Fnatic has only been playing with its newly completed VALORANT roster for 10 days, but the lineup still won the VCT EU Stage Two: Challengers Two today with a 3-1 victory over Team Liquid.
Liquid held their own for the first two maps of the series, securing double-digit rounds in the first map despite ultimately falling 13-10. They evened the score on Ascent 13-10 but only notched 10 rounds total over the final two maps.
Fnatic rebuilt its roster in early April. Newcomers Nikita “Derke” Sirmitev and Martin “MAGNUM” Peňkov were excellent over the course of the tournament and were instrumental in toppling a talented Liquid roster.
Late on Split, the final map of the series, MAGNUM scored a brilliant ace to break Liquid’s will and push Fnatic over the finish line.
MAGNUM was on a single hit point remaining when he outdueled a Cypher, then used his Lockdown to bait out the final Liquid player. All Liquid needed to do was sneeze on MAGNUM to kill him, but the Fnatic player persevered in the end.
Fnatic have qualified for Challengers Final with the victory. Liquid aren’t out of it either as runners-up and have also qualified for Challengers Final. While they’ll need to be better in the back half of best-of-fives, they certainly have the talent to make deep tournament runs.
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