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League Championship Series

With the beginning of LCS came what I would call “The Golden Age” for Fnatic (until this summer split at least). Fnatic took 1st place in the EU Spring and Summer Split of the first LCS year (2013), as well as the 1st place of the Spring Split and 2nd place for the Summer split of 2014.

During this time, Fnatic also took a respectable 3rd/4th place at the Season 3 World Championship, giving the Koreans and Chinese teams a run for their money (and I’m only briefly going to mention the disappointment of the 12th/13th place at the 2014 World Championship).

Fnatic demolished chinese Royal Club in the 3rd game of the series! It ended 3-1 in Royal Club's favour though, leaving Fnatic with 3rd/4th place at the Riot Season 3 World Championship.

(Image from Youtube.com. Thanks to LoL LCS VODS KazaGamez for uploading the videos :) )

Hmm, that was a lot of history in a relatively short amount of space… And it’s kinda boring… Though, I just need to add one thing to the Golden Age: I distinctly remember being extremely sceptical when nRated left (or got kicked) and YellOwStAr switched from ADC to support. However, he proved me wrong. In fact, he proved me so wrong that he since have been the cornerstone player of Fnatic - And I couldn’t be happier about it! :D

The New Age

What am I trying to prove with this post? That I’m not just jumping on the bandwagon and hype train! Well, sort of not… When Cyanide retired and xPeke, Rekkles and sOAZ left in early 2015, I was confused. Should I keep rooting for the team? Only Yellowstar remained from The Golden Age and I had no “relationship” to the new players. I decided to just wait and see what happened.

However, it turned out that the new squad of Huni, Reignover, Febiven, Steelback and Yellowstar would continue the tradition of aggressive playstyle that I loved from the good ol’ days :D Then, when Rekkles rejoined in place of Steelback, the team have simply become unstoppable… Hence the 14-0 record of this 2015 EU LCS Summer Split x)

The New Age of Fnatic. Their performance so far could indeed name them The New Golden Age :P

(Statistics from lolesports.com)

Fnatic in E-Sports

But, in the midst of all this, I have found that I actually root for Fnatic’s team in other e-sports as well. E.g. when I’m watching Heroes of the Storm, I find myself wanting Fnatic to win, simply because of the name :P

So, I’ve come to the conclusion that e-sports is just like traditional sports for me. I have specific teams that I root for in football (soccer, if you’re ‘Murican) and I keep rooting for them no matter the player swaps. And I will keep this tradition in e-sports, I mean, given what happened after Fnatic's recent roster change in LoL, I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet ;)

Fnatic's Heroes of the Storm team winning a match against Na'Vi :D

(Image from Youtube.com. Thanks to KhaldorTV for uploading the VOD :) )

Lastly, I want to reflect on the beauty of Fnatic’s victory in the LCS last night. Not only did they win and set the new record for longest winning streak, they won against the 2nd place team at the moment, Origen. If you do not follow LoL, and somehow made it all the way to this paragraph, I can tell you that Origen is another team that I like to watch. The reason for this is that it is created by xPeke, who also plays in the mid lane, with sOAZ in the top lane. So in a way, The New Age team of Fnatic beat The Golden Age (or some of them at least) in a match that was definitely worth watching! :3