Article by: Chris "confire" Luong and Andrew "Conflict" Nguyen

This is the fifth part of X3O's Winter Classic 2008's "Who is Who", if you missed the earlier editions, you can check them out below:

Part 1 (X3O)
Part 2 (Gravitas, LOOK, deadendtheory)
Part 3 (FD, Drift, Southern Aggression)
Part 4 (makeSHIFT, PAY, Initial)

With a lot of newer, up and coming teams attending, we at X3O-Gaming.com thought that they deserved some spotlight. Normally when someone starts to watch a tournament from the comfort of their home online, they focus on the main three or four teams that they know. X3O-Gaming.com wants to make it easier for you at our Gaming Center's debut event of 2009. We are going to start giving you, the fans an overall summary on the teams that will be attending. We will be adding to this list as time goes on, so stay tuned to learn about all the teams that will be attending the first ever X3O Winter Classic.

Click HERE to view the event page of X3O's Winter Classic 2008. The team list is HERE!

Dynasty Gaming (as of 1/27/09):

• Christopher "projeckt" Costoso
• Don "b33f" Frain
• Jason "jstone" Caposello
• Demir "wrd" Decevic
• Clive "TheProblem" Banarsee

This is another one of the top amateur teams of North America. The team was formerly known as j1n before being picked up by Dynasty Gaming. The team is one of the lesser known teams that are a part of SteelSeries' Hall of Kings. Dynasty has also been part of CEVO for the past few seasons with a 1st and 3rd placing in CEVO-Main in season 7 and 8, respectively. Due to their top placings they received a bid to be part of the league's 9th season of CEVO-Professional. The team didn't fair as well as they did in CEVO-Main and ended up placing 8th. In turn they are now part of CEVO's Season 10 Professional Placement Tournament and as of this posting at a 0-2-0 record in Group A. The Winter Classic will be the team's first LAN event as a team however this team consists of some veteran players so expect some great play from them. The team recently lost their 5th, Liridon "quas" Ademaj to Frag Dominant however he was replaced with Costoco (projeckt). Having a quick chat with Banarsee (TheProblem), he gave me a one sentence summary regarding his team heading into the Winter Classic: "After the roster shake-ups, we're going to be going to LAN as underdogs and see what happens," it looks like they'll definitely be one of the teams to pay attention to.

*In addition to an updated roster (as of 1/27/09), the preview has been expanded.

Backdraft (as of 1/2/09):

• Justin "Justi" Regan
• Jimmy "p1mp" Pierce
• Ben "smelley" Smelley
• Justin "ArchoN" Passmore
• Troy "twoy" Nixon

We have seen a few teams reforming and preparing for the Winter Classic, one of them being this team. A couple of years ago, there wasn’t a LAN tournament on the East Coast where this team was not in attendence. They have also played online, climbing up the ranks from CAL-Open to CAL-Main. They participated in the GGL AmeriCup where their most notable match was against the infamous Rival team where they put up a fight, losing 11-16. After their successful run, they went on with their lives with Smelley (smelley) playing for CaribOne at one point. Now they are back for the Winter Classic with the same lineup they used for all their past LAN events. With great chemistry and teamwork from their past, they should be able to put up a fight, making their matches exciting to watch.

AGENT (as of 1/2/09):

• Ryan "ervaNz" Evans
• Josh "Drake" Blier
• Ian "isp" Pankoke
• Faisal "FAM" Malik
• Andrew "Wigg" Resnick

This roster coming to the Winter Classic differs from the roster that the team that has established for many seasons. In actuality, this may be considered more as a pug than an established team with two ringers. Nevertheless, Evans (ervaNz) has done a great job so far with his team, playing in CAL-Main for three seasons already with players like Blier (Drake), who previously played for n2p, and Pankoke (isp), a heavy fragger with some nasty aim. The actual team finished off CAL-Main with an impressive record of 14-7, losing in the playoffs to snailtrail. All of these players have been to LAN events before, but this will be their first major LAN event together, meaning this will be their first real test as a team. And off the record, this will be the first time people can see how Evans (ervaNs) and Pankoke (isp) really play on LAN since most players consider them "online".

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As always, stay tuned here at X3O-Gaming.com for the latest Team X3O news, coverage and more!