History of the WarCraft III scene 2002-2010

Notable source material



I’m not going to reference everything I used. Most notably however:



I used the WarCraft III database maintained by a German blogger known as seriousblank (no relation to Serious Gaming) for anything prior to 2005:

For 2004 I also used Replayers.com archive

For 2005 I used Blaze’s year in review on WCReplays:

For 2007 I used my own year in review article on GotFrag:

For anything done in Korea by non-Korean players up to 2006 I used my four part series on WarCraft III in Korea:



Part one:

Part two

Part three

Part four



To fill in the gaps I used articles on Wikipedia (mostly written by me) and SK-Gaming’s tournament database (initiated by Carmac, WarCraft III events prior to its release mostly added by me, tournament since added by various SK Gaming crew).



I also received help from Wind & JacziE and Zax were kind enough to answer some questions for the interview posted in the article. I’m not going to reference everything I used. Most notably however:I used the WarCraft III database maintained by a German blogger known as seriousblank (no relation to Serious Gaming) for anything prior to 2005: http://wc3db.blogspot.com/ For 2004 I also used Replayers.com archive http://tft.replayers.com/?action=news_archive For 2005 I used Blaze’s year in review on WCReplays: http://www.wcreplays.com/page?section=articles&id=371 For 2007 I used my own year in review article on GotFrag: http://www.gotfrag.com/war/story/41059/ (to which I should still own the rights anyway).For anything done in Korea by non-Korean players up to 2006 I used my four part series on WarCraft III in Korea:Part one: http://www.ggl.com/index.php?controller=News&method=article&id=3730&page=1 Part two http://www.ggl.com/?controller=News&id=3770&method=article Part three http://www.ggl.com/index.php?controller=News&method=article&id=3824&page=2 Part four http://www.ggl.com/index.php?controller=News&method=article&id=3871&page=3 To fill in the gaps I used articles on Wikipedia (mostly written by me) and SK-Gaming’s tournament database (initiated by Carmac, WarCraft III events prior to its release mostly added by me, tournament since added by various SK Gaming crew).I also received help from Wind & JacziE and Zax were kind enough to answer some questions for the interview posted in the article.

Disclaimer

I was involved in the WarCraft III scene from an early stage (playing since 2003 and volunteering for Replayers.com since 2003), but did not actively follow WarCraft III competitions globally until late 2004. So anything prior to that date is based on secondhand accounts. I’ve made an effort to cover everything, but ultimately the focus is more on the European scene than the Korean, US or Chinese scene because that’s more where my focus has always been. I’d love to give you the ins and outs of WarCraft III in Korea from 2002 to 2005 but I could not find an account detailing that time-period.



I’m also not really focussing on some areas of the scene, I don’t really care a lot about which player moved to what team at what moment a lot. I’ll discuss some specific, significant, player movements and talk about teams in a broader sense related to the way the scene developed.



Most of the article was written April-July 2010 and the final editting was done November 2010. I was involved in the WarCraft III scene from an early stage (playing since 2003 and volunteering for Replayers.com since 2003), but did not actively follow WarCraft III competitions globally until late 2004. So anything prior to that date is based on secondhand accounts. I’ve made an effort to cover everything, but ultimately the focus is more on the European scene than the Korean, US or Chinese scene because that’s more where my focus has always been. I’d love to give you the ins and outs of WarCraft III in Korea from 2002 to 2005 but I could not find an account detailing that time-period.I’m also not really focussing on some areas of the scene, I don’t really care a lot about which player moved to what team at what moment a lot. I’ll discuss some specific, significant, player movements and talk about teams in a broader sense related to the way the scene developed.Most of the article was written April-July 2010 and the final editting was done November 2010.

Patrik “Raistlin” Hellstrand Hi. I'm no longer involved in GosuGamers. Follow me on @phellstrand on Instagram and Twitter, or drop me an email on [email protected]

