fnatic to playoff upper bracket over Vitality

fnatic defeated Vitality 2-0 (16-7 Inferno, 16-12 Nuke) to secure a spot in the playoffs upper bracket semi final, while Vitality will have to fight their way through the lower bracket of the playoffs.

Vitality bounced back from an anti-force loss on the T side of Inferno with a force buy of their own, getting to a 4-1 lead before their B approach was thwarted by Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist quad-kill with a UMP-45. That started fnatic's run on the CT side, with Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim's ace in round eight being key to extending it to seven rounds in a row (8-4).

Alongside the in-game leader, the young gun Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin was stepping up for the Swedes, who only dropped one round — against Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut's 4K on a mixed buy —, before ending the half 10-5 up. fnatic came on top in the pistol round and were successful in their calculated approach in the anti-force, extending the lead to 13-5. Vitality then mustered two in a row, but their comeback attempt was cut short as fnatic chained three to claim the map win, 16-7.

Vitality won the T-side pistol round on the lower bombsite of Nuke, their map pick, but fnatic looked unhindered by that and swiftly bounced back with a force buy which they claimed comfortably. That gave the Swedes a 3-1 lead, while Vitality's first rifle round win was followed by Golden denying ZywOo's 1v3 attempt. fnatic shortly broke their opponents' money, and extended their advantage to 6-2.

Alex "⁠ALEX⁠" McMeekin secured a triple in a late-round push towards B to help Vitality to their third, but the French once again failed to chain it together, losing men in their outside approaches time and time again. With that, fnatic ran up a 11-3 lead, Vitality replied by winning a 3v3 after-plant in the last round and picked up the first two on the defense, narrowing the gap to 11-6.

Managing two defuses on the lower site in back-to-back rounds gave Vitality the stability to tie seven rounds together, equalizing the score at 11-11. Then, Brollan was almost able to pull off a 1v4 ace clutch, but he was denied by Cédric "⁠RpK⁠" Guipouy as the French grabbed the lead. It was a short-lived one, however, as fnatic finally figured out how to crack open the defenses and won five rounds in the row to take the map and the series victory over Vitality.