With the Warcraft III team being part of the SK Gaming Organization for a while now, they decided to release the players that consists of Hyeong Ju “Check” Lee and Du Seop “WhO” Chang, after June “Lyn” Park left and joined the Warcraft III team of WeMade Fox.

After June “Lyn” Park leaving the family of SK Gaming the players Hyeong Ju “Check” and Du Seop “WhO” Chang will be following, too. At the end of the day this means SK Gaming will be starting off 2010 without a Warcraft 3 squad. Will you see new WC3 faces at SK – Time will tell! At this point we want to thank Check and WhO for their successful stay at SK Gaming.

SK may soon see some new players as it is expected that they will pick up a new Warcraft III team.

Source: SK Gaming

SK Sansibar Wins IEM European Finals

by Sascha “Yiska” Heinisch

It truely has been a weekend of the underdogs. Not only did Mousesports win the CS 1.6 part of the tournament but SK Sansibar did it in WoW. I was fortunate enough to be at the event. Let me get one thing for the CS fans out of the way: We met fnatic in the hotel bar and while they were upset, they still seemed to have a lot of fun.

Overall the games were very competitive, which not only often occuring scores of 3-2 indicate but also the incredibly close games.

1st -SK Sansibar  $7,500
2nd -Team Dignitas   $3,500$
3rd – SK.EU   $1,500
4th – X6tence  $800
5th – iNNERFIRE  $500
6th – RockNroll pigtails  $450
7th – H2K   $400
8th – Plan-B   $350

What is also important to point out is that the top 5 teams got themselves a spot for the IEM Global Finals which will be held at Cebit in Hannover in March. Last year (in December), four American teams qualfied for Cebit at the IEM American Championship finals in Edmonton. coL.Black won that tournament while SK.US, Fnatic and EG were able to grab themselves a spot as well. The ESL will also have a tournament for Asia coming up to fill the last slots.

Personally, I really enjoyed the event for the competition and the people, but at the same time I promise you that Cebit will be bigger and better, but not only because coL.Black will be there. Why not visit Hannover and watch some games of your favorite players and the best WoW teams in the world?

Today, the Intel Extreme Masters crowned a new European Champion in Mousesports.

Mousesports took it to the third map to win the series 2-1 against fnatic . They looked very good throughout most of the tournament. Before we found out the winner of the Intel Extreme Masters tournament, it came down to the wire and in the end mousesports won on the map de_tuscan.

The standings of the Intel Extreme Masters

1^st  – Mousesports – $25,000
2^nd – fnatic – $10,000
3^rd – Roskilde Ravens – $5,000
4^th – SK Gaming – $2,500
5^th – KerchNET – $1,250
6^th – oXmoze – $1,150
7^th – mTw.dk – $1,100
8^th – MeetYourMakers – $1,000
9^th – AGAiN – $750
10^th – Team Alternate – $750
11^th – Millenium – $750
12^th – n!faculty – $750

Today, the team behind the CSPromod have released the massive changelog for their upcoming 1.04 beta release. Below is just a small snippet of all the changes:

Custom User Interface Design

* Created custom-built modern-style HUD with traditional placement of all standard elements
* Created custom assets, including fonts, vector graphics and overlays
* Overhauled design of GUI, Main Menu and Options section to achieve a unified visual style
* Added CSPromod options tab to offer one-stop VGUI tweaking of all new features
* Added animated round timer for 30 seconds and below: timer flashes red with 1.6-style speed cycle
* Added teammates’ money to the scoreboard
* Added teammates’ health to the scoreboard
* Added color-coded player indicators on both sides of the round timer
* Added animated main menu background

While some users may communicate that a lot of the changes are padded or very miniscule, that doesn’t change the wealth of detail that’s involved not only in the changelog, but actually programming such changes.

Among the exhausting list of changes, include some anticipated and hot topic items such as, teammates money to the scoreboard, increasing footstep volume, and mimicking 1.6 as much as possible.

The full changelog can be viewed here.

This edition of The Syndicate Interview Series features a living legend of American Counter-Strike:  Ronald “Rambo” Kim.  After famous championship stints with Team 3D and compLexity Mr. Kim spent most of 2009 out of the spotlight.  Thus, we thought it was time to catch up with Ron to see what he’s been up to.

First off, thanks very much for sitting down with us.  We’ll skip the “tell us about yourself” part and get right into it.  Just over a year ago CGS folded operations and North American eSports was once again turned on its head.  What were your thoughts at the time?  Were you surprised the league closed or did you see it coming?

I had assumed that the CGS was going to last at least 2 more years, so I was definitely surprised when I found out that the league had abruptly shutdown.  The whole CGS experience was a surprise in itself with the private yacht tours, housing in the Marina del Ray, as well as the draft at the Playboy mansion. It was all incredible, so it was really a bummer when the league had to shutdown.

Counter-Strike teams (like the old compLexity roster) quickly broke up and everyone was scrambling for 1.6 again.  What were your plans during that time?  How did you expect everything to shake out?  Heading into 2009 did you expect to return to 1.6, stay with Source or retire?

My plan after the CGS was to play 1.6 again, but this wasn’t easy, as I had fully dedicated myself to Source for 2 years. In order for me to return to 1.6, I knew it would take a lot of practice and grinding to get back to world class contention. I knew I would burn myself out however, so I continued to play CS:S.

