Vitality best fnatic to stay undefeated in Malta

Vitality remain undefeated in Group A of ESL Pro League Season 16 after taking down fnatic, 2-1. The Dan “⁠apEX⁠” Madesclaire-led lineup suffered a 6-16 hounding in the opening map of Nuke before completing the reverse sweep with 16-12 and 16-11 victories on Inferno and Mirage, respectively.

Mathieu “⁠ZywOo⁠” Herbaut continues to lead the tournament individually, with the Frenchman averaging a 1.32 rating in the series. Vitality will look to keep up their strong showing in the tournament thus far as they face off against Natus Vincere on September 3 at 19:30 , where a victory would guarantee the European mix a spot in the playoffs.

fnatic, on the other hand, have suffered their second straight defeat in Group A after initially getting off to a strong start with a clinical victory versus Ninjas in Pyjamas in the opening game. The European combine will be hoping to get back on track as they go up against Spirit on September 3 at 16:00 .

fnatic‘s pick of Nuke got the series underway, with William “⁠mezii⁠” Merriman and company starting their T-side effort on the right foot as they put an opening 4-0 lead on the board. It didn’t take long for Vitality to answer back, however, bringing things to a 5-5 stalemate on the back of a stellar 13-6 K-D performance by Lotan “⁠Spinx⁠” Giladi. fnatic recovered towards the tail end of the half, though, adding four of the final five rounds to boast a comfortable 9-6 lead by the switch.

fnatic didn’t look back once on the defence, shutting down Vitality at every turn to win seven rounds on the bounce and post the flawless CT-side. The black-and-orange’s new recruit, Dion “⁠FASHR⁠” Derksen, was his team’s standout player, averaging a 1.52 rating alongside an 85 ADR to power fnatic to a 16-6 victory.

Vitality and fnatic traded blows at the onset of Inferno, neither side able to break the deadlock as they sat dead even at four rounds apiece. A vintage performance by Freddy “⁠KRIMZ⁠” Johansson on the CT-side was the only thing keeping fnatic in the map, with the 28-year-old consistently finding impact with five multi-kill rounds and 18 frags to allow his team to be just one round behind at half-time.

The hard-fought nature of the first half continued coming out of the break, with scrappy round wins by both sides narrowly going the way of fnatic as they reached double digits first, 10-9. A 4k with the P250 by apEX in the 20th round allowed Vitality to snatch away the momentum, the squad snowballing this to run up a 14-10 scoreline. Any chance of a fnatic comeback was soon dashed from here on out, as Spinx put a stop to a hit on the B site in the 28th to lock in Inferno, 16-12.

Mirage played host to the third and final map of the series, with Vitality taking an early 3-1 lead on the T-side to get the ball rolling. A brief run of form did get fnatic up to five rounds, but successful clutches by Spinx and ZywOo kept Vitality firmly in the driver’s seat as they had ten rounds to their name by the half’s end.

This Vitality advantage was further extended once the second half started, with apEX‘s troops picking their foes apart on the defence to surge ahead to a 14-8 lead. fnatic did reply with three rounds of their own to stay alive, but this effort was too little, too late, as Vitality clinched the final two rounds to steal Mirage 16-11. The aforementioned duo of ZywOo and Spinx were Vitality‘s difference-makers, the pair contributing to their team’s map victory with 29 and 25 kills, respectively.

The current standings for Group A are as follows: