Fnatic’s Magnum on first Masters game: 'I felt more comfortable on stage than at home'

May 24, 2021

by Mitch Reames

With a dominant 2-0 performance at Masters: Reykjavík, Fnatic kicked off VALORANT’s first international LAN with a bang. Besides the pistol rounds, KRÜ Esports from Argentina couldn’t get any traction against one of the hottest teams across VALORANT in Fnatic.

“I never played CS:GO professionally before, this is my first esport career at all,” said Martin “Magnum” Peňkov after the match. “I joined Fnatic three days before the open qualifier, since then, we are going up and up and up. It’s insane.”

Magnum and Nikita “Derke” Sirmitev both were added to the Fnatic roster on April 9. After the roster change, Fnatic beat Team Liquid in the Challengers 2 final. Much like the addition of Maxim "wippie" Shepelev to Version1 in NA, it was a roster change that worked better than even the most optimistic projection.

“I just meshed with Derke and others on the team,” Magnum said. “They didn’t look at me like a new player, they took me on as a real core member, and I feel like that was a big plus for me and Derke. I don’t have much experience so I feel really lucky to be playing on this team.”

Experience or not, the results speak for themselves. While most of the community expected a team from Europe to beat the team from Latin America, the blowout performance showed a massive gap between the two regions.

“I think KRÜ is a good team, they have good fundamentals,” said Derke in a post-game press conference. “But we are just better and we already have passed that level.”

As VALORANT esports were forced into only regional competitions for the first year due to the pandemic, the difference between regional playstyles had an unprecedented amount of time to develop. For KRÜ, despite coming out with a different look, it didn’t catch Fnatic by surprise.

“I felt like we had a read on them, they played totally the same as the past vods,” Magnum said. “They inspired themselves from Europe quite a lot, but they also have some NA inspiration, so they played with a combo of EU and NA. It was pretty similar to the Turkish style, it felt like playing Oxygen Esports.”

The actual match fell into a consistent pattern. KRÜ Esports took the first two pistol rounds, then Fnatic took the rest. Once they switched from Attack to Defense, KRÜ took the first two pistol rounds and Fnatic took the rest. The same pattern played out on both maps.

“There is much higher competition in NA and EU. I feel like those teams are going to be adjusting better to other team’s playstyles,” Magnum said. “It didn’t really feel like I was playing in a world event because they didn’t do anything new, it just felt like playing the game.”

Considering that both Magnum and Derke were playing on their biggest stages of their esports careers, having a tune-up game to start in Iceland could be a nice benefit. Coming into the Sentinels matchup tomorrow, the Fnatic players will have a good feeling of what to expect on the stage as they take on a more talented opponent.

“Some of my friends told me I’d probably be shaking on stage because I’m not an experienced player,” said Magnum. “But actually, I felt more comfortable on stage than at home. Being able to see my teammates, be around that atmosphere, it’s insane, it’s my comfort zone.”

The two new players were certainly on a bigger stage than they were used to, but they certainly didn’t get carried in Match 1. Both Derke and Magnum had fantastic performances in a dominant team victory.

“I've wanted to get on international LAN for a few years now,” Derke said. “I am so excited to be here. I think we are going to be the first team in and the last team out.”

While Team Liquid is the popular pick to win the tournament, Fnatic has been challenging them at the top of EU over the last month. Derke’s prediction on Day 1 might be a bit bold, but hey, when the team has basically only won since Derke was added, who can blame him for being a bit confident?

Before any talk of the final can really take off, Fnatic has to take on NA’s best in Sentinels. Clearly the top team from North America, Sentinels and Fnatic will set up the first NA-EU clash on Tuesday at 4 p.m. ET.

Lead image credit: Riot Games