Anaheim, California The upper bracket finals are finished, and Nihilum stands victorious over fnatic with a strong 3 to 1 win. For all four maps, both teams played Warrior Warlock Druid, so it was exactly what the fans have been waiting for -- the test to see which continent plays it better. Fnatic, having the track record of two MLG wins, and Nihilum winning EM Leipzig and 2nd at EM LA, are both definitely the top WLD teams in their respective continents. BlizzCon 2008 brought these two together and now GotFrag takes a look at just exactly what went wrong for fnatic, and what went right for Nihilum.

The first two matches between these two titans played out practically the same. Paperkat and Inflame from Nihilum went on the offensive extremely quickly, putting as much pressure possible on their opponents. Paperkat did an incredible job staying locked onto the difficult target of Hafu, which caused most of fnatic's problems. From the start of both of these matches, Hafu was brought down to critical HP very early in the rounds, so she was playing the catch up game the entire time. The first match came down to Hafu sitting at 0 mana for about 5 seconds, allowing Nihilum to take Rhaegyn out with ease. The second match had Hafu with at least 1000 mana, but not enough throughput to catch up with the damage that Nihilum had been outputting.



At a decisive 2-0 lead, Nihilum was looking as strong as ever. Fnatic took their time between the second and third match to discuss what was genuinely going wrong, and what they could do to pull out a much needed win. With no comps changes in sight, both teams said they were ready and the start of round three came quickly.

In match three, however, the play style of fnatic was much different than their first two. Glickz seemed to be attempting a "bait" strategy where he would move into the center and then as soon as he was attacked, pull back to the rest of his team. This seemed to start the match off in the right tone as Hafu was not the first target of Nihilum, but rather Glickz was. Switching the damage around here allowed Hafu to keep up with the healing with no problem, which allowed Rhaegyn and Glickz the ability to do their jobs as needed. A clutch fear from Glickz onto Carekoala left Nihilum without a healer at a critical moment and left Paperkat as stranded as could be. fnatic went on to take the match and their only victory of the series.

The final match seemed to be the most exciting for the players and the fans alike. Straight into the action, as always, both Hafu and Paperkat dipped low at the beginning. Low enough for some swap-to-kill action, but neither team was able to react fast enough and both ended up getting away. Then came time for Paperkat and Rhaegyn to swap onto each other, and at which point, unleashing full rage bars meant trouble for both team's healers. Much to the chagrin of one fan's "You're done Paperkat!" call, both warriors were brought back up in no time. Then, as quickly as Rhaegyn was brought up to full, Paperkat and Inflame laid back into him and he was brought into critical health range. Hafu seemed to have been caught off guard and without the needed healing, Rhaegyn was gibbed extremely quickly.

Check back at GotFrag later for up to the minute action from BlizzCon 2008, including the Grand Finals of the 3v3 Arena Tournament between Nihilum Plasma and Selective Queuers.

Also check out our interview with Paperkat from Nihilum, Nihilum paperkat on beating fnatic immediately following this series, with his thoughts on his teams' performance and their outlook on tomorrow!


BlizzCon 2008 WoW Melee/Scores
Blizzcon WoW Team Preview
Blizzcon Begins
A look at Fnatic versus MiT
Nihilum spanks x6tence on stage
fnatic, CoM crush foes at BlizzCon
Selective Queuers advance
Nihilum paperkat on beating fnatic