Fnatic Qualifies for the PGL Arlington Major, Ends T1’s Hopes

Fnatic is the third and final team from Southeast Asia (SEA) to qualify for the PGL Arlington Major following its momentous series win against T1 in the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) 2021-22 Tour 3: Division 1. In addition, this entails that T1 won't be able to go to the Major anymore; as a result, the team must now go through the regional qualifier to enter The International 11 (TI11). It turned out that Fnatic had the edge in the draft in the first game and gameplay execution in the second game leading it to win 2-0. Fnatic will be joined at the Arlington Major by BOOM Esports and Talon Esports from SEA.

T1 vs Fnatic: Match recap and highlights

Recap

In game 1, T1 made amazing movements in the first 15 minutes, resulting in kills on cores and supports. However, as seen by the networth table, T1 was overly focused on finding kills, whereas Fnatic was significantly more effective in terms of farming. T1's strong start was more of a facade, as it fell further behind in networth as the game went on. Fnatic's cores grew considerably stronger much faster and seized control of the bulk of the map. T1 scored a few kills here and there, but its draft was unable to battle head on and was defeated in 34 minutes.

Game 2 began similarly, but this time it was Fnatic who got the kills and T1 who pulled ahead in the networth chart because of its better farming pace. Since Fnatic's draft lacked the possibility to 5v5 T1’s draft, it expertly went on picking off one T1 hero and then resetting. This gave its heroes time to become stronger while stopping T1 from increasing its lead. While the game appeared to be well balanced, a chaotic Roshan teamfight for T1 went tragically wrong, allowing Fnatic to grab two sets of Barracks and a tier 4 tower. Fnatic was then able to finish the game in 40 minutes.

Highlights

Here are some highlights of the series.

A strong showing by Fnatic today against archrivals T1 avoids the three-way tiebreaker with T1 and RSG. Playing defensively early on and then fighting back with strong item and hero timings, the team's gameplan was clear. With the Major slot now secured, Fnatic will be hoping to perform well enough at the event to gain a direct invitation to TI11.

In the past few months, T1 has struggled to stay on top, which culminates in the fact that it won't be competing in the last Major of the DPC 2021-22. The team underperformed this Tour 3 with most of its players not appearing to be in the best of shape. T1 will have to make some important changes in order to bounce back stronger at TI11's regional qualifier.

BOOM Esports, Talon Esports, and Fnatic will represent SEA at the PGL Arlington Major which begins on 4th August.