Image via Ubisoft
In our FURIA Esports SI 2022 preview interview with Marlon “Twister” Mello, the Brazilian coach made it clear: this team is not about one fantastic player, but five.
People often followed FURIA Esports throughout the season to check how Diogo “Fntzy” Lima’s numbers were doing. Such fame doesn’t come from under the rocks, there’s a reason. The 18-year-old is already playing his second Six Invitational following a year where he was among the greatest in Brazil in terms of entries and frags.
Just like in football, the strikers who constantly score goals and obtain individual honors are the most praised names.
Teams figured out a way of slowing down the Brazilian wunderkind by banning Finka, a formula that we saw in action both regionally – NiP and FaZe Clan at the BR6 Finals and the Copa Elite Six Stage 3, respectively – and internationally, with SSG banning her in its last Sweden group stage match against FURIA.
While FURIA Esports had a really strong performance against Team BDS, the European League champions faced the challenge with a huge void in the line-up. Adrien “RaFaLe” Rutik could not play, with the team’s coach Arnaud “BiOs” Billaudel filling the spot.
Team BDS applied the same formula as SSG did in the Major with hopes of stopping Fntzy. The French squad banned Finka on both Oregon and Bank, but failed to capitalize.
“I believe that these other teams banned Finka because they were trying to ban Fntzy, that’s because the media is really hard above him, saying he’s the greatest and he’s the best and that FURIA just plays the way FURIA plays because of him. But that’s the good news, we are a team, we don’t depend on one player, that’s why BDS’ bans didn’t bother us. Teams can keep banning Finka, we don't [mind],” Twister laughed.
“Winning [against] BDS last night was really important for everyone in the team, it gave us confidence to begin the tournament. RaFaLe not playing for them was one step that made them not play their game, you could see it on the players, they were not confident. On that, we were able to win playing our game style and playing our best. It was not fully Team BDS, but on the first map they were playing to win. When we reached the second map they felt it more,” admitted Twister.
FURIA Esports’ first map win came on Oregon, one of BDS’ temples. Although that was a really close map (8-7), Bank was a whole different story. FURIA were reluctant to give BDS the slightest chance of pulling off a comeback and quickly killed the series with a rock-solid 7-1 victory.
Luiz “Miracle” Abrantes led the team as he went a step further from his role, combining his hard breaching and support tasks with getting kills. The Brazilian was the highest rated player in the game with a SiegeGG rating of 1.44, obtaining the exact same number of kills than Fntzy (24), a KOST of 78% and a really high survival percentage of 57. “I was happy to help the team doing things I was not supposed to, catching kills and not losing any chance,” Miracle said.
Now, TSM is in FURIA's scope. This won’t be the team’s only NA opponent, as FURIA will face DarkZero Esports on the last group stage day – a match that could be personal to DZ, as FURIA kicked the purple squad out of the Six Invitational 2021. “We don’t focus on them as ‘NA teams’, but as games we must win to get into the playoffs,” said Twister.
FURIA Esports will face TSM later today at 7 pm CET, which could be a huge step forward in the team’s aspirations of making the next round as group leaders.