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EPT2010: Between Past and Future
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It’s hard to encapsulate the first year of Starcraft 2.
Part of it is purely due to material circumstance, there’s surprising little that remain of the frantic activity of the early days of the game, needing heavy digging on Youtube, old Teamliquid report thread, obscure Koreans website and liquipedia to find some of games and to make sense of the scene at the time. (GSL has luckily been preserved from history) Another part of the problems is just due to my own absence of the scene back then, making the whole thing somewhat estrange. But even outside of these practical limitation, 2010 was an indeterminate year, it was stuck between on one side a tradition of professional Brood War tournaments in Korea that wasn’t in phase with this new international game and on the other side there was an incapacity to find solid grounds to build new traditions and heroes to project the game into the future. As such, the year fell like an endless rewriting of history, both confusing and full of the craziest of promise.
The beta
Two years after Tychus announced the anticipated return of video biggest Sci-fi franchise, a few lucky ones got to be the firsts to put their hands on the game. While the number of beta participant would rapidly increase from months to months, for the big majority of individuals interested in the game the only way to know how it looked was to go out and try to find footage online. For some, that meant tuning in to watch high level and semi-professional players who were heavily represented in the handful of beta participant. For most of the fans though, Starcraft 2 pre-launch experience was discovering the high numbers of entertainers who jumped on the hype wagon. The beta saw the rise of those community figures who would specialize themselves in broadcasting and talk about other people games, on the forefront of it were people such as HDStarcraft, Husky and JP who went on to produce famous series like “Bronze league heroes” and the “State of the Game” podcast, but none were more influential than Sean Day9 Plot, who departed from the anonymity of Team Liquid to become the face of the game with his daily show in direct from his college dorm bedroom.
The Day9 daily was the perfect representation of the pre-lauch ethos that would come to define Starcraft 2, the point wasn’t only to be exited to play the game, to anticipate all the fun you were going to have with the game, it was also learn to be good at the game. Above the silliness of funday monday, Starcraft 2 was all about competition, about analyzing replays, working out builds and practicing until you be the best you could, and maybe even, someday, simply the best. It’s an attitude that is still true to this day, years after all of us abandoned the idea we could achieve any kind of success in the game, you still see reddit post every day sending new players on their way to the grind.
With all the excitement going around to game, the esport scene was starting to shape up even in the Beta phase. Tournaments started to pop up in the West, where strong BW and WC3 players like
HayprO, IdrA, 
NonY, 
LucifroN, IdrA, DIMAGA, White-Ra and Sen established themselves with strong results. Even more than the professionally BW run tournaments in Korea, Starcraft 2 beta games where hard to find in the eclectic world of 2010 Internet, with replays of tournaments and custom games disseminate a bit everywhere between JustinTV, Blip, Youtube and various others video downloading platforms. Luckily, there also was a heaving cross-pollination with content creators on the entertainment side of thing, furthering the popularity of both. While their newfound attention made some of them fans favorite, it was still largely unknown who really was the best, especially in an everchanging balance and as such discussion raged on forums and comment sections between everyone favorite. Overnight players went from near anonymity to the center of attention of thousands of persons. What would have been a few weeks before a bunch of Internet friends talking about their favorite hobby was now conversations scrutinized and debated, as individual began to transform into parallel internet personas.Of course, RTS always had a strong esport and competitive scene, but usually, especially in the west, it something you encountered organically. You felt in love with a game, started to get good at in, then meet over the Internet or in person with other great players as you slowly learn the few tournament going on, where pretty much everyone was either a competitor in one of the game or their friend or family. With Starcraft 2, these gathering of like-minded guys now had thousands of people watching them online even before most of them had played their first ladder games.
While outside of Korea multiples players and personality active in BW and WC3 were starting to plan to believe their days of glory had finally come, in Korea a bombshell dropped when it was reported (by the immortal Waxangel) that talks between Kespa and Blizzard had abort. At a time when around the world there were sparks of a truly massive esport scenes, we realized that the start of Starcraft 2 was going to happen without the support of the most successful esports organization. All the best RTS player would continue playing the first iteration of Starcraft, the first manifestation of a rift that would take a decade to close.
