Fnatic had to put in a lot of effort in order to overcome Virtus.pro in the upper semi-final of GameGune 2012, especially after losing de_dust2 7-16. The top seeded team of the tournament replied with the same score on de_train, and then they won a close encounter on de_nuke with a 16-12 result.

Starting with de_dust2, on which fnatic showed great form in recent months, the Danish-Swedish squad got to be the terrorists first. But Aleksey "LeX" Kolesnikov's team made a much better start as they quickly found themselves up 5-0, stopping every fnatic's attack.

The now fired-up Russians continued utilizing their aggressive style and they reset fnatic's money twice after dropping a round, making the score 8-2 at this point. A close round then went to the team that recently added Martin "trace" Heldt and it began their mini-comeback of four rounds in a row, when we finally got to hear Finn "karrigan" Andersen ratchet for the first time today. However, Virtus.pro showed that they weren't broken down by taking the last round of the half and securing a respectable 9-6 advantage.

After changing sides, Virtus.pro's first attack seemingly went wrong and time was winding down, but the Russians managed to overwhelm fnatic in the last few seconds of the round which practically secured them a 12-6 lead after the necessary ecos.

The first buy round of the half went to fnatic after Heldt won a 1vs1 situation, but a B rush followed by Virtus.pro which fnatic couldn't stop. Now in money troubles, the favorites were unable to afford complete equipment even after an eco round, which made their efforts to come back all that much harder. They never did make it back, as the Russians poked holes in the right places of fnatic's defense and they closed the match 16-7, which was followed by short but loud celebrations.

We didn't hear much of karrigan's ratchet during the first map

The match moved to de_train, which fnatic dominated on yesterday against k23, winning 16-0 after a perfect CT side. They earned their right to start on defense this time as well, and quickly went up 3-0. Virtus.pro had the right response prepared and they were soon completely back at 3-3.

Fnatic once again pulled up by three rounds, before the Russians mustered up two more successful attacks to the inner bombsite to make it 6-5. By the end of the half, the lead was back to three, an unconvincing 9-6 in favor of fnatic.

The second half pistol went to the predominantly Danish team which gave them reasonable control of the match, making the lead 12-6 shortly after. Virtus.pro won the first buy round which came down to the last man, and then fnatic replied right away, making the situation completely reversed from their previous map.

With the Russians in severe money trouble, fnatic eased into a 16-7 victory and evened the overall score to 1-1.

LeX instructing his teammates before the third map

After a 10 minute break, the deciding map de_nuke went under way. Fnatic this time started on the less favored side, as terrorists, but they instantly went up 3-0. After Virtus.pro won the first buy round, fnatic's latest addition Heldt defended a bombplant in a 1vs2 situation, which once again gave fnatic control over the economy.

They upped their lead to 8-1 with Andersen's ratchet getting more and more air time. But the Russians still had some fight left in them managing to pull back to 8-6, before Heldt once again clutched in a 1vs3 situation for another 9-6 half time score in this match.

The next pistol round went to Virtus.pro and they brought the score to 9-9 after that. However, their anti-ecos proved to be quite expensive, as after they lost the first buy, a couple of them could only afford deagles.

Despite that, the Russians won the round which was practically worth two and they took the lead 11-10, taking the match into a very exciting finish. Armed again, fnatic quickly bounced back and regained the lead with 13-11.

fnatic finally broke the Russians at the very end of de_nuke

The deficit was once again reduced by the Russians, and they seemed about to even the score, but Michael "Friis" Jørgensen's defuse in a close situation brought his team up 14-12. Virtus.pro was unable to get back from that and the match ended with a 16-12 result, 2-1 overall in favor of fnatic.

Result

GameGune 2012

fnatic

2

Virtus.pro

1

Demo

 

fnatic

K - D

+/-

HS %

Rating

Richard 'Xizt' Landström

66-49

+17

N/A

1.29

Finn 'karrigan' Andersen

59-52

+7

N/A

1.14

Martin 'trace' Heldt

45-41

+4

N/A

0.97

Andreas 'MODDII' Fridh

52-53

-1

N/A

0.90

Michael 'Friis' Jørgensen

46-48

-2

N/A

0.88

 

 

Virtus.pro

K - D

+/-

HS %

Rating

Emil 'kucher' Akhundov

57-50

+7

N/A

1.09

Aleksey 'LeX' Kolesnikov

54-56

-2

N/A

1.00

Alexey 'xaoc' Kucherov

48-52

-4

N/A

0.92

Michael 'evil' Garanin

43-55

-12

N/A

0.87

Dmitry 'hooch' Bogdanov

41-56

-15

N/A

0.79

 

Fnatic will meet ESC in the upper bracket final as soon as both teams are ready, while Virtus.pro move down to lower bracket to play against DELTA.