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Envyus Trounce Fnatic and Move on to Semis at Dreamhack Open: Cluj-Napoca

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Envyus dominated Fnatic 2-1 to be the first team to qualify for the semi-finals of DreamHack Open: Cluj-Napoca. The match was played on Mirage (Fnatic’s pick) which was 9-16 in the Swedish team’s favor, Cobble 16-9 for the French team and Cache which ended 16-2. Envyus awaits the winner of Virtus Pro vs G2 Esports.

The series started strong with a competitive first half on Mirage. The casters called attention to a slow start by Fnatic. They seemed sluggish and unfocused for the first few rounds. They picked up momentum after a seventh round eco rush from apartments to B site that made the score 2-5. They won the next two round and the match finally seemed to hit its stride.  Fnatic takes the lead for the first time off an Envy eco round which made the score 6-7. The half ended 7-8 in the Swedes’ favor, and Envyus would only go on to win two more rounds. Flusha and KRIMZ were integral to Fnatic’s win with player ratings of 1.66 and 1.27 according to hltv.org. KRIMZ had a couple of high impact rounds that included evening out a 2v5 and hiding on site after an Envy plant. While this was the best map for every player on Fnatic, JW posted a negative kill to death ratio and a player rating of .85.

Cobble felt more in Envyus’ favor than Mirage felt in Fnatic’s, despite the scorelines being the same. Envy grabbed the pistol round thanks to KennyS and apEX getting three frags between them and holding A site long enough for their team to rotate. The map consisted of large chunks of rounds dominated by Envyus, a block of three rounds in Fnatic’s favor and repeat. Flashes of what made Fnatic the most dominant team in the world over the past year+ were readily available for fans to enjoy, but were followed by long periods of sloppy play. More than once they made their way onto B site without clearing all the positions and a lurking Envyus member would peek out and close the round out in the French team’s favor. it was 6-9 at the half, and Envyus took the second pistol dominantly. JW whiffed shots on T’s funneling out to B site and the casters were quick to call him on it. It wasn’t just one man’s fault though. To lose a map isn’t the fault of just JW. As one of the casters said, “Right now, [Envyus] are just winning all of the aim battles.” To Envy’s credit, they looked in perfect form. When they are firing on all cylinders, it’s hard to imagine a team that could deal with KennyS, Happy, kio[c] apEx and NBK. ApEX maintained a player rating of over 1.10 across all three maps. NBK and Happy topped out at 1.75 and 1.74 on Cache.

Reminiscent of NiP vs titan on Dust 2 yesterday, Cache was a one sided beat down. KRIMZ top fragged for Fnatic at 9-15 while olofmeister brought up the rear at 3-17 with a player rating of just .18 — again, all stats thanks to hltv.org. There’s not much to report for this match. Fnatic got outplayed. Their game was completely disrupted by Envyus and their will and concentration seemed to break. They were getting out peeked, out fragged and out smarted. It wasn’t until round 14 that they won their second round and to their credit, it was a solid A hold that came in from pronax and olofmeister.

The match seemed like a one-sided affair, which is odd because Fnatic won map one fairly convincingly. But the solid win on Cobble followed by the domination on Cache made the back end of that match seem weighted heavily towards Envy. Envy is the team I picked to win the tournament going in, and seeing them in form on both Cobble and Cache affirms their positions as one of the favorites. If NBK can maintain his ridiculous level of current play and if apEX continues to seize the opportunities to be a high impact player, there’s a legitimate chance they can outdo Team Solo Mid. KennyS had a huge match, and should keep whatever mindset led to his play today because he’ll need it when he’s opposing the Danes.

For Fnatic, it seems to be time to look inward and address some problems. They had a disappointing online season that had some people ringing alarm bells, but any time they look vulnerable, people call them finished. This marks another loss early in a LAN tournament and an elimination before the semi-finals. If Fnatic didn’t believe there was a problem before, it’s time to look again. JW was absent the entire match. He’s been mostly absent this tournament. Sure, olofmeister may not be in the #1 player in the world form he was last winter, but he’s still easily top 3. Maybe Fnatic needs to start shopping for a new awper, maybe pronax should move to coach, maybe they just need a good boot camp. The problems are very real for the Swedish team, and with the competition heating up throughout the competitive scene, Fnatic need to right the ship before they begin to slip the same way NiP did.

Gaming

Sony Has a “Monopoly” on the High-End Japanese Gaming Market, According to a US Senator

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The never-ending saga surrounding Microsoft’s proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard has a new participant.  Today, Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from the state of Washington, said some things about the subject that were hard to understand.

The senator, whose remarks were reported on by ResetEra, spoke at a Senate finance committee hearing on “the president’s 2023 Trade Policy Plan,” which we are sure was quite interesting.

Senator Cantwell said that she had been told that Sony “controls a monopoly of 98% of the high-end game market” despite the fact that “Japan’s government has allowed Sony to engage in blatant anti-competitive conduct through exclusive deals and payments to game publishers, establishing games that are among the most popular in Japan.”

This 98% statistic is highly deceptive because it ignores PC, Nintendo, and mobile games and instead refers to Sony’s adoption rate over Microsoft in Sony’s native country of Japan, a fact that shouldn’t surprise anyone who is even somewhat familiar with the video game business.

What can we do to rectify these problems and create a level playing field, she said of US Trade Representative Katherine Tai after charging Japan’s Federal Trade Commission with improperly failing to look into this purported “exclusionary conduct”?

It is absurd to claim that Sony has a monopoly on the Japanese video game market, as Luke Plunkett of Kotaku correctly points out, “because Sony doesn’t even have a 98% share of the market for the God of War series, a title they own, as Steam is getting 30% of every sale on PC.”

It goes without saying that we can’t expect elected officials to be experts in every field, but this is a visible step at a time when the ongoing attempt to buy the company is at a very important point.

Is it significant that Microsoft, along with Nintendo, maintains its headquarters in Redmond, Washington—Senator Cantwell’s district—or that Microsoft has given Cantwell more than $500,000 over the past two decades?  Let us leave that up to you.

 

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Consoles

Eating trash, Pizza Possum destroys the PS5

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Pizza Possum is an arcade action game in which you, a possum, attempt to consume as much trash as you can without being discovered.  It is a web-based sequel to the anarchy simulator Untitled Goose Game.It will eventually be available on the PS5.

We couldn’t help but notice that the possum in the title doesn’t look like the cute Australian possum that comes out at night to visit people.On the other hand, it looks like the horrible North American opossums are the ones that will attack trash cans and cause general chaos.Even though we think the second choice was better in terms of theme, we prefer the first one and are happy to explain why.

Your thoughts on Pizza Possum?  Does it possess the necessary mass appeal to successfully skitter along the back fenceline while setting the dog off in the process?

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Consoles

The Mercenaries, a free piece of DLC for Resident Evil 4 Remake, launches on April 7

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Resident Evil 4 is now out, and the excellent remake can be bought right away.Even though you probably plan to play it all this weekend, you can take comfort in the fact that The Mercenaries, Resident Evil’s almost-required challenge mode, will be available as free DLC on April 7.

The mode’s exact details are still unknown, but if it’s anything like previous versions, you can expect some pretty hard tasks to test your skills.

You’re stumped about something? If you are still debating whether to purchase Resident Evil 4 Remake, be sure to look at our exhaustive guide for the answer or our in-depth review. Are you spending this weekend playing Resident Evil 4? Are you anticipating The Mercenaries?

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