“The win over G2 felt good. Especially after they called us onliners, just to put them in the ground”: Fnatic Mistic

Fnatic pulled out a hard fought victory over Turkish team BBL Esports in their second match of EMEA Challengers Stage 1. This win moves Fnatic up in the table as they are currently 2-0 after last week's win over G2 esports.

"The win over G2 felt good. Especially after they called us onliners, just to put them in the ground." said Mystique in an interview right before their BBL match.

Fnatic defeated G2 esports 2-1 in the first week of VCT Challengers EMEA. The team has recently made a change to its roster when it added BraveAF to the squad. Mystique says the new player has adapted naturally to the various positions on the team and feels like a good fit for the squad. So far with Fnatic's 2-0 start to the Challengers, not many could argue.

Starting off this matchup we headed over to Icebox, a map which has become somewhat of a comfort pick within Fnatic's map pool. This was evident as Fnatic took the first three rounds of the defense. Though BBL briefly interrupted the momentum with a round win of their own things seemed to spiral out of control for them; with Fnatic cruising to a comfortable 9 - 3 lead at halftime. With Derke seemingly having the time of his life in their snowy playground.

The Turkish team tried to their best to get something going on their defense as they won the opening three rounds to start the second half. But despite a couple of blunders on the side of Fnatic, they ultimately took Icebox 13 - 6, giving them a 1 - 0 lead. BBL had it all to do now.

Map 2 saw the match heading to Ascent, where Fnatic opened up proceedings with a quick 4 - 0 lead. But just when it looked as though we were going to get a repeat of Map 1, BBL managed to win three rounds in a row to close the gap on Fnatic's lead. What followed then was a back-and-forth affair as the teams went into halftime tied at 6 - 6. But the momentum seemed to be shifting in favour of BBL.

This seemed to be the case as the Turkish side won the second pistol round of the game. And despite Fnatic getting two rounds of their own, the BBL boys hit back in epic fashion; in no small part due to a few moments of brilliance from QuitionerX. With a narrow 10 - 8 lead it seemed like things were looking up for BBL. Unfortunately they were unable to hold back the orange tide for very long as Fnatic were able to string together five back-to-back offensive rounds wins to take the map 13 - 10, and the series 2 - 0.

This was arguably one of the closest 2 - 0 wins we are likely to see in EMEA Challengers. With this win Fnatic currently sit at 2 - 0 in Group B; having triumphed over G2 in their previous match. And while it would seem that their online woes from last season are becoming a thing of the past, that doesn't mean that they have been without faults in their two matches thus far.

Icebox has seemingly become Fnatic's go-to map pick, and they have looked good on it for the most part. But they looked far less comfortable playing on Ascent, a map which has caused them all sorts of problems in their two matches thus far. And although they managed to pull it out of the bag in the end, BBL Esports could very well have taken that map.

Fnatic will have plenty to do it seems as they prepare to face Acend in Week 3 of EMEA Challengers. Whereas BBL will be hoping they can bounce back from this defeat when they face off against G2 Esports.

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