FaunKeH

Chris "FaunKeH" Galea is an Australian SMITE player. He is currently retired.

Biography
FaunKeH has grown up with a strong passion for video games. He began playing Smite in May 2013 on NA servers, and despite the pain of 300 ping, he was determined and persistent with the game. With the addition of the OCE servers, he has taken interest in the competitive scene, actively playing in multiple tournaments.

He began establishing an interest for competitive Smite mid-2014, where he had his first competitive gaming experience on team Anarchy, alongside other early Australian players including HoRiZoNxX, ShadowWolf, Gruffdogga and N0013HUNT3R. Their first tournament was in the 2014 NA Challenger cup, where - partially due to their AU ping differences - had a shocking debut, being knocked out in the first round.

Disheartened, yet still determined, FaunKeH and others from Anarchy disbanded but merged with team Anti Alias, which was around the time Oceanic servers were released. Anti Alias was highly successful in a number of local tournaments, in both conquest and 3v3 joust brackets.

Late 2014, FaunKeH aimed to establish a new team; Speed is Love [SP3ED], although unfortunately was unable to complete the roster, and disbanded.

Throughout 2015, FaunKeH has been part of teams including Silicon Sports, TRIDENT eSports, and Exhilarated. FaunKeH performed fairly well in the first OCE Pro League as jungler for Exhilarated, although was eventually replaced with Maxen. FaunKeHs' play-style did not seem suited to the Season 2 meta, and his role in jungle was less potent.

In mid 2015, Heartsgoboom established Synapse Gaming, with the vision of growing as a team and helping each other reach our potential. FaunKeH had adapted to the new Season 2 map during the second Oce Pro League Split, especially in the recent changes which some may call the "FaunKeH Meta"; where he dominated the double-jungle strategy with Entropy0.

After performing exceptionally well through the qualifier round, FaunKeH did not gel well with Synapse Gaming and was asked to step down from the team. A couple of weeks later, HeartsGoBoom retired from Smite, where FaunKeH jumped straight back into captain position, re-branding the team as Team Solo Theo, where the players persisted through the second half of the OCE Pro League.

After more solid roster changes, the team was again reformed for the third time under "Lotus", however this was short lived. FaunKeH joined Ivory Gaming in the last hope of winning the Oceanic Challenger Cup, to play for a spot at Melbourne PAX 2015.

Ivory Gaming, although only together with this roster for under a week before the tournament, managed to reach the top two of the Oceanic Challenger Cup to qualify for Regional Championship. Many of those greatly involved in the Oceanic scene of Smite have described FaunKeHs' aggressive play-style as the final piece of the puzzle of Ivory. He stayed on the lineup when it was acquired by Integral Nation.

Trivia

 * He is known for stealing the enemy speed buff, which he refers to as "fire giant", because of this, the speed buff on his teams' side of the map is referred to as the "communal speed buff"
 * In Season 3, FaunKeH became notorious for quirky builds in the solo lane, coined "FaunKeH Value builds"
 * Uptown-FaunK-A-DaunK
 * He finished Season 2 League/Ranked in Diamond IV for Joust and Diamond V for Conquest
 * The original Arachne before her rework was his favourite god.
 * He obtained a Bachelor Degree in Audio Engineering and Music Production at JMC Academy NSW in 2015

External Content

 * "Oh No Story Time" Interview


 * CyberGamer Profile


 * FaunK leaves iN, makes new team via Reddit


 * "My experiences in competitive over the past year, and what I believe a team should be." via Reddit