fnatic scrape past ECLOT to qualify for Shanghai Major

The British organization returns to the Major after missing out in Copenhagen.

fnatic have qualified for the Perfect World Shanghai Major by narrowly avoiding disaster and scraping past ECLOT 2-1 (13-4 Ancient, 11-13 Inferno, 19-17 Nuke).

It took a heroic effort from Benjamin "⁠blameF⁠" Bremer to get his team over the line on an extremely messy decider map, where fnatic recovered from a 12-15 deficit to win in double overtime and the Dane finished 12:0 in opening duels, had eight multi-kill rounds, 103.3 ADR, and a 1.59 rating.

It took everything in the tank for fnatic to lock in the Major berth they knew was guaranteed in case of their victory, thanks to them having the highest Bucholz score among the remaining possible 3-2 teams.

"It's been a long road of chokes all over the place until now," a relieved Alexandre "⁠bodyy⁠" Pianaro said to James "⁠BanKs⁠" Banks about qualifying in a post-match interview. "This close, but I'm so happy to be here and have the teammates that we have.

"We missed, and I missed previously in my other teams, this experience when it matters the most. This comeback in overtime, I'm going to have some dreams and nightmares about it. I don't have words, I'm just in shock right now and it feels so good to be back."

fnatic started the series like the favorites they were by decimating ECLOT on Ancient. A crisp, all-headshot USP quad-kill from Matúš "⁠MATYS⁠" Šimko set the tone on the Czech team's map pick and multi-frags from bodyy and blameF came in the rounds that followed, giving fnatic a 9-1 lead before they closed the map quickly in the second half.

ECLOT equaled their Ancient showing early into Inferno, some timely re-aggression in Middle putting them ahead before fnatic started exploiting A to bring the score to even keel at the break.

fnatic then regained control early into the second half, but ECLOT turned the tables and repeatedly violated fnatic's A defenses — despite some messy sprays — to narrowly edge out a win, 13-11.

Nuke was where things started to fall apart for fnatic, albeit not without blameF's best efforts to keep his side in the running. The team won a second-round force and went up 3-1, only to repeatedly squander opening kill advantages as ECLOT stormed into the lead 7-3 before fnatic salvaged the last two of the half.

"We've been having a rough time to find ourselves in some of these games," bodyy told BanKs when asked about how Nuke unfolded. "We know we can be so good, we have really good individuals, and sometimes it's been hard for us to move in the right direction together, like less focused on individuals."

fnatic then won several unconvincing rounds after the side swap, many coming down to slight timings and 2v2 situations, but were up 12-9 thanks to blameF and Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson's efforts. They couldn't close, however, with Vít "⁠nbqq⁠" Pohlot and David "⁠forsyy⁠" Bílý stepping up with multi-frag rounds to force overtime, and the pair continued to perform as ECLOT swept their CT half to put fnatic on the brink of elimination.

blameF and Tim "⁠nawwk⁠" Jonasson stepped up for fnatic on defense, the latter making up for a multitude of missed shots on Inferno to help his side force another overtime, and there ECLOT went for an audacious double-AWP setup that backfired with fnatic managing to close out, 19-17.

"Throughout the overtimes, it [was] up and down, we were really stiff on what we were doing," bodyy said. "We were getting shakier and shakier over the rounds and I think at some point, we were like, 'That's it, there's no coming back from this, it's three match points for them and we just need those. It was a long way back."