The year starts in Poland: IEM Katowice preview

Welcome to IEM Katowice's group of death that just welcomed the Korean powerhouse team Azubu Blaze. Blaze recently fell short against their sister team to an exciting BO5 match in The Champions Winter tournament in Korea, however they are looking to change that with a victory at IEM. Having played so solid, the Korean team is surely looking like they are to excel in this group and proceed further. However, while expectations are high for Blaze, the teams that they will play may prove that the Korean domination might not happen in LoL.


This is the intensity of the victory that they strive for.
Enter the newly acquired Gambit Gaming housing the former players of Moscow 5. If these are still the same players that we remember from 2012 then we will definitely see some great plays out of them. Although the former M5 team hasn’t seen first place in a premier tournament since August in the S2 Regional Finals against SK Gaming, they still come as a favorite to graduate from the group and are never to be taken lightly. Having practiced in China against teams like WE and iG these teams will perhaps result in newly-fashioned version of Alex Ich and crew, combining strategies of European and Asian playstyles. Always expect the unexpected from these Russian powerhouses as they will likely be the second team to pull through.


New name, Old faces.
Curse Gaming, after recently qualifying for RIOT’s Season 3 NA Qualifiers, is the third team to show that they are one of the dominant teams of North America and they will be riding on some momentum. With Voyboy and Saintvicious working exceptionally well together and Elementz and Cop continuing to dominate in NA, Curse is not a team to think lowly of right now. The problem with Curse at IEM will lie with their midlaner Rhux, due to Nyjacky unable to attend due to issues with his Visa. Without Jacky, the team’s synergy might not be what we saw in the S3 Qualifiers but if they play confidently in his absence, it's not unlikely that they pull ahead of the Rusians.

Lastly, we have MYM who showed towards the end of 2012 that they were a team that is ready to prove themselves to the world. MYM showcased that no European team could stop them, however Asian teams pose more of a problem. Rewinding back to December shows a MYM stomping through IEM Cologne, destroying power house CLG.EU and Korean team CJ Entus in the group stages, until they hit the unexpected speed bump of Korean team SK Telecom led by Reapered. If Singapore and Cologne was MYM's baptism of fire, Katowice is their war for their homeland's integrity.

While there might be some degree of ambiguity about who will make top two in Group A, here we have a line that cuts right through the middle, separating the obvious winners from the unquestionable underdog.

Azubu Frost have been doing so much manhandling ever since they were founded that there is no real doubt to which category they fall. Led by AD carry Woong, the Koreans has been outdoing itself and to this date they have played for the S2WC gold and at every The Champions grand final, which easily makes them the best team in South Korea. Taking this premise and following the logical sequence “Koreans own white dudes” coined by one renowned WarCraft 3 legend, Azubu Frost are simply the best team in Poland this weekend. The momentum from Champions Winter is on their side, they’ve already proven they can humiliate SK Gaming at S2WC and they will give zero damns about a newly found home-turf team so bottom line there is but one team that can rob them of their first place finish.


If all goes as planned, Azubu Frost are likely to lift another trophy, this time made of foreign money
These are of course the boys from Fnatic who’ve been climbing the steep slopes of the GosuRanks swiftly and agilely. Ever since Campus Party Berlin, Fnatic has been doing nothing but traveling the world and handing asses to asses’ respective owners, not caring if those are Koreans, the European elite or the friggin’ world champions. The sOAZ/xPeke/Rekkles trio of carries was ruthless in the past four months and stories are still told about certain Lee Sins, Oriannas and Vaynes.

It was not until the benching of Rekkles that people started questioning the future strength of the European roster but Fnatic were quick to fill that hole too. Usually, signing a new players brings a certain dis-synergy to an already established routine but such is not the case with Yellowstar, who’s not been around since the dawn of time and is now reunited with former teammates in one of the best teams in Europes. The prospects of Fnatic are looking smashing.


Fnatic surely will not be content with another IEM silver
Logically, when there’re two winners, there’re two losers and SK Gaming and Absolute Legends are likely to take the first train home. There are but a few instances in history when SK were looking solid and unbeatable and this is not one of those times. The crushing loss at S2WC and the fourth place at Tales of the Lane were hard blows to Ocelote’s team, followed by the departure of two of its players. On the brighter side of things, if there’s a player that can revive SK and return it to its former glory that’s CandyPanda so all eyes are set on the talented German.

What of Absolute Legends? Well, they just picked the wrong tournament to debut.