Game 2 of IEM Katowice’s Group B saw the rematch of the Qiao Gu Reapers and Fnatic. Qiao Gu are firmly in possession of China’s top seed, boasting an impressive 7-1 record. Fnatic, on the other hand, have seen a rapid decline in performance since making several drastic roster changes, one of which brought us the first international appearance of support player Johan “Klaj” Olsson. History repeated itself as QG dominated Fnatic to allow them to advance in the tournament. Let’s go over how they made it happen.
Qiao Gu:
Nautilus, Ekko, Zed, Lucian, Braum
Fnatic:
Graves, Gragas, Ahri, Kalista, Thresh
Analysis:
In this game, QG opted to play their substitute ADC Jian “Uzi” Zi-Hao, often seen as a very aggressive player during the laning phase. He held to that title as early aggression in the bot lane allowed his team to rotate for a four man tower dive that let him acquire first blood at the six minute mark. QG would continue these aggressive rotations, winning a fight after securing Rift Herald that would quickly low Uzi to snowball his early lead.
The game would continue to go at a stalemate for quite some time, both teams content to simply farm with QG staying ahead by only a couple thousand gold. That is until an explosive teamfight happened when Fnatic contested QG’s attempt to take another dragon. Careful positioning from Fnatic ADC Martin “Rekkles” Larsson allowed the fight to end in three kills on both sides, proving Fnatic was not out yet.
Unfortunately for EU fans, Fnatic’s recovery was very short lived. Only minutes later, a 4v3 catch out teamfight from QG allowed the Chinese powerhouse to completely decimate Fnatic’s team. The long death timers were the nail in the coffin that allowed QG to win the game, ensuring they would move on to face world champion SKTelecom T1.
