SK Gaming lose thriller to H2k

After a 2-1 defeat to H2k Gaming in the quarter finals SK Gaming are out of Arbalet Dallas.

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SK Gaming are out of Arbalet Dallas after a nailbiting 2-1 loss to H2k Gaming.

The all-Swedish affair kicked off on de_inferno and ended mighty quickly. SK Gaming hilariously dominated H2k 16-2 to take a rapid one map lead.

Heading into the second map, de_train, taking the assumption of your opposition being down in the dumps after such a crushing defeat wouldn't be criminal. But H2k very much saw it as, and after a very well worked 3hp-fuelled 1v2 in the pistol round from Markus 'pronax' Wallsten H2k Gaming hit back with their own, albeit brief, period of dominance and opened up a 7-2 lead.

However, SK picked up six straight rounds to take the lead heading into the second half but again H2k picked up the pistol round and took a seven point lead. Some genius flanking from Richard 'Xizt' Landström put a complete stop to SK's attack in the 22nd round and things looked bleak for the Terrorists.

But a couple of rounds hastily strung together brought SK to within three points of tying the scores. At 14-11 Robert 'RobbaN' Dahlström pulled off an insane four man before falling himself where Andreas 'moddii' Frid cleaned up the remaining single kill. The momentum within the SK side increased right up to the point where the scores were level at 14-14 before H2k halted them in their stride and secured the two rounds they needed to level the game at 1-1.

The deciding map was de_nuke and again H2k picked up the pistol round but only took a small lead. The game went back and forth up to 6-5 in favor of the young H2k side until Xizt took it upon himself to go nuts with the AWP in the A bombsite to utterly demolish SK's defences. The following three rounds all fell in favor of H2k due to their superior team and individual skills and they went into the CT side with a 10-5 lead.

The final pistol round of the match went SK's way thanks to a 1v2 from Jimmy 'allen' Allen but his SK team could only amass three rounds before H2k hit back hard and fast. Storming out to a 14-8 lead H2k were just two rounds away from advancing to the semi finals and knocking out their Swedish rivals.

SK took two rounds back, bringing the score to 14-10, but a doomed A push gave H2k their 15th round. On the back foot of all back foots SK managed to pull out four successive rounds, bringing themselves to within one round of tying up the map and taking it into overtime, but their hopes of advancing were ruined by pronax as his sharp double kill effectively killed off the game for SK.

Arbalet Cup Dallas: Semi-final preview

Is this EG's time to shine? Will anything less than the trophy be acceptable for Na`Vi? Do mouz begin the turnaround to becoming a top 4 team again or will H2k seize the opportunity and make a second final in the space of a month?

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Four teams remain in Dallas and when the sun makes his way below the horizon only one will be clutching the trophy created for the champions. The USA, Germany, Ukraine and Sweden are all respresented and the storylines between the teams are all different and unique enough to warrent a little setup, a little marinade for the cook-out set to begin later today if you will. Na`Vi must defeat EG again to reach yet another final in 2010 while H2k and mouz both seek their second of the year.

Semi-final #1 - IEM IV World Championship semi-final rematch
Team EG US vs. Natus Vincere

Time to prove you're ready to accept your destiny

EG roll into their second international event semi-final of 2010 in as good a form as any we've seen them in during the year. They may have run into a momentary speedbump in iDemise but other than that they've put away a mouz team on one of the German's strongest maps and dominated a Burning team in Bo3 who had been causing other teams problems.

Throw in that the Americans are at home, some of them even living in Texas, and if ever they were going to make a successful push to the final of a legitimate event it has to be now right?

The blue and yellow title winning machine rolls on

The biggest problem for EG is that the guys sitting across the other side of the stage will be the best team in the world and the best team of 2010, world champions of ESWC and IEM season IV no less. Sprinkle onto that Na`Vi's repeat record from ESWC of getting through the group stages without looking too incredible but then turning all the levels up to the maximum come the playoffs.

Na`Vi have continued to rack up highlight series as they put another classic into the history books against mTw, the second best team at the event, beating them incredibly in two overtime games with the second going into double overtime. In both of those games mTw came out with confidence and their games on and pushed the pace but both times it was Na`Vi who made all the big plays down the stretch and who came up with the heroic clutch moments which put them through. Na`Vi took mTw's best punch, withstood it and then delivered their own brutal knockout in the waning moments.

