Coming into the grand final of the bubble race as the fourth seed, Fnatic has fought long and hard throughout yesterday and today to earn their spot in the offline playoffs of D2L in Las Vegas next year. The spot came courtesy of their win 3-1 win over second seed Team Liquid.
Despite dropping the first game of the day, Fnatic was able to rally a comeback and won the next three to take the series. Fnatic will be joining Alliance, LGD.cn and fellow qualified team, Vici Gaming on the 7th of January.
Qualified teams for D2L offline playoffs:
Alliance
Fnatic
Vici Gaming
LGD.cn
Fnatic vs Liquid: A tale of two rivals
In the first game of the day, Liquid picked Night Stalker in order to counter the second-pick Weaver whilst Fnatic did some further mistakes in the drafting phase, picking the Enigma against Beastmaster and Bane Elemental. Laning the Venomancer on the middle lane and using Enigma as a lane support, Fnatic quickly found themselves on the back-foot as constant pressure on Fnatic's safe lane fully stopped Luna's farm. As the opener headed into mid-game, it was already more or less over with Liquid's Clinkz, Night Stalker and Visage going rampant all over the map.
Game two was a whole different story when compared to game one. Fnatic was able to secure the Nature's Prophet pick for Trixi and he played the hero to perfection, avoiding many ganks. These fail ganks were translated very well to Liquid's supports level. When the team fights finally began, Liquid was absolutely powerless due to the massive gap in experience and also a questionable Vanguard purchase on their initiating Slardar.
With the series tied up at 1-1, Liquid went into game three picking up unorthodox heroes Centaur Warrunner and Witch Doctor. The element of surprise clearly did not work on Fnatic as they were off to an early lead due to rotations. Fnatic, playing on the Dire sneaked several Roshan kills and eventually, mounted enough advantage for a middle lane push. However, a smart Force Staff play by the Bane Elemental, forcing Luna to cast a full five seconds Fiend's Group was able to pick off the Luna and all of the sudden, the game is even at 30 minutes.
It took both teams a long time to muster up enough courage and farm to go for another push but every push seemed to end in the demise of the attacker. At 60 minutes, the score was 25-25 and both Fnatic and Liquid are on the opposite of the map taking down their opponents' throne. Despite getting to the throne a split second later, Fnatic was able to wail on it faster and won the crucial game three.
Game four was the most one-sided game of the evening. Fnatic got themselves a few kills through well coordinated ganks during the early phase of the game. In a desperate attempt to gain an advantage, Liquid smoked in between Fnatic's tier-one and tier-two and that proved to be disastrous as Fnatic stormed into them with all five heroes. From that point onwards, Fnatic started pulling away and eventually, Liquid had to surrender their spot in Las Vegas.
