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18 years ago

GosuGamers Staff

Top WCG contenders examined

This year's World Cyber Games is less than a week away now. A total of 58 players, divided in to eight groups, from all over the world will gather in the rainy city of Seattle on Wednesday 3rd October to compete for the top prize. For the WarCraft III tournament there is a handsome prizepool of $35,000 to be collected.

In this article, GosuGamers introduces and brings you up to date with the top eight contenders for the title. They all possess an utmost skill and knowledge of the games which only few others of the participants can hope to keep up with.

Sky

Name: Xiaofeng Li
Age: 21
Country:

China
Race:

Human Alliance
Clan:

World Elite
GosuRanking: #5 (109-39)

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The reigning champion Sky has won the last two WCG's and is aiming for another, though the opposition definetly looks alot stronger than previous years. In both previous WCG tournaments, he shocked the opposition with and incredibly offensive and entertaining style of play and has revolutionized Human gameplay greatly over the years. Besides winning the WCG, Sky placed second in the IEST, where he lost to his Korean nemesis Moon in the final. Though Sky has for long been known for his offensive and creative style he has, however, resided to more defensive strategies this year as he now relies heavily on securing an econimal advantage by fortifying expansions to win his games.

Recently, the Chinese star player has proved to be almost humanlike (in more than one way) as he's been knocked out at early stages both of the two most recent CEG tournaments. He hasn't shown that great results for his team World Elite in the WC3L either, tough he's certainly been matched against some tough opposition such as Moon, Rainbow and Check. A bit more can be expected from a class player like Sky than what he's shown lately and everyone knows what this man is capable of when it comes to major events.

Fly100%

Name: Wei Liang Lu
Age: 20
Country:

China
Race:

Orcish Horde
Clan:

MouseSports
GosuRanking: #7 (60-41)

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If Sky is the king of Chinese WarCraft, Fly100% is definetly the prince. He made his breakthrough when he surprisingly won the Chinese Esport Games in the summer of 2006. When he joined MouseSports about a year ago he was considered as a great talent, but soon people wondered if he would ever be able to repeat his performance at the CEG. In mouz, however, he developed and soon became a more consistent and feared player, though he still wasn't among the very best.

The last few weeks, he's taken a great leap skillwise and shown us that he's one of the most lethal players using the Blademaster. Though he may lack the experience of the other favorites, he has definetly showed us that he cuts it at offline events. At the NGL-One Finals in the end of August, he impressively took down 4Kings on his own twice, beating both Grubby and ToD twice, as well as giving the Koreans in MYM a good scare in the upper brackets final. After this it seems Fly100% has received a confidence boost which has taken his game to another level. This will be his chance to claim his first major trophy and establish himself among the greatest.

Moon

Name: Jang JaeHo
Age: 20
Country:

South Korea
Race:

Night Elf Sentinels
Clan:

MeetYourMakers
GosuRanking: #2 (140-64)

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Moon has to and fro been considered as the best WarCraft player in the world. Before he joined MeetYourMakers in January 2006, he was still extremely succesful on his own. Back then he was known as Spirit_Moon and quickly gathered a long list of achivements. Among them, we find two MBC Prime League titles as well as two World Esport Games trophies. Playing with an enormous confidence, high skill and unpredictable style, Moon was almost unstoppable. Since he was recruited by MYM, he has had a couple of dips shapewise, but has always kept his play at the highest of levels.

JaeHo may still be the best player in the world, but that doesn't mean he's unbeatable. Since the Korean WCG Qualification is extremely tough, this will actually be the first time we see Moon in the World Cyber Games since 2004, where he ended in 9-16th place. This time, he is the big favorite and he sure has his mind set on that gold medal. According to himself, his chances of taking the top prize is about 70%, which sounds a little cocky considering the opposition. Winning the DigitalLife Pro/Am and the CEG Xi'an recently, the "fifth race" has indicated he's in top shape and will be extremely hard to stop at this event.

SoJu

Name: Seong Deok Lee
Age: 22
Country:

South Korea
Race:

Night Elf Sentinels
Clan:

SK Gaming
GosuRanking: #8 (73-36)

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SoJu was crowned ESWC champion in July this year, beating players like Lyn and Lucifer before taking down Creolophus in the grand final. As a token of appreciation, the Korean gave the prize money of$10,000 to his parents. Shortly after the ESWC, he parted ways with his former clan World Elite, in which he spent almost two years and won the eleventh WC3L season. SoJu left the Elites together with two other top Korean players - Lyn and ReMinD. Together with the latter, SoJu had formed one of the most feared 2vs2 teams in the WC3L, but was now left without a home.

Although both ReMinD and Lyn quickly found a new home in SK Gaming, SoJu remained clanless for some time and not much was heard from him. He did participate in the DigitalLife Pro/Am Tournament, but was knocked out after losing all his three games in the group stage. A week ago, though, he was reunited with his two former clanmates in SK. SoJu is a world class Night Elf player, but does he got what it takes to bring another major trophy home this year? This will depend greatly on how well he has been able to preserve his form during his clanless period.