Throw in the additional factor that this is a rematch of the IEM IV World Champsionship semi-finals and this becomes quite the ticket. That match was seen as EG's chance to make the final and perhaps finally lay claim to legitimately being one of the top 3-4 teams in the world. Instead they were breezed past by a Na`Vi side who themselves were in the process of climbing the ladder and proving themselves. The Ukrainians went on to the title and all that has followed while EG has never fully recovered and must still think back to that series from time to time with a wistful sense of lost opportunity.

For Na`Vi there is no way to lose this series and not gain criticism. After they put out mTw and SK Gaming fell to H2k the tournament opened up completely for the Ukrainians. mouz may well have something to say about that in a potential final, being as they match up well against Na`Vi, but as of right now Na`Vi should win Arbalet Cup Dallas. The teams remaining have not proven themselves to be in that elite group of 3-4, with H2k knocking on the door and mouz briefly a member but dropping down earlier in the year.

For EG this match isn't just about Na`Vi it's about finally delivering on the promise their play and their fans and their inner belief has been demanding was there all along. Is this the moment when fRoD returns to a proper event final? Is this when n0thing stops being a star player in the stats and becomes one in terms of impact against an elite team? This match is about legitimacy for an EG team who badly want to be at least contend for a title, if not win one.

Whatever happens today lurppis will know that when he hangs up his mouse and takes off the EG jersey this was one of those moments where it all lay in the balance. Arbalet Cup Europe 2009 got away from them, the IEM IV World Championship got away from them and now they have to beat the best if they want to be the best at Arbalet Cup Dallas 2010.


Semi-final #2 - Battle for a second top placing in 2010
Mousesports vs. H2k Gaming

Seeing mTw and SK Gaming eliminated 5th-8th might have left the current remaining four teams looking a little less glamerous but this is a matchup with enough storylines of its own to carry weight. For mouz it's a chance to turn things around and start heading in the right direction again. For H2k it's another opportunity to snipe a top team and gain themselves more confidence and legitimacy as a top team in their own right.

What happened to our dream of a perfect German team?

mouz began 2010 with such an incredible playoff run at the IEM IV European Finals that it seemed as though the German side was set to be a permanent fixture in top 4s from there on out. As it happened they would fall one step short of that mark at the next two major tournaments, IEM IV World Championships and Arbalet Cup Europe.

For a team who have such a defined and at times effective style mouz have fallen apart in uncharacteristic fashion as of late but what better chance to turn it all around than the one which lays before them? If you had told mouz before the bracket stage began that to win the title here they'd have to beat Underestimated in the quarters, H2k in the semis and Na`Vi/EG in the final I think they'd have snapped your hand off taking the opportunity.

H2k is a side who like to play aggressively and disrupt slow terrorist setups. mouz is known for their slow grind-it-out terrorist approach, mixing in fakes and fake-fakes like few other teams can, but they are also known for being able to sit back and punish teams who push by employing a regimented system of defense which leads to their offense. mouz's base counter flanking and overaggression from the opponents well so despite the danger this hungry H2k team poses to the Germans they have to be confident going in to face them.

Throw in a little foresight and mouz have to be licking their lips at the prospect of facing either team in the final, as crazy as that may sound on the surface if it's a case of meeting the blue and yellow Eastern European monsters again. mouz know that they match up well against both sides. EG may have beaten them in the group stage but mouz know they were in that game and they also know they are the stronger Best-of-3 team. If it's Na`Vi then mouz know they beat Na`Vi in one Best-of-3 at the first IEM event and only lost by 2 rounds in the second.

Fnatic MSI . welcome back GUX and our side of the SK situation

It's just a few days back that we announced the release of Bjorn 'threat' Pers, but we are now happy to welcome back a familiar face to the starting five of our Counter-Strike team. FnaticMSI are both excited and proud to welcome back Rasmus 'Gux' Stahl.

