Fnatic’s Counter-Strike 2 team may have secured their qualification to the StarLadder Budapest Major with a trophy win at Fragadelphia Blocktober, but that hasn’t prevented them from making a big change to their roster, in particular with British star Cai “CYPHER” Watson.

Fnatic played in Philadelphia with a stand-in, Nikita “jackasmo” Skyba, who stood in for their long-standing member, Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson. It’s not unusual for stand-ins to then get rumoured to replace the person they stood in for permanently; however, in this case, the replaced player is one of the stars of that run at Frag.

CYPHER Gets Benched

Fnatic confirmed in a post on October 10 that CYPHER was being moved to the bench. CYPHER only joined the organisation in July, having been signed from BC.Game.

Ahead of our opening match at the CS Asia Championship against paiN Gaming next week, @jackASM0 joins the roster on loan until the end of the season, stepping in for @cyphercsgo_ for the duration of the tournament.

We were impressed by Nikita's impact during our winning run at… pic.twitter.com/b9WSsVnt3O

— FNATIC CS (@FNATICCS2) October 10, 2025

The outgoing Brit has had an inconsistent start to his time on fnatic, with a mediocre 1.00 Rating in the past three months. However, this could be seen as a consequence of his role as the aggressive force within the team; he has taken 32% of the team’s opening duels on the T side since joining.

That said, he serves as the replacement for Matus “MATYS” Simko. Although this kind of inconsistency is typical for aggressive players, the 1.17 Rating that MATYS recorded on fnatic in the first half of the year before departing for G2 represents a huge firepower deficit within the squad.

CYPHER Responds to Initial Benching Rumors

CYPHER himself initially responded to the rumors of his benching with a cryptic tweet of just emojis, leading fans to speculate that they could be true. There would also be a cruel irony if this were the case. CYPHER spoke enthusiastically about other teams signing jackasmo following their Fragadelphia win.

😶😶😶😶

— cai✨ (@cyphercsgo_) October 9, 2025

CYPHER’s girlfriend responded to fnatic’s announcement, obviously unimpressed with how things went down.

She questioned the way the organization announced the news, saying “at least have the decency to say you benched him two days after he helped you make the Major.”

At the time of writing, CYPHER himself hasn’t spoken out on the situation.