(Los Angeles, CA) - This weekend a mini-tournament for a prize pool of 50,000$ & the distinct title of CGS World of Warcraft Champion is taking place at the CGS Studios in Los Angeles, California.

CGS is hosting it's 2008 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament Finals in a best of 5, single-elimination tournament between 4 Teams, 2 from the US (Frag Dominant Duelists & MoB Shadowplay) and 2 from Europe (aAa Agita & Nihilum Arena).

Prizes
1st. $25,000
2nd. $12,500
3rd. $6,250
4th. $6,250


DJ “Celex” Roggenkamp, Mage
Daniel “Ely” Vulis, Priest
Corey “Emolol” Ratliff, Rogue

Frag Dominant Duelists have plenty of momentum coming into this event, especially with a 2nd place finishing at MLG Orlando last week. Daniel "Ely" Vulis tells GotFrag he feels confident about his team's chances at the CGS title "I think we will have a good tournament; we just came off a strong performance in orlando but failed to clinch the victory". Being the most consistant team coming into CGS, Frag Dominant Duelists should be excited, except they won't take their competition lightly.

Their first round match is against aAa Agita, a relatively unknown french team (not to be confused with aAa nawaK, another french team from aAa that competed at WWI Paris), but a top team like Frag Dominant should be prepared for every set-up out there, they're the only top team yet to be swept in a series at LAN play.


Alexander “Mazud” Mazev, Warlock
Timothy “Kollektiv” Yen, Shaman
Henry “Offcell” Forber-Pratt, Priest

After MoB Gaming dropped Orz/Hafu's team due to out-of-game issues, Godfather went for his best bet; the #1 US Tournament Realm team, Shadowplay. Shadowplay had two teams in the top 4 during the first phase of the tournament realm, making them a hot commodity for sponsors to look into. However, many sponsors were reluctant due to the nature of their team comp (Warlock, Shadow Priest, Shaman) - which was easily "counter-comped" by a variety of set-ups.

People suggested this team's outstanding performance during the online realm was due to two factors, troll priests (For hex of weakness, a healing decrease debuff similar to mortal strike but with lesser effects) and the use of third-party mods. However, they were able to compete without troll racials to a 1st Place finish for the CGS online qualifier, however they've yet to break into the LAN scene with a dissapointing finish at MLG Orlando.

Shadowplay lost to a team they usually beat online (Team Orz, Shadowplay has the upperhand record wise versus the MLG Orlando Champs), this top online team is looking to rebound in Los Angeles and show they live up to their online-made hype.

They'll have one comfort of at-home play at the CGS event, 3rd Party Mods. CGS is allowing non-blizzard add-ons for use during the CGS Finals, which allows players access to useful interface tools like focus frame & cooldown counter to their advantage.


Nicolas "Lea" Peyre, Warrior
Erol “Zephiris” Ruzgar, Priest
Robin “Homyix” Henry, Druid

aAa Agita is a top french team (with one Belgium player, Homyix) from the top battlegroup in europe, Cyclone. They are considered a top team from Europe despite falling short of placing top 4 for both phases of tournament realm; aAa Agita finished in the top 10 of both phases of the online qualifier. With a first-place finish on the CGS realm, they earned themselves a berth into the WoW lan scene, being one of the few rare European WoW teams to play on American soil. Their primary set-up is Warrior, Priest, Druid - since MLG Orlando, we've seen this popular set-up of druid, priest, warrior or rogue become successful for many teams, despite creating long and tedious matches due to the nature of having two healers.

aAa Agita however, can run more then just one set-up - Zephiris the priest, also plays a rogue & many other classes. Talk from the Europe community states that aAa Agita is a team with the ability to run many class-comps, however they're using their element of surprise and newcomer status to give them an edge against their opponants. Since Nihilum, Shadowplay & their first-round match Frag Dominant all have been to LAN before, showcasing their team setups - only aAa Agita will truly know what every team will be running at CGS, giving them a big edge for a new and upcoming team.


David “Beasteh” Francis, Druid
Jonathan "Cherez" Martin, Hunter
Ryan van "Hydra" Buiten, Priest

Nihilum made a name for themselves at MLG San Diego, destroying the US competition on-route to a 2nd place finish. After a very impressive finish at MLG San Diego, they dissapointed the Euro community with two straight losses at WWI Paris to a 13-16th finish. They made a few mistakes, mostly strategy wise with their alternative comp of rogue, mage, druid and the mistake not sticking to their bread & butter of Hunter, priest, druid. They come into the CGS Finals with a small chip on their shoulder to prove that MLG San Diego wasn't a fluke and that they're a top team that wasn't a 1 tournament wonder.

Hopefully Cherez & Hydra have worked on their Rogue and Mage skills enough to fix any problems they might of had in Paris. Nihilum had the element of surprise for teams in San Diego, but Euro teams have played them enough to know how to counter their main team and it wasn't until the final round in San Diego that American teams learned how to beat their team (with warrior, rogue, druid) - Nihilum's kryptonite however won't be their downfall in LA, they'll need to excel at their alternative comp which counters any double melee set-up they should run into.

CGS WoW Arena Finals Outlook:

All four of these teams seem very skilled, expect very good matches out of each of the teams. This won't be like the CGS WoW Finals of 2007 where there was 1 team dominating the field, the top prize of $25,000 is up for grabs for anyone.

Tune in at thecgs.com for live stream at 1pm PST / 4pm EST. Interesting Note: Leeroy Jenkins, the most famous player in WoW for his epic UBRS comedy, will be shout-casting the event.