It was the losers' bracket finals of VCT Masters Toronto, and it was a match between FNATIC, the champions of VCT EMEA, versus the hungry wolves from the Chinese region, Wolves Esports.
This match would be the first best-of-5 match of the tournament, and the winner would advance to the grand finals.
Both teams would be hungry for a spot in the Grand Finals, but for Wolves Esports, a win would mean their first-ever trip to a Grand Final in their first VCT Major for Juciy, SiufatBB, Spring and Yuicaw, while Lysoar had a trip to VCT Champions 2024 with FunPlus Pheonix.
Heading into map one, it would be FNATIC’s map pick of Split that would start this Best-Of-5 series.
The first half would be the FNATIC and Chronicle show, as they would dominate the first half with a 10-2 lead.
With Chronicle led the half with 13 kills, 4 deaths and 3 assists.
Heading into the second half wolves would wake up and show some fight as they would go on a 7-2 round run.
Unfortunately, the attempted comeback wouldn’t be effective as they would win one more round and take map one with Chronicle taking map MVP with 19 kills, 12 deaths and 5 assists.
Wolves showed some life on the first map and wanted to continue to bring the fight on the next map.
Map two would be Wolves pick, Icebox, though they attempted to show some fight, FNATIC would demolish Wolves on their map pick with a score of 13-4 with Kaajak getting map MVP with 16 kills, 8 deaths and 5 assists.
Wolves Esports would now be on the edge of elimination as another loss would eliminate them from the tournament.
Wolves needed a win to keep their dreams of a grand final alive and as they headed into map three on Lotus, FNATIC would win the first two rounds showing their dominance.
Unfortunately, the Wolves were ready for FNATIC to hunt and soon showed that hunting the wolves would be a harder task than they thought as towards the end of the first half the match would be tied at 6-6.
FNATIC would enter another tie at the half that mirrored their previous match against G2 Esports, but unlike that match, it would be their opponent's player, Wolves Lysoar, leading the half with 11 kills, 8 deaths and 4 assists.
Going into the second half, FNATIC would gain the lead, winning the first two rounds, but Wolves Esports should grit and stay in the match, winning the next two rounds.
Wolves Esports would eventually gain the lead and close out map three with a win, keeping them alive momentarily with Wolves Spring earning map MVP with 26 kills, 11 deaths and 6 assists.
With Wolves Esports winning map three, they were able to give themselves some time to breathe and extend this match to map four.
Wolves Esports would feel a bit more confident this time as they headed into their map pick for map four, Ascent.
Unfortunately for Wolves, FNATIC on Ascent have a 67 per cent win rate while Wolves have a 50 per cent win rate, and it showed that FNATIC would conquer Wolves Esports this entire map.
FNATIC would win the map 13-5 in dominating fashion, with Alfajar getting match MVP with a total of 80 kills, 58 deaths and 16 deaths.
With Wolves Esports being eliminated, they ended this Cinderella run by defying the odds and finishing 3rd in the tournament when many believed they would be eliminated in the Swiss stage.
During the post-match press conference, Wolves Esports In-Game-Lead (IGL) SiufatBB emotionally reflected on the team's journey and what it meant to place third.
SiufatBB said he thanked himself for not giving up even when the results didn't back him up.
"I want to thank myself for not giving up even when there were no results to back me up. Thank you to the part of me that never gave up," he said.
SiufatBB said he is happy with his team's performance and that he’s grateful to his team for believing in him.
“I’m really grateful to my teammates for believing in me. Finishing third this time, I’ve seen a lot of areas where we can improve. We could’ve done even better, but I’m still really happy,” he said.
“Everyone here gave me so much energy and confidence to keep going. Thank you all,” he said.
Now the stage is set at VCT Masters Toronto and the Grand Finals would be VCT Pacfic’s Paper Rex facing off against VCT EMEA Stage one Champions FNATIC.