DSRack: El Classico

There would have been more people present to watch the game of the day if it hadn’t have took place at 01:30 this morning. The assembled crowd internalised their enthusiasm, no longer able to stand and watch games, slumped in the padded chairs and stared at the screens cross-eyed. It was a fixture that had been dubbed "El Classico" by the few sharp enough to remember things such as football and a wider world after eighteen hours huddled in the room beneath a bowling alley. It was a clash between fierce rivals and old friends…

Prior to the game the two teams embraced and tossed jokes in each other’s direction, casual references to past encounters told through a series of brief in-jokes as the two sets of players would go at it again. TCM Gaming and fnatic would be battling it out to see who topped their group, a lesser prize out of all those they have contested down the seasons but one that would mean everything once the game started in earnest.

Fnatic greeted winning the knife round with cheers and friendly jeers at their rivals, sat not a metre from them, and chose to go as the attacking side. The sign of their aggressive intent only lasts so far as Stevy getting the opening scope pick before TCM wrapped up the opening two rounds. It was the shape of things to come and it didn’t take long for fnatic’s frustrations to start to show.

Not from nreo mind you… He is unflappable, calling in his gentleman’s voice that is more suited to a BBC period drama than e-sports. In some other time he’d have been at home delivering stiff-upper lipped speeches to his men before they hauled themselves out of the trenches to face certain doom. Here though his team-mate Stevy didn’t want to it… "The fucking timing on that" he said as he got caught by a pre-fire spray the moment he put his rifle away.

A brief flurry from fnatic suggested that they’d found their attacking rhythm, some frags from Lighters starting to open up possibilities for them but TCM shut them down after they picked up 2 on the bounce and they showed, late in the day, the kind of energy that they are more commonly associated. The droopy eyed team that struggled in the early group stages were a distant memory to the shouting Swedes that were in place now the big games were here.

TCM closed out the half 8-4, a poor showing on attack and they looked dejected going into the second half. Lighters and Stevy get them off to a good start though, picking up two early frags and having a numerical advantage that should have given them a platform to mount a comeback but there was clearly some ring rust affecting this heavyweight contender. In the blink of an eye froz and miracle have picked up three frags between them and the round has turned on its head, the fnatic players starting to wonder just why things were going so wrong. The time for the inquiry would be after the game but clearly thoughts had strayed already.

At 12-4 to TCM spectators looked at each other in disbelief, a shared understanding that it shouldn’t have been this one-sided… The match was almost closed out with a five man from Qlimax who picked up two double frags in quick succession but Lighters kept his team’s slim hopes alive by clutching the round.

We’d already seen a comeback that didn’t quite come off earlier today and it looked like fnatic might have started to get the momentum rolling at this desperate stage. An opening frag from Lighters again was quickly pegged back by a miRACLE triple, which Stevy then matches with some sick scope work to take it to 12 – 6, fnatic still fighting. Those same two players are instrumental in securing the seventh, kyoChi and razz cleaning up the scraps. TCM have gone quiet now and fnatic are the loudest they’ve been since the knife round.

But lightning does not strike twice and although fnatic are defeated they are dispatched in a manner not so cruel as what happened to SMACK Gaming… It’s cold and clinical, a mercy killing at this time in the morning. 13-7 the final score to a hugely impressive TCM, a result that means they can sleep easy while the fantic players have their heads full of bad dreams before the brackets.