HiyA: A True Hollywood Fishiking Story

I would like to preface this with one short note: I implore you to read his post-retirement interview if you haven’t already. I won’t be referencing it a bunch so you won’t be confused if you don’t, but it’s not long and had me inches from tears on at least two occasions.

Hiya, even though recently retired after the unfortunate disbanding of Hwaseung Oz, is a player that will forever live on in the hearts and minds of Brood War fans the world over. And it is for good reason. Although HiyA was never able to post the strongest results or make a great Starleague run, he served his entire Progaming career as an integral component of Oz’s success. That is why I feel HiyA is the most deserving player I can honour in the only way I know how: By showing everyone I can what a spectacular player he truly was.

There are two main characteristics of HiyA I want to discuss today, outside of his skill. First is HiyA the Clown. I always felt like HiyA was one of the most “real” players around, one who displayed his emotions and never took himself too seriously. As such, I’ll make sure to take plenty of time to look at his facial expressions

. Secondly, a lot of people might not realize just how clutch HiyA was in high pressure situations and whenever his team needed him most. It will be my aim to fix that. But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

HiyA the Clown

I’ll bet that card is a Rare Candy. Wait no I think I’m confusing franchises.

Firebathero notwithstanding, HiyA is probably the player most known for his ceremonies. Pictured above is his famous Trap Card ceremony, performed after defeating Hyuk in the second Korean Air OSL. But he doesn’t stop there. Once upon a time, he beat his teammate Jaedong, came out of his booth, mysteriously pulled out a snare drum, and marched right into JD’s booth with it. Hell, he even made Jaedong play it a bit. Go ahead and watch it, it’s worth every second.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-APwMXSfLPc
See? I wasn’t even lying!

But to truly understand his insanity, we have to take a look at one of his games. Specifically, we have to look at what could be his most famous game and certainly one of the weirdest games we’ve ever had the pleasure of watching. I’m talking, of course, about HiyA vs free on Triathlon.

Now, Triathlon was a bit of a wonky map in the first place, so let’s just re-familiarize ourselves with it real quick.

This map designer really liked Arbiters. Must have been Nony.

The main weird thing isn’t just the lurker eggs blocking paths everywhere, but that they’re cloaked. Specifically, they’re used to create a backdoor expansion that’s easy to get workers to but hard to get real units to. That will be important but for now, let’s start the match!

Our protagonist spawns at the 7 in purple while Free is over at the 5 in orange. They both open up about as economical as you can get, with Free going Nexus first and HiyA going gasless Command.

Because who really needs units, right?

The scouting SCV and Probe meet each other at the 12 o’clock so they both turn around and go the other way to find their opponents.

Joking! What fun would that be? Hiya just stashes his SCV in the 12’s backdoor expo.

The casters stare at the SCV for a long time but then remember they’re supposed to be casting a game and move on. The SCV just stays there. Eventually Free does come looking around the base, but HiyA has hidden the worker.

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE LURKER EGGS - Wizard of Oz (bam). I heard once that all jokes are funnier when you explain them.

All of a sudden, apparently frustrated with the whole “units have to walk on the ground” idea, HiyA slams down 3 Starports.

Hurry, someone tell HiyA that Dragoons do indeed shoot up!

And, of course, HiyA starts working on cloak.

Because 3 Port Wraith in TvP would just be silly without cloak!

Finally, after his Wraith production is well underway, HiyA starts working on his secret third base even before Free starts his own.

That’s HiyA for you, falling back on the super standard Wraith expand

Now is when the real fun starts. HiyA has gotten out of respectable Wraith fleet entirely unscouted up until now and starts taking out Probes.

A protip for those of you struggling in Starcraft: One of the main signs that your opponents is going mass Wraith is when there are Wraiths killing your guys. You’re welcome.

Of course, when the Wraiths start running show, we get one of the things that make Brood War so great: The Doom Zoom.

“What the hell is that unit? I haven’t seen one of those since I first picked up the game in 1999” - Free

Remember when I said that the backdoor expo was easy to get workers to but hard to get units to? Typically that’s not going to be a real problem PvT but HiyA doesn’t know what “typical” means.

