fnatic defeat EG to secure first ESL Pro League S13 victory

The North Americans were handed their second defeat in a row after an opening day victory against Astralis.

fnatic got their first ESL Pro League Season 13 points with a 2-1 victory over Evil Geniuses to bounce back from 0-2 defeats at the hands of Liquid and the group’s underdogs, Endpoint, in the first two Group D match days.

"The last two weeks have been pretty good in practice, we just need to show it in officials and hopefully we can get these last two wins," Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin said after the match against EG, which saw himself and Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson joined by Jack "⁠Jackinho⁠" Ström Mattsson as the biggest performers on the scoreboard for the Swedish squad.

The Swedes will now look to build on this victory in their last two fixtures to make up for their slow start in the tournament, although they will not have an easy time as they will be playing the undefeated Virtus.pro next before facing Astralis. Evil Geniuses on the other hand will face Liquid in a North American derby before closing their group stage run against Endpoint.

fnatic are back in the mix in Group D with a victory over EG

KRIMZ and Brollan stole the T-side pistol on the attacking side of Train with a triple and a double, respectively. A saved AK on the fourth round gave Evil Geniuses their first round as Owen "⁠oBo⁠" Schlatter downed four players and the North American team then took the lead all the way to the half. fnatic were close behind, however, keeping it within one at the half. On the CT side the Swedes were able to gain control of their map pick, with Jackinho showing prowess on the AWP as they secured a 16-11 victory to take the lead in the series.

Brollan and KRIMZ were once again the stars in the early rounds of Inferno as they downed all five attackers with Desert Eagles after losing the pistol round to tie things up 1-1. Evil Geniuses were able to retaliate on a forcebuy to get back ahead and dominated the half, all the way to a 12-3 scoreline. The Swedes tried to find their way back into the map on the attack, but were unable to find footing as Evil Geniuses closed out Inferno 16-7 to force a decider map.

Skirmishes for mid control set the tone on Mirage, with the Swedish squad getting ahead on the attack in the early stages of the map, although a 3vs5 with three big kills by oBo kept Evil Geniuses alive and the map close as they went to the half trailing by just one round. A clutch by Tsvetelin "⁠CeRq⁠" Dimitrov in the second half pistol round tied things up on the scoreboard and EG got ahead, 11-9, but a forcebuy fnatic were able to win on the A site turned the tides of the match as the Swedes won seven rounds in a row to close the series out, 16-11.

ESL Pro League Season 13Best of 3

fnatic

Matchpage

2

1

27th March 2021

Evil Geniuses

16

Train

11

7

Inferno

16

16

Mirage

11

fnatic	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Jack 'Jackinho' Ström MattssonJackinho	60 - 50	+10	85.1	71.4%	1.16
Freddy 'KRIMZ' JohanssonKRIMZ	60 - 57	+3	88.6	66.2%	1.15
Ludvig 'Brollan' BrolinBrollan	53 - 48	+5	79.6	70.1%	1.15
Maikil 'Golden' SelimGolden	35 - 57	-22	60.3	70.1%	0.82
Jesper 'JW' WecksellJW	37 - 53	-16	50.9	61.0%	0.76

Evil Geniuses	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Owen 'oBo' SchlatteroBo	63 - 46	+17	88.6	77.9%	1.27
Tsvetelin 'CeRq' DimitrovCeRq	56 - 44	+12	73.8	63.6%	1.11
Tarik 'tarik' Celiktarik	55 - 56	-1	77.4	66.2%	1.01
Vincent 'Brehze' CayonteBrehze	51 - 55	-4	75.5	70.1%	1.00
Peter 'stanislaw' Jarguzstanislaw	37 - 47	-10	57.4	67.5%	0.90

Group D

TEAM

M

P

Virtus.pro

2

6

Liquid

2

3

Endpoint

2

3

Astralis

2

3

Evil Geniuses

3

3

fnatic

3

3