The SMITE World Championships 2017 semifinals at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta finished with predictable results as both European powerhouse teams made it to the last day. The favorites of the tournament, NRG Esports (NRG) and Obey Alliance bested the two North American lineups, Team Eager and Luminosity Gaming (LG) to make the grand finals. Both Team Eager and LG narrowed the gap between international talent and North America, but the European teams continued to solidify their dominance in the game.

Both lineups struggled with fast-paced aggression and required the region's signature grinding game play to halt the opposition's momentum. And most importantly, both needed to execute teamfights just to secure objectives instead of bullying in lane and mounting an early game lead. It will be interesting to see which team will consistently pull ahead for the midgame transition because the paper matchup looks to be even between the two teams.

Team Eager against Obey Alliance. Team Eager lived up to its name with two all-in compositions and strategies to start the set against Obey Alliance. Unfortunately for the team's gimmick, both games fell flat and ended in defeat. Team Eager avoided the challenge of fighting Obey Alliance to a fundamental game of SMITE and opted for a teamfight, group-up, and rotation-heavy strategy to throw its opponents on a loop. With no more gimmicks, Team Eager played into the slower style of Obey and outperformed them with sharper rotations on defense and better chase downs during the biggest fights. It took a better draft and a return to the grinding and punishing laning style of Obey Alliance to close out the set.

NRG Esports against Luminosity Gaming. The defending world champion, NRG Esports entered its semifinal matchup against the upstart Luminosity Gaming team as the heavy favorite and left with more questions than answers. The normally-dominant European squad needed to play catch-up for the majority of the set and grinded out victories instead of its usual objective-heavy game plan.

The star of the set was Luminosity Gaming's Ronald "ScaryD" Belair and his exceptional solo play. In addition to being a constant disruption during team pushes and fights, ScaryD was an impossible target to lock down. The fluid movement and frenetic pace of the North American LG caused fits for NRG Esports and kept every game to the wire. LG looked to secure the upset on multiple occasions with the gold lead during both games three and four, but couldn't break through the defenses of NRG Esports and ultimately ran out of gas.