GGL Wire

SK Gaming has won the Swedish Extreme Masters II qualifier for Counter-Strike 1.6 to regain supremacy at home for the first time in long months. They did this by demolishing Fnatic on de_nuke 16:5 (25:5). This result looks like it could be the beginning of a new, fascinating rivalry.

For a team only about a month old, the new SK Gaming lineup is doing very well. They finished second (behind Fnatic) at the Extreme Masters II invitational tournament in Los Angeles and won the Kode5 qualifier in Holland one week after that. This week, they won all their EM II qualifying games: against Playzone, Defining Stars and Fnatic.

Last year, it was the Ninjas in Pyjamas team that denied Fnatic in most domestic competitions in 2006. After that, Oskar “ins” Holm left NiP to join Fnatic and Marcus “zet” Sundstrom left NiP for compLexity. NiP never regained its former strength and disbanded this summer. Fnatic had no counterweight in all of Scandinavia. Sam Mathews’ team won practically everything there was to be won.

Although Fnatic’s defeat in this qualifier is inconsequential because two teams will advance to the EM II qualifier, it may mean that the balance was now restored. Perhaps SK can become Fnatic’s new nightmare. They have three players that know all too well how to haunt Fnatic after all.