TEK9's European Top 10 - July - The panel

Graham "messioso" Pitt

Graham has been around the Call of Duty scene since it's very birth. He first began making progress in the scene as a ClanBase supervisor back in 2006 and has since worked for the CGS, ESEA, ESH and mainly the ESL, where he has run the UK ESL Pro Series, as well as working on the ENC and EMS in recent months.

He has since joined the Cadred team to provide even more coverage of CoD4 online and offline and to provide continued support for the community.

"Power Gaming get the top vote for me after winning AEF, a well deserved victory, you can say what you want about the bracket, they beat everything put in front of them. H2k get number two after another great event for them, beating Reason, SPEEDLINK and Fnatic to get 2nd at AEF says enough. Fnatic take 3rd after a 2nd at Gamersject and 3rd at AEF, showing they are still up there, but they are clearly no longer untouchable. Dignitas take 4th after a great win for them at Gamersject, although their AEF wasn't quite what they hoped for.

Choosing between the rest became tough. SPEEDLINK, Rage (NL), Reason, PGS and Mondial Servers all had their merits to take these spots. TCM took 10th spot. "

Thomas "Deci" Valadou

Deci is an editor for the popular French website Team-aAa.com. At 18 years of age, Deci is currently a student energy and environmental engineering in France and has been with the site since September 2008.

He provides the French community with extensive LAN coverage, amongst others at the Antwerp Esports Festival.

"For me it's my first top ten. With the Antwerp Esports Festival coming to an end, it is definately the right time for a top 10. Power Gaming is my number one and after winning the AEF (the biggest event in COD4), they earn top spot. Right behind them is H2k: with a second place in Antwerp, the Swedish guys deserved to be number one after beating Reason, SPEEDLINK and Fnatic, but a loss against Power Gaming decided otherwise. Fnatic is my number three. A second place at Gamersject and third at AEF suggest that the summer lans are not a huge success for Fnatic.

In the middle, I've placed Dignitas, RAGE, Reason, SPEED-LINK and MondialServers, in that order. Dignitas won the Gamersject LAN with victories over TCM and Fnatic, while RAGE had two good lans, top 3 and 4 at respectively Gamersject and AEF, and move up to the fifth spot. Reason didn't impress at AEF: a draw versus Infused, 13-11 against eSuba and a loss versus H2k (4-12, 17-19). However, I believe they can beat any team, if they want to. SPEEDLINK and MondialServers are two teams with a lot of potential. Trigger arrived two weeks before the AEF event, similar to the situation of DRANRRR at MondialServers. Both of them still finished top 5-8, which is a good result with possibly little preparation.

Finally, TCM and Imperial complete my top 10 for July. TCM remain in my top ten with a fourth place finish in Split and a 9-16th finish at AEF. For Imperial, they didn't perform great at AEF, but it is a young line up and they can a be challenger in the future."

Bob "Bcrbo" van de Voorde

Bob has been writing about the Call of Duty scene for about 4 years now and even enjoyed a brief stint at the top of Call of Duty 2 with his German team.

After Call of Duty 4’s release he started to focus more and more on the journalist side of things and was in charge of running the LowLandLions website until a few months ago, after which he made the move over to Cadred.org.

He currently writes for the TEK9 website and covered the Antwerp Esports Festival 2010 extensively.

"Fnatic’s lack of practice did not give them the win for once and they had to be content with a third place finish, even though there was a seriously one-sided bracket featuring four out of the top six teams. Their first bracket loss at a major tournament will cost them some spots, but I am sure that by next event they will be back and trying to reclaim their first spot.

H2k Gaming end up higher on my list than Power Gaming, not because I find Power Gaming did not deserve the AEF win, not at all. Just because I feel that, if both teams had met in pristine conditions, for example on the next day with just that Grand Final to be played, I would have predicted a win in favour of H2k Gaming. Power Gaming did nothing wrong, though, they took good advantage of the bracket and had arguably easier match-ups until that Final and then played their best to claim a win. H2k Gaming have just proven they have progressed more quickly in the course of the last months and that is why I am giving them this first spot, but things could rapidly change by the next event.

Team-Dignitas had a catastrophic first day due to a bad night of sleep and were lucky to advance into the play-offs. Once they reached those, they did seem to play a lot better and were looking to perhaps upset Fnatic early on and redeem their group stage performance. They showed that if all players are on form, they can hang with the best, but they need more time to create more stable team performances, because right now they are relying heavily on robyYE and reflexzR doing really well to carry them over most teams.

