Colonoscopy

Some interesting things have happened over the past two and a bit years. Starcraft, a game that is well over 10 years old, went through many revolutions which were so fundamental that the changed the way the game was played. Any fan of Starcraft would not be surprised to hear this, but this is an extremely uncommon thing to happen in any other game. Just as we began to settle down and think that we had every matchup solved certain players have come along and changed the way we think, view, and play each and every matchup – ZvZ through to PvT.

To draw a terrible analogy to Chess, for most of the 19th Century everyone had essentially agreed upon certain rules for any opening. These rules were simple things, like develop your pieces quickly and control the centre with pawns. Openings were not particularly interesting at all during this phase. During the early 20th Century, Capablanca, possibly the greatest Chess player ever to have lived, won a ridiculous amount of games using unparalleled end-game strategy and mind blowing mid-game combinations. One could say that Capablanca’s play encapsulates the essence of what Starcraft was like pre-savior. More specifically, both Chess and Starcraft had been worked to a point where we knew what we should be doing early on and it was the strategies that we employed that won us games.

After Capablanca can a wave of hyper-modernists who revolutionised the way we thought about openings. Suddenly moves like 1. ... g6 were valid openings. Opening strategy evolved fundamentally – instead of controlling the centre Pawns, they now opted to control the centre with pieces first, then pawns later on in the game. While the Midgame/Endgame were still fundamentally important to the game, the developments in the Opening lead to many new situations and became an important facet of a players game.

It would not be wrong to draw a comparison between the hyper-modernist revolution in Chess and the “Revolution” of Bisu triumph over Savior. But to solely credit Bisu for his success here would be like solely crediting the hyper-modern revolution to Nimzowitsch – just wrong on so many levels. Each race went through it’s own developments during the following two and a half years, and no matchup was left unchanged either.

Bisu had showed Protoss the way against Zerg by leading the Corsair Revolution (not the Fast Expand revolution as many people think). Flash changed how we played TvP by revolutionising the use of Goliaths and Science Vessel. PvT, conversely, went through its own changes to complement those. Stork mastered the use of Shuttle-Reaver play but went that became useless, Bisu brought back Arbiters and Dark Templar play and BeSt demonstrated the power of fast Arbiters. Jaedong took the helm of the Zerg race, and with the perfection of Mutalisk micro, invented “Crazy-Zerg” for ZvT, and began developing a solid Zerg counter to Corsair play. July however, should be credited for showing Zerg that Scourges were the answer the Corsairs and thus inventing the modern 5-hatch style. ZvZ became a matchup of skill, not luck, and raw aggression became the most successful playstyle. TvT saw players experiment with mass Vultures while PvP became significantly more strategy based than before.

While these strategical revolutions show that Starcraft was still evolving, there is something that should be noted about this time. Everyone just played whatever the most modern build was. Mechanics were consistently the deciding factor in games, never strategy. Only on the rare occasion was strategy the victor over mechanics, i.e. JulyZerg vs BeSt from EVER08 OSL or Free vs Jaedong from Clubday MSL.

Basically, the Blizzforum consensus that Starcraft was simply a click-fest wasn’t actually too far from the truth.

Three amazing players have risen to prominence since Bisu defeated Savior they are of course Bisu, Flash and Jaedong. They have become the figureheads of their respective races and set the trends for everyone else to follow. But there is something that each player shares in common, and it’s not just an amazing record from the 08-09 Proleague season:

All three have incredible multitasking, which corresponds to each having amazing mechanics.

These players aren’t just one dimensional either, there is a lot more to their playstyle than just mechanics. Flash has incredible defence and game sense. He plays safe and secure every game and has impenetrable defence no matter what his opponent throws at him. Indeed, many players have criticised this style as being ‘boring’ and easy to execute. But it is quite the opposite, Flash has to read the game at every step and predict what his opponent is doing, else he will be playing too conservatively and he will lose. It is an extremely difficult style to use. Bisu harass complements his mechanics so well that it makes his opponents look feeble compared to him. While recently this element of his game has been missing, his incredible mechanics have kept him afloat. Bisu also has very good sense, especially in PvZ, to the point where in him prime he was able to predict where and when the battles would take place. Jaedong’s mechanics are his greatest asset, and he employs a style which allows him to make mechanics the deciding factor regardless of his opponent. For this reason, he plays a very aggressive game, focusing on units, unit management and harass. In a way, he overwhelms his opponent since his opponent lacks the multitasking required to keep up with him.

In this post-bonjwa era we are constantly searching for the next great player. Everyone acknowledges that Boxer, Iloveoov, Nada and Savior were in a class of their own. They had some mysterious factor about their play which made them unstoppable. They were resoundingly brilliant. Yet, with three amazing players today, no bonjwa can be determined amongst them. Many people will claim that the level of competition is so much higher today than it was for the former bonjwas. While this is true in the sense that the benchmark level of mechanics is significantly higher, comparatively this is not true.

Examples. Iloveoov had some of the fiercest competition ever known. For instance, JulyZerg was able to defeat Iloveoov in two consecutive best of 5 series in Gillette OSL and the iTv Ranking League Finals. Reach, Nal_ra and Kingdom were all incredibly in form during this time and as we all know, they were the Three Kings of Protoss and incredibly gifted. Iloveoov also competed against Nada at the start of his reign, while he competed against Boxer at the very end – i.e. he was battling two in-form bonjwas.

Boxer had fierce competition in the form of Reach, GARIMTO and YellOw. Each pioneers of their respective races, and mighty tough opponents despite the lack of mechanics present in their game. Nada too had to deal with Reach and YellOw, in addition to the rising Protoss Kings. Furthermore, Savior had many strong players test his skills during his prime. Players like Chojja, Midas, Nal_ra, and Nada all pushed Savior to the very limit. In every example, the bonjwa in question was never too far away from the other greats during that time – but yet they could clearly be distinguished as the best.

