• Gaming
• Online
• League of Legends
• Personal
• E-Sports

The answer is no. In case you were wondering whether or not I accidentally left out an “a” in the word fanatic. Since I’m not a fanatic, religious or otherwise, then what could this post possibly be about? Well, if you’re reading this, chances are that you’ve picked up on the theme of my site: Gaming. And Fnatic just so happen to a an e-sports organisation and one of the older ones at that.

But why am I suddenly proclaiming this? There’s a very good reason for that. You see, last night Fnatic’s League of Legends team beat the all-time best winning streak in the League Championship Series (LCS) by one, creating a new record with 14 victories and zero losses! :D

The logo of the Fnatic E-Sports organisation.
(from their own website: http://www.fnatic.com/logos_resources/)

Back to the future

(Yes, I’m kinda proud of myself for that headline and how well I think it fits :3 )

Let’s go back. All the way back to the Season 1 World Championship of LoL. I remember being at a LAN with my friends, where we saw the tournament which set new records for streaming with about 200.000 consecutive viewers (if I remember correctly). Compared to the standards of today it doesn’t look all that impressive, but in 2011, it really was.

I was rooting for Counter-Logic Gaming (CLG) as I watched quite a lot of HotshotGG’s stream. CLG met Fnatic in the Winner’s Bracket Relegation Round. CLG came into the round with a 2-1 score, while Fnatic had a rocky group stage and ended up going 1-2. However, after an epic match, Fnatic won the relegation round 2-1 and I was intrigued.

This team played the way I wanted the game to be played: Ability power (AP) champions in top and mid, followed by a very aggressive playstyle. It was crazy and amazing and it ended up winning the tournament after beating Against All Authority’s squad two times, one in the Winner’s Bracket Final and then again in the Grand Final.

Needless to say, I was hooked. xPeke, CyanideFI, LamiaZealot and Mellisan all played great when it counted and who doesn’t remember Shushei’s incredible AP Alistar and Gragas. Of course, the two champions were incredibly overpowered at the time, but who cares - It was great fun :3

Fnatic with the final push for the Riot Season 1 World Championship over aAa! sOAZ and YellOwStaR would later join Fnatic for "The Golden Age":P

(Image from Youtube.com. Thanks to CasualProGamer for uploading the VoD for uploading the VoD :) )

Down the gutter and up again

Then the meta shifted heavily towards the tanky top laners and this ultimately became the slump of Fnatic. I remember watching them struggle as Shushei could not adjust to the (in my opinion) really, really boring meta :(

During season 2, and pre-season 3, a lot of stuff happened for Fnatic: Shushei’s performance was too bad for the team, so he got replaced, LamiaZealot retired and Mellisan chose to focus on his studies. After a lot of hassle, the squad ended up being sOAZ top, Cyanide jungle, xPeke mid, YellOwStaR attack damage carry (ADC) and nRated as support. The team briefly had Pheilox as support, with Candypanda and/or Rekkles as ADC.
Actually, with Rekkles as ADC, Fnatic took 2nd place at the legendary IPL5, where they beat the Season 2 Champions of Taipei Assassins, before gracefully losing to Team World Elite in the finals.

Fnatic Shushei never recovered from the meta change in pre-season 3. As a result, we would never see his legendary Gragas fighting for Fnatic again :(