After a close 2-1 series, Beastcoast were able to secure the victory against Fnatic, who will now have to play qualifiers to make it to TI.
The match between Beastcoast and Fnatic had important implications. Not just for the teams playing, but for others. If Beastcoast won, then it would keep the TI dream alive for Evil Geniuses, who were eliminated yesterday. But if Fnatic won, then they would keep their dream of TI alive. Funnily enough, the stakes were lowest for Beastcoast.
Fnatic shut down Beastcoast comfort
Beastcoast went for their comfort in game one. They got the mid Snapfire for Jean "C. smile" Salazar and the classic Adrián "Wisper" Dobles Batrider. Meanwhile, Fnatic wanted to secure the late game with a Phantom Lancer pick for stand-in Enzo "Timado" O'Connor. They also took a Death Prophet for Anucha "Jabz" Jirawong to double down on the tower push.
It was an action packed laning stages with many kills being traded between the two teams. Fnatic were able to get and early kill on the bottom tower after repeatedly taking down Héctor "K1" Rodríguez on Troll Warlord. Despite this, Beastcoast still kept it even on the net worth score with K1 and C.smile on top. Nevertheless, Djardel "DJ" Mampusti was able to make many moves on Tiny to get key pick offs.
Stand-in Jonathan "Bryle" Guia continued to be a massive nuisance for Beastcoast, going on a huge killstreak on Pangolier. Fnatic looked to be rolling over the game but Beastcoast took a huge fight to be able to get Roshan. Although this was immediately put down by Bryle. After a massive fight in which DJ was able to cliff K1 on the troll, Fnatic were able to finish off the rest of the game easily.
Beastcoast wash over Fnatic in game two
In game two, Fnatic went for one of Kim "DuBu" Doo-young's favorite heroes, Warlock. They went for the double support opening also picking up Tusk for DJ. They also went for Ember Spirit for Bryle to ramp up aggression. Beastcoast went for the classic Elvis "Gojira" Peña Tiny and Wisper Puck. They decided to shake things up with a mid Underlord for C.smile, not new for them, but new for the tournament.
The laning stage for Beastcoast went very well. By it's end, Beastcoast were up by a 3k gold lead after C.smile was able to shut down Bryle early. Fnatic made some moves to get back in the game that seemed to do very well. However, C.smile's Underlord seemed to be powering up heavily as he got an ultra kill after being gone on. Beastcoast seemed to get outplay after outplay and their cores got even more big as the game went on. The team filed on the pain onto Fnatic and had a 16k lead at 20 minutes. In the end Beastcoast wrapped up at 25 minutes, absolutely destroying Fnatic.
A Nail-Biter of a Late Game
After going back to the drawing board, Fnatic looked to flex a Viper and get an aggressive support in Earthshaker. Beastcoast went for a switch up, putting Steven "StingeR" Mamani on Elder Titan and putting C.smile on the Lina. Fnatic however got a nice Phantom Lancer pick that really threw Beastcoast for a loop. After getting many of Wisper's heroes banned, Beastcoast went for AoE control with Magnus.
Though the other lanes went relatively even for Beastcoast, K1 was heavily punished in the bot lane. The Viper and Earthshaker lane put heavy harassment onto Chaos Knight and kept his last hits low. Despite these early setbacks, both teams traded kills and farm while the game stayed even. However, Beastcoast swarmed the map and took towers, getting to a 7k lead by 18 minutes.
Fnatic were able to get key pickoffs, which helps them to get Roshan despite being down by 20k. This helped to even out the game slightly. The South America kings still continued to destroy buildings but got key heroes killed off to allow Fnatic some space. After a massive Aegis steal from Gojira, they pushed for megas, and after great moves from Fnatic they got a team wipe. But Wisper was not having it. After clutch RP's Beastcoast were able to team wipe Fnatic and close out the game.
Where we go from here
Unfortunately with this loss, Fnatic will no longer be able to directly qualify to TI. However, with this win, Evil Geniuses their TI slot secured. It seemed that The South Americas were aware of this when they typed "4Arteezy" in the chat.
Will Beastcoast continue their lower bracket run? Find out with us here at esports.gg!