Coming out at the tail end of the physical market monopoly on videogames, the launch of Starcraft 2 was one of the biggest video game events. The first Blizzard product in half a decade, ever since the launch of grossly popular World of Warcraft, their first RTS in 8 years and the sequel to what was at the time one the bestselling pc game in history. Masses of fans gathered not only to their local videogames shop, but also to the multiples Blizzard organized parties around the world where developers and Blizzard employee hit the street to celebrate a new era of RTS with theirs fans. If you couldn’t join the fun in person, the second-best thing was to tune in to Day9 King of the Beta tournament. An 8 players one-night-only online tournament casted by Day9 and JP from an offline launch party at Harvey Mudd college. The tournament was a great one, after 12 straight hours of broadcast interlude with community appearances worthy of HSC XX, the world most controversial player
IdrA manage to establish himself as the the jure best player in the world after triumphing of a stacked field including two ex-Kespa pro.The birth of the GSL
With over two thousand hopefuls trying to qualify including a notable squadron of some of the best non-Koreans players, the first ever GSL was way more than just a GSL, it was the first real world championship, the first test as well as a promise of things to come. It did start with an unhealthy dose of K-pop and K-rap madness, interlude with Mike Morheim literally being elevator through the floor, but once all that was done, it was finally time. A frantic crowd drown by the bombing sound of Ready to Roar, introduced us to the now familiar face of Artosis and Tastless (but not Tastosis yet!). Although their skinny black T shirts does a poor job of hiding two nerds fuel by passion and not a whole lot of food, they are already in control of their commentary, with the trademark chemistry that would come to define them already showing. The show opened with the belle of the bal, 8 years before
Serral, Idra entered the tournament as the favorite and made quick work of his first opponent.(1) It was an explosive start to the tournament and while the next weeks would migrate to the cozy in-house studio, the taste of the big stage would mark the imagination of everyone as those became the moments the whole scene would revolve around.As the tournament shaped up, it ended up being pure madness. The first and second round especially were mostly about getting rid of player who stumbled into the main bracket by doing only one base builds. Everyone had their own style and while it lacks pretty much any efficiency there’s something deeply fascinating (and somewhat self-flattering) about watching someone bet thousands of dollars on his own terrible idea about the best way to play the game.
The foreigners journey ended up being quite short, including a disappointing second round exit by Idra at the hands of Nettie aka
Lotze, he however was far from the only one who performed bellow expectation, as the few first round saw numerous unknown busted into the scene. The final was a grand affair as the player with the highest BW ELO ranking of the tournament, ex-SKT IntoTheRainBOw,(2) met with Cool aka FruitDealer, who was looking for redemption after his promising BW career got cut short by personal tragedy. Both players had blown out the competition losing only a single map on their way to the final. The setting was worthy of the occasion with a packed crowd, an amazing stage and of course Tastosis casting the finals. In the end tho, Fruitdealer dominated the match, his creative strategies were more than enough to defy fans expectation of zerg being the weakest race and swap away the man once deemed to have best reaver micro in the world.With hindsight Tastosis subsequent claim to have found in Fruitdealer the game first bonjwa seems more than enough to deserve a whole article on their tendency to overhype, but at the time history really could have given them justice. Fruitdealer had already won the biggest Korean lan during the beta, and on the back of a 15-2 run in GSL he had made it clear that he was the best in the world. There was no reason to doubt it would end anytime soon, he was to be the next in a long running tradition of dominant players succeeding each other on prolong period as the uncontested best. But it quickly appeared that this new game would be far crueler to its heroes than his predecessor.
