Fnatic Will Attend Elisa Masters Espoo

British esports organization, Fnatic, is confirmed to play at Elisa Masters Espoo 2022. The news surfaced on Monday, October 10, confirming Fnatic as the fifth team to play at the $200,000 Finnish Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament in November.

Fnatic have been announced as the fourth directly invited team to Elisa Masters Espoo 2022, which will run on November 16-20 in Espoo, Finland. Fnatic joined BIG, MOUZ, and ENCE as one of the teams who won’t have to qualify for the tournament, featuring eight directly invited teams and four squads who will have to earn their spot at the event.

The tournament will welcome a total of 12 CS:GO teams, including eight directly invited teams, HEET, as the champions of the Elisa Spring Invitational, and the top two teams from the Elisa Fall Invitational. The final spot at the tournament will belong to the top team from a yet-unannounced event.

The announcement of Fnatic as one of the participating teams comes shortly after Elisa Esports invited ENCE, BIG, and MOUZ to the tournament. For now, the remaining four spots for directly invited teams remain empty, but we can expect the tournament organizers to reveal the participants in the coming weeks.

The Elisa Masters Espoo 2022 is a 12-team CS:GO tournament that is slated for November 16-20 at Espoo Metro Arena in Espoo, Finland. It will be one of Elisa’s biggest events of the year, offering a $200,000 prize pool and a direct invite to the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2023 Play-In stage.

The tournament will begin with the group stage in mid-November, with the 12 participating teams divided into two groups of six CS:GO teams. The group stage will use a round-robin format, with all group-stage matches played as best-of-one (BO1).

From each group, the top three teams will qualify for the playoffs, with the bottom three eliminated from the event. Group stage winners will advance directly into the semifinals, while the group stage runners-up will advance to the quarter-finals as high seeds.

Meanwhile, the third-place teams will advance to the quarter-finals as low seeds. In the first round of the knockout stage, the second-placed team from Group B will face off against the third-place team from Group A and vice versa.

The winners of the first pair will then advance to the semis, where they’ll play against Group A winners, while the second bracket winners will play Group B winners.

The playoffs will use a single-elimination bracket, with all matches played as best-of-three (BO3), including the grand finals.

Fnatic are currently ranked as the world’s 19th-best team, as per the CS:GO global rankings. Although the Black&Orange are far from the organization’s peak, the international roster has been making some noise in the competitive scene of late.

Since the turn of the year, Fnatic has yet to win a tournament, but there has been a noticeable improvement in the team’s showings across the last couple of months. In June, Fnatic reached the finals of REPUBLEAGE Season 3, then crashed out of IEM Road to Rio 2022: European RMR – Open Qualifier #1, before winning the second open qualifier.

In September, Fnatic added another successful qualifiers run by winning GAM3RS_X EU Champions: Fall 2022 – European Qualifier. Unfortunately, William “mezii” Merriman and his crew failed to show up at the main event, where they finished third-fourth.

At the end of September, Fnatic attended ESL Pro League Season 16, where they placed second in Group A, ahead of Endpoint, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Team Spirit, and Natus Vincere. However, they couldn’t find any success in the playoffs, as Fnatic crashed out in the first round, where they lost against the eventual finalists, Team Liquid (1-2).

Most recently, though, Fnatic made it through the Intel Extreme Masters Road to Rio 2022: European RMR A with a 3-2 record. With that, the prominent esports organization earned a spot at the IEM Rio Major as Challengers.

With that, Fnatic qualified for a CS:GO Major for the first time since Intel Extreme Masters XIII – Katowice Major 2019.