Esports | Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne | Sky — The 2-0 WCG Final at Suntec Singapore

On November 20, 2005, at the Suntec Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre, Li “Sky” Xiaofeng defeated Dennis “Shortround” Chan 2–0 in the Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne final of the World Cyber Games Grand Final. The result gave Sky the WCG gold medal after a five-day international event in Singapore.

This was the original Warcraft III expansion, not Warcraft III: Reforged. The players competed one against one on PC using The Frozen Throne Patch 1.20; the later 1.20b maintenance release did not arrive until December 12, so it is excluded from this record.

Warcraft III is a real-time strategy game in which each competitor gathers resources, develops a base, and controls an army and hero units simultaneously. A game ends when one side destroys the other’s remaining buildings or the opponent concedes, so the final’s 2–0 score records games won rather than kills, rounds, or maps.

Sky represented China and played the Human faction; Shortround represented the United States and played Night Elf. Blizzard’s contemporary account says Sky took the first game with an early tower attack, then won again when Shortround attempted a tower attack of his own, completing the best-of-three final without needing a third game.

The larger tournament began with single-game round-robin groups, sending the top two players from each group into a single-elimination bracket whose matches were best of three. Sky advanced from Group E at 5–0 before progressing through the bracket to the final, while the bronze medal went to Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen.

World Cyber Games was a third-party international competition rather than a Blizzard-run championship. International Cyber Marketing organized the event, and MediaCorp served as host broadcaster; Blizzard documented its own two strategy-game disciplines, including the final’s races, score, and finalists.

The date and venue are not inferred from the advertised host city: a contemporary Singapore notice places the November 16–20 Grand Final inside Suntec’s convention and exhibition centre and schedules the final and third-place matches for November 20. No unsupported hall number is assigned, because surviving public records identify the building but not the specific room used for this match.

A contemporary Chinese report described Sky’s victory as China’s first WCG world championship, making this two-game final a national milestone as well as a tournament result. Sky returned in 2006 and retained the Warcraft III title, but this Suntec match was the first of those consecutive WCG wins.

Sources: Blizzard Battle.net WCG 2005 event report (https://classic.battle.net/tournaments/wcg/wcg2005.shtml); World Cyber Games event notice preserved by Getforme Singapore (https://getforme.com/previous2005/141105_singaporehostsworldcybergames2005grandfinal.htm); Dahe Daily interview archived by Sina (https://sports.sina.cn/sa/2005-12-09/detail-ikftpnnz1777808.d.html); GosuGamers contemporary result report (https://www.gosugamers.net/warcraft3/news/3460-wcg05-wc3-we-sky-wins); patch chronology (https://liquipedia.net/warcraft/World_Cyber_Games/2005 and https://liquipedia.net/warcraft/Patch_1.20b). Cover image: cropped from “Suntec Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre” by Terence Ong, September 2006, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Suntec_Singapore_International_Convention_and_Exhibition_Centre.JPG).