This weekend the IEM European Championship finals will take place in Brühl with lots and lots of great teams.  Let’s take a look at the groups.

Group A

• H2k – Shadowcleave /  Warrior/Hunter/Pala
• Rocknroll pigtails – Feral/Rogue/Priest
• SK.EU – Shadowcleave / Mage/Lock/Druid
• Team Dignitas – RMP

Most people will consider this group the stronger one. SK.EU showed a weak spot against plan-B who had Daisyduke play Feral. Now I think that Daisyduke is a great Mage, but certainly he doesn’t play his feral on the same level. A guy who does play his Feral pretty well plays for RocknRoll pigtails and when you count in the Bloodx-factor, everything is possible. It has been reported to me that the comp is not really to be considered a hard counter for Shadow cleave and I’m fairly sure a top team like SK.EU worked on their strategical weak spot against this comp and will be prepared. Nonetheless, Rocknroll pigtails isn’t out just yet. Of course you always have to count in Team Dignitas. Feral/Rogue/Priest shouldn’t be much of a problem for an RMP or at least that is what Bloodx wants the world to believe. Somewhere in there is of course also the Russian team of RoX.KIS around Phenomenon. Most people will agree that they are the weakest team in the group and it would really turn some heads if they’d be able to secure a place for Cebit in this group of death. Now honestly I think everything can happen between the three, but I’d think Team Dignitas has the best chance to advance to the final four (and I’m not saying this because I’d lose my job here, heh). Inflame announced a 3-0 in the news of GODMODE joining Team Dignitas, but I wouldn’t be so sure.

I just found out that apparently RoX.KIS won’t attend the tournament and instead H2k, the Shadow Cleave around Instance and Sanchez will be at the event this time with a new druid. The top notch paladin player Selcuk apparently learned Druid a couple of weeks ago and now wants to play with the big guys at the tournament. I know that Selcuk was a pretty amazing Paladin (easily in the top 3 in Europe at his prime) but is he a good druid as well? We’ll see. Instance told me in the gotfrag vent that they didn’t practice all that much because they of course thought they were out of the tournament.

Group B

• x6tence – Hunter DK Pal/ TSG / Possibly Prot/Hunter/Paladin
• SK Sansibar – TSG
• plan-B – RMP / (Feral/(Rogue/Priest)
• iNNERFIRE – RMP

Yes, you read that correctly. RNG Party will not attend this event and instead H2k and iNNERFIRE had to play it out last sunday, and the Bulgarians took the chance. I think many players like Desis & Coold as they are both pretty awesome guys to hang out with. If they can perform well this weekend? I go out on a limb and claim that they won’t defend their European Championship title from last year. The favorite in this group is quite possibly x6tence. Think about it, they can play pretty much every hunter comp there is and there are a lot of strong comps such as Beast Cleave, PHD and ProtWar/Hunter/Paladin.  plan-B showed that they are surely a team that can compete at the top. 3rd place at GamesCom and a 1st place in the same group as SK.EU sure is impressive. Moreover you have SK-Sansibar, the team that threw iNNERFIRE out of the tournament. The cleave team has been playing TSG lately and they also claim that they are doing quite well on TR at the moment.

Generally speaking, the tournament will be really exciting with many quality teams fighting for 5 spots for Cebit and the right to call themselves European Champion. It is really a little sad that the last team without a sponsor RNG Party will stay at home which makes it an all sponsored tournament again. Natural selection has taken place nevertheless and only good things can come out of this.

Hydra interviewed by Dignitas

The great organization that allows the team formerly known as Godmode to attend tournaments, Team Dignitas, has released a sweet interview with our very own Hydra. Here is an excerpt:

“This week we have a chat with the latest Team Dignitas addition and also World Of Warcraft legend Ryan ‘Hydra‘ van Buiten. He is one of the most respected players in Europe and also known for being a very talented Priest ingame. In the interview we talk about his gaming career so far, how he feels about joining Team Dignitas and how the team is preparing for the upcoming Intel Extreme Master Championship.

Q: Hello Hydra, you probably don’t need much introduction for WoW players but could you introduce yourself to our non-WoW readers?

My name is Ryan aka hydra, I’m 20 and I live in the UK. I’m currently at university and I’ve been playing wow on and off since release. I’ve made a bunch of videos that originally were just made for fun, (for friends to see etc), but hydra5 got leaked and everyone seemed to like it so I carried on making them, I guess that’s why I’m pretty well known. ”

You can find the full interview plus cute pictures of Hydra here.