Fnatic have had a fairly mad run up until this time of the year, to say the least. The length of highlight reels showing their amazing plays from just the last four months would amount to hours, and this is because nearly every round they play results in replay-worthy performances. They are more than just unwilling to resign as the #1 team and are climbing the top faster than anyone is able to follow up. They have been virtually undefeated in BO1s this year, let alone in Bo3s, in which they have not been struck down more than once and that was in the very early phases of the new roster.
Why are fnatic so over-the-top?
This comes down to basically two aspects. First of all the team of course consists of some of the best players in the world, there is nobody who could object to this. It needs to be mentioned, however, that there are still better players. So the second aspect to which it comes down – and this is arguably the most important one – is their role playing, and their ability to play in roles that were not originally designed for them. When Jesper “JW” Wecksell had his issues with the AWP, Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer stepped in, without causing any side effects to the team’s composition and strength. There are no real specialists, because everybody is able to do just everything necessary, to which olofmeister makes the perfect example. Having been voted the best player of 2015, all critics and professionals described him as the complete player being able to hold every position with every weapon and every kind of utility in the best way that is objectively possible.
But does that qualify them to be considered as the best team in the world? Is there really no other team that can put up with them individually in any way? Well, there is. In the finals of IEM Katowice, Luminosity Gaming brought it to a 12-3 score line vs. fnatic twice, eventually losing out both maps. But nonetheless it requires a very specific and powerful set of skills to get to that point, because it was not fnatic playing to their worse, it was Luminosity showing a strong performance and team play. What eventually happened was a phenomenon that is known in the scene as “choking”, and many professionals have called out on teams for lacking the ability to close out games. In matches against fnatic, this actually seams to appear relatively often compared to the rest of the competition. Here are just some matches that featured a dominant score line against the favour of fnatic but were eventually won by said players:
10-15 Dust2 versus Cloud9 at ESEA Pro League S1 Finals
10-15 Dust2 versus EnVyUs at ESL One Cologne 2015 Grand Finals
3-12 Inferno versus Natus Vincere at ESEA Pro League S2 Finals
3-13 Overpass versus LG at IEM Katowice Grand Finals
3-12 Inferno versus LG at IEM Katowice Grand Finals
The mental game of fnatic
A team that is able to get a 12-3 lead against fnatic should, theoretically, be able to at least get four more rounds in the following half. Sadly, this is the point at which mind games start to come into play and fnatic are particularly strong at using them. If you are on such a lead against them you might not be that invested anymore in the following pistol round because you know you should have enough time when it comes to the serious gun rounds. Additionally, you will be getting hyped up and expect fnatic to be fighting with the pressure mounting on to them. You might even go on to try some hero plays instead of saving your weapons when fnatic acquire more rounds. At some point though, you will be realizing that the Swedes are actually getting a momentum running and that it is time to get yourself more serious again. But now the score board looks something like 12-8 which is by no means as decisive and reaffirming as before, and now the pressure is starting to mount on to you. You will start to make mistakes more and more as you realize that fnatic will not be making any (just as it happened at the Cologne finals last year with nV) and the more you fail, the more the Swedish players are getting pumped and are able to make these crazy clutch plays which will put you into profound desperation more and more. Eventually you might get it to overtime instead of losing directly, but the spotlight is on you because fnatic are nowhere near giving this up.
This is essentially a trap that many teams fall into when it comes to playing against fnatic. Especially teams seem to struggle in bringing it over the 15 rounds line. It appears as if they were getting nervous and behaving differently as a result and this is where their opponents can capitalize on.
We expect 12-3 to be a decisive score to tell us that a team is winning and usually it holds true in that endeavour. But the key point in fnatic’s success is their avoidance of such mental traps. In fact they seem to be having no mentality at all, treating every round as it is; a unique 1:55 minutes without any correlation to the previous rounds and the current score line. This is a characteristic none other team seems to possess and this hugely plays out to the Swedes' advantage.
And moreover this is starting to creep in everyone’s mind. You can judge that as a viewer as well. When you see the likes of LG leading in that way, isn’t there a tiny part of your brain that says: “fnatic are still going to win this…”? After all these matches (and there were plenty), in which fnatic managed to recover from such deficits and subjected the enemy team to excruciating humiliation, the professionals are most certainly feeling that tiny itch in the back of their head that is reminding them that they are at no point in any way safe from losing to fnatic, even on the most decisive score line ever seen. Astralis have even gone to experience these issues without being at a close score line. They were absolutely crushing it at the group stages of IEM Katowice recently, but after that fell short to fnatic in a very underwhelming performance. Fnatic are feared on the battlefield and teams such as Na’Vi tend to run down the clock as terrorists rather than challenge them over map ground.
In view of the Columbus Major closing in: How can fnatic be beaten?
Just don’t fall into that mental trap. It sounds easy, but try telling someone to change his or her attitude towards fear. It requires a very strong mind to reach that level of fnatic in which one’s gameplay will not be affected by the odds, the stakes or whatever usually puts people off in their minds. But this is the key and only point. Natus Vincere were leading 12-3 on Inferno and lost almost their entire T-half because they hesitated to push and what followed were sloppy executions due to lack of time. Luminosity as well as countless other teams that were so close to winning eventually choked, despite being professional athletes for a long period of time.
As sad as this is, it still goes on to show that there a teams will the capabilities to challenge fnatic. Natus Vincere were considerably close at EEPL S2 in December of 2015, and Luminosity were just as close recently in Katowice. In the Grand Finals they faced each other and fnatic won all three necessary maps for the Bo5.
Why their win against Luminosity means nothing in terms of MLG Columbus.
Let us objectively analyse what happened there and to do that it is highly recommended to read the map pool feature we have produced for the finals beforehand.
Luminosity lost 19-17 on Overpass. As mentioned before, a different mind-set in the second half could have prevented that game from even coming there and it could have been LG’s, leading 13-3 at one point. Cache was a bitter pill to swallow as they lost 16-3, but as mentioned in the feature LG had rarely played it, and if they did then to no good results. The only reason that it probably was kept in was due to Dust2 being the obvious candidate to veto, since LG would perform there even worse. Going over to Inferno they once again led 12-3 and lost in OT. The potential on the Brazilian side is immense and can only grow bigger with a limited map pool as they will get to veto out their second weak spot, Cache. It is furthermore interesting to speculate how the finals would have panned out if Luminosity had picked Train as one of the first maps to be played. Judging from the recent results, in choosing Overpass and Inferno they had given ground to fnatic as both had been strong maps for them this year, whereas Train was rarely being played on the Swedish side. They might have thought about an endgame there in which their strongest map would be the decider, but failed to reach thus far.
Overall, this indicates that Luminosity are very close to getting on the same height as fnatic on that pro-level mountain. If they were to overcome these slight “choking” issues, the Bo3 would definitely grant them more ground to work on as the Valve-sponsored MLG Columbus will feature the smaller Bo3 Finals. In their current state they should be able to walk past the other significant competition and if they were to – hypothetically – play out a grand final on Overpass, Train and Inferno in any order, this might finally break the ground underneath fnatic and throw them slightly down the cliff they have built themselves. Two of these maps were decided too closely to pick a dominant winner and Train is Luminosity’s best one.
The finals might get boring in the sense that it appears we already know who will be featured in them, but surely they will not fail to deliver us an exciting run.
