Fierce competitors go head-to-head
The future king of orcs suffers a setback on his ascent.
FoV looking determined to defend his title.
Back in Summer 2005, Warcraft III was just starting to leave its infancy. The favourites were known, champions were made and expectations were high. I had been writing for GotFrag for a little over 18 months but had only been covering WC3 for about six months. GotFrag had already taken me to a tournament in the UK – the ACON5 qualifier, to be precise – but I had yet to taste foreign esports directly. So, when Midway asked me if I wanted to go to Paris for ESWC that year, I nearly broke my keyboard by typing “too hard in reply.
I was not quite 20 at the time, and had only been abroad on family holidays – usually to Ireland, which hardly counts anyway. I leapt at the chance and soon found myself in Paris with two large Americans among hundreds of other nerds, below The Louvre. ESWC might have done a lot wrong over the years, but their choice of venue has been second to none.
The Carousel du Louvre is one of the best places I’ve ever watched esports – a kind of underground mini-mall with a very unique atmosphere. The main stage looked amazing to me at the time and the LED displays and multiple screens are recognisable to this day. The whole thing gave the effect of an underground nightclub – lit only by the stage lighting and camera flashes. To be frank, I was awestruck. It’s hard for me to look back and be sure whether I loved that event because it was as amazing as I remember, or because it was my first. Certainly, the ACON5 qualifier I’d previously been to was nothing like this.
From a gameplay point of view, though, ESWC 2005 is definitely remembered for one of the greatest games that Warcraft III ever saw. For me personally, it remains the best WC3 game I ever saw live. I was still fairly new to WC3 and was a Grubby fan almost by default. He played under the same tag as my national Counter-Strike heroes, 4k, and was one of the top players representing my race, Orc. The fact that he was taking on his team-mate and the previous year’s champion, FoV added just the right amount of spice to make this an even more enticing recipe.
The whole series was superb, but is best remembered for the game on Gnoll Wood. Grubby entered as the favourite, but as defending champion there was no way FoV would go down easily. The undead player actually took a surprise win on Twisted Meadows in an unusual game after killing off his opponent’s whole tauren-focused army. Yep, orc players actually made taurens back in 2005.
Tied 1-1 in the series, the undead player made a near-perfect start. He killed multiple workers, severely damaging Grubby’s wood income in the opening minutes. In the mid game, Grubby went for an expansion, but FoV perfectly used it against him: for those who don’t know, bases in WC3 were often quite far apart and so FoV was able to kill workers at the expansion while Grubby was elsewhere on the map.
Eventually the two armies had to collide, and again FoV played it perfectly. Starting the fight with just heroes and destroyers, he baited Grubby into blowing his batriders on the destroyers. With perfect timing, gargoyles came flying over the tree-line to pick off the exposed wind riders, who stood no chance against the lightning-quick undead air. Now Grubby was forced back and had to spend more resources on rebuilding his expansion which was lost.
This was FoV at the peak of his powers, looking like he could beat all-comers in his title defence. Again and again he used his gargoyles to perfection and almost reduced the game to hero wars as both armies repeatedly traded. Some superb last-second hero saves made for some nice highlight movie fodder, especially the crowd-pleasing Deathknight level-up into death pact a unit to survive a surround. It’s no surprise that the Replays.net highlight movie of ESWC 05 featured multiple clips from this one game.
FoV showed everything he had in this game, but it was Grubby who went on to win the tournament. Both players contributed to one of the most exciting games of the tournament and of WC3’s entire history – one which far outshone the one-sided final. Grubby cruised past Deadman to take home the title in a pretty straight forward 2-0 win.
Grubby vs FoV was more than an entertaining match, however: it was a sign that Grubby was still one of the best in the world as WC3 moved into its golden era. The Dutchman showed a lot of resolve to come back from such a defeat and win the tournament, which was the second in a hat-trick of major wins. First place in WCG the previous year signalled the beginning of his brilliance and Blizzcon 2005 was an impressive feat, but his ESWC win was arguably the most remarkable success of a glittering career. Overcoming the adversity of losing such an intense match showed character, while defeating a stacked field of talent showed his undoubted ability.
