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mTw
Danny 'zonic' Sørensen
Alexander 'ave' Holdt
Christoffer 'Sunde' Sunde
Martin Alexander 'trace' Bang Heldt
Oliver 'minet' Ari Minet

Last weekend saw mTw not only win Dreamhack Summer, but put a stop to a long run of events which have resulted in no gold medals. Their last first place finish was well over a year ago at the EPS Season I Scandinavian finals, which saw them defeat a fnatic side who were early on in their domination of the 2009 season.

One of the key aspects to mTw's recent success, which a lot of other teams picked up and commented on, was their teamwork, and that enabled them to go through DH without dropping a map. Although the lineup is slightly different now, those kind of performances we saw last weekend were reminiscent of their 2008 reign, where they took home first at WCG, ESWC masters, WEM and KODE5.


fnatic
Patrik 'cArn' Sättermon
Harley 'dsn' Örwall
Patrik 'f0rest' Lindberg
Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' Alesund
Björn 'threat' Pers

So far this year for fnatic has been the complete opposite compared to their last, which saw them win near enough everything that came up. The first half of 2010 has treated the team poorly, with their only notable win coming from Arbalet Cup Europe. All other tournament appearances have ended in bitter defeats towards the final stages, resulting in either 2nd or 3rd place finishes.

The fnatic side are lead by cArn, who is arguably one of the greatest tactical minds in the game. They also have the likes of GeT_RiGhT and f0rest, who are certainly not short of skill. But as proved last weekend, fnatic are still human, and fatigue kicks in when they try push themselves over the limit.


Natus Vincere
Danylo 'Zeus' Teslenko
Yegor 'markeloff' Markelov
Ioan 'Edward' Sukhariev
Sergey 'starix' Ishchuk
Arseniy 'ceh9' Trynozhenko

When you hear the name Natus Vincere or NaVi, you think IEM 4 World Champions, or more importantly, a team who have what it takes to bring down teams like fnatic, SK Gaming and mousesports. They have made a clear mark on the eSport scene, with wins at Arbalet Best of Four and Arbalet Asia.

The team is comprised of some significant talent, with a great tactical mind in the form of zeus at the top of the pecking order calling the shots. He leads four other players, who like him, have a unique edge about them, which has been a key factor when playing in events. But the two players of markeloff and Edward have shined more in comparison to the rest, with them now commanding fear in other players.


Challengers

SK Gaming
Robert 'RobbaN' Dahlström
Dennis 'walle' Wallenberg
Jimmy 'allen' Allen
Johan 'face' Klasson
Rasmus 'GuX' Ståhl

One of the main problems for SK Gaming is beating the higher tier teams deep in tournaments, which is proven by their long list of 2nd, 3rd and 4th place finishes. Their last big win was at Arbalet Cup Europe 2009, although it did not see them face fnatic.

The SK Gaming team are a strong side and now look to be even stronger now they are under the new leadership RobbaN. This looked to be the case last weekend after they defeated fnatic in the IOL finals and NaVi in the DH tournament, but they also failed to beat Concode and MYM, who are sides people would expect them to beat.


Evil Geniuses
Danny 'fRoD' Montaner
Jordan 'n0thing' Gilbert
Tyler 'Storm' Wood
Tomi 'lurppis' Kovanen
Ediz 'goodfornothing' Basol

Team Evil Geniuses have been and still are a dominant US team, winning most events in their continent, including the last ESEA Invite league and IEM4 American Championships. But when it comes to international events, the side struggle to convert that form to produce results against the stronger teams.

The team is made of a mixture of talent and experience, where on paper they have what it takes, but that doesn't seem to be the case as of late. They are lead by the Finnish player lurppis, who was brought in to try and give an American team European play style. This worked to some extent, but now it appears the team need an element of freshness in order to bring in that awaited international gold.


Mousesports
Antonio 'cyx' Daniloski
Fatih 'gob b' Dayik
Navid 'Kapio' Javadi
Antonio 'cyx' Daniloski
Roman 'roman' Ausserdorfer

Since adding roman, the team have competed in a number of events, with their first being the IEM4 Euro finals, which they won. Things looked promising for the team, but it soon went downhill for them, with a 5-6 finish at Arbalet Europe and IEM4 world finals, even an early knock out at KODE5 Germany.

