The opening of the European Championship in Extreme Masters IV turned out to be one to watch.

Alternate, who currently lead the German ESL Pro Series, started out playing levels above the Danes from Ravens. Playing the CT side did not seem to affect Alternate, who stormed to a 13-2 score at half time. The man to watch from Alternate was Roman "roman" Ausserdorfer, who played an outstanding half. As T Alternate took three rounds they needed, while Ravens cashed in a 2-16 defeat.


roman was once again a key for Alternate to win.

Moving to inferno, Ravens got into the same gear as Alternate. Alternate as CT managed to win the pistol-round and the following eco-rounds Ravens had. But the Ravens found the magic-gear and stepped it up, bringing first half home with a 11-4 score. Alternate started the journey back towards the lead, but Ravens put a stop to it, with five rounds as CT, Ravens took a 16-12 win on inferno.

Final map train saw Ravens winning the right to start as CT. The Danes played a strong CT side, seeing great play by Baljit "zE-" Lal and Christian "turkizh" Bindslev, leading to shocking Alternate with a 14-1 score at half-time. Moving to CT, Alternate once again begun a race to reach a lot of rounds to win the match.

The Germans nailed the pistol-round and a lot of rounds went their way. The Germans had to thank Manuel "approx" Zeitz and once again Roman "roman" Ausserdorfer for great play on CT. Ravens did however get one crucial round, taking them to 15 rounds. Alternate took important last round, to force overtime. In overtime the Germans had it figured out, taking at 4-1 score as CT and 2-1 as T, to win 22-17 on train and 2-1 overall.

Extreme Masters IV European ChampionshipBest of 0 AlternateMatchpage 2 1 14th October 2009 Ravens 2Best of 3 1

Alternate hereby claim their first three points of the season. Ravens put up a much exciting show on second and third map, not something you'd expect after seeing first map. You can find the statistics from the match right here, also one POV demo is available, seeing Christian "turkizh" Bindslev playing train, download it here.

The European Championship of Extreme Masters IV will continue tomorrow, seeing a total of three matches on the menu.