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

This is the sixth 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)
Part 5 (Dynasty, Backdraft, AGENT)

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!

Sure Shot - formerly iDemise (as of 1/7/09):

• Larry "lars" Li
• Ryan "zygga" Zygmont
• Tony "yNoT" Phaimany
• Chris "busE" Buseman
• Mikhail "mik" Khokhlov

The team formerly part of the iDemise organization is now part of the Sure Shot organization. The team was replaced by the Counter-Strike team from makeSHIFT (which is obviously now iDemise). At the time of this posting, the team was in the CAL-Main Finals and ESEA League Playoffs, as well as competing in upcoming season CEVO-Main. The team is fairly new as a whole however each member has a lot of individual LAN experience. The Winter Classic will be a definite chemistry and experience builder for them. The team also recently finished 4th at the CyGamZ Fall Brawl LAN in Michigan with everyone on the roster besides Khokhlov (mik).

ATP (as of 1/7/09):

• Diego "eggo" Velazco
• George "krb" Gonzalez
• Andrew "brun" Levy
• TBD
• TBD

To the community, ATP can be considered a random pug attending the Winter Classic, however they consider themselves a local team. Composed of many known players, they all come from different teams, but the fact of the matter is that they practice just like any other team and have played together before, developing the chemistry that teams need in order to win. Costoso (projeckt) has played for interPlay.zoi also known as FocaL who was in CEVO-Professional last season. Gonzalez (krb) is currently playing with BombSquad, who currently has a spot in the upcoming CEVO-Professional season in addition to being one of the four teams left in ESEA League's Playoffs (currently in its Semi-Finals stage). In addition, Levy (brun), Gonzalez (krb), and Costoso (projeckt) played together at the 2008 Dust-Off Championships Finals and ended up placing 8-12th. With Velazco (eggo) being one of those old school players with a ton of experience behind him, this team should be expected to do very well during group stage and in turn advance to bracket play.

TFM (as of 1/7/09):

• Matt "phal" Krahling
• Mike "aiMFree" Furey
• John "Arv" Kim
• Anthony "Liang" Liang
• Alessandro "Luigi" Musto

This team has recently reawakened after a rather long break so it will be interesting to see how this team will perform with their inactivity. Nevertheless, the team has an extensive history as a team placing top five at various local LAN events. Most can say this team was made for LAN since the only league they participated was CEVO-Main, where they placed 4th. Some of them then went to play on for Ka4, playing in CEVO-Semi-Professional and CAL-Invite. They will be attending their very first X3O LAN event, also making it their first LAN tournament coming off their break.

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