Return of the King: League of Legends bot laner Rekkles returns to Fnatic

His contract with Karmine Corp was only due to end in 2023

Anna Bernardo
·Contributor
·3 min read
The addition of Rekkles to the 2023 Fnatic LoL roster has finally been confirmed (Photo: Fnatic)
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The rumours have finally been confirmed. The League of Legends European Championship’s (LEC) 'King of the North', Martin ‘Rekkles’ Larsson, is returning to the region as Fnatic’s bot laner.

The announcement was made on Fnatic’s Twitter account on Friday (16 December).

Rumours of Rekkles returning to Fnatic spread as early as the first week of November, soon after the conclusion of Worlds 2022.

“After 2 years apart, we’re proud to welcome Martin ‘Rekkles’ Larsson back to where it all started,” Fnatic’s statement read.

“An absolute powerhouse on the bot lane, he enters the team with a renewed drive and hunger for the game,” the organisation added.

The Swedish bot laner originally donned their uniform in 2014, then spent half a year with Alliance and Elements before returning in May of 2015 and staying until 2020.

During this time, Rekkles has been instrumental in winning four regional championships for the team and qualifying for the Knockout stage at Worlds at least four times, where the team also became a runner-up in 2018.

He then signed with Fnatic’s long-time rival, G2 Esports in November 2020, but after the team failed to qualify for Worlds 2021, the organisation released him into the Free Agency.

Rekkles moved to La Ligue Française’s Karmine Corp. in 2021, where he helped the French organisation win the European Masters 2022 Spring event.

The contract of the Swede ends in 2023, which implied that Fnatic bought him out from Karmine Corp. Details on his buyout were not shared with the public.

Rekkles will join Martin “Wunder” Nordahl Hansen (Top), Iván “Razork” Martín Díaz (jungler), Marek Brázda (Mid), and FNC Academy’s Rúben “Rhuckz” Barbosa (Support) as the team’s starting roster.

Elias “Upset” Lipp, who was the team’s bot laner since 2020 and is still contracted with Fnatic until November 2023, confirmed that a contract buyout did not go well and that he will be on hiatus until he finds a team for 2023.

He was among the LEC players like Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski who announced that they had no team for 2023.

However, Jankos was later confirmed to have signed with Team Heretics, who will play alongside DetonatioNFocus Me’s former mid lane mainstay Shunsuke "Evi" Murase.

Rekkles and the rest of Fnatic will first be debuting as a team against KOI (formerly known as Rogue) on Saturday (17 December) at 2am SGT.

Anna is a freelance writer and photographer. She is a gamer who loves RPGs and platformers, and is a League of Legends geek. She's also a food enthusiast who loves a good cup of black coffee.

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