fnatic overcome Heretics to stay alive in ESL One Cologne

After falling on the opening map of Nuke, fnatic secured victories on Inferno and Mirage to win the series over Heretics and continue their run in ESL One Cologne 2020 Europe.

Anti-eco losses, individual mistakes, as well as moments of individual briliance made for some exciting Counter-Strike in the elimination match of ESL One Cologne 2020 Europe group B, where fnatic was able to overcome Heretics and stay alive in the tournament. Things didn't look good for the Swedes initially as they were outclassed on Nuke, but revenge on Inferno followed, as well as victory on Mirage, to see fnatic march on in the lower bracket.

With poor results ever since their ESL Pro League S11 win in April and their ranking falling from #1 to #8 in the same period, fnatic are in dire need of a good result in ESL One Cologne if they want or improve on their current standing or at least stay in the top10.

Heretics pulled ahead early on their map pick of Nuke, 5-0 on the Terrorist side, before Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim inspired his team to pull back to 6-3. The Swedes' chance to make a first-half comeback withered away as they lost advantageous situations in the following two rounds, seeing Heretics end it 10-5 ahead. That lead was extended after the switch (13-6), before fnatic won a key round with a late-round redirection. Unfortunately for them, Heretics upset them with an eco in round 22 to steal away the momentum and close out the map, 16-8.

fnatic looked like a different team on Inferno, starting strongly on the T side. Their focus towards B brought success round after round, seeing the Swedes go up 8-0 swiftly. Heretics only managed to end the streak after being 11 rounds behind, thanks to Lucas "⁠Lucky⁠" Chastang's AWP triple, after which the Frenchmen went up to three for the half. They followed that up with a pistol win on the T side, but two lost ecos and a Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin A-hold ace brought Inferno to a conclusion, 16-7 for fnatic.

The chaos continued from the start of MIrage, as fnatic lost the pistol but won a low-buy in the second round to establish an early lead CT. Heretics focused on the A bombsite for the whole half and found sporadic success, but as they were not able to chain rounds together, fnatic ran up an impressive 11-4 advantage before the switch. After two underwhelming maps, Jesper "⁠JW⁠" Wecksell showed up strong on the decider and together with Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson and Golden pushed fnatic over the line, 16-9, to win the series 2-1.