Manuel Schenkhuizen, better known as Grubby, is a Dutch real-time strategy gamer and former professional esports player. He competed in the RTS games Warcraft III (WC3), Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne and Starcraft II. Grubby is the most successful WC3 player of all time, as an Orc player, having won more than 38 LAN tournaments, of which six were World Championships. His command over the Horde placed him early enough among the elite of the WC3 players, while his clash with Jang "Spirit Moon" Jae-ho rewarded him with a legendary status among the fans of the game. Grubby has been known for being part of one of the most successful WC3 teams in history, namely the British 4Kings. Later teams include the Danish MeetYourMakers and the North American Evil Geniuses. Grubby is widely regarded as one of the greatest Orc players of all time. Grubby is now a popular full-time streamer on Twitch.
OGN is a South Korean pay television channel that specialized in broadcasting video game-related content and esports matches, particularly StarCraft, Starcraft II, League of Legends, and Overwatch. OGN ran high level professional tournaments for 20 years; its premier competition included the Ongamenet Starleague (OSL), Proleague, League of Legends Champions Korea, and Overwatch APEX. It was previously a subsidiary of On-Media, the parent company of several other cable channels. After a corporate merger in 2010, it became a part of CJ ENM E&M Division. Most recently, League of Legends statistics website, OP.GG, which also sponsored LCK since 2022, has acquired OGN from CJ ENM following the shutdown of the linear TV network during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fredrik Johansson, better known by the pseudonym MaDFroG, is a retired Swedish Warcraft III and StarCraft II player.
The World e-Sports Masters (WEM) was an international competitive gaming event organized by the Hangzhou eSport Culture & Sport Communication Company, Ltd. Prize money are awarded to winning individuals and teams. It was first held in 2005 under the World e-Sports Games.
The real time strategy (RTS) computer game StarCraft had an active professional competition circuit, particularly in South Korea. The two major game channels in South Korea, Ongamenet and MBCGame, each ran a Starleague, viewed by millions of fans.
World Series of Video Games (WSVG) was an international professional electronic sports competition. It held its first season in 2006, with competitions in six different games and six events held around the world including the finals of the event. The total prize purse of the season was US$750,000 which includes the $240,000 prize purse that was winnable at the finals. The WSVG was operated by Games Media Properties, an American gaming company founded in 2002 with the BYOC Lan section subcontracted out to Lanwar Inc.
Li Xiaofeng, who also goes by the pseudonym "Sky" or "WE.Sky", is a Chinese former professional gamer of the popular Blizzard Entertainment real-time strategy game Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. He played for the China-based World Elite team. He is considered one of the best Human players in the game's history by World Cyber Games In the past few years he has been heavily involved with coaching Team WE's League of Legends team.
Chun Jung-hee (Korean: 천정희) is a retired South Korean professional player of the real-time strategy game Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. He used to play for the Chinese professional gaming team Beijing eSport Team. He goes by the gamertag of Sweet and is a member of clan WeRRa.
The expansion to the computer game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, known as The Frozen Throne, had an active professional competition scene, particularly in China, Germany, and South Korea. The game was featured at eSports festivals including the World Cyber Games, the Electronic Sports World Cup, the World e-Sports Games, the World Series of Video Games and the International E-Sports Festival. Outside of the professional circuit, the game had many active competitive circuits, with users at Battle.net ranging between 70,000 and 100,000 at any given moment. In China, in which Warcraft III was extremely popular due to it being easily available through piracy, fans and users often used an alternative client due to the country's poor internet connections to the outside world. Around 3,000,000 copies of the game were sold in the country. 500,000 Chinese competed in the Chinese qualifiers for the 2006 World Cyber Games. The amount of prize money through the years has been significant with top players winning hundreds of thousands of dollars. As usual in competitive gaming, income for Warcraft 3 professional players flowed from various sources like team salaries from pro-gaming teams and sponsorships usually computer technology related. A famous example was the Danish gaming organization known as Meet Your Makers which boasted of paying their players US$300,000 on an annual basis. Similar to older games with huge competitive scenes like Starcraft:Brood War and Counter-Strike 1.6, the popularity of Warcraft 3 steadily declined and towards the end of the previous decade almost all tournaments and players were Chinese. After 2010, with Starcraft 2, League of Legends, and Dota 2 being released and becoming popular, Warcraft 3 gave up its position as one of the prime eSports titles.
