The surprise of Day 1, Phantasmagoria with their surprising win over Infused.Tt, were looking sharp from the start and started the game strongly and convincingly. But after the first map was over and done, the Team WinFakt! players started warming up and found themselves hitting their shots better and better.

I have to admit that I accidentally overslept this morning and when I woke up, I rushed my way over to the WZZRD Café and found Phantasmagoria leading the score with a 08 - 07 scoreline. Later I found out that due to having played together in the past, Daniel "L-KiNG" Luther and his team were able to completely anti strat Kevin "reflexzR" Klempera, making him go 0-0-7. Being able to outplay one of Team WinFakt!'s highest fraggers can easily explain the score of Phantasmagoria and how they were able to beat the WinFakt! team on their own map. 13 - 07 was the final score in favour of Phantasmagoria and everyone watching expected them to 02 - 00 Team WinFakt!.

Fortunately for the finalists of the SAGE event in July, they slowly but surely woke up and started hitting their shots better. It still took them a while, as Daniel "L-KiNG" Luther was using the SMG on his defending B push on mp_crossfire and put his gun to good use. He pushed the B bombsite at the perfect time, making sure the planter was left defenceless and that way, he managed to two-frag multiple rounds. When WinFakt! started anticipating that, they could await the on-pushing and Mark "phantasy" Pinney thought to push in well near Kebab.

Phantasmagoria.eu countered that change of pace well by having Robin "robonz" Bakken push up on from the A side, using perfect timing to sneak past Kevin "reflexzR" Klempera. This gave Phantasmagoria a 05 - 03 lead on their defence. Once more, the momentum changed and Team WinFakt! had their series of winning two rounds, with Mark "mark" Horner getting four SMG frags in one round to tie the game up at 05 - 05 again.

When Team WinFakt! then moved into the defending side with a score line of 06 - 06, Daniel "zEnith" Johansen was free of having to plant the bomb and could focus on getting some frags, as he had a score of 0-0-10 in the entire first half, whilst trying to plant the bomb. He immediately picked up a frag on Robin "robonz" Bakken and with the Norwegian now starting to frag for Team WinFakt!, it was no surprise that they started creating a lead and even managing to hang onto it.

Especially the SMGs of Team WinFakt! were instrumental in getting onto B and not giving Phantasmagoria any possibility of getting early plants in, with both of them ending up on top of the score board near the end of the game. This was in large a contrast to the first map of this Best-of-Three, where they were being put out of the game by better tactics and nades of Phantasmagoria. Once in a while, Team WinFakt! would let some of the pressure slip and this gave Phantasmagoria an in that they'd use well, but it was never enough and fundamentally, they did not possess the tools and tactics to counter this Team WinFakt! defence on mp_crossfire and especially Norman "zABZRWx" Dornier was not being efficient enough in his scoping battles, not applying enough pressure on the people from B and A house, when his team mates were trying to get the bomb down.

Team WinFakt! were mildly ironic about the fact they won that map 13 - 10 and did not seem overjoyed. This is another contrast to the Phantasmagoria team who were ecstatic with each round they secured. With mp_backlot being the decider, it would come down to the SMG players and set nades to break away from the opposing team.

Team WinFakt! started on defence first and lost the first round to a quick A push of Phantasmagoria. When the next round went the way of WinFakt!, everyone expected this trading of rounds to continue through the entire first half and you'd be mostly correct. However, WinFakt! gained the lead in the 5th round and managed to hang on to it for the remaining rounds of the first half, closing it out with the most minimal of leads, 07 - 05.

Especially in the individual performances, you would see that Team WinFakt! would win most of the confrontations against their opponents, with Phantasmagoria being better prepared and having more diversity in their plays, they could not get past them. Especially Kevin "reflexzR" Klempera stepped up his game from the first maps and would get opening kills in A nearly every round, giving the rest of his team a clear advantage when having to plant the bomb. This greatly benefited Team WinFakt! who would end up taking two more rounds and create the difference to 09 - 05.

With Daniel "zEnith" Johansen losing a 1on2 narrowly, the comeback of Phantasmagoria had begun. They closed out four rounds in a row to tie the whole game up again. Any one's game by now. But being spurred on by this unexpected comeback, Team WinFakt! gave it another go and managed to put themselves on match point without too many problems.

Even though they gave up one more round to the more quiet than expected Phantasmagoria team, the win was quickly secured and Team WinFakt! finally seemed glad with the way they played their game and were happy to have won. They will be looking forward to meeting either LowLandLions or cHaos eSports, who are still setting up as we speak. Phantasmagoria on the other hand can be glad with what they have done, but had some of their players been more on fire, individually, they would have won this match 02 - 00 and truly made a great first LAN impression.

01		02
Maps: mp_citystreets: 13 - 09 mp_crossfire: 10 - 13 mp_backlot: 10 - 13
Phantasmagoria.eu Daniel "L-KiNG" Luther Robin "robonz" Bakken Daniel "VAE" Ball Norman "zABZRWx" Dornier Christian "kaTana" Hofmann		Team WinFakt! Kevin "reflexzR" Klempera Mark "phantasy" Pinney Mark "mark" Horner Leonidas "killzx" Krykos Daniel "zEnith" Johansen

 

 

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