ESL Pro League Season 17FURIA eliminate fnatic from EPL, advance to round of 12
Nicholas "guerri" Nogueira's men will face FaZe in the second round of playoffs on Wednesday.
FURIA secured their first win in the ESL Pro League Season 17 playoffs after a 2-0 takedown of fnatic. The Brazilians came out victorious in the first fixture between the two organizations in more than three years, with their last encounter dating back to October 2019 at StarSeries i-League Season 8.
The Andrei "arT" Piovezan-led squad still has a long road ahead of them if they want to reach the quarter-finals as they are set to face Finn "karrigan" Andersen's FaZe in the round of 12. The two squads will face off for the first time this year on Wednesday at 15:30 , giving FURIA the chance to break a four-match losing streak to the Europeans.
fnatic's latest defeat put an end to their time in Malta. The European mix did not really impress during their EPL run as they barely qualified for the playoffs after a nail-biting match against Eternal Fire, but did not take any other notable wins. Their other victories in the group stage came against MIBR and IHC, two squads significantly below them in the rankings.
fnatic opened up their map pick of Ancient with a pistol round win, but FURIA quickly responded with a successful force-buy push on the A site. The Brazilians then took four more rounds on the bounce as Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato made his presence known on the T side with several multi-frags, cruising to a 1.64 rating and 16-8 K-D ahead of the break. William "mezii" Merriman and company recovered late in the half, especially as Nico "nicoodoz" Tamjidi began to fire on all cylinders on the A site, salvaging a 7-8 scoreline for fnatic.
The Europeans briefly regained the lead in the second half before FURIA halted their advance on the B site. fnatic were repelled from the same bombsite four more times before they changed their approach, falling behind as arT and Yuri "yuurih" Santos came alive on the CT side. The Brazilians maintained their cool late in the match and took the last three rounds in convincing fashion to take the opener 16-13.
mezii's men started off Anubis in good form by claiming the first five T rounds in dominant fashion, creating a solid buffer between them and FURIA in the early stages of the map. A triple kill from yuurih gifted the Brazilians their first round and allowed arT and Rafael "saffee" Costa to bring out the double-AWP setup on the CT side. The two snipers tormented fnatic from then on, powering an unbeaten nine-round streak on the defense, which comfortably put FURIA ahead before the break.
fnatic threatened a comeback in the second half as they equalized the scores at 12-12 on the back of Freddy "KRIMZ" Johansson's performance on the CT side. The Brazilians had more experience on the map over the last three months, and it showed as they managed to pull together their offense late in the match to take back control. A saffee 1vs2 clutch on round 26 switched the momentum in favor of FURIA, allowing them to take the series 16-13.
 FURIA |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 46 - 29 | +17 | 83.3 | 75.9% | 1.27 | |
| 44 - 40 | +4 | 91.5 | 81.0% | 1.17 | |
| 40 - 34 | +6 | 62.9 | 72.4% | 1.10 | |
| 38 - 41 | -3 | 72.0 | 63.8% | 1.03 | |
| 25 - 38 | -13 | 53.8 | 63.8% | 0.82 |
 fnatic |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 46 - 28 | +18 | 75.7 | 75.9% | 1.27 | |
| 40 - 42 | -2 | 74.6 | 65.5% | 1.00 | |
| 31 - 39 | -8 | 70.8 | 67.2% | 0.94 | |
| 35 - 42 | -7 | 71.7 | 60.3% | 0.88 | |
| 29 - 43 | -14 | 59.7 | 58.6% | 0.71 |
Håvard 'rain' Nygaard
Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken
Robin 'ropz' Kool
Helvijs 'broky' Saukants
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