Joe “nineX” Szymkowicz had a chance to sit down with Shane “rapha” Hendrixson, of SK-Gaming, after his trip to the ESWC Masters Quake 3 competition. Exhausted from the combination of jet-lag and an intense field of competition, Rapha talked about his future in gaming and some topics swirling around the deathmatch community.
GGL: So you’re back from Paris; how do you feel? What did you think of your play in the tournament?
Hendrixson: I am so glad to be back where I could eat some really good food; French food is bleh :o It’s going to take a few days to get back into the swing of things, and I’ll slowly start practicing again. I think I did well, despite all the problems I was having.
GGL: After already seeing much of the competitors at the Masters event, how do you feel about the upcoming finals event in San Jose?
Hendrixson: Gonna be a tough event but as I said before I’m looking forward to it. The gap isn’t real big between most of the players that’ll be going to the finals, there are going to be some fantastic games. I feel good going into it and I’m glad I still have a month to try and prepare for it.
GGL: You’ve played plenty of times on LAN in the US; what was it like playing in your first international event?
Hendrixson: Going into it I thought it would be a bit more difficult because of the jet lag and I was right but all in all it was a nice experience :) Continued…
The much-hyped Guinness World Record Gamer’s Edition has finally launched, featuring the gaming exploits of many competitive and casual gamers.
There are a lot of dubious records in the list about games and gaming companies, such as “The 64 bit question,” a “record” that states Metroid was the only major Nintendo franchise without an N64 version.
Despite the odd nature of many of the records, they at least managed to work in e-sports related records such as “First gaming clan to legally bind their players,” a title that went to SK-Gaming.
Hit the Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition site to peep all the records.
The renowned European multi-gaming organization Mouse Sports announced today the addition of a Defense of the Ancients squad to its ranks. Formerly known as Back to Basics, the new mouz.DotA houses superstars from Germany, Sweeden, and Denmark. This announcement comes only days after the team was knocked out of Meet Your Makers SENNHEISER Prime Defending 8 playoffs by Malaysia’s Kingsurf.
Mouz team leader Milo- had to say this about his team’s new sponsorship:
We are very proud to have the chance to wear and represent mousesports in the DotA scene. With such a strong partner as mouz we can only look forward to the future of our Team! But this is not only a great success for us, it is also one for the DotA scene which had only bad news lately.
As reported yesterday, Kim “Drayich” Larrson left SK-Gaming due to “leadership issues,” however strangely enough, today he finds himself on the Mouz roster. His former team looks a hell of a lot stronger on paper compared to the his new home, but I guess time will only tell if the squad is able to produce results.
Source: MouseSports
Kim “Drayich” Larsson, longtime team member of the famed SK-Gaming Defense of the Ancients squad, announced today in an interview that he would be leaving SK-Gaming due to “leadership issues.”
Larsson stated that his departure had been a long time coming, and that the best thing for the team and himself would be to simply “step aside.” Larsson is unsure what will be in store for him next, however during the interview he discreetly hinted at the possibility of creating a team from the ground up.
Drayich joined SK-Gaming when the squad, previously known as Team Team, was sponsored by the European multi-gaming organization SK-Gaming in May of 2006 following their Meet Your Makers Pride #5 victory.
Source: MYM
The news is official now - SK Gaming’s new Warcraft 3 player for 2008 is Seo Woo ‘ReiGn’ Kang. He joins Daniel ‘Miou’ Holthuis, June ‘Lyn’ Park, Kim ‘ReMinD’ Sung Sik and Seong Deok ‘SoJu’ Lee, making SK the strongest lineup on earth.
The quartet or Koreans in the team is the very same that played for World Elite, when the team was one of the best ever Warcraft 3 Champions League teams. It has got two world class Night Elves, arguably the world’s best Orc player and now a world class Undead player. With the addition of a strong European Human miou (stayed in the team most likely because he is German), SK looks like an extremely strong all-round product.
Unexpectedly, but according to the initial plan, World of Warcraft is having its final tournament in 2007 at DreamHack. The top eight teams from the World Series of Video Games rankings were invited to Sweden by Blizzard and Intel to close the season in a $75,000 tournament ran by ESL.
