Luminosity Gaming vs. Fnatic – Post Match Analysis

After a long and epic ceremony right before the Semifinals, two teams faced in which was considered to be the biggest and toughest test for the players of Luminosity Gaming so far in this tournament, and most likely a toughest test of all with the new lineup (-boltzz, -steel, +Taco, +fnx). In this article, I would like to talk about what all happened in the match, talk about each map individually, and at the end, choose the MVP of the series as a whole.

Each teams matches and form in the tournament so far :

Luminosity Gaming :  Their form so far in the SL i-League Starseries XIV Finals has been absolutely spectacular, easily defeating G2, losing only 16 rounds in 2 maps (16-9 on train and 16-7 on inferno), and then securing the first place in their group by defeating NaVi, against which they only barely won their own map pick (Train, 16-14) but then showed domination similar to which we saw against G2 by winning the Map-Pick of NaVi (Mirage, 16-9). In this tournament they have really been showing that they are a serious contender not only for their “local” NA tournaments but for big international tournaments too.

Fnatic : The undeniably best team of 2015 and most likely of the whole CS:GO history hasnt been as dominant lately as they were for the majority of last year. The SL i-League Starseries XIV tournament didnt start out great for them, with a very convincing loss, where they failed on both maps, not managing to win 10 rounds on either of them (8-16 on Mirage, 7-16 on Train). Then they went to face the ex-Titan french squad, in which they were very, very favoured, and even though the final scoreline (2-1 in favour of Fnatic) shows a close match, the maps that Fnatic won werent close at all (16-10 on Cache, 16-4 on Dust2), and the only close map was the one that Titan won (16-14 on Inferno). So Fnatic seemed to have woken up after that horrid game versus EnvyUs. Then came an opponent multiple times tougher than the ex-titan french squad. It was Team QuestionMark (TQM). The game against TQM was not really anything great from a spectators point of view, as all we saw were 3 relatively onesided maps (16-10 Dust 2, 8-16 Mirage, 16-7 Inferno). By winning their games versus Ex-Titan and TQM, they managed to climb all the way up the bracket to face off against G2, which they completely and utterly destroyed (16-8 Cache, 16-2 Inferno). Overall, Fnatic had a very slow start to the tournament, but they managed to came back with 3 solid results against pretty strong teams.

The Map Pick/Ban phase:

1st Ban – Luminosity – Dust 2
2nd Ban – Fnatic – Train
3rd Ban – Luminosity – Cobblestone
4th Ban – Fnatic – Overpass
1st Pick – Luminosity – Mirage
2nd Pick – Fnatic – Cache
Leftover map – Inferno

The Map pick/ban phase brought little to no surprises, with the final 3 maps being mainly in favour of Fnatic. Dust 2 has been a pretty good map for Fnatic so far this tournament, crushing the ex-Titan squad and beating TQM with relative ease on it. Train, however has not been so great for them, losing the only match they played on it (7-16 vs. EnvyUs), while Luminosity gaming has been strong on it in this tournament (16-9 vs. G2, 16-14 vs. NaVi). The other bans were basically just the maps that Fnatic and Luminosity didn’t like. That left us with Mirage, Cache and Inferno, which as I have already mentioned, favoured Fnatic quite heavily, with Mirage being THE map that Luminosity absolutely had to win to have a shot at taking this series.

1st Map – Mirage (16-6 for Luminosity Gaming)

This is the map where Luminosity really showed their strenght, and that even against a very strong opponent they aren’t scared. They showed that right in the first round, where they all just rushed from B apps to the B site without any fear. Fnatic didn’t expect such aggresion, and swiftly lost the pistol round. They continued the aggresion throughout the whole first half, and finally managed to win it 11-4 after being 11-2 up. Closing the game, which is considered a problem for most teams considered to be Tier 2 or 3, was not a problem at all for the Brazilians, who quickly closed out the game with the final score being 16-6. A big surprise to most, and proof that Luminosity can beat Tier 1 teams. Luminosity only had one goal on this map if they wanted to win this series : to win this map, not only did they succeed, but they also did it in a very convincing fashion. 

Player Scores for Mirage (16-6 for Luminosity Gaming)

Fnatic:
Flusha – 16-20 (-4 K-D)
Krimz – 15-17 (-2 K-D)
Olofmeister – 10-19 (-9 K-D)
Dennis – 8-20 (-12 K-D)
JW – 6-19 (-13 K-D)

Luminosity Gaming:
fer – 28-11 (+17 K-D)
coldzera – 21-9 (+12 K-D)
TACO – 17-13 (+4 K-D)
fnx – 17-13 (+4 K-D)
FalleN – 12-9 (+3 K-D)

Imagine the first map of this series, Mirage, just turned around 180 degrees and you get the map which came just after it – Cache. This map was Fnatics pick, and you could see that. The explosive style from Mirage just didn’t seem to work on the pick of Fnatic. The map was completely in Fnatics grasp for the entirety of it and they just didnt let it go. Luminosity were as stale and not interesting on Cache as Fnatic were on Mirage. After a relatively one sided first half (10-5 for Fnatic)the swedes had no issues what-so-ever closing this map out with the final score being 16-7 in favor of the Legendary swedes

Player Scores for Cache (16-7 for Fnatic):

Luminosity Gaming
Coldzera 23-17 (+6 K-D)
FalleN – 15-19 (-4 K-D)
Fer – 11-17 (-6 K-D)
Fnx – 7-17 (-10 K-D)
TACO – 8-23 (-15 K-D)

3rd Map – Inferno

Luminosity
Coldzera – 26-20 (+6 K-D)
TACO – 25-21 (+4 K-D)
FalleN – 21-21 (+-0 K-D)
Fnx – 20-25 (-5 K-D)
Fer – 17-28 (-11 K-D)

Overall, I think what we saw was a match where 2/3 of the maps were very, very one-sided with the last one being a very exciting close victory of the more experienced Swedes, the team of Fnatic. Instead of choosing an MVP like I was going to do, I would like to pick 2 players from each team that played very well and consistently over the course of the 3 maps, or those that contributed most for the team. Those players are FLUSHA and KRIMZ for Fnatic, and COLDZERA and FALLEN for Luminosity. Flusha had an absolutely stellar performance on the last map, and was basically the sole reason Fnatic won that map.Krimz played very consistently and well throughout the whole match and he deserves to be picked out as one of the best for Fnatic. Moving on to team Luminosity, Coldzera had an even better series than Krimz and Flusha, even though unfortunatelly for him it didn’t end with a victory. His K-D ratio was the highest of all 10 players on the server and he was the Topfragger of Luminosity in both of the maps that Luminosity lost, and even in the second map, cache, on which Luminosity got absolutely stomped on he managed to maintain a positive K-D ratio. Last but definitely not least we have FalleN. His K-D wasn’t that far behind other players, and his In-game leading skills really showed in this match. A nearly perfectly played Mirage with on point calls, and the last map, Inferno, really showed how much of a mastermind Fallen is, and that he is one of the best In-game leaders in the world.

P.S – I am sorry for publishing this late, as its my first article, but I had a family meeting so I had to come and finish the last parahraph a little bit later. Thank you for reading this and please let me know what you think.

Source for stats:http://www.hltv.org