The German team, who have just come from winning the Season 21 EPS in Germany, are still are a threat to any international event. They are able to give any team a run for their money, although beating teams often requires a certain amount of individual skill, which they are not short of.


Outsiders

Frag eXecutors
Wiktor 'TaZ' Wojtas
Jakub 'kuben' Gurczynski
Mariusz 'Loord' Cybulski
Filip 'NEO' Kubski
Jarosław 'pasha' Jarząbkowski

The FX team are definitely not short of experience or skill, with the players taking titles from ESWC, WCG and IEM. In addition to this, they have also been inducted into the WCG Hall of Fame after winning the World Cyber Games twice, which has not been done before.

Despite their incredible history, the teams performance has drastically dropped over the last few months. They have attended events, such as the IEM4 World Finals and Arbalet Cup Europe, where they have crashed out in the group stages, instead of crashing out in the playoffs, which is what people would expect them to do, because they are a team of a high calibre.


WeMade FOX
Sung Jae 'bail' Lee
Min-Soo 'glow' Kim
Kun-chul 'solo' Kang
Sun-Ho 'termi' Pyun
Bum-Gi 'peri' Jung

The last event WeMadeFOX attended was Arbalet Cup Europe in May, where a controversial bomb defuse resulted in them progressing into the next stage. In the end, they placed 5-6, like many other events, but did so by drawing with some top teams, such as NaVi and EG.

The Korean team are in a similar situation to EG, they dominate in their own areas but struggle in the international scene. However, they do have the ability to cause upsets to the more elite teams, which gives them that edge when competing.


compLexity
Derek 'dboorN' Boorn
Scott 'evolution' Cavallero
Jeff 'hero' Mettetal
David 'Xp3' Garrido
Thomas 'thoMz' Garcia

The compLexity team are one of the newer teams with them only forming back in March. Their new lineup, like team EG, has a European player in the form of xp3 calling the shots. He leads some well known American players, who have talent but have yet to jell successfully.

Within a month of forming, compLexity took their first gold at the CEVO-Professional LAN finals by beating EG with a scoreline of 2-0. After proving their ability to conquer the US scene, they then participated in the Arbalet Europe Cup, which would see them be knocked out in the group stages. Unfortunately, the team where unable to attend Dreamhack, so there would be no much need international practise, which would have come in handy for ESWC.


UNiTED Russia
Dauren 'AdreN' Kystalbaev
Andrew 'B1ad3' Gordenskiy
Eduard 'ed1k' Ivanov
Dmitri 'hooch' Bogdanov
Roman 'ROMJkE' Makarov

So far in 2010, UNiTED have had their fair share of success and upsets. A close group stage at Arbalet Asia would see them be knocked out, after a 14-16 loss to tyLoo. They then would taste success at Arbalet February, where a gold would see them place higher then the likes of NaVi and PiNG.

After changes, the lineup of UNiTED saw them become a team of three nationalities, which is unusual compared to other top teams who are all of one nationality. They are however still at a good standard, but lack a certain something which allows them to compete with the likes of fnatic and NaVi. For example Arbalet Best of 4 saw them place last after defeats to fnatic, SK and NaVi, whereas at Arbalet Cup Europe, they managed to take points of EG and mTw.


H2k Gaming
Richard 'Xizt' Landström
Markus 'pronax' Wallsten
Danny 'pop' Oldenburg
Frej 'kHRYSTAL' Sjöström
Emil 'FYRR73' Karlsson

The H2k Gaming team last week took second at Dreamhack Summer after losing to mTw in the finals. But in the build up to the final, they managed recover from a second place group finish, by taking two wins against fnatic and MYM in the playoffs.

Not long before DH, H2k Gaming and MYM swapped players, resulting in kHRYSTAL and FYRR73 joining forces with pronax, Xizt and niko. The five have definitely proved a point and have a lot of potential, but still have not faced a lot of the other big teams.


(Images Courtesy of myMTW.com, complexitygaming.com, fragbite.se, fnatic.com & mymym.com)