I hate asking this question but is Fnatic being held back by their coaching staff?
Potter cooked up new shit for 4 maps in between Tokyo and now while Fnatic is stil playing the same comps they were playing in 2011 and still haven't learned Pearl.
I was saying this shit for a year tho. Even last year.
They just refuse to adapt and theyre sooooooo slow with changing or learning stuff its really insane.
Yesterday they lost because they had no aim and no fundamentals, not rlly bcs of strats but tbh they were just doing same shit as always anyway on top of derke not hitting the easiest op shots of his life
Maybe a bit of a cope.
But fnc seem to adapt when they lose/ get properly tested.
EMEA and Tokyo did not expose many flaws in fnatics comps/plans.
Its the "why fix something if its not broke" mentality.
I do agree that fnatic probably should've learnt how to play pearl to atleast float the map in certain matchups but it wasn't the main issue in champions.
A lot of the fundamentals just broke down, lack of trades peeking 1v1 etc... it was night and day compared to lock//in fnc
That's what I'm saying bro
If Fnatic had cooked up a new comp Loud wouldn't have been able to anti-strat them but since they didn't change anything at all Loud didn't have any trouble reading them like a book.
Meanwhile they had no time to anti-strat EG and also haven't played against these comps before so they can't read them as well
Mini and Boaster (counting him as a part of the coaching staff in terms of strategie) have the best trac record of any coaching-staff in the entirety of the game. They used to try and change up comps more (prime example is the breach neon comp on breeze at champs 2022 against furia) and have since moved away from it because they believe that it is best for players to have seen as many different dituations on the angent they olay on a particular map and just be overall more comfortble. According to boaster, this was inspired by the old sentinels roster, and it has since earned them 2 titles.
Also, Mini said that it was planned to get pearl to a point were they might float it in the map-veto, but that this was interrupted by icebox (clearly the best fnatic-map) was rotated out.
The fnatic coaching staff situation is a bit unusual compared to other rosters, having no analyst for example (though I suspect this comes from Boaster being the main strats innovator on the team, with coach Mini being the one to fill the gaps, as coaches often do). They do have a mental coach, which is probably a good thing given the struggles boaster has had in the past and Mini being a somewhat introverted character.
Interviews that they have had recently have pointed toward snowballing being a weakness of the team. In general, their pistol strats were not so successful, and teams now are very cognisant of stacking early ult orbs on the high impact ults of individuals that have done well in early rounds, that can lead to big advantages being created against them early (despite often good macro ideas in rifle rounds and strong individuals).
I know esports budgets are being cut, but given they have expressed recently that they feel pinched for time, surely an analyst or two would help them have better prep and develop a full map pool. Obviously they have Anderzz, but he seems to be on a contractual basis (he had frequent conflicts with Boaster during one of their champions vlogs, but I can't help but feel he would be very useful full time).