Dr. Realz has really turned things around with this new line-up after dropping Serennia. His first trip to Germany will quickly be forgotten and replaced with memories of this one. No more staying in strange German houses Mr. Masterson, you’re treated like WoW royalty now.

Many are already calling SK-Gaming ‘Team America’. I think that’s a fitting title. We’ll have Dr. Realz on a special “After Thoughts: Regionals” show sometime this week along with some of the other big names from this weekend. Look for an updated post on Monday or Tuesday.

I suppose we should give TSG some praise too for making it to BlizzCon in their first tournament appearance ever. This is how I give praise:

Unpredictability will be the theme for the first tournament of 2009, the ESL Finals in Hannover (Thanks Till, I’m stupid), Germany, which to remind you is a month away, also to remind you that only two of these teams will be in the tournament (figure out which two and you win a prize! OK, not really). The only team that has actually played at a tournament with their current roster will be CompLexity, formerly GotGame.East. But will their pre-WotLK composition of Rogue, Mage, Druid be as strong as it once was? Kintt said it best last week with “the best team right now is Rogue, Mage, and any healer” so perhaps the synergy between Venruki and Happy will be enough to take a tournament win.

Or maybe the team with the biggest ego SK-Gaming will simply stomp them, that is if they don’t verbally harass each other on Ventrilo before the big tournament comes around, showing up and grinding their teeth having to play with each other. It’s a funny thing when the biggest worry about your team isn’t whether you can play the game, it isn’t whether your composition is strong enough to beat the others, and it isn’t if you have the tournament experience or previous tournament wins (edit: Serennia doesn’t fall into the winning category, it’s nice to remind him about it). It is whether the three players can sit together at a tournament in a foreign land and deal with each other for three days. This is the number one thing that people are questioning with this team.

They just might be able to do it though. I’m not going to go out and call tournament winners but between the two veterans, Sck and Serennia, and rookie all-star Realz, you’ve got quite a team. Granted we haven’t really seen Realz on a hunter in the tournament scene (explosive shot tuff yeah?) and Serennia on a death knight either, but Sck has enough play time on paladin to hold up his side of things. But enough about this team, they’ve had their press already.

Nick. The Hammer. Can you handle the tournament pressure? I should be writing about Hamchookz really since he is well known. But I like Nick, only because people call him the Hammer. How do you earn that name? You impress people on the PTR. He’s got quite a history between some of the professional players. Zyz (Rogue, Team EG… yeah, that gangsta wannabe) said he was one of the hardest people to beat in a duel before AR/Prep was patched in.

Then you’ve got Hamchookz. What to say about this player that hasn’t already been said? Is he the U.S.’s Cherez? Is he better then Cherez? Both debatable, but one thing is for damn sure: he’s good. Kintt watched how he plays when Nick was streaming on Xfire and couldn’t say a bad thing about him, mentioning he played the game at an extremely slow pace, something he had never seen before. Oplaid even has a Hamchookz shrine (he’ll deny it if you ask) and practices the Hamchook call on a daily basis. In a way these guys are the underdogs, but I think that is discrediting them too much. This team might be a fan favorite going into their first tournament and they might even end up winning the whole thing. We’ll have to see as no tournaments besides ESL have been announced for 2009.

And all this talk about level 80 arena tournaments? Yeah, that just might all be bullshit too. Blizzard isn’t going to give ESL a tournament server at level 80 until they launch their own tournament server. Maybe we’ll see one launch in February and they are just keeping their mouth shut. Or maybe the ESL final will be at level 70 and throw everyone for a loop. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Maybe the first half of 2009 should be called “Wait To See” time, since that’s all we’ve been doing, and will continue to until a tournament. Oh and I apologize for a giant wall of text. Still working / learning WordPress stuff.

Since entering the league as the most mega-hyped #1 overall draft pick in history, he’s lead the Cleveland Cavaliers past the first round of the playoffs in each of the past three seasons. His 27.4 PPG ranks among the very best in the NBA since his arrival in the league.

That same man has become synonymous with Boston basketball over his eleven-year career as the Celtic’s biggest star and sometimes only star in that time period. Last year, his loyalty paid off as he finally got the supporting cast to win the championship.

Just a few months ago, he made his mark in his World of Warcraft tournament debut, taking ESL Philadelphia by storm, leading the Trade Chat Allstars to an improbable victory over perennial favorites GotGame East.

Yes, that man is Ryan Lebron Paul “Realz” James Pierce Masterson.

Point Guard, Rogue hero, Power Forward, and now SK Gaming professional, can Realz lead his team to Ming’s “promised land”?

It’s easy to see that SK’s new lineup of Serennia, Realz, and Sck will be epic. Whether it’ll be epic success or epic failure, though, is another story.

There’s a lot to like about the team; they have experience winning tournaments (and losing them),

Additionally, they play what we like to call “ArenaCast comp”: Death Knight, Hunter, Paladin. Predicted by the ArenaCast staff to be the top dog pre-Wrath, ran by every member of the cast save Kintt (Ohnoes: learn Hunter), adopted by last season’s king of class switching, x6tence, the composition has plenty of potential to dominate the tournament scene this year. Similar to Warrior, Warlock, Druid, it has few weaknesses and played correctly seems to be able to beat anything thrown at it, so far.

So what’s not to like?

We’ve all laughed about and berated Serennia’s antics on his way to winning the first ever ArenaCast “Epic Fail of the Year” award, and, while his tactical knack and skill as a player is undeniable, so is his headstrong and combative attitude. He’s had trouble finding the proper mix of players to deal with his tendencies in the past, and while I doubt we’ll see Sck yelling at Serennia to “get on” his former teammate, we have seen Mr. Quick leave in the middle of a match at a Blizzcon where he experienced some understandable frustration.

Neither Realz nor Sck are the type of people to give in to Serennia’s overbearing, competitive, and sometimes seemingly psychotic personality, but they also are not the type to ignore it, either.

Realz himself has a streak of the Serennia competitiveness and isn’t afraid to support his own opinion with a stubborn tenacity that mimics his teammate. It’s unlikely both agree on every issue, so how they handle such situations will ultimately determine how the team progresses.

Sck may not have played the same leadership role as his compatriots in their prior endeavors, and he certainly proved he can does not need the spotlight during his time with Pandemic, but he isn’t going to pull a Chumpjohn and idly sit in the corner. If someone pushes him, he’ll push back.

It’s going to take effort from all three to make this work.

For all the flak Serennia has taken this year, especially after his first tournament, he’s made strides towards improving both his image and attitude in person, and the difference was noticeable at later events; the Swarm thing wasn’t an issue with him. Last year should have taught him it takes more than talented players and sound strategies to win in a team environment, despite some recent online developments that point to otherwise.

“If Serennia can keep his ego under control and let Realz be the coach of this team, they are going to clean house,” wrote Ming. This may be true, but in reality that’s going to be a role reversal I doubt Serennia could fully handle, and one that may be detrimental to the team overall.

In order for them to have success, both him and Realz will need to learn when to defer to each other. Both can contribute to the team tactically, and it’s going to be a balance that could be tough to master.

I’ve played in a dysfunctional team environment before and it can work as long as you are winning, but once there are problems things turn sour quickly. In World of Warcraft at this point, no matter how good you are there will be things you need to overcome together as a team.

Can SK do it? Probably.

Will they do it? We’ll find out soon enough, and it’ll be entertaining to watch either way…