The third event of the IEM calendar for League of Legends is due to start imminently and will be taking place at ComicCon New York.

The tournament has had an interesting couple of developments in the past couple of days, even before it has even started, hence the slight delay in this article.

At the end of September, the original groups were announced. Since then there have been a few replacements. 1 Asian representative was due to play in Group A however there will be none attending.

Counter Logic Gaming will take the Asian spot meaning that we have a true 'Group of Death' in Group A.



Group A

Dignitas (IPL3 Winners)
Team SoloMid (IEM Cologne: 2nd, Dreamhack Summer: 3rd, EMS VIII: 2nd)
Counter Logic Gaming (IEM Cologne: 1st, IEM Guangzhou 2nd)
fnatic (IEM Cologne: 3rd, Dreamhack Summer: 1st)

As you can see, this group is so strong it's crazy; most of the early focus for the tournament will be around this group, as every one of the teams are capable of winning the tournament.

Now earlier this week, the ESL brilliantly announced that Team Sypher were no longer able to participate so had dropped out of the tournament. Within literally a few minutes, my skype/twitter went frantic with Sypher's players stating that they were going and had their flights set for the next 48 hours.

In the next 10 minutes some rushed messages went back and forth and the ESL backtracked on their statement and Sypher were back into Group B.



Group B

SK Gaming
Team Sypher
v8esports
Team Curse

While Group B may contain teams that have fewer achievements to date, they still all contain great players and they carry the factor of the unknown.

Predictions

While making predictions is often a fool’s errand I'll make a few statements regarding the teams.

From Group A, as previously stated, anyone could win it. Dignitas however are fresh off the back of their IPL3 victory last weekend so will be full of confidence. I expect Dignitas will progress from the Group stages but who will join them is a tough call.

CLG have performed well recently and TSM have been out of the spotlight (as far as the EU is concerned) since Gamescom. However it would be great to see TSM succeed and that final hurdle after so many 2nd/3rd places in International tournaments.

I feel the journey will be too far for Fnatic, they've been a little quiet recently but as always with Fnatic, if they hit their gear (as they did at Dreamhack) then they are world-beaters.

SK Gaming will be favourites for Group B and rightly so. They should progress from the Group Stages but again who could join them is very open.

Both American teams are relatively unknown to the EU so it is hard to make a call on either side. Sypher while a relatively new team do have some very good players, including former SK player: Franzetti 'Alth0r' Romain.