carrico
Since the start of the Valorant competitive scene, Fnatic has almost always been among the best teams in the world.
In the first-ever Valorant international event they finished second being only bested by Sentinels who many consider to be the first superteam in Valorant History.
After a great start to 2021 Fnatic Stage 2 performances weren’t the best and the team didn’t make it to the second Internacional event of the year Masters Berlin.
However, after a somewhat quiet second part of the year, the team managed to qualify for Valorant Champions due to the points system and Gambit victory at Masters Berlin that gave EMEA an extra slot.
At Valorant Champions Fnatic once again showed a very high level of play and grabbed the first seed of their group, a group most called the group of death due to the fact it had three great teams.
With a fifth-place finish at Valorant Champions Fnatic was officially back to their best form.
The team decided to make a roster change, Doma left for TENSTAR and BraveAF replaced him.
2022 looked really promising for Fnatic and it started really well for the squad.
From a top-three finish in EMEA to having to play with two stand-ins in the first Internacional event of the year
In Stage 1 Fnatic was placed in Group B of the Champions Tour Stage 1: EMEA Challengers, alongside long-time rivals G2 Esports, reigning world champions Acend, Guild Esports with their new roster, and the two best teams from Turkey, BBL Esports and SuperMassive Blaze.
During the group stage, Fnatic dominated group B, only dropping two maps and not losing a single series, finishing with a perfect 5-0 record.
BraveAF quickly became a very important piece of the team and they were playing some of the best Valorant in the team’s history.
Going into the playoffs Fnatic was seen as one of the favorites to win it all, and after defeating M3 Champions 2-1 in the Upper semifinals, most people saw Fnatic as the team to beat in this playoff.
But unfortunately for Fnatic and their Fans, the squad playoff success stopped there. After their win versus M3 Champions, they lost 2-0 versus FPX, being 13-0 in the first map of the series, and then G2 Esports dominated them in the Lower Final, 3-0 their rivals and eliminating them from the playoffs.
Despite an underwhelming performance in the playoffs, Fnatic still qualified for Masters Reykjavík and they were going to have a shot at redemption.
In all the international events they had attended previous to Masters Reykjavík Fnatic worse finish was a 5-8th place at Valorant Champions, so it was safe to say Fnatic thrived on the international stage and in a LAN environment.
However, some unexpected and unlucky things happened to the UK giants.
First, it was the BraveAF situation. After some messages were leaked where BraveAF seemed to support the war in Ukraine, Fnatic launched an internal investigation and BraveAF ended up being suspended from the squad.
This situation happened ten days before Masters Reykjavík which left the team in a very disadvantageous position since they weren’t going to have the time to completely incorporate a player into their style, and no one would learn the playbook in a little more than a week.
But hey lightning never strikes twice right? Well, it seems it does.
Derke tested positive for Covid-19 and this means the team would have to play the group without their starting player, and would only have him back in the playoffs.
With two stand-ins things weren’t looking good for Fnatic. Having two stand-ins is already bad but when you are playing against the best teams in the world it makes it even worse.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Fnatic performance at Masters Reykjavík wasn’t good.
They lost the first series of the tournament versus Ninjas In Pyjamas 2-0, and later lost to the surprise of the tournament ZETA DIVISION also 2-0 and were eliminated from Masters Reykjavík in the group stage, without even winning a map.
The young talent that lifted the team to the Valorant Olympus
After Masters Reykjavík, the organization decided changes were needed in order to achieve its goal, of winning EMEA, and an Internacional event.
First, it was Enzo that signed to the team and was going to replace BraveAF, as the Russian player had his contract terminated.
Then Magnum joined KOI and in his place, Fnatic acquired Alfajer a 16 tears old talent from Turkey.
At first, some people were skeptical after all Alfajer still hadn’t played at a tier-one level, and despite being very talented some people wondered how we would adapt to the tier 1 level.
But it didn’t take people too long to realize how good Alfajer was. The player had an immediate impact on his first series under the Fnatic banner.
Against FPX we had a plus-minus of +22, was crowed the series MVP, and helped Fnatic defeat the reigning EMEA champions 2-1.
This was only the beginning since after that more MVP-level performances followed.
With Derke also playing like one of the best players in the world (not top 20 by the way, plat chat fans will understand it), Fnatic looked not only like the best team in EMEA but maybe even the best team in the world.
Once again the team cruised to a perfect record in the group stage and secured a place in the Upper Semifinals.
Similar to Stage 1 they started the playoffs with a win defeating reading EMEA champions FPX 2-1, with a spectacular series by Derke.
This time in the Upper Final Fnatic came out on top. With a convincing 2-0 win versus Guild Esports, securing their place at Masters Copenhagen.
In the Grand Final Fnatic once again met FPX, and for the third time in the Split they managed to defeat them, this time with a 3-0 scoreline, and Alfajer had a spectacular series, showing why he is a Superstar player at just 17 years old.
Fnatic road to reclaiming their EMEA crown wasn’t an easy one. The team faced many difficulties but was able to persevere.
With the addition of Alfajer and Enzo before the start of Stage 2, the team became much better and went from a good team to one of the best teams in the world.
With Masters Copenhagen just around the corner, EMEA fans have hope that Fnatic can bring the level of dominance they displayed domestically to the International stage and finally get that international trophy they have been chasing for almost two years.
