Generally speaking, most of the CPMA competitions have been online due to the lack of lan tournament sponsors. This isn't as bad as it sounds since CPMA has amazing netcode which makes a gamer on 100 ping very competitive. As such, most of the promode community's history has revolved around milestone online tournaments.

In the very first years, the American scene was strong. Ex-Quake players were the strongest in the game, not so much because their skill had transfered but because the found the game very interesting and practiced it a lot. Clan abuse were among the most avid fans of CPMA and its players dominated most competitions, along with a promising Canadian individual named xfoo. The skill level back then was fairly low; player movement was bad and aiming very average. Then started the Apheleon era. Apheleon possesed skill that was a level above everybody else in North America. His movement was so fluid and full of subtle trickjumping that it was a pleasure to watch from his Point of View. He also utilised his brain far more than the other early American promoders. This combination made him the number #1 player in NA until the day he quit. With the exception of gellehsak I've yet to see a player with such a smooth movement.

Apheleon won a lot of tournaments, the biggest of which were Challenges and Challenges 2. These were very big online tournaments (512 players) that really showcase the skill development that took place over the years. In the first Challenges, the most serious opponent to Aph was a European player called rat. Rat was playing from Finland, with a 64k ISDN connection that pinged roughly 120ms to US servers. Yet he was so smart and skilled, that he managed to reach the final in Clash of the Titans and Challenges, defeating superstar players such as ZeRo4 and daler before losing in a thrilling final to Aph. In Europe, rat was untouchable. He's widely considered to be the best CPMA player ever. He played the game so smartly that it didn't leave any choice to his opponents, many of which pinged significanly better or had better aim. He had been the best, consistantly from the early days to the time where he stopped participating in tournaments.

As time went by lots of new players reached high skill levels and established themselves as a force to be reckoned with. Gellehsak from Canada (later Painkiller pro-player) with his fluid movement, 'pro' gamer superstar Vo0 with his extremely aggresive style, el-pajuo from Venezuella, snapcase from Sweden and a host of players from Poland, such as legends matr0x and Krogoth, mess and zoomer.

CPMA in Poland was a big hit and it created a very dedicated community which still produces amazing players. Back when North America and Europe were just starting to discover the potential of CPMA, in Poland they were already so highly skilled that their demos seemed like they were brought back from the future! Their poor internet connections often hindered their attempts at online competition but their CPMA LANs had more skilled players than 2 online tournaments put together! The most prominent Polish player was no other than matr0x, a role-model for many of today's players and a legend in his home country. His aim and speed in duels was something never seen before and he would often leave his opponents in the dust by winning with more than 40 frags difference. He was clearly far and above any other CPMA player of the time.

Perhaps the most recognizable promoder is Sander 'Vo0' Kaasjager. Coming from a Quake 2 background, Vo0 was a talented player. In a little bit more than a year he became a top10 player with his trademark all-out attacking style. His aim and speed could lock a map down and only few players had what was needed to regain control. He rose to stardom when he directed all his efforts to Painkiller, taking 2nd place on the World Tour Final and winning most of the World Tour stops (and a lot of cash too).
Currently he's playing Quake 4 but it's easy to see his CPMA heritage, being one of the players that focuses a lot on his movement and aggresive techinque.

El-pajuo the Venezuellan star from Miami also began his carreer as a CPMA player and after winning Challenges 3 and GGL CPMA, he went on to play OSP and quickly became a top5 player in the US, winning multiple GGL online seasons.

These days the American community is very small with most of the promode players residing in Europe. Poland is still a force to be reckoned with but there is are a lot of new players from the UK, Sweden, Finland and of course Germany. Most of the star players can be found playing on servers (people rarely use aliases in CPMA) so it's not uncommon to find yourself playing with snapcase or koddy in a tdm game or a duel with rat or pl1.