cArn's WCG 2010 preview continued

The WCG 2010 Counter-Strike Grand Final is about to kick-off tomorrow and cArn will once again be entertaining you tonight with his predictions on the last set of groups.

HLTV.org will bring you right in the middle of the action, directly from Los Angeles, USA, starting from tomorrow, but in the meantime we've left some things undone. Fnatic team captain, Patrik "cArn" Sättermon, is back tonight with some more bold and clear-cut opinions on what will be happening in the following days.

Leading the ranks of one of the world's best teams, ever since 2006, Patrik can easily be considered a veritable Vito Corleone amongst the Swedish side's ranks. His constant performances and life-long experience in the Counter-Strike field speak for themselves, so without further ado, I'll give the floor to cArn, for the preview of the last set of WCG 2010 Grand Final groups.

Group E	Group F	Group G	Group H
Immunity	mTw	Frag eXecutors	WeMade FOX
Lions	F.azer.Z	TyLoo	Area51
EG	K29	Duskbin	Gameholics
F2F!			neWave.PlayMore

Group E

Group E is by far the strongest one of the WCG 2010. We have three world-class teams and a motivated Immunity from Australia, who has been in Sweden, bootcamping for several weeks. Nonetheless, I want to point out that the group draw is very unfortunate for the Aussies. They would have easily placed second in a different arrangement but I believe the "group of death" will send them back down under, after the very first day of competition.

Will Lions step it up?

It's impossible to name a given favourite in this group but my gut feeling tells me that it's either Lions or FACE2FACE! who will win this group. The Swedes, who are indisputably the number three team on a national level, are well-known for an intelligent game-style, which I think will be suitable for the task of overthrowing EG without their in-game leader, and the French team's aim-based game-style.

Another concern in the EG camp, besides the absence of lurppis, is whether their chemistry will be as good as previously, without Ediz "gfn" Basol's energy and awesome personality, which boosted them to last month's victory in the MSI BEAT IT finals, in Beijing.

Nail biting time

To sum it up, Lions and F2F! are the most likely teams to qualify to the play-off, where I'm willing to rate their chances as high as possible bronze medalists.

Group F

We all know who will win this group but very few can predict the second place finisher. With only three teams present, we can already name either Belarus or Azerbaijan amongst top 16, which feels a bit awkward coming in from predicting the previous group where world-class teams will be eliminated because the WCG admins didn't do their homework.

Other than that, the Danes will suffer from the same situation as Na'Vi, whereby their group-stage in-game results won't give them a good enough hint of their current momentum.

mTw at the WCG 2009 Grand Final

mTw must be very stressed about their lack of recent international titles, but I think that if they can get away easily in the first stage of the play-off, WCG might very much be the moment to claim sweet avenge, especially when fnaticMSI is missing and Na'Vi's form is uncertain. 

Group G

Many would call Frag eXecutors the unluckiest team on the planet. With several organizational swaps and the lack of financial support in terms of attending international events, you might have thought the problems would take the best out of them and lead the line-up towards new paths in life. One thing is clear though; the Polish eagles never gives up. After being knocked out so many times they have risen in the last second just to go all the way and win big championships, such as double titles in both ESWC and WCG. Neo and his colleagues also won last year's episode of the WCG, playing back then with Lukasz "LUq" Wnek, who was an important part of the golden five.

Pasha officially joined in early 2010 and since then it has been business as usual, decent results, with a few titles, but not any major ones. Destiny or not, the history seems to repeat itself and I already see some similarities with 2009, when FX was rather invisible throughout the year, just to come and steal a big title from the team of the moment (fnaticMSI).

Will FX give themselves enough clapping chances?

If there won't be a miracle from the Hong-Kong representative, Duskbin, in the group-stage we will definitely see Tyloo and FX progress to the play-off, where both sides will be feared. Tyloo has a perfect chance to impress the naysayers, who claim Chinese teams can't compete overseas, but in my opinion they are the strongest representative China ever had.

Group H

WeMade Fox will definitely win the group closely followed by the Canadians, who unfortunately lack the manpower to overthrow the hard working Koreans. And hard workers is just what the Koreans are as they probably rack up more practice hours than most teams in the world. Unfortunately for the green coloured foxes, pro-gaming is not another Disney movie; the good guys do not always win, as there are more aspects to Counter-Strike than perfect aim and timed flashes.

Practice hours set; smile set; ready for WCG podium

It seems like the heat of the moment takes the best of WMF, time after time. With the help of statistics I wouldn't say they are likely to achieve top 3 but they have all the chances to prove me wrong as I'm certain they will make it to the play-off, where everything can happen, especially in a city where the Disney empire was born.

With all that being said from Patrik's side, let the games begin. Before that, with still a couple of good hours to go until the matches actually kick-off you can have a look over our previous coverage items simply by browsing through the links below.

HLTV.org's pre-WCG:

cArn's WCG 2010 preview
 TaZ: "Hope to stay on the right path"
 Video: Pre-WCG with ave & Sunde
 Friis: "We will end up in top 3"
 FalleN: "We are really confident"