After a close 4-3 start to begin the match, SK was able to string together seven straight rounds to control the opening half and set the tone for the second half. Jimmy Allen led the way with a blistering 19 frags in the opening half and a +16 net, followed by Walle with 14 frags and a +8 net.

"We didn't really feel threatened most of the match," comments Walle. "It could have gone either way if they ran the right round or got the necessary head shot, but the pressure was all on them to make the right plays." Marcus "zet" Sundström, SK's newest acquistion to replace SpawN, agrees, "we started off winning the pistol round and it was good from there on. Having 16k to buy every round, always being in control, it's hard to come back from that."

Team x3o could never really pull it together to give SK a match, and will now face Paragon of Virtue in the lower bracket. "We're just uncoordinated, not really playing well this whole tournament," commented x3o team leader PaTyoJoN. "Something's just not clicking, there's no teamwork. We kept getting picked off one by one, not executing strats, kept getting baited and kept falling for it."

SK will square off against MiBR in the second round of the bracket stage. As the higher seed, SK will have the liberty of having the last pick in terms of map selection. Inferno and Train are sure bets to be excluded, with Tuscan, Nuke and Dust2 left in the pool.

"We'll put them on the spot to remove Tuscan or not," says Walle. "They have the pressure to remove Tuscan because we have the last pick. If it comes down to Dust2 or Nuke we'd probably rather play them on Dust2 as we feel more comfortable there."

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photos: ESL