While the LowLandLions team were not expecting a match in the ROCCAT Isku Challenge tonight, they still managed to gather the troops on time and do their usual aggressive pushes without too much thought, even disregarding the fact they were facing the former number one in Europe.

It has to be said that the former Power Gaming team, ^sens, were entering this game with a handicap of sorts, as Erik "FrosteR" van den Biggelaar has left for the Czech Republic today to enjoy himself a holiday break. To replace him, they came up with one of Czech Republic's most eager upcoming players in the form of Michal "trunk" Brousek.

The game started with the highsens team having warmed up extensively by beating TeaM2K comfortably in two maps in the hours before and they immediately jumped into mp_citystreets, presumably the Czech team's pick. The basic thing that makes ^sens a team to fear on this map is the way they utilize their scope in middle, but today there was no such thing in the works, as Jan "paradox" Duchon did not seem to hit his shots as he usually does, rocking a rather unexpected 0.5 ratio score towards the end of the map. Think of the opposite scope and instead of criticism, you'd offer nothing but praise for what the Scotsman has displayed, being very supportive in his team and securing more than enough frags on the defensive side of the map.

Especially LowLandLions' aggressive pushes on A in the defensive side cluttered the runways of the ^sens team, not being able to make it out of spawn on multiple occasions and not being ready to deal with the sneaking through by Thomas "cHoObiE" Mead and Jasko "cozje" Berbic. After a tie at 10:10 it was then quickly done & dusted on mp_citystreets, as the Brits secured three consecutive rounds to give them a 1:0 lead in this Best-of-Three.

As soon as mp_strike rolled on, LowLandLions took a 10 minute break, which ended up serving them well, because they flew out of the gates hot as a recently poured coffee cup and took five rounds before ^sens could answer back. Especially David "ono" McConnell was proving that he should rightfully be considered one of five best Scopes in Europe at all times, as he kept racking up the kills to give him a clean 20/4 frag count come the halftime whistle blew.

On ^sens' side, it was veteran performer, Lubomír "Luboshmir" Pešák, who had trouble finding his rhythm and he was unable to put one frag on the board in the first 10 rounds of the mp_strike game, not being able to find any foothold on the A café defence and dying of the strong and practised set nades of LowLandLions. Today's replacement was surely not the cause of ^sens' problems, as Michal "trunk" Brousek was the only player worth watching on the Czech side, keeping them in the game a few rounds with his strong SMG spray on the onstorming Thomas "cHoObiE" Mead and Jasko "cozje" Berbic.

With a 09:03 halftime score in favour of LowLandLions, they set their sights on a clean win and stayed conservative on A, whereas Chris "nreo" Mead took care of the B side of things by pushing up to bins a few times, making sure there weren't any opponents in flower or the adjacent stairs, steps or sneaky spots.

^sens proved simply too unimaginative on their attacking side and had nothing perfectly timed nor could they secure anywhere near enough early kills through nades, with Jan "paradox" Duchon redeeming some of his mp_citystreets criticism with early shots across mid street. Again it did not take the Brits long to secure the 13th round and humiliate the former number one by quite a big margin on mp_strike, winning the map 13:05 and securing their spot in the Upperbracket Final of the ROCCAT Isku Challenge.

02		00
Maps mp_citystreets: 13 - 10 mp_strike: 13 - 05
LowLandLions Thomas "cHoObiE" Mead Chris "nreo" Mead David "ono" McConnell Declan "germaine" Elcocks Jasko "cozje" Berbic		^sens Jan "paradox" Duchon Lubomír "Luboshmir" Pešák Nick "toxjee" Hol Michal "trunk" Brousek Petr "king" Elbogen

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TEK9 Coverage of ROCCAT Isku Challenge