Trade Chat is always full of win apparently.

Even though the big names like Evil Geniuses, fnatic, Gravitas and both of the GotGame crews were gunning for the North American title at this weekend's Extreme Masters Continentals Finals (for 3v3 World of Warcraft PvP tournament), it was Trade Chat All Stars that walked away with the trophy, $15,000 and a spot in the global championship. GotGame East which came in as a runner up to the Trade Chatters will also advance to the Extreme Masters Global Finals next year.

After dropping a match 3-2 to the eventual runners-up, Trade Chat went on a tear. The champions made it look pretty easy (for those of us just checking over the box scores) as they won 12 of their last 15 games en route to winning 6-2 in the finals over GotGame East. They also blanked Evil Geniuses 3-0 and only dropped a single game to Gravitas Gaming. Strong work from a team not even highlighted on the tournament page listing the big hitters.

How did they come out of nowhere to take the title? From the Extreme Masters website, the onsite reporter tracked down the winner to find out how:

"..clever in the fact that Realz [the rogue] is utilizing a shiv build to deal ridiculous amounts of mostly unmitigated nature damage. After speaking with him briefly I learned that Instant Poison has a much higher scaling rate with AP than I had previously thought. He has a noticeable advantage versus high armor targets and rogues in evasion.

The fact that he also uses a spell penetration enchant on his cloak to nullify most of the effects from Mark of the Wild is what truly impressed me.:

How many of you knew about those little tricks of the trade? How many of you could decipher all of that very technical lingo? I'll take a stab at translating it (get it...stab? He's talking about a rogue!). Apparently Trade Chat's group includes rogue with an understanding of how to get around the ever-present druid in PvP. Druids have a buff called Mark of the Wild that increases resistance to nature damage, yet the rogue using a spell penetration enchant on his cloak in conjunction with a talent spec for using a move called Shiv (which automatically applies the poison in the off-hand to the enemy) was being used to deliver significant and unmitigated damage. Ok, so maybe I didn't interpret that too well, go read up on our World of Warcraft site to better understand the classes.

That is the kind of ingenuity these tournaments bring about. Do you think people would figure that out if the only reward was a title in the game? You're right, they would. When it comes to the WoW crowd, nothing surprises me (anymore). I'm fascinated by these tournaments and the dare I say "athletes" they attract. Would you like to learn more about the eSport side of WoW, or is the PvE content plenty? Let me know if your thoughts in our forum and tell me if this is fun, intriguing or just a rubbish side-effect of a game.

And for more televised information, go to GotFrag eSports.