by in
The first round of the ESL Pro League Season 16 Group A match ended with Fnatic crushing Ninjas in Pyjamas with a 16-4 record on Ancient and Overpass.
The team started the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive series as the underdogs. However, they were able to dismantle Ninjas in Pyjamas in one of the year’s most one-sided series at the top level so far.
After the PGL Antwerp Major in May, Fnatic switched up its lineup and signed new players. Nico “nicoodoz” Tamjidi and Fredrik “roeJ” Jørgensen were brought in from Copenhagen Flames, and later on, Dion “FASHR” Derksen, ECSTATIC’s former rifler, was signed.
The three players joined the rest of Fnatic’s lineup, which included William “mezii” Merriman and Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson. In their most recent match, the new team showed that their training was not in vain.
“It’s a lot of confidence in the team,” mezii said.
“We’ve built a really good team atmosphere, and everyone is having fun.
“We said before the game, ‘just play with confidence, and we’ll see what happens,’ and it turned out well.”
During the match against NiP, Fnatic was relentless despite the Swedish team’s current status as one of the top CS:GO teams worldwide.
They displayed merciless aggression on both Ancient and Overpass maps. In Ancient, the first map Fnatic picked, the British franchise posted a masterclass, defeating NiP by a 16-4 landslide.
The win resulted from the efforts of FASHR and nicoodoz. The players led the charge on the T section of the map, earning them an early lead.
When NiP earned their first-round win, Fnatic’s roeJ countered using a 1v2 clutch. The Swedish team managed to win three more rounds on the map, but Fnatic were definitive and ended the match with a 16-4 record.
Nicoodoz’s performance on the map earned him a 2.04 rating and a 25-11 K/D. At the end of the map, FASHR also got an impressive 1.68 rating and a 21-9 K/D.
Overpass saw the same treatment from Fnatic. RoeJ stepped up and led the team to victory. The player ended the series against NiP with 42 kills and 18 deaths.
His performance earned him a 1.64 rating as well as a 100.7 ADR. Fnatic almost achieved a perfect CT side with a 14-1 score in the first half of the map.
The Samuel Matthews-owned franchise won the first half by countering NiP on every side, as well as by executing stellar fragging and seamless trading of the team’s players.
They notably flanked or stacked against bombsite attacks in the first half. NiP’s Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin was able to bag a 1v3 win before the side swap, which stopped Fnatic from doling out a complete sweep.
The team’s captain, Hampus “hampus” Poser, notably made only one kill in Overpass’ first half and, in the second half, added three more wins to the tally after he was shifted to defense.
He ended the series with 37 deaths and only nine kills. Due to Fnatic’s daunting win in the first half of the second map, NiP had little chance of recovering in the second half. The team once again executed a landslide win and shut down the second half of Overpass with a 16-4 victory.
