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We have seen numerous prodigies throughout the years, with most of the records being set by Flash, the greatest prodigy the scene has ever seen. I have decided to compile a list of achievements accomplished by the biggest sensations in Brood War history.
1) Winning the Courage Tournament (a tournament that gives out semi-professional liscence to its winners, allowing professional teams to draft them into their system)
SnOw: 13 years 9 months 27 days
2) Winning a ProLeague match
Baby: 13 years 2 months 16 days (Baby got his semi-professional liscence by recommendation from his team)
3) Most number of wins in the regular season of the ProLeague
Flash: 16 years 0 months 8 days
3) Going past the OGN offline qualifiers
Flash: 14 years 8 months 11 days
4) Going past the MSL offline qualifiers
Baby: 13 years 10 months 13 days
5) OGN StarLeague champion
Flash: 15 years 8 months 10 days
6) MSL StarLeague champion
Mind: 16 years 1 month 14 days
7) Two time champion of OGN StarLeague
Flash: 17 years 6 months 12 days
8) Two time champion of MSL
Bisu: 17 years 8 months 11 days
9) Three time champion of OGN StarLeague
Flash: 18 years 2 months 6 days
10) Three time champion of KPGA Tournaments/MSL
NaDa: 18 years 1 month 27 days
11) Joint champion of OGN StarLeague and MSL
Flash: 17 years 10 months 24 days
12) Joint double champion of OGN StarLeague and MSL
Flash: 18 years 2 months 6 days
13) Joint triple champion of OGN StarLeague and MSL
Flash: 18 years 11 months 6 days
There were numerous other prodigies throughout the years, but due to extra-ordinary abilities of Flash, only a couple of other tremendous wunderkids managed to get a mention. NaDa, Bisu, and Flash are the only players in history to have won two championships before they hit 18.
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Honourable mentions:
1) GoRush: 15 years 9 months 19 days
GoRush won WCGC 2000, winning $25,000 in prize money. This makes GoRush the youngest person ever that won over $20,000 in prize money from winning a tournament. GoRush wouldn't commit fully to a career in e-Sports right away due to his choice to complete his education beforehand, but he had a successful career nonetheless.
2) GoodFriend: 16 years 8 months 19 days
GoodFriend makes it past the offline qualifiers for his first ever MSL at the tender age of 16 years 8 months 19 days, in which he eventually places 4th. He also goes on to win the most number of games out of anybody in the Neowiz Pmang ProLeague at the tender age of 17 years 2 months 23 days. When viewed separately, these records may not seem that mind-boggling, but he is the youngest player apart from Flash to make to the semi-finals of a major individual league, and dominate an entire season of the ProLeague. GoodFriend was a prodigy of the highest level in 2003.
3) Stork: 16 years 4 months 6 days
Bisu isn't the only protoss prodigy in history. Stork was the youngest protoss player to make it past the offline qualifiers for the OGN StarLeague, and made headlines by managing to gain the fourth seed for EVER 2005 OGN StarLeague.
4) Sea: 15 years 10 months 3 days
Sea was barely 15 years old when he made it past the offline qualifiers for the MSL. He also would make it past the offline qualifiers for the OGN StarLeague a couple of months after that, but that wouldn't be where his legend ends, Sea is the youngest 4th seed of the OGN StarLeague in the history of the game. Sea defeated Nal_rA in his most famous best-of-five victory ever to snatch the fourth seed away from the protoss legend before he was even 16 years old. He is also the youngest ever ProLeague Finals MVP, an award Sea got at the age of 16 years 9 months 17 days, just after his memorable win versus BoxeR himself. Before the arrival of Flash, Sea was the most famous terran prodigy in the scene.
5) Mind: 16 years 0 months 26 days
I know Mind was already mentioned beforehand, but he also has another record unbeaten by anyone else, Mind is the youngest gamer in history to win a best-of-five series, a record he achieved when he defeated Memory in the quarter-finals of GomTV MSL S3.
Zerg prodigies:
This post is short on zerg prodigies, so I'll do a separate ranking for achievements set by zerg players.
