Patrik "Raistlin" Hellstrand gives you a rundown on all the previous World Cyber Games tournaments, with Grubby, Sky and ToD as main characters.
Photo by WCG.com
2007 was the year that in many Europeans' hearts warms the most. It was the year that Olav "Creolophus" Undheim, a man of the people, came out of his retirement to enter the international tournaments one last time. Creolophus turned out to be the player who would end Xiaofeng "Sky" Li WCG reign, by defeating him in two magical final games. The Norwegian Night Elf champion thought long and hard on a possible comeback after his gold medal, but decided, to the community's blues, to keep his focus on studies.
2007 also made sure Grubby's "Curse of the Sky" remained intact. The Dutchman lost to the Chinese double gold medalist in the first playoff round.
Photo by WCG.com
2006 was the year of the Humans. Three Human players could be found in the Top 4, as Xiaofeng "Sky" Li took his second WCG title. Runner-up this year was Yoan "ToD" Merlo, who claimed his third Top 4 position in WCG history. Third and fourth place went to Mykhaylo "HoT" Novopashyn and Mihail "XyLigan" Ryabkov.
This was the first time World Cyber Games was hosted in Europe.
A dramatical replay peeking incident ignited the flame fest between Chinese and Korean fans, as the reigning and soon to-be champion Sky broke the rules when watching a replay on the Korean player Dong Moon "GoStop" Kim. Given a yellow card for the "misunderstanding", Sky could still go on and win the gold.
Photo by Replays.net
USA may never have been so proud of their WarCraft players than in 2005. Dennis "Shortround" Chan surprised many when he stormed his way to the silver medal, losing only to Sky in the playoffs. Capping off wins over both Grubby and ToD, as well as nowadays Chinese veteran suhO really marked the peak of the American Night Elf player's career.
Grubby, this time the reigning champion, lost to Sky in the group stage which might have cost him a higher medal valor. Instead he was given the second advancement spot from his group, and had a tough run going up against Andrey "Deadman" Sobolev and Dae Hui "FoV" Cho. Losing to Shortround in the semi final, Grubby managed to take bronze after a 2-1 win over team mate ToD in the third place decider.
Photo by WCG.com
2004 was the best year for Koreans in WarCraft 3. Yet losing an epic final against Grubby, Hwang Tae "Zacard" Min continues to be the only player to enter the final match of World Cyber Games.
Grubby got his international breakthrough, and became an idol throughout the world, and also became a renowned in Korea when playing in the televised Korean tournaments.
Photo by WCG.com
World Cyber Games 2003 was before Frozen Throne was released, so regular Reign of Chaos was played. Winning the tournament was the SK-Gaming legend Zdravko "Insomnia" Georgiev, after defeating Chinese player ChinaHuman in the grand final. Before that, Insomnia defeated both Grubby and the Russian 64AMD player SouL, who today is one of the most successful Russian poker players.
Earning the third spot was the Romanian TeG player Sorin "EviscEratoR" Popescu, taking out Taiwanese Myth player Chun Yu "ShaMan" Chen.
Links
WCG.com - Photos and history details
