photo credits: ESL One
While F.R.I.E.N.D.S had a great run at StarSeries S2 eliminating compLexity and Evil Geniuses, Fnatic ended their streak and moved on to the lower bracket final.
Game One
Game one was aptly described by the English casters in one word: scrappy. From about two minutes on, the game was pedal to the metal as both teams put out some intense early aggression. Draft wise, FRIENDS went with a scary wombo-combo potential lineup with a Sven played by Ilya 'ALOHADANCE' Korobkin complimented with a Sand King and Dark Seer, played respectively by Sergey 'G' Bragin and Maxim 'yoky.' Kim. Fnatic however, went with a fairly mid-late game lineup with their two cores: Nai 'MidOne' Zheng Yeik on Ember Spirit and Yee 'Mushi' Fung Chai on the Juggernaut.
Early on, the aggression came by the way of G's rotations on the Sand King, which saw a great amount of play throughout the tournament. With their cores falling a bit behind, especially Mushi on his Juggernaut, Fnatic looked to pressure and took three kills at 15 minutes under the FRIENDS' tier one tower. FRIENDS answered back with an extended fight two minutes later, grabbing four from Fnatic, giving ALOHADANCE a big gold swing.
As the game transitioned into the mid-late stage, FRIENDS took a great fight at 22 minutes hitting a huge Vaccuum-Wall-Cleave combo with an Epicenter. With the lead from that fight and the two Fnatic cores a bit behind, ALOHADANCE grew a little too overzealous and continually went for a number of failed solo kills, costing him his life a number of times. As the game grew late, the teams constantly traded kill for kill, looking for that one big fight to swing the tide in their favour. Ultimately, it came down to the draft, as the single core Sven proved too easy to kite via the mobility of the Fnatic squad with their abundance of Blink Daggers and escapes. Fnatic caught out Sven and Dazzle taking a risky Rosh at 40 minutes and sealed their victory a few minutes later.
Game Two
Game two started with a classic Drow-Venge strat for the ex-VP squad. FRIENDS complimented their auras with an AA for Alexsander 'NoFear' Churochkin and, a QoP for G. Finally, an Axe for yoky gave the FRIENDS' ranged lineup some much needed initiation and frontline. Fnatic countered with a hero who saw great success in the TI6 open qualifiers, but had been relatively quiet since: Terrorblade. Continuing the trend of uncommon-ish picks, Fnatic gave the fiery slayer to Mushi and the Chen to Djardel 'chrissy-Dj' Mampusti.
Compared to game one, game two started off with a much slower pace with no kills for the first five minutes. FRIENDS looked dominant in their lanes, choosing to put an aggressive trilane against the Terrorblade, hoping to contest his farm. It seemed up to Dj on his Chen to make the space for the Fnatic cores. Action finally happened at around six minutes, with a rotation by G to the bottom lane, trading Drow for TB. With all the pressure on the bottom lane, yoky had uncontested farm on his Axe in the safe lane, giving him the pole position in the net worth charts. While the pressure was there in the bottom lane, it seemed futile to deter the Terrorblade, who ended up taking the the tier one tower at eight minutes.
As yoky finished his Blink at ten minutes, FRIENDS looked to make use of the item and smoked up looking for a pick off. Fnatic similarly smoked up and the two met at Roshan where FRIENDS took a two for one kill trade. However, this was quickly cancelled out by a huge fight at 11 minutes where MidOne secured a huge triple kill, getting off a clutch Sunder to keep him going. Fnatic took the three and the FRIENDS middle tier one tower, placing them in the lead. Feeling the oncoming build-up of the TB and the pressure of elimination, FRIENDS looked to pressure again at 14 minutes but Fnatic turned it again, taking a three for one trade plus an Aegis.
Ultimately, while the Terrorblade seemed to be the main problem for FRIENDS, it was the constant solo kills for Mushi on G's QoP and the insanely well-placed Chronospheres by Chong 'Ohaiyo' Xin Khoo that spelled the end for the ex-VP squad. One last fight at 31 minutes sealed the game for Fnatic and ended the great run FRIENDS had in LA.
Fnatic move on to the Lower Bracket final against Na'Vi. The two will battle it out for a chance at Team Secret's head in the Grand Final. The Na'Vi-Fnatic series will begin at 22:00 CEST on July 24th and can be watched live here.
