Its that time of the year again, the Eleague playoffs have crept up on the Counter Strike community. The playoff bracket for the second season of Eleague looks to be a doozy as some of the best teams in the world find themselves facing off in a single elimination bracket. With such exciting matches also comes a high degree of uncertainty, as it seems highly realistic for any number of ways for the playoff bracket to play out.

Dignitas vs SK

Out of all the quarterfinal matchups ,this one is easily the most exciting matchup on paper. With SK matched up versus Dignitas, the Counter Strike community is given the privilege of watching two of the most exciting and deadly teams duke it out. The matchup only gets more exciting when the realization hits that the current iterations of SK and Dignitas have not had the privilege to match up in a best of three set at any prior point whatsoever.

While recently SK have not looked to be the same dominant force that enroute to two major victories, only dropping one map, they still possess one of the fiercest skill sets within the game. However, over that same period, SK have managed to reaffirm their Counter Terrorist side as the most fearsome in the game today, Even making notable Counter Strike analyst Duncan “Thoorin” Shields go so far as to call the act of winning a round versus SK’s fully equipped CT side as one of the most difficult things to do in the game today.

Despite all of this, SK has still struggled to elevate their game to the standards that most of the community expects them to, finding themselves in a long championship drought. A large factor in this drought has been SK’s map pool and, more specifically, in how the map that helped them win the previous major, Nuke, has proceeded to be one of their main kryptonites in best-of series’ versus top teams. The effect of this kryptonite looks to be doubly worsened versus Dignitas, who are themselves quite adept on Nuke. Be that as it may SK are still one of the most fearsome teams in the scene today, and while they might match up poorly in terms of a singular map, as a team, SK still possesses the lineup and map pool necessary to take this series.

On the other side of this matchup lies the new-found Danish champions in the form of Dignitas. The community knows the type of team that this Dignitas lineup is capable of being; after all, Dignitas put on quite a show en route to claiming the championship at Epicenter.

However, ever since then, Dignitas have been unable to reclaim the same magic that led them to the championship, with their only notable result being their first place finish in an Eleague group with OpTic, Fnatic, and Envyus.

The question that needs to be answered is: what form of Dignitas will show up? Will it be the one who took down Natus Vincere and Virtus Pro back to back, or will it be the Dignitas that was vanquished by Flipside Tactics at Dreamhack Winter? Ultimately, this matchup looks to come down to which team comes into the series with better form, especially considering both of these teams on paper are championship contenders, and considering Dignitas’ recent struggles, one would be hardpressed to blame people for siding with SK as the favorites in this quarterfinal matchup.

Astralis vs NiP

While SK vs. Dignitas is easily the most exciting matchup theoretically at Eleague’s quarterfinal bracket, if one get excited based on current form, then it wouldn’t be inconceivable to argue that Astralis versus the Ninjas is the most tantalizing proposition present within the playoff bracket. In this matchup, the Counter Strike community is privileged to witness the semi-finalist and winner of Group A at IEM Oakland, Astralis, face off versus the champion of IEM Oakland, Ninjas in Pyjamas.

On one hand, we have the Danish superteam in the form of Astralis. Astralis has had quite a rough year so far, failing to live up to the expectations that come assigned to a team that contains star level talent like Device and Dupreeh. Upon changing their lineup in order to bring Glaive into the mix of things, essentially changing the leadership within the team, Astralis has looked like a team sprung anew. Seemingly, the boys over at Astralis have reclaimed the form of old that they had left by the wayside. Despite the fact that they still have not proven they can contend for titles, Astralis have at the very least managed to reclaim the old form that saw them make it out of group stages and into the top four of major events.

The other hand happens to contain the current top dog of the Swedish scene, and the winner of the last major tournament in Counter Strike, Ninjas in Pyjamas. At IEM Oakland, Ninjas in Pyjamas emerged through the bracket stage in second place and proceeded to overcome Immortals, Faze, and SK enroute to the championship. While most did not expect Ninjas in Pyjamas to claim the championship initially -- especially considering this was Pyth’s first event back in the lineup -- in hindsight, the win is just another repetition of the success that NiP so regularly obtain whenever some sort of change takes place in the roster. Now what remains to be seen is whether or not NiP will be able to carry that success forward into the Eleague bracket, a bracket which will be far less forgiving than the one they faced at IEM Oakland.

