NiP move on to the playoffs of the ESL Pro League Season 3 finals after defeating fellow Swedish team fnatic 16-9 on Train.

Both fnatic and Ninjas in Pyjamas managed to dismiss the North American threats marshalled against them in their Group B opening matches of the ESL Pro League Season 3 finals, defeating Cloud9 and Liquid respectively.

The two teams then moved into a best-of-one winners' match on Train, to determine the second team who would have smooth sailing into the playoffs of the $512,000 tournament after just two best-of-one games (G2 having been the first team to accomplish this feat).

Patient defense from fnatic got the ball rolling on the #3 ranked team's CT-side as they won the pistolround and survived both anti-ecos, however NiP quickly began to assert themselves early on and quickly equalised the score after winning the first gunround.

NiP continue their climb back into the elite with a best-of-one victory over fnatic

Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist began to step up for his team by picking up multiple and crucial M4A4 kills across three rounds (including on a force buy), with fnatic inching ahead to a 6-4 lead as the first half went on. However, with both Adam "⁠friberg⁠" Friberg and Jacob "⁠pyth⁠" Mourujärvi displaying some finesse, NiP took the lead by the half's end, and finished up 8-7 after a fairly successful T-side.

A chaotic second pistolround on the A-site went NiP's way, as well as the following anti-eco round, but fnatic then bought up P250's and got a number of kills to reset NiP's economy with flusha leading the way (and then picked up an anti-eco round with NiP choosing to save).

With the score at 10-9 for NiP, Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström's men turned up the heat again and won two back-to-back CT-side rounds to extend the lead and force fnatic to buy up pistols. From here on out, NiP entered crunch mode and closed out the game against fnatic, winning 16-9.

ESL Pro League Season 3 FinalsBest of 1 fnaticMatchpage 9 16 11th May 2016 Ninjas in Pyjamas 9Train 16

Ninjas in Pyjamas	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Patrik 'f0rest' Lindbergf0rest	22 - 16	+6	104.8	1.49
Adam 'friberg' Fribergfriberg	23 - 13	+10	79.9	1.37
Jacob 'pyth' Mourujärvipyth	21 - 17	+4	82.5	1.21
Richard 'Xizt' LandströmXizt	16 - 13	+3	60.9	1.20
Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' AlesundGeT_RiGhT	16 - 19	-3	79.8	0.98

fnatic	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Robin 'flusha' Rönnquistflusha	24 - 19	+5	118.5	1.43
John 'wenton' Erikssonwenton	14 - 17	-3	55.7	0.82
Freddy 'KRIMZ' JohanssonKRIMZ	16 - 19	-3	63.9	0.80
Jesper 'JW' WecksellJW	11 - 21	-10	59.3	0.76
Dennis 'dennis' Edmandennis	13 - 22	-9	62.8	0.69

The final match of the day at the ESL Pro League Season 3 finals is curiously a best-of-three game, and even more so is an incredibly crucial match as Luminosity and Astralis (the #1 and #4 ranked teams in the world) will fight in a Group A elimination match to see which titan goes home early.

stich writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter