Masters Reykjavík: Fnatic sends Version1 home to make final four

After losing their game yesterday in an upset against NUTURN, today the North American second seed of Version1 met Europe’s second seed of Fnatic in round three of the VCT 2021 - Stage 2 - Masters Reykjavík lower-bracket.

Despite playing with a stand-in player, the remarkable performance from Erik "penny" Penny in particular means that V1 has already defeated the top European squad of Team Liquid earlier in the tournament making them clear favourites in this matchup. Fnatic, however, did manage to take Sentinels to the edge on both Icebox and Haven and saw their player of Nikita "Derke" Sirmitev be crowned day one’s MVP.

This combined on paper to make this a thrilling game as a team from either NA or EU was to go home while the victor guaranteed themselves a top-four finish.

Fnatic’s pick of Icebox began the series which, after a very strong start from the Europeans on the back of a 19-9 k-d spread from Derke, had Version1 come back to an eventually tied half. Similarly on Version1’s offensive half they also took the initial pistol and follow up rounds before a series of failed post-plant holds put the game tied at 8-8.

After a third round in a row from Fnatic, V1 called their timeout which served them well as evident by the scoreline as they hit double digits first while Derke had been dropped to just a 3-6 performance so far in the half.

At this point V1 had planted in six of the last eight rounds, however, this focus on the post-plant wasn’t working as well as intended. While their post-plants were on the whole working well, a Lockdown on round 21 delayed them enough to stop a plant leading to a loss, while yet another standout play from Derke put the game to overtime.

After having the control for the whole second half of the game, a 1v1 by Jake "Boaster" Howlett over Loic "effys" Sauvageau followed by a failed 1v4 attempt by effys meant Fnatic cleaned it up in two straight rounds to take their own map pick, 14-12.

Next up, Ascent, a map Version1 beat Liquid on only to then lose in overtime against NUTURN while Fnatic has yet to play it at all in this tournament.

Here Fnatic looked in their element. While they started down, their confidence going into gunfights and presence around the map meant it seemed like they were running circles around their opponents for much of their first half as once again Derke stood up going 11-4 including a 1v1 ninja defuse while V1’s stars of penny and effys both sat at just 3-6.

Version1 added two more to their count including a 1v1 by Jamal "jammyz" Bangash, however, Fnatic’s “D&D Combo” of Derke and Domagoj "Doma" Fancev going 30-15 combined meant the half ended 8-4 in their favour as they moved to the attack.

Fnatic eventually hit map and series point at 12-6 which seemed impossible for V1 to come back from. They ended the game by rushing the A site which they took with two casualties and simply killed the remaining defenders as they rotated back to the site.

While they hadn’t played this map before at this event, Fnatic were clearly at home here with Doma in particular excelling with an Rating of 1.61 as the series ended 14-12, 13-6.

This, therefore, means they have knocked out the North Americans of Version1 who end the event in a joint fifth place finish while Fnatic are set to meet the winner of Team Liquid vs Team Vikings tomorrow. As this could be a rematch of the thrilling five-map EMEA Challengers grand-final, this is a game no one would want to miss.