Throughout the year you appeared on several shoutcasts and at some ESEA Finals.  Do you see yourself moving into a more media or advisory role in the future or have you stepped away from gaming?  Have you ever considered a management role in a gaming organization?

I would love to continue my involvement with the gaming scene as it has always been my favorite passion. I feel like I have tons of unique experience, due to being fully enveloped in the competetive gaming scene for such a long time.

After so many years of spending your time on Counter-Strike, what kept you busy in 2009?  Was it strange having so much free time in the evening (ie- less scrims, etc)?  You were seen playing on some teams here and there.  Do you have any plans to return to full time action?

I’ve been having some competitive gaming “itches” lately, that’s for sure. Perhaps with the right players and organization, I would consider making a return. I still enjoy playing my favorite PC games as well as throwing in a scrim or two every week. As for my free time, I have been playing a lot of golf. I can safely say that I’m at least 94% addicted :-).

What did you think about eSports in 2009?  What do you expect for 2010 and beyond?  Will Counter-Strike ever see the popularity it saw 2004-2006?

I think eSports will always have a future whether its an FPS, RTS, MMORPG, etc.  Companies will forever create new, balanced, and competitive games with their amazing staff and improving technologies. As for Counter-Strike, I’m not at all surprised that it is still the #1 competitive PC FPS team game for tournaments. It is so incredibly balanced. It’s one of those games that you can’t perfectly master as an individual, and never as a team. So, the pursuit of getting better everyday makes it that much more fun to play.

What advice would you give a young Counter-Strike player in today’s climate?  If you were 17 and entering eSports again, what other games would you suggest pursuing?

My advice to any competitive player wanting to improve would be never ending, but some of the best ways are to: find a mentor, someone who is vastly better than you, preferably someone local. If you can’t do that, watch replays and demos of your favorite players with a similar play-style, or a play-style that you’d like to emulate. Study and dissect why that player made certain decisions so you can learn from their wise choices as well as their mistakes. Also, don’t be afraid to experiment with your settings, but don’t overdo it. A huge key to becoming a successful gamer is being consistent.

Thanks again for your time.  Any final thoughts, shoutouts or comments? 

Thanks to compLexity for the interview!

Frag Domiant is coming back from a silent streak by picking up a known Canadian team, Sway Gaming. This team has shown that they can win at a high caliber level. With the season already underway, Sway Gaming is ready to represent their new name, Frag Dominant, in ESEA-Main Season 5 (5-2) and CEVO-Placement Season 12.

This is the quote from earlier by Halston “Tekn1kal” Bellintani, which explains their goals for the 2010 year.

Our goals as a team in the near future is to continue to practice hard and finish off strong in ESEA, Win CEVO-placement and get ourselves a spot in CEVO-Pro.

Frag Dominant Counter-Strike Canadian Roster

Halston “Tekn1kal” Bellintani
Armeen “a2z” Toussi
Pedro “YaYooo” Morim
Alex “plexxico” Palmer
Andy “icy” Keefe

Watch out for this team as they expand to the top level of gaming in the near future.

Yesterday, Activsion announced that Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 keeps setting records by hitting the $1 billion mark worldwide since its debut in November 2009.

The first few days after its release,  the game sold about $550 million worldwide beating recent movies such as: Harry Potter, Avatar and Twilight according to Activsion and boxofficemojo.com.

On Tuesday it was reported that SK had lost the support of main partner Adidas after the removal of the logo on their Organization’s site.

The Swedish Counter Strike team is currently in Cologne, Germany bootcamping for the IEM European Finals. Today, there was a picture of SK roster wearing Nike shoes and hoodies with the Nike’s logo on them. Below is the picture under scrutiny:

With the Extreme Masters Continental Finals in Europe later this week, they did not comment on this situation just yet.

The lesser acclaimed portion of the mTw organization is that of their German Counter-Strike squad, that has had some trying times in the past, has made some changes to their roster.

Following less than stellar results in last season’s ESL EPS, and a reflection on itself, the organization and players have decided to move on. Along with that, they’ve also decided to bring in a new team of players. They released the following press release (translated from German):

After last season, we sat down with the old team of the past year to reflect and put the new goals for the year 2010. The team, centered around Gerhard “gerdi” Grimm, deliberated for a long time and they came to the conclusion that the past season should have been the last for the majority of the team. So we thank the clan, mTw.Mindfactory, our old Counter Strike 1.6 lineup, which consisted of the following players: Daniel “frigh” Enderle, Louis “brundle” Arnold, Michael Koenig berger meatball “Wassong, Tobias” Tobson “Lichtner, Gerhard “gerdi” Grimm and Bernd “fox” Schmid and wish them well in their future-sports-ways and of course for life outside the Internet.

Now, however, we had to go on the prowl for new players who were ready to take on the mTw.Mindfactory label along with their skills, and to stand amongst Germany’s premier class. After long discussions and an intensive search by the team manager, Martin “gori” Dornig, chose in consultation with the management, a mix of newcomers and experienced players.

Now, the mTw.Mindfactory lineup is the following:

Markus “crash” Esser
Niko “foolisH” Zimmermann
Michael “zy” Rettig
Max “cruzN” Klasen
Christoph “divine” Mohr