The lesser known American team, who came over and stunned Europe. Considered by many to be vastly inferior to their North American rivals, Team EG, few had expected the meteoric rise of Pandemic. Their Gun Ho attitude and all out dominance at AEF left the world in shock. Not one team could stand in their way in Antwerp - no one seemed to be capable of matching the yank usurpers.

When TeX came round the corner, the American team had seemingly lost none of their luster, breezing through the earlier group stages and bracket rounds; seemingly a safe bet to win again. But once they faced surprise benelux package, LowLandLions, their utopia came crashing down. Bowing out of TeX loosing firstly 13-2 to L3 and then 13-7 to EG in the Consolation final.

Pandemic on stage at AEF (picture courtesy of Tek9)

I managed to catch up with team captain, Nabore, for an interview:

Coming into AEF very few expected Pandemic to win, what do you think was the secret to your shock success?

Playing as underdogs never felt better to be quite honest. I've entered events on both sides of the fence now and I can seriously say that there is definitely a different mentality that goes into each match. It almost feels like the opposite of being nervous, kind of like a focused aggression. You want it so bad that nothing can stop you, and that's really what happened.

Despite your success at AEF you failed to replicate it at TeX, what went wrong?

We basically hit a brick wall at the upper bracket finals. We were coasting through the event just like AEF and we ran into LowLandLions, a team that was just as hungry for a title as we were. The only difference here is that we ran into a style that to us seemed unbeatable in 15 rounds. We knew going into these events that we would encounter things we never seen before, slow and fast paced strats that would throw us off our game, but nothing to this scale. We literally walked into what most would consider a nemesis to our style, and that's natural, considering the amount of teams at these events and how much unknown there was to our team. I think alot of it has to do with luck of map choice versus teams you aren't familiar with, but those mistakes should never be a reason a team didn't win a title.

North America dominated the two events which have past, would you say that the North American play style and just North American teams are better than those in Europe?

I feel that in America, there are better players on fewer teams at the current time. I think that there are a ton of individually talented Europeans spread out among different clubs. If they somehow combined alot of their top talent, like North America does, they will be just as good, but they will be plagued by our problem of short listed teams I think our playstyle reflects these individual abilities well and allows players to showcase their skills when it counts. Of course we have our share of set strategies that makes us dynamic, but alot of the matches that were won at AEF and TEX can be chalked up to a ton of experience and skill.

After seeing the competition at AEF and TeX who do you think will win i34?

I think that EG is coming off a big win at TEX and they are going to be the team to beat. LowLandLions are also an incredible bunch of guys looking for that title that they tasted at TEX. These two teams will meet again in a finals match and EG will come out on top I feel. They know what LLL is about and I think that when a team adapts as well as EG does, it's very difficult to beat them, especially when you've showed them your best cards.

In your opinion, who are the best CoD4 team and best CoD4 players in the world?

haha I can't answer that question because I think that cod4 is too random of a game to label one team at one time a powerhouse. As for players you hear the announcers mention all the time players that are in the spotlights for each team. But sometimes even these players encounter bad games and pass the torch to another member of their club to carry them. That's the beauty of gaming and that one of the reasons I continue to compete at this level.

Where do Pandemic go from here? You've come over to europe and dominated one lan, will we be seeing you back any time soon?

Definitely. We plan on attending any major LAN from here on out. Our sponsors in Dell University, Plantronics, and Razer work wonders for us and give us the support we need to travel. We now truley understand what competing abroad is like and we embrace the challenges it puts on us.