fnatic overpower BIG 2-0 to win Elisa Masters Espoo

fnatic have been crowned champions of Elisa Masters Espoo after crushing BIG 2-0 in the grand final. The European roster carried their dominant tournament-wide performance straight into the final matchup, annihilating the Germans 16-4 on Vertigo before closing things out with a 16-5 thrashing on Overpass.

The two teams both came into the $200,000 LAN tournament without their full starting five, but this didn’t stop them from putting up strong runs en route to a grand final appearance. fnatic were forced to call up Peppe “⁠Peppzor⁠” Borak in place of Freddy “⁠KRIMZ⁠” Johansson, who is currently sidelined due to a hand injury. BIG, meanwhile, welcomed Josef “⁠faveN⁠” Baumann back into the fold as a replacement for Florian “⁠syrsoN⁠” Rische, who contracted COVID-19 just before the start of the competition.

With this gold-medal finish, fnatic take home the $100,000 first-place prize as well as secure the team an appearance at the IEM Katowice 2023 Play-In, the prelude to the $1,000,000 main tournament which will get started on January 31, 2023. The event win in Espoo also ushers in a new era for the European quintet, with this being fnatic‘s first LAN event win since DreamHack Masters Malmö 2019. It was Dion “⁠FASHR⁠” Derksen‘s time to show up for his team in this game, averaging a 1.56 rating across the two maps, a noticeable jump compared to the 1.07 rating he has displayed in the past three months.

BIG, on the other hand, end their final tournament outing of 2022 as runners-up. The German side has had a relatively mixed year results-wise; they clinched just one event win at the online Roobet Cup, while also failing to make deep runs in their Big Event appearances like ESL Pro League Season 16 and the IEM Rio Major. BIG will lament their less than competitive showing in their grand final match versus fnatic, with all of the team’s players sitting firmly in the red.

FASHR went nuclear on Overpass with a 1.64 rating and 102 ADR

The action between the two teams began on Vertigo, BIG‘s pick. fnatic struck first, adding four rounds to the Germans’ one thanks to a red-hot Fredrik “⁠roeJ⁠” Jørgensen, who had already put 11 kills on the board. BIG‘s woes only continued as the first half played out, with the squad finding themselves trailing by seven rounds, 2-9, even with the support of a vocal contingent of the Roaring Bears in the front of the crowd. BIG recovered somewhat as their offensive effort drew to a close, snatching away two much-needed rounds to head into their CT-side with a far less daunting 4-11 deficit.

Any chance of a BIG comeback was quickly dashed as fnatic showed no mercy in the short-lived second half. The European outfit nabbed their second pistol of the map with a fast play through Middle, before converting the following three rounds with relative ease to steal their foes’ pick 16-4 and go 1-0 up in the grand final. William “⁠mezii⁠” Merriman once again put up strong numbers after his resurgent performance in the semi-final on Saturday. The captain led both his team and the server with 22 kills and a stellar 1.83 rating.

Next up was Overpass, where fnatic sought to pile on the pressure by starting their time on the attack with a 5-2 lead, courtesy of clinical utility usage which did wonders at keeping the Germans at bay. fnatic, now with the wind in their sails, maintained their dominant posture in the server and brushed aside an opponent that looked increasingly deflated and out of their depth, 9-4. The remaining two rounds offered no respite to BIG, with precise shooting from the entirety of the European combine once against allowing fnatic to boast a lopsided 11-4 scoreline at the switch.

fnatic and BIG traded a round apiece to kick off the second half. Just as the Germans looked poised to finally be in with a chance of putting up a streak of rounds, FASHR and mezii shut down the B site with a pair of Desert Eagles to steal back the momentum, 13-5. At this point, there was little BIG could do to recover; an ace by the stand-in of Peppzor got fnatic to match point, with the 20-year-old going on to gun down two more in the round that followed to put the final nail in the coffin, 16-5, and win his team the Elisa Masters Espoo trophy in the process.