Ladder play for the Digital Games runs until July 27, and registration is open for the duration of the ladders. Register to begin your journey in the Digital Games.

The first couple of days of the 2008 Digital Games ladders are complete, and RTS gamers are leading the charge.While activity has been slow on many of the titles requiring more coordination, Digital Games RTS titles are unique in that finding a server is not necessary (or alternatively, servers like Blizzard’s Battle.net and EA’s online service are always up).

Additionally, matches can be completed in a relatively short amount of time.This ease of use is borne out in the number of matches played in Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne and StarCraft.

Currently, the Russian NaviGraF sits atop the European WC3 ladder with a 13-12 record, 2560 points, and a 1 game winning streak. His time on the top may be short lived, as the well-known Polish player Paladyn is in 2nd place with a 13-2 record and 2380 points.DreamS.SalaN (2020, 9-4, 3W) has a tenuous grip on 3rd place.

Right behind him is 4th place tp_uSports-aVa (1960, 8-5, 1L). The top 20 spots on the ladder are dominated by Russian and Ukrainian players.We’ll find out if any of the other European region countries represent themselves this well as time goes on.

Additionally, we’re seeing moderate activity on the StarCraft and Command & Conquer 3 ladders.

North American StarCraft stalwart Artosis is leading his region with a 4-1 record, including wins over Machine[Media], TeamLiquid (the entire TeamLiquid community? haha), GoShox, and goodbody. Keep up the great work!

We’re only two days into ladder play, and registration is open for the duration of the ladders. Ladder play ends June 27, so there’s still plenty of time to particpate. You will need to be a GGL member to participate in this competition. Register to begin.



Warcraft III great XiaoFeng “Sky” Li has completed his leg of the Olympic torch relay. The torch is on its way to Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

In addition to Sky, JaeHo “Moon” Jang (another WC3 juggernaut) and StarCraft luminary Junchun “PJ” Sha will also carry the torch at some point during the relay.

Here are some pictures of Sky’s relay:

Continued…



The gaming press from all over the world has voted for Players and Revelations of 2007 in Counter-Strike, Warcraft 3 and Quake 4. For the first time in the award’s history, two players will share an award.

The Player of the Year in Counter-Strike is Filip “NEO” Kubski from Meet Your Makers. He won two out of three of the most prestigious tournaments in 2007 with PGS Gaming and performed very well for the large part of the year. He received 37 points, 10 more than Patrick “cArn” Sattermon (27 points) and the 2006 Player of the Year Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg (17).

Mickael “mSx” Cassisi is the Revelation of 2007 in Counter-Strike. The award is traditionally given to the players that made the biggest breakthrough in one year, and mSx was the player that took emuLate to a gold medal in the World Cyber Games. The Frenchman got 29 points. Just four points behind him was mTw’s Christoffer Sunde, who was the ESWC and WCG runner up with his danish team, known in 2007 as NoA. Continued…



Following Starcraft’s no-CD patch, Blizzard released one for Warcraft III. Needless to say, the community is a little less than pleased. The balance patch for Warcraft III was promised for last year, and has supposedly been Blizzard’s top priority. The enormous changelog follows:

-Warcraft III no longer requires to the CD to play.

Fans with peg legs and parrots will be overjoyed to know they have 700mb more space on their hard drive if they’re using ISOs, while the few of us still using an actual CD can rejoice and store it away when we reformat.



Every year, GGL invites several prominent e-Sports coverage sites to vote for the e-Sports Players of the Year. The categories cover three e-Sports games with long traditions and histories: Quake (in this case, Quake 4), Warcraft III and Counter-Strike 1.6.

Each voter (or site) selects three players from every category and assigns them a rank from 1-3. Rank 1 receives 5 points, Rank 2 receives 3 points, and Rank 3 receives 1 point. At the end of the voting process, the points are tallied and the winners are announced. You can see the 2006 winners at GGL.com in a legacy format.

Without further ado, let’s name the 2007 nominees: Continued…



After the disbandment of 4Kings’ Warcraft III squad and yesterday’s news that Grubby joined MYM, PGS announced on their official website that LiilD.C, Fury and Zeus are joining their roster.

Daniel “LiiLD.C” Claesson said to the PGS website: “I started some conversations with PGS even when I was in 4K. They offered me a very good contract which I had a hard time refusing…PGS was the logical choice for me.”

Along with the signing of these 3 players, PGS also welcomes the former 4Kings WC3 manager, Frederic “Trimble” Steinfeld, who will be in charge of managing the PGS Warcraft III squad. 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.



The end of an era is upon us, and it’s safe to say the writing has been on the wall for over a year. 4Kings, one of UK’s foremost superteams, has disbanded its Warcraft III division, leaving Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen and Daniel “LiiLD.C” Claesson clanless.

The official reason given for disbanding was “a lack of players and other things.” The squad has been steadily losing star players since Nov. 2006, when Dae “FoV” Hui Cho left the team.

FoV’s departure to Beijing E-ports Team signaled an inability for 4K to compete on the free market for its own players. According to Warcraft III superfan/expert and former GGL contributor Jos “Zerter” Buyvoets, this was the true beginning of the end for 4K’s WC3 squad.

Despite FoV’s absence, 4K still had a bevy of stars on its roster until Olav “Creolophus” Undheim decided to retire after winning WCG 2007. Undheim’s decision was right for him, but wrong for the team.

“Creo going inactive probably ‘did it’ as it put a lot of pressure on Yoan ‘ToD’ Merlo and Grubby who failed to qualify for the WC3L finals without him,” said Zerter. Continued…



While Warcraft III players are begging and waiting eagerly for another balance patch, StarCraft got a little time in the spotlight with another patch.

Although there are absolutely no gameplay changes, it’s good to see Blizzard supporting a game that’s over ten years old now.

This particular patch removes the CD check for Brood War. While there have long since been no-CD patches released for the game, it’s about damn time that Blizzard did it themselves.

Follow through for the patch changes.

Continued…



Gravitas Gaming released an open challenge to any Warcraft III player hoping to test their team, rewarding any victor with $150. Challengers may select their opponents and pick the starting map. Map picks then alternate between challenger and Gravitas Player in a best of 5 format. Each match will be shoutcasted and update live on the site. So far, the first set of challengers has already been posted on the site.

Russia GravitasXyLigan vs. Netherlands srs.RotterdaM
Ukraine GravitasHoT vs. Sweden hoorai.Naniwa
Russia GravitasRob vs. South Korea BFly.SouthSea
Russia GravitasTitaN vs. Finland mTw.Satiini
Russia GravitasQuai vs. Germany aTTax|XlorD
Belarus GravitasFrozen vs. Denmark ieS.ThomasG

Gravitas currently is still accepting challenges from both pro and amateur gamers alike. We hope to see more great matches.

Check out their forum poll and vote for your favorite match today!

P.S- thanks to GosuGamers for the use of these pictures.



The list of top names qualified for the World Cyber Games has grown longer this weekend. The top favorites to have qualified for the finals are Fnatic (CS 1.6) and Kim “SaSe” Hammar (WC3) from Sweden and Mykhaylo “HoT” Novopashyn (WC3) from Ukraine. The big surprise of the weekend is that g3nerationX and not Made in Brazil will represent Brazil at the finals for Counter-Strike. Continued…