Three elimination series are set to be played in the BTS house today as The Summit 5 is rapidly moving close to the grand finals where Wings is already waiting for their opponents. After DC fell short to Liquid, the second series of the day featured Fnatic facing Natus Vincere.
Game One
In the opening game of the best of three series Na’Vi targeted Ohaiyo and Mushi with their bans and the true reason for that was revealed only towards the end of the draft. Same as they did yesterday with Ad Finem, Na’Vi trapped Fnatic into thinking that the early Sand King pick was meant for Danil 'Dendi' Ishutin and continued to trick their adversaries with a third pick Timbersaw to finally close the draft with Alchemist for Dmitry 'Ditya Ra' Minenkov in the mid lane while Dendi went for a solo safe lane Timber.
As anticipated, the entire action in the early stage happened top lane, where Na’Vi constantly pressured Chai 'Mushi' Yee Fung’s Morphling who had a bit of a rough start while everyone else on Na’Vi's side was doing just fine. Forced to play from behind and in a continuous defensive stance, Fnatic decided at the 18 minute mark to go with a three hero squad to gank Dendi who was casually solo farming the creep wave. Although he got initiated on and nearly died, the Io save came just in time and turned the fight around, Fnatic ending up in a disastrous three man wipe. In spite of the bad outcome, Fnatic decided to rinse and repeat the gank on Dendi, this time bringing Mushi as well, but the result was the same. The loss for the Malaysian team was even bigger as Morphling lost his life while Dendi denied the kill with a Bloodstone suicide. With Dendi getting bigger and bigger, always forcing the issue and Alchemist split pushing all the time with the Radiance-Octarine-Manta illusions build, Na’Vi controlled the map the entire game.
After an uncontested Roshan kill with the Aegis placed on Alchemist, Na’Vi found the dream pick offs on Morphling and Tidehunter, both without buy-backs available, and went for the gg push.
Game Two
Having the series game advantage, Na’Vi went with a bit of an experimental draft for the second game and gave the Shadow Demon- Axe combo a try, Dendi playing Axe for just the second time in all his official games. Fnatic had a perfect response, in the form of a Timbersaw who was sent mid lane to face the dual combo of Na’Vi. The only time when Na’Vi was really in control were the very first minutes when the support roaming Bounty secured a couple of early kills and put Na’Vi and himself in the lead as he found the money for an extremely early Gem of Truesight to counter Fnatic’s support Riki. But everything was falling apart with every level Timbersaw was gaining. Axe transitioned into a feeding machine as the rest of the Ukrainian squad was lacking the damage output to finish any of the initiated Fnatic heroes. Not being able to contest Roshan, Na’Vi had to watch how their base was melting down only 30 minutes into the game when Fnatic was pushing with Timbersaw - Aegis in the front lines.
Game Three
Game three was a totally different story, both teams securing old time signature heroes, Fnatic opening the draft with a Batrider for Chong Xin 'Ohaiyo' Khoo and also allowed to have Mushi’s Medusa while Na’Vi secured a very classic super team fight oriented draft.
The game itself began in force with Fnatic smoked as five marching behind the opposite mid lane tier one tower but couldn’t find any kill, however, they made sure Ivan 'Artstyle' Antonov’s Enigma start would be crippled as much as possible and blocked three of the Radiant neutral camps.
The early laning stage went in Fnatic’s favor who drew the first blood in the bottom lane on the back of a Double Damage rune found by Djardel 'DJ' Mampusti’s support Naga Siren at the two minute mark. However, Na’Vi were the first to force the big five man team fights, their line-up being perfectly suited to do just that. With many initiation options, all going well with the infest bomb combo, Na’Vi felt super confident but that backfired 14 minutes into the game. They were scouted grouped in the enemy jungle and Fnatic had the perfect four man Song into Kinetic Field-Static Storm into Medusa’s Stone Gaze initiation and wiped them out. After that disastrous moment, Na’Vi backed off, started to grind their BKB’s and from there on they executed the team fight plan beautifully.
The breakout moment came at the 24 minute mark when a three man smoke brought the first Skewer- RP into Chrono and allowed Na’Vi to take the mid lane tier one tower which opened the map for them. An uncontested Roshan kill a few minutes later with the Aegis placed on Life Stealer and three finished BKB’s (Magnus, Enigma and Void) gave Na’Vi all the needed resources to push Fnatic. Despite their very good counter draft, Fnatic was simply out executed by Na’Vi, who displayed amazingly good teamfight coordination. In all their fights they initiated with Magnus who always found a minimum of two - three heroes to Skewer- RP and served them to an infested Enigma always ready with Black Hole, while Victor 'GeneRaL' Nigrini controlled the rest of the Fnatic with his Chronos. Fnatic’s demise at The Summit 5 came 47 minutes into the game with two lanes of barracks taken by Na’Vi in one push, which triggered the GG call.
title and banenr image source: @BeyondTheSummit
