EPTKT Rolster has a fascinating, eventful history. It is not your average team, not your WeMade FOX, your Woongjin Stars, or even your Samsung KHAN. The story of KT is all the more interesting, for it sheds light on the current situation.
First, let's go back a bit. In the classical age of broodwar, KT Rolster was called KTF MagicNS. It was a team known as the Real Madrid of starcraft, buying league champions from other teams:
TheMarine and 
Nal_rA from 
Go (CJ Entus), Reach and Sync from Hanbit (Woongjin Stars), Goodfriend from Pantech (WeMade FOX), NaDa (only for a year) and 
YellOw from Ideal Space (Hwaseung OZ). AFAIK ChoJJa was the only big name that did not come from a different team.Although the individual leagues held way more importance in those times, a proleague graduadely came to being. In 2003 the KTF EVERCup was held with KTF as third, the following pmang Proleague had KTF 6th (out of eight) with
Orion, the later SK Telecom T1 and the foreigner AMD under it. The MBC Team League also in 2003 had KTF as second losing to SKT1. The first annual Proleague and the true predecessor of our current one started in 2004 with KTF ending as fourth. The MBC Team League in 2004 had KTF as third, losing to SKT1 again. In a second MBC Team League that year KTF came in fourth. The Team League was dissolved under pressure from Kespa, so that the OGN annual Proleague was the only one left. Interestingly, this Team League had the exact same format as Winners League many years later. In the second season of Proleague in 2005 KTF reached second place, losing to SKT1 in the grand finals. KTF was during this time very highly rated, filled with champions of all races and with strong financial backing. The individual players were all very talented and won in total six starleagues (only Chojja however won them while being on the team) and many silver and bronze medals. During the 2004-2005 season they beat the record for undefeated run, with an in ace matches unbeatable Nal_Ra spearheading the formation. When push came to shove, however, the team consistently fell apart. No team silverware was won and the performance in the play offs and finals was without exception atrocious. Even though KTF was undoubtedly the team to beat, the players all performed worse than they did before they joined, and people spoke jokingly of the "KTF curse" that descended upon every new trade.Themarine, the first one to fall under the spell, retired in early 2006. He was in the early years 2003 and 2004 one of the mainstays of the team, but failed to keep up and was replaced in 2005 by silver medalist Goodfriend. Nada had been on the team for a short while and did very well but left in 2003 for what now is Wemade FOX, together with Yellow, who however quickly returned to KTF.
In Proleague 2006, KTF ended fourth in round 1 and in round 2 finished on a terrible 10th place. The star players did not age well and performance fell across the board. A halfhearted attempt was made to develop a couple of youngsters, of which only the terran
Hery went on to stake out his place. In 2007 round 1 KTF was nowhere near the top at seventh place. The working first team had been reduced to Nal_Ra, Hery, Chojja and the 2v2 team. Yellow, Sync, Goodfriend and Reach individually were terrible and got less and less opportunities. Youngsters were tried out but failed unanimously. Nal_Ra could win against every opponent, but lost equally as often. The only silver lining was the 2v2 squad, were Reach paired up with the zerg ZergBOy (more famously known now as NesTea!) to become the most feared pairing in the game.Halfway into the season, two youngsters were drafted from other teams. One of them would go on to do great things. The other,
815 from CJ Entus, was brought slowly and didn't go very far from there, but the super young terran Flash, acquired from Wemade FOX, was immediately ushered into the team. The coaches had apparently recognized the spark and he did not disappoint, turning in the best record of the team besides the 2v2 squad. Overnight, struggling KTF, heavily resting on the inconsistent Nal_Ra and Chojja, an average Hery and the Reach/Zergboy combo, turned into KTFlash.The next round only further established the fact. Nal_Ra slumped to a disastrous 1-9 record, Chojja, Yellow, Goodfriend and Sync did not get a single game and a long list of youngsters (
Haran, HaZin, SaiR, LuCifer, GARIMTO[!], Violet and Tempest) were unsuccessfully tried out, and even though 815 got one of the best ratings at 8 wins and 2 losses, it later became obvious that it was a flash in the pan, caused by a special relation between the zerg and the map Blue Storm. Eventually it became apparent that if KTF wanted to have any chance of success, it would have to employ the infamous child-labor strategy. Flash was to become the workhorse for the once proud KTF MagicNs while the old glory retired or buggered off to other teams. KTF came in 9th place, but hope was finally on the horizon.The transitional Shinhan08 Proleague indeed went better with a somewhat respectable 5th place. The new partitioning worked great: Flash played every match and every eventual ace match (one exception was when Hery was played: he lost), 815 and Lucifer were the most consistent youngsters that aided him, while Reach, Yellow and Zergboy did a reasonable job on the 2v2 matches. The management had given up on Chojja, Sync and Goodfriend completely: The first two retired while Goodfriend moved to Estro. Hery and Nal_Ra only got the occasional easy match. Besides that, a myriad of youngsters was yet again tried out, with
HoeJJa and Stats joining the crew with a loss each. The team had stabilized, but only for a short while. The three young 'uns that carried the team were pushed too hard. Where 815 started out very solid, Lucifer rocked a 6-0 streak, and Flash was on something even more ridiculous, it fell apart in the latter half with Flash consistently losing his first match though winning the ace match, Lucifer gaining five losses to even things out, and 815 finishing with one more lost than won.One thing was going well and that was the youth academy. While the first iteration of the minor league was meh for KTF, the second was won by them. Players like Violet, Tempest, Stats, Hoejja and
