“I think [Fnatic] found a good mixture of players. […] They’ve built a solid foundation”: F0rest at Pinnacle Cup

Fnatic kicked off their Pinnacle Cup Championship campaign with an upset victory over Heroic in the tournament opener. Meanwhile, in the other opening match, BIG emerged victorious, defeating MIBR to secure their spot in the winners’ finals.

Speaking in an interview after the match, Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg gave his thoughts on the new Fnatic roster. With a mixture of old and young players, the Fnatic roster has had a strong start to the tournament. 

Fnatic is playing with a relatively new team with two new players and F0rest featuring as a stand-in. Fnatic were off to a great 3-0 start but the Danes were quick to respond. The Danes’ ability to pre-fire certain locations got them a defense, leveling the score at 3-3. 

F0rest is a stand-in for Fnatic during the Pinnacle Cup, a blast from the past for some of Counter-Strike’s older fans. His aggressive gameplay allowed Fnatic to dictate the pace of the game. Heroic had to counter Fnatic’s play style more than playing their own game. This gave Fnatic a big lead in the first half, at one point 8-3. 

But Heroic won the last four rounds on their defense, bringing the score to a respectable 8-7 with Fnatic in the lead. After all the back and forth gaming, with each team winning strings of rounds, the first half ended in a very even score. 

Inferno is one of the more balanced maps in CS: GO and it was evident that the game was still in no one’s favor.

Balancing out the pistol round wins, Heroic won the first three rounds on their T side. The second half looked eerily similar to the first half with both teams winning a string of rounds. But ultimately, Fnatic came out ahead on the back of some phenomenal performances by nicodoz and Krimz. With 20 kills but only 14 deaths, Nicodoz had a 1.21 rating. Krimz, on the other hand, was much more involved in the action with 22 kills and 17 deaths, with a 76.2 ADR. 

The other opener in Group A was between BIG and MIBR on Nuke. The match seemed very one-sided with a strong defense by the German side. Often playing with a mix of aggression and passive defense, the Germans were able to hold out on the first half for 13-2. 

MIBR did not give up, clawing back five rounds in the second half. But it was always going to be a tough call for MIBR to overcome a 2-13 deficit regardless of how CT sided the map is. 

Faven and Krimbo were superstars for their team with each player managing a +12 kill difference. Faven got 24 kills with a 111.7 ADR while Krimbo got 21 kills. The two teams will play in the winners' bracket matches at the Pinnacle Cup.

The Pinnacle Cup Championship has eight teams competing for a $250,000 prize pool and is taking place on LAN in Sweden.

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