VCT Masters Copenhagen is coming to a close this weekend, and after Fnatic was sent home yesterday, another big match loomed on the horizon with OpTic taking on FPX. The defending Masters champions, OpTic, had a tough game yesterday, narrowly losing to Singapore’s Paper Rex. At the same time, FPX got the better of their European counterparts Fnatic to survive into the lower final.
In today’s match, FPX defeated OpTic and ended their title defense campaign. FPX will move on to the grand final with a score of 3-1 today.
OpTic was on a mission this tournament but has shown an evident weakness to teams from the EMEA region. The North American team hadn’t won a single map against a European team until they took Bind in today’s match. Also struggling yesterday against Paper Rex, the roster, unchanged from when they won their championship, seemed more vulnerable than they ever have in an international event.
In contrast, FPX has only been getting stronger throughout Masters. With two players from Russia on their roster, Shao and SUYGETSU, the team wasn’t sure their two stars would even be able to travel to Copenhagen to play. We only had FPX ranked eighth in our VCT Masters Power Rankings, and others were underrating the team similarly. If they didn’t get their full roster, there was a significant chance that they would be a shadow of how they had played in EMEA. The team had been playing with Seider as a sub until July 16.
Today, Shao and SUYGETSU showed up and excelled, and the team looked complete and cohesive.
FPX came out blazing after their win yesterday against Fnatic, the team that had defeated them for the EMEA title last month. For OpTic, the first two maps were extremely concerning since they could not string along more than a few round victories. The dynamic Russian duo was on the top of the scoreboard for their team.
Notably absent in the first two maps was Victor, OpTic’s duelist player known to find success on his aggression and fast plays. Unfortunately for OpTic, Victor went negative on both of the first two maps as FPX punished him at every turn.
After a dominant first two maps from FPX, OpTic finally started coming to life on Bind. A switch flipped for crashies, and he got more kills in the first half of Bind than in the first two maps combined. Suddenly the tides turned in OpTic’s favor as they took Bind 13-6, but there was still a long way to go.
Though Fracture had been a strong map for OpTic, regionally and in Masters, they couldn’t put it together today. Throughout the match, the crowd cheered “FPX, FPX!” whenever the team reached map or series points. Shao got the final two kills needed to send his team into the grand final.
OpTic finished third in the tournament.
FPX will go on to face Paper Rex in a highly anticipated clash of playstyles, and neither team has won a VCT title before. The game starts at 10am CT tomorrow, July 24.