For FoV, this epic game was scant consolation in a disappointing tournament. He failed to make it to the playoffs and the 2004 champion would have to wait over two years until he would get his name on another individual trophy – CEG Changcun. Both players would continue to dominate WC3L as part of 4kings for years to come, but few games came close to matching the exhilaration of their clash at ESWC 2005. For me personally, it is still my greatest memory of Warcraft III.
I was not quite 20 at the time, and had only been abroad on family holidays – usually to Ireland, which hardly counts anyway. I leapt at the chance and soon found myself in Paris with two large Americans among hundreds of other nerds, below The Louvre. ESWC might have done a lot wrong over the years, but their choice of venue has been second to none.
The Carousel du Louvre is one of the best places I’ve ever watched esports – a kind of underground mini-mall with a very unique atmosphere. The main stage looked amazing to me at the time and the LED displays and multiple screens are recognisable to this day. The whole thing gave the effect of an underground nightclub – lit only by the stage lighting and camera flashes. To be frank, I was awestruck. It’s hard for me to look back and be sure whether I loved that event because it was as amazing as I remember, or because it was my first. Certainly, the ACON5 qualifier I’d previously been to was nothing like this.
From a gameplay point of view, though, ESWC 2005 is definitely remembered for one of the greatest games that Warcraft III ever saw. For me personally, it remains the best WC3 game I ever saw live. I was still fairly new to WC3 and was a Grubby fan almost by default. He played under the same tag as my national Counter-Strike heroes, 4k, and was one of the top players representing my race, Orc. The fact that he was taking on his team-mate and the previous year’s champion, FoV added just the right amount of spice to make this an even more enticing recipe.
The whole series was superb, but is best remembered for the game on Gnoll Wood. Grubby entered as the favourite, but as defending champion there was no way FoV would go down easily. The undead player actually took a surprise win on Twisted Meadows in an unusual game after killing off his opponent’s whole tauren-focused army. Yep, orc players actually made taurens back in 2005.
Tied 1-1 in the series, the undead player made a near-perfect start. He killed multiple workers, severely damaging Grubby’s wood income in the opening minutes. In the mid game, Grubby went for an expansion, but FoV perfectly used it against him: for those who don’t know, bases in WC3 were often quite far apart and so FoV was able to kill workers at the expansion while Grubby was elsewhere on the map.
Eventually the two armies had to collide, and again FoV played it perfectly. Starting the fight with just heroes and destroyers, he baited Grubby into blowing his batriders on the destroyers. With perfect timing, gargoyles came flying over the tree-line to pick off the exposed wind riders, who stood no chance against the lightning-quick undead air. Now Grubby was forced back and had to spend more resources on rebuilding his expansion which was lost.
This was FoV at the peak of his powers, looking like he could beat all-comers in his title defence. Again and again he used his gargoyles to perfection and almost reduced the game to hero wars as both armies repeatedly traded. Some superb last-second hero saves made for some nice highlight movie fodder, especially the crowd-pleasing Deathknight level-up into death pact a unit to survive a surround. It’s no surprise that the Replays.net highlight movie of ESWC 05 featured multiple clips from this one game.
FoV showed everything he had in this game, but it was Grubby who went on to win the tournament. Both players contributed to one of the most exciting games of the tournament and of WC3’s entire history – one which far outshone the one-sided final. Grubby cruised past Deadman to take home the title in a pretty straight forward 2-0 win.
Grubby vs FoV was more than an entertaining match, however: it was a sign that Grubby was still one of the best in the world as WC3 moved into its golden era. The Dutchman showed a lot of resolve to come back from such a defeat and win the tournament, which was the second in a hat-trick of major wins. First place in WCG the previous year signalled the beginning of his brilliance and Blizzcon 2005 was an impressive feat, but his ESWC win was arguably the most remarkable success of a glittering career. Overcoming the adversity of losing such an intense match showed character, while defeating a stacked field of talent showed his undoubted ability.
For FoV, this epic game was scant consolation in a disappointing tournament. He failed to make it to the playoffs and the 2004 champion would have to wait over two years until he would get his name on another individual trophy – CEG Changcun. Both players would continue to dominate WC3L as part of 4kings for years to come, but few games came close to matching the exhilaration of their clash at ESWC 2005. For me personally, it is still my greatest memory of Warcraft III.
