The second group stage of the Masters of Athens tournament was extremely intense and the order in the groups was decided in the last round of matches with three-way ties in both groups.

Maciej 'av3k' Krzykowski and Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson had to crawl out of being 2-0 down after the first round of matches in group play. In Group A the results between Alexei 'Cypher' Yanushevsky, rapha and Zhibo 'Fan Zhibo' Fan - their three-way tie was not a perfect one. RazerJ won 2-1 against Cypher and the one map that he lost put him out of the event. Cypher won the group, rapha got second.

In Group B Magnus 'fox' Olsson started off in great form beating Av3k and ended disastrously, losing 2-1 to Sebastian 'Spart1e1' Siira and dropping a map to Richard 'noctis' Gansterer. Because Av3k beat Spart1e 2-1, that map dropped against the Austrian decided that fox would be going home prematurely. Av3k managed to top the group and the Swedish dark horse Spart1e was second.

In the semis the wise and composed rapha will play against the wildly entertaining Av3k, the player whose style of play is about constantly toying with the border between crazy aggression and abysmal stupidity.

Spart1e will have to meet Cypher and his unerring rocket launcher. It will be a treat.