4Kings, in one guise or another have always been at the forefront of professional gaming in Europe. The brand has achieved a great deal of success due to the management's choice of teams to take onboard. The recent addition to the CSS branch of 4K are living up to the legend set forth by their predecessors. Already, in the Spring Invite they have put to rest many of the big names in the competition, including Reason, Auxilia and Team eBuyer. Each of these teams are more than capable of winning tournaments of this calibre, so all of these victories have been an achievement in itself, but with each success they edge a step closer to the title and first prize.

On Wednesday 19th March they face Team Logitech, the next big name standing between them and a place in the finals. This match guarantees to be a spectacular display of talent at the very peak of competitive competition. With Logitech also fielding a completely Finnish roster, one of the final spots will go to a team from Finland, no matter which of these teams succeed. Logitech have already impressively beaten OBi and MYM, and last week they faced fnatic, the team that many felt would stop them in their tracks. However, a 16-4 thrashing on de_nuke saw fnatic crash out the tournament much earlier than many would have predicted.

The map that will decide which of these two Finnish giants will secure a spot in the finals is de_cpl_mill. This map can be the failing of many teams. Being ill prepared will provide a one-way ticket to failure and gift your opponents with an easy victory. It has often been the focus of argument whether CT or T hold the advantage over this map, with most teams choosing CT first given the opportunity. However with the proper use of tactics and teamwork, a team can often display a superior T-half. Wednesday night promises to be a frag-fest, but with both teams boasting impressive form and results, only time will tell who will come out ahead.

Creativ have gone solo in their quest to keep the French flag flying in this competition, with all of their fellow countrymen falling at earlier hurdles. In their past three fixtures they have had two convincing triumphs over MultiGamer and The Last Resort, however, one of these three saw Creativ take on fnatic and lose in quite some fashion, 16-4. These guys are somewhat unheard of in the top-end of the European scene, however, after getting to this stage, even if they should fail now, they have proved themselves worthy of competing at this level in future competitions.

Animate are the second of two British teams fighting for their place in the next round and as I have mentioned before, they are still defying their critics and succeeding beyond expectations. Some may argue the team are lucky to remain in the competition, after losing to MYM and falling to the lower brackets where they faced OBi and emerged victorious, but then came face to face with the same team that forced them to the lower brackets, MYM. The Danish team this time around handed over a default, and essentially a bye to this week where Animate will face Creativ.

Neither team have had to perform on de_cpl_mill in recent fixtures, so a bit of work may need to be done on the map by both parties if they wish to advance any further. This is one map that is very unforgiving for lack of practice.

Team eBuyer are one of only two remaining UK squads in the competition, with Auxilia being forced out at the hands of a default loss, with only Animate to fly the flag aside them. The eBuyer squad were forced to compete in the lower bracket on the back of a 16-9 defeat to 4K, who they could potentially face again in the finals should they beat Team Logitech this week. Wuzup were the first to fall against eBuyer, followed by Auxilia (default), which has lead them to this weeks fixture vs. eSuba. Having witnessed eBuyer's abilities first hand on de_cpl_mill at recent LAN events, I can say eSuba will need to be on top form to leave Animate as the sole UK contingent.

eSuba were knocked into the lower brackets by H2K and have since faced Afterlife and even got a second shot at H2K which they didn’t waste, this time beating them 16-10 on de_nuke. eSuba have had a hard time since winning the Packard Bell EU Open, with the controversy surrounding a certain member of the line-up. With all of this in their minds the team have battled on and have found some of the form that saw them snatch victory from fnatic in the aforementioned contest. They'll be hoping this continues, placing them just one game away from the finals against one of the Fins.