Moscow Five have won BEAT IT Russia following a two maps to none victory over surprise finalists fnatic . Despite facing a Swedish team who had caused an upset to reach the final Moscow Five came in with pressure on their shoulders, being as their organisation's owner had demanded high placings after they fell in 5th-8th place at ESWC. The boys from Moscow delivered with results in this tournament and take home $10,000 for their efforts.



The first map was train and despite having beaten Na`Vi on it earlier fnatic did not show the same kind of defense in the first half, taking only seven rounds on the easier side. When M5 switched over it took them a full 13 rounds to secure the first map but they did it and headed into forge on a high.

Calling forge in terms of past results would have been hard, since fnatic has only played it three times in competition and M5 only once. Nevertheless it is a map which rewards strong attacking play and that is what M5 are famous for. This certainly seemed to be the recipe for success as the Russian team charged out to ever increasing leads, taking the B bombsite many times in the half. M5 could even have won 12:3 but fnatic pulled out some clutch round scenarios. Xizt won a 1v2 in A which saw him defuse with milliseconds left on the bomb timer. Then pita managed to win a 1v1 with single digit health in B. The half ended 10:5 to M5.

fnatic's second half began disasterously as they lost three straight to find themselves facing an M5 team who were up 13:5, needing only three rounds out of the remaining 12 to take the map and the title. At this point fnatic found life and began to roar back into the series. With two rounds left it was 15:13 for M5. fnatic took over the B bombsite and xek was forced to save. fnatic's tournament life was down to one round. Attacking A they were lost men early and with cArn left in a 1v2 he was unable to keep his team alive.



Despite establishing themselves as dangerous dark horses to upset the elite teams Moscow Five had toiled away in vain throughout 2011, unable to take the next step up the competitive ladder. At the IEM V European Championship Finals they made it out of Group A, taking down SK along the way, only to fall to Na`Vi in the quarter-finals. At the IEM V World Championship a loss to coL.br prevented them from making it out of their group.

At Xperia PLAY the Russians again showed SK to be a good opponent for them as they pushed the Swedes all the way in a two map series they ultimately lost, with the first map being a 13:16 loss and the second a triple overtime heartbreaker. At ASUS Spring they found themselves ousted by DTS in the semi-finals. At Dreamhack they met mTw in the quarters and looked prime for an upset after an overtime win on nuke, but the Danes pulled out the series in three.

At the ICSC8 finals they reached the final only to fall victim to the continuing rampage of the new SK lineup. At GameGune the Summer took a turn for the worse as the Russians were beaten in the first round of the lower bracket by eSahara to go out before even breaking the top 10. Eventual champions AGAiN took them out with relative ease in the quarter-finals of SEC 2011.

ESWC looked to be the time for M5 to break their bad run at big events and crack the top 4 but they managed to let a map against Na`Vi slip through their fingers. After winning on tuscan to go up a map the Russians took 8 rounds as CT on dust2 and the T pistol. From there on out everything fell apart and Na`Vi turned it up to take over the map and win the series.