Free has to break down the eggs, Zerg fetuses are now pissed.

Sadly Free manages to break through on time to defend his Nexus. Since Wraiths die instantly to anything that shoots up, he has to run away and find some defenseless Probes. But now that HiyA has scanners ready, he can transition into the next phase of his Wraith harassment.

I like how the casters realized in advance what was going on and showed Free helplessly watch his ~~dignity~~ Observer get shot down by Wraiths.

Now that HiyA’s done his Wraith shenanigans, it’s time to transition into a normal game.

Joking again! The amazing casters go “PEEZIKS LAB?! PEEZIKS LAB?! PEEZIKS LAB?! COVERT OPSU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Of course we now have to get a look at the psychopath behind the monitor.

He’s actually slowly nodding his head up and down at this point, he knows he’s a hero.

And what do you do when you build a secret Covert Ops at your secret base? You build a secret Nuclear Silo, of course !

It turns out HiyA is the head of the Illuminati. Can’t wait for Dan Brown’s Magikarp novel.

By this point, Free is well-aware that the game is really stupid. So he starts preparing his excuse for losing if he ends up doing so.

“No, guys, I totally woulda won if I didn’t screw around with the Dark Archon.”

HiyA has done well to deny scouting of The Pentagon, even sniping off an Observer heading that direction with his Wraith taskforce and then trying to circle the base with Turrets to prevent any future Observers. But one gets in before the Turrets finish and sees everything there is to see.

While Free scouts everything out, HiyA is still off pewpewing as much as he can. Also, the two players are engaged in a side-challenge of who can take in more air through their mouths.

Free is finally gearing up for his first major attack, over at The Pentagon. But HiyA has dropped two tanks over there already and his Wraiths are coming back to help (lol?)

HiyA and Zerg fetuses, Best Friends Forever.

For those of you who don’t know, an EMP and a spot-on Nuke kills a Nexus. With that in mind, can you guess what this taskforce is up to?

That’s right, it’s to ~~D-Matrix the Ghost and Lockdown Probes~~ try to kill the Nexus!

Free finds where the Nuke is going pretty (get it?!) fast but he can’t stop it. Fortunately for him, the Nexus was far enough away from the ledge that a Nuke can’t hit it with full force so it lives quite handily.

Needs Ocular Implants imo : )

Meanwhile, we can see in the audience that Girl-Free isn’t too pleased.

But Girl-Leta is totally hotter.

Free is ready to have another go at cracking the Pentagon. I mean, how long could two tanks, some SCVs, a depot, and some eggs withstand the might of an entire Protoss army?

It turns out the answer is a really bloody long time.

But HiyA has more important things on his mind. What can possibly be more important than defending his third, you ask?

That. Some Cannons and quite a few probes lost their lives.

While that’s going on, HiyA actually manages to hold his third, trading a single Tank for much of Free’s army.

Note the distinct lack of Protoss army.

Free makes his first recall of the game, into HiyA’s main. It does some damage but HiyA manages to push it away without too much trouble.

But what’s that written across the bottom?!

Oh, it was this:

“Wait a minute...?” - Free

Finally realizing that Supply Depots are totally imbalanced, Free decides it’s best to just recall into the Pentagon.

In an act not befitting of an American President, Hiya abandons the Pentagon and floats away.

These recalls have really been tearing HiyA apart. This next one is slated to do even more damage since Hiya has moved into the middle of the map with his army to claim his fourth.

Arbiters poop Dark Swarm apparently.

But HiyA’s not just gonna lay down, spread his legs and take it, will he? Of course not !

HiyA suddenly remembers he’s actually Batman.

The commentators yell as loud as they can, echoing everyone elses’ sentiments of “Holy shit.” It is now time for an audience shot.

HiyA... She is ready for you.

Unfortunately another nice Recall does eventually get off way over in HiyA’s backdoor base.

Supply Depots can’t save you now. : (

He’s eventually able to push it back but it puts him greatly out of position and has to retreat from his fourth.