Cramp between the first two GSL, Blizzard decided to organize a Starcraft 2 invitational at Blizzcon, which was still mostly a WOW fan convention. The invitations were, let say, less then optimal with
Genius and Maka representing Korea while many top foreigners including both IdrA and Jinro were absent and Fruitdealer was for some god forsaken reason relegated to a showmatch. It marked the first time Koreans where invited oversea and it certainly looked like the perfect opportunity for foreigner to take a, somewhat symbolic, Blizzcon crown. But in the end, Genius manage to rally in the loser bracket to beat the Chinese representative Loner and become the unlikeliest player to be immortalized in the grand hall of the Anaheim convention center.The first Blizzcon was very much a foreign event, you need to download replay files to watch most of the gates. It a good representation of the state of things outside of Korea. The promising scene that had appeared in the beta blossomed in a frantic but wholly disorganized professional circuit. It all started when relative unknown
MorroW spoiled Idra entry into the foreign scene, as he upset him with masses of reapers and it continue a week later when two players new to Starcraft came out on top as HuK manage to beat his countryman KiWiKaKi in the first ever MLG to feature RTS. The honor of BW veterans was quickly reestablished with Fenix, DIMAGA, IdrA, Jinro and White-Ra managing to take home a slew of trophy. 2010 also saw the introduction of the Zotac as well as the GO4SC2 cups who in collaboration with a slew of other periodic mid-size tournament made sure fans could watch professional Starcraft all day long.The production in “big” foreign event wasn’t the best, but what MLG and the others lacked in knowledge on how to run an event, they more than made up in excitement. The forums were busing as everyone attempted to made sense of what the hell was going between double elimination bracket, extended series and crashing stream. Half the fun of going back to 2010 Starcraft was walking through the collective experience of frustration and excitement as everyone waited for the games to start and tried to grapple whatever information the few insiders would give on the forums about the results. All of it just made the game that much more hype, giving some truly amazing moment like when
Nazgul knocked down Idra from the winner bracket at MLG Dallas by going one base blink three game in a row or when Naama and MaNa faced each other at the great discomfort of commentators and hilarity of everyone else.GSL season two, a champion fall
Meanwhile in Korea, after looking at the fun (and probably the money) a bunch of legend decided to get out of their retirement to give this thing a shot and soon enough
BoxeR, NaDa, July and Moon were looking to take the crown from their far less notable ex-comrade, from this competition between familiar faces the most unlikely of players emerged. A certain “FoxeR” or Fake-Boxer, who would later be known under the id MarineKing, an unknown new kid who eliminated the reigning champ in stunning fashion in the round 32 before giving Rainbow a similar treatment in the semi-final. On the other side of the bracket, the real Boxer was also making waves, even beating fellow Bonjwa Nada in the quarter final. The postmodern dream of the old Boxer vs new Boxer final was killed fast though, NesTea, previously known as “Zergbong” continued to perplex fans as he completely stomped the Emperor in the semi, getting to the final with a perfect 12-0 record.The final would prove much more difficult for him. Foxer took a 3-2 lead in the grand final, but after a butch game 6 it was all tied up 3-3. With his back against the wall, Foxer put everything on the back of his idol trademark strategy, pulling out a two rax SCV rush. Everything was into place, a decade after Boxer battled Yellow to mark the explosion of Starcraft esport in Korea, a dashing new Boxer was about to restart the cycle and lead a new generation from under the shadow of Brood War. Then everything felt apart. Nestea saw the rush coming from a mile away, expertly neutralize it and it turned out this fake Boxer was no more of a Bonjwa than Fruitdealer. In his place the GSL crowned a 27 years old 2v2 specialist. While Nestea success would later prove to be no fluke, at the time it seemed like a missed opportunity. We could have had SC2 first real star, instead we traded an old school Brood War B teamer zerg for an ever more old-school and even less recognizable ex-BW zerg.
Still, you couldn’t deny Nestea was the one more deserving to be the champion. He dominated the tournament by discovering the ways a cunning zerg player could use the race scouting and macro mechanics to cut corners while still being just safe enough against aggression as well as exposing many of the weakness of his opponents approximative and predictable strategies. Doing so he paved the way for how the zerg race is still supposed to be played, defensive, adaptative and macro-oriented. In the meanwhile, Foxer game plan was pretty much to make a bunch of marines and micro them forever. Brain once again triumph over brawn.
End of the year
For those in search for clarity at the top of the pro scene, the third and last GSL of the year was supposed to give some sense of order, instead we got a hard reminder that this new iteration of Starcraft would be nothing if not surprising.
