Dignitas played Fnatic in one of the most exciting matches in ESL One’s Road to Rio. Going to overtime in the first two maps, and finishing it off with a thirtieth round victory in the 3rd, Dignitas completed a grueling upset against the number one team in the world at the time. Dropping their match pick of Train but able to pick up Fnatic’s Overpass pick, Game 3 was played on Dust 2. This was looking to be a pretty clean victory for Fnatic as Dignitas’ record on Dust 2 was really low, only winning twice but losing nine times. However, Dignitas was able to grind it out using some really effective strategies on the T-side. Let’s break them down.

Starting with pistol round, Dignitas did a quick rush up Cat, leaving only one player to hold long. Despite losing two in the process, they were able to get a quick bomb plant for Cat. The bomb plant was the sole purpose of the round as this allowed them to buy rifles for Round 2. The Round 2 strategy is way more interesting. Starting off slow, Dignitas sent three players towards Mid with the rifles, but left one player with bomb and a scout heading towards B, while one player lurked towards Long Doors only with a deagle.

Once Dignitas was satisfied that Fnatic was not aggressing through any site, they quickly smoked off CT-spawn and did a classic Mid-to-B split push. This means that the two players on B (typically only two players hold B in a default CT-setup on Dust 2) were quickly overwhelmed and the rifles made quick work of them along with the immediate CT rotate through Mid.

If you look at the setup, Patrick "f0rest" Lindberg, Adam "friberg" Friberg, and Richard "Xizt" Landstrom are all stacked up in Mid to deal with any defenders on the B site. Once the site is clear, which can be given by Hakon "hallzerk" Fjaerli who is busy coming onto B, Xizt is able to focus on the rotate through Mid. This left Dignitas in a 5v2 scenario. This force-buy strategy was able to easily claim the round with minimal utility because Dignitas was able to recognize the inferior weaponry on the CTs. Since the AK and Galil are both better than the Famas, Dignitas knew they could take those fights without much of a hassle.

This is a solid B-site execute for rounds where you know you have the superior weaponry and can guarantee a bomb plant at the very least, but the round win should be secured after the plant with the advantage in numbers. Dignitas did the same thing next round to secure the win, showing its effectiveness.

Dignitas moved along with a comfortable 5-3 lead going into Round 9. Both teams had a full buy going into the round, meaning Dignitas had to play a little slower. This strategy started off with a fairly default setup for both sides. Fnatic sent three towards long at the beginning, leaving one towards Mid and one on B while Dignitas had three towards Mid, one towards Long, and one towards B. Waiting until 50 seconds left on the clock, Dignitas smoked Mid and threw a couple flashbangs to keep the players towards CT-Spawn occupied while they moved up Cat. f0rest rotated back to long to reinforce Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund.

Throwing the default smokes to obscure vision from Car, Xizt hops through the smoke and instantly dies to the player in CT. However, GeT_RiGhT is able to get the trade on long simultaneously. He did not expect a second player to be towards Long however and dies to a shot in the back. This is why the rotate from f0rest is so genius. Normally, players only expect one player to come through Long on a Cat execute of A site. This rotate guarantees the trade and also ensures a 3v3 post-plant scenario. Now let’s look at the setup.

With all three players from Fnatic attempting to retake from Cat, hallzerk is playing contact for Dignitas by Car. This allows for him to fire at the first person seen and if he is flashed off, he can back away and take another angle. The second player to look at is friberg who is playing it close. If hallzerk were to die or fall off, friberg is in the next best position to peek out from behind boxes and pick up a couple frags. The final player is f0rest, who is busy hiding in Pit. Since the bomb is planted for Long, “f0rest” can just hide back until both his teammates are gone and then peek out and kill the player defusing.

He is there to ensure that there is someone else the CTs need to worry about before they can defuse. Fortunately for Dignitas, hallzerk got all three frags so there was no need to test the other two. This setup is really powerful for Ts who want to have a large amount of success. Most CTs rotate through CT or Cat and once hallzerk was able to clear CT, Cat was the only logical explanation. “f0rest” was also there to make sure a CT did not lurk through Long Doors and get an easy kill.

These two strategies are only two of the many strategies Dignitas employed in their 16-14 victory over Fnatic. However, the force buys that Dignitas were able to convert into victories are good signs of their patience and ability to read a round. Capitalizing on their opponent’s mistakes and making sure they feel the pressure all game is really important to this victory. Despite their map record, with strategies like these, especially ones that are able to stave off the number one team in the world, Dignitas should consider adding Dust 2 to their map pool.