EG rode to victory on the heels of their top fragger n0thing who survived several man-down situations to pull his team ahead.
"Fnatic are a great team and 16-1 is pretty lopsided, I didn't think it would happen that way," commented Jordan "n0thing" Gilbert. "We just played the way we should be playing. I was able to get out of some 2 on 1 situations, and it was pretty cool when I went to defuse, whipped my mouse in the air to fake the non-defuse, and then continued to defuse and it fooled them." Shaun "hostile" Catron was also surprised by the large score, "we didn't really expect to win by such a huge margin, but after controlling the money into rounds seven, eight, nine, I pretty much expected it to go this way."
Team EG manager Alex Garfield feels the team is heading back in the right direction after a slow start in the first day, and poor results at recent events.
"We won the right rounds this time. In our lost to SK we won the wrong rounds, not really being able to gain any control. This time we were able to control the money, win the close rounds and win in clutch situations."
The loss for fnatic serves as one of the team's worst in their entire career. Not many times does the top three team in the world only win one round in an entire match.
"We just got destroyed," says fnatic's Oscar "Archi" Torgersen bluntly. "We lost too many situations we needed to win. One on one's, two on one's, we have to win those rounds. This is definitely one our worst matches ever."
After SK defeated x3o they decided to stick around and watch the ending of the EG/fnatic match. The SK team was stunned at the lopsided score, considering they had a relatively easy time on the same map in the first day. They also didn't seem too surprised that this was happening to fnatic of all teams, having knowing them for so many years.
"If fnatic starts out bad losing the gun round, the fourth round, they lose momentum," says Walle. "After losing a 2 on 1, it really gets into their head, knowing they should have had that round. It's hard to come back and it happens a lot in tournaments with LCD's." SK has had the same confidence issues in the past, letting lost rounds effect an entire match outcome. "Our psyche was worse not too long ago", Walle explains. "After the recent tournaments though, working on it a lot, we never give up even if we're down 0-5, 0-6. We always think we have a chance to win." Zet makes sure to keep the momentum up. "I try to always keep the spirits up during the match no matter the situation. I'm always screaming, never sitting idle, it's not good to get sucked into a bad mindset."
When asked for a comment regarding the loss, fnatic manager Samuel Matthews declined, stating that he would not comment to a "team website who should be focusing on the team [SK] only."
Meet Your Makers put the hurt on GamePlay/Roccat, sending them to the lower bracket with a 16-7 score. The Finns never knew what hit them and still didn't after the match was over. "They got lucky," says Max "ruuit" Oskari Aspe, frustrated. "I think we were better, I really have no idea what happened."
Fnatic is currently squaring off against GamePlay in the lower bracket.
81 week silverware drought over! SK wins in LA!
cArn: "We lacked individual skill"
dsn & f0rest: "Always fun to play SK"