If you're an active WoW player, then surely you know that last Tuesday the 3.0 patch was released, completely changing the game for many classes. This patch in particular is one to note because it was the introductory patch for the next expansion in the World of Warcraft series, Wrath of the Lich King. To help ease players in the transition over to the new expansion, Blizzard decided to release the revamped talent trees for all classes, as well as quite a few itemization and mechanic changes thrown into the mix as well.

All of this of course, is happening the week before ESL Montreal occurs, causing quite a bit of discussion. Players and commentators alike seem to not take this particular event as ‘serious’ as the previous events, mainly because there are some obvious balance changes that need to take place. In addition, the participants are practically playing a new game for one week before taking on the challenge.

Either way, that does not change the fact that this weekend, 10 top tier World of Warcraft Arena teams will be competing for a total prize pool of $30,000 with $15,000 of that going directly to the first place finishers. With 5 teams from North America and 5 teams from Europe competing, this seems to be another act of continental rivals. The past three international events (EM Leipzig, EM LA, BlizzCon) have been won by a European team, so the American teams really have to step up and show that they can compete with their opponents from across the Atlantic.

With the current amount of teams, the group stage for Montreal is formatted so that there will be two groups of five with the top two teams from each group progressing to bracket play..

Group A

DJ "Celex" Roggenkamp
Corey "Emolol" Ratliff
Daniel "Ely" Vulis

The first American team in Group A is Gravitas Gaming, the team who ran RMP extensively in their previous games. Rogues and Mages both got some huge buffs and Priests aren’t doing too badly for themselves either, so look for Gravitas to probably run the same comp with a few spec changes.

This team has been plagued by far too many close calls to let this event slip from their hands easily. 2nd place at both MLG Dallas and Orlando has proved they have what it takes to reach the finals and perhaps this 3.0 patch will be the boost they need to actually clinch a title victory.


Andrew “Rhaegyn” Miller
Alexander “Glick” Hloderwski
Rumay “Hafu” Wang

fnatic.WoW, the champions from quite a few previous American events ran the infamous WLD setup. The main problem with continuing to run this comp is that Druids are not the pillar of ridiculousness that they used to be, and therefore the longevity of this comp is cut severely short.

Arguably the top American team in the past, fnatic took first place in MLG Orlando and Dallas, as well as the North American Regional qualifiers for the BlizzCon event, in which they placed third overall.


Néstor “Souler” García Trabazo
Javier “Siler” Dobón Benlloch
Víctor Manuel “Falcon” Sánchez López

x6tence may be in the best (or worst) position to take this tournament, and if you’ve seen them compete in the past then you’d know why. They can all play a variety of classes, and that means they have the opportunity to capitalize on all of the recent buffs to their respective classes. However, they may not have had time to master all of the intricacies of their classes as well, with may provide a chance for their opponents to capitalize just as much.

x6tence took first place at the recent EM LA event, and a fourth place at the Leipzig event. As far as last week’s BlizzCon event, they only placed in the “5-6th” category due to a quick departure.


Henrik "Henkel" Sigerhed
Christoffer "Zibbit" Sigerhed
Dennis "Mcfruity" Andersson

ROCCAT is the newcomer to the WoW Arena scene – in fact, this team was only recently sponsored by a professional gaming organization. However, they did recently compete in the ESL online qualifier realm where they competed for two weeks and actually won the online cup. Sadly, they may be clinging to hopes of the past as a quote from their website reads “Our Team is currently running the setup Warrior Warlock Druid, which is at this very moment one of the strongest compositions to be playing…”, something that just isn’t true anymore.


"Anelit"
"Hiss"
"Pheonix"

aAa is a team from France who have had difficulty staying afloat in international competitions. There haven't received much recognition outside of France, and that is mainly due to their lackluster performances at the various events they've attended. Seems to be their main reason for an invitation to WWI was a first place finish in the first qualifier for the Arena Tournament Realm.

They were placed into the losers bracket in the 2nd round at WWI, and knocked out of the tournament by the third. There isn't too much hope for this team, but with so many things having changed in 3.0, who's to say that they may not have a few tricks up their sleeve.


Group B

Olivier "Orly" Bellemans
Valent "Another" Sebatijan
Simon "Xom" Palmer

SK EU, similar to Gravitas, is one of the only teams to still play RMP and will most likely continue to play that spec at this event. Many consider them the greatest RMP to play the comp, but many people also favor Gravitas, so if they happen to meet in the playoff stage…there will definitely be some exciting matches.

The only recent achievements of the SK EU team are a second place at the EM Leipzig event. They faced difficult opponents though, so don’t count them out of the running by any means.