by Sascha “Yiska” Heinisch
This weekend, MLG Columbus is knocking at the door and we are responding with a preview of the competition. Let’s introduce the teams:
Nerdstompers |
| Hoodrych, Nadagast, Velsuz |
| WLD |
Hoodrych has been a successful Warrior since TBC. Since back then he has been playing WLD and at times where even the Global Champions like Plasma TV Inc fail to make a comeback with the comp, he makes it work. Actually that’s not entirely true as Velsuz and Nadagast are both big parts of the equation. Nadagast is from New Zealand and they had a hard time finding a sponsor with the funds to send them to an event. This will be the first WoW LAN event for the Warlock and the Druid and we will have to see how they handle it. They are definitely a team to look out for.
Fnatic |
| Woundman,Yog, Douja |
| RLS |
Woundman is back with his team after winning the IEM Masters Global Finals as a ringer for EG. He has been pumping out videos for a couple of weeks now and you can literally see him get better which is the purpose of these movies. Sitting down talking over games he has recorded is as close as it gets to analyzing a replay and that’s how they tried to improve. He learned an important lessons from Cebit – don’t over complicate things. If they can weave this into their performance this time to allow themselves a bigger margin of error, then this team can go very far. One thing that is concerning is their TR tournament phase team which currently is pretty close to 50%. A bad night, trying something different or a serious downswing in their form? I guess we will have to find out in Ohio.
CompLexity Red |
| Snutz, Venruki, Reckful, Sodah |
| RLD or RMD |
Complexity Red is finally back in the offline scene after not participating at the IEM Global Finals. Right off the bat, they have amazing class combinations to pick from. Be it RLD or LMD the team is a serious force to be reckoned with. More than that, many insiders predict that MLG Columbus will be their best tournament showing as a team so far and I can easily see why. Every single one of these players is considered world class, with nobody really being the 4th wheel skill wise. It’s a shame that you can’t have four players on your roster for Blizzard tournaments if I may add. The question this weekend will be if they can play their A-Game and if they can pick the correct setups against the opponent teams and if we can answer both questions with a “Yes” on Monday, I think we will at least see Red in the finals if not win it all.
CompLexity Black
|
| Toez, Flexx, Twixz |
| Beast Cleave |
The practice monsters, with Korean work ethic and an A+ resume are back and as much as you hate this overachieving Asian in your class, so will the competition be feeling about them. I was there when this one single game decided the tournament for them at Cebit and while it was of course very disappointing I think it was an important lesson to them: They are actually beatable. This is not to say that they took Cebit lightly, far from. But they are all champions and wherever they have participated, they had a serious shot of winning it all and they more often than not did. When I first saw the amount of games the team had put into practice for the event, my jaw dropped. You bet they want it and Beast cleave is still able to deliver. The last Twixz has not been eaten, the Toez hasn’t been stubbed and there is still title’s to Flexx for.
Team EG |
| Azael, Pookz, Cdew |
| WMS |
At the event as well 2/3 of the IEM Global Championship team, Team EG. After the victory in Hanover, Cdew take some time off from WoW and it looked like he was going out as the World Champion he became. Fortunately he’s back and after a little adjustment to the current live server changes (mainly the damage), he should be fine. The comp feels a little outdated as it’s prime was in s6-s7. It still has tons of CC and should be a nightmare for melee teams. To be perfectly honest though, there a better caster cleave compositions out there and they will have to play just a little better to achieve the same goals than those. Nevertheless the team has been doing pretty well on Blizz TR and we will have to see how they do in the tournament. Group drawings are also a big factor for them.
Loaded Blue |
| Didy, Deltons, Brogo |
| TBD |
Those radicoLs into WoW will remember at least one name here. Brogo who originally wanted to quit the game before MLG Anaheim last year and only came back because they got the Wild card from complexity still can’t get enough. With him on board is WoW veteran Didy aka “the Didster” and Deltons, a rather unknown player in the scene. I believe WLD will be the name of the game. I doubt they have the class Nerdstompers have though. I still love to see Didy at an event again. Can we get him in the commentary booth for a couple of games again please?
Loaded Black |
| Orangemarmalade, Numberone, Satz |
| TBD |
Orangmarmalade on my toast and in my WoW tournament – delicious. Again his team had to switch Rogues because Hiren wasn’t able to practice as much as the team wanted and according to Orange, that is at least 5hours a day. He who’s aspiring to become in WoW what Moon is in WC3 has big goals while still maintaining a humble stance and respecting each of his opponents and this is what we love him for. I know at least Twixz does. Hiren’s replacement Satz is said to be the second big Rogue in the Korean scene and has constantly been competing with Hiren for the first spot. With all that said, they still play RMP and the comp is considered outdated by many pros and insiders. Disc priests just have a very hard time at the moment and long gone are the times where 75% of the teams at an event were playing this beauty of a comp. Then again, we also thought RMP wasn’t a comp that could beat Beast Cleave in Anaheim and I hope they don’t cease to amaze us in Ohio.
Skill Capped West |
| Vidra, Pollee, Diziet, Bothi |
| Mage, Lock, Druid, Warrior |
Another team sent by skillcapped is their West team and a quite diverse one as well as their TR team suggests. Just like coL.Red, they will have to play a smart tournament in terms of comp selection to score points but even then it will be hard for them. As far as I’m informed, the team hasn’t been playing together for too long and I doubt they will have a serious influence on the outcome of the tournament, but I’d be flattered to be proven wrong.
Arena Pwnage |
| Talbadar, Nuvos, Drmayonaise |
| Shadowpriest, Shaman, Druid |
Three hybrids in one team equals long games unless they blow stuff up quickly which this comp is entirely capable off. They didn’t consider their team serious until they had the invite from MLG in the mail. The reason for that is that the comp really doesn’t look great on paper. It doesn’t really have a spammable CC as you can’t have a Druid doing that, they have a fairly unreliable 20% MS. In practice though they did fairly well, not only because of their amazing burst but also because of their outlasting capabilities. Double offensive dispell can rip the enemy’s defense to shreds and you can’t really score a kill by just scoring one school lockout on the Druid. The margin of error which they can allow themselves in this team is still fairly low because of those long CD CCs and I can see problems evolving from there considering this is their first LAN-event. They still have the lottery factor like most Wizard cleaves, in which 2 crits from each caster can be lethal.
SK Gaming US |
| Realz, Glickz, Kollektiv |
| RLS |
Last but certainly not least is SK.US with Realz leading a team yet again into a tournament. Cebit has been just as bitter for them as for coL.Black and they are back to prove that they aren’t the WoW geezers even though they have been around a felt eternity and a half. According to Glick they have pretty promising results against the other top teams on TR as well and this tournament could easily be their date of legitimization as a top notch RLS. Many insiders consider them to do really well at this event placing them in the top 3. Whoever knows how Dr.Realz works knows that his approach on strategies in WoW work very well in offline play and we will see if they maybe planned a surprise like playing Demo in Edmonton against coL.Black.
These are the teams we know will be attending. The team “PK Cards” also known as “TSG” who are the current Blizzcon champions had to retreat from their spot as their player Veex had health issues. This is not so say that MLG didn’t get local teams in the last minute. Sadly we won’t have a European team at this event, but luckily North America makes up with one of its most competitive time frames since the creation of Arena.