That SCV is tackling a High Templar but it might not be enough

Soon, Free shows that he is also capable of ridiculous clowning.

Remember that guy? He also Mind Controlled one of those neutral Arbiters earlier.

HiyA pretty quickly takes out the SCV, all the while showing that he thinks the game is as cool as the rest of us do.

“Wow that’s BM, I can’t believe you didn’t play your hardest in an important game like this !”

HiyA managed to eventually defend that last attack, but now Free is 6 bases and is really getting out of control. With one more attack, Free manages to take the game.

Wait. Who opens a tribute article with a loss?

Yes, HiyA lost the game. But we have to take a look at the context. For one, this is the quarterfinals of the MSL, the furthest he ever made it in an individual league. He’s up 2-1 going into this game and knows that if he loses, he’ll be going into the 5th and final set where anything can happen. Secondly, it’s Free ! It’s not Perfectman, it’s not Pure, it’s one of the 6 goddamn Dragons ! In 2010, when this game was played, Free had a 58% overall winrate. He was 55% against Terran but if you ignore his whopping 9 games against the Ultimate Weapon, of those he won only 2, suddenly he’s at 65% with a record of 21-11. My point is he’s really damn good. But HiyA basically made the closest Terran equivalent to the Stove that he possibly could and almost won with it. If that doesn’t say “hero-boss” to you, I don’t know what does !

And with that, I want to transition into telling you how good HiyA was at representing his team under the most pressured situations.

HiyA the Clutch Player

I first started to really notice Hiya’s consistently clutch play in January of 2010. Jaedong, who as you all know has carried Oz on his back since forever, was going to miss a Proleague match so he could practice some more for an upcoming MSL finals. It wasn’t against Ace or anything like that, they were facing a perfectly strong opponent in Samsung Khan. This was a time where entire lineups were announced in advance, and it was looking pretty grim for Oz.

+ Show Spoiler [Lineup] +

Lineup:
[image loading]

Game 1:

firebathero < New Tornado > (Z)

ggaemo

Game 2:

JangBi < Neo Moon Glaive > (T)

HiyA

Game 3:

oDin < New Heartbreak Ridge > (Z)

Killer

Game 4:

Stork < Fighting Spirit > (P)

PerfectMan

[image loading]

Ace Match: < Outsider SE >

Keep in mind that at this point in time, Killer was one of the biggest laughing stocks of the scene. Losing to Killer was about as shameful as it got. GGaemo and Perfectman were also not players who anyone ever counted on for a win. Surely Oz was in for a thrashing at this point, right? Let’s actually take a look at some comments from the Live Report before the match started.

I dont think this match is even worth watching.

Oh god.....this match is pretty lame.

Khan pulls out epic lineup, while Oz .....

As expected, FBH took out ggaemo and Stork handily defeated Perfectman. But Killer beat an equally mediocre player in Odin and HiyA somewhat surprisingly managed to take out JangBi in a very standard but well-played game. Tied up at 2-2, we moved into the ace match. Stork naturally stepped up for Khan, but who does Oz have at this point that can challenge him? If you actually can’t guess, I’m very disappointed in you.

It was HiyA! He was the one to challenge Stork on Outsider SE; a map where Protoss, Stork especially, typically did quite well. Unfortunately I can’t remember the game and the VODs from this particular set are nowhere to be found. But however it went down, HiyA emerged victorious. A “Jaedong Oz” without Jaedong defied everyone’s expectations and defeated Khan due to two great TvP performances from HiyA.

I wanted to talk about his game against JangBi because I remember it being pretty good, but the missing VODs won’t allow me to do that. Instead, I will cheat and go over his game against JangBi in Winners League on the same map just over a month later. ^_^

HiyA is at the 4 in yellow while Jangbi is at 12 in purple. Once again we see HiyA open open gasless Command.

Not a backdoor base this time and he builds it on the spot. If nothing else, HiyA has giant nerdballs.

Jangbi sees it really quick and sends his first Zealot down hoping to pressure with it. Unfortunately for him, HiyA has a bunker up in plenty of time.

