Jos Buyvoets over at GGL.com is currently doing a compendium and a retrospect on the Korean WarCraft 3 scene, starting off with the first steps WC III made into professional gaming back in 2002 and eventually covering the changes WC III made during the years.
South Korea is referred to as THE country for professional gaming with a huge impact on the Western professional RTS gamers for years, chiefly for StarCraft, as it is the most successfull computer game played on a professional level in South Korea, but also for WarCraft 3. The article "The Korean Warcraft 3 Experience: A History, Part 1" deals with the overview, written in chronological order, of non-Koreans entering South Korea and Koreans leaving South Korea to play WarCraft III on a professional level.| "You can take the WarCraft 3 scene out of Korea, but you cannot take Korea out of the WarCraft 3 scene..." |
Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier (picture), esteemed as the first foreign WarCraft 3 progamer in South Korea as SK.wc3 announced him as member of their squad back in August of 2002, experienced as a progamer due his activities in StarCraft and 
resident in South Korea as professional gamer. Respected while playing WarCraft 3 quite prosperously, but hardly ever commensurable with his status of a superstar he had in StarCraft, he returned to Starcraft after playing his probably last WarCraft 3 tournament called Clikarena, held on Friday, April 18, 2003. By WCG 2003 he reverted to his former level of skill and managed to become top eight, at the European Cyber Games of 2004 he finnished first in StarCraft."Of course, in Europe, it sounded a bit unreal. But, at the time, and maybe [it] still is, Korea was a paradise for professional gamers. I think anyone in my position would have taken the same chance."Elky states in a former interview with GGL.com. Nowadays he is playing Poker on professional level, a "fortune" some former professional gamers share as well,
Rekrul and 
Grrrr to mention the most famous one's.The article continues with the founding of SK/Intel as the first foreign professional gaming team with players such as Alborz "HeMaN" Haidarian, Fredrik "MaDFroG" Johansson, Henrik "DominatoR" Str©ªm and Zdravko "Insomnia" Georgiev back in late August of 2003. Be sure not to miss the progress that team made and how things developed for SK and what happend with Insomnia after becoming 1st in WarCraft 3 - Reign of Chaos at WCG 2003. A nicely written article awaits your read. A link to the article can be found below.
Links
GGL.com - Jos Buyvoets' article on WC3 in Korea
