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With the matches now under way in the Electronic Sports World Cup United Kingdom 2008 on line qualifiers Fozzy had a good look and in some cases a good chat with the teams taking part and hoping to qualify for the finals event in Birmingham in a little under four weeks time....
First under the microscope were Four Kings.
 One of the more known teams competing in this event, and for good reason too! They represented the UK last year in Seattle where they were in a group with fnatic, project-kr and mibr, so didn't do very well, they won the other two games but against those three we lost. That’s what they put in their application atleast! The last event they competed in was the kode5 qualifier at omega sektor, where they won every game convincingly except 2 games against the new dignitas team, which they lost to a scoreline of 16-10 in both. No strangers to Omega Sektor then!
Having formed in 1997, they have quickly grown and worked their way along the road to success! The current line up is: mh, jenuwin, monke, nicholaison, and nixoh. I caught up with monke, to get his thoughts
What’s your main aim in this cup? and Who are you looking forward to play the most and why?
[4K^monkE] - main aim is to win the uk qualifier and i dont really have anyone i particularly want to play
Any grudge matches to be settled? maybe against dignitas?
[4K^monkE] - there are no grudges, but yeah beating dignitas would be cool, they've had the upper hand for the last couple of months
 Having been around for over a year now, toobad have only won 1 thing, that’s even slightly noticable. They managed to win the SteelSeries May Cup #2 on ED back in May 2007, and since then only second place finishes are the best they have done. They competed in Season 8 on the SGL where they were in group A of the league tier. They finished third due to beating the 2 teams that are joint with them on points, so get into the playoffs, which they are still waiting to play.
They were formed by Slayor and aNgeL just over a year ago. The current roster consists of thuNder ecto zebber slayer and <INSERT some unknown player>. A change had to be made on Monday after one of the players had to withdraw from the squad. Ecto will probably be the name people recognise the most within that line up, due to his brilliant knowledge of the CS scene.
I caught up with Slayor on Monday to get his thoughts on the competition ahead.
What’s your main aim in this cup?
Slay0r - Mostly to have a laugh, We've all mixed together before and I’ve known the set of players a long time having played with them for a long time in the same leagues. We can probably pull off a shock win or two depending on the draw and hope to be competitive. We'll be playing under the name ROMPOSTUROSSTOMPLEWOMPERS! which was thought up by Ecto..classic
Who would you love to play most and why?
Slay0r - Dignitas, purely for the challenge and to motivate us to improve
 Having only recently reformed in the past few months, these lads are looking to get back into their comfort zone again. They have been competing in CZ for the past 2 months, but have just moved back into 1.6 to make sure they get more games and to add a more competitive edge to their game play. In CZ in recent months they have managed to build up a nice kitty of £300, so are aiming to add even more money in this event.
Current line up for the LAN will (as quoted by mind games players themselves) - Jake 'THE_THRILL' Proctor, Daniel 'THE_DRILL' Dwan, Craig 'THE_KILL' Shannon, Daniel 'DEADLY PILL' Larby and Stu '$100 BILL' Morgan
I get the impression after spending a good half hour talking to their members, that they are just in this cup for the fun of it. I caught up with the Mind Games lads on Monday to get their thoughts on the competition ahead.
What’s your main aim in this cup? and Who are you looking forward to play the most and why
mgcz`dahston - I believe our main aim in this cup is to have the most amount of fun possible - we just want to have a good time with all teams involved
ONSCREEN - and send them home crying at the same time
mgcz`dahston - we want to see what sort of impact, if any - we can make on competetive cs
mghleb - We're looking forward to playing nobody as we hate making people weep
 Probably the best clan in CS at the current time, and according to Uzi, its not abut who’s going to win ESWC, but can anyone beat these lads? They recently won IG5 and also took KODE5 in 2007, which they added to their application to this event on thesgl signup page. They will also be attending KODE5 again this week over in Russia.
The planned roster for them will be: 101, AlesKi, Kurt1s, Sp|ke, RedH I managed to talk to aleski, while he wasn’t busy and get him to answer some questions for us!
How well do you plan on doing at kode 5 this weekend ?
Aleski - We plan to cause some upsets and have a good time in general. Its a learning experience for us more than anything. We aren’t going to take any random loses too hard since we have a merc for Suffz.
