Fnatic’s 2026 offseason was, by head coach Fabian “GrabbZ” Lohmann’s own description, the most turbulent in recent LEC history. Every player was on the table. Every position was evaluated from scratch.
The one decision that ended up anchoring the rebuild was keeping Iván “Razork” Martín — entering his fifth consecutive year with the organization — and building around a mid-jungle partnership with new signing Vladi. That choice, and the reasoning behind it, says something specific about what League of Legends coaches are prepping students for in the current jungle meta.
GrabbZ was direct about why replacing Razork proved impossible despite months of exploring alternatives. He described Razork as a consistent top-three LEC jungler over an extended period, and noted that finding a replacement of comparable quality within the available market was simply not achievable within the constraints Fnatic was operating under.
That evaluation is instructive beyond roster construction: it highlights that jungle consistency, the ability to produce at a high level across patches and meta shifts without requiring a specific team structure to enable it, is rarer and more valuable than individual ceiling.
The Vladi pairing reinforces the same point from a different angle. Vladi chose Fnatic specifically because he wanted to play alongside Razork. The mid-jungle duo is one of the most analytically discussed relationships in League of Legends coaching because it determines how wave state, tempo, and jungle path interact across the first fifteen minutes of a game.
A mid laner who understands when to push and create a roaming window for their jungler is a force multiplier. A mid laner who clears wave at the wrong time or takes unnecessary risks that burn jungle resources is a force reducer, regardless of individual mechanical output.
The Fnatic rebuild is also notable for what GrabbZ identified as the failure mode of the previous roster: too many players who were comfortable waiting for others to make calls, rather than actively shaping team direction. That dynamic plays out at every level of ranked play.
Players who wait for teammates to make decisions rather than proactively managing their own lane and map state are not developing the habits that produce rank growth. It is the same problem at Diamond that GrabbZ identified in LEC — and it is one of the first things a structured coaching session addresses.
