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We continue to explore the vastness of competitive Counter-Strike 2 with the matches of Thunderpick World Championship 2024. By the way, the play-offs stage is heating up.
In one of the matches of the first stage of the play-offs stage Fnatic and Heroic will play. The format of the match is Bo3.
We are trying to figure out which of the big European clubs will earn a victory, and who will have to say goodbye to the prospect of making serious money at this championship.
Let's go.
Heroic uniforms
Let's open the Heroic vs Fnatic match with an analysis of Heroic's form. In this match they will play as favourites with odds to win at around 1.3.
Heroic have looked very good in the 2023 season. They played consistently in TIR-S tournaments and were a significant force.
Heroic had a streak of great tournaments. It was top 2 at IEM Rio 2023, top 4 BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 and IEM Dallas 2023. Heroic went on to win the BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2023 and also finished in the top 3 of the BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2023
- Heroic roster: TeSeS, sjuush, NertZ, kyxsan, degster.
Before their performance at Gamers8 Heroic attended another prestigious tournament - IEM Cologne. Being one of the main contenders to win the German tournament, the Danes made it to the play-offs of the competition, but there they couldn't move further than the first round. Heroic lost to Astralis in the first round of the IEM Cologne play-offs with a score of 0-2.
At Gamers8 they debuted with a match against Falcons. In general, the game ended predictably, but the French gave a fight, especially on the first map (Mirage 22-18 in favour of Heroic). The second one went to Heroic with the score 16-10.
In the previous match Heroic faced GamerLegion. Despite GL's seemingly idle position in that match, they were able to get on the Danes' nerves and take the map, but still lost in the end.
Heroic ended Gamers8 with a match against ENCE. The Danish club again failed to beat the Finns and left the major championship at the top-4 stage.
In the first match at ESL Pro League Season 18, the team played against Rooster. The Australians offered no resistance and took 6 rounds in two games.
Next was BIG - another passable opponent for Heroic, but it was not to be. The Danes lost 0-2, losing on Ancient with a score of 23-25 and on Inferno with a score of 13-16.
Heroic got into the last chance net after a 0-2 loss at MOUZ. So from the "achievements" so far, a win over the raw Roosters and that's it. It looks very deplorable. And it ended no better: Heroic Ledge and Monte crashed out of ESL Pro League Season 18.
Next up was Roobet Cup 2023, where Heroic finished in the top 12. After unsatisfactory performance at EPL and Roobet Cup Heroic played not better at Thunderpick World Championship 2023 and BLAST Premier: Fall Final 2023. There, it was top-8 and top-6 respectively.
Heroic face many challenges in the 2024 season. They still attend top tournaments, but the performance is much worse: Top-16 at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2024, Top-8 at IEM Chengdu 2024, Top-28 at ESL Pro League Season 9, Top-6 at IEM Dallas 2024 and Top-8 at YaLLa Compass 2024.
Later, the series of appearances at various championships continued, with Heroic playing at both BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024 (Top 12) and IEM Cologne 2024 (Top 20) and BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown 2024 (Top 16). In October 2024 Heroic were close to finally taking the championship title, reaching the final of Elisa Masters Espoo 2024, but Ledgeili ENCE in the grand final.
At the Thunderpick World Championship 2024 Heroic won Group C.
Heroic's mappool
Heroic's best map is Nuke. There the Danes have 5 wins and 0 losses.
They like to play Overpass, where they lost only once. In three months on Overpass - 5-1.
One of the most frequently played and yet successful maps is Inferno. Heroic has a 9-3 statistic here. It also goes well on Ancient, where Heroic is 3-1 in matches.
Fnatic Form
We continue the analysis of the match Fnatic vs Heroic with the analysis of Fnatic's form. In this match the Orange are playing as outsiders with odds to win at around 3.
Fnatic were top-12 at IEM Masters Katowice 2023 and top-16 at CCT North America Europe Series #4. There was also the 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.
Thunderpick World Championship 2024 started with a win over 9Z, but then Ledge or, as it turned out, the best team in Group B - 3DMax. They beat C9 in the match of a lifetime, thus advancing to the play-offs.
Fnatic Mappool
Ancient was the perfect map for Fnatic. "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.
The worst matches for fnatic are Overpass and Vertigo, where they have one win each in 3 matches.
History of head-to-head meetings between Heroic and Fnatic
Earlier the teams played each other at the Intel Extreme Masters Rio 2024: European Closed Qualifier and then Fnatic won.
Predicted result of Fnatic vs Heroic at Thunderpick World Championship 2024
In this match I expect a fairly even game despite the significant difference in the pre-match odds. In my opinion, it will be a full-fledged Bo3, but with a slight edge in favour of Heroic.
Bottom line: total +2.5 on Heroic.
