fnatic win DreamHack Winter 2013

Fnatic have been crowned the Dreamhack Winter 2013 champions after winning against Ninjas in Pyjamas in a best of three (16-14 de_dust2, 6-16 de_inferno, 16-2 de_train)

 With the grand final of the biggest Counter Strike tournament to date kicking off, most viewers anticipated an easy win for the defending champions.

Last time these two teams met was at Dreamhack Bucharest two months ago in the group stages and fnatic were the team who came out on top.

In the meantime they swapped Andreas "MODDII" Fridh with Markus "pronax" Wallsten who stepped in a role of their in-game leader. The team describe how satisfied they are with the new lead and that was heavily displayed in the current tournament.

Wallsten led his towards winning the pistol round in the grand finals but it didn't take too long for NiP Gaming to reply with a powerfull eco to level the score.

That launched to a three to one lead but Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund starred in the following rounds to make it 5-1 before fnatic managed to stopped their momentum.

Both teams looked determined to win that $100,000 check but it was NiP who seemed to be getting the upper edge in the battle.

Spectator area at the Dreamhack Arena was divided as both of the teams were playing on their home soil. 

Fnatic were mostly trying to save the money in order to deliver an AWP into the hands of Jesper "jw" Wecksell in order to provide opening picks for his team, something that he is widely known for being capable of.

Alesund's team didn't make that task for them really easy as they kept securing round after round with the score climbing to 10-3 overall.

Next round followed another eco for the shaken up fnatic side where both Alesund and his teammate Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg played it really carefully and got two frags each as we moved to the final round of the first half.

NiP couldn't stop an amazing comeback on de_dust2

AWP in Wecksell's hand didn't surprise Ninjas in Pyjamas since he got only one frag before being taken down by the ak47 of Adam "friberg" Friberg which led to a bomb plant on A bombsite, which turned out to be a very hard task for fnatic to retake.

Once again it was Wallsten's team who won the pistol round but this time around they didn't let their competitors surprise them again and eventually they managed to come few steps closer.

The following round brought us a smart fake from Markus "pronax" Wallsten who simply tried to trick his opponents to rotate towards A bombsite while his teammates were set for a B push afterwards.

Instead of that, he picked three frags while faking the site before being taken out but that was another round on board for fnatic.

Round number 23 brought us a push towards middle where the fnatic side got a pick on Lindberg but NiP's captain Richard "Xizt" Landstrom turned it around with two frags before he was taken down.

Two fnatic players came into B bombsite and get the bomb down, while NiP made a communication misunderstanding, not having a coherent retake so they were killed quite easily by Jonatan "Devilwalk" Lundberg.

They managed to even the game with thirteen rounds each as Ninjas in Pyjamas went for a risky buy which didn't turn out to be a good decision for them and fnatic were in the lead for the first time after the initial pistol round.

What they failed to do in that round, paid off in the following as they went for another weak buy with FAMASes and MAG-7, but this time with a way more offensive setup.

Final two rounds went to fnatic as they secure the map with 16-14 to shock everyone in the room, making one of the best comebacks in the tournament.

The Ninjas got the upper hand on de_inferno, with some great teamplay helping them get a five to nothing lead as terrorists.

That made Jesper "jw" Wecksell completely angry as he made three entry kills to finally clinch the first round for his squad.

Wecksell was on form once again for fnatic

Both of the teams had a significant help from their managers in the shape of Patrik "cArn" Sättermon and Emil "HeatoN" Christensen who were supporting them with emotional reactions in-between rounds.

Fnatic picked the game up a bit, but just when they hit the turnpoint with the bomb down on A site with a two versus one, Friberg was the one clutching the round and that was the sign of things to come.

First half ended up with 11-4 and they did really well in the pistol as they got the round down, but Andreas "schneider" Lindberg got a ninja defuse with Robin "Fifflaren" Johansson but once again.

MSI BeatIt! runners-up lost against an eco once again and they couldn't do anything by the end of de_inferno which went in favour of NiP Gaming.

Final map, determining on who will win $100,000 was on de_train. Both teams played only one opponent on that map throughout the whole tournament. Ninjas in Pyjamas won 16-10 over Recursive while fnatic overcame their compatriots LGB eSports with 16-9.

Fnatic got the early lead on the map with a successfull retake on the inner bombsite while being on the statistically stronger Counter-Terrorist side.

The youngsters of Patrik "cArn" Sättermon were anticipating every NiP move and it has been working well for them, which meant they have prepared really strong coming into this map.

Another techical hiccup gave NiP a chance to cool down after a 0-5 deficit and it seemed they got the most of it, picking their first round of the map.

Their momentum didn't last for too long as fnatic kept on winning round after round to make the score 11-1 until it was once again Alesund making a one versus three clutch to win the round.

After a 13-2 half time score, 146,000 ecstatic viewers on both twitch.tv and GOTV were waiting for the second pistol round to pan out and it was Wecksell once again a star with three kills to lead his team two rounds away from the victory.

Fnatic simply weren't ready to give a happy ending to NiP's TV6 documentary and they have jumped from their seats to celebrate their DreamHack Winter 2013 victory.

DreamHack Winter final standings:

1.  fnatic - $100,000
2.  Ninjas in Pyjamas - $50,000
3-4.  Team VeryGamess - $22,000
3-4.  compLexity - $22,000
5-8.  Recursive - $10,000
5-8.  LGB eSports - $10,000
5-8.  Astana Dragons - $10,000
5-8.  Copenhagen Wolves - $10,000
9-16.  Natus Vincere - $2,000
9-16.  Universal Soldiers - $2,000
9-16.  Clan Mystik - $2,000
9-16.  iBUYPOWER - $2,000
9-16.  n!faculty - $2,000
9-16.  SK Gaming - $2,000
9-16.  xapso - $2,000
9-16.  Reason Gaming - $2,000