It was a long day for the Warcraft III players who were playing on the first tournament day. Out of 4 groups, 3 groups had to play tie-breakers at the end of the day when games were supposed to be finished. Since only 2 players from each group are able to advance to the next stage, there are bound to be some disappointments for players who didn't make it, and had to go out of the tournament on the first day.

Disappointments of Group A
yAwS - One of the biggest disppointments of Day 1 was to see yAwS going out of the group stage after doing so well in the start. yAwS impressed everyone by beating SaSe in the opening stage match, and proceeded to beat recent WEM champion   Infi in Human mirror! With only 1 lost in the group stage, yAwS had a three way tie with SaSe and Grubby. Since only 2 players can advance to the next stage, one of them has to go out. They played the tie breaker, yaWs lost a pretty long game to Grubby on Twisted Meadows, and eventually lost to SaSe on Echo Isles.

yAwS came out the winner of the match against Infi and impressed many.

Many people had cheered for yAwS, being the underdog and all, and performing above expectations. At least he had his moment of glory in WCG 2008, and we will probably see him performing even better in future with more luck and training.

Grubby FTW!

 Infi - Many people predicted this great Chinese Human player who just won $15,000 in WEM last week to get into top 3 spots in WCG 2008. Grubby predicted Infi to get first in the group. Never did anyone expect him to get kicked out of the group stage so early, losing to German player yAwS, Swedish Nightelf SaSe and Dutch Orc Grubby. With 3 loses in the group stage, Infi didn't have a chance to get top 2 in the group.

Infi playing on stage.

Disappointments of Group B
Ghost - Orc player Ghost only lost 1 game in the group stage, losing to Russian Undead player  Happy. With a win over French Human player ToD, we would have thought Ghost had a good chance to advance. There was a three way tie with Ghost, ToD and Happy, because they all only dropped a single map. Same case as in Group A, one of them has to go out. In the tie breaker, Ghost lost to ToD on Terenas Stand firstly, then proceeded to lose to Happy again. A heart-broken Ghost went out of the tournament on the first day.

Two very good German Warcraft III commentators. They entertained the crowd with their vast knowledge and excited voices during the battles.

Disappointments of Group C
SonKiE - The best Warcraft III player from the USA, and a new addition to Gravitas-Gaming, people have high hopes for him. Sonkie still has some way to go, room for improvement before he could go head on with all the big international players. Sonkie lost to Russian Human player XyLigan, and also lost to Chinese Undead player  TeD, therefore he came up third in the group stage and was unable to advance further. Sonkie is a promising player, if he keeps improving, he could make even better results in future.

I think this trophy is probably not for the players, but for the country which wins the most medals.

Disappointments of Group D
p1nke - The upcoming Croatia Warcraft III player is probably Croatia's second best, after ex-4Kings player Zeus. Heard that this single WCG spot was given to him by Zeus. He lost to Chinese Taipei player Kim who came in first in the group, and also to upcoming German player  Sokol, therefore he ended up in a tie with Sokol and Stud, the three of them fighting for the only spot left to advance. p1nke lost both games in the tie-breaker, while Stud won p1nke but lost to Sokol. Sokol earned the well deserved spot to advance from group stage.

The English Warcraft III commentators, Tosspot and Rotterdam.

The 8 players who advanced on Day 1

SaSe
Grubby
ToD
 Happy
 TeD
XyLigan
Kim
 Sokol

There will be 8 more players who will advance from today's group stage, and all 16 players will play single elimination tomorrow on Saturday 8th Nov.

Some more pictures from Day 1:

Grubby on stage setting up to play against Infi.

Tak3r and yAwS.

Grubby on the big screen.

Grubby takes picture with The Netherlands team captain..

..and also interacts with his fellow country mates participating in other games.

King and Hotlips watching Infi's game in anticipation when Infi played against yAwS.

It was really intense when MYM.CS was playing against Mibr, because one of them will go out of the group stage.

Mibr in action.

Daniel interviewed TaZ after the game.

Carmac interviewed Luq after the game.

Grubby interviewed by New Zealand media. Heard the interview will be uploaded on YouTube after.

As WCG does not allow players to wear team uniform during the tournament, Team Netherlands had prepared orange t-shirts for their players. The t-shirts are always in bright orange every year as orange is the country's national colour.

I also caught up with Happy to ask him some questions about the tournament, Cologne, about balances in the game etc.

Interview with Happy

Happy: Orc is the weakest race because they have more weak match-ups than the other races. Nightelf is the strongest race because they have no weak match-ups. Human is the second strongest race.

For more pictures and video interviews from WCG 2008, follow our LIVE coverage HERE on myMYM.com! More than 40 pages of coverage by now!