WarCraft III 2002-2003 (first beta, Reign of Chaos, second beta, early Frozen Throne)IntroductionWarcraft III: Reign of Chaos was released July 3, 2002 by Blizzard Entertainment. It was the sequel to WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness. From a competitive (eSports) point of view it was the sequel to StarCraft: Brood War, the original StarCraft being released March 31, 1998. StarCraft was the most important electronic sports game at the time with televised leagues taking place in the game in Seoul under the guidance of broadcasting stations OnGameNet and MBCGame. It was also the premier game of the annual World Cyber Games (which also originates from Korea). Many of the big western eSports organisations of the time had not been involved heavily in StarCraft (instead being driven by Quake Deatmatch or Counter-Strike competition), but decided to get in on the ground floor with the release of the new Real Time Strategy, most notable of these are the Cyberathlete Professional League (USA), the Electronic Sports World Cup (France) and the Electronic Sports League (Germany). Blizzard Entertainment (USA) decided to get involved with the competition behind their game as well following the release of the Frozen Throne.OnGameNet (OGN), MBCGame (MBC), World Cyber Games (WCG), Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC), Electronic Sports League (ESL) and Blizzard Entertainment (Blizzard) were the early driving forces behind the professional WarCraft III scene. Some of them such as OGN, MBC and CPL eventually dropped the game or ran into difficulties preventing them from supporting any game. WCG, ESWC, ESL and Blizzard continue to support the game till this very day, though the release of StarCraft II might have an impact on that. Many others would join these driving forces, with this article describing all notable ones.For those not familiar with the basics of WarCraft III or those who need refreshing. WarCraft III is a Real Time Strategy multi-player computer game, meaning it is a war game played in real time against life opponents (though you could also face computer opponents if you chose to do so, which none of the players described here do). You control one of four races when playing the game: Human, Orc, Undead and Night Elf. You can decide which race to pick beforehand or you can let it be decided randomly. All professional gamers pick races themselves and almost all professional gamers are specialized in a single race; this is necessary because the races and how they interact with other races as well as the various maps (the arenas in which the war games are played) are very complex and nobody can ever master this “perfectly”, meaning that if you divide your attention over two races you will have 50% of the mastery of someone that focuses on a single race has and everything else being equal you will probably lose the game against those players.The WarCraft III competitive scene (the social environment consisting of a large informal, vague group of people with a uniting interest; that interest being WarCraft III competitive gaming) is made up of various sub-scenes which are determined by regions. These sub-scenes vary in size throughout the years (as does, naturally, the entire scene) but generally speaking you can identify the following three major WarCraft III regions: South Korea, China and Europe (including Russia) and one minor region: the United States of America. You can also speak of a “western” region (Europe, the Americas and Australia) and an Asian region (China, Korea and various Asian nations not notable for their WarCraft III scene on their own). The Russian and German scene (which fall under the European scene) are also notable on their own to some degrees as it is home to national competitions on a comparable level (in terms of prize money, level of competition and / or professionalism) as many of the internationally better known tournaments. There can also be talked about a global scene in a way that is unique in eSports as usually one of the regions is extremely dominant in a game (though StarCraft II is headed that way as well). Some regions which might be notable in a truly complete WarCraft III history such as Sweden, Singapore and Australia are not fully explored.Aside from nationality, players are also identified with on the basis of their WarCraft III race. Orc players tend to be sympathetic to other Orc players in the same way someone from Germany or Korea (or any other nation) tends to be more sympathetic towards players of their own nation.Throughout this article we will try and gauge who are considered the champions of various races and regions or a combination of the two (who is the strongest Undead player in the European region could be a question for example). Some players could be champions of as many as three regions (Russia, Europe and the western world for example), but it is not very realistic to be the champion of more than one race. Sometimes there are many tournaments taking place at the same time producing contradicting results, meaning there is no clear “global champion”, something which tends to be more clear when you look at specific regions or races.Some basic knowledge of competitive gaming is likely required to understand everything written.The article is structured as followed:The pages on 2003-2004 starts with introducing various scenes, happenings in these years and some notable personalities. Generally the focus is on scenes as a whole. This is to introduce the scenes and because in these years the major regions are very independent from each other. In the 2005 pages this transitions to a chronological based way of writing, with events being described as they follow each other. The scenes start coming closer together in this year as well. Starting from 2006 the history is described in a purely chronological order, with the unique “global” scene being a reality for WarCraft III; this continues until the end of the article. Following the actual history, there are various add-ons to be found talking about notable players, teams and 2v2 competitions.In the beginning there was… TillerMaNThe WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos closed beta launched January 2002 with a beta tournament being held prior to the game’s release on July 3, 2002. Just like future Blizzard betas the WarCraft III beta ended with a tournament, which was won by UK resident Iain “TillerMaN” Girdwood. 26-year old TillerMaN had a close relation with Blizzard Entertainment prior to and following the WarCraft III beta and as a result had an impact on the way the game was balanced (the way the four races measured up against each other). This relationship later deteriorated as did TillerMaN’s status as the world’s “number 1 player”. He would throughout Reign of Chaos remain the strongest UK player but did not impress on a international level and he retired shortly after the release of The Frozen Throne winning approximately 14.000$ throughout Reign of Chaos (the WarCraft III add-on The Frozen Throne did not appeal to him according to a 2005 interview [http://warcraft.ingame.de/szene/interviews/tillerman_21-09-05.php]. Arguably his biggest legacy is his involvement in founding one of WarCraft III’s most dominant teams: British based Four Kings as chronicled by KidArctica (http://www.wcreplays.com/articles.php?get=23). Most notably he scouted future professional gamer Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen (more on Four Kings in 2004). He was also a pioneer in terms of making audio commentaries, audio recordings of his matches describing the events happening and the reasoning behind them. More famously than he was for his commentating however; he became a source of ridicule throughout the scene for his humorous breakdowns in audio commentaries while commenting on the state of balance in WarCraft III, downwhere uploaded a bunch of these audio commentaries on YouTube [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4LiaGG8KSs&feature=related]. He became a successful poker player after retiring from competitive gaming; you can read more about TillerMaN’s view on his WarCraft III history on his blog [http://www.tillerman.net/2008/08/warcraft-3-commentary-and-history.html].Korean sceneWhile western competitions was still limited to online competition the first televised league already launched in Korea during the WarCraft III beta: the OnGameNet WarCraft Retail League. Not a lot is known about this event, the finals were won by a Korean named Medusa[Saint] who beat StarCraft & poker legend Bertrand “ElkY” Grosspellier in the finals (see YouTube [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fd80HwVMV0]. ElkY would show only mediocre results in WarCraft III competitions otherwise and never fully commit to being a WarCraft III professional gamer (reportedly playing the before mentioned league alongside StarCraft competitions in the first place). Regardless, his second place would later stand as the best result a non-Korean would ever attain in a WarCraft pro-league event (pro-league events are national, televised competitions taking place in Seoul, Korea). It is hard to imagine these days, but Korean and western competitions were almost completely segregated in WarCraft III Reign of Chaos; two scenes that were in practice stand-alone competitive gaming scenes. Eventually several international tournaments (Clickarena, ESWC, ACON, WCG) would lead to western and Asian players meeting, and of course gaming team SK-Gaming would take a trip to Seoul that launch the short-lived but very memorable professional gaming career of Fredrik “MaDFroG” Johannson.A testimony to how little we knew of the Korean scene is the inclusion of Daeho “ShowTime” Kim (winner of OnGameNet League IV and ESWC Korea 2003) to eSports website ESReality’s Greatest Gamer poll in 2004 (he lost to Unreal tournament legend GitzZz 45% - 55%) based on his ladder accomplishments and “enormous tournament history”, they could not name the events he had to his name (or did not think they would be recognized) and actually passed on several more accomplished Korean players (probably wanting to include both a Korean and an European player and going for the ones they saw as the most popular) to include the Korean RTS legend (see here [http://www.wcreplays.com/page?section=interviews&id=3] for an interview held with him by another WarCraft III legend). The tournaments played in Korea (outside of the World Cyber Games finals) from 2002-2003 include the MBCGame Prime League and the OnGameNet (OGN) invitational, taken from an older article[http://www.ggl.com/index.php?controller=News&method=article&id=3770&page=3]:The MBC Prime League was a very prestigious league (rivalling a WCG or ESWC title) with 30 professional gamers participating, playing weekly a best of one in a round-robin. The maps were intense, as the stakes were incredibly high. The players had a week to do nothing but prepare for one opponent on one map. After the first group stage, a second one followed, which was followed by a single-elimination bracket. The OGN War 3 TFT Invitational used a similar format, only with fewer players. Being a TV broadcast league, it also was held in high regard, though the Prime League was definitely considered the biggest tournament to win in South-Korea.”OnGameNet[2002] OGN WarCraft Retail League - 1. Medusa 2. ElkYOGN League II – 1. Jojo 2. Medusa[2003] OGN League III – 1. Gerrard 2. DayFlyOGN League IV – 1. ShowTime 2. DayFly[2003] Sonokong OnGamenet I – 1. Check 2. ReiGn 3. RainbowMBCGameHanbitSoft Gembc WC3 1st League – 1. Shoo 2. Medusa 3. Gerrard 4. Skelton[2003-01] MBC Hanbitsoft II – 1. Anyppi 2. DayFly 3. ReadyTo 4. JuJu[2003-08] MBC HanbitSoft Prime League – 1. DayFly 2. Check 3. Anyppi 4. starTRuth[2003] MBC Sonokong Prime League II – 1. Moon 2. Sweet 3. Check 4. AnyppiTeam[2003-01] hanbitsoft clan teambattle 1 – 1. Pooh[2003-06] hanbitsoft clan teambattle 2 – 1. PoohInternational tournament qualifiersBlizzard Worldwide Invitational (to take place in 2004) – 1. EvenStar 2. ReiGnElectronic Sports World Cup – 1. ShowTime 2. DayFly 3. JojoWorld Cyber Games – 1. Check 2. NangChun 3. TopspeedOr, (with all tournaments appreciated equally):Korean major events till 2003WinnersLee “Check” Hyung Joo 2-0-1-0Daeho “Showtime” Kim 2-0-0-0Jung Heon “Dayfly” Lee 1-3-0-0Medusa 1-2-0-0Jang “Moon” Jae Ho 1-0-0-0Yim Hyo “Anyppi” Jin 1-0-1-1Jojo 1-0-1-0Oi-sik “Gerrard” Park 1-0-1-0Shoo 1-0-0-0Jae Park “Evenstar” Lee 1-0-0-0Runner-upsKang Seo “ReiGn” Woo 0-2-0-0Jung Hee “Sweet” Chun 0-1-0-0Bertrand “ElkY” Grosspellier 0-1-0-0Dae Young “NangChun” Kwak 0-1-0-0Third placesKim Tae “Rainbow"”In 0-0-1-1ReadyTo 0-0-1-0Yun Seok “Topspeed” Kang 0-0-1-0Fourth placesJoon Goo “Skelton” Bong 0-0-0-1JuJu 0-0-0-1starTRuth 0-0-0-1The results of the Koreans at World Cyber Games (WCG), Clickarena and Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) (all of which took place in 2003) were:Electronic Sports World Cup 2003 – Korean player results5th place ReX.jojo9th place DayFly9th place ShowTimeSwedish progamer MaDFroG (whom we’ll talk about at greater length later on) was effectively about to be eliminated from the tournament by DayFly when a disconnect occurred involving the Swede accidently kicking out a cable right before DayFly finished him. The SK-Gaming players (MaDFroG represented the team) pressured the admin into giving MaDFroG a re-game against the Orc player DayFly. DayFly had just revealed his strategies, which gave his at the time underpowered race a fighting chance against the Undead player. DayFly lost 1-2 and was eliminated from ESWC.DayFly