Fighting the Curse (GGPlay)

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Plexa

Aotearoa39261 Posts

February 14 2008 03:32 GMT

Fighting the curse

Okay, so i know Hot_Bid is sleeping to prepare for Jaedong/Flash so i can sneak i blog in

GGPlay stands atop of the world

Winning an OSL is easy, according to Andyetter, but staying on top afterwards is hard... bloody hard. Every player who has won an OSL has slumped immediately after it, there are a couple exceptions like Jaedong and Nada (and Boxer if we go back far enough) but they are in the vast minority.

Many of these players never make a resurgence at all, Sync for example never posted strong results after his OSL Victory. Casy was looking like a very likely candidate for this fate until last week heh

. Some players fight back, and post average results like Kingdom. Others rock the scene and dominate like crazy like Oov, July and Nada.

GGPlay is at a very sensitive time in his career. Either he will bounce back and become something great, or slump miserably and never be seen again. This blog will follow the highlights, and lowlights of GGPlay fight against the OSL curse.

Lets go back to the game that changed it all - GGPlay vs Iris game 5. Without a doubt one of the best games of 2007. If you haven't seen this, do yourself a fucking favor man! This is tension at its very best

To hype up the Proleague All-Star annual event they decided to have a rematch between these two finalists on the same map. So, for the third time, they duked it out on python. GGplay has resisted the curse relatively well and put on an excellent show - but iris's berserker attacks finally broke him and GGPlay was soon shredded.

The curse took hold in EVER 2007 OSL. His group was by no means easy though, he had to contend with UpMagic (who practices with Jaedong lolz), Bisu (3-0 savior lolz) and Shudder (I'm the 5th generation of SKT Terran lolz). He went 1-2 and was eliminated but all hope was not lost.

His game against bisu (below) however, was one of the absolute worst games of zvp i've ever watched in my life. It was terrible. His game against shudder was also nothing special, another rape really.

But his game against upmagic... was something else. Up had nothing to lose this game, he was already going to finish first regardless of the outcome. GGPlay was simply playing for pride, as he was already 0-2. Nevertheless, their game was quite good and showcased some brilliant defense by GGPlay.

Unlike the other OSL Curse victims, GGPlay remained one of the dominant figures in Proleauge. He went 8-1 in the first stage of Round 2, only losing to the ZvZ god Jaedong. Results is one thing, but what the games looked like is a different story. GGPlay frequently resorted to allins and risky builds to score those points for hanbit. Heres a good example, GGPlay vs Stork @ Blue Storm where GGPLay preforms a rather nice cheese.

On other occasions, the games were gifted to him by his opponents playing really really stupid. Notably, his game against Casy on Un'Goro Crator

Sometimes there would be a wiff of his former glory lingering about a game. Even though he's slumping, theres still that magic in his lategame that makes you go - ':O why isn't he in OSL T_T'. Hwasin is 3-1 on Blue Storm against Zerg - that loss came against GGPlay. And that game shows the magic that he demonstrated in Daum

A player can only stave off the curse for so long with cheese builds and lucky breaks. Soon, this started to happen to GGPlay. In the minor leagues he was defeated in both occasions.

In the MSL his group consisted of ForGG, Shine and Jaehoon - basically a bunch of no names against a former OSL Champion. Sounds easy right? Well it is, if you don't play like a complete amateur. GGplay's game against Shine was lost in the first mnm attack. Jaehoons stupidity early game allowed GGPlay to get to the late game where he is king - and from there he simply dominated. GGplay, however, crumbled against the macro of ForGG despite being at the lategame tech. Yes.. things were truly terrible for GGPlay.

vs Shine

vs Jaehoon

vs ForGG

(in all honesty, don't bother watching them - they are worth your time)

Turns out that ODT was no better for GGplay. He went 0-2 in his group losing 2 ZvZs to Rumble and Jy. Both games were honestly, quick pathetic. What this meant is that he was reduced to offline prelims for BOTH leagues. It doesn't get much worse for a gamer - as we all know that the offline preliminaries are like hell.

So then we come to the crux of the blog, the reason why i bothered to write about the descent of a champ. With the GSI just around the corner, not many people are giving GGPlay a chance in hell to win. No one can fathom him beating Bisu, nor the others in his group.

The day after ODT, the Proleague Grand Prix was held - an event that went COMPLETELY under the radar. It was basically a proleague match between MBCGame Hero and Hanbit Stars. The format was Bo5 Korean Clanwar Style. The first couple sets went back and forth, with the score eventually being 1-2 to MBC with Bisu winning in the third set. GGplay was sent out on the forth set to do battle. Keep in mind that this is prior to Bisu's slump and Jaedong defeating Bisu.

Do yourself a favor, and watch that game. It's sheer brilliance. Despite losing to Ruby's macro in the fifth set - giving MBC the victory - it gives a fan hope.

GGplay should never be ruled out, even though he fell short in the Prelims (many pros do remember) he can stil pack a punch. Look for GGplay in the GSI - im sure he will be turning some heads there

+ Show Spoiler [complete grand prix vods] +

Game 1 (Saint vs Geumchi)

Game 2 (Saint vs Free)

Game 3 (Free vs Bisu)

Game 4 (GGplay vs Bisu)
See blog

Game 5 (GGplay vs Ruby)