After the sun set on WSVG and Pandemic began to slip in tournament ranking, who rose up to take their place?

Hello and welcome back to my 2-part series on the history of competitive World of Warcraft! Last time I ended with the implosion of WSVG and, in many perspectives, the implosion of WoW as an eSport.

In fact, it appeared that competitive World of Warcraft would be entering the twilight of its years when, out of nowhere, Blizzard announced the Dreamhack tournament! Set to take place in Europe from late November to early December, 2007 the Dreamhack tournament boasted amazing prizes of $45,000 for first place, $22,500 for second place, and $7,500 for third place. Whoever won this tournament would make more than Pandemic did for every one of its WSVG wins, combined! Sadly enough, however, it would be impossible for new teams to qualify, as Dreamhack was invitational only. Thus, the only teams that ended up going were those that had made a name of themselves during the WSVG era. Interestingly, MoB, the team that lead to the downfall of Hamchook, the only 3v3 Hunter to play competitively (at the time), ended up sponsoring his team to go to Dreamhack. Hamchook accepted.

In reality, Dreamhack (was that a pun?) ended up being fairly predictable in its nature, except for the final match. Hamchook, realizing that this was another shot at redemption for his undervalued class (ironic, isn't it), brought his A game to the tournament, and ultimately ended up being the first team to ever beat Pandemic in a best of 3 3v3 match. What was unfortunate, however, was that Dreamhack was a double elimination tournament, and Pandemic ended up clawing their way back to the top of the loser's bracket, where they squared off once more with MoB's Hamchook. In reality, this is a huge testament to the versatility of Pandemic's veteran 3v3 RMP (Rogue, Mage, Priest) team, as they pushed through two sets of five (Hamchook only had to win one 'best of 5,' in order to be crowned champion) and they ultimately took first place once more.

In a bizarre combination of scheduling, 2 days after Dreamhack occurred, the CGS kicked off their 2v2 tournament, and, realizing how boring 2v2 arena was becoming, they quickly added a 3v3 tournament with a $10,000 prize and an XPS M1730 World of Warcraft notebook PC. Unfortunately, the teams that they managed to get to arrive at the CGS were nothing compared to the competition at Dreamhack (aside from our ever constant Pandemic!) and so Pandemic basically walked in to get free gaming laptops and a small monetary prize. Death & Taxes, the winners of BlizzCon's CGS, would go on to take the surprisingly high $15,000 prize from the 2v2 tournament.

Following up the excitement of Dreamhack, and realizing just how boring 2v2 really can be (every team ran Warlock + Healer or Warrior + Healer, with one Rogue + Healer), Blizzard finally came around and announced that, for 2008, the format would be entirely 3v3. SK-Gaming would host an online tournament to determine which battlegroup was the best, but ultimately, all eyes were focused on BlizzCon and its ridiculous grand prize of $75,000. Furthermore, while I'd like to believe that I was the one who told Blizzard to make a Tournament Realm for qualifiers, I'm fairly certain that there were a huge number of outspoken individuals who realized that this was the way to go. Thus, 2008 marked the year when Blizzard would finally launch its Tournament Realms to qualify teams. I'm fairly certain that the guys who were prepared to reroll their Human Priest to Dwarf were heaving huge sighs of relief.
Finally, in an uplifting bout of great news for competitive World of Warcrafters, the summer of 2008 promised at least four offline tournaments: the MLG (Major League Gaming) Tournament in San Diego, California, WWI in Paris, France, the Blizzard World Tournament and the CGS Tournament. As a result of these tournament announcements, sponsorships started popping up left and right. The three most important sponsorships, however, would be Frag Dominant's sponsorship of the top RMP team on the Tournament Realms, "Duelists Going For Glad," and MoB's sponsorship of one of the best Warrior, Rogue, Warlock teams (incidentally home to the only female gamer in competitive World of Warcraft, May 'Hafu' Wang).

The first of these tournaments, MLG, took place on June 14th and 15th, 2008. Historically speaking, MLG was probably the first tournament to mark the beginning of a new era for competitive World of Warcraft. Every tournament previous to MLG was predicated in some way upon the WSVG tournaments, but MLG kept itself completely separate from any of that. In this way, a lot of fresh talent ended up playing at MLG, and it was this fresh talent that dethroned the long-standing champions, Pandemic. Frag Dominant's first team (aside from Duelists Going For Glad) ended up climbing back from a late loss 2-3 loss to Nihilium to take back the championship 4-1. Not only that, but Pandemic was apparently having roster issues, as Kintt, Pandemic's Priest, was refusing to play, and his Rogue and Mage teammates, Nitrana and Ecilam, ended up not taking part. Representing Pandemic, therefore, was Jared 'Noktyn' Fogle, the Warrior of Pandemic's short-lived 5v5 team. Ultimately, however, Pandemic was knocked out very early in the tournament by Nihilium, and then Got Games East.

