Ten months into their existence, OG will play in their first grand final after taking down fnatic in a three-map semi-final series.
The Swedes were unable to break their poor record against OG, to whom they had lost two series this year before their semi-final encounter at IEM New York, and exited the tournament in joint third-fourth place. Aleksi "Aleksib" Virolainen & co. will take on the winner of Vitality and FaZe in the best-of-five title decider, scheduled for Sunday at 19:00 .
OG looked in great form to start things off on Train, where a pistol round victory gave them an early lead. The European mixture looked set to extend their advantage when they had fnatic in a headlock in brown halls on the back of an information play but fumbled it at the last second and the Swedes went on to level the score at 4-4.
The half seemed to be heading towards a close finish when OG barely escaped the following round with their lives and had to scramble for a decent buy, but everything changed when a quick aggressive set play into T mid saw Issa "ISSAA" Murad pick up a triple. Aleksib's men had no trouble controlling the half from there on, closing it with seven in a row.
The momentum shifted again when the sides switched as fnatic put together an unrelenting defense, fending off several slow plays from OG, and a change of pace didn't work out either for the T side. Jesper "JW" Wecksell & co. picked up their first lead in the match at 12-11, but it immediately disappeared when Aleksib stepped up with a 1v2 clutch. That seemed to breathe life into OG, who had ISSAA and Mateusz "mantuu" Wilczewski secure two more clutches as they panted towards the finish line to win the opener 16-13.
fnatic answered on Inferno with a rather straight-forward victory, as they remained ahead ever since they picked up a second-round forcebuy on the back of Robin "flusha" Rönnquist's 1v1 clutch. The CT side was firmly in their hands while some individual plays from Nathan "NBK-" Schmitt and Valdemar "valde" Bjørn Vangså gave a few rounds to the other side. As Terrorists, fnatic gave up another pistol but proved stronger with weapons in hand, abusing the B bombsite with a simple pop-flash entrance repeatedly to quickly reach map point and convert it a few rounds later.
OG clinched the deciding Mirage after being able to break fnatic's momentum early on both sides, courtesy of big plays from their in-game leader, Aleksib. The Finn's Deagle openings in the second-round forcebuys as well as a 1v2 clutch proved crucial to his team's great starts in each half, with OG capitalizing on his heroics to pick up the third map 16-9.
