Mousesports sweep Fnatic to win the ESL Pro League Finals
Mousesports crushed an off-colour fnatic 3-0 on Inferno, Train and Mirage to bag themselves a huge trophy for the new-ish roster. Robin ‘ropz’ Kool had mentioned beforehand that anything less than a Grand Final would be a failure, and boy did he make good on his promise - 74 kills and a +29 k/d. Ludvig ‘Brollan’ Brolin, the youngest member of fnatic, was the standout performer for the Swedes, with a phenomenal performance; 71 kills and a stunning ace, but it wasn’t enough for an otherwise misfiring fnatic.
Inferno
It started on Inferno, where it usually ends, and it started explosively. After a clean pistol from fnatic, it was a far less clean second round. Robin ‘ropz’ Kool opened up with a first deagle kill on short, which meant David ‘frozen’ Čerňanský was left unchecked on site. The two youngsters ganged up for a full house of deagle kills to steal away round 2 with a force buy.
mouz made no such mistakes on anti-force rounds, especially not Özgür ‘woxic’ Eker, who crushed the offense with a quick FAMAS ace, and quickly moved to 3-1 up, but fnatic roared back in the ensuing gun round, with Maikil ‘Golden’ Selim and Ludvig ‘Brollan’ Brolin teaming up to mow down four retaking CT’s for an unlikely post-plant conversion on the A site.
fnatic battled back to a 8-5 lead, and subsequently a 9-6 half, from 2-5, and all was looking rosy for the swedes. But as we saw yesterday from mousesports, giving in is not a phrase in their vocabulary. They grabbed the pistol and equalised the score with a force buy win at 10-9, thanks to a dirty double entry from Chris ‘chrisj’ de Jong with the Galil.
mousesports looked set to close it out with no issues as they went 14-10 up, and planted the bomb on the A site with two players versus one, but Golden went and stuck the defuse in the smoke after picking off one, and pulled off a 10 second defuse under the nose of woxic.
It didn’t matter, though. Finn ‘karrigan’ Andersen hopped through a smoke, killed a chicken and a CT, before calling a rotate to an empty A site - a stunning piece of in-game leading - and from there, it was always going to be a mousesports win.
Train
Once again, Train started well for fnatic, as they moved into a 3-0 lead early on thanks to a Jesper ‘JW’ Wecksell glock double on the A site, but mouz converted a 2v3 with frozen catching the Freddy ‘KRIMZ’ Johansson flank in T main. ropz closed the round out, and opened up the next one, flying through a molotov to catch Brollan unaware.
Brollan was a one-man retake on the B site after chrisj one-tapped his teammate, as he cleaned up all three in a three v three. Rounds went back and forth, and just as fnatic looked like they may cement the lead, woxic smited down four with the AWP to turn a 3v5 into a mousesports win.
fnatic did take a 9-6 lead into the half, but moving into the T side of Train, their chances looked slim. They lost three on the bounce at the start of the half, and JW tried to lift spirits with a Zeus kill, but he couldn’t even manage that, whiffing it entirely.
KRIMZ survived two AWP shots from chrisj, but the third from woxic was enough to close the next round. At 13-10, new fan favourite karrigan finally stepped up - going from 8 to 13 kills in one round, playing around a smoke and bagging a double through it to kick off the round.
He bowed to his new fans, and put on a show to win the game. With 10 seconds left of the round, he killed three in a 2v4 to stop the plant and win the map for mouz.
Mirage
Mirage started with fnatic winning the pistol, again, and actually seeing off the forcebuy. That’s all well and good, but they then got broken the round after, as frozen took down two with a saved MAC-10 to steal away the round.
The Swedes looked better on gun rounds, but they once again lost to a scrappy buy from the international roster, with two AWPs saved but not a lot else. It was exceptionally close, though, with the defuser and the guy covering him surviving on a combined 3hp - flusha was one bullet away from winning the round.
Turkish sniper woxic bagged two in connector to start the next round, and then sniped down four from triple box in a man-down retake à la chrisj against Liquid.
karrigan wanted this over with to celebrate in front of his new friends in the crowd, and his auto-sniper nonsense on the CT side will only have made him more friends - well, except in Sweden. He dak-dakked two down as fnatic tried to hit A.
mousesports once again lost the pistol round, but won the first gun round as chrisj tapped down three on the B rush. At 13-7, fnatic looked down and out, and even with wunderkind Brollan destroying the A hit with a stunning ace and a JW quartet of frags, the comeback never seemed too likely.
Leading from the front, karrigan cut out any idea of choking with a lurk into jungle to end fnatic’s defense of the A site, and put mouz in touching distance. mousesports were unstoppable - not least the young boy ropz, who took home the MVP of the tournament.
mousesports are your ESL Pro League victors!
Image Credit | ESL
