Last week, we published our article on the teams of group A of the groupstage at the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship. This week we bring you group B, which features one of the most intense groups we’ve seen in a League of Legends Tournament.

Interested in watching the action in person? Check out the ESL’s event landing page for information for travel options and free tickets.

Team SoloMid

Roster:
  • ReginaId – Ability Power Carry
  • TheOddOne – Jungler
  • Chaox – Attack Damage Carry
  • Xpecial – Support
  • The Rain Man – Bruisers
While their performance at IntelEM Kiev was impressive, Team SoloMid has had some issues performing up to their own expectations in online events. Losing the semi-finals during the LoLpro.com invitational to Counter Logic Gaming and then losing in the IPL Killing Spree to Monomatic eSports, it’s unknown how the team will perform at Hannover. However, as they are the most seasoned team in their group, and have performed extremely well at their last two live appearances. Betting against them in the group stage seems unwise.

SK Gaming

Roster:
  • Ocelote – Ability Power Carry
  • Dedrayon – Jungler
  • Kevin – Bruisers
  • Nyph – Support
  • Candy Panda – Attack Damage Carry
SK Gaming comes to Hannover with a new jungler, the Polish player Dedrayon. In the many online tournaments since IntelEM Kiev, SK hasn’t yet had a stand out performance, but they’ve been placing consistently higher than before. We’ll see how SK’s newest player handles the intense pressure that comes with a live Challenger Circuit event.

Moscow Five

Roster:
  • Alex Ich – Ability Power Carry
  • Diamondprox – Jungler
  • Darien – Bruisers
  • Gosu Pepper – Support
  • Genja – Attack Damage Carry
A month ago, Moscow Five seemed absolutely unbeatable, but things change quickly in the League of Legends competitive scene. While still a threat in every tournament they enter, getting knocked out of the IPL 4 qualifier by relatively unknown and inexperienced team Monomatic eSports showed there’s a chink in the dragons armor. Even so, Moscow Five looks to be the strongest contender in the group and definitely a favorite to win the tournament.

Sypher:

Roster:
  • Skyyart – Bruisers/Ability Power Carry
  • Moopz – Ability Power Carry
  • Pyri – Support
  • Lounet – Attack Damage Carry
  • ShLaYa – Jungler
Sypher has not backed down since their 0-3 loss during the groupstage at IntelEM Kiev: the French team has been performing well during recent prized events online. Many of the North American teams in this group have been defeated by Sypher in the past. There’s no telling how high Sypher will place if they make it out of this very challenging group.

Curse:

Roster:
  • Nyjacky – Ability Power Carry
  • Crumbz – Jungler/Bruisers
  • SYDTKO – Bruisers/Ability Power Carry/Jungler
  • Elementz – Support
  • Cop – Attack Damage Carry
Curse is a difficult team to evaluate: while they consistently perform well at online events, they are unable to bring one of their star players, Pobelter, to live events. Pobelter’s replacement, SYDTKO, is an extremely versatile player but has often been thrown into roles at the last minute. With Curse’s line up known well in advance of Hanover, we’ll see how that additional prep time will affect their tournament performance.

EHOME

Roster:
  • Max – Ability Power Carry/Bruisers
  • Taburisswu – Jungler
  • Pdd – Bruisers/Ability Power Carry
  • Lucky – Support
  • TS – Attack Damage Carry
The IntelEM World Championship will be the second time EHOME has competed live on an international stage, the first being IntelEM Guangzhou. Like the other Chinese team World Elite, EHOME actively plays on the North American ladder, and currently ranks in the top 15. While EHOME faces a tough bracket, they’ve defeated SK before and have the advantage of a relatively unknown play style against their opponents.

There’s no doubt that the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship will feature the most intense competition we’ve seen yet. Check back later this week when we announce our event site featuring the live stream, VODs, match recaps, and more.