The Champion Rumble is this week on Saturday the 17th of December! To hold you over until the battles start, we have put together a list of the potential MVP candidates on each team to keep your eye on this Saturday. These players are the best of the best, and when you see them out in the arena, you should take special notice!

STEFAN_XD (KAZNA KRU)

Stefan has been a core member of Kazna Kru since he joined the roster last year. Stefan has been playing World of Tanks since back in 2011, when his neighbor told him to try it. Since that moment, Stefan broke into the esports realm when he played with some friends in his first World of Tanks esports tournament, the GeForce Nvidia Cup. His team was able to reach the final and Stefan was able to use that win to propel him into WUSA.

When Stefan was asked to join WUSA, he said, “I was very happy to do so as we qualified for Gold Series and other tournaments like WCG 2013 where we reached the second place.” After three successful seasons with WUSA, Stefan joined Kazna Kru, one of the most influential teams in the WGLEU. In the past year, he has played with Kanza Kru in several key tournaments including WGLEU season finals, the Grand Finals 2016, and the Challenger Rumble. He looks forward to adding the Champion Rumble to this list on Saturday. Aside from Tanks, Stefan enjoys playing tennis and football at local clubs.

NESKWI (TORNADO)

NesKwi began playing computer games when he was only seven years old. Several years ago, he was told about World of Tanks by some classmates and he was instantly hooked. He started by working up the ladder in a clan and before he knew it he was in charge. He then moved into the competitive scene by playing one of the popular Go4Wot ESL Tournaments with members from his clan. His first real team was Maind where NesKwi was the captain.

Others started to notice Neskwi’s success and he kept moving up the ladder. After a year and a half with Maind, he was invited to Unity, who are more commonly known as Hellraisers, now known as TORNADO ENERGY. Newski has shown his skill in several tournaments such as the Grand Finals 2015 where his team won first place. Also, he played in the WCA 2015 and the Grand Finals 2016 where they were narrowly defeated by Na’Vi. Outside of World of Tanks, the 21-year-old Omsk resident enjoys working out at the gym and swimming, as well as spending quality time with his friends and family.

POSITIVVE (DING)

Similar to the others listed here,  Positivve learned about World of Tanks from classmates way back in 2011 at school. After he tried it out, he loved it straight away. He played casually for the first 5,000 battles or so before he was interested in more. He got involved with clans at this point and soon after he happened accross a Wargaming.net League stream. He was intrigued by the level of play shown in the stream and decided that he too wanted to try out the esports League.

His first start was playing starladder tournaments before moving onto some of the ESL tournaments. After a while playing ESL tournaments, he decided that he wanted to move to the highest level of play and joined Tornado.Rox, a Wargaming.net Gold League team known for their player skill, before moving to DiNG. Positivve says he doesn’t have time for any hobbies outside of WoT because of his rigorous training regiment, ”At the end - my dream is to be as good as Schockisch one day, so I’m trying to watch all his streams.” Anyone with that kind of work ethic should be feared out on the battlefield.

INSPIRER (NA’VI)

Inspirer started to play video games when he was very young at six years old. For many years, the Battlefield series were his go to games. His favorite part was playing with the tanks that were in the game. When he heard about World of Tanks, he was immediately interested and he began to learn as much as he could about the game. He aimed to play well from the beginning and made sure his statistics were competitive with the other players. After a year of playing World of Tanks, Inspirer was ready to move up to the next level of play, Wargaming.net League.

Inspirer’s start in the World of Tanks esports scene was impressive and it wasn’t long before Straik took notice and invited him to play on Na’Vi where he went on to play at some huge tournaments like the Grand Finals 2014 and 2016, which they earned first place and a championship title in nine different WGL seasons. Outside of esports, Inspirer likes to snowboard and bike.

WATCH

You can watch all of these teams battle it out for their share of the US$160,000 prize pool and a spot in the Grand Finals 2017 on wgl.gg/watch! The Moscow Champion Rumble will take place on Saturday, December 17 starting at 12:30PM MSK, 10:30AM CET, and 1:30AM PT.

You can win prizes just for watching, so be sure to tune in. For more details on the prizing and how to win, keep an eye on the social media streams below and watch for the article coming out on eslgaming.com this Friday about the Champion Rumble!

To stay up to date on all the latest Champion Rumble news, follow ESL World of Tanks on Twitter and Facebook!