DHW team introductions (1/4)

This is the first part of our DreamHack Winter 2013 team introductions, created to introduce our readers to each of the fourteen participants and their rosters.

DreamHack Winter 2013 will feature a total of sixteen teams competing for the $100,000 grand prize, but only fourteen are confirmed so far as the final two will be found via the BYOC qualifier.

Below are introductions on the first four squads, but you can expect more similar articles to pop up in the coming days. Regardless of your knowledge of the Counter-Strike community, these articles should get your started.

Our first article features the recently renewed n!faculty, ESWC champions Clan-Mystik, Universal Soldiers, who feature three of the Counter-Strike 1.6 world's biggest winners, and the Swedes of fnatic.

Scroll down to get started with the first four teams of DreamHack Winter 2013. Over the next days leading up to DreamHack Winter we'll be releasing more of these articles, going over each of the fourteen teams.

CS:GO returns to DreamHack later this week

n!faculty

n!faculty have completely changed their roster since the Swedish team scored a win at DreamHack Valencia in July, qualifying the organization for DreamHack Winter 2013. A total of zero players remain from the lineup, as former Western Wolves leader Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander has replaced Markus "pronax" Wallsten as the brains behind n!faculty.

Joining Rossander is former Western Wolves teammate Jacob "Pimp" Winneche and ex-Anexis teammate of the duo, Renè "cajunb" Borg, who has been in an out of the scene throughout 2013. Flanking them on the side are former fnatic and mousesports member Finn "karrigan" Andersen and slightly lesser known Rasmus "raalz" Steensborg.

Player	Rating
Renè "cajunb" Borg	1.18
Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander	1.03
Finn "karrigan" Andersen	0.99
Jacob "Pimp" Winneche	1.11
Rasmus "raalz" Steensborg	0.69

The Danes have zero LAN tournaments under their belts, though that is not to say the players haven't been to plenty of events individually during the fifteen or so months CS:GO has been played competitively since its release. However, not having seen the team in action makes it considerably harder to guess what kind of form the team hoping to challenge Copenhagen Wolves as the best in Denmark will show up in.

Based on the former Anexis trio and Rossander's leadership it should be safe to count on n!faculty being a well led and practiced squad who can easily upset other teams within their range, and perfect strategic play could even lead to major upsets, similar to how WW took down NiP at DreamHack Summer. I'm still sceptic of how well Andersen and Steensborg will do, and with the level of competition that will be present in Jönköping, making the playoffs won't be easy.

PTW: cajunb - The Dane has put up impressive statistics throughout his short career in CS:GO, and likely will be the biggest swing vote in how high n!faculty's ceiling will be as a team. His career averages of 0.81 KPR and a 1.18 rating are good for top ten in our database, and he will without a doubt be motivated to continue on the same path later this week.

Another team will test gla1ve's leadership ability

Clan-Mystik

Clan-Mystik first appeared on the international scene in July as they defeated k1ck in the semi-finals of DreamHack Valencia before eventually falling short against the champions n!faculty. They had disappointing results online after July, but came out of nowhere to take down both Astana Dragons and VeryGames to win the ESWC 2013 title after the addition of Dan "apEX" Madesclaire.

Since then they've added a couple of solid online wins to their resume, but mostly the Frenchmen, led by former emuLate duo of Michael "HaRts" Zanatta and Jeremy "ioRek" Vuillermet, are simply riding their high from the ESWC win. They are still a new enough team that it's hard to put a finger on them due to not having attended enough events, but it's clear they have the ability of making a deep run in Jönköping if all things go right.

Player	Rating
Dan "apEX" Madesclaire	1.13
Michael "HaRts" Zanatta	0.92
Jeremy "ioRek" Vuillermet	0.98
Fabien "KIOSHIMA" Fiey	1.18
Hovik "KQLY" Tovmassian	1.32

In terms of results the Frenchmen don't have a lot of events backing themselves up as even fringe contenders for the year's biggest tournament, as they've only attended two international tournaments, as well as two domestic competitions, where they fell short against VeryGames. Below are the final placings of Clan-Mystik since the team's founding:

2nd	DreamHack Valencia *	-
2nd	Masters Français du Jeu Vidéo Finals	400€
2nd	ESWC France 2013	-
1st	ESWC 2013	$12,500
	(* with drizzer instead of apEX)

It's not a new feeling for the former emuLate members as they also went on to win WCG 2007 in Counter-Strike 1.6 almost completely out of nowhere, although they'd had a couple of solid results prior to that, and one of the world's best players at that point. However, they were never able to regain that same momentum and wound up practically disappearing from the scene shortly after, aside from a few solid placings at events, followed up by many more disappointing ones.

Now the squad is led by completely new members with Fabien "KIOSHIMA" Fiey being the unofficial MVP of ESWC, and with Hovik "KQLY" Tovmassian having a monster performance against Astana Dragons in the semi-finals of the event, and scoring the most AWP kills out of everyone in Paris. The Frenchmen have had some promising results online as well after gaining the massive boost in confidence on their home soil at ESWC, and you can find a quick sum up of them below:

The big knock on Clan-Mystik is the fact they were only able to take down Astana Dragons, who shortly after ESWC let go of Ioann "Edward" Sukhariev, and a domestic rival in VeryGames en route to their ESWC championship. It's been long considered a fact that it's easier for teams to upset their fellow countrymen due to having better knowledge of their game both on a team and an individual level, so while beating VeryGames, the world's best team, is extremely impressive for anyone, you have to take the win with a grain of salt if you're Clan-Mystik.

You can count on the two youngsters to put in work, and Clan-Mystik's setup doesn't require too much from the emuLate duo to produce wins. That makes Dan "apEX" Madesclaire, who also was a part of the Nostalgie team who ripped through Prague Challenge in July, a true difference maker in Mystik, as a monster performance, which we know he is capable of, could really give the Frenchmen a huge edge in Jönköping. However, that doesn't make him the biggest star on the team, and is why Fiey is my player to watch out for this week.

PTW: KIOSHIMA - He had a breakout performance in Paris with just one negative K-D different match en route to becoming the unofficial MVP of ESWC 2013, and Clan-Mystik will need a big performance from him in Jönköping as well if they wish to break the final four. It's still too early to say if he'll wind up becoming one of the best players in the world or if he'd just been riding a hot streak, but you shouldn't rule out anyone who's taken down VeryGames in their current form in a best-of-three series.

Does Clan-Mystik have another surprise in store?

fnatic

fnatic have struggled to varying degrees since the legendary second place finish of the former Epsilon team at DreamHack Summer back in June. Recruiting Andreas "MODDII" Fridh to the black and orange for the thirty-sixth or so time was never going to work as the team didn't possess enough leadership, so after enough average results the team ultimately decided to replace Fridh with former n!faculty leader Markus "pronax" Wallsten.

So far we don't have a lot of data to work with for the renewed fnatic roster, but those who watched fnatic's group stage affair with SK Gaming in Beijing this past weekend could likely notice a big difference in the team's play. It'd have been hard to imagine the old fnatic coming back from a 4-11 deficit on a terrorist side to win a map, so just seeing Wallsten lead his team back to a 16-13 win, which allowed them to get a somewhat easy second place finish, is definitely a great early sign for Patrik "cArn" Sättermon's newest recruit.

Player	Rating
Jonatan "Devilwalk" Lundberg	0.93
Robin "flusha" Ronnquist	1.06
Jesper "jw" Wecksell	1.08
Markus "pronax" Wallsten	0.96
Andreas "schneider" Lindberg	1.07

Due to fnatic having just made their roster change they only have one tournament to go by with their exact roster, MSI Beat it! 2013 Grand Finals, while the rest were achieved with Fridh still as a member of the squad. However, knowing how the ex-Epsilon roster has done in the past, you likely can't expect their level to change too much at this short of a notice. Below are the latest results for fnatic:

5-8th	DreamHack Bucharest 2013 *	-
5-8th	RC EMS One Fall 2013 Finals *	$2,000
5-8th	ESWC 2013 *	-
2nd	MSI Beat it! Grand Finals	$7,000
	(* with MODDII instead of pronax)

There is little doubt in my mind that fnatic will be better with Wallsten than they were with Fridh, as the team has had a serious lack of leadership since fnatic first moved to CS:GO in late 2012. Wallsten has proven to be a solid leader who can improve teams who are stuck on fnatic's level, but he has yet to field any serious title contenders at major events, which might put a cap on how well fnatic can realistically expect to do unless we get another crazy performance out of their star AWPer, who is also my player to watch for the Black and Orange squad.