was the most successful Orc player 2002-2003, compensating for what was at the time known as a weak race (compared to the other three) with creative and innovative strategies. He would retire by 2004 only to make a short-lived comeback later on and is currently playing StarCraft II.World Cyber Games 2003 – Korean player results9th place Topspeed (eliminated by MagicYang)17th place NangChun (eliminated by MagicYang)17th place Check (eliminated by Sol_Mimmox)WCG 2003 occurred while the entire scene had already moved on to The Frozen Throne, with only players that were qualified for WCG still putting any effort into Reign of Chaos. It’s impossible to say how this affected the individual results of any player, but it does lessen the worth of the event in comparison to future editions of the most important WarCraft III tournament.Check would six year later be the only active player left from WCG 2003 alongside Grubby. He was one of the dominant Korean players of this time period and remained an active professional gamer throughout the years with fluctuating levels of success, he is currently playing StarCraft II.Clickarena 2003 – Korean player results4th place Anyppi7th place ShowTime9th place ElkYWe’re going to talk about Clickarena later in a European context. This event is famous as the first big event in WarCraft III to not pay out prize money.At this point in time the Korean players represented various national pro-teams which competed in a nationally televised league (which would be cancelled mid-2004). At the time of SK’s (team Intel) presence in Korea (mid-late 2003) the following notable players represented the following professional gaming teams:KTec - Say, ReMind, GraySonokong FrienZ - Check, DayFly, SwainEX - NangchuN, EvenStar, HomeRunBallSaint - Zacard, Sweet, MaySamsung Khan - FreeDoM, ReiGn, AnyppiHanbit Stars - ShowTime, Lucifer, GerrardSK.Asia would later be found with Jae Shin "EVE" Park, Yu Jae "BestWolf" Hoon, Dong Hyun "May" Kim, "Tiv and Tiger. To which Skelton, Jung Hee "Sweet" Chun, Zacard and Ryoo Kyung "SeleCT" Hyun would be added. SeleCT would later gain fame for winning two World Cyber Games in Dawn of War in 2005 and 2006. MaDFroG would later join FrienZ.By the time Four Kings went to Korea (mid-2004) the era of pro teams in Korea was over (more on this later). SK.Asia would later be absorbed by SK.International. Hanbit Stars would later add Moon & Lucifer and merge with Meet Your Makers before being absorbed fully by the team. All other (active players) would find their way to non-Korean teams eventually (though sometimes as a group), that is until the more recent (2009) launch of the WeMadeFOX WarCraft III team. GoStop also represented Korean pro-team eSTRO for an extended period of time starting in 2006.Between the complete disbandment of all Korean pro-teams and the rise of the western based WarCraft 3 Champions League there was a period in which many Korean players were “double dipping”, representing a pro team in Korea and carrying a different flag in online competitions. This lead to the phrase mercenary to refer to players without strong bonds to a team that sold their skills to whoever would pay (a term which would not be used solely for Korean players). WC3L would eventually react by introducing rules stipulating players could only represent one team professionally and restrict the possibility to transfer during a season. The most iconic of mercenaries is probably ShowTime who represented 64AMD, Yperano, Rival, Only Team Players, ArmaTeam and MeetYourMakers (as part of MYM.Hanbit) from 2004-2005 while at the same time representing team WeRRa, Luxury and later Hanbit Stars in Korea, he was referred to in a comic manner with his nicknames meshed up in various ways: 64AMD.Luxury.Rival.OnlyTeamPlayers.Yperano[aT]MYM.Hanbit.ShowTime.WeRRa (you get the idea).You can see full list of accomplishments for DayFly, Gerrard and Check here[http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=13848807575&topic=13835].You can see Moon’s Wikipedia biography here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jang_Jae_Ho].You can see FreeDoM’s Wikipedia biography here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngsuk_Chang].You can see FoV’s Wikipedia biography here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dae_Hui_Cho].You can see Sweet’s Wikipedia biography here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jung_Hee_Chun].You can find an overview of Zacard’s career here[http://www.ggl.com/?controller=News&method=article&id=4820].You can find an overview of ShowTime’s career here [http://www.gotfrag.com/war/story/39814/].You can find a news post on ReiGn’s retirement here[http://www.mymym.com/en/news/16306.html].Chinese scene – Interview with ZaxThere’s very little information on the Chinese scene on any English language website in the 2002-2005 time-periods. Zax Chou, co-founder of the world’s biggest eSport site, Chinese Replays.net, was kind enough to answer some questions however that give us more insight into the Chinese scene and where he sees the future headed.These questions and answers were edited a little bit but pretty much represent the original content 100%.Hello Zax, how are you?Zax: I am good. How are you?I am good as well! I would like to know more about the Chinese WarCraft III scene 2002-2005, there is very little information to be found about this period on western sites. You are a much respected person, the founder of Replays.net, is it alright if I ask you?I am nobody (blushes). Go ahead and ask me.When was Replays.net launched?2002.How did Replays.net start?When WarCraft III was born, I found it's hard to find good replays [note: A replay is a saved file of a WarCraft III match which allows you to see it again using WarCraft III], so I just started to make a site at which you can share progamer's replays with all fans. At first, it was just a pure "replay" site and it was updated manually, simple and crude.How did it grow to be a site of such importance?It's a long story, I can only say: Rome is not build in one day. Staff's efforts, some coincidental events and good timing.Can you give us any estimation of the size of the Chinese WarCraft III scene between 2002 and 2005 in terms of players and fans?Eight million.Can you name some of the top teams in this time period as well as the players representing these teams?Yoliny(ex-World Elite), lion, TS, GF,SOZ. Gamedge, but all are gone now.What was the level of professionalism in these teams (were salaries paid, contracts signed)?Yoliny and Gamedge had contracts and salaries, but very low.Did the level of professionalism rise with the years, and if so, can you describe how?No, even today, it's not stable. In China there are only two pro team that still survive, World Elite and Ehome.Currently China is the main nations in terms of WarCraft III fans and competitions. Did you expect China to develop the way it did and why did you expect it to develop this way?The development is still not done the right way; it's what I'm struggling for.In a 2008 interview with fnatic you said “I hope SC 2 can be the slogan to be used by eSports games. eSports has too many games at the moment we need one game to unite the world, people in Europe, Korea, China everywhere should play one game.” How do you see the future of Real Time Strategy gaming in China now that StarCraft II is about to be released?Like I said in 2008's interview, SC2 is the only hope for China esports, unite all kinds of gamer so that eSports reaches a new level, it's the rule of quantitative change and qualitative change. And I hope Blizzard won't release Warcraft 4 forever, esports needs fixed rules just like traditional sports, nobody will out of date, even one day when you are 50 years old, u still know what happened in matches.Maybe the game is not so perfect now, but that’s not the point, human effort can achieve anything, we shall make it perfect and popular everywhere.Thanks a lot for your help Zax! Good luck with your projects.No problem =)European sceneWhere the way Koreans teams were shaped was formed by televised leagues the biggest influence on western teams came from ESL’s WarCraft 3 Champions League. Founded by a man that would become known as the godfather of European competitive WarCraft III: Sebastian “Baschi” Weishaar. The team league WC3L started in 2002 and quickly gained following and eventually evolved into one of the premier competitions in WarCraft III and eSports, it started as a purely online league and had its first LAN finals take place during its fourth season in Paris, France in 2004.The teams competed online with twelve teams playing each other. Prior to each season a qualifier would be held which enabled four new teams to join (or current teams to re-qualify). In the online season every team would play every other team once with three (later four) solo matches and two 2v2 matches (later one) taking place, each matches earning points which lead to a ranking. At the end of this “regular” season the top ranked teams would play a play-offs to determine the winners of league while the lower ranked teams would play a play-down to determine which teams would join the qualifier and be forced to qualify again.The teams in season I which ran from August 15, 2002 to February 17 2003 were (only results for top five, there was no play-off system yet):1. Schroet Kommando (SuRviVoR, fortuNe, Insomnia, Eirik, sTOrM)2. e.Sports united (NitemarE, KaJ, Soul, Asmodey, Kilrogg, Goldenboy, Zeus[19], Kiko)3. Ocrana.D-Link (Pagan, Zyrano, Thagor, Fire, TaKe, bIaZe)4. Advanched Online Losers (Labatyd, GeNThO, WickedGame, st0r)5. Orcish Empire -> pro-Gaming (Twinsen, Charon, MouSe, Racor, Allanon)Demons of Starcraft (piNg, Flamm, Sevarion, rAziD, DerTick, ThE, Sinister, Madness, SsaMJjaNG)Team PcN (Dalai, Dan, Bizarre, DrizZt, Astrapilot, Avenger, eLeMeNt)The-Feared (Domi, Rif, 2Hot, Demo, Kain, Nuh, Holy, Kida)Iomega (players unknown)Alien Invasion (dev, ThePig, Hazeem, BuRnY, Spawn, Vlodok, Ironman)Season II, February 27, 2003 till May 11, 2003 (play-off system introduced)1. Schroet Kommando (Insomnia, KaJ, MaDFroG, HeMaN, BeaveR, Eirik, Goldenboy, Kilrogg)2. armaTeam (FaTC, Overmind, ToD, BIatty, Shore, InToX)3. mTw.alternate (Tak3r, ThePig, LasH, Matzerg, Modo, dArk)4. Advanced Online Losers -> a-Losers (Dan, Dalai, FatRandy, st0r, WickedGame, pLaGuE, Socke, GeNThO)e.Sports united (Kilrogg, Ranger, Jan, Harty, DIDI8, NitemarE, Goldenboy, Soul, Asmodey, Zeus[19], four20, Kiko)OCRANA.D-Link (Thagor, kookian, TaKe, Fire, Zyrano, Pagan)Riot-Squad -> RsGaming.com (X, Asmarand, Falzure, Maestro, Hyper, leolaporte, Smurphet, Shortround-, Pussinboots)pro-gaming.net (Allanon, BuTTerKeKs, Nabb, Maid, MouSe, Twinsen, Zografa)The-Feared (line-up unknown)Netco.sTar -> XSarena (ArMoR, ChobO, DK, OkaiN, MeddY)Season III, June 1, 2003 till September 23, 20031. mTw.alternate (Tak3r, LasH, ThePig, Ghostridah)2. Schroet Kommando (Insomnia, DominatoR, MaDFroG, SuRviVoR, sTOrM)3. 4Kings (line-up unknown)4. armaTeam (InToX, ToD, BIatty, Hazeem, GeNThO, Wizard, Shore, MnZ)a-Laget (line-up unknown)bmfheadz (Dukie, Nuke, Hulm, Twisted, Mahadeva)a-Losers (Dan, Dalai, WickedGame, st0r, GeNThO, FatRandy, mightyx, Crebom, Twi)OCRANA.D-Link (Pagan, Zyrano, TaKe, Sky, Fire, Lunastar, Blaze)pro-Gaming (Allanon, BuTTerKeKs, HoRRoR, Twinsen, MouSe, pLaGuE, Dezzi, Nightwind, Racor)XSarena -> sTar (DK, Psio, Okain, ChobO, Nada, ArMoR)rSgaming.com (line-up unknown)e.Sports united (Jan, Harty, Four20[303], Grave, sTaTic, dArk)Thanks to the Warcraft 3 Database for all WC3L information.At this point in time the teams were no match for the Korean teams in terms of professionalism. Very few players received even small salaries, WC3L paid out hardware prizes, and few players had contracts signed. But WC3L and the WarCraft 3 would both grow a lot over the years, the foundation for which was partially in these early online seasons.There were a bunch of LAN competitions taking place throughout Europe 2002-2003, not all of them will be singled out. Two pre-Electronic Sports World Cup 2003 competitions were significant in that they were considered the biggest European events before the world championship:CPL Cannes 2003 – March 14, 2003 till March 16, 20031. aT-InToX (France: 3.000 USD)2. SK.Insomnia (Bulgaria: 2.000 USD)3. DIDI8[pG] (Bulgaria: 1.000 USD)4. eSu.Soul (Russia: 700 USD)5. aT-BIatty (France: 400 USD)5. aT-SeGaL (Greece: 400 USD)7. eSu.Zeus[19] (Croatia: 250 USD)7. a-L.MSI.WickedGame (Germany: 250 USD)9. Netco)FaTC (France)9. xSarena.Chills (France)9. aT-ToD (France)9. SK.MaD)Q(FroG (Sweden)13. aT-Shore (France)13. Netco)Meddy (France)13. SK.BeaveR (Sweden)13. aT-Overmind (France)17. SK.Eirik (Sweden)17. 