Are you planning on attending any other lans or bootcamping before eswc?
Aleski - We haven’t decided anything yet. We will be redoing all our tactics before the ESWC quals though I think, since we're all bored stiff of our current strats! So hopefully we will take get a bootcamp organisied.
What are your plans for ESWC?
Aleski - To win! We've won the last two LAN's in the UK so anything other than a win will be a disappointment for us.
So you think you'll remain unbeaten?
Aleski - Yeah, as long as we play like we know we can noone can touch us at our best right now.
Anyone in the event you have a grudge with that you really want to beat?
Aleski - I don't think there’s anyone we really have a grudge against. 4Kings I guess if anybody. I don't know how nixoh is going to change their team but I'm looking forward to finding out.
 Formed last year, 2 months before KODE5 UK, which they attended. The lineup wasn’t that great and they ended up being knocked out of the competition at the group stages. After that they attended IG5 with a slightly changed lineup as it wasn’t working as shown at KODE5, they didn’t finish too great, but much better than in KODE5.
After all of that they had to rebuild the team over the past 2 months and their current line up is only a month old. The team was formed with one aim to play the game and keep it alive and also have fun. They are yet to attend a LAN since they formed the new lineup. Their lineup is eFX, Hilton, Scubr, dsje, Hts and Brendan.
I caught up with Brendan before the event starts.
Will you be attending a bootcamp before the event?
Satyr|Bren - we will be boot camping before eswc and we are currently doing online training versus my friend in the esl pro series germany, where they get us games versus teams that are frankly much better than we get at uk. So were playing outside the uk to get better as uk is stale except for tlr and 4k but u can get versys them, so we get next best thing.
You competing in any other events atm?
Satyr|Bren - Only thing we enter are those we think are good for us or can give us money so we are entered into Ed invite cup and reached final of that tonight.
What do you plan on doing in this event?
Satyr|Bren - Well we coming on the Friday morning, getting setup etc in the centre and just play for a bit, warm up and go out and enjoy ourselves for the first night. Get up and play hard but we will be bootcamping before the event for 2 days and practicing online alot just pcwing versus good teams. That are not from the uk
Who are you looking forward to playing in this event?
Satyr|Bren - We are defiantly looking forward to play ordeal if we can even though they are Noobs and going out in first round its an old team we all played in, but after that we wanna play diginatas. If we get them first it would be best, gets us on form first.
You reckon you can beat them?
Satyr|Bren - I doubt anyone in uk can at the minute, they are just in another class as they get to prac versus likes of mouzsports and other top teams, but we will try our best
 Coolermaster recently managed to win Wired Inn LAN 3, so are on good form. Whats more is they are currently topping SGLPRO1 where they remain unbeaten. Such good form gives good confidence, and confidence is what you need for an event like this where you play the best!
The likely line up for this event will be Jungleboy, talz, faken, sly and Zac.I managed to sneakily grab Zac while he was speaking to Bliz,
How are you planning to do in the event?
Zac - Well our aim is to win it obviously Whether or not we do we'll have to see, it's gonna be tough though. We're not able to practice as much as we'd like due to people having exams soon etc but we'll do our best to give 4k and Dignitas a run for their money.
Who are you most looking forward to playing?
Zac - Dignitas, they're the main target to beat, if we can manage to beat them we should be able to beat anyone else there
Will you be attending a lan or bootcamp before the event? Dignitas have said they are likely to do all their tactics again before the event
Zac - There aren't any lans before the event that I know off, but yes we will be bootcamping before the event which should hopefully help us to cut down on all the mistakes we make.
 As a clan they have been around for about a year now. They recently turned inactive and the past 3 months have been going slow for them.
They attended ig5 but didn’t do aswell as expected, drawing 4k and dignitas (then TLR) didn’t help their cause. The last SGL season didn’t go too well either, after scraping to stay in the division they are hoping to put in a much better performance.
Their line up is expected to be: Psy, kenjin, sharpe, sorted and robbs. I managed to grab Psy and Sharpe during a spare moment in their time.
