With all the hype surrounding Nathan “Kintt” Quinn's return to the black and blue of Pandemic, it was easy to lose sight of an important fact – there is now both a Black and a Blue Pandemic World of Warcraft team.
Quinn's new roster, featuring Druid Brian “Caal” McPharlin and Rogue David “Ohnoes” Atz, may have had success at the ESL Global Challenge in Leipzig, but Kintt's former teammates have hardly fallen to the wayside.
In the ESL online ladder, Pandemic Blue has risen through the ranks by going back to basics, emphasizing the Rogue/Mage/Priest class composition that made them a dominant force last season. This time, though, Chris “douja” Cossey joins Rogue Mason “Nitrana” Groendal and Mage Greg “Malice” Risselada as the team's Priest, with Joe “NoktyN” Romano getting some games in as Rogue as well.
As the top RMP on the ladder, Pandemic Blue battled in the first ESL Cup Qualifier for the Main round, but an ill-fated battle with Angry for Nerd Sponsor, a top Rogue/Mage/Druid team, saw them on the outside looking in.
“I feel we had a mismanagement of cooldown usage and lack of experience vs. Rhoz's specific setup,” explained NoktyN, “If we would have gotten SKey Gaming's matches, we would easily be qualified right now. That's the roll of the dice on the seedings though I suppose. Don't get me wrong, SKey are great guys and all, I'm not bashing them nor am I saying we only didn't make it cause of the brackets, we definitely didn't play our best. I'm not too worried about Rhoz's team in the future, we will see though.”
This past weekend, Romano's premonition proved correct as Pandemic easily handled their former ousters on their way to securing a spot through the second ESL Cup Qualifier, making the team one of four, including Fnatic, Skey Gaming, and GotGame West, to earn a spot in the ESL Main Round.
After skipping the opening of the ESL ladder, Pandemic Blue broke into the final eight for the second cup but met a tough foe in the first round, GotGame West. Still, the team managed to qualify for the Main Round through the ladder portion of play.
Today, ESL announced the groups for their Main Round, available on their website, and both Pandemic teams made it through with Black in Group B and Blue in a tougher Group C. Still, both managed to avoid what looks to be the Group of Death - Group D - and each have high hopes they'll qualify for the continental finals by taking one of the top two spots in their bracket.
This weekend, though, both Pandemic teams will be battling for something even bigger: a LAN tournament victory. Pandemic Blue will travel to Los Angeles for the ESL Global Challenge there while Pandemic Black will look to make their mark against most of the top teams in the US at MLG Dallas.
We'll have results and more from both teams' tournament runs this weekend! |
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