JW stars as fnatic breeze past BIG

fnatic have moved on to Group B's upper bracket final at ESL One Cologne after moving past BIG on two maps.

The battle for the second spot in Group B's upper bracket final, pitting the new fnatic roster against a BIG team riding the wave after steamrolling Liquid, began on Cache. It was BIG's map pick, but the German side were put on the back foot early on.

A triple entry frag from Jesper "⁠JW⁠" Wecksell in the pistol round put fnatic in the lead, with the Swedish side using that momentum to pick up a sizeable 5-0 advantage. Things were starting to look grim but BIG, but then they tightened up their defence and brought the deficit to a minimum after winning four rounds straight. fnatic would not let the game slip, however, and put together another small run of rounds before BIG made a final effort to bring the gap to 6-9.

Now on the CT side, fnatic further added to their lead after winning the pistol round and denying an early purchase from BIG in the third round. After getting their economy back in order, the German side responded with two in a row, but fnatic were not impressed and strung two rounds together to hit map point.

It looked like fnatic had the game under control, but then BIG were shockingly gifted a round as Tizian "⁠tiziaN⁠" Feldbusch pulled off a 1v3 clutch with just a galil. That round breathed new life into BIG's players before Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson eventually put the game to bed with a 1v2 clutch on the B site.

Next up was Train, which started with fnatic overturning a 2v5 situation in the pistol round thanks to a quad-kill from Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist with a Desert Eagle. That was the start of a phenomenal run from the Swedish side, who ran all over the defence and cruised to a 12-3 half, with JW getting a whopping 29 kills to his name.

BIG knew they had a mountain to climb to turn the game around, and they kept their hopes alive after winning the pistol round with an inner execution, with tiziaN getting three kills to his name. fnatic's investment in the following round paid off, however, and set themselves up for a four-round winning streak en-route to a clean finish.

With this victory, fnatic have assured themselves of a playoff finish in Cologne and will take on FaZe on Thursday for a semi-final berth. As for BIG, the German side will fight for survival in the lower bracket against Renegades.