| Yoan Merlo | |
|---|---|
| ToD | |
| Status | Active |
| Date of birth | March 20, 1985 |
| Country of origin | France |
| Games |
Warcraft III series |
Yoan "ToD" Merlo (March 20, 1985–) is a French professional player of the real-time strategy games Warcraft III, playing as the race Human, and Starcraft II playing as Protoss; he was signed to the top electronic sports team in the United Kingdom: Four Kings, until November 7, 2007 when he decided not to renew his contract for unspecified reasons.[1] He later explained in one of the interviews that dissatisfying results of 4K team were the real reason for his departure. After much speculation, Merlo unexpectedly joined the team Mousesports on December 1, 2007.[2]
He is one of the most successful Warcraft III players ever, holding among other achievements first places at the World e-Sports Games, Blizzard Worldwide Invitational and Cyberathlete Professional League competitions. He is also a World Cyber Games silver and bronze medalist. He was recognized as the Warcraft III player of 2007.
Yoan recently gave an interview with GOMTV.net, an e-sports organization based in Seoul, Korea. During the interview, he hinted that his e-sports career is not over, and that has begun to compete in Starcraft 2[3], in which he has achieved moderate success, winning some small tournaments and qualifying for World Cyber Games 2011. [4]
Merlo currently resides in his native France.
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Prior to playing Warcraft III Yoan played such games as Starcraft: Brood War and Counter-Strike, he cites twofold Starcraft World Cyber Games champion Lim Yo-Hwan as the reason he plays the Human race.[5] He started high level competitive Warcraft III after joining French based ArmaTeam, at the time a high level competitive gaming team sponsored by Intel. While representing the team he took fourth place at the 2003 Electronic Sports World Cup.
Following this strong result he joined SK Gaming around August 2003[6] as ArmaTeam was facing internal problems at the time. Around this time he was competing in tournaments around the globe such as those organized by the Cyberathlete Professional League and Cyber X Games, something which he continues to do until today. After six months he returned to ArmaTeam because he preferred to compete with his friends in Paris rather than the globally diverse members of SK Gaming.
Several months after re-joining ArmaTeam he was asked to join the European based Warcraft III squad of the United Kingdom based team Four Kings in order to stay in and compete in the "mecca" of professional gaming: South-Korea. On September 16, 2004[7] the team consisting of Manuel Schenkhuizen, Dae Hui Cho, Sebastian "FuRy" Pesic and Ivica "Zeus[19]" Markovic took residence in Seoul and Merlo joined several televised competitions such as those hosted by Ongamenet and MBCGame. He was the most successful Four Kings player in these televised leagues.[8]
His reputation grew strongly during his time in the country, Merlo took third place at the 2004 World Cyber Games[9] and second place at the 2005 Samsung European Championships and would stay in South-Korea for almost a full year competing in two seasons of the World e-Sports Games following the closing of the before mentioned televised leagues. At this time the Warcraft III squad of Four Kings became known as the world's premier competitive Warcraft III team, going undefeated in the Warcraft 3 Champions League for over a full season and being recognized as the eSport Team of the year in 2005.
Upon returning to France in late 2005 he finished the 2005 season by qualifying for and competing in the 2005 World Cyber Games where he took fourth place. The following year he would once again take second place at the Samsung European Championship before embarking on a one month tournament in Hangzhou, China: the Master edition of the World e-Sports Games. Merlo would surprise many by taking home the first place prize of 31,000 USD, at the time the biggest prize ever awarded for a Warcraft III competition. He would continue to show strong results throughout the season as he took second places at major tournaments in China such as the World e-Sports Festival and KODE5. He finished the year by taking second place at the 2006 World Cyber Games, losing to Li Xiaofeng in the finals.
China was significantly growing at this time as an important country for Warcraft III competitions and Merlo was frequently visiting tournaments here in 2006 as well as using the country as grounds to train. In September of the year 2006 he took up permanent residence in the country. He would reside in Beijing, China together with Swedish professional gamer Kim "SaSe" Hammar which would allow them to train in China as well as have an easier time competing in the country's many competitions.
His successes still mainly came from international competition however. In early 2007 he once again took second place at the Samsung European Championship as well as first place in the Electronic Sports League's Extreme Masters. He would win one of the biggest tournaments of the year in the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational and also quite notably declined to compete in several competitions.
He declined to participate in the Electronic Sports World Cup because he would have to travel between China and France twice in order to qualify. He also declined to participate in the World e-Sports Games eStars in Seoul, South-Korea. Before agreeing to compete, he specified two conditions, which he claimed were agreed to but not met when he arrived to compete. Claiming to be pressured into a response after this apparent miscommunication, he declined to participate, dissatisfied with the organisation of the tournament, a feat which received both criticism for his demanding nature yet also praise for not accepting the false promises of the tournament organisers.[10]
He was recognized as the player of the year 2007.
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