The Swedes also have quite a bit of pressure on them to perform as they've failed to break the final four for their last three important tournaments with the world's best teams in attendance, and the fnatic organization has been very patient with the young team in giving them a chance to find the top form they showed over five months ago at Elmia. Wallsten's addition likely takes some of it off, but with the natural contract period of a year coming to an end in just over a month, you have to wonder just how much pressure the team has built on themselves to end the year on a good note.

PTW: JW - We saw what Wecksell can do at DreamHack Summer, where his aggressive rifling and entry fragging were the main driving force behind Epsilon's dual second place finishes in Jönköping. Wecksell has the highest upside potential out of anyone in fnatic, and if he can find the form we know he's capable of, we could see a surprisingly good fnatic team in Jönköping.

Can fnatic claim another podium finish at DreamHack?

Universal Soldiers

Nearly three months after the former ESC Gaming squad stopped existing for all purposes aside from SLTV StarSeries, following Filip "NEO" Kubski and Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas' surprising win at Prague Challenge, the fan-favorite trio of ESC returned in a serious team together with two younger players who had yet to play together with the Poland's finest team. Joining them are two youngsters who seem to be filling the void left by their two former members, with the trio still acting as the main fraggers of the team.

Early results have been promising for the Poles, but one must wonder whether they've still got enough skill to hang with teams such as NiP or VeryGames, assuming they can't beat the world's best simply by outskilling them, which hasn't worked for Kubski & co in CS:GO. Once again, the Poles have massive potential to pull through when it matters the most, so they aren't a team you should ever rule out of a game in any situation, but it's simply been so long since they last did it, and with two different members, that it's not even for sure this team possesses that quality any longer.

Player	Rating
Paweł "byali" Bieliński	1.02
Filip "Neo" Kubski	1.08
Jarosław "pasha" Jarząbkowski	1.12
Janusz "snax" Pogorzelski	1.02
Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas	1.12

Universal Soldiers have only had two tournament to attend since their roster was created, but they impressed many with their shared third-through-fourth place finish at RaidCall's EMS One Fall 2013 Finals, where they took down Natus Vincere and mousesports in the group stage before ultimately falling up short against VeryGames in the semi-finals, in a match that saw them push the Frenchmen into overtime on the second map. They also came very close to winning TECHLABS Cup 2013 finals over Astana Dragons, but ultimately came up short.

3-4th	RC EMS One Fall 2013 Finals	$4,000
2nd	TECHLABS Cup 2013 Finals	$5,000

The main trio behind US has a history of doing well when it matters the most, and they've looked good lately, but it's still hard to see them breaking the final four in Sweden. Kubski has started slowly playing better and better after a rough start in CS:GO, but it'd be a longshot to call him the main star of US, something he was used to being for years and years in CS 1.6 when battling the likes of Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg and Yegor "markeloff" Markelov for the title of being the world's best Counter-Strike player.

PTW: TaZ - Wojtas was arguably one of the world's five best Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players for months starting from late 2012 as he helped his team claim one of the top spots in the world rankings, but as ESC started to struggle more early on in 2013, so did Wojtas whose level of play plummetted compared to the early months. His visit on [POD]Cast explained that change with a change in playing style, and now that he's back to doing things he feels more comfortable doing, you should expect him to be the driving force behind Universal Soldiers in Jönköping, both in and out of the game.

NEO still hasn't found his 1.6 form in CS:GO

This is the first part of our DreamHack Winter 2013 team introductions, which will showcase each of the fourteen teams who have already secured themselves a spot in the main $250,000 tournament.

We will also publish an actual preview prior to the group stage of the tournament beginning, as well as a separate finals day preview before the semi-finals and the grand final.