Reason Gaming are dropping quite a few places, because they were not doing well at all. Several of their players were looking out-of-shape and even though D1ablo tried to motivate them in his own way during those do-or-die matches, the team seemed lacklustre and not eager to go very far, especially SoCLoN and duffeR will need to step up their game by the coming events, should Reason Gaming wish to become a guaranteed top 3 team in Europe again. SPEED-LINK, on the other hand, have improved a lot and were looking sharp throughout the tournament. Had they have been placed in the easier bracket, they might have secured themselves a top 4 placement at the event, but they unfortunately hit an on-form H2k Gaming and had to go out early. Especially DUFFY should receive quite a lot of praise for his starling performances in all of the German team’s matches and should they get Trigger to reach his best form as well, they can finally think about taking on the top three of Call of Duty 4. Important for this team is that they stick together now and avoid changes for the coming weeks, growing more teamplay and better cohesion by the coming events.

After these teams, I think there are quite a few teams that could challenge for a spot in this top 10 and it basically comes down to personal preference and who you felt was playing more on-form than the others, so I picked a couple of teams that I feel have done well and are still able to become better, should they keep training and critically analyze their mistakes.

Joshua "twrs" Towers

As a former Team Infused Call of Duty 4 player, Josh knows the scene from top to bottom. After playing at high level for some time, twrs started writing for TEK9 and was one of the managers of Team Infused.

He currently works for Fnatic as a CoD4 journalist.

"Heading my rankings will be FnaticMSI, simply because no one can contest their consistency throughout the past number of LAN events which they have won. In my eyes Gamersject cannot seriously be taken into consideration however in the knowledge that all the teams in attendance had to play under the same abysmal conditions, both Dignitas and RAGE Gaming have benefitted from their first and third placements in Croatia respectively, and received 5 and 7.

Back to the top of the rankings and Power Gaming are without a shadow of a doubt my second place team. Due to whatever reasons they did find themselves in the easier side of the tournament bracket at AEF, lacking a main contender such as Dignitas. At the end of the day however they would have to beat everyone to take the gold, and that they certainly did while in Antwerp; followed closely by H2K – who have claimed the third on my rankings.

4 to 7 on my list, in my eyes, are up in the air with either able to overtake one another. Reason Gaming with nreo are certainly a team to be reckoned with and showed this versus the Swedes of H2k in round 2 of AEF taking them to one of the best matches of the tournament on Crossfire. Dignitas have slowly but surely been improving with Blackmane and whichever event is next (TEX10?) I believe we could see a top3 finish from the side, as long as they don’t implode in the meantime. SPEED-LINK and Rage NL (6 and 7) are both showing their prowess and if they continue to improve could easily place higher next month and there after.

The final 3 positions in my rankings are consumed by TCM-Gaming, zeroPoint and Imperial Esports respectively. TCM haven’t impressed me as much as I hoped when attending AEF and the same can be said for zeroPoint, yet both are heavy contenders in the European scene and will bounce back. Finally Imperial Esports were the team who felt the full wrath of the BO1 in the first round of playoffs, and unfortunately found themselves an early ticket home – I believe we could have seen a lot more given the opportunity baring in mind their Vita Nova results and hopefully with the re-addition of VAE.

The notable mentions outside of my top 10 include RAGE (RU), PGS Gaming, MondialServers and AIRBORNE Gaming – I hope to see much more from them soon.

Camiel "jetset"

Jetset, a 23 year old Dutch student currently in his final year of his bachelor studies, has been part of one of the biggest CoD portals since early 2005.

He is the current director of content for TEK9.

"It’s very hard to rate the top 3, as I believe that things could go either way whenever those teams meet, but in the end Power Gaming top my list following their victory at the Antwerp Esports Festival, followed by fnatic and H2k. Both could however easily place first in next in my list in the coming months.

Team Dignitas is a clear 4th, followed by Reason Gaming, who, despite their somewhat unimpressive finish at AEF, I rate quite highly and feel they were a bit unlucky with their playoff draw. SPEEDLINK remains at six in my list, while the Dutch Rage Gaming, PGS and MondialServers enter my ranking on the places seven, eight and ten.