2o.BaGhla (Sweden)17. a-L.MSI.FatRandy (Germany)17. aDK.Storm (France)17. SK.KaJ (Denmark)17. xSarena.MNZ (France)17. a-L.MSI.pLaGuE (Germany)17. Netco)ArMoR (France)25. NoHope (France)25. SK.HeMaN (Sweden)25. eSu.Kiko (Croatia)25. SK.Isha)Q( (Sweden)25. eSu.Four20[203] (Bulgaria)25. aT-Khan (France)The tournament was won by Eric "InToX" Dieulangard (who would later be nicknamed TreeToX) most notably using Ancients of Wars which was considered an imbalance (a strategy that is too strong as it can’t be properly countered by the other races) at the time. Notable is Human player Insomnia’s presence as runner-up of the event despite facing tree abuse, showing skill that signaled things to come. It is interesting to note with our eyes on the running StarCraft II scene that the first generation of European pro’s including MaDFroG, Insomnia, Zeus[19] and DID8 all held previous competitive experience in StarCraft (Insomnia was offered a chance at professional gaming at an early age, DID8 famously played BoXeR at the World Cyber Games and MaDFroG won a bronze medal representing Sweden in the nations tournament of WCG). Similarly you can expect the first generation of StarCraft II pro’s to have at least some prior experience in high level RTS.The event had a impressive line-up of European players and was indicative of the way the Cyberathlete Professional League, which was at the time the big driving force behind FPS Deatmatch competitions, invested early in the game (they had held a prior event and would host a bigger event later that year), only to reject the game afterwards. The game was still present at three CPL World Tour stops in 2005, with the prize money of at least one event never paid out. It is hard to imagine these days, but CPL was considered one of premier competitive gaming organizations and their backing helped early WarCraft 3 development a lot and could have continued to be important, especially in terms of helping a professional US scene grow.The next big event was Clikarena 2003 (April 18, 2003 – April 20, 2003) in France:1. eSu DIDI8 (Bulgaria)2. eSu.Soul (Russia)3. SK.Insomnia (Bulgaria)4. Anyppi.WeRRa (South Korea)5. Ranger (Russia)5. aT-InToX (France)7. ShowTime.WeRRa (South Korea)7. FuSioN (South Korea)9. eSu.Asmodey (Russia)9. AMD.ElkY (France)9. eSu.KiKo (Denmark)9. ApeX (USA)13. mTw-ThePig (Germany)13. ocr-Thargor (Germany)13. Medusa (South Korea)13. SteeL.KaJ (Denmark)17. 4K-TillerMaN (Great Britain)17. ocr-TaKe (Germany)17. SK.MaD)Q(FroG (Sweden)17. eSu.Zeus[19] (Croatia)17. M19-BlackMan (Russia)17. BIatty (France)17. mTw-Tak3r (Germany)17. Karma (Russia)25. eSu.NitemarE (Sweden)25. Fen1x (Spain)Clickarena did not pay out. Ivan “Soul” Demidov could probably care less by now as he became World Series of Poker main event runner-up in 2008, winning roughly 5.800.000$, beating the total prize money by the number nine of this event, ElkY, whose career tournament winnings in poker total around 5.700.000$ according to Wikipedia. Dimitar "DIDI8" Aleksandrov would remain a professional gamer for many years however and would continue to cite this event as the disappointment of his career. In terms of what the event means, we once again see an impressive line-up of European players with Insomnia, DID8, Soul and InToX repeating strong performances from Cannes. MaDFroG travels in the back of the pack however, reminding us that these are early results in a scene that is still very much in development (once again lessons for the StarCraft II scene).These two tournaments set the stage however for the 2003 Electronic Sports World Cup (Ancient of War abuse was fixed at the time of this event) from July 8, 2003 till July 13, 2003 at Paris France. ESWC was significant not only because it’s a major tournament but also because it was regarded as the first real measurement of the Korean professionals (some of which already appeared at Clickarena) versus the European elite and because it was rumored that Intel would approach the number 1 ranked European player and offer him support to compete in Korea professionally. It set the first steps in bringing the two scenes together, in the long run creating the first truly global eSports discipline. National qualifiers took place all over the world to determine the competitors, in future editions some players would also be invited directly.ESWC 2003Overall Ranking:1. SK.HeMaN (Sweden: 7.000 USD)2. SK.MaDFroG (Sweden: 5.000 USD)3. aT-FaTC (France: 3.000 USD)4. aT-ToD (France: 2.000 USD)5. ReX.jojo (South Korea: 1.200 USD)6. rS.RushWizard (USA: 800 USD)7. aT-BIatty (France: 600 USD)8. SK.Insomnia (Bulgaria: 400 USD)9. ShowTine (South Korea)9. InToX (France)9. DayFly (South Korea)9. Segal (Greece)13. apex (USA)13. =dc=andy (Germany)13. SK.ZeeRaX (Bulgaria)13. Grubby (Netherlands)17. TillerMaN (United Kingdom)17. ocr-TaKe (Germany)17. Miliz (Sweden)17. SK.DominatoR (Norway)17. cafone (Italy)17. Raggy (Australia)17. TeG-Dreamboy (Romania)17. CT-skAyA (China)25. Lb.MedMaster (Brazil)25. oG.Eboceixa (Belgium)25. Magic.BaGhla (France)25. No.R_MeRLiN (Lybia)25. miTh (Czech Republic)25. zA.Ir0nclad (USA)25. Deco (France)25. sWoop (South Africa)33. Ogain (Algeria)33. e4.kunyyori (Spain)33. rW.kOtoRi (Switzerland)33. Sorimachi (Canada)Notable as Grubby’s first international competition.Following this event Intel, a major player in the world of eSports sponsoring, approached Alborz "HeMaN" Haidarian and MaDFroG to come to Korea as a team, they would bring fellow SK teammates Henrik "DominatoR" Strom and Zdravko "Insomnia" Georgiev along and would be the only European players to compete in a televised team pro league, as Team Intel, in Korea with the following results:Team Intel at OGN: SUMA War 3 Pro-League – Groupstage 12:0 KTec (Say, ReMind, Gray)1:2 Sonokong FrienZ (Check, DayFly, Swain)1:2 EX (NangchuN, EvenStar, HomeRunBall)0:2 Saint (Zacard, Sweet, May)DominatoR and Insomnia returned to the west after three months, so HeMaN and MaDFroG competed alongside SK.Asia in the second group stage:Team Intel at OGN: SUMA War 3 Pro-League – Groupstage 22:1 Samsung Khan (FreeDoM, ReiGn, Anyppi)0:2 Hanbit Stars (ShowTime, Lucifer, Gerrard)1:2 Sonokong FrienZ (Check, DayFly, Swain)None of them were tremendously successful individually in Korean national competitions. MaDFroG and HeMaN both tied for second place in their OnGameNet groups only to lose tie-breakers. MaDFroG did have some team successes playing with FrienZ. The experiences did help them greatly in international competition however with MaDFroG and Insomnia both taking home the wins that would define their respective careers during their stay in Seoul.HeMaN's OnGameNet Sonokong TFT group1. Check 3-12. JinSung 2-2 (won tie-breaker vs HeMaN & RANdom)3. HeMaN 2-2 (won tie-breaker vs RANdom)4. RANdom 2-25. Friday 1-3MaDFroG won DayFly in his OnGameNet group and also won 1000$ at the Kbk Jeju cup with the following results:MaDFroG in Kbk Jeju Cup1-0 ZanDarke1-0 Mr0-1 NangchuN1-0 ScorpioMaDFroG would stay in Seoul longer than HeMaN and also attend MBCGame’s second prime league with the following results:MaDFroG in MBCGame Prime League II0-1 vs. Scorpio1-0 vs. Justice0-1 vs. Lyn1-0 vs. ShowTime0-1 vs. SarangHeMaN would take bronze at ESWC 2004 and be the most successful European player during the first season of the televised World e-Sport Games in Korea, those being his most significant accomplishments alongside winning ESWC 2003 before retiring. MaDFroG would go on an unprecedented run in international competition following ESWC 2003, which lasted roughly a year before he flamed out completely. He would also join Sonokong FrienZ in Korea, becoming the first and only European in a Korean WarCraft III pro-team. Insomnia would win the World Cyber Games during his stay in Korea and remain one of the world’s best and most popular Human players for many years following his return to Bulgaria, even though he never really competed for a major title again. DominatoR did not build a significant professional gaming career individually.You can read a more complete account of Team Intel’s accomplishments in Seoul in two parts here[http://www.ggl.com/index.php?controller=News&method=article&id=3730] and here[http://www.ggl.com/index.php?controller=News&method=article&id=3770].CPL Copenhagen took place in November, 2003 and was the first major European event featuring WarCraft III addition The Frozen Throne:1. MYM]Bjarke (Denmark: 3.500 EUR)2. SK.SuRviVoR (Sweden: 2.500 EUR)3. aNc.Delicato (Sweden: 1.500 EUR)4. DSky.Chemi (Finland: 1.000 EUR)5. SK.Miou (Germany: 800 EUR)5. DSky.Creebom (Sweden: 800 EUR)7. gmpo.Four20 (Bulgaria: 250 EUR)7. SK.FaTC (France: 250 EUR)9. e2s.Wandis (Sweden)9. orky.Flash (Russia)9. aNc.NitemarE (Sweden)9. SK.pLaGuE (Germany)13. 4K.FuRy (Sweden)13. 4K.Zeus (Croatia)13. SK.Insomnia (Bulgaria)13. orky.Asmodey (Russia)17. Gorthaur (Finland)17. Grubby (Netherland)17. Eldor (Sweden)17. DIDI8 (Bulgaria)17. StarSlayer (Sweden)17. ToD (France)17. Miliz (Sweden)17. InToX (France)25. ZeeRaX (Bulgaria)25. DjiN (Germany)25. Tiger4 (Denmark)25. Thagor (Germany)25. BIatty (France)25. BigMan (Russia)25. Geeko (Denmark)25. Giacoma (Czech Republic)33. SK.mightyx (Germany)33. e2s.BeaveR (Sweden)33. SK.sTOrM (Germany)33. ocr-TaKe (Germany)33. e2s.Pey (Sweden)33. Tagtix (Denmark)33. MYM]Kanadan (Denmark)33. gmpo.Zografa (Bulgaria)33. =dc=andy (Germany)33. aNc.FeSTis (Sweden)33. planB.Exil (Sweden)33. aNc.After7Days (Denmark)33. 4K.KaJ (Denmark)33. Dezzie[pG] (Sweden)33. 4K.Kiko (Croatia)33. aT-SeGaL (Greece)49. moony (Denmark)49. McOrange (Denmark)49. Django (Denmark)49. JuanCarlo (Spain)49. cZ.Heat (Norway)49. pG.HoRRoR (Germany)49. JipJap (Norway)49. 4K.Junior (Denmark)49. aT-Deco (France)49. Frido (Slovakia)49. e2s.Thrawn (Sweden)49. 4K.BoNd (United Kingdom)49. Vank0r (Greece)49. DSky.Magik (Finland)49. gmpo.Enrique (Sweden)49. graabein (Norway)Similar to Clickarena and CPL Cannes, an impressive line-up of players, it’s hard to imagine nowadays that these kind of open tournaments took place in Europe with over 50 players from all regions attending. This CPL model of tournament (anyone is free to attend, top eight is paid out) was simply not used a lot later on in favor of players having to qualify for or being invited to tournaments. You have tournaments later on that use comparable models such Game-X in 2007, WSVG stops in 2006 and CPL 2005 Dallas, all of which had broad based, high level attendees. It seems likely that had CPL chosen to substantially support WarCraft III, we would have had a different scene (at least until their crash).German scene (2002-2003)The German scene is sometimes underrated in WarCraft III as the region never produced any player that is considered one of the all-time greats (as subjective as that list might be). It would surrpise many to learn however that more prize money was won by German players than those in any other national scene with the exception of Korea and in later years China. This is a direct result of the German Electronic Pro Series organized by the Electronic Sports League. The concept of this tournament is as followed: there are two seasons per year, twelve players per season, every player plays every other player once in an online season (with some matches taking place offline in various “Intel Friday Night Games”). You get paid for every match you win (100 euro was the highest paid out throughout the seasons) and you get paid extra to attend an Intel Friday Night Game. At the end of the season there’s a LAN finals with major tournament prize money.This, combined with a bunch of smaller national competitions in the country and the possibility to compete in various international tournaments, a lot of which take place in Germany, which also happens to the home to most of Europe’s professional gaming teams, is why German players could comfortably dedicate their time to WarCraft III knowing they would see something in return (despite not being very successful on the absolute highest level of WarCraft III).The first few seasonal finals had the following results (season 1 not included since it was 2v2 based):Season II – June 20031. mTw-ThePig (10.000 EUR)2. ocr-Thagor (6.500 EUR)3. ocr-Twinsen (4.000 EUR)4. mTw-Tak3r (3.000 EUR)Season III – December 2003 (using Frozen Throne)1. HoRRoR[pG] (5.000 EUR)2. ocr-kookian (2.500 EUR)3. mTw-LasH (1.500 EUR)4. mTw-ThePig (800 EUR)EPS ran WarCraft 3 competitions for eight years and supported every German WarCraft 3 player you’ve ever seen. It was a high level competition, when WCG, World e-Sport Games and BlizzCon runner-up Tae min "Zacard" Hwang moved to Germany in 2005 with the specific intent of competing in the German EPS; he failed. More on that in a later chapter though.The EPS champions through the ages have been:ThePig – June 15, 2003 till December 14, 2003 (since winning EPS II)HoRRoR – December 14, 2003 till June 13, 2004 (winning EPS III)Daniel “Miou” Holthuis – June 13, 2004 till June 16, 2007 (winning EPS IV)Dennis “HasuObs” Schneider – June 16, 2007 till June 8, 2008 (winning EPS X)Daniel “XlorD” Spenst – June 8, 2008 till December 15, 2009 (winning EPS XII)Marc “yAwS” Förster – December 15, 2009 till June 14, 2010 (winning EPS XV)Dennis “HasuObs” Schneider – June 14, 2010 till forever (winning EPS XVI)WarCraft III ended its EPS Germany run after sixteen seasons (probably to make room for StarCraft II). Daniel “miou” Holthuis is likely one of the ten best earning WarCraft 3 players (in terms of prize money) based mainly on his six EPS victories.Global scene 2002-2003WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne was released July, 2003 following a beta period of several months. WCG 2003 took place in WarCraft 3: Reign of Chaos in October. The entire scene had moved on already, of course participants prepared well for the event, but regardless it was not as widely followed or significant as you can expect a World Cyber Games (WCG) to be. WCG had always been the biggest event in StarCraft for the international scene, and has a format similar to ESWC: national qualifiers take place all over the world with the national championships meeting at a world championship to determine a champion. It remains the biggest individual event in WarCraft III till this very day.The results of WCG 2003 were (not including the team competition):1. SK.Insomnia (Bulgaria: Gold, 20.000 USD)2. ChinaHumaN (China: Silver, 10.000 USD)3. TeG.EviscErator (Romania: Bronze, 5.000 USD)4. Myth_ShaMan (Chinese Taipei)5. MagicYang (China)5. C14_Maloy (Ukraine)5. eXecutor (Peru)5. SK.FaTC (France)9. SoL_Mimmox (Italy)9. wndekfsha (South Korea)9. FM_Karma (Russia)9. ChobOs (France)9. Grubby[iS] (Netherland)9. mTw_Tak3r (Germany)9. orky_Flash (Russia)9. G.Kanadan[rR] (Canada)17. BULGARIA (Bulgaria)17. leehyungju (South Korea)17. 