Image: LoL Esports
Fnatic continues to be undefeated in Worlds 2022 after scoring another win against Chief Esports Club in Match Five.
Fnatic has had to overcome its fair share of hurdles on Day 1 of Worlds 2022, but the team won a simple game against Chief Esports Club anyway in Match Five. This was Chief Esports Club’s first match of the day and Fnatic’s second, but only Fnatic can rest easy here while Chief will just have to hope for a better match tomorrow. Fnatic was the clear favourite coming in with its first win of the day still fresh in everyone’s minds, and now stands undefeated after Day 1.
Sadly, this game was also paused for a rather long time during the drafting phase - the third major delay of today’s matches. Hopefully that doesn’t continue to be a trend for the rest of Worlds 2022, but the match did kick off eventually at an appropriately slow pace. This was a more low-key early game compared to other matches we’ve seen today, with neither team seeming to find a good opportunity to score exciting plays and thus, settling to rack up gold while occasionally fishing for a kill or two without finding it.
Things started heating up at the 11-minute mark, with Chief and Fnatic coming to a head over a turret, leading to 2-1 total kills in Fnatic’s favour, though Chief levelled things out with another kill just a minute later. At this point, it was clear that neither team was willing to give the other an edge in the midgame, disallowing any advantage from snowballing into the endgame the way it has happened in other matches today. Chief suffered another kill by the 15-minute mark but managed to snag a dragon to make up for it. Fnatic’s Upset then scored two out of three kills in a teamfight, and then Fnatic’s Razork slayed Chief’s Tally for four kills total to Fnatic in the span of two minutes.
Try as Chief might, it could not stop the midgame from slipping through its fingers after suffering so many kills successively. By the 22-minute mark, the team was behind Fnatic by five kills and 4k gold, making this the time for big, creative plays that never ended up happening. The spawning of another drake predictably led to a big teamfight going down between both teams, giving Fnatic another three kills. Fnatic further widened this gap by taking down the Baron immediately after, with Chief in no position to regroup and fight them for it. Using the Baron buff, Fnatic got aggressive and started stomping turrets down left and right on the map - and incidentally, yet another dragon to boot.
Fnatic had 17 kills over Chief’s six in the endgame (after an insane Pentakill from Upset), and rolled with that advantage right into Chief’s base for a well-earned, but entirely unsurprising victory. This was a good match for Fnatic, but it leaves Chief with a lot to prove for the rest of its time in Worlds. Hopefully the team turns things around tomorrow but for today, both teams have wrapped up all their matches and can rest up.
Next, we’ll see DetonatioN FocusMe go up against LOUD.