You got a bootcamp planned before eswc?
sexy^Psy - starting this week we are hoping to go TCM keen and really focus on our game as a clan, all online of course
What are your plans for ESWC?
sexy^Psy - Our main goal is to try and finish top3, im sure people will agree dignitas are too strong for ANY UK team atm and it will be the same at this LAN, not sure about 4k ive not seen them since they recruited nixoh, but im sure they'll be challenging for the top spot, I can see it being Dignitas, 4k then 3rd is up for grabs by 3/4 teams
Another team in agreement that dignitas are the team to beat, you reckon anyone can beat them?
sexy^Psy - Basically, no. 4k will have had to step it up to challenge dig for the top spot. It'll be interesting to see if they've improved or not, but it's really only them who can challenge.
Who are you looking forward to playing?
sexy^Psy - We're looking forward to playing in general really. However TCM, Immolate and Coda are all very beatable, and it would be great to get more rounds of 4k this time round.
Not dignitas then?
sexy^Psy - No not dignitas, last time we played it was 16-0, I doubt much will have changed lol
 Coda have been together for a short period of time, but that doesn’t mean they are strangers to each other. They have known each other for a long time and are a pretty solid line up, with a lot of guts! They are yet to win anything so far, but they are determined to go places, starting here.
Their line up for this event will be blacky, dolphin, murdy, dajo, kalleh. spanky has been out of the picture since he went inactive to concentrate on school work, the introduction of kalleh has made them better and providing they can get our playing fingers on we'll keep getting better.
Dolphin took a minute to answer some questions for me.
What’s your main aim in this cup?
coda|dolphin_x_ - for the online qualifiers we're not expecting to top our group, we have complete faith that we'll come second and all we want is to get to the lan... we don't particularly hold any value in beating dignitas online in the qualifiers, we'll save that for lan, which we hope with a little luck we can win :P
So you think you can beat dignitas then?
coda|dolphin_x_ - if we didn't think we could beat the best uk team then we wouldn't bother playing cs... we conceed that atm they are a league above the mediocrity that shrouds uk cs but the level is hardly NEP to fnatic, so yes we'll be hoping to bridge that gap and at least give them some good games, if not beat them :) ambitious some might say ^_^
First team to say that, even 4k said they'd find it tough! Any clans you looking forward to playing?
coda|dolphin_x_ - i'm definately looking forward to facing 4k on lan, we genuinely believe we have massive potential and to beat them would be a really nice first notch... I wouldn't mind playing immolate aswell, we're good friends and it'd be nice to play them on lan
Any Grudge matches to be settled?
coda|dolphin_x_ - haha probably tcm, it seems like we've had a rivalry since me and murdy were in what is now czar a while ago, they're mostly nice guys and I guess its more of a gaming rivalry than a personal one, but yeh it'd be nice to beat them :D
Will you be attending a bootcamp before eswc?
coda|dolphin_x_ - Well my last exam is 4 days before the lan, so if we are it'll be for a day or two rather than a week or something silly.
 Your in my system formed about November, as they wanted to gave a few leagues ago and really prove themselves. They managed a second place finish in group a of season Eight League tier, which considering it was their biggest competition entered to date, isn’t too bad. They are yet to attend a LAN event though and this may be where they start slipping up compared to other teams in the competition. They succesfully navigated through their ED Res cup group before getting knocked out at the knockouts, so that’s why their called that!
Their line up is likely to be: sAAAAMs, SteveOH, BramleY, Perri, tEz. I caught the ever-busy SamS for a quick chat.
Do you think Dignitas will win every game?
YiMS-SamS - Well hopfully yeh im abit of a fanboy you see :D
aha, so you don't even see yourself as good opposition for them?
YiMS-SamS -well some of us play with them quite abit so we know what there like but no, there dick us :D
What’s your main aim for YiMS in this cup?
YiMS-SamS -To get us far us we can really :D and have abit of fun
Who are you looking forward to playing?
YiMS-SamS - SKILDPADDE BANDEN jovans team :D
how come?
YiMS-SamS - So he can stop giving it and wind him up lols
Do you think 4k can beat dignitas?
YiMS-SamS - Nope
So Dignitas to win the whole event?
YiMS-SamS - Yeh hopfully
 Immolate formed about 1year ago, Kyle cpr Crono have been in the team since the start. they attended
Wiredinn3 LAN and finished 2nd. They also won theSGL Invite season, so not a bad set of results really, so far! The team should be able to make it to the LAN finals, as long as they don’t do anything silly.
