For the past few weeks, the general consensus of the WC3 public regarding the new SK team can be summed up in three words: World Elite v2. They have good reason to call the team such; after all, less than a year ago, four of them were playing for the wildly successful Chinese team.

The South Koreans of World Elite, however, left the team in the middle of 2007, apparently due to financial concerns. SoJu openly mentioned the progression (or lack thereof) of his monthly salary, which ended up in a pithying war of words between him and his former manager, Zax.

His teammates ReMinD and Lyn were quickly picked up by SK Gaming after becoming free agents. SoJu, fresh from his ESWC win, stayed clanless for several months. While there was no lack of rumors regarding SoJu’s eventual destination, SoJu—anticlimactically—decided to keep a good thing going by hitching his wagon to SK along with his former WE teammates.

With SK’s roster supercharged with three of the most talented Koreans, the team went on an unstoppable streak, recently winning the WC3L championships against fellow Korean-juiced MYM in the finals.

The victory, in itself, was unexceptional to the players themselves (they won WC3L and NGL the same year) – but for their new team, SK Gaming, it was a momentous victory. SK had never won a team league championship since 2002, where they won the first two seasons of the WC3L, before it switched to its current LAN playoff structure. Acceptable to some, but for SK, five years was an eternity of mediocrity.

SK has always been considered one of the toughest, most respected teams in the e-sports business. They have groomed some of the very best in the major pro-gaming circruits – from their legendary CS team which spawned the Schroet Kommandos title, to its celebrated Warcraft III squad, with alumni the likes of HeMaN, MaDFroG and Zacard. Over the years, however, their dominance has declined with the emergence of stronger, rival clans such as MYM and 4K.

Despite their extended championship drought, they are still heavily revered and command the highest level of respect amongst their pro-gaming peers. So much so, when the team lost their two ace Koreans (Sweet and Zacard) and decided to integrate their German team (SK.DE) into their main squad, they were met with harsh criticism. The community regarded the team so highly that they felt that the young, German players were undeserving to play under the illustrious SK tag.

They were expected only to disappoint and were not given the benefit of the doubt that another rebuilding clan might be. While the German team finished last in the LAN finals of the WC3L (11th season) and the NGL ONE (3rd season) , the fact that they helped the main team manage to qualify for the offline finals makes them a relative success, especially with their undervalued, overlooked roster.

There’s little reason why SK would not want to pick up the World Elite free agents flirting in their midst, nor was it a question of means, as SK has long been one of the most sponsor-friendly clans. With their predominantly European roster (and prodigal Russian) they had ample resources to enlist “superstars” to join their team. When ReMinD and Lyn were left clanless, few teams could match the hefty price of each, much less both, a significant point since the Koreans indicated that they preferred to remain intact.

So here’s where the dilemma lies: In this festive spirit of Christmas, is the community better off without SK stuffing its stockings the way they did?