Youngest to get past the offline qualifiers stage:
1) sAviOr: 16 years 0 months 24 days
2) GoRush: 16 years 5 months 9 days
3) Jaedong: 16 years 6 months 23 days
4) July: 16 years 7 months 20 days
Youngest champion (OGN StarLeague/MSL):
1) July: 17 years 7 months 11 days
2) sAviOr: 17 years 8 months 12 days
3) Jaedong: 17 years 11 months 13 days
4) EffOrt: 19 years 3 months 21 days
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Have you ever considered writing your blog outside TL (wordpress/tumblr/whatever)? Your posts are plentiful and insightful. You would definitely have the audience and it's kinda shame that they are lost amidst tons of content on tl.net.
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On August 01 2017 18:24 Ej_ wrote:
Have you ever considered writing your blog outside TL (wordpress/tumblr/whatever)? Your posts are plentiful and insightful. You would definitely have the audience and it's kinda shame that they are lost amidst tons of content on tl.net.
Yeah i can only agree with that, or even better write these things for TL directly, some guys add some css/graphics to it and everybody will love this content 
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There has been much better content throughout the years, and the vast majority of them were not written for any particular site in mind. I just post random stuff here because I think this site is savy business-wise, and has a good chance of lasting throughout the years. It's more a stream of consciousness, stuff I am learning as I am posting, rather than editorialized stuff for the masses.
If we categorize the steps of becoming a professional gamer. There's are basically four major steps.
1) Amateur
Winning a Courage tournament allows you to be a:
2) Semi-professional
Being drafted/recommended by a professional team allows you to be a:
3) Professional
Winning a major individual league allows you to be a:
4) Champion
Now, this only applies to modern day players, because the drafting system was created in 2005, which means that any player who made their debuts before that such as BoxeR, NaDa, iloveoov, sAviOr, and Stork cannot be studied in this particular manner.
Flash, for example was recommended by his team in the 13th March 2007 (Flash never managed to win a Courage Tournament while he was an amateur/practice partner). He won his first individual league in 15th March 2008. Flash was trying out his luck in the Courage Tournaments in early 2006 (and failed about six times), and approximately two years later, he was a championship material player.
Bisu, won the 4th Courage Tournament in April 2005, and got picked up by a professional team in August 2005. He won his first ever championship in March 2007, approximately two years after he was a championship material player. Bisu, alongside Sea, is one of the very few gamers out there who got a semi-professional liscence after competing in a Courage Tournament for the first time.
Jaedong, won the 18th Courage Tournament in February 2006, got picked up by a professional team in March 2006, and won his first tournament in December 2007. Jaedong needed ten attempts to get his semi-professional liscence (one of those times was when he was denied by Bisu in the finals of the 4th Courage Tournament). Although it took him less than two years to win a major individual league after his debut as a professional, if you include the overall time frame it took Jaedong to rise to the top after he was trying his hardest to become a semi-professional, it took him approximately three years.
So considering you have to pay to compete in Courage Tournaments, these players probably only competed after taking the game very seriously. I don't know how long it took for these players to become top amateur players (Flash apparently needed very little time), but I can tell how long it took for these players to get picked up by teams, and how long it took for them to make their mark on the professional scene by winning a major tournament.
Someone like Sea or Bisu must have been talented amateurs to get the semi-professional liscence after their first try. Flash and Jaedong needed about a year to get their semi-professional liscence. I could check for more names, but Courage Tournament application information are not that easy to come by.
As for the period it took for professionals to make their names known, Flash needed exactly one year to become a champion after becoming a professional. Mind needed a little more than a year, Bisu needed about a year and a half, Jaedong needed a little less than two years. Every other player who made their debuts as professionals after 2005 needed more than two years to become a champion of a major individual league.
There has been eleven championship winning players who made their debuts within the system we are familiar with today, which is the scene after the creation of the drafting system in 2005. There has been numerous outstanding amateurs, and semi-professionals, but tales of their excellence is hard to find. With that being said, every year there was a tournament held between semi-professional players so the professional teams could figure out who were the promising players. I'll try listing the winners (the champions I am sure on are listed in bold).
