This marks the first of a four-day tournament featuring eight Counter-Strike teams from around the world. The LAN event is currently being played at Sparbanken Skane Arena in Lund, Sweden.

Day 1 hosted six fixtures, with the Fnatic-Heroic game being the most closely contested. However, two teams – MiBR and Evil Geniuses – have already been eliminated from the tournament.

The opening fixture was played on Inferno, as both teams rejected the other maps. It was impressive to see the newly put together Fnatic win against the No.9 ranked team in the world.

Coming into the game, no one expected Fnatic to walk away with a victory. Several esports betting sites had Heroic pegged as $1.27 favourites, suggesting an 82% probability of victory.

Three of Fnatic’s starters joined the team days before the start of the tournament. The British team announced the acquisition of Fredrik “roeJ” J?rgensen and Nico “nicoodoz” Tamjid on June 3. Both players came from Copenhagen Flames.

Their most recent acquisition is Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg, who is on loan from Dignitas. The organization announced his acquisition a day before the tournament, and he will be operating as a stand-in.

Fnatic are currently undergoing a roster revamp but were unable to put their house in order before the Pinnacle Cup. They reached out to f0rest after their first-choice fell ill at boot camp.

F0rest, who was a member of Fnatic from 2006 to 2010, fit in well with the new roster. Although he was tied for the most deaths in the match, he registered a decent 18 kills.

Nicoodoz was the team’s best player, posting a 20-14 K-D and finishing with a game-high 1.21 rating.

The biggest surprise of the night was Fnatic choosing William “mezii” Merriman to be the in-game leader. The Englishman had never taken up the role in the past but did a decent job executing today.

In the post-match interview with HLTV, mezii said they were able to pull off such an upset because they communicated well.

“Really good to be honest, I think Heroic are always one of the hardest teams to play, just their playstyle is super hard to read against because they’re always gambling, they’re always over-rotating, so it’s super hard,” he said.

“For us, since we made the changes, it has always been about communication. I think when you play a team like that, when your communication is really good, that’s how you beat them. I think we played super calm and were able to react well against them.”

It will be intriguing to see how this team progresses in the tournament. Not many had big expectations for them because of how they were put together.

Fortunately, they have managed to pull off one of the biggest wins in the tournament.

Fnatic will return to action on June 9 to take on BIG in the winners’ match. As things stand, a playoff appearance is guaranteed, but they will be looking for better seeding.

A win against BIG will catapult them into the upper-bracket final. If they fail to win that best-of-three series, they will square off against Heroic again in the decider match.

The winner of that fixture will get a direct seeding to the lower-bracket final, while the loser will play in the first round of the lower bracket.

Regardless of where they end up, they still have a chance to win first place and walk away with $150,000 of the US$250,000 prize pool.

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Heroic and Fnatic will kick off Group A with a best-of-one between the no.6-ranked roster in the world and the currently unranked Fnatic. Heroic have a 2-1 record in best-of-one matches over the past month, while Fnatic have a 1-2 record in the same time span.

Fnatic enter this event with two new players that have been signed from Copenhagen Flames in Fredrick “roeJ” Jorgensen and Nico “nicoodoz” Tamjidi, with the fifth player on the Fnatic roster still yet to be announced. Fnatic have not competed in an event since their 9th-12th place finish in the ESL Pro League back in early April, and given their recent roster shake-up, we should see a completely different Fnatic here in Sweden.

Heroic enter the Pinnacle Cup as the top-ranked team at the event, but so far this year the Danes have been quite underwhelming for a consistent top-five team, as they have not made it to the semi-finals at any of the events they have participated in since the start of March. The most recent event that Heroic participated in was the PGL Major in Antwerp, where they were knocked out by Natus Vincere in the quarter-finals and finished in 5th-8th place.

Heroic will see the Pinnacle Cup Championship as a good opportunity to secure a tournament win, therefore we will taking them at -4.5 rounds.

BIG and MiBR kick off their Pinnacle Cup Championship event with a best-of-one between the 15th and 24th ranked teams in the world, respectively. Both teams have 2-2 records in best-of-one matches over the past month.

BIG are coming off a great run at IEM Dallas 2022 where they finished in 3rd-4th place and surprised everyone after they won their first two games over Ninjas in Pyjamas and MiBR rather impressively. They took down FURIA in a competitive series and then fell to the eventual IEM Dallas champions Cloud9 1-2 in the semi-final. BIG will arrive to Sweden full of confidence and they could be a dark horse to take out the Pinnacle Cup Championship.

MiBR will begin the event on a three game win streak after they have won their last three matches in the ESL Challenger League Season 41 NA over BHOP, Axolotls and Mythic. The Brazilian roster are yet to make a big splash at an S-Tier event this year with early exits at both IEM Dallas 2022 and the PGL Major in Antwerp earlier this year.

BIG will be looking to recapture the form they were in early at IEM Dallas and kick off the Pinnacle Cup Championship the same way, therefore we will be taking the match favourites at the rounds line of -4.5.

The No.12-ranked team in the world, Astralis, take on the no.39-ranked team in the world, Evil Geniuses, in the first best-of-one match for Group B. Astralis have a 2-2 record in their best-of-one matches over the last month, while Evil Geniuses have not played any series in six weeks.

Astralis have not made the playoff stage of any event they have participated in since they made the quarter-finals of the ESL Pro League back in early April. The all-Danish roster has shown some glimpses of talent in that time, but things have not been clicking at all of late. Astralis have not beaten a team inside the top 20 in the world in the last month.

Evil Geniuses have taken a much needed break from competitive CS:GO after their very underwhelming first four months of this year following a roster shake-up in January. The new roster has not managed to qualify for a single S-Tier event since ESL Pro League back in March, where EG didn’t win a single series and finished in 21st-24th place.

The betting sites have the odds pretty spot on for this best-of-one. Even though Astralis have been lacking the form of a no.12-ranked team, they are still playing better Counter-Strike than Evil Geniuses have been. We will be taking the unders in the total rounds line of 26.5.

Imperial and Finest end the round one matches for Group B. Imperial will begin the Pinnacle Cup Championship as the 14th-ranked team in the world, whilst Finest will be the 31st-ranked team in the world. Imperial have a 2-5 record in best-of-one matches over the last month, whereas Finest have only played one best-of-one match in the same time span for one loss.

Imperial have been on an incredible run throughout 2022. Ranked 81st in the world back in March, they have now climbed all the way up to 14th in just three months. They have achieved this feet by winning or finishing in the top two in multiple qualifiers and then performing at the main events shortly after, recording a 9th-11th place finish in the PGL Major in Antwerp as their best S-Tier event finish for the year.

Finest have also had their own rise up the world rankings, but in much shorter time, with their current six-game win streak catapulting them up 35 places from 66th on the May 22 to 31st as of today. Finest won Pinnacle Cup IV in late May, earning them a cool US$80,000 in winnings, and the Swedes currently sit on top of the standings in the Elisa Spring Invitational with a 2-0 record. This invitation to one of their first ever S-Tier events could not have come at a better time for Finest, with the benefit of the event also being in their home country.

This best-of-one series sets up as one of the better matches of the day with the bookmakers only having 10c splitting the two teams. It should be a cracking match to complete the first set of games for round one. We will be siding with the slender favourites to get the win here.

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