Following up a victory at your team's first ever event is always going to be a difficult task. So it proved with the previous SK Gaming USA lineup who struggled to live up to the hype they created by winning MLG Columbus. A soul-destroying exit in Dallas, where they had a winning record but failed to qualify for knockout play, led to differences between the players. Those differences turned out to be irreconcilable and eventually caused the Ryan 'Realz' Masterson/Joe 'Enforcer' Morrone/Mark 'Pookz' Rendon trio to go their seperate ways.

But the end of every era simply leads to a new one and today SK-Gaming is proud to welcome two stalwarts of the WoW scene to the fold. Alexander 'Glickz' Hloderwski is already a proven winner after his days in Fnatic. They managed to win MLG Dallas the year before SK did, as well as placing 3rd at Blizzcon that year.

Although the prize money earned by Tim 'Kollektiv' Yen might not be as high as that of his teammates, he has been around for just as long. His experience is unquestionable and he was even labeled as the world's best shaman by Button Bashers.

But the man who brought them all together under the SK banner is the sole survivor of the Dallas 2009 winning team. I had a chat with none other than "Captain" Realz himself.

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Lets just jump straight in: what brought this new team together exactly?

Well, Glickz and I have been playing with and against each other going all the way back to Season 1, so he is not only a player that is well-known from tournament performances but also someone whose play I am very familiar with on a personal level. Kollektiv was recently released from EG and I already knew they were considering playing together so I brought up with them the possibility of the three of us making a great team.

We all know that Kollektiv was dubbed the best shaman in the world by the Koreans but with Glickz onboard, does SK have the best warlocks on two continents?

To combine with Inflame? I suppose that is now the case, yes.

RLS is quite a shift in play style from the previous RMP. Do you think it's indicative of WoW as whole, or did RLS just fall into place with the new team mates?

I think it's a little bit of both, and I would question the idea that it is so greatly different. Both are balanced lineups (Melee/Caster/Healer) and I've always called RLS "a warlock's RMP" - every player matters in every team, but the Mage runs the show in RMP and the same is true of the Warlock in RLS. In both lineups you can do as well as you play. In terms of how it came to be, it did somewhat 'fall into place' based upon anticipation of upcoming changes as well as a general desire to depart from RMP, which was one of Pookz' biggest reasons for leaving SK and leaving the RMP lineup.

The split of the last lineup was a lot less public than the end of the Serennia era. Can you tell us exactly what happened with Pookz and Enforcer?

We felt a bit cheated after Dallas, having a winning record but not making top four. We didn’t practice for the first 2-3weeks following, and when we started to it still didn’t feel too fun and there were a couple sessions that were cut short by someone not wanting to play.

Pookz started getting frustrated and started playing with Azael so we mostly stopped practicing. We knew he wanted to probably join EG, which I didn’t get to specifically ask of him until in Anaheim itself. The issue following that was, with Pookz gone, there was still nothing else I could play with enforcer besides RMP, because all he plays is rogue and the only thing I play that meshes with that is priest, i.e. RMP. The thought of simply getting another mage wasn’t too exciting because I'd be silly to think I could get someone equal to or better than what I had just lost, and it left me with no real option but to build around myself in a different way. RMP is already very difficult to be successful with, with the comps people are playing now, plus upcoming changes that may just break it.

Do you really think RMP's dominance is finally over, then?

It might stay good but you really need a team that can play together constantly, the world will know if its still good the next event Buttonbashers plays though, right?

RLS just has a better outlook overall, and it will be really fun if with the patch we get to play as shadowplay sometime too. Hunter/'lock/shaman is potentially a side option but it doesn't do much that RLS cant do, and we'd never play it without practicing it a shit ton. There’s more hope in shadowplay as a sidecomp than anything but 3.3 is all but required to even try that.

A lot of teams ignore second comps nowadays. What makes you so interested in them?

The biggest issue as it stands is that we are capable of beating most any teams besides coL as RMP. We can beat other RMPs but we get mashed by them and haven’t figured it out yet. If the patch comes on Tuesday we might get carried by those changes

Maybe it's just a psychological thing.

It may be. I know there is more we can do to make games closer.

Going back in time, the previous SK lineup famously won its first event as a team. Does that put pressure on this new one to do the same?

I think it does. Personally I want to prove that we're a capable and competitive team, and even if we don't outright win our first upcoming event I will settle for no less than qualifying for the global finals event, which I very much want another chance to do well at after last year's less-than-stellar showing.

Is Extreme Masters your biggest target now? Erasing the demons of last season, perhaps.

The main goals are always looking forward. I always want to do better / get better / get more from myself and my team regardless of the circumstance, and the past can play into that but it's not what it's all about in the end.

Assuming all goes to plan, then, which American teams do you expect to be traveling to Germany with you for the finals?

My best guesses are Complexity, EG, and Check6

And what’s your dream match for the global final itself?

SK vs SK

Timothy Elleresiek, the team's manager, had this to say: