Fnatic beat Ninjas in Pyjamas 2-1 today to earn a spot in the DreamHack Masters Malmö semifinals.
Although Fnatic haven’t had the best year, they haven’t lost a single LAN series to NiP in 2019. This is the second time that Fnatic have eliminated the Ninjas from a tournament—they knocked NiP out of IEM Sydney in May.
Today’s match kicked off on Dust II and Fnatic won it 16-12 despite being behind in the second half. Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin was the top-fragger with 24 kills.
NiP answered back on Nuke, showing great strategies on their T-side. The Ninjas won 16-8 behind Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg and Simon “twist” Eliasson, who combined for 45 frags.
The Swedish derby went down to the final map, Overpass. NiP didn’t know how to react to Fnatic’s offense and lost the first half 10-5. Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson dominated this map, finishing with 28 frags to help Fnatic win 16-9.
Reaching the quarterfinals is a good result for NiP, all things considered. They’re playing their first event with twist, who replaced Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund in September. They’ll need more time to improve and find their rhythm to advance to the playoffs in more tournaments, though.
Fnatic deserved this win, but they’ll need to be perfect tomorrow against Astralis. The Swedish crowd might be an asset for Fnatic in the semifinals, however.
Fnatic and Astralis will face each other tomorrow for a spot in the DreamHack Masters Malmö grand finals at 8am CT.
