KD-Gaming to reclaim crown of Europe?

The september ESL HoN series is about to come to a close, with KD-Gaming already 1-0 up in the final awaiting their opponent in the form of either unZ or FnaticMSI. Will the German giants, now sporting a new rejuvenated squad since it last dominated back in the days of Dreamhack Summer, reclaim it's crown?

Back in it's creation, KD-Gaming (tagged up as KDe) consisted of Kebap, Ubermag1x, Overpow, pimpoo and Dreamrage,former star player of Dirty Minds. It was seen as a decent team but made it's first huge impact on the competitive seen after the huge pickups of ex-DotA stars H4nn1 and LevenT, sky-rocketing to the number 2 spot on Honcast community rankings from number 8 within a week of picking up the duo and winning the Neva III tournament and reaching the finals of the 1st ever Honcast Invitational Qualifier.

Things were getting better as Dreamhack Summer approached, with KD-Gaming beating FnaticMSI in the final to claim the grand prize of 50 000 SEK. However they were probably remembered more for the manner in which they reached the finals, beating tXL despite playing all 3 games 4v5 and losing the 1st one as H4nn1's departure from Germany was delayed.

Unfortunately the team slowly went in decline after that, crashing out of the Honcast Invitational 1st round, although to be fair they were up against an up and coming DWi team who were hot on form. The team finally disbanded in August, with LevenT leaving to play Starcraft 2 and H4nn1 joining the army. Their rivals FnaticMSI on the other hand, were enjoying an unbeaten streak having picked up iLx trio Bot, N0tail and NoVa_.

Now, a new and rejuvenated KD-Gaming, fresh from the pick-up of former DotA pro Black and on a roll after their most recent victory over FnaticMSI in the ESL winner's bracket semifinals, will they be able to maintain the momentum to eventually reclaim their number 1 spot in Europe? Gosugamers sits down with new member [KD]Black to find out.

Thanks for taking the time for doing this. Why don't you start by introducing yourself?

-"Hey, my name is Dominik Reitmeier, I am 17 years old and I currently play HoN for team KD-Gaming."

You were playing for Dirty Minds before joining KD-Gaming. What was your reason for leaving? Was it an offer from KD you couldn't refuse or was there something else behind the move?

-"Internal problems, problems that don’t belong in the public. After i left DM i talked to Kebap and then he said that they needed one more player, so that’s when i saw my chance and i grabbed it of course!"

How did the team feel before and after the MSI game? Was the team confident of winning? How do feel about your standing in the European scene at the moment?

-"We weren’t confident of winning since I was a new member and we didn’t really scrim much, so after we won it the atmosphere in TS3 was phenomenal! I don’t really know our standing in the European scene right now, but I think we can definitely be the best team in Europe after we played together for some time. Rivals other than MSI are Empr."

Loda hasn't been seen lately and kay` just left KD-Gaming, any comments on that?

-"Loda has left HoN to focus on DotA. I joined after kay` left, so I don’t know much about that, so no comment."

With DotA 2 coming out, how do you think the competitive scene will be affected, do you think a mix where pros play both competitively is possible or can there only be one winner in the showdown?

-"First off, I don’t think it’s possible to play 2 games at a professional level, there is just not enough time to scrim and play tourneys with 2 teams, but I do think some pros of the HoN scene will switch to DotA 2. However I don’t think HoN will die. I started playing HoN because OK (Online Kingdom, Black’s DotA team) was inactive. I don’t want to state like a page of reasons why I switched, so that’s the most precise one."

With KD already qualified for Dreamhack Winter, will we be seeing you there? And what are the future plans currently for KD?

-"Yes, I will be attending dreamhack and our future plans are to train a lot and win everything we can!"

That's all I believe, any shoutouts to wrap this up?

-"Shoutouts to KD-Gaming, Dirty Minds, TsoG, DocSmoothJew and Ensoe!"