The newly retooled Fnatic VALORANT roster capped off their EMEA VCT week two series against OG LDN UTD in dominant fashion, defeating their opponents 13-0 on Icebox today.
The map prior to the blowout, OGLU’s pick of Haven, wasn’t much closer, with Fnatic taking care of business 13-4 off a stellar defensive showing in the first half. The star of the series was certainly Derke. The fear-inducing Finn had an astounding 45 kills across the two maps, only dying six times on each map while taking on the Chamber duties. Both Mistic and Alfajer had terrific showings as well, with both players notching twice as many kills as they had deaths.
With this victory, Fnatic move to 2-0 to start out the EMEA VCT Stage Two group stage after an impressive 2-1 series victory over the Stage One champions FPX in week one.
During Stage One, Fnatic finished the group stage with a perfect 5-0 record, only dropping two total maps and notching a positive round differential far higher than any other team. They stumbled in the playoffs against FPX but their win against M3C was enough to book their ticket to Reykjavik. But Fnatic suspended BraveAF prior to Masters and were forced to compete in the group stage without Derke, who had tested positive for COVID, and the team once considered a contender at Masters was eliminated first.
Prior to the start of Stage Two, Fnatic opted to bring in two permanent roster additions to replace the still suspended BraveAF and the inevitably benched Magnum. Enzo Mestari (formerly Alliance) and 16-year-old Emir Ali “Alfajer” Beder were added in early May, and their only two matches for Fnatic so far have been two victories in the VCT.
Alfajer has proven his versatility on both Raze and Killjoy, while Enzo has filled the Sova need quite nicely. And, of course, their play has been supplemented by the star performances from Derke that the team sorely missed in Iceland. Their next test comes in week three against the reigning world champions in Acend.