At first every one of the past games greats was wipe out came the round of 16, Moon felt to Jinro on his way to an electric semi-final run, Boxer got out tvt by
Polt, July got upset by MC/Iron while Nada didn’t even made it into the main bracket. The previous SC2 champion and finalist didn’t do much better, MLG champion Idra and Blizzcon champion Genius bombed out in the round of 32 and none of the four previous GSL finalist got pass the round of 8 although both Fruitdealer and Nestea gave a good fight.Instead in the final we got on one side
Fnatic.Rain who came out a bit of nowhere to upset Nestea essentially by cheesing every game and on the other side our first protoss finalist, MC, who had the unfortunate honor of being nicknamed “The suicide toss”.(3) While outside the game MC was still a somewhat awkward kid, showing only glimpse of the Bosstoss, inside the game he already had his trademark killer instinct. His back to back dismantling of fan favorites July, MarineKing and Jinro may not have earned him the best reputation, but no one could deny it was impressive.With a reunion between two well-known cheeser, the final was pretty much what you could expect. Except for an unexpected macro brawl in game 2, everything was decided on one base, with MC easily getting the best of his terran opponent. If Nestea had make the case that thoughtful, calm and collected macro play could get you to the highest of high, MC served as a necessary reminder of one of Starcraft perennial truth: We all suck, so might as well keep it simple and pull some bullshit. As for the silver medalist, his name is still synonymous with the best Starcraft has to offer, sadly for him it’s mostly because of the two other (better) guys also name Rain.
With the crowing of Min-Chul the GSL “Pre-season”, and the year, was over. Despite a myriad of tournaments going on, only a tiny fraction of which has been covered here, there was distinct lack of narrative and hierarchy. Every GSL champion had crushed all opposition when they won their tournament, but none of the three were a convincing choice for best of the year. Of the great 2010 Korean players it’s almost astonishing how little of them had a prolong impact. Only 4 really stand out today: Fruitdealer, Nestea, MKP and MC, all the rest of those who had every right to call themselves among the world elite, your
Kyrix, RainBOw, Fnatic.Rain, HongUn, Genius, Ensnare, LiveForever, Maka TesteR, TheWinD, they pretty much all disappeared never to be seen again, save maybe for one or two anectodical run. Korea had very much had a BW-light vibe, the tournaments being all won by ex-Kespa pro. It had a seamlessly endless number of players thrown into brutal single elimination bracket, but at the same time no one stood out to the fame and level of the Kespa stars still in their old game, and while it still had a fair bit of the distinct Korean madness, the show was also now more American than ever, with English broadcasting becoming an equally important, and largely separated, experience. Re-watching the 2010 GSL is a strange experience. Outside of the hilariously disastrous builds and the maps where locust could go from main to main, a lot of the things we’ve come to expect are already there Tastosis banter, Nestea and MC doing their thing, Artosis crowing 50 bonjwa,
San getting underrated, baby Maru looking like he’s already bored of playing this game or the distinct sound of a Korean broadcast, but they are all intertwined with some straight up bizarre moments like Tastless offering personal help to Eastern European players to negotiate visa with their embassy. The whole thing feels somewhat off. Entertaining? Greatly, but still off.
The studio looks like he’s made of cardboard and occasionally it’s painfully obvious that Tastosis are just two lost american nerds put in front of camera. The player are mostly unrecognizable to contemporary hears, and that’s when they don’t have multiples nickname, with commentators rotating through them without a care in the world, talks of the mystical “Korean ladder” keep popping up in cast to speculate about someone chance, sometime a player lose and disappear from Starcraft forever and every time there’s an hint of clarity to the scene it all go through the drain the next tournament.
In the west, there a similar feeling of otherworldliness, every tournament I could put my hands on didn’t have a stage, curious bystander would just gather behind the PC to watch the games, they would pretty much just run until they had done their matches for the day, however long that may be with all the technical difficulty. Top players and community figures were one and the same, shitting on balance in a talk show on one day, playing in a tournament the next.
