Fnatic became the first organization to do back-to-back international titles after emerging as the VALORANT Champions Tour Masters Tokyo champions after getting a 3-0 win against Evil Geniuses on Sunday, June 25.
The Europeans have thus secured their status as the best in pro-VALORANT in 2023. In a best-of-five that started on Lotus, Fnatic couldn’t dominate EG on the same terrain where they had done so previously against EG as they ended the half 6-6.
However, Fnatic took hold of the second half and took EG out easily with a 13-8 scoreline, conceding just two rounds in the second half. In Split, it was close at the start for the two teams until Fnatic pulled clear with a four-round lead.
Emir “Alfajer” Beder’s Cypher was key to taking that lead as he used his camera to survey the A site, hide in corners, take a peak and gather information and kills.
Tied at 11-11, Nikita “Derke” Sirmitev earned Fnatic the match point when he exploded onto the B site in round 23, getting four kills. After making two fast kills that enabled the bomb plant, they did a double kill as they went up 2-0 in the series.
Evil Geniuses tried to get their way back into the game. They pulled out a desperate Reyna and Chamber combo, as the agents were barely touched across the Tokyo event before the duel on Bind.
That did rattle Fnatic off guard, with Kelden “Boostio” Pupello on the Reyna and Max “Demon1” Mazanov on the Chamber. EG continued to dominate Bind and were up 8-4 at the half, and subsequently 12-7, as they looked way ahead of Fnatic as Ascent continued to look like a formality to finish Fnatic.
However, the EMEA champs managed to stretch over time and snatched their second title of 2023.
Daniel Ademiju Idowu
