Welcome to EGamersWorld.
We're continuing our look at what's happening at Thunderpick World Championship 2024. In case you've forgotten, this is an $850,000 championship with a prize pool comparable to the top events on the professional CS2 scene.
The tournament is currently in the group stage. We are interested in the quartet B, where, among others, 9z and Fnatic play, who will open the Thunderpick World Championship 2024 with a face-to-face match in Group B.
We try to find out how this match will end and which of the teams will earn their first win in Thunderpick World Championship 2024.
Let's go.
Form 9z
Let's open the 9z vs Fnatic match with an analysis of 9z's form. In this match they will play as favourites with odds to win around 1.7.
The Argentine club spent the whole year at all sorts of championships. Most of them were regional tournaments like CCT South America, where one of the championships 9Z Team took TOP-1.
They have also made appearances at prestigious international events. For example, in March this year they visited Intel Extreme Masters Dalls 2023, where they even managed to beat Fnatic, but still didn't make it past the group stage and finished in the top 12.
- 9Z Team: dgt, max, buda, HUASOPEEK, Martinez.
Prior to the ESL Pro League Season 18, the Argentinians played at a number of "medium" level championships. These were CCT North Europe Series 7, where 9Z Team finished in the top 16 and Thunderpick World Championship 2023: Europe, where the team finished in the top 8.
At ESL Pro League Season 18, 9Z managed to qualify for the play-offs by going the longest way possible - the last chance grid. 9Z got there by losing to FaZe in the beginning and then to Imperial. Then a very solid comeback at the bottom: a clean win against M80 and Apeks and a 2-1 win against 5cyclone. However, it failed to get any further than the top 12.
In the 2024 season, 9z never gave up trying to play wherever they could. This was the case at the qualifiers for Intel Extreme Masters Chengdu 2024: SA, PGL Major Copenhagen 2024: SA Qualifier and ESL Pro League Season 19: SA Qualifier.
Among the big tournaments where 9z made their mark were IEM Chengdu 2024, where they finished top-16, Global Esports TOur Rio de Janeiro 2024 with top-6. There were also smaller championships like RES Latin American Series #4 with TOP-2 and CBCS Season 4 with TOP-2.
9z Team unexpectedly showed their best side at IEM Dallas 2024. The Argentinians beat MOUZ in the first round and then beat Team Liquid to earn a slot in the play-offs. But even The International was more interesting: a clean win over Vitality guaranteed 9z Team a direct passage to the semi-finals of IEM Dallas 2024. However, it was not possible to pass further, G2 were stronger and at the end of the championship 9Z took the top 4.
Next they played at ESL Challenger League Season 47: SA, where they took the top 3 and visited the FiReLEAGUE Global Final 2023, where in the grand final, they were defeated by Fnatic, thus winning $100,000.
They got to IEM Cologne 2024 thanks to ESL World Ranking SA. However, they failed to rise above the top 16.
In addition to IEM Cologne 2024, 9z played at other TIR-S tournaments such as Dacha Belgrade 2024 and ESL Pro League Season 20. At the former they finished in the top 10, but at the Pro League it was much worse - top 28.
Before playing at Thunderpick World Championship 2024, 9z Club played Intel Extreme Masters Rio 2024, where they finished top-16.
Mappul 9Z Team
The Argentinians' best map is Inferno. 9Z have played there 11 times and have a statistic of 8-3. Next comes Nuke (8-4) and Ancient (4-2).
Things are not much worse on Mirage and Overpass. On the former, which is true, only 3 games, but 2-1, but on Overpass it's already 5-3.
Neutral map is Anubis. 9Z has a score of 2-2 there.
They don't play on Vertigo.
Fnatic form
Let's continue the analysis of the match Fnatic vs 9z with the analysis of Fnatic form. In this match they play as an outsider with a minimal gap: the odds for the Orange to win are around 2.
Fnatic were top-12 at IEM Masters Katowice 2023 and top-16 at CCT North America Europe Series #4. There was also a 16th place at EPL Season 17.
A qualitative breakthrough happened at BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023: European RMR A. There Fnatic finished in the top 2, which opened the way for them to BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023.
The only Major in 2023 went well for Fnatic. The team finished in the top 11, which is a decent result.
The last tournament before IEM Cologne 2023 was IEM Dallas 2023. Fnatic was not allowed to play in America: 9z Team knocked the "orange" out of the tournament at the TOP-16 stage.
- Fnatic roster: KRIMZ, bodyy, matys, blameF, nawwk.
Prior to the Long Round of the tournament, fnatic had a significant re-structuring of their roster. Dexter and afro joined the club during the Big Reshuffle. The Australian played for MOUZ for the past two years, while the Frenchman afro played for LDLC.
With a new roster, Fnatic made a very good debut at iEM Cologne, advancing to the group stage through Play-In. And things were going great in the groups. That is, until they fell to the bottom set after losing to ENCE.
"Orange" Ledgeili raw GamerLegion and wiped out all their efforts as IEM Cologne progressed. The tournament in Cologne ended with KRIMZ and company in 9th-12th place.
After IEM Cologne 2023 fnatic attended 2 more top championships. These were Gamers8 and ESL Pro League Season 18, where the "orange" showed, to put it mildly, a weak game: in Riyadh and Malta took the top 16 and this is clearly not something to brag about.
They debuted at IEM Sydney 2023 with a match against Cloud9. Being the underdog there, they managed to pull out a close 10-13 win. However, they failed to build on their success, as the team finished in the top 12 at IEM Sydney 2023.
In the 2024 season, Fnatic tried and tried to break into the TIR-1 scene, but did not do so well. Thus, they finished Top 20 at EPL Season 19, Top 12 at CCT Global Finals 2024 and Top 6 at YaLLa Compass 2024.
ESL Pro League Season 20 Fnatic Long Sogpeg started with a win over Astralis, and then lost first to M80 and then to BIG. However, it wasn't much better, MOUZ took down Fnatic and sent them to the Top 28.
After failing at ESL Pro League S20, Fnatic finished Top-8 at YaLLa Compass Summer 2024, Top-16 at CCT Season 2 European Series #14 and Top-4 at RES Regional Champions.
Fnatic Mappool
The perfect map for Fnatic stunned Ancient. "Orange" played it 4 times and won all matches.
A hundred per cent winrate on Nuke with Anubis, but fnatic has only 1 match there.
Fnatic has the worst record on Overpass and Vertigo, where they have one win each in 3 matches.
Fnatic vs 9z
In the season 2024 Fnatic played against 9z and then the Argentineans won.
Predicted result of the match 9z - Fnatic at Thunderpick World Championship 2024
In this match I expect a roughly even game. Both teams are somewhere on the verge of TIR-2 teams and can't get a foothold in the title club. I agree with the bookmakers' opinion about a slight advantage on the Argentine side. However, I think this match will end with a full-fledged bo3.
Bottom line: total +2.5.