2005 R1: No tournament
2005 R2: Justin (ahead of players like Bisu, and Calm)
2006 R1: Mind, or maybe Jaedong (ahead of players like JangBi, and Leta)
2006 R2: Shudder (ahead of players like BeSt, and Pure)
2007 R1: FanTaSy, or maybe ZerO (ahead of players like EffOrt, and herO)
2007 R2: No idea
2008 R1: No idea
2008 R2: BoGus (ahead of players like Hydra, and Last)
2009 R1: sungsun (ahead of players like Classic, and Reality)
2009 R2: yCh (ahead of players like Dear, and TurN)
I won't bother doing the rest because players who were semi-professionals in 2010, or afterwards never had a chance to see their full potential realized.
After doing my research, it seems that Mind was an extremely talented rookie, being barely 14 years old when he got his semi-professional liscence (one of the youngest semi-professional players in history), and performing extremely well versus some of the most well known players in history as a semi-professional player (Jaedong, JangBi, Kal, Leta, Light, and ForGG). He then goes onto become the youngest MSL champion in history after defeating another prodigy at the height of his individual league prowess, Bisu, himself. No other professional player in history managed to win a tournament after a year of gaining his professional liscence apart from Flash. Due to their contrasting styles of approaching the game, and being both young terrran prodigies of the highest level, Mind was constantly compared to the greatest terran player of the modern era.
It is one of the greatest mysteries to me how Mind remained relatively mediocre after such a perfect start to his career. Almost no other player has such a perfect tract record to becoming a champion. Flash struggled for a year to gain his semi-professional liscence, and was drafted by recommendation. Bisu got his semi-professional liscence after his first try at the Courage Tournament, but couldn't reach the finals of the tournament hosted for the semi-professionals of the time (the finals was Justin versus Kwanro). Mind is, unless I am mistaken, the second youngest Courage Tournament winner in history. One of the best performers (if not the best) as a semi-professional at the tender age of fourteen amongst monstrous semi-professionals like Jaedong, and only a year after that became the second youngest champion in the history of the game. How could such a prodigy fail considering how much potential he seemed to have during the earliest years? I wish I knew.
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TLADT24920 Posts
Is it possible that something happened? I can't see him losing interest or something like that when he's committed so much and has been getting recognition for it but maybe some life event? It does seem odd that his perfect start got derailed hardcore. There was an old thread on TL where TL members were asked if Mind or Flash will be the next best terran. Unsurprisingly, most chose Mind lol.
Also, thanks again for these posts. Very insightful even if they are a stream of consciousness.
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On August 03 2017 10:38 BigFan wrote:
Is it possible that something happened? I can't see him losing interest or something like that when he's committed so much and has been getting recognition for it but maybe some life event? It does seem odd that his perfect start got derailed hardcore. There was an old thread on TL where TL members were asked if Mind or Flash will be the next best terran. Unsurprisingly, most chose Mind lol.
Also, thanks again for these posts. Very insightful even if they are a stream of consciousness.
I literally have no idea. I personally believe that WeMade Fox as a team wasn't the best team to foster such a talent (considering how another prodigy in the team, By.Baby, never lived up to the hype either). Imagine if Flash just stayed at the team alongside Mind instead of transfering to KTF MagicNs, perhaps he might have realized his full potential, but there's no knowing what might have happened.
I always tended to prefer more visceral players over cerebral ones. NaDa over iloveoov. July over sAviOr. Okay, I had a soft spot for Nal_rA (and didn't think much of Reach), but that was a rare exception. I wanted to see with my own eyes exactly how these players won. I often didn't have the understanding to appreciate the kind of players who won the war before it even began, and really liked players who won by coming out on top of one battle after another through what I considered to be skill.
Flash was cunning ever since he made his debut as a 14 year old prodigy. He had a knack for knowing when to cheese, and when he play safe. He would make the smart decisions, maybe not the most unbelievable mind-games, but he made sound decisions, and made them faster in quick succession better than any other player I saw in history. He won battles because he already made the outcome inevitable beforehand, several moves before his enemy even realized.
Mind was the more appealing out of the two for me initially. There was a reason he was called the Desert Fox by the Korean community. He won the games through hard fought battles, not because he set up the game just right, and because of that I used to think Mind was "better" at the game than Flash during the earliest stages of their careers.
Flash was always smart, but I witnessed the evolution of probably the most terrifying player ever before my eyes. He was also a prodigy of the highest calibre, but I think there was a time when Mind had similar levels of promise, albeit being a different kind of genius.
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EPT
