Evil Geniuses defeat fnatic; advance to grand final at StarSeries

Evil Geniuses beat fnatic 2-1 in the upper bracket final of StarSeries i-League Season 8, sending the Swedes to the consolidation final where they will face the winner of the FURIA - Renegades match.

An ace from Jesper "⁠JW⁠" Wecksell started the series on Mirage, fnatic's map pick, but Evil Geniuses were able to instantly reply with a force-buy, working wonders with the SGs. Unfortunately for the North American team, no momentum was found as JW and Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist combined for all five kills on the CT force back.

The Swedes then established themselves, getting six rounds on the board before Tsvetelin "⁠CeRq⁠" Dimitrov's triple enabled Evil Geniuses' second, but that was just a short bump in the road for fnatic who claimed a 10-2 lead as flusha and Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin resolved a 2v2 on A. fnatic concluded the half without dropping any more rounds, 13-2. After the switch, Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim's team was able to clutch out the pistol in a 2v4 and edge out Evil Geniuses' force buys, closing their map pick dominantly, 16-2.

Evil Geniuses are in the grand final

Peter "⁠stanislaw⁠" Jarguz's triple kill won the CT side pistol for Evil Geniuses, which combined with the conversions in the next to rounds meant the North American side was 3-0 up on Dust2, outdoing their score from Mirage quickly. fnatic looked strong with rifles, though, and swung back into the lead following a 2v2 clutch on A by Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson and Golden. The T-side was finding success on their approaches throughout the half, with Evil Geniuses managing to get back into it at the end to finish with a 9-6 deficit.

After the switch, Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik resolved the pistol round in Evil Geniuses' favor, starting a streak of rounds going their way. As they continuously bullied the Swedes' defense, they tied eight-rounds together, claiming a 14-9 lead before KRIMZ locked down the approach with the quad kill. However, that is all fnatic mustered on the CT side, as tarik and co. bounced back to close out the game, 16-10.

fnatic started strong, but couldn't close out the series

Inferno was the final map and it kicked off with Brollan shutting down Vincent "⁠Brehze⁠" Cayonte's 1v4 attempt on B, which was followed by fnatic getting a 5-0 start. CeRq then came online with the AWP, getting multikills in back-to-back rounds to help Evil Geniuses stabilize on the defense. The Bulgarian picked up three AWP kills in the round that followed too, but flusha and Brollan managed to turn it around and take the round win, soon extending their lead to 7-2.

Evil Geniuses managed to find their footing in the late portion of the half, narrowing the gap down to one round before switching to the offense, with the pistol round victory pushing them into the lead (9-8). Evil Geniuses' economy held through a pistol-armor upset from fnatic and the momentum started building for the North Americans. Soon they were 14-9 up and looked to move on to match point, but flusha denied that with a 1v2 clutch on the A bombsite. It was only a delay of the inevitable, however, as Evil Geniuses overran the bombsites to make the final score 16-13.

StarSeries i-League Season 8Best of 3

fnatic

Matchpage

1

2

26th October 2019

Evil Geniuses

16

Mirage

2

10

Dust2

16

13

Inferno

16

fnatic	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Freddy 'KRIMZ' JohanssonKRIMZ	57 - 49	+8	97.6	72.6%	1.24
Robin 'flusha' Rönnquistflusha	56 - 46	+10	83.8	74.0%	1.19
Jesper 'JW' WecksellJW	54 - 49	+5	71.5	67.1%	1.06
Maikil 'Golden' SelimGolden	43 - 50	-7	69.1	64.4%	0.92
Ludvig 'Brollan' BrolinBrollan	32 - 53	-21	47.4	65.8%	0.71

Evil Geniuses	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Tsvetelin 'CeRq' DimitrovCeRq	62 - 46	+16	87.8	78.1%	1.34
Ethan 'Ethan' ArnoldEthan	53 - 50	+3	82.9	75.3%	1.16
Vincent 'Brehze' CayonteBrehze	47 - 43	+4	69.0	75.3%	1.07
Tarik 'tarik' Celiktarik	48 - 50	-2	77.7	64.4%	1.05
Peter 'stanislaw' Jarguzstanislaw	34 - 53	-19	56.0	68.5%	0.80