4K.Myth (Netherlands)17. pluslover (South Korea)17. 13est_HeAvY (Chile)17. KnightMerlin (Czech Republic)17. Dreamboy (Romania)17. Skyward (Brazil)17. orky_Soul (Russia)17. 4K.TillerMaN (Great Britain)17. secondwar (Vietnam)17. ZeeRaX (Bulgaria)17. Atelle (Chinese Taipei)17. AciD0 (Latvia)17. OrLy (Romania)17. XRRaggyCA (New Zealand)33. lms_feral_id (Poland)33. Slacash (Chinese Taipei)33. Twinsen[pG] (Germany)33. Darksun[RA] (Kazakhstan)33. ToNY_hk (Hongkong)33. krawiec (Poland)33. Gravedigger (Turkey)33. Amirav (Israel)33. l2uby (Canada)33. PaulYan_my (USA)33. Meguvin (Spain)33. miou[pG] (Germany)33. GeNThO (USA)33. Lotharw3 (Mexico)33. limmouse (China)33. 666MetalHeart_ (Peru)49. B3lcEbU (Columbia)49. Ir0nClad (USA)49. SGC_Frido (Slovacia)49. WarBringer (Hungary)49. Adolf[RA] (Kazakhstan)49. DpZiNhO (Portugal)49. SoL_GodZo (Italy)49. OneStar (Canada)49. Krisss49. [aLt]duckie (Singapore)49. 4K.KaJ (Danemark)49. Indalecio (Thailand)49. FINaL_ELEMENT (India)49. boy_sibak (Philippines)49. janby (Philippines)49. firstwar (Vietnam)65. TheBm (Hongkong)65. 4K.BoNd (Great Britain)65. Juvenile (South Africa)65. e4Evil (Spain)65. Vlc)3BEPb(RESET (Lithuania)65. GG_saeed (Iran)65. Dale (Estonia)65. Thirdwar (Vietnam)65. L_Clan_Chobo (Kazakhstan)65. Underground_Sp (Ukraine)China did surprisingly well in this time for those following the global scene with ChinaHumaN taking second place and MagicYang eliminating two Korean players. Insomnia cemented his name as a RTS legend and Grubby showed the first signs of promise of things to come (taking a map of Insomnia in Human mirror before being eliminated). Grubby and Check are the only two players to have had uninterrupted professional gaming careers between this event and present day (with Check currently focusing on StarCraft II). Various players on this list are active in StarCraft II and / or poker.Around this time as well. By late 2003 there was also a Go4WC3 cup running paying out 200 euro every week (a prelude to inCup). Allow various players around the globe to showcase their skill in the weekly online tournament.Recap 2002-2003This is where the WarCraft 3 scene roughly was at the dawn of 2004:Televised leagues (two individual, two team-based) were taking place in Korea.Two annual world championships took place (WCG and ESWC).CPL had rejected the game after running several events in 2002-2003.Germany had a running pro-series financing their national scene.The first WC3L LAN finals were about to be held in Paris.The first Blizzard Worldwide Invitational was about to be held in Seoul.Cyber-X-Games was about to be held in Las Vegas.The first ACON tournament was going to take place in Shanghai.Various LAN tournaments with varying degrees of success were held throughout Europe.Professional gaming careers launched 2002-2003China – ChinaHumaN & MagicYangEurope –TillerMaN, FaTC, HeMaN, MaDFroG & InsomniaGermany – Eli, Hell, ThePig & HoRRoRKorea - Medusa, ShowTime, Jojo, Gerrard, DayFly, Check, ReiGn, Rainbow, Anyppi, Star, Moon, Sweet, EvenStar, FreeDoM, Swain & ZacardChinaHumaN, HeMaN, MaDFroG & Insomnia all won enough (6.000$ - 22.400$) in international competition to justify their inclusion here (in the case of HeMaN, MaDFroG & Insomnia their stay in Seoul also helps as it lessens their own expenses and it meant they saw some income next to tournaments).Eli, Hell, ThePig & HoRRoR are the original four German EPS champions and thus could probably make a living playing the game.TillerMaN, MagicYang and FaTC all saw some prize money (up to 14.000$) and all likely saw some monthly salary (through teams) / income (be it through selling lessons or audio commentaries); enough to justify their inclusion here.Check, ShowTime, DayFly, Medusa, Moon, Anyppi, Jojo, Gerrard, EvenStar, Reign & Sweet all finished in the top two of important Korean competitions and probably all received some monthly salary next to income out of televised competition. FreeDoM, Swain & Zacard were also showing strong results already and signed to professional teams. On Star’s retirement he was supposedly a fulltime professional, a career which would have to have started during this time-period.Total prize money paid out 2002-2003 (as far as the data is available, some tournaments are estimated)WCG 2003 (49.000$)German EPS I (28.000 Euro = roughly 36.200$ today)MBC Hanbitsoft II (36.000$ estimated)MBC Prime League I (36.000$ estimated)MBC Prime League II (36.000$ estimated)OGN League II (36.000$ estimated)OGN League III (36.000$ estimated)OGN League IV (36.000$ estimated)OGN Invitational (36.000$ estimated)German EPS II (23.500 Euro = roughly 30.400$ today)ESWC 2003 (20.000$)CPL Copenhagen (10.600 Euro = roughly 13.700$ today)German EPS III (9.800 Euro = roughly 12.700$ today)OGN WarCraft Retail League ($10.000 estimated)HanbitSoft Gembc WC3 1st League ($10.000 estimated)hanbitsoft clan teambattle 1 ($10.000 estimated)hanbitsoft clan teambattle 2 ($10.000 estimated)CPL Cannes (8.000$)Campus Party 2003 (6000 Euro = roughly 7.800$)Arbalet Cup (6.000$)Gamefixx USA Tourney ($5000)Go4wc3 / inCup (2570 Euro = roughly 3.300$)Kbk Jeju cup (3000$ estimated)Intel Masters (2500$)GIGA Grand Slam I (1000 Euro = roughly 1.300$)ASUS Summer (800$)Total: 491.700$WarCraft III 2004 (first Blizzard event, first trouble for Korea scene, first China event, start of Korea / Europe merger)The USASo far the USA has not been discussed. The region played a significant role in WarCraft 3 in 2004; they were home to several international contenders such as Aether, Dennis "Shortround" Chan and Matthew "Wizard" Anderson. WCReplays was launched and quickly developed into the main community of the western WarCraft 3 scene.WCReplays launched the WC3Masters; setting the golden standard for weekly competitions (a standard that still has to be surpassed today). Two major events happened in the US: the Cyber-X-Games and the World Cyber Games. And Blizzard Entertainment, an US organisation, hosted the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Seoul. CPL might have discontinued their events, but they did hold three high level WarCraft 3 tournaments in Europe 2002-2003.So why did the region decline eventually? Aether, Shortround and Wizard all considered professional gaming an unrealistic career choice for an US player, so the region never really had dedicated professionals the way Asia or Europe did. Several tournament organisers might have had their origin in the US, but most never really warmed to WarCraft 3 or vice versa (CPL and Cyber-X-Games had payment issues). CPL was not the only tournament organiser not to see a future in WarCraft 3 after hosting events, the game was selected for the first season of the World Series of Video Games only to be rejected the next year, no major future US organiser would pick the game up again. WCReplays remains to this day the number one community site for western WarCraft III players, but it never really developed into something “more” the way TeamLiquid has for StarCraft for example (this could also be attributed in part to professional eSport organisations actively recruiting the biggest talents of WCReplays, with less of a demand on StarCraft writers there is less of a constant brain drain at StarCraft community sites).US players did have some advantages compared to players of other countries. Nowhere in the world did you qualify for major events so easily with BlizzCon, the World-eSport Games and various other tournaments holding qualifiers open to American players only or inviting players from the region. Similarly several events such as WCG America or BlizzCon USA allowed USA players to pick up winnings or titles with relatively little effort. This might have helped boost the scene to some degree as it gives top players an incentive to be the best of the country as there relatively to other national scenes a lot and easy chances to showcase their skills on the world stage, but apparently this was not enough for the nation to maintain its status as a junior partner to the European and Asia scenes (which it did have in the time period that is about to be described).Cyber-X-Games – January 20041. 4K.Grubby (Netherlands)2. aT-Wizard (USA)3. SK.Insomnia (Bulgaria)4. 4K.Zeus[19] (Croatia)5. 64AMD.Delicato (Sweden)5. SK.SeaWeed (USA)7. aT-BIatty (France)7. aT-Shore (France)9. SK.FaTC (France)9. SK.SuRviVoR (Sweden)9. 64AMD.NitemarE (Sweden)9. Hunter(kill)er (USA)13. MYM]Bjarke (Denmark)13. mTw-Ghostridah (USA)13. 4K.KaJ (Denmark)13. DSky.Chemi (Finland)17. RivaL.PerFume (USA)17. rS.Tray (USA)17. aT-Shortround- (USA)17. aT-Deco (France)17. CADX2-Craft (USA)17. rS.Careless (USA)17. rS.eTched (Canada)17. SK.ToD (France)25. rS.Suboshi (USA)25. 3mon1c (USA)25. Apex-X (USA)25. 64AMD.Four20 (Bulgaria)25. rS.X (USA)25. Dragon (USA)25. SK.Miou (Germany)25. rS.Pillage (USA)33. Disarray (USA)33. RuckusMcDuckus (USA)33. DSky.Blue (Finland)33. wudu (USA)33. Rival.Bey (USA)33. Massud (USA)33. aT-InToX (France)33. unkn[o]wn (USA)33. Mortal1 (USA)33. BOO-CRAFT (USA)33. Rival.Ramboner (USA)33. TheDrone (USA)33. u77.BlueWolf (USA)33. Disarray (USA)33. Tyrande (USA)Day 3 (final day) results:Grand FinalsaT-Wizard vs 4K.Grubby (0-2)Winner's Bracket FinalsaT-Wizard vs 4K.Grubby (1-2)Loser's Bracket Round 10aT-Wizard vs SK.Insomnia (2-X)Loser's Bracket Round 9SK.Insomnia vs 4K.Zeus (2-X)Loser's Bracket Round 8Sk.Seaweed vs SK.Insomnia (X-2)4K.Zeus vs 64AMD.Delicato (2-X)CXG was the first major international event in 2004 and Grubby’s coming out as a major tournament champion. Grubby remains active to this day and would be the player that defined the Orc race for much of his career, being the first and only Orc player to win a major international tournament until 2007(!). Cyber-X-Games never paid out. It also helped brandish Wizard’s reputation as a major tournament contender and the iconic USA WarCraft III player of his era (his Tetris pants also helped). As a tournament attended solely by US and European players it was still very much representative of a time of segregated gaming scenes. If a 25.000$ tournament dollar would have been announced anywhere in 2006 or beyond (you can’t tell they won’t pay out in advance) you could be sure to see several Korean and possibly Chinese players attend.The 2004 Blizzard Worldwide Invitational (WWI or BWI, the event which would later evolve into BlizzCon) took place a month (in February) after Cyber-X-Games. With no true world champion events having taken place since the release of The Frozen Throne and a never-before-seen 25.000$ first place pay out, all eyes were on this event. It featured champions from every region in the world and would wield surprising results:1. MaD)Q(FroG (Sweden: 25.000 USD)2. Jonathan "duckie" Tan Wei Zhong (Singapore: 15.000 USD)3. Lu "TrustMyself" Aodan (China: 5.000 USD)4. Cherry-ReiGn (South Korea)5. 4K.Grubby (Netherlands)5. Zhu "HaMasAki" Hui (China)7. EvenStar (South Korea)7. Huy Duck "Soul.JaH" Pham(Australia)9. SeaWeed (USA)9. IAMBAN (Chinese Taipei)9. HasuHasu (Arabia)9. B-ill (Japan)9. ALLYELLE (Chinese Taipei)9. SK.HeMaN (Sweden)9. RushWizard (USA)9. sWoop (South Africa)Where did duckie come from and who trained this awesome player to play WarCraft III at the highest level? According to fellow Singaporean Wind, former manager of China-based professional gaming team wNv, duckie trained on the USA ladders (reaching rank 1) prior to this event and did nothing but play WarCraft III fulltime, professionally for a year following WWI. He won every competition happening in Singapore at the time and was invited to join a Korean pro-team (he declined, eventually picking up studies again). Korea’s representative, ReiGn, once again failed to finish in the medals, with China’s representative once again showing remarkably strong results for a scene that is developing in near isolation from the rest of the world (with the exception of ACON 4, which took place in China and we’ll cover later).The biggest story however is Fredrik “MaDFroG” Johansson winning the event without dropping a single map. MaDFroG stayed in Seoul to train and play with FrienZ (forming an insanely strong line-up of players with possible the strongest player of each race in the world at the time: MaDFroG, Check, DayFly and Swain) long after his team mates left homesick. He would eventually stay in the country for eleven months the most spend in the company of people with which his only way of communication was through very basic English, any Korean he had picked up and WarCraft 3 phrases.When he returned to Sweden he would once again become runner-up of the Electronic Sports World Cup (2004) and he was recognized as the first eSports Player of the Year in the annual eSports Awards (which started in 2004). MaDFroG is a true gaming icon, his accomplishments all took place between the span of roughly one year (between ESWC 2003 and ESWC 2004) and he never recovered from the decline that set in after his return to Sweden. Ask many fans however and they’ll rank MaDFroG above more accomplished players with professional careers spanning five or six time the length of the Swede’s. Contributing to this as well might the notion that MaDFroG was the only western Undead player to ever compete at a level strong enough to win major international competitions. Like ShowTime he was included in ESReality’s 2004 Greatest Gamer Poll, his entry can be found here [http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=637604], he lost 45-55% to a RTS legend from a previous era.Two months after the Worldwide Invitational ACON 4 took place in Shanghai (April). ACON 4 is notable for a bunch of stuff, lets start with the results:1. mTw-Wizard (USA: 6.000 USD)2. aT-Deadman (Russia: 3.500 USD)3. SK.Sweet (South Korea: 2.000 USD)4. YolinY.suhO (China: 1.000 USD)5. mTw-Tak3r (Germany)5. 