I am sure everyone here has a player they mass respect and look up to whether it's from brood war or sc2. For me there are very very very few players that I watch and get anxious/nervous/excited when they play and get legitimately down a little bit when they lose.
Most players that I see lose in a tournament or really anything it's like "well that sucks oh well". I don't really care. But there is that one player that no matter what, whether he is slumping or beating the shit out of everyone out there that always gets me when he wins or loses. There are 2 players off the top of my head that I sometimes get a little down when they lose in a major tournament.
But the one player that I respect the most and watch his games religiously is jaedong. He was the first professional player I saw play a starcraft game and that was him vs Fantasy on outsider in 2009 which started off with a bunker rush into an epic game that unfortunately jaedong ended up losing. For some reason that game and seeing all that epicness made jaedong someone I wanted to watch.
I would stay up to watch all his osl/msl matches and whenever he won I would go to bad happy as fuck and when he lost I would go to bed like damnit and I am sure everyone has that feeling when their favorite player loses in a major tournament.
Fast forward to when sc2 came out. Even though sc2 came out and even now before they even switched to sc2 I still watched Jaedong. Not as hardcore as before mainly due to the fact that I didn't feel like staying up till 4 am and he was always like last match so had to skip his matches unfortunately in everything ><.
Now we all know jaedong has had kind of a slump period in bw lately (I am talking pre-sc2 switch even before there were rumors about it). I still watched those if it were on early enough but he always lost when I watched and still even though I didn't play bw (still watched occasionally) made me go fuuck jaedong next time!
Then they switched to sc2 (will hybrid league) and jaedong lost his first sc2 match, think he lost his second but then won his third vs lizzy in the ace match when lizzy used to play proleague for 4 games lol.
Now when jaedong wins in big games I get a massive smile on my face and just fist pump especially when he starts to show it.
When I watched that game and saw him trying not to smile omg biggest grin I have had watching him in a long time. The fact that he was so happy he couldn't hold his smile made me smile for like ever. I can't think of any other players that ever make me do that.
Why did I write this? Cause I can and jaedong's a baller.
My question is to you guys how many players do you get that feeling about and who?
I always get that feeling for NonY, especially now when he does well in a tournament. I had barely played Brood War but had found out about the competitive scene from watching TSL2 when NonY beat IdrA. I really like his unique approach to the game and his different conservative style he plays in all of his matchups makes him a really entertaining player to watch and learn from. I think he has a great personality in the community and is one of the veterans that many people like to root for. He's the reason Liquid is my favorite team and the reason I decided to play Protoss when I picked up Starcraft II.
Even though going into Starcraft 2, NonY hasn't had as much success, but when he plays well, it makes me extremely happy to see him succeed at something he's clearly talented at. When he won his first NASL3 game against Darkforce, seeing his reaction and smiles all around brought a smile to my face as well, because it had truly looked as though he was practicing hard during that period to try and get back on top.
When he got Top 16 at WCS USA Nationals, I couldn't help but be happy for him because he had been in such a slump through IPL4, MLG Columbus, and recently only had that win over Darkforce in NASL3. Even though he didn't win the tournament, I'm hoping to get to see him tear it up at WCS Raleigh! Seeing him stream constantly over the last month has definitely helped my play and change my playstyle up a bit more as of late and I can't help but thank him.
He's just been that player, that to me, even if he wins just one series in a tournament that means the world because I'm truly ecstatic to see him succeed.
incontrol. The guy takes a beating in threads endlessly, can't stream without some viewers talking shit, and yet he still puts himself out there for the community. I really think the SC2 community would be worse off without him, and the man has my respect. That and I've always believed he's a much better player than he's given credit for (being as how he isn't really given any credit at all)
bw idra, bw nony, baby, shy, hiya, leta, soulkey, and recently mini. Moreso in the past but still mad respect for horang2, skyhigh, snow.
What I mean by those is that I get excited by their play and they are super gosu, but never really broke out or always got the recognition they deserved; they also seemed in general more solid than someone like shine/turn/kwanro/other really aggressive players that produce fun games but have a different type of funness about them. In addition, the koreans listed above were more creative in their play/control (skyhigh a bit staler), which is really hard to do at times but just makes them so much more fun. Idra and nony were just also gosu and had tons of passion for bw that was portrayed to me. Shy also had best bw faces.
Everyone has respect for TBLS, fantasy, in form jangbi, proleague monster + tl interactee sea (everyone was crushed when sea had a terrible season last year), nada, boxer, etc, but because they get so much attention/everyone knows they are good it's kind of a different emotional situation. You just automatically respect them, and then some of them will be your general "favourite" players--for me it's fantasy. I feel zero, soulkey, and effort have gotten added to this category a bit, but I still put soulkey above for the brief general ballerness of woongjin zergs in the Queen vs mech period (liked him a little more than zero).
*Edit* to pick 1 specific person with above reasoning, it'd be shy. Mainly in his vs T games---in his short 7-4 career, he had wins with like 5 shuttle play on icarus, hallucinated arbiters, and then also a super fucking gay/abusive game vs bogus. Just so fun and was bringing new blood to the scene.
Has to be White-ra, one of the most good mannered people in the world. He's always willing to experiment with new plays (I adapted a mass air play from his stream) and is very entertaining all-round.
MC. Incredible consistency, multiple times people said he would drop off (his timings would fail, he was too risky, he wasn't keeping up with newer toss, he would fail without a team house, he flys around too much) but he just never stops being at the absolute top of his race. I find his games in general dull as hell (though sometimes they're amazing!) but you gotta just respect the shit out of him, dancing and all.
Any of the guys who went "all-in" for SC:BW deserve huge amounts of respect, the foreigners especially. It's one thing for a guy like MC to excel and make money off his success, it's another thing entirely to dedicate your career and your life for something where the reward is practically non-existent.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/6zYNB.png)
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