Fnatic speaks on Mel, Atakhan, the LEC’s international chances

The LEC Spring 2025 split is running at full tilt, and Fnatic is comfortably in the top six with an eye on a potential playoff run and a spot in the Mid-Season Invitational.

Three of the team’s star players, mid-laner Humanoid, support Mikyx, and jungler Razork, sat down with jaxon.gg to answer some questions related to the team’s chances in the LEC, the LEC’s chances internationally, and some of the bigger changes made to League of Legends this year.

Now that you’ve had some time to adjust to it, how do you feel about the inclusion of Atakhan as a new objective on the game’s map?

Razork: I think Atakhan, when it was released, was really broken, so it wasn’t really fun. I think now people got more used to it, so they feel better around it.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of it. I think it’s kind of a boring monster to play for, especially since you don’t get any dopamine when you kill it, so it’s not very nice. I like the revive one since you can [play risky] and do crazy stuff, but it doesn’t appear as much.

How much influence would you say the two types of Atakhan have on a match’s trajectory, especially at the level of professional play?

Humanoid: It’s a pretty big difference. The revive one is pretty easy to take, and it doesn’t do much damage, whereas the flower one is pretty hard to take and does a lot of AOE around, so it’s hard to fight around it.

Depending on which one spawns, the winning team can decide to take it really fast if it’s the revive one, or to play it safer if it’s the flower one.

What are your thoughts on the latest champion, Mel? And more particularly, her reflect ability.

Humanoid: Trash. Just trash. In my opinion, she just shouldn’t be in the game. That’s it.

Is the issue that Mel can just nullify some enemy champions?

Humanoid: Yes, it’s just such a stupid ability to have because it completely hard counters so many champions while being pretty useless against [others]. Plus, it’s boring to go against.

How has fearless draft affected the way you practice and prepare as pro players?

Mikyx: Well, I guess fearless kind of makes it so you have to have more than at least three champions that you can actually play at a high level. So, that does affect practice because a lot of times [before], teams could just practice either the same types of comps or the same champions all over again and it would be more one-dimensional, but nowadays you need a lot more than that.

So I think it makes the game a lot more fun, and there are a lot of new picks.

Do you feel like you have to put in more practice time since you have to master more champions for fearless?

Mikyx: I guess so. I mean, you just put your practice elsewhere [relative to before], I guess. Instead of playing just one champ, you play a few champions, and actually get to play more variety, which I think is more enjoyable, especially in solo queue.

This one’s specific to Mikyx. You’ve played with multiple teams at the game’s highest level? Splyce, Excel, Misfits, G2, and now Fnatic. What makes Fnatic unique compared to your past teams?

Mikyx: What makes us unique? I’d say everyone is very individually skilled, so most of the time I think our laning phases go very well, which, for some of [my] other teams, could be an issue.

Razork, this one’s for you. Is there anyone you’ve played with, particularly on your current team, who most influences your current jungling style?

Razork: For sure it’s Upset. I think he demands a lot of rare chances and he really loves having his jungler around, even though sometimes it’s not needed. He feels extra safe when I’m around him. So, yeah, for sure, it’s Upset.

Humanoid, how do you feel about your mid-bot synergy with Upset and Mikyx?

Humanoid: I’ve felt it since day one. Since they’ve both joined, there has been a sense of peace in my soul, and like just in the first scrims we played extremely well, and we don’t even have to talk in the game anymore. It’s all automatic.

Fnatic took some real heat online from some of the team’s fans after a recent loss to SK Gaming. How do you navigate those reactions when they happen? Does it bother you?

Mikyx: Well, for me, I guess it bothers me more that we lost to, like, a worse team, than people flaming us for it. Because we hold ourselves to a higher standard, so it’s already embarrassing to give up games, especially in a best-of-three series, to a worse team.

I don’t really mind the fan backlash because it’s deserved when we lose.

Razork: What do you think, [Humanoid]?

Humanoid: I think it was horrible. It was horrible, and I’m getting messages left and right to end my career. But I’m dealing. Dealing with it my way. What about you [Razork]?

Razork: Yeah, I mean for me, it’s not a biggie. I think every pro player receives at least some flames, so you just kind of ignore it and even make fun of some comments since they could be very funny even though they are flaming you.

The way that they flame you is, I don’t know, like typical football fans who criticize everything they see, even though they have zero clue about football. Kind of similar to League.

Only the top two teams from this split will qualify for the Mid-Season Invitational and the Esports World Cup. Aside from you, which teams do you think fans should expect to qualify?

Mikyx: I mean, besides us, it would probably just be G2 and KC.

Humanoid: Wow. Spicy take. A little bit. But, yeah, I agree.

Razork: Yeah, I agree.

Mikyx: Makes sense. I think all the other [LEC] teams are quite bad.

The last main question is about the LEC’s international prospects. It’s been two years since an LEC team made playoffs at Worlds. Fnatic was knocked out of MSI and EWC early by Liquid last year, then by LPL teams at Worlds. Karmine Corp did make an international final, but went 1-3 in groups prior to playoffs. With all of that in mind, do you feel like an LEC team winning an international trophy is realistic right now?

Humanoid: Only if Fnatic is the team that’s at the international [tournament]. The other teams have no chance.

Mikyx: Yeah, pretty much.

Razork: Pretty much, yeah.

Fnatic looks to finish LEC Spring 2025 split on top

Fnatic is off to a good start in the LEC Spring split, holding a 4-1 record despite its surprise loss to SK Gaming in the first week of play. The Red Bull-sponsored side is now headed out for the first LEC road trip of split with two big matches on the horizon. The first will be with host team KOI, while the second will be versus European rival G2 Esports.

A favorable result during the road trip would go a long way to solidifying Fnatic’s place in the LEC league standings and potentially setting it up for a big run heading into the summer. And with its trio of star players keying the team and looking to be in good form, the odds do seem to be in Fnatic’s favor.