WCG champions with a stand-in AGAiN face 2009 team of the year with a stand-in fnatic in a semi-final which will be the first bo3 of the tournament so far and has both teams knowing whoever wins the match would become favourites for the tournament, based on the status boost.

AGAiN vs. fnatic

Before this event many would have predicted this to be the final, yet these two teams will not clash one round earlier. AGAiN were supposed to be the team who would suffer most from using a stand-in as their team had notoriously never been as good except when they had that specific five man lineup. fnatic on the other hand lost some of the firepower GuX brought but still had a set of players who have played excellent CS at almost every event this year, a feat worth considering.

In their group games fnatic had looked shaky against wNv.cn, giving up a lot of rounds, and then of course took a fairly conclusive beating from PowerGaming. In their decider against WeMade Fox though fnatic showed up playing a game not dissimilar from the fnatic we knew without threat. The way that team disposed of a Korean WeMade Fox who had scrapped for every round thusfar was impressive and certainly put fnatic back into the contender picture, though admittedly still behind the Poles and Finns until proven otherwise.

The key in this semi-final is going to lie in two areas I think: AGAiN's tactical decisions and map selection. There is no mention in the official guidebook of how the maps are selected, whether they choose the map they want or throw a map out etc, but since there are only four maps and one imagines this series could well go three perhaps it is worth making some estimations of the matchups across all four.

On train I like AGAiN, not just because of what they did at WCG or because of the PowerGaming-fnatic result, as with the way they have worked pasha into the team I could see their defense being even more smothering. Plus I feel like train is a map that was one of GuX's biggest strengths and he seemed able to contribute a lot such as backing up entry to the inner bombsite and winning clutch rounds outside. So I think pasha gives AGAiN a little extra on the CT side, especially if he and LUQ or neo are AWPing simultaneously. Meanwhile I think fnatic lose a little on their T side.

On the other side of the coin perhaps AGAiN lose a little of that attacking excellence without the teamplay and fragging of TaZ taking out that 3rd or 4th kill in a round to ensure it goes their way. Either way I am favouring AGAiN on train.

On inferno I'll give fnatic the edge because I feel like the way these two lineups matchup they are actually going to have some very small and subtle advantages in one or two situations which occur on the map, especially if they choose to slow the game down on their T side and stretch out AGAiN's defense and/or frustrate pasha a little by isolating him from the group.

On dust2 I think AGAiN get the slight advantage. I say slight because dust2 no matter who you are is one of the maps with the highest variance, so even though fnatic have players who are incredible on it and even though AGAiN do some very tough things to read around middle I think both teams have a good chance of winning the map. Perhaps the key for dust2 will be whoever can win the 4th-9th rounds as T, or as many as possible of them, as the pattern we've seen recently in big pressure games is for teams to sometimes fall back into overly passive saving play when they are stressed out or harassed by good terrorist penetration.

Finally on nuke I give AGAiN the nod and again it's not necessarily all down to that stunning WCG final. I think the key for this map is threat's teamplay, if he can execute a lot of really great flashes and back up attacking players on the terrorist side in an intelligent way then fnatic have a decent chance to win the map. If not then I think AGAiN are going to take the map, I think both teams have lost about a similar amount of attacking offense thanks to their stand-ins so I like the fact pasha could AWP outside or play a solid defensive position backing up other players. What would be interesting is if fnatic ended up starting CT side and took a beating. How would they respond to that? That scenario would tell us a lot about this fnatic team and be especially interesting if they somehow made it to the final.

Ok so after seeing my take on the four maps you will have guessed by now that I am taking AGAiN and while I think it may go to three maps, I think fnatic's chances are good and at least decent on two, I think the Poles will come out of this. Even if people have overplayed the 'no tactics' element of the AGAiN approach I still think much like PowerGaming they are proving to be a team more capable of maximising their stand-in in the short term.

Prediction: AGAiN wins