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Dota 28 years agoAndreea "divushka" Esanu

Fnatic delivers the biggest surprise in Shanghai, eliminating OG


Probably the most intense day so far at the Mercedes Benz Arena, ended late in the night in China with an incredible fight for the top six between the Frankfurt Major Champions, OG and the ones they eliminated in the first lower bracket game four months ago, Fnatic.

Looking for the sweet taste of revenge, Fnatic came more than prepared to face OG, completely read Tal 'Fly' Aizik’s draft intentions and surprised the Champions with a last pick Medusa to kite Amer 'Miracle-' al-Barqawi ‘s Sven.

Due to the nature of their line-up, OG had a dominant presence during the laning phase, Chai 'Mushi' Yee Fung had a rough start getting killed once in the lane and forced to take the long walk to the base to avoid more deaths which slowed his farm considerably. A bold decision to take down Roshan at the nine minute mark destabilised the game tempo that OG was dictating and brought Fnatic back into the game.

Good usage of the Hawk vision, coupled with Disruptor’s Glimpse, allowed Fnatic to find the pickoffs and create a considerable lead for themselves. They also had the superior tools to survive OG’s initiation and most of the time Sven got kited with Medusa’s ultimate - to be re-initiated on afterwards with the Roar - Black Hole combo that won Fnatics the first game of the series.

The second game started extremely well for Fnatic with a very active roaming Djardel 'DJ' Mampusti Bounty Hunter that contributed to three kills on Miracle’s OD only five minute into the game. However, OG took the first tower objective in the mid lane and started to apply pressure on Fnatic with five man rotations.

Closing the gap in net worth and feeling a bit more confident on their teamfight set-up OG started to prematurely force the issue and they got four man wiped when Zheng 'MidOne' Yeik Nai showed his shiny Dagon for the first time twenty minutes into the game. Two minutes later OG got an uncontested Roshan kill but as they were walking out from the Pit, Fnatic initiated on them and instantly popped the Aegis and wiped them once more. The game went from bad to worse for OG who, at the twenty eight minute mark, had their support Enigma at the top of the networth graphs, while Fnatic’s heroes had become so beefy that a three man Chronosphere was not a threat for them at all. Fnatic had all the big items secured; Sange and Yasha, Assault Cuirass and BkB for Sven, Mekansm and Shivas on Tidehunter, Valdimir’s and Crimson Guard on Bounty Hunter, and they were able to pull out a 20k networth lead in front of OG.

In spite of all their beefy heroes Fnatic were not able to take a set of rax, OG being extremely resilient on their own, forcing all the cool downs from Mushi’s team every time they had to defend, and still the high ground siege was a problem. As the game progressed the BkB duration for Sven got lower and OG knew how to take advantage of that. A finished Linken’s Sphere on Fly’s Enigma and a Scythe of Vyse on Miracle’s OD truly made the miracle possible for the Frankfurt Major Champions who managed to drag the game into such a late game stage that even a Divine Rapier on Sven would not save Fnatic from the OG base invasion 65 minutes into the game.

A couple of individual mistakes and miscalculated buybacks was what cost Fnatic the game and forced them to go for a decisive game three.

Panel and commentators alike were wondering how Fnatic could forget what just happened and what they should do to not throw a won match again, and the answer came with the third game draft where Fnatic went mainly with reactive picks. They punished the Batrider, Zeus from OG with a Nyx Assassin and Vengeful Spirit and secured two cores with good team fight presence.

Although OG looked like they weren't themselves every time Miracle was assigned to the hard carry position, they made the odd choice of placing him on the Anti Mage for the decider game and sent N0tail on Zeus to face the MidOne Outworld Devourer.

Built for late team fights, OG’s line-up lacked any reliable stuns from their supports (Pugna and Earth Spirit) and had no laning impact, exactly the opposite of what Fnatic brought to the table. Only five minutes into the game Fnatic lead with a 5-0 kill score on the back of perfectly timed and executed rotations from Nyx Assassin who got a very fast Blink Dagger and started to bully all OG’s lanes. Instead of waiting for Mushi to safely farm his radiance, Fnatic kept the momentum up and started to push OG’s towers with Chen creeps and were not afraid to use Haunt dives when they felt they could secure a kill.

No one was safe anywhere on the map for OG, who were desperately trying to find the farm for Anti Mage to repeat the Miracle comeback from the previous game. It didn’t happen this time around as Fnatic simply stomped them in a less than 30 minutes game with a 14-0-1 KDA from OD and a final 27-4 kill score.

With compLexity eliminating Alliance and Fnatic taking down OG it seems that Swindlemelonzz prediction from the group stage is more likely to happen. The Shanghai Major top six features; 0 Chinese teams, 2 from North America, 2 from South East Asia and 2 from Europe.

Unfortunately one SEA and one NA team will have to leave the competition tomorrow as the two regions will have their representatives fighting head to head in the Lower Bracket.

Main Event day four schedule

March 5th, 03:00 CET: Evil Geniuses vs compLexity Gaming
March 5th, 06:30 CET: MVP Phoenix vs Fnatic
March 5th, 10:00 CET: Team Liquid vs Team Secret
March 5th, 13:30 CET: TBD vs TBD

Title and headline image from Fnatic's facebook page

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Andreea "divushka" EsanuI can resist anything but temptations... Follow me @DivDota

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