Fnatic claims the ESEA Season 17 LAN finals title and a $20,000 prize after defeating Virtus.pro in the grand finals by winning two consecutive best-of-three matches.
The last day of the ESEA Season 17 LAN finals featured the consolation match between Fnatic and iBUYPOWER and the Grand Finals. In the consolation match we didn't see anything new. Fnatic was up at their level, while iBUYPOWER just couldn't pull any new upset at this event. The score was 2-0 (de_cache 16-12 and de_inferno 16-9).
Virtus.pro was waiting in the grand finals for their opponent from the consolation match. The grand finals format was set that the winner will be a team who wins 2x bo3. By coming from the upper bracket Virtus.pro had 1x bo3 advantage, so in order to win those LAN finals they had to win only 1x bo3, while Fnatic had to win both (2x bo3).
The match was opened with de_cache where Virtus.pro had a really good first half on the less favored T side, winning it 8-7. It was looking like another win of the Polish team over Fnatic on this map, since they took a win last night at the upper bracket finals, however Fnatic made it much harder for them this time. The Swedes played an excellent second half, making it 10-16 and moving onto de_mirage. Mirage saw the same Fnatic from the second half of de_cache. They just snowballed in the first half at T side to make it 10-5 and it was a very hard task for the Virtus.pro to make anything out of this map. Fnatic won the second map with the same result as the first one, 16-10, and they made the score equal, 1-1, in the grand finals.
The second bo3 of the grand finals kicked off on de_dust2. Fnatic came out with an early lead during the first half, however VP, led by Snax hitting unbelievable shows with the awp, has managed to make it 6-9 in the Fnatic's favor after the first half. The Polish team won the second pistol round and quickly afterwards they had a lead of 12-10. Fnatic decided to go for the double awp strat at mid doors, which in the end was enough to shut down a really great Snax. Snax killed JW, but olofmeister returned the kill and from that point on Fnatic didn't had much of a problem closing down this map, since VP was struggling with the economy. In the end it was 16-13 in favor of Fnatic. The second map of those best-of-three series was de_train where Fnatic had better position starting on a CT side. However, Virtus.pro stomped their way into de_train winning six entry rounds and making it 6-0 for them. But, the Swedes showed why they're considered as one of the best teams currently in the scene. They won the next nine rounds to make it 9-6 for them at the end of the first half. In the second half we saw Virtus.pro making this a close match by forcing a tie at the score of 13-13, but then Fnatic won an eco round and just executed it until the end for a 16-13 scoreline and the ESEA Season 17 title.
Prize distribution:
1. 
Fnatic - $20,000
2. 
Virtus.pro - $6,000
3. 
iBUYPOWER - $4,500
4. Denial eSports - $4,000
5-6. Cloud9 - $3,500
5-6. 
Titan - $3,500
7-8. eLevate - $3,000
7-8. 
Mousesports - $3,000
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