The first week of the NASL Team League was pretty disappointing for the “home” teams. American fans will be hoping their teams can pick it up this week as all three go head to head with rivals from across the various seas.

The opening week in the NASL Team League was not kind to our friends across the pond. Quantic Gaming were schooled by Team Liquid 3-1 and I feel this could become a familiar sight by the end of the season. With the matches not operating in an “all-kill” style Quantic’s top heavy roster may struggle to keep up with the pack. Naniwa and Sase will not be able to carry the squad to victory alone and this could definitely be their undoing. However, Evil Geniuses managed to prove last week that even a roster filled with big names is no guarantee of victory. Even fielding Puma, JYP and DeMusliM, EG were unable to beat the Eastern European force from Empire. This is testimony to Empire’s strength and they really do seem like one to watch this season.

All matches will be broadcast at 02:00 GMT, with a re-broadcast 18:00GMT from the NASL website Full details of the schedule can also be found there.

Week II's Games

This week sees two must watch games. The opening game, Mouz vs Team Liquid rehashes the rivalry that developed from Team Liquid’s controversial 2011 awards. Mouz were notably absent and the fans were vocal about it. Last week against RoX.KIS, Thorzain, MaNa and biGs were unstoppable and swept the game 3-0 but TL will be a harder test. Hero may have disappointed in Kiev but skill can’t be doubted. The same could be said of fellow Korean Zenio who only made it to 4th place in Kiev. Ret, Jinro and Sheth give Liquid’s roster good strength in depth with only a few glaring weaknesses like the out of shape Tyler and TLO, so it’s likely we’ll be able to see a close to full strength performance. My gut says Mouz will take this one but it could go down to the wire.

The second must watch this week is Evil Geniuses against FXO. EG were a disappointment last week but fans should note that IdrA and Huk were not fielded, both players declining to compete cross server. However FXO is an almost exclusively Korean team so this week all of the EG big guns should be out on show and that is a mouth-watering prospect. FXO have also proved they aren’t taking this team league lightly, having sent out 4 Code S players in last week’s game against Reign (props to Reign for keeping it so close btw). I can’t call this either way but I’m going to anyway: FXO wins 3-1, IdrA rages and JYP loses to a Terran yet again.

Clan Details	Played	Wins	Losses	For	Against	POINTS
Empire	2	2	0	6	1	+5
FXO	2	2	0	6	3	+3
Liquid	2	2	0	6	3	+3
Mouz	2	1	1	5	3	+2
Team Reign	1	1	1	5	4	+1
Evil Geniuses	2	0	2	2	6	-4
Quantic	2	0	2	1	6	-5
RoX.KIS	2	0	2	1	6	-5