The National Gaming League finals between Fires of Judaism and Et Cetera will kick off this Sunday, May 31st at 10:30pm EST / 3:30am GMT.  Here are the rosters for both teams:

Fires of Judaism: DaHang, id, mik3d, perfuse, slasher, cpy, clampOK

Et Cetera: xfire, cdogg, jones, shizem, viju, wn

As you can see both teams have rock solid, deep, rosters with a wealth of Quake and Capture The Flag experience.  Not only are both teams mainly comprised of veteran players many of them have also played together on various teams for a number of years.  Mik3d, ClampOK and DaHang were all members of the highly successful American Quake 4 TDM and CTF team Blackdragons.

In early 2006 the Blackdragons, with clampOK and mik3d both on the roster, finished 3rd place in the Global Gaming League TransAtlantic Showdown ending the day with $3750 (USD).  With the addition of DaHang the Blackdragons secured first place in both the Cyber Athlete Amateur League TDM championship and the GGL Q4 CTF mini-cup later in the year so the FoJ squad has a number of players who have been playing together for quite some time and have proven to perform well under pressure.  This solid backbone combined with the id's seemingly unstoppable flag runs and the consistent play from perfuse, cpy and slasher has done the Fires of Judaism squad well so far in the tourney and may carry them to victory on Sunday.  Notably missing from the FoJ roster is icel0re who dropped from the team earlier in the week for unknown reasons but speculation suggests disagreements between DaHang and himself as having been the issue.

Update: Issues with Icel0re were apparently sponsorship problems as well as conflicts within the team.

Team Et Cetera brings a resume that is equally impressive with successful CTF and TDM players from Quake 3 and 4 on their roster.  Viju is a Quake 3 legend having played with cloud9 capturing five first place CTF titles between 2002 and 2005.  He was also a part of the QuakeCon 2008 Quake Live 4v4 CTF championship team Billy Maze Dayz winning $8000 (USD) and is considered by many to be among the best flag defenders currently in the game.  His current team mate's wn and Schizem played opposite him with Team Rage, capturing second at the event. cdogg was also a member of the Blackdragons alongside clampOK, mik3d and DaHang so team Et Cetera will have a good idea what to expect from FoJ.  Viju also recently played with perfuse in the United States vs. Canada GGL exhibition match opposite id which may give the team an advantage in figuring out his elusive flag routes if Troubled Waters is selected.

Space Predicts:

FoJ has had great success with item control in the midfield throughout the tournament with great timing, and distribution of key items although in some cases they did seem rather uncontested which will definately not be the case against Et Cetera.  Icel0re also proved to be a big asset in this area and will be absent from the line-up for FoJ which could have a negative effect on the teams thus far dominant midfield control.  Both teams have a great defensive line and with Viju squaring off against id we should get to see some great wars at the flag stand.  Really these teams line up perfectly against each other with aggressive midfielders on both sides and proven rock solid defense.  In the end I think the experience of Viju on defense will be the deciding factor that tips the scales in favor of the Etc squad as long as the rest of the team can disrutp FoJ's item control.

Etc: 2-1