SK.swe either wins or goes home. It's as simple as that for the team that won CPL Winter 2005 only four months ago. They’ll face a tough team from Norway, Catch Gamer, on three maps; Inferno, Nuke and if necessary Train.

Catch, having won the first match, sits slightly better than SK.swe but still faces a tough situation with Chinese wNv coming up next. This means both teams have to win if either wants to entertain hopes of playing in the next round.

SK.swe’s focus on improving over their opening loss to wNv, 2-1, will be based on getting better play from Mattias “Snajdan” Andersen and Michael “ahl” Korduner. Both produced a sub 0.500 FPR (Frags Per Round) (0.427 and 0.397, respectively), and both were the last two in most statistical categories. If neither player improves, more pressure will be put on SK.swe’s frag leader Christer “fisker” Eriksson who finished last game with a 0.838 FPR.

Eriksson and SK.swe have yet to play the opening map, Inferno, but did get their only map victory on the second map, Nuke. If the match goes to a final map though, SK.swe could be in trouble having to play one of their weaker maps, Train, where they were destroyed by the Chinese team, wNv, 16-2.

Catch Gamer has not lost a map in this tournament. Dust2 isn’t being played for this best of three but they defeated 4Kings in overtime on that map. More important will be their 16-14 victory over 4Kings on Inferno, the opening map against SK.swe. Both maps featured strong play from Catch’s top player Sondre “REAL” Svanevik.

Svanevik posted extremely good numbers in both matches topping 20 frags in each for a 0.785 FPR and an impressive 93.5 DAR (Damage Average per Round) Catch will hope to get more of a consistent approach from their entire team though. At least one player posted under a 0.500 FPR in both previous maps.

Neither team has gotten the consistency it expects from all its players but whoever gets solid play throughout its lineup could come away with a much needed win. The victor should be in a good position to move on to the next round.

Notes

Lars “Naikon” Olaisen posted a 0.429 FPR in the first map followed by a 0.700 FPR in the second map…SK.swe only features one player in the top 15 in FPR: Eriksson…SK.swe hasn’t played Inferno since its CPL Championship match win over Lunatic.Hai 16-13.

Copyright 2006 GOTFRAG.COM LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.