(GotFrag) - The world has evolved since the last time an ESEA-Invite match was played - some of us have traveled to the Borderlands, some of us to New Jersey... so, same thing really. Some of us might even being experiencing the origins of the Dragon Age - for truly, this is the Age of Dragons... Origins - or maybe preparing yourselves for a few Modern forms of Warfare. Either way, tonight we return to this place where it all started to enjoy the Match of the Century-y-y-y-y-y - or maybe of the night, whatever works for you.

(5 frags to those who get all the video game references I mentioned)

Round 1 of the ESEA-Invite Season 4 Playoffs featured a bit of a controversy between the two teams who are competing tonight - Loaded, unable to track down their medic glue (who was out of town) or their backup utilityman extraordinaire animeman (who was also out of town?), found themselves with only 5 rostered players .ready against an opponent, 20ID, who was unwilling to reschedule.

Various sh*t-talk went back and forth after this match, with most of the competitive community crying out for a forced reschedule out of a desire to just see a real match, but 20ID stood firm and moved on to the Upper Bracket Final... where they were spanked by EG.

As things are oft to do with a 4-team bracket, tonight we've come full circle and have ourselves a rematch of that magical first round battle, this time with fulls squads on each side.

UPDATE: Loaded holds on to win 5-4 after going up to a big 4-1 lead and nearly blowing it after 20ID tied it up in the second half.

For the casting fans, there are TWO live casts to chose from tonight - both eFragTV and Pwnage.TV will be streaming for your viewing pleasure... so yes, you're all gonna have to make a very difficult choice.


ESEA-Invite Season 4 Playoffs - Lower Finals
20ID vs. Loaded
rk: I don't think I can stress enough how much the circumstances have changed from their first round matchup. The 6th man being here aside, the mirage of 20ID still-being-good-but-not-trying has, to a large degree, disappeared - they were thrashed good and hard by EG in the Upper Finals, and really don't look anything like the power from a season ago. Rumours of their post-season breakup have been floating around for a while now - and let's be honest, a lot of us saw it coming well before these playoffs - leading one to wonder yet again how much they really care about this match.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like the Loaded squad are some hard-working scrim-whores either, but their core DID just come back from playing in an intensive LAN setting that will no doubt carry over at least a little in terms of how in sync with each other they are.

We all know what makes each team tick and which guys will need to perform, so I'll save my fingers and your eyes from reading more of the same - ultimately, this is picking the lesser of two evils, and for some reason I just have more confidence picking the under-prepared Loaded instead of the under-prepared 20ID. I do hope it's a close one, though.

20ID [ 3 : 4 ] Loaded