Team Pandemic
Lineup:
Nitrana
Sck
Ecilam
Reznap
Noktyn

SK Gaming
Lineup:
Tarde
Dosferra
Zeksy
Lomas
Oteus

Coming off its success at the World Series of Video Games, Pandemic seemed ready to take the title as the World’s Best WoW team. Facing SK-Gaming in the first round of Blizzcon things didn’t go their way losing 0-3. Pandemic is known as one of the most flexible teams in WoW, always having multiple options in player configurations to run.


Blizzard’s ban of their two priests run by Vhell and Kintt removed that flexibility.

“With both our priests dq’d it was basically just a free trip for us,” said Reznap, the team’s hunter.

Pandemic ran a Paladin, Mage, Warrior, Hunter and Rogue. This loaded them up with four DPS players and only one healer. The combination also featured a difficult to play Rogue and Warrior setup which both had trouble avoiding crowd control.

SK-Gaming ran the more standard Paladin, Mage, Warrior, Shaman and Priest. SK pretty much knew coming in what Pandemic was going to be left with.


Tarde, SK’s mage, explained it well; it went pretty much as expected but there was always reason to be nervous against a four DPS team, there’s always a chance for a sudden gibs.

Pandemic couldn’t find that magic though really being left disappointed. An early death in the final game by Pandemic on Noktyn, the team’s warrior, showed the boil over in emotions. Initially Noktyn was asking what happened to Sck, the team’s Paladin wondering why he wasn’t healing him. Line of sight issues seemed to be the response but both players were beyond frustrated.

Two of the players, including Sck, quit before even dying while the team’s rogue hid in their spawn to stall the inevitable. All of their players were complaining about the lack of support.

Talk quickly turned back to the priests who Pandemic explained were both restarted and had reached level 70 already.

“We both have leveled priests to 70 and Kintt’s is ready to play here but Blizzard would have to let them play,” said Vhell.

Pandemic then faced DER tenacity in the lower bracket. DER tenacity also lacks one of their main players, a warrior, after he was disqualified. DER tenacity runs a Paladin, Warrior, Druid, Shaman and Mage, with the Druid replacing the original Warrior.

DER tenacity’s potential double warrior team would have been the talk of the tournament but now most are discussing the difficulty of the Druid to help the team instead. Pandemic’s four DPS classes against a Druid and Warrior combo would have been the highlight of a battle for survival, but the team walked out of the venue after their second loss to the Korean team.

Frustrated, Sck and Noktyn stood up and forfeited their final BlizzCon match.

SK Gaming will face another American team, MoB Turtle Beach. Both teams are at full strength and should be one of the deciders for the early American versus Europe debate which is sure to erupt in the WoW community for the future.