The org’s CS:GO team has gone from strength to strength since bringing back their former in-game leader alongside flusha, and it was pretty much a formality that they’d make Golden’s loan stay from Cloud9 permanent.

Once more onto the breach

Just a day after Fnatic confirmed Xizt’s exit, they also announced that Golden is now a permanent member of the squad. Though there was a lot of skepticism around their roster moves, opting to roll back the years instead of bringing in new blood, the results definitely proved the doubters wrong: with a win at DreamHack Masters Malmö and grand final appearances at StarSeries i-League Season 8 and the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals, plus clinching fourth place on the HLTV world rankings, Fnatic is once again back in the elite of Counter-Strike after years in the wilderness.

Since Fnatic wasn’t invited to the BLAST Premier series, their first event of the year will be in Katowice starting February 25 – the event where Golden famously led Fnatic to an unexpected victory two years ago, the first of his back-to-back tournament wins during his first stint with the side. Recently, Fnatic made it to the grand finals of the tenth season of ESL One Pro League where they’d go on to lose to karrigan’s mousesports. Both teams will be present for duty in Poland, with the tantalizing potential for a rematch hanging in the air.

Photo credit: HLTV