performance in recent times fnatic has chosen to implement a sixth player into their line-up. The relatively unknown rifler Peppe "Peppzor" Borak will act as the team's sixth player in the new six-man roster once integrated properly.

In their announcement fnatic addresses the complexity of a six-man roster and many different ways of executing such a roster change: 

"As other teams have experienced, a six-man roster is not yet a perfect system, but for now this experiment will give our roster a much-needed shakeup, while allowing Peppzor to develop his phenomenal talent away from the pressure of official matches." 

Additionally, the organization has stated that Jack "Jackinho" Ström Mattsson will continue his role as the main AWP'er whereas the legendary Jesper "JW" Wecksell is set to be integrated into a rifling role, of course, alongside being the team's secondary AWP'er. 

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Peppzor

Player stats

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poizon announced to join fnatic on trial basis

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