Grubby

Name: Manuel Schenkhuizen
Age: 20
Country:

Netherlands
Race:

Orcish Horde
Clan:

4Kings
GosuRanking: #6 (211-78)

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The "Flying Dutchman" has been among the very best players in the world for many years now. The champion from 2004 will enter his fifth WCG tournament. Throughout the years he has been the leading Orc player, defining and developing Orc gameplay immensely. Having won almost everything that's winnable for a WarCraft III progamer, such as BlizzCon, WSVG and just recently the EuroCup, Manuel's got a ton of experience which will most likely prove to be a major advantage in desisive and tense games.

Grubby has indicated that he does not spend as much time on the game anymore. Being in a relationship and all, the days when he was all but invincible are of the past. As a result, his shape seems to have dropped a bit the last few months, not being able to take down those other top notch players quite as often as before. Regardless, he is still considered as a very consistent, reliable and intelligent player and in a tournament like the WCG, he'll sure be well prepared and eager to add another title to his long list of achievements.

ToD

Name: Yoan Merlo
Age: 21
Country:

France
Race:

Human Alliance
Clan:

4Kings
GosuRanking: #1 (166-64)

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The runner up from last year, ToD, has yet to win a WCG, but he certainly doesn't fall short on personal achievements. After winning the CPL in 2005 and the WEG Masters the following year, Yoan rose to absolute stardom. Since he joined 4Kings, Grubby and him have been the two head figures in the team's great achievements, including three WC3L titles.

So far, this has been a great year for the "Romantic Human" and as a result of his achievements he was awarded the Warcraft III Player of Year Award at the Games Convention. Winning two major tournaments - the Blizzard WWI and the Extreme Masters - the Frenchman has been in an awsome shape this year, though he has proven to be slightly inconsistent at times. Yoan has complained about the conditions at several events the last few months, even refusing to play in the WEG E-stars in August. Hopefully, for both his and our sake, the conditions in Seattle will be up to his standards so that we'll see a ToD playing at his full potential.

Lyn

Name: June Park
Age: 20
Country:

South Korea
Race:

Orcish Horde
Clan:

SK Gaming
GosuRanking: #4 (99-54)

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Lyn was initially a part of the Korean community clan lof, but after several impressive results in the weekly tournament inCup, he was hired by AS Teamplay.it. He kept developing and when FoCuS left World Elite, Lyn was hired to replace him and what a replacement he turned out to be! Lyn rose to one of the best and most consistent players in the world, giving his fellow top players nightmares containing crashing blades and flying nets.

Now, he is by some considered as the new Orc king after Grubby's long reign. He still lacks some experience to match the Dutchman, but his presise micro and skill more than makes up for that. He moved on to SK Gaming a few weeks ago and his fans are hopeful that he'll bring the WC3L title to his new home. As he always shows good results, he is a dream player for any team. His greatest achievement this year was winning the KeSPA Cup. More recent, he ended third in the DigitalLife Pro/Am Tournament, beating the likes of ReMinD, Sky and FoV, before losing to Moon in the lower brackets final. Will he have his revenge in Seattle?

Creolophus

Name: Olav Undheim
Age: 20
Country:

Norway
Race:

Night Elf Sentinels
Clan:

4Kings
GosuRanking: #3 (162-64)

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The Norwegian Creolophus, nicknamed after the latin word for 'mushroom', started out his career in the Norwegian based team Incredible Teamaction. After showing great potential and talent, he moved on to the top notch team of Team64.AMD, which housed legendary players like ElakeDuck and Caravaggio. After the clan disbanded, Olav was picked up by fnatic in 2005 and it was now that he really showed what great potential he possessed. As a result of his achivements in the WC3L, he was recruited by 4Kings. After a rough start, he became better and better.

The 20 year old Night Elf player developed in to one of the world's most praised players this year. A couple of months back he, sadly, announced his retirement. After a great year, ending 2nd in the ESWC, winning the inCup Winter Finals and consistently scoring points for his team, the Night Elf player could hardly have asked for a better end to his career when he won the BlizzCon Invitational. He has charmed WarCraft III fans from all over the world with his innovative and daring style. After winning the Norwegian qualifiers, he'll be in Seattle for one last show. Though he's been inactive for quite some time now, he should still be a strong force to reckon with at this event.

Though these are the top contenders, you never know who might sneak up and surprise the crowd. Among the other participants we find last years bronze medalist SK.HoT together with players such as mouz.SaSe and wNv.xiaOt who might very well rattle the favorites' cages. An interesting sidenote is that Group D has been reformed and is now to be considered as the toughest group by far, not only containing SoJu, Sky and Lyn, but also highly respected players like 4K^Zeus[19], MYM]Ciara and the Lithuanian srs.Lose. As only two players emerge from each group, we'll have at least one of the top contender knocked out in the group stage.

There's no doubt that we've got a very exiting event to look forward to. It all starts on Wednesday.