The Turkish side won Stake Ranked Episode 5 through the lower bracket, and the trophy leaves fnatic’s Major hopes hanging on other teams’ results this weekend.
Eternal Fire are Stake Ranked Episode 5 champions after a reverse sweep of fnatic in Friday’s best-of-five grand final in Barcelona. fnatic took Anubis 13-8 and Ancient 13-2, then lost Cache, Dust II and Mirage as Eternal Fire turned the series around to win 3-2.
Eternal Fire3-2
fnaticAnubis 8-13, Ancient 2-13, Cache 13-9, Dust II 13-11, Mirage 13-8According to HLTV’s records, it is only the 14th time a team has come back from 0-2 in a Bo5 grand final on LAN.
Five maps after eight in a row
fnatic had been the cleanest team in the event until the final. They swept Astralis, BIG and MIBR on their way through the upper bracket and won the first two maps of the final as well, ten maps in a row in Barcelona. The Ancient map was the most one-sided of the whole series: Eternal Fire won two rounds.
Eternal Fire took the long way. They reached the final from the lower bracket, beating Astralis 2-1 in the lower semi-final and MIBR 2-0 in the lower final earlier on Friday, so the grand final was their second series of the day.
| Round | Result |
|---|---|
| Lower semi-final | Eternal Fire 2-1 Astralis (Dust II 10-13, Ancient 13-7, Cache 13-8) |
| Lower final | Eternal Fire 2-0 MIBR (Ancient 13-7, Inferno 13-8) |
| Grand final | Eternal Fire 3-2 fnatic |
Samet “jottAAA” Köklü led Eternal Fire across the five maps with a 78-67 K-D and 86.2 ADR, while Iulian “regali” Harjău kept the highest KAST on the server at 78.6%. The best player of the series was on the losing side: fnatic’s Dmytro “jambo” Semera went 81-61 with 80.5 ADR. His teammate Rodion “fEAR” Smyk struggled at 52-77.
| Player | Team | K-D | ADR | KAST |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| jambo | fnatic | 81-61 | 80.5 | 75.7% |
| jottAAA | Eternal Fire | 78-67 | 86.2 | 69.9% |
| jackasmo | fnatic | 75-71 | 77.2 | 72.8% |
| regali | Eternal Fire | 74-61 | 69.4 | 78.6% |
| cairne | fnatic | 73-62 | 74.9 | 72.8% |
The title is worth $25,000 of the $100,000 prize pool. fnatic take $17,500 for second place.
Major hopes on the line
The bigger prize is a possible spot at the PGL Major Singapore. Invitations come from Valve’s VRS snapshot on 2 November, and Friday’s result changed the picture at the bottom of the list. HLTV’s VRS calculator has the final worth 17 points to Eternal Fire, lifting them from 24th to 21st, while fnatic lose 15 points and drop from 23rd to 25th. HLTV described it as Eternal Fire inching closer to shock Major qualification.
VRS analyst MischiefCS2 wrote straight after the final that fnatic are likely out of contention and that Eternal Fire are “right on the border”.
Both depend on results this weekend from HOTU and 100 Thieves. Jesper Larsen, who also tracks the standings, wrote that if either HOTU win their event or 100 Thieves win FiReSPORTS Last Chance, fnatic are out. If both of them win, Eternal Fire are not safe either. These are projections, not official standings, and nothing is settled until Valve publish the snapshot.
Larsen added that Eternal Fire’s chances were only a couple of percent a few weeks ago. HOTU play The Huns at Moscow Cyber Games at .