The players of today certainly live up to the sheer success of the four prior Bonjwas. Flash has won a GOM, an OSL, and went 54-17 in Proleague 08-0. Bisu has won 3 MSLs and a GOM and made numerous semifinals. Perhaps most impressive of all three is Jaedong. For the past five seasons, he has been in at least one MSL/OSL/GOM final in four of them. Despite all of their impressive achievements, none of these three have ever been considered a bonjwa.

Each has fallen short in one incredibly important area – they lack the ability to think on their feet.

Each player practices notoriously hard for their games and practices as many scenarios as they can. They learn by trial and error what is the best counter to each scenario, and then should it come up in a game, they employ that strategy. However, when presented with a scenario they are unfamiliar with, they simply fall to pieces. They typically make wrong decisions and look incredibly vulnerable while doing so. If they manage to win it’s because their mechanics have managed to let them steal the victory. It is these weaknesses in their game which differentiate them from the former bonjwas.

For instance, let’s look at Bisu vs Iris on Byzantium 3. Bisu had not planned for a long game here, as clearly signalled by his proxy robo/elevator strategy. He had practiced this and invariably the games would end short – not necessarily with Bisu winning. Iris was faced with a situation where any other player would have tapped out, but he stayed in the game and fought with everything he had. Bisu then made a number of key mistakes throughout the game and failed to deal with Iris’s unconventional style. He fought to the bitter end with his mechanics carrying him – but unlike previous games, Iris kept up with Bisu’s mechanics with clever play and positioning and won.

Let’s look at Jaedong vs Fantasy on Outsider from Proleague. Fantasy used a style specifically to counter Jaedong’s “Crazy-Zerg” style which threw Jaedong off from the get go. As the game progressed, Jaedong made sloppy decisions and ultimately allowed Fantasy back into the game from where he took the win. As with Bisu, Jaedong’s inability to adapt was unable to be smoothed over by his mechanics and he lost. Fantasy kept up, just like he did on Heartbreak earlier on. More recently, examine Jaedong vs Calm from the MSL. Calm outsmarted Jaedong in every game that he won. Jaedong is a believer than having superior hand-speed is the key to victory in ZvZ; Calm proved him dead wrong and used his mind to defeat him.

So where does that leave us? Ladies and gentlemen, we have entered the seventh age of Starcraft.

The first age comprised of pre-progaming with players like Slayer and NTT. The second age came in with Grrr... and Boxer and ended just as Nada rose to prominence. Nada defined the third age of Starcraft, while Oov defined the fourth. The fifth age came and went with Savior. After Saviors defeat to Bisu, the fifth age ended and the sixth age took flight. We have been living and breathing the sixth age for a long time now and has been an age defined by mechanical prowess and a mad power-struggle between Stork-Bisu-Jaedong-Flash. In each age, each matchup has been modified and developed further – and now it is time for that cycle to repeat again.

The SKT-Oz final marks the end of the sixth era and the dawn of the seventh. After two years of playing catch up to the mechanics of Jaedong-Bisu-Flash, people have finally caught up. While there is still no question that at this very second Jaedong-Bisu-Flash have the best mechanics out there, the skill gap has become too small for this to be the sole determining factor anymore. For a player to become a champion now, they need to have that extra edge – that ability to think on their feet and play smart.

The Seventh Age of Starcraft is going to be defined by one player in particular. This player is Fantasy. I kind of lied when I said before that Jaedong-Bisu-Flash have the undisputed best mechanics in Progaming, since really, Fantasy has mechanics as good as any of them. But Fantasy is so much more than they will ever be. He is a genius of Starcraft – much like his tutors Iloveoov and Boxer. He is a genius who has the mechanics necessary to excel.

Unlike Bisu-Flash-Jaedong, Fantasy has no determinable style. When it suits him, he can play a strategical game that would impress even Boxer. He can play an incredible macro game with amazing defence just as good as Flash can. He can use his amazing Vulture harass to gain back an advantage much like Bisu or Nada could. He can play a micro intensive two-port wraith build as good if not better than Leta. But most importantly, he has revolutionised the game when he needed to jump to the next level. And he hasn’t just revolutionised Terran once, but he has done this multiple times in both TvZ and TvP.

Fantasy is an intelligent Terran, and it is intelligent players who will define what Starcraft is to become in the seventh age. When Fantasy placed in a situation which he is unfamiliar with, he just adapts and applies his mind to overcome his opponent. He has all the elements that made up all the previous bonjwas – except for the results. Take my word, these will come very soon – starting with Bacchus Season 2 OSL.

It is too early to tell which players will join Fantasy as the players which define the seventh age. For Zerg it looks like Calm, Zero or possibly EffOrt will join him. This Zerg trio represents the future without a doubt. All three players are incredibly intelligent and all boast the mechanics to be at the top level. Calm is about to burst out and become great like he deserves, while Zero and Effort require a bit more practice before they get there. For Protoss, there are no strong contenders at this stage.

Nevertheless, over the coming months you will see Progaming begin to revolve around Fantasy - much like it did for Boxer, Nada, Iloveoov and Savior. Indeed, I believe over time he will be rise to their level and become recognised as the fifth bonjwa. This will be an exciting age where strategy will win over pure mechanics and the claim that Starcraft is just a “clickfest” no longer has an ounce of truth.

But for now I just want you to sit in your chair. Take a deep breath. Think back to the Proleague finals and realise that you have just witnessed one of the major turning points in Starcaft history.