The story of Polish Clan League reaches back to the year 2004 or even 2003, when the verison 1.10 of Diablo 2 was released. The changes were so far-going, that organizers of the largest Polish clan league D2CL decided to leave official Battle.net realms and continue their tournaments on Angrenost Realm. Unfortunately, that left the original Blizzard's realms with no chance for professional leagues and public duels with stacked auras, ridiculous amounts of resistances and absorption and Teleport available to every character were far from balanced.

That was the reason why the idea of a new Battle.net league emerged. In August 2004 Striker and Ajantis decided to use the old pre-1.10 dueling rules from Diablo 2 Clan League and create Polish Clan League with rules adapted to new requirements. In September the first version of PCL website was published, which, at this time, had limited functionality. Along with the main website, internet forums were created as well.

The league system of PCL consisted of two types of tournaments. Public tournaments could be created by every player and were conducted every one or two weeks, usually on Friday and Saturday. They lasted for one day (or actually one evening) and prizes were rather small, if any. Public tournaments enabled average player to participate and train very often, so everyone could alter his private timetable to fit the fun from playing Diablo 2.

The other type of leagues were official edition of PCL. With its far more complicated structure and larger number of participants, official editions were organized twice a year. The staff consisted of head admins (Striker and Ajantis, later, from mid 2005 also Jas aka NubNec) and a large array of junior admins and referees. Each tournament lasted for about one month and matches were played on Friday and Saturday.

There were total five official editions organized:
PCL #1 – 17.09.2004 – 10.10.2004, 3v3 + 1 reserve, non-ladder, 15 teams registered,
PCL #2 – 07.01.2005 – 26.02.2005, 2v2 no reserve, ladder/non-ladder, 44 teams registered (20 ladder, 24 non-ladder),
PCL #3 – 18.05.2005 – 19.06.2005, 1v1 mirrors no reserve, ladder/non-ladder, 156 players registered (88 ladder, 68 non-ladder),
PCL #4 – 06.01.2006 – 28.01.2006, 3v3 + 1 reserve, non-ladder, 20 teams registered,
PCL #5 – 29.09.2006 – 28.10.2006, 2v2 no reserve, ladder amateur/ladder professional/non-ladder, 65 teams registered (22 ladder amateur, 20 ladder professional, 23 non-ladder).

Other significant tournament worth mentioning were: PCL Burn in Ladder (conducted with the help of Electronic Sports League), Ladder Smash '07 (with significant prizes sponsored by gram.pl and first live video cast) .

In late 2005, Polish Clan League along with two other Polish Diablo 2 websites, Karczma Diablo 2 and Komnata Dusz, with the help of small internet board d2forum, joined their effords and created a common board entitled DiabloCentrum, and this was where PCL forums were moved.

Polish Clan League also reached several milestones and set an example to other similar organizations. Nearly all official editions of PCL were accompanied by live radio casts. During Ladder Smash '07 two members of PCL conducted a video cast, an event not seen before in the history of Diablo. Polish Clan League also cooperated actively with other companies and websites, such as the official Polish distributor CD Projekt, worldwide known Electronic Sports League, or significant fantasy vortal Phoenix.

In order for younger and less experienced players to enter the world of PvP with no problems, PCL organized two editions of workshops, during which the most well-known members of the community helped amateurs understand the dueling rules, explained step by step how to enter and participate in tournaments and gave some suggestions on how to increase the PvP skill. PCL workshops took place on 15th and 22nd of September 2006.

To facilitate the tournament and encourage players to gather in one place and get to know each other better, in early 2006 the official PCL Battle.net chat channel was opened to the public. Most players gathered in op pcl channel with the protection of permanently online chat bot. It is worth mentioning, that the bot residing in op pcl spent about 1600 days moderating the channel.

Polish Clan League established contact with two major e-sports internet radio stations eXtreme and HeadShot. The largest project conducted with the help of eXtreme was PCLeXpress – a weekly live radio broadcast concerning current events in Diablo 2 and PCL community. A total of 16 casts were conducted, starting from 5th November 2006 and ending on 1st April 2007.

Unfortunately, the year 2007 was both good and bad for the league. In spring 2007 serious technical issues related to the web server were observed. Both PCL website and DiabloCentrum managed to survive until the end of May. Due to the ISP's lack of competence, both sites were taken down, and as a result, league was inactive for several months.

The great come back took place about half a year later, in January 2008, with DiabloArena replacing old DiabloCentrum. Unfortunately, all posts and users from previous board were gone. PCL however, obtained new, improved internal organization scheme, delegating more responsibilities to particular members of the staff.

As the costs of new web server were significant and the financial help from the community diminished quickly, in late 2008 both the site and forums had to be shut down again. For several months PCL did not exist. But before that, more than 40 players gathered in the capital city of Poland to participate in the first edition of Polish Diablo 2 Championship. The event took place on 1-2 May 2008 and quickly became a massive success. Subsequent editions were organized in the same city in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

In 2009 PCL obtained new website and forums, as well as new domain name pcl.org.pl (instead of pcl-pvp.org). No official editions took place since that year, however players were encouraged to conduct their own public tournaments. Yet, with the lack of proper organization, the role of PCL diminished.

In 2011 the first negotiations with Rogh and Mr. Mag took place. Several months later, Ajantis decided to close Polish Clan League and join forces with other organizations in creating Diablo 3 Clan League.

Ajantis 2012-04-23 22:29