Fnatic lost out in their opening match at Valorant Champions, falling 2-1 in the series against 100 Thieves and while the loss may have dampened the team’s spirits, head coach Jacob ‘mini’ Harris said the team will rebound for a lower bracket run.
Fnatic is one of the most consistent teams in Valorant. The EMEA squad has appeared in every international tournament in 2022 and only missed one in 2021. In an interview with Dexerto, mini spoke about how the team came into this tournament with a high level of confidence, but that the squad was not at the same level as they were at Masters Copenhagen.
“We were playing probably like the best Valorant that maybe any team has ever played,” mini said about Fnatic going into Copenhagen. “Like, we were insane and we went to the event, and we didn’t live up to that expectation at all. We weren’t as good. So I think last event was probably the event where we were like Jesus Christ, we’re unstoppable.”
Before making the trip to Copenhagen, Fnatic was on a hot streak and did not lose a single series over the course of Valorant Champions Tour EMEA Stage 2 Challengers league. Some would call the period for Fnatic a short honeymoon as they signed two new players to the squad, former Fnatic stand-in Enzo ‘Enzo’ Mestari and Turkish talent Emir Ali ‘Alfajer’ Beder.
Fnatic’s post Masters blues
But after falling short of their expectations and bouncing out Top 4 at the next Master, mini said the team’s confidence took a hit. Coming into Valorant Champions Fnatic and the other teams who qualified off of circuit points were able to lick their wounds and rebound for the event.
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Now, the squad is looking to do that again after their loss to 100T.
“Obviously, we’ve been knocked a little bit, we’ve lost our opening game, like it’s going to be hard, but we’ll get our confidence back,” mini said.
Fnatic will face FURIA Esports in the Group D elimination bracket on September 5.
