With the World e-Sports Masters 2009 having its first finalist decided yesterday, Sweden's fnatic, all that remains before the championship round is the semi-final between Power Gaming and TyLoo . Both teams are very hungry to reach this final and for different reasons. PowerGaming have a short lifespan left with this unit, meaning this could be their last chance for a title, as well as knowing they'll have a psychological advantage over fnatic on train. Meanwhile TyLoo are the last team representing the home Chinese crowd, a crowd which has had to see a number of disappointments as the Chinese WC3 favourites went out without much of a fight.

Power Gaming vs. TyLoo

PowerGaming looked solid but a little suspect in their first game, against WeMade Fox, as they were up big but let the Koreans make a little come back. Any thoughts that the team were not focussed were disregarded after their second game, in which they destroyed fnatic on train in very impressive fashion. To round out the group with a perfect record the Finns smashed wNv.cn on China in a manner which made them look worlds above the level of their Chinese opponents. Indeed the only thing preventing anyone announcing PowerGaming as the new favourite for the tournament was people's uncertainty about how good the new fnatic lineup were and how good the AGAiN team, who had equalled three wins in their group, would be in the playoffs with their stand-in.

Now that AGAiN are gone PowerGaming know if they can reach the final then they have at least one map which they can make very interesting for fnatic at the very least. In their way though stands a TyLoo team who have played up and down this tournament. They beat MYM in their opener, which should have been very impressive when you consider MYM's results at Dubai and DreamHack Winter, but the prestige of that result seems to have been soured a little by MYM's beating at the hands of TitaNs and general inability to perform as their usual level. TyLoo then went on to puzzle the casual observer more as they were completely smashed by AGAiN on inferno. In their final game they overcame TitaNs in an intense match to move on.

First question is what do TyLoo have to offer PowerGaming? TyLoo's strengths this tournament have been GoodRifle's AWPing, which has seemed to flow from endless internal confidence, and winning clutch rounds from situations which have started to become unlikely such as 1v2s 2v3s 2v4s etc. Against PowerGaming they are going to keep both of those areas as strengths as the AWP of tihOp has finally transitioned to the level anyone who saw him playing domestically in 2004 with it knew he was capable of. On the clutch side of things these PowerGaming players are a level about the TitaNs players who fell to those kinds of rounds and playing much better CS than the MYM players who also fell victim to them.

Let's look at the maps again to see how the teams will match up.

dust2

TyLoo are known to be very good on dust2 at times, indeed having beaten AGAiN on it at WCG. However both the Chinese teams can be seen adopting similar approaches to the maps from what I have seen, and we've just seen how PowerGaming dismantled the other Chinese team, wNv.cn, and their star AWPer, ZY, in similar circumstances. PowerGaming get the slight nod, though I still think TyLoo are capable of putting up a pretty good fight on this map if they can win their pistol rounds.

inferno

AGAiN killed them so badly on this map it is very difficult to think of TyLoo winning it, and yet they played so well on it at times against SK Gaming at IEM IV Chengdu and nearly came out of that series with the win. Also what is interesting to note is that the circumstances in which they lost the SK game were being up big as terrorists and then letting the game become too close as CT and being unable to close out rounds. AGAiN-Power at WCG ringing any bells? As a result the key for both teams is going to be their CT sides. Both are very capable terrorist sides and especially good at rotating to the other site on offense due to ability to overcome smaller numbers disadvantages. As a result I think this map will be a case of who can weather the others' offensive storm and give up the least round.

If the terrorist team gets rolling who will best handle the stream of rounds where one has to save a rifle? If one of these teams can make a calculated gamble to break such a stream, rather than let it overwhelm them, then that could be the most important round of the game so watch out for it. Also TyLoo are not afraid to gamble on eco rounds and stack four deagles in one close range spot, so if Power should happen to underestimate them and push without numbers then perhaps we can see some eco round reversals.

All considered I still have to give PowerGaming the nod, though one must hope they have moved on a little from those second half CT troubles against AGAiN and WeMade Fox.

nuke

This specific PowerGaming lineup is capable of playing with any team in the world on nuke, which is something that can be said of very very few teams in CS. They are also a team which can make things hard on themselves if they get too big a lead though, by letting some rounds slip away with overly aggressive play or lack of focus. I think the key on this map is where they position tihOp and plastE. Put in the right CT positions both of those players can make this map extremely difficult in terms of attacking either bombsite.

I think PowerGaming's terrorist side will be fairly loose and freeform, with them getting into a lot of 3v3, 2v3, 2v4, 3v2 type situations and then completely reworking their plans from there. Power is not afraid to fight a lot of 1v1 battles beyond the context of simply running strats down to the letter. TyLoo need to bring all the skills in their arsenal if they are going to take this map as they will need to be able to match the raw skill level of the Finns in the small battles and then outwork them in terms of teamplay on their CT side. Some tenacity from the Chinese team would be useful too, if Power step off the gas for even a moment TyLoo need to be ready to push hard to take a few rounds back.

train

Obviously with the fnatic result PowerGaming are favourites for this map too. One can't overlook the excellent TyLoo performance against MYM though. In that match you saw a team who should have been superior finding their opponents ahead of them every step of the way. TyLoo overloaded positions at exactly the right time, they attacked with the right numbers and distractions to spread the defense out and they came up with big individual rounds at the decisive moments of the game.

How much of that they can do vs. Power is going to be very interesting to observe. Will Power go into the game playing in a similar fashion to the fnatic game? If so one has to imagine TyLoo will try to play as they did in the MYM game but with appropriate adjustments from the demos. TyLoo's chances are not great on this map, though I think if they can aggressively hold and block off the small ladder room then they will do themselves a lot of favours. Letting Power players get out of there is going to make their attacks a lot more difficult to read and force a lot of battles that TyLoo can lose more easily than win.

At inside TyLoo's players have to outskill the Power players, it's as simple and yet incredibly difficult as that. If their holding players can slow the penetration even 5-10 seconds that could be enough to let a retakes or clutch rounds go their way.

All the same I have to see PowerGaming win this map with their play so far and their history as a unit. All in all this series is very difficult for TyLoo as while they are a good team they face a team who can outdo them in every area and on each map. It's either going to come down to Power playing below the level they need to or TyLoo overperforming individually.

Prediction: PowerGaming wins