The LAN finals of PGL's Championship Series were opened with the match between Fnatic and Team Solomid, where the Danish squad came out on the top with 2-0 win.
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The kick-off season of PGL's Championship Series went into the final stage. The top four teams gathered in Romania to fight for the title and grand prize of $40,000. The first to appear on stage were Fnatic and Team Solomid. Following their win at ESL One Katowice, Fnatic didn't really participate at any LAN event after that, excluding the ESEA LAN finals last weekend. On the other side, Team Solomid was playing at ESL Pro League and SLTV XII LAN finals.
The draft didn't bring us any surprises. TSM went for de_cobblestone ban, which was expected as Fnatic really favor this map as of recently. While Fnatic's veto on de_nuke was also expected. When it came to picks, TSM went for de_dust2, while Fnatic decided on one of their the best maps, de_inferno. The second banning phase removed de_cache (by TSM) and de_overpass (by Fnatic), so the only map left in the pool was de_mirage, which would be the deciding map if needed.
Fnatic opened de_dust2 by winning the knife round and deciding to stay on the CT side. TSM went for a B push in the first round, but was got shut down by olofmeister and KRiMZ who were holding the site for Fnatic. The next round brought us an SMG fest, and Fnatic easily got another round on the board. TSM couldn't even work out a solution to break the Swedish defense beginning with the first gun round, so Fnatic had gained a 5-0 lead, looking really promising in the early stage of this map. In the 6th round TSM finally managed to break Fnatic's wall and to score a round. From this moment on, the Danish team was on fire, finishing the first half with 8-7 lead. The second pistol round went into their favor and they were looking really good with a 10-7 lead. However, Fnatic made a comeback scoring four consecutive rounds and bringing it back into their favour, at 11-10. That was the final resistance by pronax' team as they lost this map 16-12.
On de_inferno we could see Fnatic once again taking the knife round and deciding to start on CT side. TSM didn't mind it as much as they stormed their way through A site to win the pistol round and quickly claim another two rounds for 3-0 lead. With the first full buy round for Fnatic they managed to get themselves on board and to break TSM's streak. The Swedes won four consecutive rounds and it was looking great for them until TSM didn't find weakness in their defense and started trading round after round. In the end, Fnatic finished the first half with 8-7 lead which wasn't really satisfying for them, knowing that this map is heavily CT sided. The second pistol round was won by Fnatic, which was exactly what they needed to make it through this map. However, TSM quickly responded by winning the next round and bringing it back into their hands. The momentum was on Danish side as they took 6 rounds in a row for 14-10. However, Fnatic won the next one and when it was looking like they could make the comeback, TSM knocked them down for their 15th round, after which Fnatic managed to win only one more for the final 16-12. TSM will be now moving to the winners bracket finals, while Fnatic will wait for their next opponent in the lowers bracket.
In the next semi final match we will be able to see Team EnVyUs taking on Ninjas in Pyjamas.
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