fnatic made it happen in the third map of their Dreamhack Winter 2011 BEAT IT final vs. Lions swe to win the first Dreamhack title in their organisation's CS history. fnatic looked lackluster early as Lions dominated nuke but came back with force on dust2 to even up the series. Lions looked poised to take the title in two after their seven CT rounds but fnatic locked it down with eight straight rounds to make it to a third map.

In the decider, tuscan, they only managed to take five CT rounds in the first half but they switched over and locked in on the title taking 11 terrorist rounds out of the 14 second half rounds, taking the title and $14,250.



The two finalists were a surprise to many, as 2011 saw its first All-Swedish final and what's more it didn't feature Sweden's best team, SK Gaming. fnatic looked to face a heavy task to even get out of Group C, but tuscan wins over Na`Vi and Moscow Five saw them take the top spot. That ended up providing a route through the easy side of the bracket, avoiding the top three teams in the world.

fnatic repeated the same pattern over and over in the playoffs as they lost the first map, won the second and then won tuscan decider to move on. That was the storyline of all three series in a row. One of fnatic's problems in 2011 had been finding a home map which they could be sure of competing with every team on. That seems to have been solved now as they won all five tuscans at the event. It remains to be seen whether or not opponents will pick-up on that and drop it against them in the future.

Lions seemed to be courting destiny as they somehow survived the scariest side of the bracket possible, seeing SK, Na`Vi and AGAiN staring back at them. The underdogs who many would have considered fighting ESC to even take the title of third best Swedish team seemed to be possessed as they beat out AGAiN and Na`Vi in three map series to reach the final. Against AGAiN threat's team impressed as they closed out the series on dust2.

The Na`Vi series seemed to be the most brutal as the Ukrainians had just beaten SK in a quarter-final which became an instant classic, seemingly leaving the rest of the tournament at the mercy of 2010's team of the year. Na`Vi maintained that scary presence as they smashed inferno with an 11 round T half to open the series. It even looked as though the series might end with a Na`Vi win after two maps when a vintage markeloff AWP slaughter on CT side of mirage seemingly crushed Lions' offense. Instead Lions made it over the finish line in the last round, giving their first half 2v2 wins added significance.

After defeating those two marquee name opponents Lions' Cinderella run had one series remaining for them to become champions. After map one the clock struck twelve and suddenly the dance was over, best symbolised by Frej 'kHRYSTAL' Sjöström, Lions' MVP of the tournament to that point, sitting on something like 0-7 at one point on dust2.

Lions found themselves the latest victims of the Dreamhack Winter curse. In the past any team who have overcome a stacked bracket then found themselves one series short in the end and fell to a less scary team. In 2007 SK survived a lower bracket run of fnatic, NoA and emuLate to reach the final against MiBR, where there Brazilians took them down. In 2008 mTw won back-to-back series over mouz and fnatic to meet SK in the final, where the Swedish team took the title from the Danes in overtime of the third map.

In 2009 mTw came in with anizz as a ringer but beat SK and fnatic in close three map series only to fall to MYM in the final, missing their chance to win in overtime of the second map.



fnatic began the year with a bang, surprising everyone to win the IEM V European Championship. Despite that result they proved incapable of cementing a place in the world's top four teams, with comparably poor results at IEM V World Championship and Xperia PLAY. That culminated in their Dreamhack Summer series of events where they were unable to win a single map out of the five they played against SK Gaming's new lineup, featuring former fnatic AWPer Delpan.

After their fourth lineup of the year was set, with the addition of Friis from mTw, the team won IEM VI Guangzhou after defeating mouz in the final. That form could not continue into ESWC as they lost to ALTERNATE and were eliminated in the group stage. Last weekend the Swedes impressed as they defeated Na`Vi in a bo3, including a win on train in the decider, to reach the final, though they lost there to M5.

The win had historic implications for Patrik 'cArn' Sättermon, as he added the first ever Dreamhack title of his career. That chalks off another event from his list of those he has not won in his presitiguous career. For those wondering the fnatic leader has still not captured gold at the WCG or ESWC Grand Final, two of CS' majors.

(Photograph copyright of fnatic)