(GotFrag Community) - With ESEA S4 in its final throws, 3 of the playoff spots have pretty much been locked in while 3 teams are still in the hunt for that elusive 4th spot. With every match counting now for Strickland Propane, Hostile Faction and Vicious-Gaming, it seems like a bit of a miscue for ESEA to save what are at best a couple shady mapchoices (cp_follower, cp_waste) for such important games - but hey, at the same time new maps are always nice :)

This week's preds are once again written by Ross "Breather" Keroes of the aforementioned Strickland - enjoy!



ESEA-I S4 Week 7:1
Hostile Faction (5-6) vs. Point & Click (3-7)
Breather: It seems like HF has a new roster every week. Last week, in their match against Loaded, we saw paladin slide over to EG, cringe play solly, St.Patty and bigpun on scout and drone is back on med. I could spend more time predicting who is going to be playing this week, but I won't - I'll just mention that cringe not playing scout may hurt them, but who knows what their long term roster plans are. On the other side, FF's (pac) roster has been solid all season.

Now on to follower - HF will run Phaser as sniper and FF will be able to counter him with either slardel or rline. But will they need to counter snipe? Maybe not, the sight lines don't seem nearly as good at mid as other maps (ie. yukon, well) and playing with 1 soldier will inevitably put your team on the defensive on the downward slope at mid. I think FF will have the advantage here, having a solid lineup, but don't count out HF, they have a lot of skill on their roster.

HF [ 3 : 5 ] FF

Strickland Propane (5-6) vs. Evil Geniuses (11-1)
BUICK: Strickland's strat on this map involves going up by a round then playing the most dick-like strat possible by never pushing into 2 once they are up a round. I wouldn't be surprised if they actually capped middle then started putting offensive sentry guns up defending the 2/3 yard. They will take also advantage of the fact that you can suicide every single person on the med at the middle battle, and whether you even get the med or not it doesn't matter because it takes so long to cap/move into 2 on this map they will have a counter uber even if they get wiped trying to suicide on the medic. Some call it smart play, but I think I'm just still bitter from a TWL-I match against them a while back. ;D I know EG will more than be able to handle 2 soldiers and 1 demo jumping on casey no matter what every middle battle so everything I said really doesn't matter. Expect kritz from both sides, with destro bottling wo0t 3 times during the match, 2 while kritzkrieged. Enough rambling that doesn't make any
sense though sooo....

PROPANE [ 3 : 4 ] EG

Loaded (7-3) vs. Vicious-Gaming (6-6)
Breather: I bet loaded hasn't scrimmed this map recently, but xen has and that'll give solid and enig some experience on it. If vg wants to win this, they'll have to shutdown both carnage and enig and not allow them to sneak behind. Even if vg wins mid, the 2nd point is a fortress if defended correctly. I believe loaded will prove too much for vg to handle, but look for vg to put up a couple rounds.

Loaded [ 5 : 1 ] [vg]

ESEA-I S4 Week 7:2
Hostile Faction (5-6) vs. Strickland Propane (5-6)
clockwork: My call would be Strickland.  Normally, I would think that HF has it, but they just lost their medic, which should hurt some chemistry, especially since the new medic won't be accustomed to cringe calling him a retard.  HF has also lost a lot of power with their scouts since cringe's move to soldier, and follower is one hell of a scout map. 

HF [ 3 : 5 ] PROPANE

Point & Click (3-7) vs. Evil Geniuses (11-1)
Breather: Who is going to play for eg this week? I don't think it matters, eg took down 20id pretty convincingly last week. FF might take a few rounds, it's hard to tell.

FF [ 0 : 5 ] EG

Loaded (7-3) vs. 20ID (10-2)
Breather: Match of the week! Both teams have shown moments of brilliance and those of mediocrity this season. Loaded started off with a poor showing then picked things up again with a win over 20id in week 3 and has been playing better as the season has continued. 20id began on a high from the previous season, and seemingly being plagued with roster issues has been playing less and less. Most recently losing to eg on well 1-5. While eg has been swapping soldiers every week, carnage has now joined the American working force and as a result loaded has two games to makeup and probably hasn't been scrimming at all. Not to mention they're playing on follower. There are so many unknowns going into this match, but let's hope it will be exciting.

Loaded [ 5 : 4 ] 20ID