Their line up is likely to be: Kyle Crono cpr mstains suntouch. I managed to catch Kyle while he was enjoying a break from college.
Are you intending to go to bootcamp before eswc?
immo-Kyle - We plan to bootcamp but due to lack of funds it looks unlikely as we have players still in education
what are your plans for ESWC?
immo-Kyle - Lan or qualify?>
well both, presuming you qualify that is :p
immo-Kyle - At ESWC i believe either dignitas tcm 4k and ourselves can win if playing well on the day but dignitas are the team to beat we have no other worries about other teams. Winning ESWC would be great but finishing top3 would be good for us.
Dignitas to win whole thing?
immo-Kyle- Obviously dignitas are the favorites to win ESWC but i wouldnt rule out us tcm and 4kings anything can happen I’d say its down to who’s practiced the most and who wants it!
Who are you looking forward to playing and why?
immo-Kyle -4Kings and TCM as there is alot of competition between us, if we get to play dignitas that would be a very good opportunity to show us where we actually stand, but at the moment theres a big ? for the #2 spot.
Any grudge matches to settle?
immo-Kyle -Yes, TCM as they recently beat us at wired-inn in the grand final. Unfortunately we had a last minute crisis as cpr could not attend so we had to use a stand-in player which didn’t get to practice with us.
 Another relatively new clan on the block for this event. The lads that make up this team have been around for a while, but not all of the as a team. They are yet to LAN together as a team, but jovan informs me that him, fraghack and k3rshaw attended ig5 as a mix team. Wubbs was also there, but playing for a different team at the time.
Their line up is likely to be: JovaN wuabbs fraghacK sheNk k3rshaw.
I caught up with Jovan on Tuesday
What do you hope to achieve in the qualifiers?
JovaN`` - Well, we can only hope to achieving 2nd place in our group. Ideally we'd like 1st, but i cant see us beating tcm.
So your booking your places at the LAN event already then?
JovaN`` - Were not booking, but were hoping :D, us v acuity will be the deciding game for 2nd spot
Who do you see winning the whole event?
JovaN`` - definitely dignitas, 4k, tcm in that order
You reckon Dignitas are going win every game?
JovaN`` - haha, no doubt:D
Who would you love to play if you make it to the LAN event?
JovaN`` -well, looking at group D, we could beat whizpah/s3xytime, so im saying them :D
Any grudge matches that you would like to settle?
JovaN`` - Yeah, us beating yims! :p
funny that, they said the exact same thing!
 Acuity have had their current solid line up for the last 6 months, and as a result are now fully molded together nicely. This is key for a good team, few changes allow for you all to get used to game styles. This can however have the wrong effect in competitive gaming as it means you become too attached to each other and when a player starts losing their ability you find it hard to part ways
with them. Still Acuity don’t need to worry just yet!
They recently attended the Wired Inn LAN where they came 4th, and also finished second in the SGL Season Eight Premiership. They are also competing in the current pay to play league being run by the SGL, where they sit mid table. Not too shaby if you ask me, but they’ve got it all to prove now. Their main aim for the SGLPRO was to go out and get the experience, they have done that so far, and decided they wanted to do the same for the ESWC. A new skill level for them to try out!
Their lineup for the moment is; Jz Trep Monk Mou53y ESaner - Mou53y spoke to me on Tuesday
What do you play to achieve from ESWC?
acu|Mou53y^ - We're basically playing in it to play against Good teams, and to improve us as a team - exactly same reason were in sgl pro league 1
You reckon you'll get through the qualifying section?
acu|Mou53y^ - yea definitely if we dont we would be very disappointed
How well do you reckon you will do at the LAN part then?
acu|Mou53y^ - Erm, was just looking then and reckon if we played at our best 4th / 5th. BUT with dignitas Tcm 4kings there will be hard
Who do you think will win the whole thing?
acu|Mou53y^ - Dignitas
Unbeaten?
acu|Mou53y^ - yea I cant see anyone beating them, probably wont lose any more than 10 rounds in a game in my opinion
That’s what’s everyone is saying!
acu|Mou53y^ - rofl, its true
Who is most likely to cause an upset in your opinion?
acu|Mou53y^ - erm TCM are keen so i reckon they'll beat 4kings and probably other than that i reckon immolate will do well cus of kyle and crono
Who would you love to play out of all the teams?
acu|Mou53y^ - immolate, they beat us last lan twice and both games we coulda won, especially the first, so i guess we want a bit of revenge :P
 This team has been thrown together in the last couple of weeks, for only 1 reason, and that’s for this event. Firat and deffe are both players from Sweden, while the other 3 players are all from the UK.
