Two years after falling short against Sentinels in the grand finals of the first international VALORANT tournament, Fnatic are back in a VCT grand finals and looking to claim that elusive first trophy.
While a deep Fnatic run at VCT LOCK//IN isn’t necessarily surprising for one of the consensus top teams, the manner in which they’ve dominated the competition exceeds even the highest expectations for the new-look roster. Fnatic haven’t dropped a single map in nine maps played and several of those victories came in decisive fashion, including an absurdly dominant 13-1 beatdown on 100T’s Fracture pick.
Fnatic’s run to the grand finals was capped off with a stunning 3-0 victory over another standout EMEA team in NAVI today. Coincidentally, it was on NAVI’s map pick of Lotus where they had their most decisive win 13-4, while Fnatic needed all 24 rounds to close out their map picks of Haven and Fracture. Fnatic held uncontested (until now) statistical leader Shao in check, and both Leo and Chronicle put up great performances to make up for a quiet Derke series (relative to his high standards).
Coincidentally, it was against an undefeated team in Sentinels when Fnatic lost their first and only international grand final nearly two years ago at Masters Reykjavik. Now, Fnatic have the flawless record heading into the grand final, but unlike in Iceland, they won’t be playing on home turf.
Aside from LOUD, Fnatic will have to contend with what is sure to be a raucous São Paulo for at least three maps. But Fnatic are already experienced at playing against home-crowd favorites, having already beaten Sentinels (featuring two former world champions from LOUD) and FURIA. Still, tomorrow’s crowd is pretty much guaranteed to be the loudest one they’ve faced yet.
The grand finals between LOUD and Fnatic is set to start after the streamer showmatch and new agent debut at 11am CT tomorrow.
Published: Mar 3, 2023 03:52 pm