Fnatic are the winners of Elisa Masters Espoo 2022

Despite losing Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson, who is their most experienced player, Fnatic managed to win the trophy at Elisa Masters Espoo 2022.

The tournament had half a dozen strong teams but the Swedes proved to be one step ahead of everyone else.

Grand Final

The tournament was fun to watch but the Grand Final was a big disappointment. Fnatic’s opponent, BIG, managed to win just 9 rounds in total and got completely destroyed on both maps: 16-4 on Vertigo and 16-5 on Overpass.

The entire Fnatic squad was on fire, with William “mezii” Merriman getting 38 kills and ending the match with a rating 2.0 of 1.61. He was the best player on the server. But the rest of his squad was very close to him.

Meanwhile, BIG’s players failed to execute the plan. It was clear from the start that something wasn’t working. Fnatic had prepared really well for the German team and in every round, BIG’s strategy backfired.

General impressions

Elisa Masters Espoo 2022 showed us that Astralis are on their way to becoming a strong team again. It seems that no matter how young and inexperienced their new players are, Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander will find a way to make them understand his vision.

This team is still 3-6 months away from being able to defeat an opponent like Natus Vincere or Team Liquid, the potential is definitely there. It just needs to be utilized.

Astralis lost against 500 and Fnatic but still managed to survive the group stage. Then, in the playoffs, they defeated ENCE (2-1) in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, the Danes weren’t far from beating Fnatic but still lost 0-2 after a close battle on the second map of the match, which was Overpass (19-16).

Fnatic’s consistency was great throughout the tournament and the team only lost once, against Complexity. Along the way, they defeated strong opponents like Astralis (twice) and BIG. This is a good sign for 2023.

Competitors like Sprout and BIG did well but it’s clear that they don’t have a solid system in place. When there is too much reliance on a few individuals and the overall system hasn’t been developed thoroughly, opponents will often find a weakness and then exploit it to perfection.

We’ve already seen the limitations of teams that have this flaw several years ago, in the case of Natus Vincere. The CIS team was heavily dependent on Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, which made them easy to beat by the top teams. But when the whole system started to function properly, Na’Vi became unbeatable. For a while at least.

Header: Elisa Esports