By winning DreamHack Winter, the first Valve-supported tournament, Fnatic left a lot of fans puzzled - this was first major tournament in which they were the ones showing the big names the door. Indeed, HeatoN's quote from an onGamers interview - "We didn't consider Fnatic to be one of the top five teams at the time and to be honest I'm still not convinced they are" - is still hanging in the air. EMS One Katowice is Fnatic's chance to prove him wrong, but their latest results, especially against most of the other teams at Katowice, suggest this is not going to be a walk in the park for them. If JW and his team can bring back the spirit they had at DreamHack Winter, it could be another bad weekend for their critics.
Team | Latest accomplishments |
Fnatic |
3rd at DH Invitational 1st at DHW 2nd at Beat it! Finals |
Team Dignitas |
5th-8th at DHW 3rd/4th at EMS One Fall |
iBUYPOWER |
1st at ESEA 15 Finals 4th at DHW Groupstage |
Reason Gaming | 4th at DHW Groupstage |
Team Dignitas have seen better times under the flag of CPH Wolves. With their top eight placement at DreamHack Winter, a lot of pressure was taken off their shoulders as their qualification for Katowice is now secure. However, in our interview with FeTiSh, he already said that their performance at the DH Invitational was not at the level he wanted. With both Fnatic and iBP in their group, they really need to summon their old strength.
The reigning ESEA champion iBUYPOWER has come to Katowice with a big goal: to catch up with the EU teams just like coL did at DreamHack Winter. What makes people believe they can do this is the fact that they outplayed both Titan and coL during the ESEA 15 Finals. DaZeD and his team are definitely not going to Katowice as tourists, and this group might be the right opportunity for them to show their talents.
Once again, Reason Gaming have made it to a main event. After failing in the Nordic qualifier, they took the hard way and made it through the open EU qualifiers. With the amount of talent around, this alone was a great success. However, when facing other top teams lately, it's rarely been Reason who've taken the upper hand. With the experience of Karrigan and Friis alone they might be able to turn things around, but looking at those standing between them and the playoffs, it might still be a bit of a battle.