Yoan Merlo – better known by his alias ToD – is a former professional real-time strategy game player of Starcraft II and Warcraft III from France. He is widely regarded as one of the most successful ever players in the history of Warcraft III, with victories at Blizzard Worldwide Invitational, World e-Sports Games and the Cyberathlete Professional League. Named as Warcraft III player of 2007, he is a World Cyber Games bronze and silver medallist.
Merlo began his career playing Counter-Strike and Starcraft: Brood War before rising to prominence playing high level competitive Warcraft III with French-based ArmaTeam. Following a strong fourth place result at the 2003 Electronic Sports World Cup with the French team, he was recruited by SK Gaming and began to compete in tournaments around the world organised by the likes of Cyber X and Cyberathlete Professional League.
After a short stint back at ArmaTeam, Merlo was invited to join the UK-based team Four Kings. Merlo took residence in Seoul alongside his teammates including Sebastian “FuRy” Pesic, Dae Hui Cho, Manuel Schenkhuizen and Ivica “Zeus” Markovic and appeared on several televised competitions hosted by the likes of MBCGame and Ongamenet. Merlo’s reputation was soon on an unstoppable rise as he came second place at the 2005 Samsung European Championships and third place at the 2004 World Cyber Games. The Four Kings became known as the leading competitive Warcraft III team in the world, winning the 2005 eSport Team of the year award.
Merlo switched to StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty in late 2010, becoming one of the best players in France. Now retired, he has started a shoutcaster career and casted several World Championship Series events including 2019’s WCS Spring.