Nihilum Plasma wins WoW Arena Tournament

The celebrated team of Hafu, Glick, and Rhaegyn were outclassed, outmatched, and eventually upset in well-played mirror matches between two of the best WLD (Warrior, Warlock, Druid) teams in the world. Many observers noted that the intense pressure on the Druids exposed Hafu's weakness as she needed more peeling from her teammates than Wojo from Selective Queuers. This allowed Wojo's teammates to be more on the offensive and make easier target swaps throughout the match. Although Glick and Rhaegyn are arguably the best peelers in the game, being on the defensive for most of the matches resulted in the North American champions getting ousted from the tournament 3 matches to 2.
Their win over Fnatic Orz sent Selective Queuers Itsmecasper (aka Gumbot), Yogz, and Wojo up against Inflame, Carekoala, and Paperkat of Nihilum Plasma in the Grand Finals for a Europe vs. America showdown. Both teams played their expected comps of WLD but Selective Queuers had their work cut out for them as they needed to beat Nihilum in two series. Unfortunately, despite going up 2-0 with aggressive play, Nihilum found their groove and played flawlessly to win three matches in a row and take home $75,000, the biggest pot in the history of professional Arena competition.
In an exhibition match, the newly crowned Champions showed their dominance as they beat China's top team World Elite, who ran an RMP (Rogue, Mage, Priest) comp through three matches. In a bit of showmanship and flair, Nihilum toyed with World Elite using three different comps, including double warrior cleave. The Chinese team never posed a threat to the champions, owing perhaps to lack of professional gaming experience on the world stage. A later exhibition match will pit Nihilum against Blizzard employees.






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Blub Oct 11th 2008 6:05PM
yay, europe has the best playas xP
Bloodletter Oct 11th 2008 6:05PM
Lol, the schoolboys has r win...
^__^
shookone Oct 11th 2008 6:15PM
amazing play from nihilum, true masters of tbc arena.
its worth noting, the chinese team world elite couldnt get their regular mage a visa so they had to pick some random guy up. definitely a disappointing performance though, the rogue and the priest played poorly too. its tough to plug random players into rmp as its so much about coordination but that was very embarrassing.
Smurk Oct 11th 2008 9:49PM
Visa? Can't he teleport?
Xorg Oct 13th 2008 7:15AM
Masters of TBC is an over statement. If you were there you would have known that the last round was won only because of RNG or it would have been 3-2 SQ.
Nihilums druid was at 30% and resisted cyclone. If it landed it would have been followed by a DC, fear, stun, spell lock and death. However, even if SQ won the first set I'm not sure if they would have won the second as Nihilum adapted very quickly and SQ was quick to counter on the final round. Pretty upsetting to see RNG effect a finals match.
Ontop of all that it's sad to see 5 of the 8 teams use the same WLD setup. Goes to show how unprofessional and balanced Arena is. Hopefully 3.0 will change things up.
Wojo is beast.
- Xorg
Darnodus Oct 11th 2008 6:16PM
I don't care about Nihilium or the Arena's, but we kicked your ass on your ground, U.S. ^^
Darnodus Oct 11th 2008 6:17PM
Ok that sounded abit meaner then I wanted it to sound >_>
/hug
Better naow? :
Malkeior Oct 11th 2008 9:10PM
No Blessings for joo!
Raya Oct 13th 2008 7:38PM
How did "you" kick our ass? All I see is one team beating another. Hardly a representation of one country being better than another =P Besides Europe has how many countries? and US how many? =P
Galaxiaceles Oct 11th 2008 6:18PM
Chinese team .... I don't even know why they bothered. Overall, good show.
"I hear Chinese people are good at videogames" by that dude
I think I just fell off my chair ....
Name: Oct 11th 2008 6:27PM
The 2 kids on the left look like 10-27 year olds....
Name: Oct 11th 2008 6:29PM
My bad I meant 10-12 year olds....
Garlton Oct 11th 2008 6:38PM
They are "officially" 18 according to their team.
LOwumpatu? Oct 11th 2008 6:36PM
Nihilums is truly awsome, they are the king of arena.
The kings of fail inc.
Our new underlord , their victory shall be told by those few that like.
Dightkuz Oct 11th 2008 6:44PM
Arent the top10 arena teams in the world pretty much all chinese? Nihilum only won it officially.
shookone Oct 11th 2008 7:47PM
its impossible to tell really and 3.0 will probably come before the top teams ever meet. the communities are very much separate.
Marc Oct 11th 2008 7:00PM
I watched the arena live streams and it was so boring I went back to the RTS stream. Was it the camera angles or is watching it (as opposed to playing) just dull?
Cow Oct 11th 2008 7:01PM
Who cares?
Karl Oct 11th 2008 7:42PM
You, apparently?
AS Oct 11th 2008 7:56PM
I don't. But it's funny to watch some of these comments :P