Group H
NoA

Brian "hpx" Christensen
Danny "zonic" Sørensen
Mohammed "mJe" Eid
Alexander "ave" Holdt
Christoffer "Sunde" Sunde

NoA recently came out of the ClanBase EuroCup XV Grand Finals with a controversial win. They beat their opponent, CMAX.gg of Finland by the score of 16-5 in the first map of play. It was then decided by the league and event officials that NoA was to be declared the winner of the match as a whole being that CMAX.gg showed up late for the event. Previously losing to CMAX.gg in the Upper Bracket Finals, does NoA have what it takes to make it far in this event, or at the very least, make it out of group play?

There is really no challenge in this group for Team Denmark and if they can beat emuLate! of France, they should have no problem winning their group. I don’t see them winning the event, but they have a good chance to place in the top 10.


emuLate

Michael "HaRts" Zanatta
Jeremy "ioRek" Vuillermet
Mathieu "MaT" Leber
Mathieu "R!Go-" Bridet
Mickael "mSx" Cassisi

emuLate is a top team that no one is talking about, but if they place well here they may finally make that jump into the "best team" chatter. The French squad has been flying under the radar despite raising a few eyebrows by placing third at GameGune. There they were the only team to upset fnatic, beating them in the upper bracket, and, although they later lost to the Swedes in the lower bracket finals, they still showed signs of being one of the greats. Their success continued at their WCG qualifier, winning it with relatively few hiccups, and if mSx can play as well as he did there (.988 FPR and 45 more frags than his nearest teammate) they may finally be on that top tier.

In the first round of group play they will face a surging NoA team, and if they can start this tournament off with a win over the Danish they may be set off for a deep run into the tournament. They have beaten them before (16-14 at ESWC on inferno), so it is not out of the question. On the flip side, they did play horribly on one of their maps (nuke) at the qualifier finals against an inferior Mushkin team, and without the cushion of best of three they may be prone to an upset early on. Its doubtful that will be the case, though. This should be a good trip out of European soil for emL, and if their players can step up to the plate, look for them to finally garner the respect they deserve.