by Sascha “Yiska” Heinisch
March starts off with some great WoW action as the IEM Global Finals will kick off at Cebit starting on the 2nd and going until the 4th. The calibre of the tournament is arguably on Blizzcon level as we will see teams from Europe, North America and Korea. Let’s take a look at the teams.
| Group A | Group B |
| Team Dignitas x6tence Mousesports Asia SK Korea SK USA H2k |
SK Sansibar SK EU Button Bashers iNNERFiRE compLexity Black Evil Geniuses |
Team Dignitas |
| Kalimist, Flyn, Hydra |
| RMP |
The loss in the European Championship finals by one round was surely painful, but it looks like this team is looking for revenge. How strong their comp RMP is at the moment remains to be seen. One year back at the last IEM Global finals, it was a tournament dominated by this comp and they are one of three remaining RMPs in the tournament. The resilience change sure comes in handy against some comps, but might just as well be a disadvantage against other teams. The are considered the best RMP in Europe and many Europeans have their money on them. They are a candidate to go all the way, but in a tournament of this caliber almost everyone can.
X6tence |
| Souler, Siler, Falcon |
| PHD/WLD + More |
If you watched WoW streams with this team at the tournament, you probably learned one thing: Never count x6 out until they lose their last match. While their performance in TBC was more convincing, this team can always surprise. WoW insiders will remember how this team got into the Blizzard European Regionals by replacing a team that couldn’t attend (finishing 10th on the qualification ladder when a placing of 10th was needed) and went on to win the tournament only to go 3rd at the last Blizzcon. Rumors have it though, that they aren’t quite as passionate about WoW as they used to be as they have been spotted with immense amount of prestige in MW2. ESL Admin Shawn lately stated that when he told Falcon that the tournament will be played in Season 5, they weren’t all that happy at all. Their way to Cebit wasn’t exactly an easy ride as their 4th place suggests. They have many teams in their group who they have fallen to recently or have a good comp to run against the lineups they used to run. Recently, they practiced the comp WLD who most people consider the better version of Shadow cleave at the moment.
Mousesports Asia |
| Goochi, Arai, Angelref |
| PHD |
Right before the Asian Continental finals the former “Team Angelref” joined mousesports. While not really unknown to insiders considering they won “The Named Season 2” and got third in the 3rd season, this is their first international tournament. It’s hard to judge their performance based on what we saw at the Asian qualifiers as the competition was not quite as comparable to the European Regionals. While their comp PHD was initially introduced to counter RMP, this didn’t work out so well. Fortunately for them, they only have one RMP in their group and their chances of at least getting top three in group play are pretty high. Wether they prepared for other comps is unknown.
SK Korea |
| Scommando, Hwanggom, Choiminso |
| Ret/War/Druid |
Another Korean team that recently got picked up after they won the last season of “The Named” was Cohex. They go by the name of SK Korea now and got 3rd in the Asian qualifier. Due to the resilience change, their comp seems weaker and because of the Prot Warrior changes they just aren’t as strong against RMP anymore, which showed against Button Bashers. They are currently the only team to play a ret-paladin comp in the tournament scene and it sure will be exciting to see them perform in Germany.
SK USA |
| Realz, Glickz, Kollektiv |
| RLS / Shadowcomp(?) |
“Dr.Realz” does it again with a team as they showed a convincing performance in Edmonton despite losing to Loaded. This team are all tournament veterans and have been around for ages but they are still light years away from being called “washed up has-beens.” Glickz was part of the legendary team Fnatic who dominated the US tournament scene back in TBC with the only female pro player, Hafu, at that time. This team has the ability to switch to Shadowcomp with Realz on Shadowpriest which shouldn’t be too bad at the moment. Expect this team to think outside of the box like they did against coL.Black, when they grabbed a series from them in group stage by specing their Warlock to Meta.
H2K |
| Selcuk, Instancez, Sanchez |
| aladin/Druid, Warlock, Rogue/DK |
Because neither Fnatic nor the runner ups of Edmonton wanted to attend the event, this European team stepped up to the plate. Despite them scaring Dignitas for a bit at the European Championship finals in which they were one game away from upsetting the Brits, the tournament didn’t go so well for them. They didn’t make it into the European Championship finals in the first place and were only invited because of a couple of European teams not making it. Maybe they will surprise some people as they are in the weaker of the two groups as well, but it will still be a tough challenge. The comps they can run aren’t exactly top notch at the moment either. Considering they found out that they will participate a couple of days ago, they probably haven’t practiced for it much at all.