I’ve not been able to get much about these guys, so had to get blizzard to give me some information and also try forcing some sort of response from punt. Rule was part of the high5 team that won SGL invite season 5, before moving to CSS for a short period of time shocking a number of people by helping 16.css to beat 4 kings in an Intel cup, before he went back to High5 where he only left recently when they folded. Punt is probably one of the more well known players from this team having a whole host of top teams as his previous teams. Teams including Dignitas, goldbrick and Team UK. Hes won WCG aswell as a few other less know tournaments and boasts about an awesome performance with a mix team against N69E28 in Germany.
What do you hope to achieve from eswc?
Punt - 1st. Anything else will be a disapointment with the amount of talent, experience and skill in our team.
So your plan is to defeat dignitas with ease?
Punt - Well we will work hard as a team, and always make sure that we are playing well and only think about the next game which is ordeal, but we have alot of quality and know that if we play well we will win for sure, and okay that also means dignitas need to win too
i see, Do you see any big surprises this year from any of the other clans
punt - It ain't the FA Cup it's a computer game, if anyone wins who shouldn't, LAN :-)
I Like that answer! Any grudge games you looking forward to?
Punt - umm no? not unless anyone has one against me :D
 This team has been around for 3 years now and they haven’t been to show in the way of winning stuff in the online community. They managed to win group 6 of the ED Res cup, as their most recent cup win. They have a lot of other ED event gold’s to their clan profile, but all date back a good 6 months or more! They attended IG3 with a complete random mix, which didn’t do well, but doing well is not expected of mix teams. They also attended IG4 with a merc and moongames with a merc, but they didn’t do well there either. They have been working hard over the last 6 months to make a really good team ready for any event, but with the approaching exams they have been unable to get practice and have even had to replace a member of their team due to them!
I caught up with Sebaceous last night.
What are your expectations from your team for eswc both in qualifying and the LAN finals?
orDL|Sebaceous - Being realistic and looking at the far more experienced teams who also probably are better prepared, we just hope to do our best and learn and improve as much as possible. we feel we can easily beat NeP but not so sure about the other 2 teams
Ye, who do you think will win it overall?
orDL|Sebaceous - i guess dignitas, quite easily They have an allstar lineup and solid teamplay and tactics, cant go wrong there. Plus lan experience, they know how to play at lan - I expect them to be screaming "NICE!" alot
Ye, everyone has predicted that so far, do you think anyone will provide a shock in whole cup?
orDL|Sebaceous - hmm whipzah i guess are a wildcard, they seem to have some good players, but no idea how they’re going to play together and if guccie is playing for chris' team "unknown/dystopia". I expect him to be huge at lan
No write up here for unnamed after the comments made on their behalf by guccie. Certainly not the sort of thing we would intend on posting here.... real mature.
Links :
www.eswc.co.uk
www.eswc.com
www.theSGL.com
www.gamefrontier.com
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BwAv.co.uk vs divine-gamers
Uzi on 8th May 2008 @ 8:39am
DaveK_O(o_O)==O | Posted on 08/05/08 10:17am
annoying im not playing in it 
KapA | Posted on 08/05/08 10:21am
8Ball^ | Posted on 08/05/08 11:17am
jake- | Posted on 08/05/08 11:30am
bm` | Posted on 08/05/08 1:55pm
Velocity | Posted on 08/05/08 3:40pm
wbs | Posted on 08/05/08 4:02pm
shenK | Posted on 08/05/08 4:06pm
jOvAN- [BANNED] | Posted on 08/05/08 4:17pm
fraghack | Posted on 08/05/08 4:39pm
yesmax [BANNED] | Posted on 08/05/08 10:14pm
hoaxn` | Posted on 09/05/08 5:40pm
