Prize Money

1st Place: 10,000 $
2nd Place: 4,000 $
3rd Place: 2,000 $

The prize purse is quite substantial when compared to its competitor the WC3L which had a prize distribution of 5000/3000/1500 for its 12th Season.

Format
The NGL-One format for Warcraft 3 is similar to the “team battle” mode in any beat-em-up game. The teams select a roster for each clan war as well as a starting player, the two starting players will compete in a best of 1 with the winner staying on to face their opponent’s next choice of player. The first team to eliminate all four players from the opposing roster wins.

The difference between this format and the format used in the WC3L of four 1v1s and one 2v2 is that one player can essentially carry a team to victory.

A prime example of this is Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen who carried Four Kings almost single-handedly to 2nd place winning over 80% of his matches making him the strongest player from Season IV.

The way the NGL format is designed it is more likely to feature a moment of individual brilliance than a normal clan war although the fact it is a best-of-1 means luck also plays a part.

Participants

SK Gaming
MeetYourMakers
Mousesports
Mortal Teamwork (replacement for Four Kings)

In terms of participants once again there is a replacement for the finals, last season saw NoA withdraw at the last minute to be replaced by SK, and this season sees disbanded Four Kings.wc3’s spot given to German based clan mTw.

SK Gaming

SK Gaming returns to the NGL LAN finals a completely different team after the influx of four Korean players and a Korean manager.

Last season they scraped together a team last minute in order to avoid the NGL Season III finals going ahead with only 3 teams as NoA withdrew.

This season however they arrive on the scene undefeated in season IV winning all nine of their matches finishing 1st in the online stage, with a little help from former members Mykhaylo "HoT" Novopashyn, Zdravko "Insomnia" Georgiev and Daniel "XLord" Spenst.

SK Gaming will be the favourites to take 1st place at the NGL LAN finals after having already taken back the WC3L title last year. This final will also be an indication of whether SK Gaming’s good form will turn into a dominance of clan competitions.

Players:

Kim Sung "Remind" Sik, Daniel "Miou" Holthuis and Seo Woo "Reign" Kang had a mediocre season, Remind ran into trouble in the form of two orc players Grubby and Wei Liang "Fly100%" Lu whilst Reign managed to defeat Juha-Matti "Satiini" Bäckström and Johannes "Hanf" Morlo but lost out to human player Rainbow.

Lyn had a good season although only playing 7 games he won 6 defeating the likes of Grubby & Daniel "Liild.C" Claesson and lost only to a tower rush against Benjamin "Demuslim" Baker on Terenas Stand.

Star Player / One to watch

SK Gaming’s star player for the NGL is Lee Sung "Soju" Duk, who has played 9 and won 9. His most impressive performance came against Meet Your Makers where he replaced Miou with the score at 1-1 and went on to win it for SK 4-1, defeating Jae Wook "Lucifer" Noh, Jang Jae "Moon" Ho and Jung-Ki "Susiria" Oh.

MeetYourMakers

It has not been the best of seasons for MYM, they lost three of their nine matches with losses against LAN finalists attendees SK Gaming (1:4) and MouseSports (3:4) as well as a shock defeat by Serious Gaming (3:4).

MYM added Park Chul "Shy" Woo from Clan Go in the beginning of the season as well as adding Grubby from Four Kings at the end of the season.

However Grubby is not elligible to play because he was added post-season which is a huge blow as Grubby had the best record of any player in season 4 winning 18 of his 22 matches, a win ratio of 81.8%.

MYM also lost a player as Finnish player Konna decided to call it quits and "retire" despite having had done reasonably well with 4 wins and 1 loss. MYM recently lost the WC3L title so will be interesting to see if they use the "fifth race" Moon more than they did in the season due to his impeccable LAN form. Their main struggle has been poor results against big name players collecting most of their wins from lesser opposition.

Players

With Grubby off-limits and Konna gone, MYM are left with only one orc player who played during the season, FoCuS. FocuS despite his exceptional stats in the WC3L season XII only won 50% of games in the NGl with 5 wins and 5 losses.

Lucifer likewise won 5 and lost 5 during the season and failed to fire on all cyclinders losing to three night elves (Soju, SaSe & Kowi) as well as a defeat to orc player Jonathan "Kiwikaki" Garneau. With no big kills to his name this season Lucifer is not looking in the best of shapes.

Star Player / One to watch

Moon faired quite well with 4 wins and 1 loss however his four wins were against lesser opposition (KnofF, Shriek, Paladyn, SdMK) and the only time he faced superior opposition in the form of Soju he was defeated. Despite playing only 5 games during the season Moon's dominance of offline Warcraft3 tournaments is legendary and he could be the one to carry the team to success.

Mousesports

Mousesports have been gaining headway over the last year, they reached the NGL grand final last season and this season finished 4th despite losing only two clan wars.

Their losses came to SK Gaming (3:4) and Four Kings (2:4) but they still managed to defeat MYM Dreamteam (4:3) as they also did in the WC3L recently.

Considering their current shape Mousesports look like they have a solid chance of reaching the Grand Finals again, especially now with the addition of human player Yoan "ToD" Merlo formerly of Four Kings. This will be another chance for Mousesports to continue breaking away from being considered a "mid-table" team.

Players

Mousesports only weakness during the season has been a lack of a strong Orc player, having only one orc player Fly100% who has had a poor season playing 11 games, winning 5 and losing 6.

Mousesports compared to other teams rely heavily on a handful of players as they lack depth in their roster. Kim "SaSe" Hammar has endured a relatively good season despite losing to experience players Grubby and Susiria took 2 wins against MYM defeating both Lucifer and Focus finishing the season with a 7-5 record.

New addition ToD like Moon for MYM was used sparingly during the season playing only 6 games but winning 5 of them. Although losing only one match to Satiini his victories were against Paladyn, Naniwa, Dowaq, Diesel and Rotterdam so it is not a true indication of how well he will fare in the LAN finals.

Star Player / One to watch

Mousesports star player by a longshot is Russian Undead player Dmitriy "Happy" Kostin who played 20 matches, won 15 and lost 5, a win ratio of 75%. The success of the team will heavily depend on if he can keep it up when in an offline event and although winning a huge percentage of his matches he has yet to prove his worth against formidable opponents.

mTw.PokerRoom

mTw find themselves in the finals thanks to a bit of luck after Four Kings disbanded, considering they ended their season with 4 wins and 5 losses they will be jumping at the chance to compete in the finals.

mTw failed to defeat any of the top four of SK Gaming (1:4), Mousesports (2:4), MYM Dreamteam (3:4) & Four Kings (2:4), so their chances of placing anywhere but 4th at the LAN finals are very slim. Nevertheless they will provide the finals with a good portion of european players and hopefully will put up a fight and perhaps throw in some surprise results.

Players

The roster of mTw has struggled in Season 4 with Finnish player Satiini, a formidable foe when he was in fnatic now showing signs of weakness winning only 5 of his 10 games.

Rainbow a strong player when part of DefiningStars.Kow3 has also failed to play a huge role in their NGL season despite defeating SK.Reign.

The remaining players of the roster have all taken a battering but perhaps they could profit from the chance to attend the LAN finals assuming all of them take part as the mTw roster is from all over the place.

Star Player / One to watch

However all is not lost, mTw do have one player who has fought for their spot at the lan finals and that is German undead player Lars Gerrit "Protois" Reichelt . Protois played 15 games and won 10 of them including a win against star player of MouseSports, Happy. Hopefully if mTw "gain shape" at the LAN finals Protois will be doing more than "damage prevention".

What are your predictions?