BarrackS were a clear step above the competition. KTF had transitioned, by the looks from it, from an all-star bully team, into a talented high school squad. What further enforced this impression was the retirement of Nal_Ra and the application of both Reach and Yellow to Airforce Ace. Ra had concluded that there was no place anymore for him on the team and went into commentating, while Reach and Yellow upon learning that the 2v2 matches would be scratched, understood that there would only be a future for them in the army.A clean sheet and a new life, so it seemed for KTF. Before the new season started however, an old demon came 'round to haunt them. A "Rivals Battle" was organized between SKT1 and KT. But where SKT put up mostly a youngster and reserves lineup, The players from KTF were first team: Zergboy, Violet, 815, Tempest, Sair and of course Flash. Flash lost, but the youngsters still forced the ace match, where Flash lost again to
Fantasy. Two things became obvious from this match. One: the youngsters had huge potential, and could bring home the wins when necessary, and two: Flash couldn't handle the pressure of being the lone ace. Something had to give: bring in experienced players to help out Flash, or instead play Flash less and the youngsters more. Two philosophies. CJ Entus, for example, has consistently followed the latter plan. SKT1, on the other hand, followed and follows the first.KTF MagicNs decided to go for broke. Two highly rated zerg players were brought in:
FireFist from Wemade FOX who was on a hot streak, and the MSL winner Luxury arriving from OGN Sparkyz. At first this seemed to work perfectly fine. Luxury and Firefist were good players and Flash started churning out results again, sharing ace match duties with Luxury. However, not all was well. What the team had gained in raw power, it had lost in stability. Instead of focusing on one plan, the KTF management tried to do a bit of both, and in the end started rotating everyone but Flash. This had disastrous effect, first on the reserves and rookies, then on the first teamers 815 and Firefist, it spread to Luxury and finally things were back to where they were: Flash was playing almost two games a match with constantly someone else providing the third win, íf they won at all.Winners League came round for the first time. The format gives a lot of opportunities for teams with a couple of strong players so it seemed that KTF would be in prime position. Luxury started out with an all kill but the next game against SKT was promptly lost with Firefist on the ace match. KTF was completely unpredictable and relied exclusively on Flash to bring in at least three kills, whenever Luxury didn't perform, which was more often than not. The absolute low point was the match against Estro, where
hyvaa kills consecutively Sair, Hoejja and Luxury, then to be followed by a three kill by Flash, who then falls to UpMaGiC. Embarrassing.To the KTF management there was only one solution: bring in more players! This time,
fOrGG was brought in, another MSL winner and for Lecaf/Hwaseung Oz an extremely consistent and powerful performer. Hery, probably upon hearing the news, decided to hang up his mouse and got into coaching. The first match of the fourth round of the season, against Wemade FOX, was characteristically lost 0-3 with the random backup Tempest and the two new aces ForGG and Luxury providing the "goods". A loss to Airforce ACE including Flash added insult to injury. The pressure hadn't lessened from the acquisitions, it actually worsened and Flash lost more games than before. However, not everything was going downstream. One of the youngsters quietly forced himself into the first team with an impressive turnover: Violet. The first self-raised youngster after Hery to make the step-up. Not gently like CJ, nor opportunistic like SKT1, but completely through his own determination the young protoss simply won every game he was given. It was on these rare moments, once in a while coupled with Hoejja who followed the same path, that Flash got his act together to win a match. Within time, the coaches realized the situation and Violet was played more and more. The stability that this finally brought, allowed Flash, Luxury, the zvz sniper 815 and at the end, also ForGG, to break free from the negative spiral. Slowly KTF returned to the living and even made a late bid for the play offs, failing only just to reach them.
I believe that it was, in the end, not the more experienced players, nor the many youngsters that gave Flash the confidence and backing he needed, but the quiet hard work from these extraordinary players Violet and Hoejja. Whatever the case, the ultimate weapon ran with it and went on to win first the GOM League, then the EVER2009 OSL. KTF had finally found itself and it was just in the last place they looked: within themselves. What followed was predictable. For the first time in history KT won a price, the highest there was, the Shinhan09-10 Proleague, 4-2, in the finals against archenemy SKT1, with Flash, Tempest, Violet and Stats winning, all true KT players (And ForGG losing... Other loss was Hoejja's in a weird match to Fantasy).
Luxury went on to be convicted for match fixing. ForGG went in a slump where he never fully went out of. Firefist first became captain, then simply retired, having accomplished very little. Violet however went on to become the protoss ace, and out of the depths off the B-team another special protoss emerged: Stats. One of the most talented players of his time, Stats has already given almost every S-class player in the game a scare, and he is now one of what one TL person (forget who! Sorry!) called the "twin towers" of KT.
This was a huge write-up and I hope you'll believe me when I say that I've worked on this for at least twelve hours. But I'm satisfied with the result. Before I started this journey, I thought that the loss KT suffered to SKT1 was simply due to losing Luxury, ForGG, Violet, 815 and Firefist, without bringing in sufficient replacements. I now believe that that is patently wrong. Though the loss of Violet in particular has shaken KT on its foundations, it also brings them strength and determination. While the departure of the other four players was greeted with supreme indifference, Violet is carried along to every match they play, in paper form.
No, it is the complete opposite of it that is bringing KT out of its comfort zone. Again new players have been brought in, with
Action and Crazy-Hydra. Though Action might be excused, since his team was disbanded and he had to go somewhere, Crazy-Hydra was, keeping in mind the lessons en-wrapped in the (hi)story of KT, a terrible mistake. Unsurprisingly, both players went on to lose two crucial games in the SWL 2011 finals.If you read it all, my hat off and kudos to you. I like it very much and I hope you did also. I will strife to add some pictures later on, but for now, this will do.
EDIT: Spelling check. TPLD-ed.