4K.Grubby (Netherlands)5. Toey (Thailand)5. SK.FaTC (France)9. CPTP.13U[2HG] (Hong Kong)9. Caf1 (Italy)9. MYM]CoReY (Denmark)9. Myth.CareFly (Taiwan)9. BMi.PhilBot (Australia)9. ODETON (Japan)9. SK.HeMaN (Sweden)9. KrawieC (Poland)17. TAG.BoNd (United Kingdom)17. BILLY_LO_ (Spain)It is the first and only major event ever won by an US player. It is the first major international tournament to take place in China (currently the sole region of importance in WarCraft III). It is the first time a Korean player finishes top three in international competition. In fact, Sweet would later be crowned WarCraft 3 Player of the Year by the eSport Awards (for various accomplishments). It is the event that kept Grubby out of the only ESWC event he missed (as it collided with the Dutch national qualifier).It is also the first appearance in a tournament in this article by former map hacker Andrey "Deadman" Sobolev, for a long time the bad boy of the western WarCraft III scene. Several players have cheated on some minor level (in this list Tak3r and Sweet come to mind), Deadman is the only professional player however to have been known to actively use cheat programs in online play. He was somewhat of a pariah among his fellow players for several years, but proved himself in competition time and time again until professional teams (64AMD followed by SK Gaming) took him in. He eventually left SK Gaming on pretty poor terms, in a famous incident that involved him kicking a manager. He saw a decline in his career afterwards until he quit WarCraft III and entered engineering school. Arguably, Deadman is the strongest western Night Elf player in the history of the game with the possible exception of Creolophus (who will be introduced in 2006), and at certain peaks in his career one of the absolute best players in the world. More on Deadman later however.Two months after ACON 4 the Electronic Sports World Cup took place in Paris (July). As mentioned before, this tournament effectively ended MaDFroG’s one year of international tournament dominance (though that was not obvious at the time). It also introduced the first Korean professional that would commit fully to a European team (FoV).ESWC 20041. aT-FoV (South Korea: 10.000 USD)2. SK.MaDFroG (Sweden: 6.000 USD)3. SK.HeMaN (Sweden: 3.000 USD)4. SK.Sweet (South Korea: 2.000 USD)5. mTw-Aether (USA: 1.000 USD)5. SK.FaTC (France: 1.000 USD)5. aT-ToD (France: 1.000 USD)5. GoStop (South Korea: 1.000 USD)9. aT-Deadman (Russia)9. SK.DominatoR (Norway)9. xiaoT (China)9. SK.Insomnia (Bulgaria)13. Giacoma (Czech Republic)13. DingDong (China)13. aT-Deco (France)13. SK.Miou (Germany)17. DSky.eNvious (Finland)17. mTw-Wizard (USA)17. Big (Russia)17. Evil (Spain)17. aT-SkyWard (Brazil)17. 64AMD.Zubie (Sweden)17. lef (Greece)17. 4K.Myth (Netherlands)25. Icest0rm (Italy)25. TAG-BoNd (United Kingdom)25. Nightwolf (Brazil)25. pG.Racor (Austria)25. PaTo (Brazil)25. Hitking (Iran)25. 4K.KaJ (Denmark)25. PaulYan (USA)33. sWoop (South Africa)33. Izuael (Ukraine)33. Flowless (Marocco)33. Chouchana (Lebanon)33. WiNdel (French Guiana)33. Alnetf (Saudi Arabia)33. DkH.Ravage (Germany)33. Manwe (Iran)41. Fenomenum (Lebanon)41. TaG-PureBall (United Kingdom)41. Woah (Portugal)41. Arthur (Columbia)41. Fen1x (Spain)41. Void (Turkey)41. Siegfried (Spain)41. SK.voOr (Switerland)49. Badseed (Saudi Arabia)49. Merlin (Lebanon)49. Skin (Portugal)Quarter-finalsmTw-Aether vs aT-FoV 1:2SK.FaTC vs SK.Sweet 0:2aT-ToD vs SK.MaDFroG 0:2SK.HeMaN vs GoStop 2:1Semi-finalsSK.Sweet vs aT-FoV 1-2SK.HeMaN vs. SK.MaDFroG 0-2Third placeSK.HeMaN vs SK.Sweet 2:1First placeaT-FoV vs SK|MaDFroG 2-1FoV’s win brings Korea their first world champion (many more to follow). It allowed Sweet to continue building the success that would eventually earn him his WarCraft 3 Player of the Year award. Aether’s fifth place helps cement his name as one of the few US players in the country’s history capable of competing at major international events. It’s also the second time Yoan “ToD” Merlo does well at the event, a prelude for things to come.Four months after ESWC 2004 the last major international tournament of the year takes place: the World Cyber Games in San Francisco. In order to properly discuss this event it is important to know more about some of the key players involved, this was the first of many World Cyber Games that were supposed to crown the career of WarCraft 3’s fifth race, Jae Ho “Moon” Jang (known for his extremely creative and succesful strategies, thus “being an entire WarCraft III race on his own, a fifth race), but ended up in disappointment. Instead it ended up lifting the career of Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen, creating what can be considered the biggest rivalry in eSports, bar none. It also introduces the player that probably suffered most from in peak condition at the same time as the two gentlemen mentioned before: Tae min "Zacard" Hwang, eternal runner-up.The Korean scene 2004Koreans thought WarCraft III was boring to watch on television. They could not easily follow the fantasy game compared to the science fiction based StarCraft. StarCraft was faster, people could understand tanks blowing stuff up, a town portal needs to be explained however. Combine that with a single race (Night Elves) dominating leagues, and you can understand why Korean mapmakers wanted to spice things up (more on this later).At the dawn of 2004 Koreans had no major international successes. Western players looked up to the scene nonetheless, they knew they could not handle the level of Korean pro-leagues, Koreans were seen as respectful and mannered, having a higher level of professionalism and a more broad based professional scene. No doubt that international success was just a matter of time, these were the results of qualifiers at the time (EvenStar went to the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational based on a 2003 qualifier):Electronic Sports World Cup1. Dae Hui "FoV" Cho2. Jung Hee "Sweet" Chun3. Kim Dong "Gostop" MoonTaking 1st, 4th and 9th place, FoV became the first of what currently are five Korean ESWC champions (out of seven events).ACON 41. Jung Hee "Sweet" Chun2. Kang Seo "ReiGn" WooSweet took 3th place at the main event. He was also promoted by SK Gaming, the first player to reach level 50 on the Kalimdor ladder and a semi-finalist in MBC Daum Prime League IV. Combined with his ESWC results, you could see how Sweet was the most visible Korean player of 2004 and why he was awarded WarCraft 3 Player of the Year.World Cyber Games1. Jang Yong "FreeDoM" Suk2. Tae min "Zacard" Hwang3. Jang "Moon" Jae HoFreeDoM was relatively young (born 1988), he was the only player at the time giving Moon trouble in Korea and seen as having a golden future in WarCraft III. He would later leave the game, switching to StarCraft after the Korean national scene crumbled in WarCraft III. After playing StarCraft for several years he started dedicating himself to poker with some succes.A former Age of Mythology pro, Zacard is one of the best WarCraft III players ever, despite never winning a major international tournament. He retired in 2007, you can find a tribute here [http://www.ggl.com/?controller=News&method=article&id=4820]. He was an Orc player at a time in which Orc did not win a lot vs. Night Elf, meaning that his second place was received very well. He was little known outside of Korea (not being one of the dominant players in Korean pro-leagues) until he introduced himself properly to the world by eliminating three European top players in an online showmatch (beating Fredrik "MaDFroG" Johansson, Ivica "Zeus[19]" Markovic and Antoine "FaTC" Zadri).The showmatch took place August 28, 2004 and had the following results:SK.HeMaN vs. SK.Sweet 1-24K.Grubby vs. SK.Sweet 2-14K.Grubby vs. Check[PooH] 0-2SK.MaD]Q[FroG vs. Check[PooH] 2-1SK.MaD]Q[FroG vs. SK.Zacard 0-24K^Zeus[19] vs. SK.Zacard 1-2SK.FaTC vs. SK.Zacard 0-2And than of course there is Jae Ho “Moon” Jang. Hold a greatest gamer poll today and Moon would not only be definitely included, he would have a decent shot at winning. Moon was terrifying in pro-leagues, coming up with incredible strategies to defeat his opponent with seeming ease. He was the most feared WarCraft III player in 2004 (and remains to be so today), humiliating his opponents in Korean pro-leagues and seemingly invincible vs. Orc (having never lost a televised match vs. the race, a streak he would keep up for years).Prior to WCG he also competed in the MBC Sonokong Prime League III, losing to Park Se “Swain” Ryong in the finals (famous for being the only Human player to ever win a Korean pro-league, Korea’s most accomplished Human player just on that).Sonokong OnGamenet II1. Check2. DayFly3. SweetMBC Sonokong Prime League III1. Park Se "Swain" Ryong2. Jang "Moon" Jae Ho3. Jang Yong "FreeDoM" Suk4. Kim Tae "Rainbow" InFor good measures also the results of IV (also took place in 2004):MBC Sonokong Prime League IV1. Lee Jae "EvenStar" Pak Kang2. Seo "ReiGn" Woo Park3. Se "Swain" Ryong3. Jung Hee "Sweet" Chun (no third place match found).suma ongamenet proleague1. Sonokong FrienZHello APM WEG1. SK Gaming AsiaMBC movies clan teambattle 31. Sonokong FrienZ2. Saint ProteamIf anyone is wondering how far back e-drama and people saying “WARCRAFT 3 IS DYING” goes, around this time the following highly publicized argument also took place:“You’re killing this game” – Richard "RaGe" Bishop [http://www.wcreplays.com/articles.php?get=173]“MaDFroG’s reply” - Fredrik "MaDFroG" Johansson [http://www.wcreplays.com/articles.php?get=174]“Survival of the fittest” - Jad "NuKe" Fawaz [http://www.wcreplays.com/articles.php?get=175]A WarCraft III manager accuses MaDFroG of killing the game after he played subpar (due to having to play against his will because his manager, NuKe, lined him up) in a WC3L war. Recommended reading, both educational and amusing.European scene 2004If 2003 in Europe was all about the SK Gaming crew, 2004 is very much about the rise of Four Kings. Grubby won the first major event of the year and Four Kings did well in team competition as the first two WC3L LAN finals of 2004 show:WC3L Season IV top four rankings and full team line-ups – October 9, 2003 till March 28, 2004 (LAN finals introduced, taking place in Paris, France between the top two teams)1. 4Kings (Myth, Grubby, FuRy, LaWn, Zeus[19], Kiko, KaJ)2. armaTeam (BIatty, Hazeem, MnZ, Shore, Deco, InToX, LwL, Wizard, GeNThO, Shortround)3. mTw (LasH, Tak3r, Modo, Matzerg, Ghostridah, Scytale)4. Destination Skyline (Ace, CoReY, Blue, Chemi, Ghortaur, Magik, Ouga, Puffe, eNvious, Durandal)Schroet Kommando (Kalaschni, Thagor, sTOrM, ToD, SuRviVoR, DominatoR, miou, pLaGuE, Seaweed, ZeeRaX)OCRANA.D-Link (justtryit, voOr, Pagan, Zyrano, Deluxe, BIaze, kookian, boNe, kain, DarK.FoRcE-, DiaZ)Revolution Sports Gaming (Tray, leolaporte, Hyper, Maestro, eTched, Love, Pills, KlasH, Akrobatik, X, Pillage, Universe)pro-Gaming.net (Jan, dArk, Allanon, BuTTerKeKs, HoRRoR, Dezzi, Racor, Twinsen, FiSheYe)sTar (ChobO, OkaiN, Psio, DK, ArMoR, Wolfy, MeddY)Gamepoint -> 64AMD (Krackmaster, Saitoh, midnight, plaZ, DIDI8, Lituch, BigEr, Four20, Goldenboy, Kilrogg, Caravaggio, UberElf, heat, zirx, inFi, BiZ)The aNcients (FEsTis, LeQua, CoReY, Ace, NitemarE, Delicato, SjoW) -> plan-B[headZ]plan-B[headZ] (Duke, Nuke, Limmet, alven, Eldor, Hulm, SjoW)SAINT (Winners, Medusa, Bestwolf, Sweet) -> a-Losersa-Losers (Mirai, hAsU, XardaS, PuN1Sher, Dalai, CmdrCD, Spell, WoO, fl1ps, 11LooSeR1, ThurisaZ, Dan, uc-)WC3L Season V rankings (top six play-offs took place at LAN finals in Cologne, Germany) and team line-ups. This season took place between April 1, 2004 and June 27, 2004.1. mTw (Ghostridah, RushWizard, Tak3r, LasH)2. 