The second semi-final of the IEM V European Championship Finals proved to be every bit as epic as one could have hoped for given the calibre of the two teams competing: mTw and Frag eXecutors . At the end of one of the classic rivalries of modern day CS it was the Danes from mTw who progressed to the final, on the last round of the third map no less!

mTw 21:19 Frag eXecutors (nuke - T 9:6, CT 6:9, OT - 2:3, 4:1)
mTw 14:16 Frag eXecutors (train - CT 10:5, T 4:11)
mTw 16:14 Frag eXecutors (inferno - CT 7:8, T 9:6)

The first two maps saw mTw the team to jump out to leads, with FX forced to play catch up the whole way pretty much. That the Poles did though as they always managed to keep pace, even if they were a few rounds behind, winning when the pressure was on them. On nuke mTw took the first battle in the war as after FX looked resurgent it was the Danes who took the map in the overtime. On the second map FX put on their own pressure performance to just squeeze past the finish line and knot the series at one map apiece.

Both teams were fired up the whole way through as they shouted to each other each time one won or lost a clutch round. The breaks between maps, and sometimes halves, were the only respite from an intense fight to the death between the Danish and Polish sides who have plenty of titles on their resumes.

The third map was set to be a nail-biter the whole way as FX faced an inferno which has troubled them for a while but which they said before this series they had been practicing a lot since they expected teams to see them throwing it. Practice seemed to have paid off as this time FX did what they had been unable to the previous two maps and became firm frontrunners. Getting up to 8:2 their Terrorist half was rolling and they had players getting multi-entry kills to break open sites over and over. Then mTw locked down their defensive game though and the Danes took the remaining five rounds straight to finish the half down only a round.

FX didn't seem too phased as they sprang back out to the lead, getting up to 12 rounds while mTw still remained on seven. This was not a series which would see anyone blowing the other away without answer though. mTw became successfully taking over the sites and FX proved unable to pull off retakes time and time again. Still the game wasn't out of sight for the Polish legends as they found themselves at 14:14 with a chance to play for all the marbles. As the tension was ratcheted up to the highest level mTw prevailed and FX were left to curse missed opportunities and running into a team capable of winning key clutch rounds to stay in games and then win them.

mTw's winning moment of celebration:




mTw will face fnatic in the final of the IEM V European Championship at 16:20 CET on Sunday the 23rd.