Overall, this matchup is one between two fearsome rosters that have just recently come into spurts of good form. In terms of picking a favorite, one would be remiss to not select NiP as the clear favorite in this matchup, especially after taking into consideration their decimating run through IEM Oakland and Astralis’ well documented struggles in playoffs. However, despite NiP being favored in this matchup, there is clearly a large amount of room within this matchup for an upset, and due to that, this matchup looks to be one of the more exciting ones in the bracket.

Mousesports vs OpTic

Mousesports versus OpTic has one similarity to the previous matchups -- and that is the fact that the matchup itself is tantalizing. That is where the similarities end, however, as neither of these two teams are elite teams, nor are they ones that normally one would expect to make deep into this level of a tournament. Luckily for these two candidates, they happened to be matched versus each other, and thusly must be counting their stars when considering the other matchups they could have potentially gotten.

OpTic are coming into this matchup looking to redeem themselves after an absolutely atrocious performance at Dreamhack Winter, where they failed to win a single map versus Cloud 9 and Gambit. Despite their recent failure, OpTic do have some recent successes to look back upon and attempt to emulate; after all, at Northern Arena, they managed to pick up a championship trophy by overcoming G2, and during the group stages of Eleague, they managed to triumph over Envyus and Fnatic.

The case in question for OpTic coming into this event is what form will they show up in. Will it be the Dreamhack Winter form, in which case, one could only expect them to bow out in a quick 2/0 manner, or will it be the OpTic that triumphed over Fnatic and Envyus?

In the case of Mousesports, their tale in regards to this roster has been surprisingly similar to the story of OpTic. There have been some successes, reaching the semifinals of ESL Pro League finals and triumphing in a group with Immortals and Cloud 9 at Eleague, but they have also come coupled with heartbreaking failures -- a devastating 2/0 loss to Cloud 9 at ESL Pro League finals and an 0-5 group stage exit at IEM Oakland. Luckily, their inconsistencies have less of a chance to haunt them as their opponent has their own demons to consider.

On paper, OpTic should be considered as the favorites in the matchup. They have accomplished more in recent times to back up their name. However, the matchup between the two teams in terms of map pools finds that Mousesports tends to match up very well with OpTic, and as such, there is huge potential for the matchup to swing in any different way. Regardless of how the matchup ends up playing out, most will be hardpressed to see it as anything other than a temporary stay of execution for the winners, as they will eventually be forced to march into their doom versus the likes of Dignitas, Sk, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Virtus Pro, and perhaps Faze.

Virtus Pro vs Faze

If this matchup was being played out two months ago then it would be an open and shut case of everyone waiting to see Virtus Pro dominating its competition. Now, however, the times have changed, as Virtus Pro are coming off of nearly a month long period of LAN inactivity, and as such, carry a large degree of uncertainty on their backs.

Before taking that break, Virtus Pro were undoubtedly the number one team in the world. They were the first ones to vanquish SK from their throne and were also making consistent deep runs into tournaments. Sadly, in the case of Virtus Pro, they seem to have a deep aversion to the idea of consistency. As such, who knows what to even expect out of Virtus Pro in this matchup, on one hand it wouldn’t be unrealistic to see them roll over Faze in a dominating 2/0 set, yet the converse would not be that surprising in of itself. For the Counter Strike community, in regards to  Virtus Pro, especially after a one month period of inactivity for the Poles, the only thing that can truly be said is that most will have no expectations on the Polish side’s performance whatsoever.

Faze, on the other hand, is a completely different story. There does exist some sort of sample size for expectations to be based off of. Ever since Karrigan has joined the Faze roster, the outlook of the team has steadily climbed. First, they managed to overcome Cloud 9 in a best-of-three series to make it into the playoff bracket for Eleague. Then, more notably, Faze even managed to top their group at IEM Oakland, and made it to the top four of the event. While these accomplishments may pale in comparison to the ones that Virtus Pro had racked up prior to their break, they still are respectable in their own right. The form that Faze has been displaying, under the leadership of Karrigan up until this point, should make this best-of-three an overall enjoyable one, so long as Virtus Pro don’t come into the series extremely out of shape.

The fact of the matter, however, is that the form Virtus Pro were in pre-break, and the expectations and hope that they will carry that form forward, make them the clear favorites for this best-of-three set. If you’re a Faze fan, however, do not be alarmed -- the upset potential in this series is quite high, especially when Virtus Pro’s inconsistencies throughout history are taken into account. The Counter Strike community will be watching this specific best-of-three with hushed breaths, as they look to see whether or not the Poles have lost the touch that made them oh so exciting to watch before their break.