The Swedish derby ends with Fnatic walking through to the semifinals of the IEM Sydney 2019

Cover Image Courtesy: ESL Australia

The IEM Sydney 2019 witnessed the best match of the event yet as the Playoffs went ahead with the second game of the day between NiP and Fnatic. The Swedish rivalry was a marathon, it was intense and mentally exhausting as both the sides gave it their best but it was Fnatic who came out on top.

King of the north, still. — Jesper Wecksell (@JW1) May 3, 2019

Giants against the Ninjas

This is how the series took place,



Image Credit: HLTV

After a comfortable win on Cache to start off the series, Fnatic would have never imagined that the series would turn out into a slugfest full of awe-inspiring moments and seemingly impossible clutches.

Both the teams played well off each other on Overpass taking the game into overtime. But none of them was going to give up yet as they continued to outsmart & challenge each other through two more overtimes before NiP was able to clutch it out with f0rest holding the side alone as he chocked Fnatic for time and though he ended up getting killed the bomb ran down on the timer.

The decider on Dust 2 witnessed banger of a performance from f0rest, Get_right, JW, Xizt and dennis. All of them stepped up when required, to pull out their team from a quicksand of loss. Though NiP was off to a solid start in the second half, Fnatic was able to pull off a massive comeback and run all the way to the map point.

NiP managed to take it into overtime on the back of two insane clutches off Get_right and f0rest, denying last second plants by Fnatic on both the occasions. The match went ahead to double overtime with Fnatic swinging hard to string four successive rounds in their favour and walk away with a victory after playing more than 100 rounds against their Swedish opposition.

The 6 maps played between NiP & FNATIC in 2019



Overpass 16-14

Cache 16-19

Mirage 14-16

Cache 9-16

Overpass 25-23

Dust2 20-22



The Swedes deliver. — Bad Churchill (@SPUNJ) May 3, 2019

This was a match full of emotion with a lot more to it than just a spot in the semifinals. The way it started no one would have expected it to go down this path but after quite a long time did the entire community get to witness a competition of such level and magnitude. This match has been inscribed deep into the memory of competitive CS and will definitely be remembered for a long time to come.

Kudos to Fnatic to come out battered but not broken. They move on to face NRG Esports in the semifinals tomorrow.