fnatic take down Liquid to secure final spot

The second match of the day kicked off on Inferno, Liquid's map pick, where the North Americans got off to a dream start. After losing the pistol round, they rallied back immediately and went on a fantastic run that only ended when they were up 7-1.

That was when fnatic's offence finally came to life, with the Swedish side winning five of the next six rounds to bring the deficit to 6-8 before Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic pulled off a triple-kill inside A to give Liquid a three-round lead going into the second half.

The second half followed the same pattern as the first, with the CTs running riot after losing the pistol round. The Swedes kept their defence very tight and gave their opponents very little room to manoeuvre, with the scoreline quickly flashing 14-11 in their favour.

Liquid still sought a response and cut the gap to a solitary round, but an unlikely round win on a very weak buy put fnatic on map point, with a quad-kill from Jonas "⁠Lekr0⁠" Olofsson sealing the victory for the Swedes.

fnatic move past Liquid on two maps

Carrying their momentum into the second map, Mirage, fnatic got off to a blazing fast start and cruised to a 6-1 lead. Liquid then scraped a round after overturning a 3vs5 situation, but they could not follow it up as the Swedes responded instantly.

Until the end of the half, any round that Liquid won was quickly countered with a round by fnatic, but still the North Americans had to be happy with the 10-5 scoreline as some of their round wins had been somewhat fortunate.

The second half began at a pulsating pace, with rounds going back and forth as neither side was able to get a grip on the game. But then fnatic ran away with the game, winning five rounds without reply to clinch the opportunity to play the biggest match of the event, two years after winning their last trophy, also at the Spodek Arena.

IEM Katowice 2018Best of 3

fnatic

Matchpage

2

0

3rd March 2018

Liquid

16

Inferno

13

16

Mirage

7

fnatic	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Robin 'flusha' Rönnquistflusha	48 - 31	+17	102.3	76.9%	1.50
Freddy 'KRIMZ' JohanssonKRIMZ	51 - 31	+20	102.2	82.7%	1.50
Jonas 'Lekr0' OlofssonLekr0	38 - 27	+11	67.7	80.8%	1.32
Jesper 'JW' WecksellJW	35 - 29	+6	79.8	71.2%	1.19
Maikil 'Golden' SelimGolden	29 - 28	+1	61.9	84.6%	1.10

Liquid	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Russel 'Twistzz' Van DulkenTwistzz	38 - 39	-1	65.8	63.5%	0.92
Keith 'NAF' MarkovicNAF	29 - 41	-12	76.1	67.3%	0.88
Nick 'nitr0' Cannellanitr0	25 - 41	-16	71.8	55.8%	0.76
Lucas 'steel' Lopessteel	28 - 38	-10	53.8	67.3%	0.74
Jonathan 'EliGE' JablonowskiEliGE	25 - 42	-17	60.8	48.1%	0.62