With the exact same line-up, FnaticMSI.CS racked up an enormous amount of over 200,000$ in the year 2009, winning almost every tournament they attended. Records were set and broken, but the team went apart in late 2009, as Ramus went his own way. But now, Gux has come back to FnaticMSI, to reign the second part of 2010 in the same manner as 2009. Harley 'dsn' Orwall was very excited to welcome Gux back:

"Today we are welcoming Gux back, one of our core members from our success year of 2009. It feels great to have such a great player back in the team -- Rasmus is a very talented individual player and we feel that our game this year so far hasn't been as good as during 2009 when Rasmus was still in the roster. With him we are looking to bring back that magical play we had going for most of 2009, winning IEM, KODE5, e-Stars, ESWC and IEM Dubai."

You might have also noticed that SK Gaming were not amused with our addition of Rasmus. However, we would like to share our side of the story. Rasmus was on no contract and he was free to go where he wanted. Due to SK Gaming witholding his salary and prizes of several events, Rasmus decided it was best for him to part ways, rather sooner than later. He decided to do this before Arbalet Cup Dallas. Harley also shed some light on this matter:

"The team and I really wanted Rasmus back in the line-up, and since we were a bit worried about SK Gaming not giving him the money he earns, we came up with a solution. We, the team and the FnaticMSI organization, will donate a portion of the money, may SK Gaming decide not pay the prize money he has earned, by the reason of him not having a contract."

However this post would not be complete without the reasons we came apon resigning Gux from SK. To explain the full situation we will first let Sam the Managing Director of Fnatic tell our side, followed up both by statements from Harley DSN Orwall and Rasmus Gux Stahl himself.

"Fnatic has always aimed to do everything by the book. We have a consistant record of buying players out of contracts, weather it was for Christopher Get_Right Alesund from Giants or for Threat from H2K. In this situation with SK things were a little different, firstly Gux had not signed a contract explicitly with SK-gaming, and was about 10 days away from flying to Dallas. Still Fnatic wanted to do the right thing by our long time rival but also fellow esports team whom we have had an amicable relationship with from day one.

So as of last Tuesday I called Alex as soon as I heard that our players had been chatting with Gux about rejoining and that Gux had no contract. We spoke about the situation and how we would resolve it, Alex said he would get back to me. We were prepared to pay for him if we had to, a nominal fee to show our respect for SK-gaming and to try and make the situation as smooth as possible as its not easy giving up one of the worlds best players. However this deal would only go ahead as long as they would agree to pay all outstanding prizemoney owed to Gux, for example from ESWC 2nd place when it is recieved. There was also the issue that Gux had not received salary for the previous two months, which meant even if there was a verbal concession of a contract, SK were still in breach of this contract.

Unfortunately we did not hear anything back from SK, and were afraid that should Gux travel to Arabalet having no agreement from SK about his salary or prizemoney that he would come back even worse off, giving SK the benefit of the doubt and potentially losing any money owed tohim.

So we offered an option to make himself secure, and stop SK from bullying him into going by saying that they could withold all money owed to him. Our players all pitched in to donate a fee, whilst fnatic aslo offered to pay for his salary for this month, should SK revoke his rights to any further money. This is the money which would have gone to SK should we have bought Gux out of his contract. But with Sk having no interest in dealing with Fnatic we had to leave the situaiton in Gux's hands.

Gux therefore left an ultimatum to SK saying that either they agree to pay his salary and prizemoney owed to him once it arrives into SK's bank accounts, or he would not go to arabalet. Alex and SK chose the later option, which of course means Rasmus still will lose out in money, but at last he is back home, in an organisation he trusts. Welcome home.

To explain the full situation we will first let Sam Mathews, Managing Director of FnaticMSI tell our side, followed up by a statement by Rasmus 'Gux' Stahl himself.

"FnaticMSI has always aimed to do everything by the book. We have a consistant record of buying players out of contracts, whether it was for Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' Alesund from Giants or for Bjorn 'threat' Pers from H2K. In this situation with SK things were a little different, firstly Rasmus 'Gux' Stahl had not signed a contract explicitly with SK Gaming, and was about 10 days away from flying to Dallas. Still, FnaticMSI wanted to do the right thing by our long time rival but also fellow esports team whom we have had an amicable relationship with from day one.

