InsiderEsports is releasing our CEVO-P Season 3 preview starting today until January 29th releasing our articles concerning the ten teams in this highly talented league. This series of articles is an effort made by several people including Ted “Sang” Ottey, Kyle “Hackett” Feeley and J-C "Seiko" Gaudet to show publicly what we think is important to know about the teams who are now playing two games a week for the ultimate prize pot. We will write about the teams’ achievements in 2008, the recent changes they have been through and what we expect from the team in the upcoming season.

Today, our first two teams are Team x3o and MoB Gaming, analyzed by Ted Ottey.

Team x3o:

 

 

 

Robert “Grim” Koster
Stephen "Mav" Groat
Robert “Sintax” Ryan
Preston “Juv3niLe” Dornon
Pierre-Luc "Luke" Soucy

You might be wondering why I have x3o as a team to watch this season.  If we rewind to last season, x3o only managed to finish 7th place overall with 6 wins, 6 loses, and 3 forfeit wins.  Not exactly a superstar performance.  The team’s mixed results and rollercoaster performances must have sent up red flares to x3o management, especially watching rivals Pandemic and EG continue to top the competition.  Fortunately, despite only having mediocre success last season, x3o decided to stick with the team and with a little help from off-season pickups, x3o now easily looks like a top 6 team in CEVO-P.

When I first found out that Sean “apo$tle” McGrath was taking a back seat I was originally a little worried.  McGrath was a very key part of x3o’s roster last season and always seemed to top the scoreboard when I checked.  Fortunately, x3o pulled the aces out of the deck this season with two excellent additions of Preston “juv3nile” Dornon and Robert “Sintax” Ryan to their starting roster.  Dornon spent a majority of last season playing for EG after Chris "ntt" Gillett left shortly after EG returned from Europe while Ryan played for a MoB Gaming team who shocked many people by eliminating EG from playoffs and narrowly losing to Pandemic in the grand finals. 

Combined with existing members, you now have a very talented team with a plethora of experience as well as potential.  Probably one of the biggest key factors to x3o’s success this season will be whether or not team captain Rob “grim” Koster holds on to the sniper or Dornon takes over.  Although EG originally picked up Dornon to fill a full time sniper position, he often seemed out of place with the rest of the team.  If Dornon takes a more permanent scoping role on x3o expect to see him blasting holes through their opponents for their Spec Ops to storm right through.  Combined with arguably one of the best assault rifles in North America, Ryan, you have a team ready to turn heads this season.  Hopefully, they put in serious practice time and live up to these expectations and maybe pull out a surprise run through the playoffs like the Giants of last year.   

MoB Gaming:

 

 

 

Andrew “theimpaler” Coons
Brett “Brett” Crick
Jesse “Nrv” Daly
Chris “-47-!” Maglio
Taylor “Taylor” Sheridan

Upon first glance, you might notice MoB Gaming looks quite different then the team that took second place last season behind Pandemic. Indeed, their former roster has since been divided amongst various other teams to make room for the majority of the We Aren’t Sponsored (WAS) roster of CEVO-Amateur last season.  This puts their roster looking something like, Andrew "theimpaler" Coons, Brett "brett" Crick, Jesse "Nrv" Daly, Chris "-47-!" Maglio, and Taylor "Taylor" Sheridan.  Quite the star-studded lineup indeed.

On paper MoB looks like a team destined to return to the grand finals, and indeed, they very well could.  As we saw last season with WAS, however, having the best team on paper isn’t enough as the team only managed to take 4th overall.  The real test for this team will come when they go head to head against teams such as Pandemic and other veteran Professional teams.  Despite having a very talented roster, you can’t overlook the fact a majority of this team spent last season playing against teams in the amateur division.

Will this handicap them?  I doubt it, but just like any team, MoB’s success will also be a measure of their dedication to practice and preparation for matches.  As we saw in the placement tournament, MoB had a difficult time against their sister MoBdeep team in the first round, where they lost 9-16.  From an observer’s perspective, it was quite clear MoBdeep had put in the extra practice time as their execution was more on-point then MoB Gaming and they were able to win important rounds and clutches when needed.  But don’t count MoB Gaming out of the picture just quite yet, as there is indeed still a full season still ahead.  Fortunately, MoB’s roster not only boasts a plethora of talent but also experience, and it is this experience that will make them very dangerous.