Fnatic will be the first team to reach the winner bracket finals of G-1 League Western qualifier. They will be going up against the winner of Na`Vi versus Alliance the day after tomorrow to determine who will be the first western team to qualify for the Chinese event.
The coordination for Evil Geniuses seemed off today as the Americans played their G-1 League match against Fnatic without Jacob 'Maelk' Toft-Andersen, EG's captain. As a result, the team paid for it as they watch Fnatic rolled into their base and snatched the WB finalist spot away.
As the winner of the match-up, Fnatic will be among one of the top three finishers of the qualifier. The top two will be flying to Shanghai in late May for the G-1 League offline finals.
EG on the other hand, will be competing against Team Dignitas in the loser bracket to stay in the race. The loser bracket game will begin tomorrow at 14:00 CEST.
You can visit G-1's official site here.
The next game up in G-1 League is arguably the most anticipated match-up of the qualifier. Alliance will be taking on EMS One champion, Natus Vincere in a best-of-three series in which the winner will be joining Fnatic as the second winner bracket finalist of the tournament.
At the time of publish, Na`Vi is the heavy favourite going into the match at 75% of total branches. Na`Vi had only encountered Alliance once in the past month with the Swedes coming out on top. Place your bets here.
The games are set to go live at 14:00 CEST later. The livestream of the game will be brought to you by BeyondTheSummit and Ayesee.
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Match report
Game one
Despite accummulating a huge number of creep kills for the Anti-Mage, Fnatic found themselves on the backfoot as their Storm Spirit bizarre Boots of Travel build was not put to full use. The main reason for this was due to EG grouping up very early on and pushed down Fnatic's outer towers. The underlevel-ed Keeper of the Light could not stop the push.
With a bigger portion of the map to work with and a slight 4,000 gold advantage at 20 minutes, EG took down Roshan and walked straight into the Dire base via the middle entrance. Realizing they can't take the fight, Fnatic counter-acted by split pushing the top lane and was nearly succesful in taking down the tier-three tower. A premature Recall by Keeper of the Light stopped the split push. Fnatic was successful in defending their base tower.
EG's third siege at the barracks succeeded in bringing it down but it came at a very expensive cost of two outer towers. The gold lead shifted towards Fnatic for the first time in the game.
As EG mounted for a push on the top lane, Fnatic sneaked a Rosh kill and quickly teleported to their base before anymore unnecessary buybacks had to be used (Clockwerk died stalling EG). Instead of backing off, EG had no choice but to walk uphill because the Anti-Mage was getting out of hand. It was a now-or-never situation for EG.
Fnatic's discipline finally paid off 39 minutes in when they took a big fight at the entrance of EG's base and came up on top. EG defended their base from destroyed barracks for the next ten minutes but eventually failed.
Game two
A few kill trades to start of game two but ultimately, it was Fnatic benefiting slightly from this due to higher creep stats. EG hit their stride in the mid-game with a slight superior ganking line-up consisting of Beastmaster and Clockwerk.
A few smoke gank popped off but while EG was able to bring down the Lifestealer in each of these engagement, Fnatic's counter-attack was fast and swift for some revenge kills. Despite the 3 deaths Lifestealer had at 14 minutes, he was still slightly on top of Phantom Lancer in creep kills.
After what seemed to be a blazing early game, both teams stayed dormant for eight minutes before starting the next engagement. After killing the Lina and the Visage, EG went into the Roshan pit but Fnatic contested it utilizing the Infest bomb.
With EG being down one-man, it is questionable as to why EG continued contesting for the Roshan, pouring into the Rosh pit one by one. Eventually, Fnatic were able to fend off the uncoordinated assault resulting in an EG team wipe. Fnatic gave the Aegis to Storm. That fight was the beginnning of the end for EG.
Slowly and steadily, Fnatic pushed down all of EG's outer towers and choked Phantom Lancer's farm to the area surrounding his base. Eventually, Fnatic went all out for the push and secured themselves a spot in the WB final.
Schedule (CEST)
24th April - 10:00 - Mouz vs Alliance
24th April - 14:00 - Dignitas vs Na`Vi
25th April - 06:00 - Kaipi vs Fnatic
25th April - 10:00 - Kaipi vs Liquid
25th April - 14:00 - Mouz vs Dignitas
26th April - 10:00 - EG vs Fnatic
26th April - 14:00 - Alliance vs Na`Vi
27th April - 10:00 - Liquid vs Alliance/Na`Vi
27th April - 14:00 - Dignitas vs EG
28th April - 10:00 - LB Round 3
28th April - 14:00 - WB final (Winner qualifies)
29th April - 14:00 - LB final (Winner qualifies)
