The Semi-Final matchup for Season 1 of RGL will be between Cat Noises and Dogging-Kruger Effect. Both teams have felt the pressure from Froyotech this season, and most of their losses have come at the hands of the aforementioned team.
In the regular season, these teams split their head-to-head 1-1, with each team taking a 2-1 victory- dK won on Upward and Cat Noises on Steel.

Product will allow the fraggers on Cat Noises to roam free. I'm expecting a close-fought game from the two snipers, who will undoubtedly be hampered by the picks and bans on the map. However, the other strategy would be to try and take as much weaponry out of the hands of the Scouts as possible, as Slemnish is sure to have a huge game with his Invite-level aim.
Couple that with a few hotstreaks from Andrew on Sniper and Campy doing Demo things (spoiler alert: he's good at them) and Cat Noises have a good chance of taking this one. No doubt they picked it for a reason, as they had a really close fought game against the 6-0 Froyotech, losing 3-4.
This will still be edge-of-your-seat exciting and I'm anticipating either a close 3-1 or a 3-2 scoreline in the favor of Cat Noises.

It's not surprising of course that dK came out swinging with a pick on Upward, hoping to turn their fortune into a larger cut of the prize pool.
Much of what is in dK's favor is what I mentioned in my article last week. The players on the team are monsters at the map and lead by Karl and saam, both of whom will not let their team take their foot off the gas.
For Cat Noises, they 100% have the talent to put up with dK and they won't make this an easy fight at all. If Spamfest plays, I expect dK to be to have their hands full dealing with the best Engineer in UGC, and if Andrew ends up sniping for UwU, he's absolutely no slouch behind the scope.
The game should end up with the same score line as before, and the match between these two teams will likely go on for a long time because of how close in skill they are. dK take their map pick 2-1 and go into Product with an advantage.


Badwater will be our closing match and just a quick note- this will only be one half.
This puts a whole lot of pressure on Badwater should it come to this, and I have a feeling it will. For dK to make it to this point, they're going to be supercharged to try and earn that extra prize money, so I'm expecting them to come out with all their guns blazing. The problem with this playstyle is that if it doesn't work and their morale is dashed, their is a possible domino effect and one poor play can inform another.

What dK do have in their favor though, is a roster full of individual talent that's well equipped to take out any team, even the 1st place Froyotech, on a Payload map.
Back in Week 1, we saw dK struggle against the aforementioned Froyo, and Cat Noises drop a round to Generations.

Still, the way dK lost the map was frustrating to say the very least and I think that plays a lot into Cat Noises favor.

This is a tough one to call because one good run from a team's Sniper or a crucial drop could completely change the course of the game. I'm in Cat Noises corner on this when all things are equal, largely because of their performance this season vs dK's laissez-faire level of competition. But if/when dK try they can literally be world beaters, as they were in the ETF2L Nations Cup.

A very close round will send Cat Noises into the Grand Finals.