From August 20-24th 2008 our Counter-Strike 1.6, World of WarCraft and FIFA teams will be attending the annual video game event Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany.

Fnatic.CS will be competing in two tournaments. The first tournament, although not featuring the entire Fnatic.CS roster, is the ESL ENC 2008 Grand Final in which cArn, dsn and f0rest will be representing Sweden alongside allen and Tentpole from SK Gaming.

The second tournament is the KODE5 CM Storm 2008 Invitational which was introduced to us by KODE5 earlier in July. Fnatic, mTw, Team Alternate and TBH.eSports have been invited to the exclusive tournament where each team will play to one match see if they reach the Grand Final.

Fnatic.WoW on the other hand will be participating in the Global Challenge Leipzig tournament amongst 16 other teams from across the globe hosted by ESL to determine who will claim a share the $30,000 and earn two Extreme Masters Season III slots for their continent.

Our FIFA team will also have its debut since joining up with us on Monday after departing from Meet Your Makers. The team will be playing in the ESL ENC 2008 tournament for Romania and will be looking to get their first title under the Fnatic Team colours.

Time	Game	Team	Result	Opponent	Map	Stage	Date
Finished		Sweden	[16:08]	Denmark	de_nuke	Upper Finals	21/08/08
17:00 CET		Romania	[xx:xx]	Poland	N/A	Semi-Finals	22/08/08
17:00 CET		Fnatic.WoW	[xx:xx]	aAa Agita	N/A	Group Stage	22/08/08

CallofDuty.se writer Patrik "deffan" Averin has made a moneylist for Call of Duty 4. On the 6th place we find fnatic with €7,850.

The list is based on 17 LAN events, including the CGS LAN and CDC4, where fnatic took the first place, i33, i34, Antwerp eSports Festival and The-eXperience. Travelcosts and hardware prizes are excluded from the list, and as many events as possible have been added - also smaller local events.

Here's an explanation of the system by Averin:

You might notice that some teams have two names, this is because the team have won under two different names. I have counted teams that have changed if three or more players have moved over to the new team. The money have also been rounded off up or down to closest 50 euro. This because after recounting from dollar or any other currency the euro amount might have ended on 310 and so on, that one have been rounded off to 300.

The new team captain of Fnatic.CoD4, Daniel 'Tidde' Asp, has got out a pencil and a bit of paper to blog about the teams experiences this summer. The blog, which can be found here, gives a rundown of all three events the team attended this summer including information about after Lan parties.

Including pictures, funny anecdotes the blog gives an insight into the mind of the new captain as well as what it was like effectively touring Europe for three weeks.

Here is a short extract:

Especielly TosspoT singing the rob-wiz song an entire night dancing to YMCA together with Joe, brokn and some other guys in Belgium. Anyways, lets start from the beginning. :)

• "Tidde and AEF, TEX and i34."

At the beginning of July we announced that we had partnered with Steelseries. The Fnatic stars have been using Steelseries products over the last couple of months but now its your turn!

We are re-launching the Fnatic shop, complete with a huge range of Steelseries products so that you can get your hands on the gear that the Fnatic stars use.

In the shop you will find a full range of Steelseries headsets, including the funky Siberia Neckband for only €80!


For great deals on Steelseries gear, head over to the Fnatic shop NOW! for the great discounts!

Last week we announced the departure of Martin "mintR" Rojder and Rickard "zEm" Intveld from the Fnatic Call of Duty 4 team. This week we bring great news from Call of Duty 4 as we announce our two new replacements in the team!

The first addition is a player that fans of Fnatic COD4 will be familiar with - Mikael "zsilts" Smedberg! zsilts was part of the team that won CDC4 back in March and then left the team a while after i33. He has decided to come back into COD4 with Fnatic and will leave the team with three formidable SMG players alongside tidde and LINQAN.

The second addition to the team is another familiar name to Call of Duty fans. He was a part of EYEBALLERS before the team joined the Fnatic family and was in the team alongside zsilts and odyxz that took the gold at Wonderbase in Call of Duty 2. We are pleased to announce that Robin "rivve" Holmen will be joining up with Fnatic COD4 to complete our new look team.

Fnatic Call of Duty 4 :

• Daniel "tidde" Asp
  

• Johan "LINQAN" Lindqvist
  

• Marcus "odyxz" Nilsson
  

• Robin "rivve" Holmen
  

• Mikael "zsilts" Smedberg
  

Today the Fnatic DOTA team will also welcome a new face! After former team mate Jefri "stamx" Suwiryo decided to retire from gaming, it left a hole in the team that needed to be filled. It is with great pleasure that we welcome Jeffry "Neo" Lu to Fnatic as the final member of our new DOTA team. Neo played with Fnatic DOTA early on in the teams foundation and returns to make his mark on the game.

