After dropping a series to SMG, Fnatic is back with vengeance. Unfortunately, Polaris Esports takes the full brunt of it and will fall down to Division II.
Fnatic quickly learned their lesson after facing a huge upset losing 0-2 to Team SMG on July 2. They did not play around this time by drafting their best-performing heroes to finish off Polaris Esports as quickly as possible. This loss means a full loss streak for Polaris Esports in Division I, and they inevitably face the fate of relegation.
Fnatic destroyed Polaris in 20 minutes with a final score of 30 - 1
Game one broke the record of the fastest game this SEA DPC season. Within 20 minutes, Fnatic closed the game out with a kill score of 30 - 1 and a 25k net worth advantage. The one death came from the support Undying by Jaunuel.
From start to finish, Polaris could not make a single dent in Fnatic's lineup. At the 10-minute mark, Armel's Puck claimed a triple kill, shooting Fnatic up to a 3k gold advantage and bringing the score to 10 - 1. Just four minutes later, they secured Roshan while adding seven more kills to the tally. Meanwhile, Polaris was still stuck with their one kill on the Undying.
Just 16 minutes into the game, Fnatic succeeded in breaking their first set of barracks at the bottom lane, which grew their net worth advantage to 14k with a score of 24-1.
Polaris attempted a counterattack by moving onto the Raven Luna, but was completely outclassed by Dj's impressive Tusk Snowball save. This gave Fnatic the upper hand to take out four out of five from Polaris.
The sole survivor, Natsumi Juggernaut, made one last desperate move by using Omnislash against the still healthy Fnatic lineup. However, the Tusk once again protected his team using Snowball, denying all damage coming out of the Juggernaut. All of Polaris was wiped out shortly after and had to call the game.
A better looking Polaris but still not enough to take a win
The second game was less one-sided than the first. Even though Fnatic did not lift their feet off the gas by picking strong team fighting heroes like Tiny, Enigma, and Wyvern, Polaris was able to compete with them toe-to-toe.
Polaris controlled the game and brought the pressure up against Fnatic. The Lelouch Keeper of the Light had an amazing start, securing 100 creep score in 10 minutes which got him an early Boots of Travel and an Urn of Shadows.
Polaris hit its peak when the Nevermine Pango was able to take down four players from Fnatic, which brought the team to a 7k net worth lead in under 18 minutes.
However, it did not take long for Polaris to lose their advantage after the Raven Bristleback came online. Fnatic slowly chipped away at Polaris' advantage by forcing unfavorable fights against them. Even when the Jing Rubick was able to steal the perfect spells, nothing could stop the Bristleback from bulldozing everyone.
Things became much worse for Polaris when they lost a crucial team fight at the Roshan pit, which caused them to forfeit all of their lives along with the Aegis of Immortal. From here, Polaris began to spiral to their inevitable demise.
The Bristleback was absolutely unstoppable. After taking down Polaris one last time, Raven opened an opportunity for Fnatic to end the game.
Jaunuel will not reveal Fnatic's secret on how they improved upon losing to SMG
Fnatic's position five player, Jaunuel, was invited to speak for the post-game interview. He first talked about the reason for his team's downfall against Fnatic. According to Jaunuel, the match against SMG "was not a real match" because Fnatic changed the way they played and drafted, which led to their loss.
He was then asked what Fnatic did to improve upon the loss to which he responded, "cannot say" before laughing along with the panelists.
I think we want to play them sooner because we are pretty confident going into the DPC, and maybe we just want to get rid of them already because they will be stronger as time goes on.
Finally, when asked whether he preferred to face his upcoming opponents Boom Esports and T1 sooner than later, Jaunuel mentioned that he would rather face them earlier mentioning the team's confidence during the start of the season. Hopefully, this will not change the fact that Fnatic will have to bring their best against the two teams.
Fnatic will be facing Boom Esports on July 9 and T1 on July 14. Be sure to follow the Division 1 and Division 2 DPC schedules on our site.
