This weekend, the EGL will host its 7th event at the Norbreck Castle and Convention Centre in Blackpool, England. With hundreds of players confirmed to take part in various titles such as Halo: Reach, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and Gears of War 3.

Western Wolves recently re-formed its Halo: Reach  division, and will be sending its new players into the thick of it at EGL7. With noted teams such as Total eSports Circuit (TEC) and apeX competing, it would be easy to assume the Wolves would head into EGL7 as underdogs. However, with several of the top UK players making up the Western Wolves team (the BUK twins, Fuzion, and Riotz), they have gained the top seed for EGL7.

With the Wolves and TEC both considered strong favorites, it’s shaping up to be a very interesting event, filled with some potentially edge-of-your-seat matches.

Western Wolves Editor CoNr recently caught up with Will “BUK57″ Buck, captain of the Halo: Reach team, to get a few words about the upcoming event. You can catch the whole interview on the Western Wolves site, in which they discuss everything from their history, the event itself, his future expectations of the Halo  franchise, and his desire to prove that the Western Wolves are championship-level contenders in Halo.

You mentioned at the start of the interview that you guys are feeling very confident going into the event. Can you give us a prediction for EGL Blackpool?

BUK57 – I think if you asked a week or two ago I would’ve said we were less confident for Blackpool, but now after going over a few things and getting some last-minute, well-needed practice in, I can assure you that we will be in the finals of this tournament. If all goes to plan I believe our team will take home the first-place finish for Western Wolves.

So how do you think the other teams entering will regard you?

BUK57 - I think that the other top teams such as TEC and apeX will be overlooking us slightly in some ways, because we’ve not practiced as much as them due to our team having busy schedules lately and also because their two teams have actually had a bootcamp LAN which is happening these 3 days prior to the tournament. However, this is not a problem for us, we’re just going to go into the tournament and play our best and play confidently, if TEC or apeX play against us expecting it to be easy they’ll be in for a big surprise!

You have attended previous EGL tournaments.  How do you think this one stacks up in terms of competition?

BUK57 – I think this event’s competition is almost identical to that of last ones, however there is a missing North American team that attended the last tournament and were able to take home first-place ahead of us in a very close series. However with them being Halo  veterans and previous MLG champions it seemed almost acceptable losing to them, but still devastating. The tournament coming up this weekend has roughly the same players in the top 3 teams (excluding the American team) from the previous event just they have had some exchanges of players so if all goes to plan it should be another first-place finish for us under the Western Wolves name!

How does that make you feel? Are you worried about the state of Halo at the moment, or do you think it’s just a lull until Halo 4 is released?

BUK57  - I think that the state of Halo  at the moment is at an all-time low, however this is most likely just because of Reach  being a less popular Halo  title and also because the Halo 4  launch is getting ever so close, certain players are deciding to take time off from gaming until Halo 4  starts up and where hopefully Halo  will become more mainstream and be placed back on the MLG Pro Circuit. I’m hoping that Halo 4 will bring Halo‘s numbers back up so it can compete with all of the other large games, but only time will tell.

EGL 7: Blackpool – 4th/5th August, 2012

Venue: Norbreck Castle Hotel and Conference Centre
Games: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Xbox & PS3), Gears of War 3, Halo Reach with no team limits
Ticket Price: £55 Early Bird Special/ £60 & £65 in advance / £70 at the door (per player)
Prize Fund: Minimum £1500 / Maximum £10,000

Tags: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, EGL, Gears of War 3, Halo 4, Halo: Reach, Western Wolves