Fnatic DOTA :

• Ritter "Ritter" Rusli
  

• Romi "melen" Gunawan
  

• Ariyanto "Lakuci" Sony
  

• Sugiarto "BaHaMuT" Cahyadi
  

• Jeffry "Neo" Lu
  

To read statements from Fnatic COD4 and a mini interview with Neo, goto the next pages

Tonight the Fnatic DotA squad is continuing their fight in the Asia DotA Championship season 2 going against mKvL from Malaysia. Last season they came out in first place and are hoping to secure the title! The match is going on right now and you can watch it on GGTV live!

The Asia DotA Championship is like the online version of the Asian World Cyber Games and it his hosted by Garena. Many Asian teams battle for the chance to represent their country in this prestigious online tournament.

Last year fnatic DotA represented Indonesia proudly, winning first place and crowned the best team in Asia! It's time for them to secure their title and win it again!

mKvL is one of Malaysia's most popular DotA teams next to KingSurf. They have been around for a long time now and can be found in almost every Asian competition.

Game 2 has been postponed.

For more match information, click "Full Story."

Just a few more days before our World of Warcraft team flies to Germany to compete at the Games Convention. They also have been scorching the 3v3 Arena Rankings made by SK. Their practice over the last few weeks has been really impressive and thus earned them the top spot on the rankings.

Competing on the Bloodlust battlegroup on the Tichondrius realm, fnatic has been using the Warrior (Rhaegyn), Druid (Hafu) & Warlock (glick) combination to great effect.

• 1st - fnatic.WOW (2459 Rating)
  

• 2nd - We all love Sanna (2412 Rating)
  

• 3rd - SellDismal (2372 Rating)
  

• 4th - AJOlympics II (2363 Rating)
  

• 5th - Nos vemos jejejejeje (2357 Rating)
  

• Complete Rankings

The G7 Teams today announces the release of its official open ranking system, beginning with the first game Counter-Strike 1.6.

The G7 Teams strives to improve professionalism and transparency in all areas within Electronic Esports and previously has announced initiatives such as the standardized G7 player contract, prize money dispute system and now the official release of the first version of the Counter-Strike 1.6 ranking system.

The G7 Teams strongly believes that to improve transparency, and reward the achievements of teams and players a balanced ranking system is needed. This will enable the comparison, improved reporting and measurement of the world’s Esports teams and players.

With this new ranking, organizations will be able to:

• Know exactly where to place in a tournament to retain their current positions
  

• The ability to predict possible outcomes of a tournament
  

• Create more accurate seeds
  

• Know which events are the most competitive and therefore more valuable

On Thursday we announced a new addition to the Fnatic academy - DotA. Today we are pleased to launch another expansion to the academy - FIFA!

The new Fnatic FIFA team will be made up of the ex Meet Your Makers squad that includes players such as World Cyber Games silver medalist Delfin-1 and the-Experience 2nd place finisher AleX!

The team won the last season of the ESL Major Series and will start their group stage of season III in the upcoming weeks.

Romanian FIFA star Aron AleX Alexandru will also be travelling to Leipzig, Germany this week to represent his country in the finals of the ESL European Nations Championships

The new Fnatic FIFA lineup can be seen on the next page of this article, followed by the teams achievements and statements from the Fnatic FIFA team and management!

Tonight Fnatic will go head-to-head against Lag-blank in the Lower Bracket Final of the Swedish Extreme Masters Season III Qualifier in order to qualify for the Main Round.

Last week Fnatic lost to SK Gaming two games to none in the Upper Bracket Final on de_tuscan and rather surprisingly de_train, despite it being Fnatic's strongest map.

Now the Swede's are in the Lower Bracket Final against Lag-blank, who triumphed over 0E1F23 (now EvilZone) in a tight affair which saw Blank taking the last map 16-14.

Fnatic need to win this map not just to reach the Grand Final of the entire qualifer but to earn a spot in the Main Round so there is no doubt in mind that both teams will pull out all the stocks.

However, should our boys lose, they still have a chance to play in the third season of the Extreme Masters through offline tournaments or direct invitation.

UPDATE: Fnatic beat Lag-blank 2-1 and progress to the Grand Final against SK Gaming.