The Battle for First Place in Group A
Right now, Fnatic and Acend are tied for first place with a 2-0 score, although Fnatic has the upper hand in round differential (+27 vs. +11). This is such an unexpected scenario because in the last EMEA Challengers Group Stage we saw Fnatic completely stomp the rest of the competition without losing a single match. On the other hand Acend struggled during the last days of the group stage and couldn’t make it into the playoffs. Many esports betting experts think that the team that wins this match will be the one finishing 1st in Group A.
In early May, Fnatic made a couple of roster changes that so far have shown positive results. Enzo “Enzo” Mestari and Emir Ali “Alfajer” Beder joined the team to try and secure Fnatic’s 3rd VCT Masters appearance. But there is one more thing that needs to be mentioned for this match, this is going to be Acend’s golden opportunity to prove that they are still one of the strongest Valorant teams in the European region, because let’s not forget that they won the Champions back in 2021, and after failing to qualify for Stage 1 Masters, they are looking to claim back what’s theirs.
Acend Dominated OG LDN UTD and FOKUS
In the past couple of weeks we’ve been seeing Acend try their hardest to assert their dominance over the European competition. Their first victims were OGN LDN UTD, who couldn’t snatch a single map off Acend’s hands. MONSTEERR, who is one of the newest additions to the Acend roster, completely dominated Icebox with his Viper pick, finishing the game with the highest ADR of the game (191). While the second map wasn’t as one sided for them, Acend still managed to control the game and Zeek ended up having the best performance of the team.
Acend now had to defeat Fokus in the following week if they wanted to get their streak going, and they did it. Fokus is one of the newer teams playing in the VCT EMEA Challengers, but they haven’t scored a single win yet, and the esports odds were against them. Starxo’s performance was one of the determining factors in Acend’s win over Fokus as he had the highest KAST% (76) and +17 kill differential, although cNed had the highest ADR of the series.
Fnatic Wants to Take Over Europe
While the Fnatic organization joined the Valorant scene a long time ago, it’s only until now that they are looking like a strong contender in the European region. The last time they won a Challengers tournament was back in 2021 during Stage 2, and after that, it seems that they started to slowly fall off. We all remember KRU’s run in the 2021 Champions, and I’m pretty sure that Fnatic remembers it well because KRU ended up taking them down in the quarterfinals, defying all the esports bets.
But Fnatic has been looking great so far in this Stage 2 EMEA Challengers. In their first encounter against Funplus Phoenix, Fnatic started off strong in Fracture and FPX only managed to pick up a couple of rounds, and although FPX bounced back for game 2, their run finished quickly right after that. Now they are facing up against one the most highly-regarded European teams in the Valorant scene, and if they figure out how to defeat them, we might be witnessing Fnatic’s resurgence.
Acend vs Fnatic Game Information
- Date: Saturday, May 28th.
- Time: 1:00pm ET
- Acend vs Fnatic Live Stream: VALORANT – Twitch
Take a Look at Other 2 Picks for This Week’s VALORANT Matchups
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- TSM vs The Guard Predictions, Game Preview, Live Stream, Odds & Picks
Acend vs Fnatic Predictions
The most interesting part about this upcoming match is that both of these teams made huge roster changes for this Challengers iteration, and both teams have picked up 2 wins already. It’s very clear that they have all the intentions to compete for the title and we can only wonder which teams might be able to stand up against these 2 titans.
Fnatic completely dismantled Acend the last time they played against each other, which was back in early March. But as mentioned before, things have changed, and I’m not only talking about rosters, the game has changed quite a bit and we all know that being able to adapt is something that not all the teams are capable of doing. But so far from what we’ve seen in the group stage, both Fnatic and Acend seem to have a good read on the meta.
In the end, I think that Fnatic has shown much better performance in their last two matches if we compare them directly with Acend. Both teams had to face OG LDN UTD, which isn’t necessarily the strongest team in the tournament. The thing is that Fnatic took down Funplus Phoenix, which is another team that is looking to claim the title and they came into this Challengers looking pretty strong. This definitely will be one of the closest matches we’ll have in the group stage, but I do think that Fnatic is going to score a win in their books.
