How Fnatic Forever Changed Counter-Strike

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You’ve probably seen the moment when Fnatic in CS almost cleanly loses to LDLC a thousand times. In the second round as CT, olofmeister buys a Scout, and the story begins—Olof is boosted onto an invisible pixel, and the French heads start popping one by one. With enough money for a SCAR-20, Fnatic wins round after round and… curtain falls.

The Swedes pull off another incredible comeback and emerge victorious.

For many, this story ends with a funny clip where LDLC players can’t figure out where olofmeister is shooting from and run around the map like ants. But the reality is much deeper.

The portal dotesports titled an article about the bug "Olofboost: The Day CSGO Changed." And we fully agree with that.

It’s obvious that a team wouldn’t use such a serious ace up their sleeve even in the group stage of a Major CS2. This boost is nothing but a free win on the map, but it only works once. Once you pull off this trick, other teams will learn about it and be at least prepared for it, if not use it against you. That’s why the Swedes waited until the last moment; they understood that revealing such a serious trick should only be done at the most opportune time.

So what made them choose that match against LDLC to stage this sensation? Let’s delve into it.

At that time, Fnatic was considered one of the strongest teams in the world. Before the Major, they had won three major LAN tournaments in a row and, alongside LDLC, were the main favorites in Jönköping. However, at the previous Major in Cologne, where the Swedes were also predicted to have a good chance of winning, they lost to NiP in a very disappointing grand final and were clearly upset. The Ninjas were their arch-enemies; shortly before that Major, Fnatic had won an important match against NiP and berated GeT_RiGhT, who had come over to shake hands and congratulate them on their victory.

Moreover, flusha, the team’s star player, was under immense pressure. The community was rife with accusations, including from prominent pro players, that he was using cheats.

Imagine being such a principled team that you even refuse to shake hands with some opponents. Flusha receives hundreds of angry messages accusing him of cheating every day, and becoming a champion means clearing his name.

Then you reach the quarterfinals. Your opponent is the strongest team in the tournament, and winning against them is almost a guaranteed first place. You trade picks, and on the third map, you’re getting smashed. You only win three rounds in the first half and lose the pistol round in the second half.

What better moment to pull such a serious ace from your sleeve?

And they did it. Naturally, from that moment on, the French couldn’t win a single round.

Even if they weren’t in olofmeister’s crosshairs, he was still gathering valuable information and knew exactly where the attack was headed. So if LDLC was planning to go to the A-site, the Swedes were already waiting for them there with five players.

The community immediately split into two camps—while some called Fnatic geniuses, others believed the Swedes were dishonest and scorned them for exploiting the bug.

The only thing they had in common was that everyone was shocked by what they saw.

Here’s what Fnatic’s coach Devilwalk said in an interview:

“Of course, I feel sorry for the LDLC guys. They were much stronger than us in the game. We won thanks to better map knowledge.”

Deciding who is right and who is wrong is ultimately up to the organizers. After all, they conducted the tournament and created the rules that all participants signed.

Their reaction was swift—Dreamhack was informed of a complaint from LDLC and launched an investigation. Since it was only the quarterfinal of the Major, the referees had to make a quick decision.

In their complaint, LDLC didn’t reference the boost itself or even the bug or unfairness but rather something else.

Upon reviewing the demo of that match, the French discovered that one of the Fnatic players who boosted olofmeister stood on an invisible pixel. According to Dreamhack’s regulations, teams are prohibited from using anything not intended by the developers, and since the invisible pixel clearly falls under this rule, the French referred to that.

Formally, they were right—the Dreamhack referees unanimously voted for a rematch. The teams were to resume the match from a 12-3 score and this time adhere to the regulations they had signed.

Think that’s all? Not quite.

Fnatic’s lawyers were also busy and discovered that LDLC had tried to use a similar boost in the same game. However, the French didn’t succeed and abandoned the attempt after a few tries.

Just imagine the absurdity of the situation—LDLC filed a complaint against Fnatic for using a bug that they themselves tried to pull off in the same game.

The referees took this into account and nullified the French’s advantage. Now the match had to be replayed in its entirety, starting from the first map.

And when it seemed like justice had prevailed, the Swedes packed their bags and left the tournament.

No one understood why they did it—Fnatic had indeed violated the rules, but the organizer didn’t disqualify them; they announced a rematch.

Many thought that perhaps their conscience had awoken, but what does that have to do with it if it was already known that LDLC also violated the rules in the same game?

The official statement from the organization didn’t clarify anything:

“Yesterday we faced LDLC in one of the toughest games of the year. However, due to the outcome of the match, many viewers lost enjoyment from watching the Major. The most interesting games are still ahead, and we want to ensure they receive the attention they deserve from the public. So, with the deepest respect for other teams and the entire CS

community, we have decided to voluntarily withdraw from the tournament.”

Just as the CS2 community’s debates about the organizers’ decisions were settling down, a Reddit user posted claiming to be the author of the bug.

He revealed that he originally posted the glitch in a Swedish Facebook group for CSGO, and his video received a mere 300 views. After that, a Fnatic manager contacted him and asked him to delete the post due to, quote, “strategies for the upcoming Dreamhack.”

He took this situation as the Swedes finding his video and deciding to bring the trick to the Major as an ace up their sleeve.

Confident that he was helping his native Swedish team, our hero dutifully deleted the post and told no one about the bug.

But then he didn’t like that Fnatic never mentioned him, even though he had found the bug that helped the team win the match, and they didn’t even say thank you.

A meme “I’m the Fnatic manager, please delete the post” went viral. Both pro players and major organizations, and even Fnatic themselves, joked about it.

The Swedes never admitted that they borrowed the bug from that player; only the coach once mentioned in an interview that they had been “working on” the boost for two months, hinting that they found the glitch themselves.

Who knows, maybe that’s indeed the case.

You know, there’s a thing where every team that has held an era in CSGO has some unique feature.

Astralis, for instance, was known for their iron discipline. That’s partly why their era is called the most boring; people simply got tired of watching the same CS over and over for years.

Brazilian Luminosity, on the other hand, liked to experiment with economy and even introduced a meta where they bought nothing in pistol rounds to have enough money for five UMPs in the next round. Opponents, unsuspecting of the force buy, would buy farm guns, and you’d outgun them all and wreck their economy. Genius.

You could say something similar about any team, and we’re not at all surprised that it was Fnatic who pulled off the olofmeister boost, because their trademark was madness.

The grand final of the Major, score 17-15, and what does Fnatic do? They buy 4 AWPs and stand in spawn.

Or another instance, again a Major, this time the semifinals. Third map, opponent Virtus.pro, a very dangerous team that had just beaten NiP. What does JW do? He buys a sawed-off, one of the most useless weapons at the time in the entire CSGO arsenal. And this is typical Fnatic.

Their tec-9 rushes became such a meme that the community redesigned the organization’s logo, and everyone started calling them fnaTEC.

And what happened next?

In short, it was the beginning of the Fnatic era. The Swedes won three of the next five major tournaments and became champions of two Majors in a row. They were the first team in CSGO to achieve such a result.

And the developers immortalized the legendary boost with a “No Entry” sign.