The competition is Blizzard’s initiative. A lot of times, this company has proven that the people in it care about the community. After the cancellation of the WSVG, the creators of WoW have decided that the players deserve to have the season finished. In a way, this event is the continuation of the WSVG, although the ESL people dislike this way of seeing things. A perpetuation or not, the winners here at DreamHack will be the last World of Warcraft champions in 2007. Continued…
Rumor has it Mykhaylo “HoT” Novopashin will be leaving SK Gaming to join up with Gravitas Gaming in January.
The Ukrainian player will probably not pen a new deal with SK. The organization has three other world class Warcraft 3 players in June “Lyn” Park, Kim “ReMinD” Sung Sik and Lee “SoJu” Sung Duk. The fact that SoJu and ReMinD are Night Elf players would also make HoT a little less useful in the Warcraft 3 Champions League.
Teams like Mousesports and Four Kings are said to have expressed interest in HoT, but Wire has found out that the player wants to go to Gravitas Gaming. The team that has gathered some of the best Russian Warcraft 3 players, with plans for the team to live in one apartment. The Ukrainian would fit into that team very nicely.
HoT’s contract with SK Gaming expires with the end of December 2007.
SK Gaming are the new champions of the Warcraft 3 Champions League after defeating Meet Your Makers in last weekend’s LAN finals in Cologne. SK have waited ten long seasons for this victory.
It is surprising that despite having had superstars like Fredrik “MaDFroG” Johansson or Yoan “ToD” Merlo on the roster, SK hadn’t won a WC3L LAN finals before. The team won the second season of the competition, but it took place online entirely.
History was against SK, along with the fact that the twelfth season of the WC3L was arguably the toughest so far. But it was also one of the strongest lineups SK has ever seen and clearly the strongest one this season. Continued…
With the Warcraft 3 Champions League less than two weeks away, SK Gaming has presented an interview with manager Ko “Reis” Min-Sik as the first harbinger of the hype that awaits fans of RTS games.
Reis was the manager of World Elite, the winner of the previous WC3L season. Together with Korean players June “Lyn” Park, Kim ‘ReMinD’ Sung Sik and Lee “SoJu” Sung Duk, Reis left WE some time after the WC3L victory. The quartet is reunited at SK Gaming and with the team’s older players they are the number one favorite for the title.
The interview covers Reis’s rise as a manager, SK Gaming, the differences between SK and WE and between Asian and European Warcraft 3 players. Find it over here.
SK Gaming has won the Swedish Extreme Masters II qualifier for Counter-Strike 1.6 to regain supremacy at home for the first time in long months. They did this by demolishing Fnatic on de_nuke 16:5 (25:5). This result looks like it could be the beginning of a new, fascinating rivalry.
For a team only about a month old, the new SK Gaming lineup is doing very well. They finished second (behind Fnatic) at the Extreme Masters II invitational tournament in Los Angeles and won the Kode5 qualifier in Holland one week after that. This week, they won all their EM II qualifying games: against Playzone, Defining Stars and Fnatic. Continued…
Beijing eSports Team earned the status of a Warcraft 3 Champions League finalist after today’s victory over We are Go. This season in the WC3L will be dominated Asian players.
Today’s game was an all-Korean affair. With star players like Dae Hui “FoV” Cho, Chun “Sweet” Jung Hee, Hyung Ju “Check” Lee or Jang “WhO” Du Sub, BeT were the favorites. With Park Chul “Shy” Woo being their only star player, We are Go are a team of “the best Korean unknowns.” Continued…
SK Gaming’s Warcraft 3 team is the third team to qualify for the Warcraft 3 Champions League finals after today’s victory over Mousesports. They will be joining World Elite and Meet Your Makers at the finals in Cologne on November 17-18.
SK opened the game with a 2on2 win, when the ReMinD - SoJu duo beat SaSe and Fly100% with a 2-0 score. Lyn then defeated Yumiko without dropping a map.
Mouz had a glimmer of hope when HoT was tied with Fly100% and SoJu started out losing the first map to SaSe. The ESWC champion took two straight maps and made the overall score 3-0 in favor of SK.
The fourth participant of the WC3L LAN will be known tomorrow after the Beijing Esports Team plays We are Go for the last spot in the finals.
