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Dota 2 Stockholm Major: How OG knocked out Fnatic with an incredible comeback

OG live to fight another day in the ESL One Stockholm Major after they outlasted Fnatic in a 2-1 thriller, capping the series off with an incredible comeback in game three. (Photo: ESL)
OG live to fight another day in the ESL One Stockholm Major after they outlasted Fnatic in a 2-1 thriller, capping the series off with an incredible comeback in game three. (Photo: ESL)

The eighth day of the ESL One Stockholm Major saw OG face off against Fnatic, the last team from Southeast Asia in the tournament, in the second round of the lower bracket.

The winner of the match guaranteed themselves at least a Top 6 finish in the Stockholm Major while the loser went home.

It was an intense series featuring the second-longest game of the playoffs as well as a momentous comeback in game three.

Ultimately, OG prevailed to send the last representative for Southeast Asia home.

Let's break down how OG emerged victorious over Fnatic:

OG abused Jabz in game one

The name of the game for OG's draft in the opening game of the series was teamfight.

Tommy "Taiga" Le picked Enigma, his most played hero in patch 7.31. Taiga has won eight out of his 10 games with Enigma and picked the hero in each game against Fnatic.

OG doubled down on teamfight by picking Mars for Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf and Pangolier for Bozhidar "bzm" Bogdanov.

Artem "Yuragi" Golubiev played Juggernaut in game one. Juggernaut is slowly becoming more popular in the tournament and has won five of his six appearances.

Stand-in Sébastien "Ceb" Debs played Windranger in game one, his most played hero of the Major with a perfect 5-0 record thus far.

OG's focus on teamfighting seemingly made Fnatic decide that they can't fight fire with fire, with the Southeast Asian squad instead picking heroes that are better suited to getting pickoffs.

A support Doom was picked for Djardel "DJ" Mampusti while his laning partner Anucha "Jabz" Jirawong played Visage.

There was a lot of pressure on Fnatic to make space and get kills in game one and, to that end, Ember Spirit was picked for Armel "Armel" Tabios. Jaunuel "Jaunuel" Arcilla picked Keeper of the Light to allow Armel to throw multiple Sleight of Fist-Searing Chains combos during fights.

Marc Polo Luis "Raven" Fausto rounded up the draft with Wraith King.

Taiga's Enigma is becoming more and more of a problem for teams that face OG. Not only does the hero provide the strongest teamfight spell in the game in Black Hole, but Enigma also greatly slows down enemy heroes in the laning stage thanks to Demonic Conversation denying creeps.

This forced Fnatic to put Jabz alone in the lane so that he can get enough experience to reach level six at an appropriate time.

Unfortunately for Fnatic, their plan backfired as OG managed to get five kills on Jabz in the first nine minutes of the game.

This effectively shut down the Fnatic offlaner for the rest of the game and put OG in a fantastic spot to take control of the series opener.

It wasn't just the top lane that went well for OG, as the team secured seven kills for themselves while giving nothing back to Fnatic.

All three of OG's cores were at the top of the net worth graph while Fnatic's cores lagged behind, with Jabz in particular falling 2,000 gold behind ATF 11 minutes in the game.

The climactic fight of the game came at the 33-minute mark, as OG managed to bring down three heroes from Fnatic and secure the Aegis of the Immortal for themselves.

Ceb proved again how deadly his Windranger was, as his two-man Shackleshot secured the fight for his team.

The teamfight prowess from OG was also on display, as ATF and Taiga combined Arena of Blood and Midnight Pulse to crush Fnatic.

OG's draft proved too much to handle in game one and they forced out the GG call 10 minutes later.

The first game of the series was fairly one-sided for OG but Fnatic struck back hard in game two and evened up the score.

It all came down to a deciding third game to decide who stayed in Stockholm and who went home.

Fnatic take a commanding lead in game three until OG mounts an incredible comeback

The final game of the series saw both teams go back to their game one drafts.

OG focused on teamfight again and picked Enigma for Taiga and Pangolier for bzm.

Windranger was understandably banned, so Ceb played Jakiro instead. OG added another big teamfight ultimate by picking Tidehunter for ATF while Yuragi played Morphling.

Fnatic also stuck to their guns and picked Ember Spirit and Keeper of the Light, though this time it was a mid Keeper of the Light for Armel and an offlane Ember Spirit for Jabz.

Realizing that their weak laning stage cost them game one, Fnatic picked a Chaos Knight for Raven and Treant Protector for Jaunuel to buff up their early game.

It was all-out aggression from the Fnatic to start game three, as they completely ran down OG in the laning stage.

The kill score was 7-0 when OG tried to leverage their superior teamfight lineup to get back in the game.

However, Fnatic's early game lead allowed them to secure four kills for themselves while giving nothing back.

It was a tough situation for OG, as their lineup relied on teamfights to win the game but had the drawback of long cooldowns on their ultimates. Ravage requires 150 seconds to come back online while Black Hole takes even longer. This gave Fnatic big openings to abuse.

Fnatic managed to continue to grow their net worth and experience advantage. Things were looking bleak for OG as Fnatic seemed poised to take the victory.

It all came down to the team fight at the 43-minute mark. Fnatic caught Ceb and brought him down, Ceb instantly bought back, while ATF and BZM locked down Raven and Jabz with their ultimates.

OG then brought down Jabz before Taiga used two Black Holes to kill Raven. Jaunuel stopped the Black Holes with Treant Protector's Overgrowth ultimate but it wasn't enough as OG took their first big teamfight victory of the game.

After that, OG slowly crawled their way back into the game. With the stronger late-game lineup, it was only a matter of time before the Western European squad took the series.

Fnatic called GG 20 minutes later in the second-longest game of the playoffs at 64 minutes.

With their victory over Fnatic, OG secured themselves at least a Top 6 finish at the Stockholm Major.

It's an incredible achievement for the youngest squad at the tournament that is also playing with a stand-in. OG's next opponents are Thunder Awaken, the last hope of the South American Dota 2 scene.

As for Southeast Asia, it's a disappointing result overall.

Despite having three teams in the Major, only Fnatic made it to the Top 8 and secured themselves 240 Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) points.

Southeast Asia is the second region eliminated from the Major after Eastern Europe (who were playing with one rep short as it was).

With Fnatic eliminated from the tournament, there are no more teams in Stockholm to represent the SEA region. (Source: ESL)
With Fnatic eliminated from the Stockholm Major, there are no more Southeast Asian teams remaining in the tournament. (Photo: ESL)

OG Dota 2 roster:

  1. Artem "Yuragi" Golubiev

  2. Bozhidar "bzm" Bogdanov

  3. Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf

  4. Tommy "Taiga" Le

  5. Sébastien "Ceb" Debs (stand-in)

Fnatic Dota 2 roster:

  1. Marc Polo Luis "Raven"

  2. Armel Paul "Armel" Tabios

  3. Anucha "Jabz" Jirawong

  4. Djardel Jicko B. "DJ" Mampusti

  5. Jaunuel "Jaunuel" Arcilla

Otomo is a long-time gaming enthusiast and caster. He has been playing games since he was 10 and is the biggest Dota 2 fan.

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