Fnatic pulled one out of the hat and destroyed Alliance in three games to qualify for the loser bracket final. Fnatic will be facing the loser of Vici Gaming versus LGD tomorrow to determine who gets to move onto the grand final of D2L season 4.
Off to a great start in game three, the Swedes could not hold on to their 10,000 gold lead and allowed Fnatic to come back after several reckless move. The game was drawn out for an extended amount of time because of split pushing but the later the game got, the bigger Fnatic heroes became. Slark, Luna and Doom were a deadly trio and when Fnatic finally came knocking, Alliance could not even hold their ground and defend their barracks.
Alliance's loss also means they are out of the tournament in fourth place. Fnatic on the other hand, guaranteed themselves at least $7,500 and a third place finish in D2L Season 4. However, Fnatic's biggest motivation may not be just the money but to prove that they can take on the Chinese, even without their bootcamp.
D2L prize distribution:
1. $25,000
2. $15,000
3. $7,500
4. 
Alliance - $2,500
Fnatic vs Alliance: Expect the unexpected
Game 1
Fnatic went for a very push oriented strategy but due to poor laning phase, they were unable to five-man and push down towers. On Fnatic's defense, they did try very hard to gank with Enchantress and Shadow Shaman but both their smoke ganks were thwarted by Alliance's superior positioning and warding. In fact, the First Blood of the game was on the Shadow Shaman and the Enchantress because they smoked towards Alliance's territory and once the smoke ran out, Alliance surrounded the two and killed them.
Fnatic got a revenge kill on the Io once both the supports revived but Fnatic's stand-in DeMoN overextended and got burst down immediately. That happened again three minutes later on the middle lane and his early death caused Fnatic to lose three extra heroes. The game was out of Fnatic's reach at this point.
Alliance had superior map advantage and farm advantage and would constantly pick off Fnatic's heroes wherever they are. 17 minutes in, the kill score was 19-3 and Alliance was already killing Fnatic members way past the tier-two towers. n0tail did get a consolation kill and ended AdmiralBulldog's Godlike streak but he had so many charges on his Bloodstone that he revived immediately. Fnatic had enough and called the game at 20 minutes.
Game 2
Game two is all about DeMoN. With nothing to lose, Fnatic picked Shadow Fiend for their American stand-in and DeMoN laned just fine against s4's Dragon Knight. Fnatic tried very hard to give Shadow Fiend the advantage by attempting to gank Dragon Knight but s4 stood back when he felt something was wrong. After failing, Alchemist and Crystal Maiden moved towards the bottom lane and harassed Clockwerk with Chemical Concoction while taking tower damage. It was rather silly. At this point, things were looking really bad for Fnatic because their Elder Titan and Alchemist were still level one 4:30 into the game.
All that was about to change when a bad engagement by Alliance at 9 minutes nearly got Clockwerk killed if not for the missed Raze but DeMoN did not miss the Razes on the Visage afterwards. It became rather apparent that the Shadow Fiend is becoming huge and was about to snowball out of control and he did. A team fight on the top lane with a Double Damage rune on the Shadow Fiend nearly killed the Dragon Knight (escaped on 50 hp) and resulted in the death of the Lifestealer and the Visage.
With his new Black King Bar, Shadow Fiend wasn't afraid to engage onto Alliance and would farm without fear. Starving Alliance in the confine of their tier-two, Fnatic farmed up a storm and by 20 minutes, they have taken down four outer towers and mass a 10,000 gold lead. At 23 minutes, Fnatic pushed the bottom lane with Shadow Fiend's new Daedalus and Alliance could not even go near their barracks to defend it. Alliance called the game.
Game 3
The decider of the elimination game was surprisingly quiet to start until the first night where s4's Night Stalker got a lot more active. In the first night, Alliance raked up five kills and minutes after the night time ended, the kill score was 9-2 in favour of Alliance. By 15 minutes, Alliance has amassed more than 10,000 lead in gold and Fnatic's tendency to engage Alliance whenever they push were losing them the game.
However, when everybody have given up on Fnatic, they snapped out of it and came back by winning a team fight on the bottom lane and transitioned that into an attempt on Roshan. Alliance knew that Fnatic was taking Roshan. Night Stalker grew impatient and ran straight into the Rosh pit without any vision. Night Stalker did not manage to snatch the Aegis and what happened subsequently was yet another team fight won by Fnatic due to the Swedes' recklessness.
By 25 minutes, Fnatic was on the verge of equalizing Alliance's massive gold lead. The game was very much own even ground and both teams were very cautious in making any rash move and they avoided fight the whole time. It was not until 29 minutes that Fnatic killed the second Roshan and attempted for high ground on 35th. A split push by the Nature's Prophet on the other side of the map stopped Fnatic's push.
With the Dire advantage, Fnatic subsequently took down Roshan number three and together with the Aegis and Cheese, Fnatic mounted for a push on the bottom lane after they substantially pushed out the top lane. They were able to pick off the Weaver the second they went uphill and since Loda had no buyback for another 15 seconds, Fnatic moved their attention from the barracks to the tier-four towers. At this point, Crystal Maiden and Abaddon also had no buyback and fighting an uphill 3v5, Alliance had no choice but to throw themselves at Fnatic to stop them from winning. That obviously did not work out and Fnatic took the huge win and eliminate Alliance from the tournament.
