The Warcraft III NGL-One finals took a long time to reach, with the last games of the season completed over a month ago. The pros stood strong against one another in NGL-One’s king of the hill format, leaving each other little room to breathe. Some rose to the occassion, some had their GG’s ready before sitting down. After all was said and done, MYM went home with another title under their belt, ready for another season.

Most valuable Player: MYM.Lucifer

No one can deny it. Lucifer began with knocking over mouz by himself, and clinching the final point for MYM to take away the win. His skill with the Undead race really came out this time; very in-sync in every game. Check his replays if you get the chance.

Most disappointing Player: Fly100%

Fly never made it to the finals because of logistics issues. His presence would’ve boosted mouz’s chances to win. Mouz’s lineup was simply not strong enough without him. Let’s hope he comes around next time.

Watch or Die: MYM.Lucifer v mouz.ToD (Lost Temple)

I couldn’t possibly write up a match report to do this game justice. Both players going Tri-Hero, ToD as mouz’s last resort, Lucifer hungry for the full-kill; if there’s one game you have to see, it’s this one.

Spectators’ nightmare: The maps

Seriously, while the Starcraft world has more maps for the pro leagues alone, Warcraft has suffered from the same old map pool for ages and ages. Blizzard, please, patch up Warcraft before Starcraft II comes out.



MYM managed to defeat SK to win the NGL-One Warcraft III finals.

Twisted Meadows : SK.Soju < MYM. Susiria
Twisted Meadows : SK.Reign < MYM.Susiria
Lost Temple: SK.Lyn > MYM.Susiria
Terenas Stand: SK.Lyn > MYM.Moon
Lost Temple: SK.Lyn < MYM.Focus
Turtle Rock: SK.Remind > MYM.Focus
Turtle Rock: SK.Remind < MYM.Lucifer

MYM WINS 4:3

Be sure to watch the upcoming season for more NGL-One games! MYM’s new lineup features the Dutch superstar Grubby. With the majority of player transfers between teams complete, new teams and old stars are sure to please the community with more games and matches.



Day one of the NGL-One Warcraft III finals is done, finishing the upper bracket.

The winner goes on to take place in the finals, while today’s losers will play out the lower bracket, where another loss means elimination.

Results are as follows (spoilers!): Continued…



Warcraft III’s NGL-One Finals are underway, showcasing four top tier teams colliding and trading spells at the offline finals to prove their power.

The NGL format is unique, using a king of the hill format instead of WC3L’s individual match tally. Each team selects a player to play a match, with the loser being eliminated. The loser is replaced by a teammate to play, with the process repeated until a team loses four players.

What does this mean? Managers/team leaders have to be very selective of who plays when. Before matches even begin, captains have to strategize. Should they send a player for an all kill? Do they match players for each match, picking off the other team’s powerhouses with surgical selections? Multiple factors enter the process, putting more pressure on everyone.

NGL-One’s finals run today, Feb. 22 through tomorrow, Feb. 23.

Contending Teams

Meet Your Makers

An outstanding lineup of players that seems to take more second place finishes than first. Moon is the epic Night Elf hero, with more victories in each year than some pro players could make in a lifetime. His strategies revolutionize the game, but with his reported hiatus, will he be in shape to play in NGL? Lucifer rose up in 2006, but has yet to be in the same shape since. Susiria plays on par with Lucifer, meaning MYM might have to struggle to take the win. Continued…



After the disbandment of 4Kings’ Warcraft III squad, the ‘net was rife with rumors and speculation about where Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen would end up. Wait no more: Grubby has officially joined MeetYourMakers, rounding out a powerhouse lineup.

The team’s full roster looks like this:

MYM.Moon (Night Elf)
MYM.Shy (Night Elf)
MYM.Eve (Night Elf)
MYM.Storm (Human)
MYM.Lucifer (Undead)
MYM.Susiria (Undead)
MYM.Focus (Orc)
MYM.Ciara (Orc)
MYM.Konna (Orc)
MYM.Grubby (Orc)

They seem a bit low on Human players, but it could just be me. Having Grubby, Moon and Lucifer under one (proverbial) portends bad things for other teams.



