fnatic march on to playoffs in Malmö

fnatic will join fellow Swedish side Ninjas in Pyjamas at the Malmö Arena for the DreamHack Masters Malmö playoffs after taking down FURIA in two maps in Group A's lower bracket final.

It took fnatic more than two hours to secure the victory on the opening map of this series, Overpass. FURIA, who had picked the battleground, went from a slow start to blowing out the Swedish defense, stringing eight rounds together to take a 9-3 lead on the offense. A Jesper "⁠JW⁠" Wecksell ace brought that streak to an end and breathed new life into fnatic before Vinicius "⁠VINI⁠" Figueiredo put the Brazilians on double digits with a quad-kill to end the half.

fnatic responded after losing the second half pistol and put together a string of rounds to equalise the score at 11-11. Yuri "⁠yuurih⁠" Santos came to FURIA's rescue with a saved gun - a round that propelled his team into a 14-11 lead - but fnatic came fighting back and reached map point before Andrei "⁠arT⁠" Piovezan restored parity in the final round of regulation with three key frags.

And then began one of the longest overtimes in recent history. The two teams kept cancelling each other out before fnatic finally brought the game to an end in the sixth overtime, with Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson and Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin the standout names for the Swedish side.

After such a drawn-out first map, the match unexpectedly turned into a rout. FURIA were prised apart ruthlessly during the opening stages of the map, only getting on the board for the first time when fnatic were already on double digits. The Brazilians still managed to get three more rounds, but they knew they had a mountain to climb to be able to overcome the deficit.

Things then went from bad to worse for FURIA as they lost the pistol round and the following eco. Their force-buy in the following round then bore fruits, but, in true fnatic fashion, the Swedish side defied the odds and won a round with little more the pistols, destroying FURIA's economy and shattering their comeback hopes.