So as of last Tuesday I called Alex as soon as I heard that our players had been chatting with Gux about rejoining and that Gux had no contract. We spoke about the situation and how we would resolve it, Alex said he would get back to me. We were prepared to pay for him if we had to, a nominal fee to show our respect for SK Gaming and to try and make the situation as smooth as possible as it's not easy giving up one of the worlds best players. However, this deal would only go ahead as long as they would agree to pay all outstanding prize money owed to Gux, for example from ESWC 2nd place when it is recieved. There was also the issue that Gux had not received salary for the previous two months, which meant even if there was a verbal concession of a contract, SK were still in breach of this contract.

Unfortunately we did not hear anything back from SK, and were afraid that should Gux travel to Arbalet Cup Dallas having no agreement from SK about his salary or prizemoney that he would come back even worse off, giving SK the benefit of the doubt and potentially losing any money owed to him.

So we offered an option to make himself secure, and stop SK from bullying him into going by saying that they could withold all money owed to him. Our players all pitched in to donate a fee, whilst FnaticMSI also offered to pay for his salary for this month, should SK revoke his rights to any further money. This is the money which would have gone to SK should we have bought Gux out of his contract. But with SK having no interest in dealing with FnaticMSI we had to leave the situation in Gux's hands.

Gux therefore left an ultimatum to SK saying that either they agree to pay his salary and prizemoney owed to him once it arrives into SK's bank accounts, or he would not go to Arbalet Cup Dallas. Alex and SK chose the later option, which of course means Rasmus still will lose out in money, but at last he is back home, in an organisation he trusts. Welcome home."

Rasmus 'Gux' Stahl:

"There are a lot of reasons why I’m back here in Fnatic. But first I want to say that I have nothing against the SK players, they are all very friendly and took really good care of me when I joined the team. I truly enjoyed playing with them.

When I left Fnatic in December 2009 it was not because of any social problems within the team it was much more complicated than that but of course it is the easiest way to explain what happened. I think the whole Fnatic team afterwards felt that it was a bad choice to split up. I have always had good contact with all the players in Fnatic and we constantly talked about old times when we met.

When f0rest came to me after ESWC and asked if I wanted to reunite with my old team, it made me think a lot. Since I left, I have always felt that I want to play for Fnatic and I´m glad that they now gave me the opportunity to join the team once again. So the reason why I’m back in Fnatic is because of the fact that I enjoyed my time there and this is where I once learned to play "professional counter-strike" and I feel at home in Fnatic.

The main reason for me to leave SK is because we had an agreement between us that I should cooperate with them and do my share of the agreement, still they never fulfilled their part. This includes that they did not pay me any salary during my time in SK and when I told them about my plans of leaving them for Fnatic they also told me that I would not retrieve any of the prize money. After that I gave SK an ultimatum, if they did not pay me my salary and my prize money I would not go to the Arbalet Cup in Dallas and I would leave as of today.

The information about me getting paid for not going to Arbalet Cup Dallas is completely wrong, what Fnatic has offered me is to pay some of the salary and prize money that SK declines to do and owes me"

With Gux, the FnaticMSI.CS roster now looks as this:
Harley 'dsn' Orwall
Patrik 'f0rest' Lindberg
Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' Alesund
Patrik 'cArn' Sattermon
Rasmus 'Gux' Stahl

TeaM Counter Strike Na'Vi Juara IEM

The Grand Finals of the Intel Extreme Masters Global Finals Counter-Strike division have just come to an end and history has been made. For the first time in not only IEM history, but world CS history, a Ukrainian team has managed to take home the trophy. Na`Vi came into the tournament virtually unnoticed, not even predicted to make the top 3, but they proved everyone wrong, taking down the likes of coL and EG on their way to the finals where they took on last year's champion, Fnatic.

In the series versus Fnatic, Na`Vi stood toe to toe with the defending champions as both maps came down to the last few rounds. Na`Vi was able to grab the first map from Fnatic as they took them down on de_train by a score of 16-13 after starting the 2nd half down by a score of 10-5. On the second map, it was even more intense as the two teams traded rounds all the way until the very end, with Na`Vi grabbing the last round of the map to take the series and the championship by a score of 16-14.