GGL Wire

Wednesday night’s Championship Gaming Series quarterfinal matches would determine the ultimate make up of next Monday’s semi-finals. In the first match, the Birmingham Salvo faced off against the Mexico City Furia. In the second, North American champions the Carolina Core fought the Wuhan Dragon. Of these four teams, only two would join the San Francisco Optx and Berlin Allianz in the semi-finals.

Birmingham Salvo vs. Mexico City Furia

Dead or Alive 4 (DOA4) male opened the night with a match between Birmingham’s Messy and Mexico City’s player El Divino Xmas on the DWA Coliseum stage. The match began competitive, but things quickly went downhill for El Divino Xmas. His 2-5 loss to Messy was the result.

Mexico City’s Zerocero scored the first goal in the subsequent FIFA 08 game. The first and second halves flew by with neither player earning another point. As a result, Zerocero beat Birmingham’s Bazza, 1-0.

Birmingham led 5-3 going into the night’s first Forza 2 race. Any immediate hopes Mexico City had of taking the lead were quickly dashed as Birmingham’s racers, Picaso and Daveyskills, sped into first and second place. Birmingham now led 11-4 with two games remaining.

In DOA4 female, Birmingham’s SarahLou fought Mexico City’s Hitomi1 on Crash Club. The match began with both players trading some extremely close rounds. Finally SarahLou pulled ahead and won another victory for Birmingham, 5-3.

The night’s climatic Counter-Strike: Source (CS:S) match took place on the map de_inferno. Mexico City won the first half as the counter-terrorists, 6-3. The Latin American franchise replicated this score as the terrorists, thus allowing them to win the match 12-6. Nevertheless, this victory could not compensate for Mexico City’s earlier losses. Birmingham still won the overall match, 22-19.

Carolina Core. vs. Wuhan Dragon

Dead or Alive 4 female began the second franchise match of the night. Temple on the Mountain was the stage for the fight between Carolina’s Mystik and Wuhan’s Catpower. The match’s opening round went to Catpower. This would be the Wuhan player’s only victory as Mystik came back and won the next five rounds. Her winning streak gave Carolina the victory, 5-1.

Both FIFA 08 players were tied 1-1 by the end of the game’s first half. Carolina’s Anomaly dominated the second half after scoring two additional points. Wuhan’s ZZ was still trying to figure out what hit him by the time the game ended with a 3-1 victory for Carolina.

Wuhan trailed Carolina by six points going into Forza 2. Would Wuhan’s dramatic streak of losses continue with the night’s second race? Unfortunately for Wuhan, the answer was a resounding yes. Carolina’s racers, General E Live and Phantom, finished in first and second respectively and won the race, 6-1. Carolina now led Wuhan by 14-3.

Wuhan needed to perform almost perfectly to retain any hopes of beating Carolina. This perfection certainly eluded them in DOA4 male. Carolina’s OffbeatNinja followed Mystik’s earlier example by thrashing his opponent Kindfox into a 5-1 victory.

Carolina was first up as the counter-terrorists on CS:S. Believe it or not Wuhan actually won the first half on de_dust2 with a slim 5-4 margin. The second half, like the entire franchise match, didn’t go as well for Wuhan. Carolina won the second half, 6-3, which gave them the victory in both CS:S and the overall match. Carolina had earned its place amongst the semi-finalists with this dramatic 29-12 victory.