One of the more highly anticipated matches thus far in the tournament took place today between Alternate Attax and Fnatic in the third round of upper bracket play. Both teams are coming off impressive showings at ESWC last weekend and have carried over their success to WSVG.

The match began with a pistol round win by Fnatic on the defensive side de_train. Attax would save the next round and go on to buy out in round 3. Fnatic countered Attax’s 3rd round attack with a decisive win and was able to keep Attax off of the board for the first 6 rounds behind clutch play including a won 1v1 by Archi in round 6.

Attax answered by winning the next 3 rounds after deciding that attacking the inside bombsite was not their best option. Attax started their winning streak with a successful outer bombsite rush capped off with a few nice shots from Kapio in a 2v2 situation (much to the chagrin of dsn’s handy AWP work). Round 5 saw another successful quick attack on the outside bombsite forcing Fnatic to save the next round. The 5th round victory was an enormous boost for Attax and played an important part in Attax’s victory.

After losing their eco round, Fnatic was able to buy out and place a series of effective defensive flashbangs on the outer bombsite to silence Attax’s rushes and secure the next 8 rounds.

In the last round of the half, Attax was able to score another won round behind a pair of big shots from Chef-Koch and Silver. At this point the match was 11-4 in favor of Fnatic’s well balanced defense. Each of the team’s 5 players managed to put up at least 14 steam points and looked extremely confident going into the second half.

The second half opened with dsn making two impressive glock headshot entry frags in the ivy. Attax’s Kapio, who came up with big frags all match, was able to one-up dsn with 3 frags to finish off Fnatic, defuse the bomb, and win the round. Round 3 gave us the half's first gun round. cArn scored two early entry frags for Fnatic giving the team plenty of time to plant and secure the bomb. Attax was forced to save during round 4.

After saving, and down 13-6, Attax showed us why they are now being considered one of the top teams in the world. Fnatic chose to use an inside / outside split for the next few rounds; their strategies failed miserably. Fnatic gave Attax the opportunity to pick off and mindlessly traded frags there after. The Swedes' lack of aggression might have cost them the match.

Finally picking up on this, Fnatic changed their tactics as they used aggressive outer bombsite rushes in rounds 8 and 9. Despite their shift in strategy, Attax was able to stop them cold, bringing the score to 13-11 in favor of Fnatic.

Fnatic was not able to get anything going for the rest of the match. They couldn’t buy an entry kill. Fnatic would continually lose men at the outset of each round, leaving members of the team facing overwhelming odds, such as 2v4’s or 1v3’s.

In rounds and 12 and 13, Fnatic did not have much money at their disposal, with most players at about 3500. Despite their lack of funds, the Swedes chose to buy out both rounds and play for the win. With most of the team lacking full armor and nades (and largely equipped with galil’s -- which are next to useless on a long-ranged map such as de_train) Fnatic would lose both rounds. Round 14 put Fnatic in another must buy situation in order to force a tie. Alternate Attax crushed any hopes Fnatic was entertaining with a brick wall of a defense on the outside site (also known as Chef-Koch and Silver.)

As the match went on throughout the second half, Fnatic’s decision making and overall level of play gradually disappeared. The team seemed to simply expect the rounds to start winning themselves, and failed to consider that they would be at a great disadvantage without full nades, armor, and an AWP in dsn’s hand. This is not how one would expect a world class team to play at such a large and important event. Fnatic gave Attax an opportunity to run away with the match, and Attax gladly took it.

MVP: Though Kapio did not amount as many frags as some of his teammates, he came up with the important frags. This is a quality that says a lot about a player. Even though his name was not at the top of the scoreboard, he made plays when they counted, earning him this writer’s MVP vote.