Fnatic continues its disappointing run of form with the latest defeat knocking them out of ESL One Hamburg. What’s disappointing is even after the acquisition of famed stars like Jacky “EternalLEnVy” Mao, Steve “Xcalibur” Ye and Johan “pieliedie” Åström, Fnatic have not been able to find steady footing in the current patch. With the US$1,000,000 prize pool as ESL One Hamburg is the first Valve Major Event of the season, it will be a bitter pill for Fantic to swallow.

Their latest defeat comes at the hands of Evil Geniuses (EG), who knocked Fnatic out in a 2:0 sweep. This allows EG to face up against Newbee for the final spot in the playoffs. Sadly, the players of Fnatic have yet to pick up any qualifying points. This is surprising, seeing as its roster has the qualities to do so.

Game one was a fair contest with Fnatic opting for a heavy-gank lineup as well as EG. The early game saw Fnatic take a slight lead, being able to pick off some key heroes. However, transitioning to the mid game, EG were able to take a firm grasp of the game, picking off EternalLEnVy and Xcalibur on more than one occasion. It got bad to worse after Arteezy’s triple kill at the 30-minute mark.

While game two took even less time to finish than game one, Fnatic had a much more stable draft, consisting of a semi-gank and push lineup. The early-to-mid game saw EG take the lead with Fnatic close behind, even with EternaLEnVy having a 0-3-0 KDA at the time. On the 28-minute mark, Fnatic managed to kill off three of EG’s heroes, giving them the gold lead for the first time in the series as well as being able to push high ground. However, EG managed to capitalise on their mistakes and managed to push towards Fnatic’s base a few minutes later and the inevitable ensued.

While Team Secret and Virtus Pro have already confirmed themselves in the top four placings with guaranteed qualifying points. The next two teams to make it to the playoffs will be determined later today. EG will go up against Newbee for the third slot while Team Liquid will be waiting to face the winners between SG eSports and Keen Gaming to see who can grab that last slot.