4Kings (Grubby, Myth, FuRy, LaWn, KaJ, Zeus[19])3. Schroet Kommando International (Insomnia, ZeeRaX, DominatoR, SuRviVoR, FaTC, Sweet, HeMaN, SeaWeed)4. armaTeam (Sabre, RaZ, BIatty, Shortround, InToX, Deadman, Deco, ShowTime, Shore)5.MeetYourMakers (aCe, CoReY, KiA, Takete, Bjarke, ySkhYr, Geeko, GoStop, Susiria, Warthog, Jango, TuNe)6. Identity.ioS -> Team 3wD (Alven, Limmet, Karma, Ranger, SjoW, Ranger, Delicato)7. Destination Skyline (DIDI8, eNvious, sAtiiNi, n0mad, Chemi, Demon-TT)8. OCRANA.D-Link (TaKe, Harty, Zyrano, voOr, Crimson, kookian, DarK.FoRcE-, Caf1)9. pro-Gaming (Allanon, BuTTerKeKs, YaD, Amun, Hunter, CareLess, ShoCK, vanHunt, HoRRoR)10. Schroet Kommando Germany (sTOrM, Thagor, j4yiwd, miou, Thagor)11. Mousesports (Jan, dArk, PuN1Sher, HasuObs, Spell, PaNiC_Wasano)12. Team 9 -> Clanless Power (BiZ, RaGman, sNaggy, Zubie, SaSe, Caravaggio, aNty)We see a number of players that are active today have been active in RTS as far back as these seasons: Grubby, miou, Satiini, TaKe & HasuObs. We also see a number of players that have gone inactive at least once since but have at least played the SC II beta (this list is by no means conclusive): KaJ, Tak3r, ToD, ZeeRaX, FiSheYe, DeliCato, Spell & Zubie.We also see the start of a phenomena that was described before, the inclusion of Korean players in various WC3L teams despite their representing Korean pro-teams in national competitions (it must also be noted they did none flew over to compete in the WC3L finals, a practice that would start in the next season, the Asian players only competed online). Among the Korean pro-gamers: Winners, Medusa, Bestwolf, Sweet, ShowTime, GoStop and Susiria; especially GoStop and Susiria are known for becoming an integral part of WC3L history, with Susiria helping MYM to various WC3L victories (he attended nine WC3L LAN finals representing MYM.Hanbit and MYM, winning two). Sweet has a more negative WC3L history, he would later leave SK-Gaming on bad terms after choosing not to attend a WC3L LAN finals in order to join World Elite at its inception, he would in fact represent various teams making it to the WC3L LAN finals and for various reasons never attend except for a single time late 2007 as part of the Beijing eSport Team (they took fourth place).Regardless, WC3L gives us an idea of how the teams measured up in this time-period and we see Four Kings doing well, taking an first and second place. mTw is also enjoying something of a peak period, the team would not improve strongly on its line-up in future editions of the event while other teams grew and as a result mTw would slowly see declining WC3L results over the years. Many of these teams would disband over the years or move out of the WarCraft III scene (most famously of which Four Kings), only MYM, mTw, SK and mouz retained active WC3 squads until WC3L season XVI (the last one).We do not see a return of Four Kings to the next WC3L LAN finals as they (or to be more precise: Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen, Sebastian "FuRy" Pesic, Yoan “ToD” Merlo and Ivica "Zeus[19]" Markovic) would travel to Seoul in September where they would join add Dae Hui "FoV" Cho to the team. Originally Jae Ho “Moon” Jang and Human pro-gamer Tae In “Rainbow” Kim were meant to join them as well, however they were at the time signed to Korean pro-teams which prevented that deal from going through (indicating once again a knowledge gap between the two scenes as they were signed at the time of being recruited).ESWC 2004 champion FoV became the first Korean player (many more to follow) to become an integral part of an European based team, technically SK.Asia could count as well, but in practice they remained more of a Korea-based team despite being signed to SK-Gaming.Right before Four Kings left for Korea the 2004 European Nations Championship took place in Cologne, Germany (organisted by ESL). they would continue to happen annually till this very day and give some indication of how the various European nations stacked up against each other (the format consisted of four 1on1’s and a single 2v2):European Nations Championship 2004 – September 3-4, 2004Day 1Sweden vs. Denmark 4:1Bulgaria vs. France 4:1Germany vs. Denmark 2:3France vs. Netherlands 4:1Sweden vs. Germany 4:1Bulgaria vs. Netherlands 3:2Day 2semi-finals: Bulgaria vs. Sweden 2:3420 & Jack vs. SuRviVoR & MaDFroG 2:1Insomnia vs. MaDFroG 1:2420 vs. SuRviVoR 0:2ZeeRaX vs. HeMaN 0:2Jack vs. FuRy 2:1semi-finals: France vs. Denmark 4:1ToD & Shore vs. KaJ & coReY 2:0InToX vs. Heman_ 2:0FaTC vs. KaJ 2:1ToD vs. ySkhYR 2:0ChobO vs. coReY 1:2finals: Sweden vs. France 3:1MaDFroG & LaWn vs. ToD & Shore 0:0HeMaN vs. InToX 2:1SuRviVoR vs. Shore 2:0FuRy vs. ToD 0:2MaDFroG vs. FaTC 2:0Some well known names. Probably the time that InToX started slipping away from the top players after having been one of the dominant players in Europe up to this point. It must be noted that Russia would never attend an European Nations Championship event until 2010 due to either organisational or visa issues.Four days after this event and just a week or so before leaving for Korea Grubby played Andrey "Deadman" Sobolev in WC3L’s king of the hill series. These two would be the major intra-Europe rivalry for several years (Grubby famously played under the nick “apm70maphacks” in ladder, reminding everyone of the Russian’s past) and matches like these drew major attention. Deadman won with a 3-2 score, he would later lose the title to MaDFroG. For those keep tracking, this is also roughly the time ArmaTeam and Destination Skyline disband, the first due to the management being frustrated with the demands ArmaTeam’s players made on them, the second due to lack of sponsorship.Four Kings in KoreaFour Kings come to Korea in hopes of competing in various pro-leagues and are invited to MBCGame and OnGameNet’s individual pro-leagues. None of the players are particularly successful in either (with Grubby losing to Moon in two televised games, setting the early trend for their rivalry). ToD is the most successful of players in the televised competitions and would stay in Korea for almost a full year, with the other players (with the exception of FoV) returning home before the end of the year.The team-based pro-leagues were already cancelled on Four-Kings’ arrival (a prelude to things to come), Four Kings does however play a Korea all-star line-up on television on October 1, 2004 with the following results:4K-FuRy (UD) vs Swain[FrienZ] (HM) on "Odessa"4K-ToD (HM) vs Cherry-ReiGn (UD) on "Lost Temple Prime"4K-Zeus[19] (NE) vs SK.Zacard (OC) on "Turtle Rock Prime"4K-FoV (UD) vs Spirit_Moon (NE) on "Cross Road"4K-Grubby (OC) vs Rex.Evenstar (NE)All Four Kings players would lose. A month later the World Cyber Games would take place in San Francisco, USA (October 7, 2004). Grubby and ToD were qualified for the event, China’s delegation (including a certain Xiaofeng “Sky” Li) were barred from the event due to visa issues, Deadman was barred from WCG Russia due to his young age (fifteen, Moscow had an age policy in place more strict than the main event). We saw earlier that FreeDoM, Zacard & Moon were to represent Korea at this event.WCG 2004 is a pivotal event in the career of Jang “Moon” Jae Ho who was widely feared ahead of the championship and seen as a big title favourite. Had he won this event it would have “sealed” the deal on his reputation as the player that completely dominated WarCraft III. Instead it introduced two major rivals to Moon, first of all an intra-Korea rival in Zacard and secondly the world’s greatest (what either they experienced it as such or not) eSport rivalry in Moon vs. Grubby.The results (starting from the single elimination):DNAngel_indY vs 4K.KaJ 0:24K.Grubby vs Df1ToRReN 2:0SK.MaDFroG vs GG_Chobo 2:1fm_ranger vs 64AMD.Cara 0:2Freedom vs SK.Wizard 2:0Lynx.Zerter vs SK.FaTC 0:2SK.Insomnia vs mouz.HasuObs 2:0eTched[pG] vs Shortround 1:23wD.420 vs gscHoTdaw (HoT) 0:2Nw_Caf[pG] vs MiNeTwk 2:064AMD.Crimson vs MoonGlade 2:0MythCareFly vs 4K.ToD 0:2philbot_au vs SK.Miou 0:264AMD.Racor vs Shock[pG] 0:2ACT_Giacomo vs SK.Zacard 0:2reseT)3BEPb vs SpiritMooN 0:2Antoine "FaTC" Zadri (who likely threw his group-stage game vs. Shock[pG] for what seemed the easier bracket) elimination of Jos “Zerter” Buijvoets is a pivotal moment in the history of WarCraft III journalism as it meant the young Dutchman had nothing better to do than spend his remaining time writing about and observing the event, eventually leading to this article.4K.KaJ vs 4K.Grubby 0:2SK.MaDFroG vs 64AMD.Cara 1:2Freedom/Lady vs SK.FaTC 0:2SK.Insomnia vs Shortround 1:2HoT vs Nw_Caf[pG] 2:164AMD.Crimson vs 4K.ToD 1:2SK.Miou vs Shock[pG] 2:0SK.Zacard vs SpiritMooN 2:1MaDFroG’s elimination by Caravaggio was considering something of an upset at the time. In retrospect the Swede had a declining interest in the game since his return from Seoul, something which was becoming more and more visible. FaTC eliminates prodigy FreeDoM, the Korean Night Elf player might have had a hard time playing against the Human due to a lack of Human players in Korea (having no significant international experience to compensate, online or offline).Most famous of these matches however is the defeat of Moon on the hands of Zacard. Note that this match happened prior to MagicYang popularizing mass Druids of the Talon in Night Elf vs. Orc and also prior to Zacard popularizing Blademaster vs. pretty much everything in Orc matches (Orc players continue to go to bed praising Zacard for that one), so Orc vs. Night Elf was an entirely different game than it is today. Moon had never lost a televised match vs. Orc in Korea, so this was at the time possibly the biggest upset ever. It instantly made Zacard a big favourite to take home the gold and might have given a boost to Warcraft III in Korea as the way Elves were beating Orc players was helping the game to be perceived as not interesting in the country.4K.Grubby vs 64AMD.Cara 2:0SK.FaTC vs Shortround 1:2HoT vs 4K.ToD 1:2SK.Miou vs SK.Zacard 0:2Dennis “Shortround” Chan’s defeat of FaTC was quite the upset, especially considering FaTC had just 2-0’d Night Elf players FreeDoM and Zerter (FreeDoM is probably the more impressive one). Shortround used the newly introduced firelord hero to maximum effect and would soon replace Wizard as the USA’s iconic WarCraft III player. There were no surprises in the other matches. HoT’s strong results in these event caused him to be noted by manager Jad "NuKe" Fawaz and picked up by SK-Gaming, leading to a very successful partnership as HoT would develop into one of Europe’s strongest players and an iconic SK Gaming player.4K.Grubby vs Shortround 2:14K.ToD vs SK.Zacard 0:2Shortround came surprisingly close to eliminating Grubby, he would be beat relatively easily by ToD in the match for third place however, with ToD possibly having learned from Shortround’s matches against fellow Frenchman and Human player FaTC. This set the stage for a match between Orc players Grubby and Zacard, which would coincidentially also determine the winner of the WCG nations ranking (adding extra pressure to both players as well as giving the entire Dutch and Korean delegations additional incentive to cheer their respective players on). Naturally this would also determine who would be considered the world’s strongest Orc, in effect taking over from the retired DayFly who was considered the first to lead the horde (Moon’s reign as the king of Elves would never be in question till this very day).3rd place4K.ToD vs Shortround 2:0Finals4K.Grubby vs SK.Zacard 2:1Grubby would return to Korea and shortly return to the Netherlands (homesick). Zacard would return to Korea and would soon make an unique (at the time) move to establish himself in Germany in order to compete in German EPS. He would return to Korea to compete in the World e-Sport Games in 2005. Something which Grubby declined to do and would add to the perceived rivalry between him and Moon as Grubby would win various tournaments outside of Korea while Moon was dominating the World e-Sport Games causing the players to not meet in any “official” matches for an extended period of time.This event is where Grubby definitely takes over from MaDFroG as Europe’s “big player” without the two ever having settled this in direct competition. Grubby’s rise more or less coincides with MaDFroG’s fall. This tournament also marked goodbye to a generation of western top-players such as KaJ, FaTC, and Wizard. Some of which may have made appearances at later events, but all of which would never achieve at the level they achieved in 2002-2004 again.This was also the month the finals of the Battle.net ladder season I (which was completely online) took place. The ladder season was an online competition organized by Blizzard Entertainment and you could qualify by doing well at their online ladders. This and the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational would later evolve in what is today known as BlizzCon.The champions of each gateway were:Kalimdor: PhoeNix_ReMinDNorthrend: SK.InsomniaAzeroth: mTw-GhostridahLordaeron: Rival.ShowTimeWhich lead to the following semi-finals:PhoeNix_ReMinD 3-2 Rival.ShowTimemTw-Ghostridah 3-0 SK.InsomniaAnd the following grand final:mTw-Ghostridah (Azeroth) 0-3 PhoeNix_ReMinD (Kalimdor)Thus introducing Sung "ReMinD" Sik Kim to the global scene. ReMinD would become Korea’s “other” big Night Elf player (next to Moon), being a professional contender for many years and going on to win the next season of Battle.net as well and the first LAN season (IV).Around this time Four Kings also challenged the Korean all-stars again, only this time to an European style war:1. Swain VS Zeus[19] (Twisted Meadows) 0-12. Reign & Moon VS FoV & Zeus (Gnoll Wood) 1-03. Sweet VS Grubby (Turtle Rock) 1-04. Swain & Check VS Grubby & Fury (Avalanche) 1-05. Check VS ToD (Lost Temple) 1-0Which lead to an one point improve for the European pros.Around this time there were several signs indicating the Korean and European scene were coming closer together:- SK-Gaming announced Zacard would be moving to Germany.- ReMinD played and defeated MaDFroG in the ESL King of the Hill- MeetYourMakers flew in Susiria and GoStop to compete at the WC3L LAN finals in Copenhagen.The WC3L season VI finals (December 4-5, 2004) featured four teams and had the following results (Four Kings was absent due to them deciding flying to Kopenhagen not being a worthwhile investment of their time and resources, the latter of which could be explained as a prelude to the financial difficulties that lead to the ultimate disbandment of the team):1. 