Warcraft III Esports: When Grubby, Moon and Sky Ruled the World

In 2006, the World Cyber Games came to Europe for the first time, to Monza in Italy. The Warcraft III final was won by a Chinese player who had built his game around one relentless opening, a rush so recognisable it carried his name. Li "Sky" Xiaofeng became the first player to win two Warcraft III WCG golds in a row, and back home he was on his way to becoming one of Chinese esports' first stars.

Warcraft III, released by Blizzard in 2002, never matched StarCraft's grip on Korean TV. But for most of the 2000s it was the most international strategy esport, with stars from the Netherlands, Korea, China, France and beyond. It also, through a fan-made custom map called DotA, gave birth to an entire genre.

Warcraft III added heroes, items and upkeep to the real-time strategy formula, and four very different races: Human, Orc, Night Elf and Undead. That variety let players develop personal styles that fans could recognise at a glance.

The WCG roll of honour shows how global the scene was. The first Warcraft III gold, in 2003, went to Zdravko "Insomnia" Georgiev, playing the original Reign of Chaos because the expansion was not out yet. Then came:

• 2004: Grubby (Netherlands), beating Korea's Zacard in the final
• 2005: Sky (China)
• 2006: Sky (China), the first back-to-back champion
• 2008: Grubby again

Grubby: the Dutch Orc

Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen was Warcraft III's first global superstar. Playing Orc for the German-based club 4Kings from 2003 to 2008, he won WCG 2004 and WCG 2008, the Electronic Sports World Cup in 2005, the World Series of Video Games in 2006 and the World e-Sports Masters and e-Stars in 2009. He was named MVP of ESL's Warcraft III League four times.

Grubby switched to StarCraft II in 2011, playing Protoss, and later became a full-time Twitch streamer, nominated for Best Strategy Game Streamer at the 2024 Streamer Awards.

Moon: the "fifth race"

Korea's answer was Jang "Moon" Jae-ho, regarded by many as the best Night Elf player ever. His strategies were so unusual that a Korean site nicknamed him the "5th Race", as if Night Elf in his hands were a separate faction. Fans also called him "Fantasista."

Moon won the World e-Sports Games (WEG) in Korea twice in a row, going undefeated through the first season and beating Hwang "Zacard" Tae-min 3-0 in the final, then beating Kim "GoStop" Dong-moon in the second. In 2009 he signed a three-year deal with WeMade FOX reportedly worth $500,000, a huge contract for the time.

Moon later played StarCraft II for Fnatic from 2012, then stepped away to complete Korea's mandatory military service and afterwards returned to Warcraft III. In July 2019 he was inducted into the ESL Esports Hall of Fame.

Sky: the Human who inspired China

Sky was the face of Chinese esports in the 2000s. Named 2006's top Warcraft III player and later inducted into the WCG Hall of Fame, he is remembered for the "Sky Rush," an aggressive Human build that thousands of players copied. His WCG wins were not without drama: at Monza in 2006 he received a yellow card for watching a replay of a Korean opponent, which fuelled tension between Chinese and Korean fans.

He retired in 2015 and moved into coaching, working with Team WE's League of Legends team. He also appeared in the documentary Beyond the Game, one of the first films about pro gaming.

Korea's leagues and a scandal

Warcraft III also had Korean TV leagues. MBCGame ran several, including the Prime League, but it shut down after a map-tampering scandal in 2005, one of the first integrity crises in Korean esports, years before the StarCraft betting scandal described in our match-fixing feature.

Why it matters

The Warcraft III era proved that esports did not need to be Korean to be great. It produced European, Chinese and Korean stars who all had claims to be the best, and its national rivalries at the WCG built many of the fan cultures that exist today. For more on the WCG, see our World Cyber Games history.

WGC's take: If you only know Warcraft from World of Warcraft, find an old Grubby versus Moon series. It is like watching chess played at sprint speed.