3 Things eMg Proves by Winning Dallas

1. Online ladder results mean nothing
eMg has had less than stellar ladder rankings with their two main practice teams on Bloodlust and Cyclone, with 64% and 69% win ratios respectively. However, as it's been said time and time again, ladder results arn't everything and eMg proves exactly that. Some skeptics will claim that their poor online results are because of more survivability in furious gear for other teams outlasting their burst but the gear upgrades on live work both ways with increased DPS/burst, as well.

If anything, what surprised me the most with Flex's online results was that he actually lost his Furious Gladiator standing to Proseph on Cyclone, widely known as a horrible Death Knight in the DK/PvP community. Big let down to his fans, for sure.

2. Enhancement Shamans are the real deal
Whether the teams that eMg lost to at Dallas will make the excuse of not having any practice against that comp or not, the fact remains that enhancement shamans do a ridiculous amount of damage and cannot be brute force "CC'd" via training. By that, I mean a cleave team training, for example, a rogue to effectively "CC" them. With an enhancement shaman, especially without automated totem stomping macros anymore, are incredibly difficult to control with just melee classes and really can only be stopped by a good mage. Don't get me wrong, they're far from overpowered, but in the right comp and in the hands of a skilled player, they are extremely versatile.

The main problems with enhancement in TBC was lack of defensive capabilities, lack of being able to close distance with their targets, and mana issues. All of which have been largely fixed in TBC with a better shamanistic rage, near-immunity to snares, and the new improved storm strike. Basically speaking, if you put an enhancement shaman with a MS class and a magic dispelling healer, the comp can be extremely good if played well.

3. Death Knights are owned by strong cleansing
Sure it's never been a secret that DK's need diseases on their targets to do max damage but it has never really shown itself worse than it does currently now. With Unholy damage nerfed across the board and scourge strike taking a huge damage drop, Unholy DK's can barely do acceptible damage when full diseases are applied. However, with automated totem stomping gone, the combination of cleansing totem along with abolish disease can make a DK do absolutely no damage when their diseases are constantly ripped off.

This is actually a huge flaw with the DK class right now. Rogue poisons have a ridiculous proc rate and even double cleansing when a mutilate rogue is on you does basically nothing and you won't even get cripple poison off long enough to kite anywhere. Almost every other DPS class that relies on their dispellable debuffs have some sort of deterrent to dispelling their debuffs. Shadow priests get mana back and deal damage when VT is dispelled, warlocks obviously have UA silence, and frost mages and ret paladins have ridiculous trash debuffs. DK's have none of that and suffer hugely as a result.

Many DK's are now playing a really dumb "death coil spec" that some call ShadowFrost 2.0 that revolves around using only Icy Touch and Plague Strike with runic power bonus talents for them, and not using Scourge Strike at all, but instead just generating RP as fast as possible to dump on death coils. I think it's a dumb spec for an even dumber problem with the class right now that will hopefully be addressed soon.