2015 was dominated by Fnatic. Its once despised players won the hearts and minds of fans after winning nine tournaments in 2015. Evidently, they also won the hearts and minds of players as each team in the top four embodies the dynastic Fnatic.

The man behind Fnatic’s game was pronax. pronax was not a skilled player, but he was an expert at reading the game and at pointing the heat-seeking missiles that were the rest of Fnatic to their targets. These heat-seeking missiles are more properly known as olofmeister, JW, flusha, and KRiMZ. There is little that needs to be said about olofmeister. He is an incredibly skilled player. He has remarkable proficiency on many weapons and is a very adaptable player. At the beginning of Fnatic’s rise to fame, JW was a skilled AWPer, but after the AWP nerf hampered his sniping abilities, JW found other ways to infuriate players, such as abuse of shotguns and SMG’s. flusha, while not often as remarkable as JW and olof, was a skilled lurker who could have explosive clutches and games every now and then. KRiMZ, the final player in the dynasty of 2015, had a remarkably unremarkable playstyle in which he would anchor positions, be the glue of the team, and could always be counted on.

Today, spectral images of these players can be found in the members of the top four teams. Using SK as an example, we’ll start with FalleN. Although he is rightfully thought of as having the ability to be a tactical in-game leader, a tactical in-game leader he is no longer. In 2015, FalleN was responsible for the intricate maneuvers and executes that made Luminosity shine as one of the best tactical teams. However, when zews departed SK to join Immortals, he reported that SK, at the time, was primarily led by FalleN but also was influenced by player contributions, notably those of coldzera. Speaking of coldzera, he fits the olofmeister archetype of being a highly skilled and versatile player. fer is most similar to JW as they both have a tendency to be immensely aggressive. Where the comparison fails to hold integrity is with the remaining players. TACO and boltz both fit into the KRiMZ archetype, leaving no one to fill the flusha role.

If the goal is to be as close to the Fnatic formula as possible, then SK has fallen short. However, copying a team will never be as effective as being the actual team. The key to being great is to learn from the best, figure out how to apply it to yourself, and then bring it one step further.

A couple years ago, there was a sriracha craze in the United States. Restaurants felt the need to incorporate sriracha spiced items to their menu. Rather than copying the typical Thai usage for sriracha sauce of accompanying it with seafood, restaurants found success by adding it to the items that they already specialize in.

SK exemplifies the perfect balance between respecting the players of the team and embracing the meta--a meta laid out by Fnatic two years ago. FalleN is a very skilled player, but he is also an in-game leader. Normally throughout Counter-Strike, and in Fnatic 2015, in-game leaders provide space and support to their star players. While this may be the “right” way to play Counter-Strike, SK has FalleN, one of the best AWPers and in-game leaders in the world. No one will, nor should they, sacrifice FalleN’s AWPing skills for the sake of fitting the formula. Instead of having a low skill in-game leader and support player, SK has adapted the template to fit their situation and has two support players and a skilled in-game leader.

If there is one team that is to be associated with Fnatic 2015 in terms of maps, it would be FaZe. In 2015, Fnatic hadn’t consistently stood out on any one map for their entire run. They were good on maps like Inferno and Mirage, but their skill on those maps and others ebbed and flowed. When you have players like olofmeister defining the way in which Cobblestone is being played, it is a little bit difficult to definitively call out such a team’s home map. This is further complicated by Fnatic’s unique veto process.

Fnatic, like FaZe, would punish opponents with in-map vetoes because they were willing to play any map. A team may ban out the map that Fnatic has the highest win rate on, but that won’t stop Fnatic from playing the opposing team’s worst map. Fnatic would also show incredible swagger by selecting their opponent’s best map, just because. Although it is not quite the same on FaZe—as Wallabeebeatle has pointed out with FaZe’s Nuke, Train, and Cobblestone—karrigan is still able to manipulate the map veto, giving his team an advantage that many teams still overlook.

What's more difficult to overlook is FaZe’s unprecedented levels of skill at the behest of karrigan, a pronax-esque leader. The funny part about FaZe is who is fulfilling what role. Olofmeister is playing a more supportive role than in Fnatic. NiKo is the olof-like god of the team. rain is another fantastic support. GuardiaN is the AWPer—as of the few months he has been on this team, has been the AWPer that JW could not consistently be. And karrigan is obviously the low-fragging in-game leader. FaZe is basically an overclocked, roided up version of Fnatic.

Astralis’ most striking Fnatic feature is their teamwork and coordination. And the players on the team match up with those on Fnatic, but for the sake of brevity, I will spare the comparisons. Astralis is like a marching band. When one member steps to the right, the others follow. When one player has a poor game, there is another to take his place, making blowouts of Astralis incredibly rare. They definitely are a more tactical team than Fnatic, but that is not necessary after seeing how these players have played while under karrigan’s leadership. The bottom line of Astralis’ adaptation to the Fnatic formula is that they are a cohesive team with remarkably skilled players for their positions.

G2 on the other hand, expresses the mess that Fnatic could be at times. They forcebuy unceasingly, attack sites without prejudice,and pass up no opportunity for a clutch or additional kill. G2 is able to go deep in tournaments when everything works in their favor, but they lack the leadership, wisdom, and ingenuity of pronax in order to know when it is time to stop forcebuying and prioritize other things. For what G2 lacks in brains, they make up for it in brawn.

To confirm the supremacy of the style that Fnatic had innovated, one only needs to look to BIG. BIG is as tactical of a team as it gets right now. At the Major, BIG was known to abuse certain positions and had numerous executes. Although teams were unable to properly adapt during the Major, BIG’s innovations and abuses were found out immediately, leading to a gentleman’s agreement banning the Banana crouch-jump and changes in how teams play Inferno. In the day and age of coaches and analysts, innovations can be decompiled in under an hour, rendering the clever minds and hard work of tacticians like gob b useless.

Counter-Strike, like our planet, is comprised of too many variables for us to accurately calculate relatively simple things, such as the weather. There is no telling whether or not our days will come to an end tomorrow due to a nuclear holocaust, leading to the succeeding dominance of the cockroach--one of the few lifeforms thought to survive such an event. Like a bug that emerges from the depths only to be trampled under foot, the next best thing to grace Counter-Strike may come from nowhere, but then again, the Fnatic style may thrive like our hopes for peace on earth.

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http://www.foodandwine.com/slideshows/best-sriracha-recipes#1

Image credit: GosuGamers, Amazon

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