fnatic defeat Natus Vincere to claim grand final spot in Odense

After losing their map pick, Inferno, fnatic rallied back and won Nuke and Overpass to claim a 2-1 victory over Natus Vincere in the semi-final of the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals.

By making the semis at the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals, fnatic managed to reach their fourth top-four finish in the same number of events played with their new lineup. Coming off of a month-long break, Natus Vincere was looking to stop the Swedes there, as well as further their strong record against them: in the last year, the CIS squad has not lost a single match to fnatic, winning eight of the nine maps the two teams played.

Inferno was the map to start off the series, fnatic's pick, with the Swedes starting on the T side. The early game was clutch-heavy, with Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson securing a 1v3 in the anti-force and then Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist upsetting Natus Vincere in 1v4 and 1v2 situations. That pushed fnatic to a 7-1 lead, but then Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev came alive, taking down three players with the Deagle and winning a round that instantly broke fnatic's economy.

The CIS side bounced back on the CT side but fnatic still ended the half with a significant lead, 9-6. A pistol round win allowed Natus Vincere to equalize the scoreline quickly, followed by the two teams being neck-and-neck for the most of the half. As the score was 14-13 for fnatic, s1mple turned around a 3v5 with four frags, putting the Swedes economy in the bin. With that, Natus Vincere was able to get into the lead and finish of the map with a victory, 16-14.

Within the first 12 rounds of Nuke, Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov managed 16 kills, including three opening frags, pushing Natus Vincere to six rounds on the offensive side of their map pick. The Swedes didn't give up the lead they built by winning the pistol round easily, though, constantly fighting back. As the half was nearing its end, Jesper "⁠JW⁠" Wecksell and Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin stepped up, but that was only enough for a minimal 8-7 lead before a swap to the T-side.

A five-round streak on the offense for Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim and co. saw fnatic take a significant lead in the second half, with Natus Vincere's spurt of rounds not enough to stop the Swedes' momentum. They powered on to map point, 15-9, and closed out Nuke with a B split from Ramp and Vents to move on to Overpass.

Rounds were traded back and forth early into Overpass, with fnatic ending on top after claiming a near full-eco by exploding on A and catching s1mple off guard. At 4-2, fnatic extended their lead as Golden and flusha won a 2v4, with crisp site hits coming as the half continued, seeing Swedes run off with an 11-4 lead. Following the switch, Natus Vincere bagged the pistol and the followup, but couldn't make a breakthrough in the rifle rounds, falling 16-6 on the final map.