‘He was better than I gave him credit for’: Bwipo speaks on former Fnatic teammate he initially didn’t want to play with

Team Liquid top laner Bwipo shed light on his days with Fnatic during a recent livestream, revealing which player he would not have initially wanted to play with when the team was making offseason moves prior to the 2021 League of Legends season. 

“It was me and Hylissang, that’s what they built around in the end,” Bwipo said on his stream while watching yesterday’s JD Gaming/Rogue match at Worlds. “That doesn’t mean I had a lot of influence on who I wanted to play with and who I didn’t.”

Following the 2020 season, Bwipo was entering his fourth season with Fnatic. The team built its offseason plan around retaining him, support Hylissang, and jungler Selfmade. New additions included mid laner Nisqy and AD carry Upset, the latter of whom Bwipo had a negative impression of coming into the season. Had it been up to him, Bwipo would have gone a different route at the ADC position that offseason, he said on stream. 

“I would not have played with Upset if I had the choice,” Bwipo said. “And it’s not because I regret playing with him or whatever but what I thought of him was just that I didn’t think he was that great. And I turned out to be wrong, he’s a much better player than what I gave him credit for.”

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Bwipo mentioned that his first conversations with Upset came in December 2020 following Fnatic’s run to the quarterfinals at that year’s League World Championship. That offseason, the team replaced longtime AD carry Rekkles with Upset. 

That following year (2021), Fnatic reached the playoffs in both the LEC Spring and Summer Splits, while eventually qualifying for Worlds as Europe’s second seed. In the second half of the season, Bwipo role-swapped to jungle for Fnatic, while Upset did not play at Worlds due to personal reasons. 

“He was better than I gave him credit for, certainly, but to give you an example, if I got to choose, I would not have played with him,” Bwipo said.

This season, Fnatic were eliminated from Worlds in the group stage, while Bwipo’s Liquid team did not qualify for the event.