"I think we were a bit disappointed in the first half, losing unnecessary rounds we should have had," says Walle. "We trust a lot in our t game right now so we werent worried but we would have liked more CT rounds for sure."

Both Walle and Robert "RobbaN" Dahlstrom were pleased with the win, but were both underwhelmed by the team's overall performance. They also felt like they were playing against a different EG team than they've been used to.

"EG is a good team but I still see us as a lot better than them," remarked RobbaN. "8 rounds as CT is not good for us." Walle agreed with his sentiment. "I think we were all expecting a tougher match, at 8 to 7 it didn't feel like it was slipping out of our hands but we were still expecting more rounds."

Team EG is coming off a first round exit at the ESWC Finals and is looking for redemption in Los Angeles. Although EG lost to SK, wins over rSports and 50cal have secured their spot in the next round. Shaun "hostile" Catro, a recent acquisition to the team, isn't fazed by the first day's results.

"Our matches today went pretty well, of course SK should have went better but we advanced out of our group and have to put the first day behind us," says hostile. "On CT side we just weren't hitting our shots and it's hard to win when you do that. We definitely should have played better but I wouldn't say we played worse than usual, just need to capitalize on opportunities."

In past years, defending on Train was seen as the advantageous half for the map. This has changed over the past year with the use of LCD monitors in most tournaments rather than CRT's that most are used to from the past.

"On these monitors, you get flashed a lot, so if you have good spawns as terrorists it's easier to go out to the first bombsite," says RobbaN. "Most maps are T sided now because of the flashes on the monitors." Walle notes that a continuous evolution of Counter-Strike 1.6 gameplay also plays a factor. "It's partly a monitor issue, but the game has changed too. Teams play a lot slower as T, and maps have become a lot more t-sided than they used to be."

With a first place finish in their group, SK will play American team x3o in the bracket stage. When asked who they'd like to play before the opponent was known, this weekend's cinderella team, Paragon of Vitrue was chosen. After a 27-3 stomping at the hands of GamePlay.TV/Roccat, PoV came back to knock the 2008 ESWC Masters champions out of the event.

"We'd like to play Paragon of Virtue tomorrow even though I don't know the team that well," says Walle, smoking a cigarette between matches. "I think mTw played poorly that game, they should have won definitely, it's probably the easiest opponent for us. They beat mTw so of course we're going to go in 100%, and just take it one game at a time. We'd like to stay in the winners bracket instead of heading into the lower bracket as we usually do." *laughs*

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photos: ESL