June “Lyn” Park lived up to the role of the favorite in the Extreme Masters LA tournament and defeated JaeWook “Lucifer” Noh in the final. By doing so, he became the first Orc player to win a major international title this year.

Continued…



The world’s highest-earning Warcraft 3 player (in both salary and prize money) Jang “Spirit Moon” JaeHo has added $10,000 to his account beating Chun “Sweet” Jung Hee in the final. The gentleman in the nice hat will be going to New York City to defend his GGL DigitalLife title.

Spirit Moon won the group of death with June “Lyn” Park, Sung Sik “ReMinD” Kim and XiaoFeng “Sky” Li, but surprisingly lost to Kim “SaSe” Hammar in the first game of the upper bracket. “The fifth race,” as he was dubbed for so often being in a class of his own in Warcraft 3, beat four opponents in the lower bracket on his way to the grand final. Those were Chui “FoV” Dae Cho, Noh “Lucifer” JaeWook, Wei Liang “Fly100%” Lu and June “Lyn” Park.

Sweet only needed a map win to take the trophy, but Moon won two times on Twisted Meadows. The Korean has racked up well over $100,000 in prizes this year and should he continue this way, he might come close to $200,000 towards the end of 2007. Continued…



Nearly the entire iCoke Warcraft 3 tournament in Chengdu, China, was played out today. Chun “Sweet” Jung Hee has won the upper bracket and awaits his opponent in the grand final. It will be one of the trio of Jang “Spirit Moon” Jae Ho, June “Lyn” Park, or Wei Liang “Fly100″ Lu. The victor takes $10,000 and wins a trip to New York City to play in the DigitalLife Pro/Am tournament later this month.

The competition gathered sixteen of the very best players from Asia. They were divided into four groups of four. Players like the double WCG champion XiaoFeng “Sky” Li, the ESWC champion Lee “SoJu” Seong Deok and the BattleNet Season IV champion Sung Sik “ReMinD” Kim were already out at that stage. Continued…



Last weekend had a bountiful amount of esports action with ESL’s European Nations Cup and NGL One finals at Games Convention in Leipzig and the World Series of Video Games in Toronto. Well over $150,000 was given out in cash prizes.

NGL ONE
NGL One has had two LAN finals for their Counter-Strike 1.6 and Warcraft 3 leagues with four teams in a double elimination bracket in each of those. For CS 1.6, the Swedish team Fnatic won in a competition with Team NoA, Mousesports and SK Gaming.

Fnatic went through the bracket beating SK in the semi final (2-0) and Mousesports in the UB final (2-1). SK Gaming came back to the grand final from the lower bracket after beating NoA and Mouz, 2-1 each. Fnatic was the best lineup of the tournament and solidified their position as one of the most consistent teams this year, next to Made in Brazil and PGS Gaming. Continued…



This weekend we have two twin tournaments in South Korea - the International E-Sports Festival 2007 (formerly called the China Korea Cyber Games) in Gangneung and the World E-Sports Games e-Stars 2007 event in Seoul. Both had StarCraft, Warcraft 3 and Counter-Strike 1.6 competitions with a combined total of $194,000 in prize money. Continued…



SK Gaming’s Sung Sik “ReMinD” Kim has won $20,000 in the WEG e-Stars 2007 Warcraft 3 tournament by defeating Jang “Spirit Moon” JaeHo in the grand final. It is the seventh tournament this year won by a Night Elf player and the third where two NE players are in the final. Continued…



The World E-Sports Games e-Stars event in Seoul, Korea, is down to the semi finals for Warcraft 3 with three Korean players and one Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen to play in them on Saturday (Friday if you live in America).

After the incident with Yoan “ToD” Merlo refusing to play in conditions he found unplayable, the tournament progressed as planned. No game in the quarterfinals ended with an upset, all of them ending 2-0 for the favorites:

Grubby beat the Chinese Night Elf player Hao “suhO” Su, Sung Sik “ReMinD” Kim defeated the American Franklin “Nilknarf” Pearsall, Noh “Lucifer” JaeWook received a default win against ToD and Jang “Spirit Moon” JaeHo won against Xiang “TH000″ Huang from China. Continued…