SK Gaming Win the DreamHack Summer 2017

The DreamHack Summer 2017 ended past weekend, and in the end, it was SK Gaming that had the biggest reason to celebrate as they won the title at this tournament. DreamHack Summer 2017 was held in Jonkoping, Sweden and it marked the beginning of a series of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournaments that will culminate with Krakow Major.

In the final, SK Gaming faced Fnatic whose rivalry in CS:GO competitions is one of the biggest that the eSports industry has ever seen. Both teams did not have great group stage as both teams finished the group stage in the second place with two wins and one defeat. Before reaching the grand final, SK Gaming had to eliminate CLG while Fnatic took down Immortals in their match for the place in the grand final.

Inferno

The first map of the grand final was Inferno, and Fnatic chose it. Despite that, SK Gaming managed to start the first map much better by gaining an advantage in the opening stages. However, Fnatic managed to come back. Even though Fnatic found the way to fight against SK defense, Fnatic was not able to turn around the 8-7 advantage of the first half for SK.

SK Gaming started the second half even better as they managed to increase their advantage that put Fnatic’s economy in a very bad situation and at the end that proved to be too much to overcome for Fnatic as SK Gaming won the first map with the score of 16-8.

Overpass

SK Gaming chose the second map but Fnatic displayed a performance like never before as they had answers for all the moves that SK Gaming did. Because of that, Fnatic gained a huge advantage in the early stages, and at 12-1 it became clear that SK Gaming will not be able to win the second map.

In the second half of this map proved to be very short as it did not take a long time for Fnatic to secure the win in the second map with the score 13-2. Even though SK Gaming was the favorite for the win in this match, Fnatic managed to surprise SK by stealing away the second map and taking the final match into the third and deciding map.

Mirage

After both teams have selected their maps of choice, it was time for both teams to veto some maps and in the end, the only map that remained available was Mirage. Fnatic started the third map with the win in the first round, but SK Gaming did not allow Fnatic to make any significant advantage in the early stages. The main reason for that is the fact that SK Gaming maintained the control in the middle map that Fnatic attacked furiously, but they were not able to take away the control from SK.

After the tactical break, Fnatic managed to win in several rounds, and at the end of the first half, SK Gaming had the advantage of 7-8. The second half started with SK Gaming winning the pistol round which put Fnatic into a defensive position. In that situation, Fnatic was not able to resist the SK attacks, and during the second half, SK Gaming lost only one round, and at the end, they won the third round with the score 16-8.

With the win in the third map, SK Gaming won the title at the DreamHack Summer 2017 which put them in the leading position when it comes to the favorites for the upcoming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournaments, including with the Major in Krakow.