SK Sansibar |
| Nòónia, Fraki, Moldran |
| TSG |
The likeable Germans surprised everyone in Cologne when they won the European Championship finals. Not too many people were paying attention to them but when they 3-0’d their group, most people probably understood that they shouldn’t be underestimated. While they of course hard countered their clan mates in the semi finals, it still felt like even the SK management didn’t expect that strong of a showing from the team. With the resilience change, TSG probably got nerfed as Nòónia stated in his interview with us two weeks ago. They are in the stronger group with all 1st placers, coL.Black & Button Bashers. With SK.EU in their group we are looking at 4 top notch teams and only 3 can qualify for the finals. They beat iNNERFIRE before and they should be strong against EG as well. I can see this team easily upsetting one of those other 3 top teams for a top 3 spot.
SK Europe |
| Another, Inflame, Enigmz |
| Shadowcleave |
While this team has such a potential, their comp took a pretty big nerf with the resilience change. They can hardly kill anything and they will probably shoot for the blue bars most of the time. Also Another reported that they didn’t practice at all yet because of internal differences. He also stated that he wanted to attend with a different team but apparently that didn’t work out. Nevertheless he was confident in his interview on WoWverload claiming they will win everyone, which of course was a little tongue in cheek. The big question isn’t if Inflame will (in)flame other teams again, but if they can put their money where their mouth is. They have a strong group without practice but these players are so incredibly high skilled on an individual level that it might as well be enough to go top 3 in group A.
Button Bashers |
| Hyren, Orangemarmalade, Numberone |
| RMP |
Living legends and current champions of the ESL Global finals from last year are of course Button Bashers. Even though Orange is one of the most humble people in the scene, there is probably little reason to be. While their performance in Orlando was a little upsetting, don’t be fooled into believing that this team is done yet. I’m sure as you read this, these guys are playing. They are one of the most dedicated teams in the scene and that showed again in the Asian finals which they won with relative ease. Never will we forget the amazing 1vs2 from Orangemarmalade that enabled them the last IEM Global finals, but can he do it again?
iNNERFIRE |
| Desis, CoolD, Xerio |
| RMP |
If this team is motivated and did train the last couple of weeks they can provide a surprise, even though they really have a tough challenge ahead of them in the group stages. Last year at Cebit, they were considered one of the best RMPs in the world. Since then, the team switched their Priest and CoolD is said to be playing a lot of Quake Live which he apparently is quite good at. I’m afraid this doesn’t really prepare him for the upcoming matches though and we will have to see how it goes for them. Bulgarians fighting!
Evil Geniuses |
| Woundman, Azael, Tenderloin |
| RLS |
Yes people, this is no typo nor is it a brainbug. Woundman will be on board for Cebit because their Mage, Pookz, can’t attend. While this is of course a problem in itself, the other issue is that this was literally decided days ago and they had little time to practice. Even though all of these players have played the comp before, while talking to Azael it become clear that their strategies against most comps differ entirely. Woundman is also known for being quite nervous in lan environments and certainly doesn’t perform as amazing as he does online. If they can get on the same page, this team can do very well, but history told us that changes like that are tough on most team’s performances.
compLexity Black |
| Toez, Flexx, Twixz |
| Beast Cleave |
Last, but certainly not least, the American Champions are ready to teach the Europeans some respect. As I will be residing in the same hotel room as them, I certainly hope this doesn’t include me. I however trained my “KILL HIM!” which kind of yield my family to despair. Enough with the fun talk, because this is serious business. The guys are well prepared and a static formula has yet to be found against them. Considering the final stages are single elimination, they are vulnerable to unusual strategies like the one’s SK.US pulled. They are definitely one of the tournament favorites but as mentioned above, their group is a tough one. They have yet to fight a TSG in a tournament setting and SK.EU & Button Bashers did upset them in Anaheim. Flexx wouldn’t be the mastermind that he is if he didn’t already have a solution, however.