The ESL One Road to Rio was back in action after a day off and we saw Fnatic compete against Dignitas in the best of 3 series. Dignitas did not perform quite well in this tournament and we have seen Fnatic playing one of their best matches recently except for the Ence game in this tournament. It was a very interesting game as it was an all Swedish matchup and all the players were familiar with each other and their game style. With Fnatic recently becoming the #1 team in the world and the odds favoring them in this matchup. However, we saw Dignitas upset them in a best of three series winning 2-1(17-19 on train, 25-22 on overpass and 16-14 on dust2).
The first map of the game was Train which was Dignitas’ pick but we have seen how Fnatic have been really good on this map recently and they started on a good note by winning the first pistol round on the CT side with Jesper ‘JW’ Wecksell’s 2 quick kills from his USP. The buy round saw ‘Xizt’ getting a quad kill and securing the round for his team. The first half actually saw some great plays coming from the T side Dignitas but unfortunately, the half going 8-7 in favor of Fnatic.
The second half started with Fnatic showing how good they are in their pistol rounds and won the round quite comfortably. Although Dignitas did not hold back and with the heroics of ‘GeT_Right’ they did win some very important rounds and actually started to lead the map 12-11. Fnatic really struggled to close out the map and the score went to 15-15 and into overtime, which saw Fnatic barely closing out the map 19-17.
The second map of the game was Overpass and the first round saw pistol kills going back and forth but in the end, Christopher ‘GeT_RighT’ Alesund Clutching a 1v1 with his USP and giving an early-round to his team. Although Fnatic did comeback in the half with the help of ‘JW’ and ‘KRIMZ’ taking 14 and 11 kills just in the first half and giving their team a decent half of 9-6.
Later on we saw Dignitas winning the second half pistol round with a well executed A site play and giving them a chance to comeback in this map and the game. The buy round from Fnatic did not either go their way but they actually won the eco round with the brilliance of Ludvig ‘Brollan’ Brolin and he taking some insane kills from his deagle. Dignitas did comeback in the game with their T side plays and yet again took the game into overtime with a score of 15-15.
The overtime saw Fnatic winning all the rounds in the first half and making it 18-15 but Dignitas replying back with an incredible second half and equalizing the scoreline 18-18 and taking it to 2nd overtime. The rounds were going back and forth and both the teams gave their best to win this map and the match actually went into the 3rd overtime where Dignitas finally won the game 25-22 with Håkon ‘hallzerk’ Fjærli clutching a 1v2 with his AWP and closing out the map and taking it to the third and final map of the game Dust2.
The third map of the game was Dust2 and it began with Fnatic picking up the round with a CT side retake on the A site and securing the round. Fnatic won an eco round having just USP on all five players and ‘Brollan’ clutching a 1v2 and giving them the round. After that it was a different story altogether as we saw a very different Dignitas as they just played some top level counter strike and closed the half 10-5.
Later on the second half started with Fnatic yet again picking up the pistol round with each of them picking up kills from their glocks and taking the score to 6-10. But Dignitas were on another level today and Patrik ‘f0rest’ Lindberg just went crazy on this map and picked some amazing kills and lead his team to 14-7. Fnatic did try to comeback in this map by pulling up some rounds but Dignitas finally closed out the map 16-14 and the series 2-1 and proved that experience does matter after all.
The all Swedish matchup saw Dignitas coming out on top and taking the series and breaking their losing streak in this tournament. We will now see Fnatic compete against Heretics on Tuesday and Dignitas will take on Vitality on the next day.
