Week 7 Snapshot: Fnatic

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

An impressive resurgence

This split hasn't been too kind to the men in orange. Fnatic’s middle of the table performance was not indicative of the team that has won all the previous European League of Legends Championship Series splits. Super Week, however, was different. The team coached by Araneae put up an impressive 4-0 Super week performance and were the only team to achieve the result.

Last week was a moment of triumph for Fnatic, as the team looks to set the European LCS on fire once again – just in time for the European LCS playoffs, which has proven time and time again to be their home turf.

Xpeke’s Farming Session

Fnatic started off super week with an expected win over Roccat. Cyanide on Eveylnn got the ball rolling with a gank on Roccat’s bottom lane and proceeding to kill Vander in the process securing Fnatic first blood.

Fnatic never looked in any trouble this match as Xpeke’s monstrous farming session with Orianna lead him to break the 300 creep score time set by then CLG Europe’s midlaner Froggen. Although debate surrounds the current record to 300 creep score, there was no debate about who was in control of this game. Fnatic’s laners crushed their counter parts in creep score and Fnatic won objective after objective amassing a 12,000 gold lead by 30 minutes and sent the Poles packing soon after.

A Clash of Titans

The other significant match of the day was, of course, versus the league leaders Alliance.

Although momentum favoured Fnatic heading into this game as Alliance suffered a shock defeat to a struggling Copenhagen Wolves, the team captained by Froggen was still the favourites heading into this game. Alliance’s crisp rotations and individual mechanical skill were heavily praised and while Fnatic were heading into the series 3-0, many still doubted their ability to topple the league leaders as an embarrassing call by Fnatic lost their previous encounter.

What followed was a series of bizarre decisions by the league leaders which eventually resulted in Fnatic clenching victory against Alliance in a fifty five minute slug fest worthy of watching.

Alliance’s insistence on forcing baron was puzzling to many as they undoubtedly had the stronger late game. Just when it seemed that Alliance were on the verge of out scaling Fnatic, a confusing recall decision by Alliance had ensured Fnatic obtain Baron Nashor and defeat the league leaders.

We spoke with Fnatic’s Yellowstar on their performance on super week:

1) How do you rate your performance last week? What do you think went right for you last week? What are some of the good decisions that you made. What do you think went wrong for you? What were some of the poor decisions you made?

Overall I would say that we played really well this week but we can still improve on some areas. I’d give our performance this week an eight out of ten. Surprisingly we had really good team synergy this week and I feel that we played the team fights and controlled our objectives very well.

2) What did you learn from this week and how do you plan to use what you learned for this week?

We've learned that we were not that far from Alliance in terms of level. We are a bit more confident now, which will help us in the upcoming weeks.

3) What are the expectations for the upcoming week? What are are the core goals you would like to achieve this week?

We are going to play against 2 teams that have similar score to us in the ladder and we expect to win both matches which would move us closer to Alliance in rankings.

A battle of Orange and the El Classico

Fnatic will be facing off against Supa Hot Crew and SK Gaming this week. SHC’s new assistant coach, the infamous XJ9 will have his first trial against a red hot Fnatic. It’ll be up to Cyanide to shut down the infused Impaler and prove to the world that Fnatic are truly back.

Xpeke’s performance will set the tone for Fnatic this week, as he has often been critiqued for being wildly inconsistent all split long. His performance last week was impressive and he’ll have to make sure he doesn’t fall back to his previous ways this week.

The El Classico of esports will once again get Fnatic and SK fans eagerly glued to their seats. SK Gaming has been very impressive this split, however, their super week wasn’t as good as they expected it to be, a 20 minute surrender against Alliance threw them off their game for the rest of the week, but a reinvigorated SK should be a tough match for Fnatic. SK Gaming will be another test for Fnatic’s new found macro strategy, it’s time to see if last week wasn’t just a fluke.