Fnatic haven’t produced the clean, dominant playoff showing that many VALORANT fans expected, but a spot in the final three days of Champions 2023 at the Kia Forum has been assured, meaning the dream of sweeping all the international tournaments this year is still alive. Still, it’s been a frustrating affair for the team’s head coach, but not because of the losses.
During the playoffs, Fnatic lost 2-0 in a series to LOUD for the first time in this roster’s history and the first time for Fnatic since facing XSET at Champions 2022. And despite recovering against DRX on Aug. 20, their opening 13-1 loss on Bind was their worst loss on LAN ever. But the real source of frustration for coach Jacob “mini” Harris? The opponents sitting in smoke and spamming. After the win against DRX, mini responded to a question about Fnatic’s increased number of deaths just from enemy players sitting in smokes.
“We really need the Skye dog to be used through smokes,” mini said. “It happened in the Bilibili game too, where they just sat in smokes the whole game trying to kill us. It’s frustrating to play teams that play like that; I think it’s a very good underdog way of playing the game sometimes, to just sit in a smoke and just [spray and] pray. But it’s something that better teams like DRX are going to abuse too apparently.”
Related: VALORANT Champions 2023: Scores, schedule, and standings
The tactic paid off for DRX on Bind, with Fnatic not using the Skye dog to clear out smokes as mini mentioned. This was especially a problem when Fnatic were going through their own smokes, with DRX able to deny plants by just running down the clock in smokes.
Against a team of Fnatic’s caliber, with their incredible collection of individual talent that all play exceptionally well together, it would make sense for teams to try and play this way. Very few players can face off against players like Leo, Derke, and Alfajer and live to tell the tale, even on a good day, so playing in smokes and hoping for a free kill might be the best option.
Still, it’s understandable why Fnatic might get frustrated by this, especially if they have the tools to check but aren’t doing so. Those frustrations could really boil over during the offseason if the team ends up falling short at Champions, which isn’t an unrealistic outcome given they have to go up against LOUD again when the tournament resumes on Thursday, Aug. 24.
