This week has been full of reminders for me. Firstly, I was reminded of how glad I am that I don’t take PvE seriously. Then, on Saturday, I was reminded how frustrating the rock-paper-scissors system of 2v2 is. And then, on Sunday, I was reminded that Asians are good at more than just RTS games.

For a lot of WoW fans in the Western hemisphere (and, by the way, the CS finals were pretty good too), the IEM Asian championship is the only chance to watch top Asian teams other than Button Bashers. It certainly the best publicised outside of Asia, anyway.

Even if all the games had sucked and BB had won with ease it would have been watched with fascination purely for the fact that it’s something different. But they didn’t win with ease and we were treated to some superb matches. Even the final, despite the 4-1 score, was intense and showed just how dangerous BB are.

As for the new SK team, it was the first time I’ve ever seen them play and I was pretty impressed. They did what they had to do; finish 3rd. While it would have been nice to see them win the whole thing, the important thing is that they showed glimpses of a better game. Over the whole event they definitely showed themselves to be contenders for the global finals in March. The chance of an all-SK final is a very real one this year.

But the most important reminder was surely Button Bashers. The world champions from last year have done nothing to suggest that they are incapable of repeating last year’s feat. Every team has its bad days and for BB it was the MLG finals. But the thing that separates champions from nearly-men is the ability to get back up again and keep going. This weekend showed that Orangemarmalade’s team is capable of doing just that.

The finals match against Mousesports was the perfect example. They went down 0-1 on the first map and it looked like paladin/hunter/deathknight would be their undoing. Instead, BB picked themselves up, dusted themselves down and won four straight maps to take the top seed.

Almost as if they prefer doing things from behind, BB’s rogue managed to get brought out of stealth very early in the 5th game. Often a game breaking event, Button Bashers stayed cool and pulled out an impressive comeback victory. Numberone took charge and showed that every player on the team is capable of bossing a game when needed. It seems a bit weird to use the phrase ‘strength in depth’ for a three man game, but that is exactly what these guys have.

Button Bashers will now be placed into Group B for the global finals. It’s hard to really say what that means for their chances when the top teams are fairly well spread. They will dodge one countercomp in the shape of x6tence but they get Complexity instead. But however the groups pan out, you’re probably going to have to beat a Korean team sooner or later if you want to be global champions.