Rare Atom played extremely well against Fnatic and still survived at the Shanghai Major.

Rare Atom, the only Chinese team at the Perfect World Shanghai Major, eliminated Fnatic from the event on Sunday, December 1.

This is a historic result for Chinese Counter-Strike. A Chinese team has not won a best-of-three series at a Major since the FACEIT London CS:GO Major in 2018, when TYLOO eliminated Team Spirit from the tournament.

And, Rare Atom did it against Fnatic, one of the most traditional organizations in Counter-Strike esports. The European organization won three CS:GO Major titles between 2013 and 2015 and recently returned to the Valve-sponsored tournament after failing to qualify for PGL Copenhagen earlier this year.

A 0-3 exit is a disappointing result for Fnatic and will likely lead to roster changes in the off-season.

Shanghai Major: Rare Atom 2-1 Fnatic

The crowd lavished praise on Rare Atom after this historic result (Photo by Perfect World)

This match could have been shorter as Rare Atom had a chance to win on Ancient, the first map of the series. The home favorites held an 8-1 lead before losing to Fnatic and allowing them to come back in the match to win this map 13-10.

However, when it looked like Fnatic would also win Inferno, Junhao "⁠ChildKing⁠" Peng helped the crowd favorite score six crucial points on the T side. The Chinese team then regained momentum and beat Fnatic 13-10 to send the series to Vertigo.

You can see the pressure starting to build on Fnatic's side as Rare Atom got off to a strong start on Vertigo, giving them a 6-1 lead on the CT side.

Rare Atom did not miss the opportunity and eliminated Fnatic from the Shanghai Major after a clean T-side, closing out the map with a historic 13-4 victory.

ChildKing is by far the most influential player on the server as he had over 50 kills for the Chinese team against Fnatic. AWPer Andrew "kaze" Khong and young rifleman Yihang "L1haNg" Li are the other best sniper players for Rare Atom.

Statistics of Rare Atom vs. Fnatic at Shanghai Major (Screenshot by esports.gg via HLTV.org)

This win puts Rare Atom in group 1-2 of the Shanghai Major, meaning they must win two more best-of-three matches to advance to the Qualifiers.