SK Gaming defeated Moscow Five in two straight maps to reach the final of the IEM VI Global Challenge Kiev. SK will face Natus Vincere in said final tomorrow at 11am CET, with $16,000 going to the winner and $8,000 to the runnerup. Regardless of the result SK Gaming will top the IEM VI Season rankings following this event, currently sitting in second and with the team ahead of them, WinFakt, falling in the group stage.



The first map seemed like a dream start for the Russians, with xek leading the charge on his way to a 26 frag performances with almost no deaths. M5 took 12 CT rounds and had only to execute for a short stretch any time in the second half to secure the first map. SK are well known to be an incredibly strong CT team though, and that was the story in the second half as the Swedish team fought all the way back to 14:15. The last round was a broken push onto the B balcony by M5 and the game was pushed to overtime once they had all died.

In overtime SK were very much in control, thanks to the play of Delpan, and pushed through to a win with only two round losses. Up one map the Swedes were heading into train, a map they have been very strong on during their entire time with Delpan in the lineup.

It almost seemed to bring back memories of SK rampaging over ESC in the WCG final as the Swedes racked up nine big terrorist rounds. Switching over to the dominant CT side SK cleaned up the win on the 11th round of the second half. It came courtesy of GeT_RiGhT going crazy on a deco at inner around the top of the large ladder area.