This article is part of our CS:GO Recap series.
The battle for the final spots in the ELEAGUE Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Season 2 playoffs continued Friday evening as Group D play kicked off with a nail-biting overtime finish as well as a blowout in the Grand Finals, with Dignitas coming out on top.
Dignitas defeats Fnatic in Grand Final
Dignitas put together a strong performance against Fnatic in the Grand Final match, earning a commanding victory over the Swedes. Dignitas' Emil "Magiskb0Y" Reif and Mathias "MSL" Lauridsen led the team with a combined 250.3 average damage per round (ADR), shutting down Fnatic's offense and defense.
Dignitas jumped out to a huge 12-3 lead at halftime, thanks in large part to impressive plays by Kristian "k0nfig" Wienecke and Rene "cajunb" Borgo, who each earned pivotal quad kills throughout the first half. It was more of the same in the second half, as Dignitas easily swept the remaining four rounds, earning a convincing 16-3 victory. With the victory, Dignitas will now have the best seed in Group D for the ELEAGUE playoffs, which start Nov. 30. Fnatic will need to win their match Saturday against the winner of EnVyUs or OpTic Gaming in order to earn their spot in the quarterfinals.
Best of the Rest
The writing may have been on the wall for Fnatic based on their first matchup of the day against OpTic Gaming. While the Swedes did manage to earn their trip to the Grand Finals, it certainly wasn't easy, as they were forced to knock off OpTic in overtime. The team jumped out to an early 5-0 lead thanks to Joakim "disco doplan" Gidetun and Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer, who each picked up a pair of quad kills in the first handful of matches. However, the Green Wall was able to maintain composure and rally back to maintain a 8-7 lead at halftime. The second half was a battle between Fnatic and Optic as each team went back and forth between rounds until Freddy "KRIMZ" Johansson picked up a quad kill in the 23rd round to give Fnatic momentum. Following KRIMZ's quad kill, Fnatic won five consecutive rounds before Optic came back to win three of their own to send the first match into overtime.
Despite losing the first two matches of the overtime period, Fnatic was able to rally off four consecutive round wins to win the overtime period and the series, thanks in large part to KRIMZ and Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer, who both made critical plays late to push the Swedes into the finals.
The eventual Group D winners made their way into the Grand Finals thanks to a win over Team EnVyUs. Ruben "RUBINO" Villarroel -- who lead his team with an impressive 112.8 ADR -- was remarkable in the series, coming up with clutch kills throughout the contest. Thanks to solid performances from the team as a whole, Dignitas was able to enter the second half with a 9-6 advantage. That lead quickly grew wider thanks to EnVyUs' struggles in the second half, in particular during clutch round-ending situations. René "cajunb" Borg put the game away for Dignitas, helping the team win four consecutive rounds to close out the series with a 16-12 win.
