The longest match ever (citation needed)

We really wanted to make a joke about fnatic being like Edward V - the king of England who lasted just 78 days on the throne, and comparing that to UKCS' reign over the rest of Europe.

Because - spoiler alert - they lost to Gambit, and are out of IEM Winter.

But by god, it was not a short reign, largely as the game against Gambit was more akin to the Hundred Years War than the reign of poor Eddy the Fifth.

However, much like another team we'll mention in a minute, Gambit forged their reputation in the fires of overtime, map threes and round 30s; fnatic are still new to this, and you can't practice performing as a team with that pressure without... just playing those games so many times.

IEM Winter was a good showing for fnatic, but Gambit finally put the brakes on the UKCS train. They hadn't lost a series until Gambit beat them in game that ended at almost 2AM, with an overtime on map one and a double overtime on map two.

Gambit washed fnatic out on map three and sent fnatic back out of the EU, but fnatic can be happy with their performance going into 2022.

Alas, that was all for nought for Gambit. They slipped and fell - ironically enough, given the previous passages - in overtime of map three against Vitality. Take a guess who topfragged for Vitality.

They'll take on VP - more on them later - with G2 and NiP making up the other semi-final. G2 have continued their Major form into IEM Winter, and make up half of the dead French rosters in the top 4.

The only good French team, is a dead French team.