64AMD (Robert "Enrique" Stolpe Björn "ElakeDuck" ödman Alex "King.Crimson" Andrei Andrey "Deadman" Sobolev Kim "SaSe" Hammer Igor "Caravaggio" Lyalin)2. MeetYourMakers (Jung-Ki "Susiria" Oh Kim Dong "Gostop" Moon Rene "Ciara" Krag Viktor "ySKhYr" Stauning)3. SK Gaming (Fredrik "Survivor" Jansson Antoine "FaTC" Zadri Tae min "Zacard" Hwang Fredrik "MaDFroG" Johansson Alborz "HeMaN" Haidarian)4. mousesports (Minh "Spell" Nguyen Dennis "HasuObs" SchneiderMarios "PaNiC" Kalagis Jan "Jan" Stötera Paul "PuN1sher" M. K. Dennis "Shortround" Chan David "Suboshi" Lynch)This is the first time a manager (Enrique) participates in the WC3L finals (not the last). Deadman being part of the winning team of the event in the absence of Four Kings helps him build up credibility as Europe’s number one player in the absence of Grubby and ToD who were staying in Korea at the time. Of the SK-Gaming team, only Zacard would see a return next season’s LAN finals (with MaDFroG making a return in the season after that in the first of his unsuccessful comebacks).Line-ups of the teams that did not attend LAN finals (the above line-ups only include the players that attended the LAN finals, Insomnia is absent for example but most definitely a player for SK at this time):SK Gaming Germany (sTOrM, Thagor, TaKe, kookian, j4yiwd, boNe, KaiN, miou)Destination Skyline (Magik, Durandal, n0mad, DIDI8, Demon-TT, Suboshi, Talon, bonchance)4Kings.Intel (Grubby, Zeus[19], LaWn, FuRy, KaJ)Team 3wD (HomeRunBall, Lyn, Karma, Ranger, OMA,S.Jack, 420, BigEr, eNvious)Storm Games Clans (Denon, Moloch, Uhlyk, Hum4nic, InTheEnd, DORAN, Frido, Tlaloc, MokoNoTora, Rong, Lagking)DkH.Mystify (EvE, Mirai, DaviN, eLTmaNN-ciTy, TrueShot, PoDoX, Ravage, Galeth)armaTeam (MnZ, Skyward, Sabre, Shortround, ToD, Deadman, SeGaL, FoV, Deco)mTw (Aether, Ghostridah, Tak3r, LasH, JanThePig, Benni)Note that as mentioned before, armaTeam and Destination Skyline did not exist long enough to see the season through. With armaTeam’s line-up especially making its way to several other teams.In the end of 2004 World of Warcraft launched. This did not really affect the WC3 pro-scene (no active pro-gamers played the game, though various players such as HeMaN and Deadman have been known to play it in inactivity), but it might have caused a portion of the fan- and the less dedicated playerbase to switch, thus impacting WC3 negatively. Either way, people outside of eSports started confusing WarCraft III with World of Warcraft (this strengthened over time), which would result in cold glares from WC3 players and the feeling you would have been better off hitting on their girlfriends (or wives as some players matured) in terms of the damage you’ve done to your relationship.Also the World e-Sport Games (WEG) were announced. WEG was a major televised league to take place in Seoul during 2005 that lasted for several months and invited some of the best players from China, Europe and the US to compete alongside several Korean pro-gamers. With the declining ratings from national competitions, WEG brought the standard of Korean pro-leagues to a global competition in a manner which up to today has yet to be replicated.Recap 2004This is where the WarCraft 3 scene roughly was at the dawn of 2005:Blizzard got involved in WC3 competitions with BWI and Battle.net season I.Korean team leagues were discontinued, World e-Sport Games was launched.ACON 4 was held.Three WC3L LAN finals were held.The European Nations Championship was launched.The first Samsung European Championship was about to be held.Korean individual leagues continued.German EPS continued.WCG and ESWC continued.WC3M was cancelled January 2005, leaving inCup as the sole weekly online league paying out 200 euro to the winner.Another US player, GGL, was about to become involved with the WC3 scene.The CPL was about to launch a one million dollar Painkiller World Tour, briefly a chief competition to WC3’s status as the number one individual eSports game worldwide, also a boost to the scene in the form of three WarCraft III tournaments held at various stops.Professional gaming careers launched 2004China – SuhO, TrustMyself & SkyEurope – Grubby, Zeus[19], Deadman, ToD & FuRyGermany – Tak3r & MiouKorea – FoV, Susiria & ReMinDSingapore - duckieUSA - WizardTrustMyself & duckie won enough money (5.000$ - 10.000$) in international competition to justify their inclusion here (both saw other income as well). As far as TrustMyself goes, 5.000$ goes a long way in China. duckie is known to have been a professional gamer for a year following BWI.The inclusion of SuhO and Sky should have possibly been delayed until 2005, but that is hard to say without knowing more about China. They had monthly salaries by Yoliny at this time and belonged to the top of the Chinese scene with Sky leading the national WCG delegation (whose visa was denied) and SuhO taking fourth place at ACON 4.Grubby, Zeus[19], ToD, FoV and FuRy all launched professional gaming careers this year either as part of Four Kings’ stay in Seoul or on the merits of their international succeses (FoV winning ESWC, Grubby winning WCG).Deadman had some international winnings as well as national winnings in Russia. It is hard to say what kind of monthly salaries he received, but his inclusion here feels justified.Miou won German EPS, twice (‘nuff said). Tak3r consistently finished in the top four of German competitions and probably saw some money from mTw.Wizard won a sizable amount internationally (6.000$ from ACON 4 and a undisclosed amount from a WC3L championship with mTw). He saw a monthly salary as well and likely money from national events.Susiria (MYM’s captain) and ReMinD (Battle.net champion) both probably saw enough income for them to dedicate themselves to the game fully. Maybe they did not really make enough to truly support themselves yet, either way, they would soon enough.Total prize money paid out 2004 (as far as the data is available, some tournaments are estimated)BWI 2004 (45.000$)WCG 2004 (40.000$)Sonokong OnGameNet II (36.000$ estimated)MBC Sonokong Prime League III (36.000$ estimated)MBC Sonokong Prime League IV (36.000$ estimated)German EPS V (25.000 Euro = roughly 32.600$)ESWC 2004 (25.000$)German EPS IV (17.760 Euro = roughly 23.000$)Battle.net Season I (13.000$)ACON 4 (12.500$)NGL Finals II Germany (9000 Euro = roughly 11.600$)NGL Finals I Germany (8.750 Euro = roughly 11.300$)ENC 2004 (8000 Euro = roughly 10.400$)SMAU ILP 2004 (8.000 Euro = roughly 10.400$)suma ongamenet pro league (10.000$ estimated)Hello APM WEG (10.000$ estimated)MBC movies clan teambattle 3 (10.000$ estimated)inCup (6000 Euro = roughly 7.800$)European Online Gaming Championship (5.500 Euro = roughly 7.100$)WC3Masters (6500$)GIGA Grandslam III (3.000 Euro = roughly 3.900$)GIGA Grandslam II (3.000 Euro = roughly 3.900$)WC3L season V (2.500 Euro = roughly 3.250$)WC3L season VI (3.250$ estimated)MrFixItOnline (2500$)ASUS Cups (2350$)WC3L season IV (2000$ estimated)Master Clan League Season III (1300$)Almojo Warcraft III Tournament (1000$)Arbalet Cup (1000$)DLgamer WGTour Tournament (400$)Netgamez 2004 (275 Euro = roughly 350$)Total: 419.400$WarCraft III 2005 (World eSport Games, BlizzCon & Stars War launched, Korea national scene continues decline, China rises)Once again, credit to Blaze for his 2005 Year in Review [http://www.wcreplays.com/page?section=articles&id=371] which was consulted considerably in the writing of this chapter.Swain and Won-il "Star.WeRRa" Choi retired at the start of the year.Swain is notable as the only Human player to win a televised league in Seoul as well as being part of the legendary Team FrienZ. He would announce 23 days later he would make a comeback at some point as “ShowBu”, stating he could not forget about WarCraft III.Star.WeRRa is not notable for any results in particular (he was a regular in televised competition) but because he was the first of Korea’s “Undead Princes” (Star, Sweet, Susiria, Lucifer, FoV & ReiGn as well as later Space) to retire. He threw in the towel following the Prime League map scandal which screwed him out of a win. Also because he was 23 and real life concerns (not being successful enough to make a longterm future out of gaming, financial difficulties, mandatory draft coming up) were catching up with him.The first major event of 2005 was the World e-Sport Games I which took place in Seoul, Korea starting January 30 and featured the following groups:Group ASK.ZacardYolinY.SkyEAT64AMD.DeadmanGroup BSK.MaDFroGMoon[One]4K.ToDMagicYangGroup C4K.FoVmouz.ShortroundSK.InsomniaYolinY.suhOGroup DSK.HeMaN17games.xiaOtSK.SweetFreeDom.WeRRaIf you’ve been reading this article, every single one of these players has been introduced, with the exception of the Chinese players, various of which have been mentioned but none of which have been talked about at length. This is because we knew very little about the Chinese scene at the time of this event, something which is about to change drastically at this point in time as China is about to develop in a global hotspot both in terms of players and events.Every single match these players played was televised, the prize purse was approximately 41.000$. The players stayed in Seoul for a period of about two months (the exceptions being ToD who never left Korea since Four Kings moved there, and the Koreans who obviously lived in the country full-time).This might also be a good time to discuss Zacard’s presence at the event who, as we mentioned before, moved to Germany. He did not do well enough in German EPS to make it likely he would qualify for the finals and got homesick to a point where SK Gaming made a public call on their website asking if any Koreans that lived in Cologne could contact them so Zacard could socialize with them. Obviously he was happy for a chance to return home and compete at this level so he cut his stay in Germany short. This is similarly perhaps to the way Grubby cut his stay in Seoul short, homesick as well, to return home and spend the Christmas holidays with his family.MaDFroG would announce his retirement at the event (long past his prime at the time but still invited based on reputation), the event also features something of a last hurrah on the part of HeMaN who was the only European to make it out of the first group stage. HeMaN would also fade in inactivity shortly. You can find a VOD dedicated to MaDFroG here [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rajT1dztR5A]. He would also be featured post-retirement in the Beyond the Game documentary.The event also properly introduces several members of the Chinese elite for the first time: MagicYang who earlier competed at WCG 2003 and popularized mass druid of the talon vs. Orc would take fourth place. Sky, whose only mention up to this point was as part of the Chinese delegation whose visa to WCG 2004 was denied, he would take third place at WEG and almost eliminated Zacard in their semi-final match. XiaOt and SuhO would remain among China’s and the world’s strongest players for many years to come, never really rising close to the number one position in the region but doing well enough to be considered among the best.Sky beat MagicYang in the battle for third place at the event. Moon beat Zacard in the grand finals of the event, using druids of the talon, and would win the first edition of the World e-Sport Games without dropping a map, cementing his reputation as Korea’s and quite possibly the world’s strongest player.You should also watch ToD vs. Moon if you’re interested in perhaps the most famous smack-down in WarCraft III history, Moon beats ToD using his own units against him:ToD vs. Moon – WEG Ipart 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3rYH-0iUXc part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK1YOJIQf-Q part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYkygNlPsZg part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObPGgsaukKs As in 2004, the only player really challenging him in Korea at the time was FreeDoM who could hold his own vs. Moon in Night Elf mirror. There were two Korean individual pro-leagues that concluded early 2005 (having started in 2004) with the following results:Ongamenet Invitational1. Jang Yong "FreeDoM" Suk2. Jang "Moon" Jae Ho Kang3. Seo "ReiGn" WooYou can watch the spectacular FreeDoM vs Moon finals on YouTube (thanks to “InactiveLegend” on SK forums), here:Game 1Part 1Part 2Game 2Part 1Part 2Game 3Part 1Part 2Game 4Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Game 5Part 1Part 2MBC Land Cinema Prime League V1. Jang "Moon" Jae Ho2. Kim Hong "Romeo" Jae3. Jang Yong "FreeDoM" Suk3. Lee Jae "EvenStar" Pak (3/4)At this time the Korean prime league map scandal hit early March as written about by KidArctica here [http://www.sk-gaming.com/content/9106-MBC_Prime_League_Map_Scandal]. Basically the televised leagues had declining popularity for a long time partly due to the success of Night Elf players and the failure of Orc players to compete (there simply were not a lot of Human pros in Korea, Undead did fine). So the maps were rigged to benefit Orc and to weaken Night Elf. This was discovered, caused a lot of uproar and was all the excuse the big two leagues (OGN and MBC) needed to discontinue their individual prime leagues (having already discontinued the team leagues in 2004). MBC would remain supporting WC3 with several competitions over the years, but WarCraft III in Korea would never recover and this caused the pro-gamers to seek opportunities in teams and tournaments outside of the country.Alongside the World e-Sport Games CPL Istanbul also took place in February. This was basically a competition between the best of Europe, minus those competing in the World e-Sport Games. Istanbul never paid out, as far as early 2010 at least. CPL claimed it was hosted by an organisation independent of CPL who were given the rights to carry the tag and a result it was not their responsibility.CPL Istanbul top six1. 4K.Grubby (Netherlands)2. SK.HoT (Ukraine)3. 4K.Zeus[19] (Croatia)4. mTw-DIDI8 (Bulgaria)5. 3wD.FlasH (Russia)5. SK.FaTC (France)Following CPL Istanbul a more proper European championship took place involving the European players that competed at WCG 2004. The Samsung European Championship took place in March in Hannover, Germ