Fnatic were coming off two rough opening weeks, the real question being whether they could still turn it around and find their level again. Yesterday's 2-0 over SK Gaming was a first sign; tonight's 2-0 over G2, carried by an unplayable Vladi and a Razork who erased a costly game one mistake with a complete game two, confirms it. Fitting footnote: today is also , a tribute that clashes hard with his flat performance tonight. Here are our ratings for the series.
A genuinely mediocre laning performance across both games, propped up in game one by the pick itself: Twisted Fate's passive hands him a gold lead almost automatically, and he backs it up with a solo kill on Soboro in the side lane. Everything falls apart once fights start, though — without the range to threaten FNC's carries, he's reduced to a near-bystander, never able to actually show off the gold advantage he built. Game two is considerably worse: caught on Razork's level-3 gank, he never resurfaces, absorbing wave after wave of FNC pressure on the top side, including a dive off a Vladi rotation. A disappointing reflection of his team.
A jungler stuck reacting to catches rather than creating them. In game one he reads Caps's angles well and follows up cleanly on them, but keeps getting caught himself the moment fights actually start, undoing his own good decision-making. Game two is worse: hard-gapped by Razork in the jungle matchup, denied camps and tempo, and never able to impose himself anywhere on the map.
Hall of Legends induction day, forgettable night on the Rift. A game one that looked under control in the early completely dissolves once fights start, with Vladi and the rest of FNC engaging onto him over and over without him ever finding an ounce of impact in return. Game two is a collective wreck he's one of the first to answer for. The contrast with the day's tribute is almost cruel.
Little to fault on the substance: his game one lane is clean, but nobody around him gives him the opening needed to convert it into a midgame takeover. The real issue hits in game two, where he never escapes the perma-catch loop, leaving his Varus with zero room to find any use at all. A score that punishes the collective as much as the individual.
Rock-bottom impact. Not the performance that sinks a series, nor the one that saves it — just a total absence of a footprint across both games, which, for a support meant to dictate his team's tempo, is a problem in itself.
Genuinely good lanes across the series, even if the rest of the picture took a while to catch up. On Gnar in game one he's solid without being decisive, and gets solo killed in the side lane by BrokenBlade for his trouble. Game two is where it clicks: on top of another lane won, he finally converts that advantage into teamfights, landing an Ambessa ultimate out of nowhere onto Hans Sama's Varus in an early skirmish. Encouraging.
A series that could have gone badly wrong. After a shaky Wukong in game one — an engage into the midwave in a full 4v5 that very nearly cost FNC the game — Razork used game two to show exactly what makes him special: his aggression and his instincts in the early game. A level-3 gank top, then another one mid, then a catch on Hans Sama in the botside river, all inside the early game, and he'd set the whole map on fire. A high score that rewards the bounce-back more than overall cleanliness.
The player who swings the series. Across both games, he's the one dictating tempo: a burst of engages that unlocks the entire midgame in game one, a perfectly executed Syndra in game two as every stun lands. The occasional lapse in lane barely registers against the rest of the picture. Coming out of a long slump, he looks like himself again, and it's no coincidence that FNC's overall level has jumped right alongside his own.
Nothing to complain about, without this being the series of his career either. He does the job through an unfavorable lane in game one, comes up decisive in the late teamfight, then survives a genuine scare in game two, holding on all the way back to his tier-2 tower under a Labrov- Hans Sama chase and stalling just long enough for the rest of FNC to arrive and clean up the G2 bot lane. The overall impression across both games is of a player reading fights extremely well, always positioned to get his damage off without overextending.
A bit invisible in game one, though that's no real knock when the team wins comfortably without needing much from him. Far more involved in game two, sticking perfectly to Razork's initiations on a strong Leona. A score that leans more on growth across the series than on out-and-out consistency.
