The Crossfire Intel Challenge 7 single elimination playoffs have just kicked off with four exciting best-of-three matches, and four more to follow later this evening.

In the first game of the playoff bracket, the winner of Group A, NCE.i3D went head to head with the German ESL Pro Series champions SPEEDLINK, who placed second in their group based on rounds after a tie against YoYoTech. Although many expected NCE.i3D to take it in the end, given their recent results and current form, SPEEDLINK took control of the game right from the start and had no trouble overtaking NCE on both mp_crash (13-2) and mp_strike (13-7), resulting in a 2 to 0 win for the Germans.

Meeting SPEEDLINK in the Quarter Finals are the Hungarians from iNFiNiTY*SKiLLS, who managed to come back from being one map down against North America's pride: Loaded. Starting out on attack at mp_strike, iNFiNiTY*SKiLLS had the upper hand in the first few rounds, taking a 4-1 lead before Loaded completely turned the game around and ended the first half with a 7 to 5 score. iNFiNiTY*SKiLLS were unable to pull it back to a tie game on their own mapchoice and lost, 10 to 13. A 2-0 score was in the line of expectations when switching over to Loaded's mapchoice, mp_backlot, but iNFiNiTY*SKiLLS proved to be resilient and were able to take two straight maps: 13-11 and 13-10.

SPEEDLINK continue their dominant run and meet iNFiNiTY*SKiLLS in the Quarter Finals.

In the third game of the first single elimination round, fnatic faced corgz in a best-of-three matchup streamed live by Quadv. The main highlights of the game, which ended 2-1 in favor of fnatic, were the several clutch situations of Robin "robonz" Bakken of corgz and Stevy "Stevy" Verheyen of fnatic, who stepped it up in key rounds.

In the Quarter Finals, the Swedish team will meet tournament surprise Hostile Faction, who took down mTw with relative ease in the groupstages and continued their dominant run in the playoffs, defeating eSuba on mp_crash, 13-10, before taking six straight rounds (being down 10-12) to win the second map in overtime.

eSuba are now out of the tournament.

0		2
Maps: mp_crash: 2-13 mp_strike: 7-13
NCE.i3D Thomas "ChoObiE" Mead Dimitri "delroO" Decan Adam "vanner" Vanner Stacey "skeir" Keir Seán "Zajaki" Kilbride		SPEEDLINK Kevin "lopezzz" M. Marco "duffy" Mayer Patrick "patz" Peuler Kevin "reflexzR" Klempera Miles "TweFo0" Rauch

2		1
Maps: mp_strike: 10-13  mp_backlot: 13-11  mp_crash: 13-10
iNFiNiTY*SKiLLS David "Stormy" Fézler   Gabor "sT1ng3R" Sakal   Tamás "kZstaR" Ádámszky   Viktor "eLastic" Bálint   Attila "boco" Árvai		Loaded Andrew "theimpaler" Coons Keith "kZu" Hullenaar Jason "crzg" Pielemeier Steven "limitless" Kietzer Preston "juv3nile" Dornon

1		2
Maps: mp_citystreets: 9-13 mp_backlot: 13-9 mp_strike: 3-13
corgz Robin "robonz" Bakken Geir "gizzor" Wivelstad Jasko "cozje" Berbic David "ono" McConnell Myles "myzz" Cahill		fnatic Johan "LINQAN" Linqvist Marcus "odyx" Nilsson Conney "KyoChi" Sjoberg Stevy "Stevy" Verheyen Daniel "zEnith" Johansen

0		2
Maps: mp_crash: 10-13  mp_strike: 12-12 (OT: 0-4)
eSuba Jakub "skywalker" Dvoøák Lukáš "LuckeR" Blažek Josef "meny" Otta Michal "MISAK" Valùšek Petr "hectic" König		Hostile Faction Patrick "AagaarD" Aagaard Patrick "PATR" André Gjøl Niels "Gevers" Gevers Allan "Profft" Profft Mikkel "k1lm0" Juul