The newly formed Fnatic lineup with Nico “nicoodoz” Tamjidi, Fredrik “roeJ” Jørgensen, and stand-in Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg have surprised just about everyone today after beating Heroic, the highest-ranked team of the $250,000 Pinnacle Cup Championship, in the opening round.
This win is a total upset, not only because Fnatic are playing with three new players, but also because the organization gave the in-game leadership duties to William “mezii” Merriman, who is unproven in the role, following the departure of Alex McMeekin.
Heroic and Fnatic played their best-of-one series on Inferno, and the international team conquered a hard-fought 16-14 victory thanks to strong individual performances from nicoodoz and the veteran Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson. The new AWPer finished the game with a 20-14 K/D ratio, while KRIMZ finished with a 22-17 K/D.
Mezii said in a post-match interview with HLTV that Heroic are one of the hardest teams to play because of their playstyle, which involves a lot of stack gambling on the CT side. “For us, since we made the changes, it has always been about communication,” the new captain said.
“I think when you play a team like that, when your communication is really good, that’s how you beat them. I think we played super calm and were able to react well against them,” he added.
There are eight CS:GO teams split into two groups of four for the group stage of the Pinnacle Cup Championship. The group winner will advance to the upper bracket of playoffs, while the runners-up go to the lower bracket. The $250,000 event will run from June 8 to 11 and also features BIG, MIBR, Astralis, the Party Astronauts lineup of Evil Geniuses, Imperial, and Finest.
Published: Jun 8, 2022 07:27 am