Fnatic’s Counter Strike:Global Offensive team is still the team to beat after a strong showing and a first place finish at the recent ESL Barcelona tournament.
Breaking down the basic rules of the tournament:
- Each team was granted three lives.
- For every game lost, teams lost a life.
- The tournament continued until there was only one team with lives left.
- For every game won, teams got to choose which two teams would play each other next.
- No one could play twice in a row (unless unavoidable).
- One of the teams picked needed to be from the teams with the least amount of matches played (until impossible).
- Map choices were made via veto by the playing teams.
Post-tournament standings:
- 1st Place: Fnatic – 9 matches played (8-1), €32,000
- 2nd Place: Astralis – 8 matches played (5-3), €16,000
- 3rd Place: G2 Esports – 6 matches played (3-3), €8,500
- 4th Place: Team Dignitas – 6 matches played (3-3), €7,500
- 5th Place: Team EnVyUs – 5 matches played (2-3), €5,500
- 6th Place: Vexed Gaming – 4 matches played (1-3), €3,500
- 7th Place: gBots eSports Club – 3 matches played (0-3), €1,500
- 8th Place: x6tence – 3 matches played (0-3), €500
Finals recap – Fnatic vs Astralis:
Map 1 – Dust_2
Astralis started off strong winning the pistol round and taking an early lead; however Fnatic came back taking seven maps in a row to take the first half 9-6. Fnatic won the pistol round to start off the second half, but the momentum shifted back to Astralis soon after when they took eight rounds in a row on T-side. Then Fnatic did what they had been doing best so far in this series and clawed their way back in shifting the momentum back in their favor to close out the map, 16-14. Jesper “JW” Wecksell was a big part of Fnatic’s victory on Dust_2, hauling in 20 AWP kills for the team.
Map 2 – Inferno
Fnatic began to flex their muscle on Inferno, pulling out to an early lead over their opponents. Astralis wasn’t ready to give up yet though and fought their way back to a one point deficit at half (8-7). Fnatic opened the second half with another strong pistol round to start building momentum back up. Astralis was able to trade rounds back and forth for a while, but in the end Fnatic proved to be too much for The Danes to handle. Fnatic won the map 16-13.
Both teams entered the final round with two lives remaining, so after losing on Inferno Astralis was out of lives and Fnatic ended the tournament with two lives remaining.
What’s next?
Next up on the CS:GO radar is The Intel Extreme Masters X – World Championship set to be held in Katowice starting March 2nd and ending March 5th. The tournament boasts a prize pool worth €225,000+ ($250,000+) and will see twelve teams duke it out for the title. Will Fnatic take home yet another trophy or will another team rise to the challenge? We’ll know in a couple of weeks!
Featured image courtesy of ESL Counter-Strike’s (@ESLCS) Twitter account.