MLG ultimately set the stage for the rise of talented rookies like Hafu's team and Duelists Going For Glad. While they didn't manage to win this tournament, it certainly gave them the experience to do better in the future.

If MLG was the tournament that revitalized North American competitive World of Warcraft, then WWI Paris would be the tournament that revitalized the rest of the world. Despite the invitational nature of the tournament, there were still a few top-notch international teams being flown in to play at WWI Paris. In reality, the only country that was at a disadvantage (in that no 'new' North American talent could participate) was America. What nobody was expecting from WWI Paris, however, was the rise and dominance of Council of Mages, a Rogue, Mage, Priest team straight out of Korea.

Council of Mages, you may recall, was the second place team at the ESL Global Finals a while ago - at WWI Paris, however, they were the first Korean team to really demonstrate the potential of RMP. In a string of victories reminiscent of Pandemic, Council of Mages would take first place in the tournament after losing only one match in the entire competition. Pandemic, on the other hand, would fade out early, despite fielding two teams at full strength. Other teams, like Serennia's Rogue/Warlock/Druid team, sponsored by SK-Gaming, were expected to be the dominant American force at the tournament, but apparently some visa issues occurred and they were forced to play with a substitute.

After the general clamour from the results of WWI Paris died, the CGS 3v3 tournament sort of came and snuck by, with Nihilium ending up with the $25,000 prize. The problem was that there were only 4 teams at the offline tournament and qualifications were gleaned from Blizzard's tournament realms. Ultimately, while the CGS competition had the most professional production value, nothing really exciting ended up coming out of it.

At MLG Orlando, however, exciting things were happening - namely in the form of revenge. Apparently Hafu's TEAM ORZ was entering this tournament unsponsored because of Hafu and some disputes over her behaviour at previous tournaments. Long story short, TEAM ORZ's sponsors, MoB Gaming, dumped them just before they headed off to Orlando, Florida. Incredibly enough, Hafu's team would go on a rampage at MLG Orlando, beating every team in their way, including knocking out MoB's remaining sponsored team. Ouch. Hafu's team would get picked up by fnatic at a later date (and they are still sponsored by them to this day).

After all of the interesting things occurring in these previous tournaments, the competitive scene of World of Warcraft arena has pretty much settled down (aside from Orangemarmalade's ridiculous 1v2 at CeBIT). The Extreme Masters League (ESL) would continue its tour, with Nihilium Plasma winning in Leipzig, Germany (August 24th), x6 winning in Los Angeles, California (Oct 5th), and SK Gaming UK winning in Montreal, Canada (Oct 19th).

Over at the MLG games, Hafu's fnatic sponsored team, Team ORZ, would win MLG Dallas and retain their champion status.

At BlizzCon '08, however, crowd favourites like Hafu's team ORZ and Korea's Council of Mages were unable to make it to the finals, and at the end of the day, Nihilium ended up beating Selective Queuers, a fresh team of rookie contenders, 3-2. Interestingly, Selective Queuers were the ones who beat Council of Mages 3-0 in an earlier matchup.

I hope you've all enjoyed my two part series on the history of competitive gaming in World of Warcraft's short life to date as an eSport. This upcoming year in competitive gaming should be a great one as both the MLG and ESL stabilize themselves in this economic downturn. If we can take anything as a lesson from all of these victories, it should be said that some of the most consistent winners were those who stuck together for the longest periods of time. Pandemic, fnatic (team ORZ) and Council of Mages have all stuck together for quite a long time, and as you can see, this has clearly paid off. Be sure to keep an eye on Blizzard's upcoming 2009 tournament, and we'll see if Korea will dominate BlizzCon as they did the ESL Global Finals in CeBIT, or if Europe will once against take top accolades, or, finally, if this will be the year that America regains its lost pride.

And now...

I leave you with rage videos!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D70Hxro_agU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rAtlp2dDPU

Christopher "Pwyff" Tom
Editor
Allakhazam.com