​ After a tremendous start to 2018 the legendary Swedish side had a horrible downturn that eventually lead to a series of roster changes giving us their current roster with newer prospects Brollan and twist. Their performances at IEM Chicago showed their incredibly high ceiling as a team, but they’ve yet to be able to replicate that form in any tournament since.





One major factor in them having such a high ceiling is KRIMZ. With ZywOo still only having two LANs under his belt against somewhat limited opposition, I would consider KRIMZ to be the best proven individual competing in the Challengers stage (although would listen to an argument for Brehze). His consistency is the rock upon which the rest of the far more erratic members of this current fnatic squad is built around. While the two new additions of Brollan and twist have both at times put in performances that have been very impressive, aside from IEM Chicago they’ve blown hot and cold through their tenure so far. If they’re going to go far at this major those two are going to have to find a way of being more consistently activated.





Those question marks combined with their loose style make fnatic one of the highest variance teams in world Counter Strike. On their day when everybody is feeling it and hitting their shots they can rival any team, but just as often as that happens there’s also the possibility of an off day where they’re prone to be upset by almost anybody. Of the better teams in Katowice they feel the most likely to get embroiled in a brawl against one of the skilful but somewhat unrefined CIS or Chinese teams that they really should be sweeping aside.





There’s another factor that makes you feel fnatic are always at risk of an upset: Xizt's infamously questionable vetoes. Far too often over the years has he ended up with his teams playing a best of one on one of his opponent’s favourite maps. Giving a less polished team that level of comfort over a short format is a recipe for disaster. In that regard the format changes for this major involving multiple best of threes being added to the Swiss system should benefit fnatic, but if the Swedish side does bomb out early I wouldn’t be shocked to see their map vetoes be a large part of the reason.





All in all fnatic are one of the most difficult teams for me to make a prediction on for this stage due to their high variance. While I think they’re comfortably good enough to make it through, and I’d even fancy them to beat pretty much any other team in the stage apart from NRG, they’re also the team out of the favourites that I would say has the highest chance of bombing out entirely. I’m going to predict 3-0 because I think that’s their most likely result, but it really is all on the day with this squad.





Challengers Stage Prediction: 3-0





Other Major Previews:





(Image credit: ESL)​