It is a reminder that things could have been different, maybe Tastosis could have stayed just two nerds trying to get by halfway across the world, maybe SC2 western scene could have stayed the fun yet chaotic heap of amateurs and friends just trying stuff out and organizing event while also being active forum users and just kinda chilling. If some of you are fans of the FGC, it’s still very much that way, sure you have a few regular who usually get fairly far in tournament, but the typical experience of tuning in mid-tournament is two player showing up on stream, commentators saying that X guy is pretty good since he did some money match at a friend house last week, or is in fact super good but it was in this other weird anime fighter you never heard of, then they play, someone win and you don’t hear from him during the next 4 hours, and maybe the loser just disappear forever, and you immediately are thrown into another match. In some way it’s a more communal experience, after all there isn’t that much that separate you from the person you’re watching on stream, you are both just two people passionate about a video game, heck it’s even common practice to go yourself to your local tournament to try your luck and have a good night with the gang.
But it lacks the grandiose, the magic that leave you at awe before a player, that hunt your imagination well after the games are over. For that you don’t just need good games, flashing lights and bucket of money, you need the mythical. The legacy that elevate a player well above the common man, that place a match in the long line of a glorious history, the rivalry that transcend the individuals to become a confrontation between ideals, all of the thing that make the moment grander than it really is. Sure, INno is more troll then emotionless machine. Sure, Idra didn’t really want to punch Huk in the face. Sure, even Flash wasn’t actually that dominant a player. But it’s all about the story, the collective illusion that transform Starcraft 2 into so much more than it really is.
2010 Starcraft is somewhere in-between, the seeds of mythos to come are already there, but they didn’t have the time to bloom yet, everyone is still grasping at straws trying to create sense of the unique events they are witnessing. Nevertheless, our legends were right around the corner, starting with a man who literally won a GSL with a broken back, and who started the new year by getting his first trophy.
But all good stories need to be savored…
1.In game two his opponent did, I kid you not, a 1-1-1 where he build a factory in his main, then float it just outside his own base, made a single helion then re-lift the factory to scout Idra base and harass him with a single helion, he then switch his starport with his reactor barracks while on a single marine, only to build a single medivac out of it, but as the same time went 3 rax ghost. Followed it up with a 1 marine 1 ghost drop setting up a nuke in the main. Sadly, the greatest balance era of the game was cut short by Idra having already mastered the tried and true strategy of building drones. Also since you went to watch it, the second game has
Maka yolo a-move up the ramp of a 1 base protoss that has a selected sentry on top of it and also probably didn’t know the forcefield hotkey.2.I absolutely refuse to call him “HopeTorture”
3.This is a good place to remind everyone that in the time before Wolf, Korean nicknames were offensively bad instead of just hilariously bad.
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The year in number
Top 10 earners
1.FruitDealer: 92 390$
2.NesTea: 92 370$
3.MC: 89 400$
4.RainBOw: 35 600$
5.MarineKing: 33 600$
6.Genius: 29 200$
7.Fnatic.Rain: 26 400$
8.BRAT_OK: 20 200
9.Fenix: 17 400$
10.Jinro: 15 000$
Prize money total: 844 715$ (Considering the nature of 2010 Starcraft, those numbers are an approximation)
GSL top 10
1.FruitDealer
2.NesTea
3.MC
4.RainBOw
5.MarineKing
6.Fnatic.Rain
7.HongUn
8.Ensnare
9.boxer
10.Maka
Premier and Major tournament by race
Zerg: 14
Terran: 7
Protoss: 7
Premier and Major tournaments by country
Korea: 7
Sweden: 5
Ukraine: 4
Canada: 2
United States: 2
The rest: 8
Top 10 earners
1.
FruitDealer: 92 390$ 2.
NesTea: 92 370$ 3.
MC: 89 400$ 4.
RainBOw: 35 600$ 5.
MarineKing: 33 600$ 6.
Genius: 29 200$ 7.
Fnatic.Rain: 26 400$ 8.
BRAT_OK: 20 200 9.
Fenix: 17 400$ 10.
Jinro: 15 000$ Prize money total: 844 715$ (Considering the nature of 2010 Starcraft, those numbers are an approximation)
GSL top 10
1.
FruitDealer2.
NesTea3.
MC4.
RainBOw5.
MarineKing6.
Fnatic.Rain7.
HongUn8.
Ensnare9.
boxer10.
Maka Premier and Major tournament by race
Zerg: 14
Terran: 7
Protoss: 7
Premier and Major tournaments by country
Korea: 7
Sweden: 5
Ukraine: 4
Canada: 2
United States: 2
The rest: 8
)