Ma Jae-yoon, known by the pseudonym sAviOr, and dubbed "The Maestro", is a former professional South Korean e-sports gamer of the real-time strategy game StarCraft. He played the Zerg race and was one of the most successful and popular players of all time. Savior was one of several players implicated in the 2010 match fixing scandal, and as a result he was banned from KeSPA-run competition for life. After retiring as a pro-gamer, sAviOr began streaming on AfreecaTV, but AfreecaTV made the decision to ban several players implicated in match-fixing offenses from the platform, including sAviOr. Ma Jae-yoon was a member of CJ Entus, a professional StarCraft: Brood War e-sports team sponsored by CJ CGV, an entertainment subsidiary of the CJ Corporation.
Yoan "ToD" Merlo is a French former professional player of the real-time strategy games Warcraft III and Starcraft II. In WarCraft III he played as the Human race and in StarCraft he played as Protoss. he was signed to the top esports team in the United Kingdom, Four-Kings, until 7 November 2007, when he decided not to renew his contract for unspecified reasons. He later explained in an interview that the dissatisfying results of the Four Kings team were the reason for his departure. After much speculation, Merlo unexpectedly joined the team Mousesports on 1 December 2007.
Beyond the Game is a 2008 Dutch documentary film about the world of professional video gaming, particularly of the game Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne featuring world champion players Chinese Xiaofeng "Sky" Li, Dutch Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen and Swede Fredrik "MaDFroG" Johansson prominently. It is directed by award-winning Dutch documentary filmmaker Jos de Putter. Filming took place in China, France, The Netherlands, United States and Sweden. Languages spoken in the documentary include Dutch, English, French, Spanish, Swedish, Standard Chinese and Korean.
The North American Star League was a professional e-sports league that features the games StarCraft II and Heroes of Newerth. Originally modeled after successful South Korean professional StarCraft leagues, it was founded in 2011 by Russell Pfister and Duncan Stewart. Following the mid-year departure of Stewart, Mark K. Brown was tapped to fill the position of Chief Operating Officer in August 2011, and held that position until late-2014.
Chris Loranger, better known name HuK, is a former professional Starcraft II player and former president of gaming for the Boston Uprising of the Overwatch League.
Lu Weiliang, who also goes by the pseudonym Fly100%, is a Chinese professional esports player of the real-time strategy game Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. He previously been a member of Team Hacker, EHOME and Mousesports. He is considered one of the best Orc players. He had one of the longest playing careers of professional players of Warcraft III.
Wang Xuwen, who goes by the pseudonym Infi, is a Chinese professional esports player of the real-time strategy games Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne and Starcraft II. He previously served in team World Elite, Tyloo and VICI GAMING. He is considered one of the best Human players in the world. In 2008, World Elite was the best team of the year and Wang Xuwen was the core member. In 2009, Wang Xuwen helped World Elite obtain the champion of Warcraft III Champions League Season XIV. Additionally, Wang Xuwen also has many individual champion titles from various Premier Tournaments such as World Cyber Games and World e-Sports Games. From 2008 to 2011, the Chinese competitive scene for Warcraft III was dominated by 4 players, Lu "Fly100%" Weiliang, Li "Sky" Xiaofeng, Wang "Infi" Xuwen and Huang "TH000"Xiang. Wang "Infi" Xuwen and the other three were considered the four kings in Chinese Warcraft III. He played Starcraft II for a few years before retiring from competitive gaming.
Park "Lyn" June (Korean: 박준) is a professional Starcraft II Terran player and former Warcraft III Orc player from South Korea. Lyn was a successful Warcraft III player before transitioning to Starcraft II. He is the only player to have won almost all of the premier tournaments, including the World Cyber Games, Electronic Sports World Cup, BlizzCon and Intel Extreme Masters. The only two premier tournaments which he has never won are the World e-Sports Games and International E-Sports Festival, instead placing second in the World e-Sports Games in 2008 and 2010, and in the International E-Sports Festival in 2007. The total prize money Lyn has won playing Warcraft 3 is behind only Jang "moon" Jae-ho.
4Kings or Four Kings is a professional esports organization established in 1997 and based in the United Kingdom Bought and now running in United States. The organisation has been recognised as a British flagship clan since its founding. It was operated by 4K UK Ltd and managed by Toby Aldridge. 4K is particularly known for its Warcraft III team, which won the ESL WC3L Series on four occasions. In late 2007, the section that signed players such as Warcraft III player, Grubby Schenkhuizen and Yoan "ToD" Merlo was dissolved due to financial problems.