Football SCV that was tackling Free’s High Templar is back and ready to block.

The Zealot and Probe do manage to run by but is cleaned up pretty easily, with HiyA only losing one marine. Meanwhile, Jangbi expanded with one gate and goon range en route. He pressures the bunker when range finishes and eventually takes a quick third off of just the one gate.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who sees the llama (with a collar) cuddling with a seal in the minimap.

Eventually a tank comes out and manages to push away the Dragoons. But now Jangbi has 3 Nexus, is mining gas with only one probe, and has spammed down Gateways, now up to 5 with no tech.

That is many Gateway. Yes?

HiyA, perhaps having seen what Jangbi was up to with his super early comsats, pushes out onto the map with 5 Tanks, a few vultures, 3 Factories at home, and not much else. He’s getting mines while rallying Vultures forward, knowing Jangbi will have very late Observers.

Kind of odd timing out of HiyA but, seriously, what about HiyA isn’t at least a little bit odd?

He manages to run straight into Jangbi’s natural pretty uncontested and starts laying down mines. Jangbi doesn’t have an Observer but there aren’t that many mines just yet and Jangbi’s army is pretty big so he runs in.

Shockingly, Hiya’s two marines become blood spots pretty quick.

Jangbi shows some pretty suave micro and manages to push HiyA back to the high ground, away from his natural. Still, having just now started his Robo, he can’t chase any further.

The wolf that is Jangbi may have been able to blow down the house made of straw, but he couldn’t blow down the house made of freaking mines and artillery.

Probably knowing how late the Robo was (again because of his quick scanners), HiyA’s free to try to barrel down the third because of his mines on the high ground outside Jangbi’s natural.

“I was over there, and now I’m over here. Whatcha gon’ do son?” - HiyA

With the wall broken down, Vultures on the loose all over the place, and Observers still not out, Jangbi has to temporarily retreat his probes from his third.

That’s a very excited Vulture !

Jangbi decides he wants to break through the force at his third, so he sends in a Zealot to absorb some mines.

You may have noticed on TL the “Sad Zealot Fan Club.” They’re actually talking about that guy right there.

But it turns out there’s only one tank there anyway, and Hiya’s going for the natural now. Jangbi was forced to wall off his natural when his third was under attack, which is nice to keep the vultures out but pretty much seals the fate of some buildings.

“FML” - Jangbi

After breaking the wall down, HiyA swings in a bunch of Vultures and goes for some big offensive mines.

Meanwhile, Jangbi prepares to select sad Zealot #2.

Jangbi decides he has to bust down the contain.

But isn’t hugely successful.

While all that fun stuff is going on, HiyA broke through the new wall to Jangbi’s third and even managed to knock down the Nexus. Behind that, HiyA’s working off 6 factories and is starting his own third base.

Jangbi managed to break out of the contain but is still looking pretty boned.

Jangbi’s going for one last big attack on HiyA’s natural but he never dealt with those Vultures that killed his third so they got a bunch of Probe kills on top of it all. Now Jangbi is even more all-in with his attack.

HiyA can’t stop thinking about that one time a Probe stole his lunch money.

Despite everything, when Jangbi gets to HiyA’s natural, there’s not a ton of units there to defend. Could Jangbi possibly end up taking the game?

The answer is no.

Though it looked like Jangbi came close, 6 factories rallying out units eventually put a stop to it. With that, Hiya collected his GG.

Now some of you might be thinking “He 6 Factory all-inned some guy, so what?” To you, I say ~~stop being a dick~~ remember that HiyA initially attacked with 3 factories. I feel that, likely enough, he just smelled blood and pursued a probably victory. Can’t blame a ~~fish~~ guy for that, can you?

The other example of HiyA coming in strong when his team needed him came in June of 2010. The Hana Daetoo MSL finals occurred at the end of May and as you may recall, that was the one where Flash trounced Jaedong 3-0. When KT and Oz were set to play in Proleague just a few days later, hype around a possible Flash vs Jaedong rematch was outrageous. They didn’t hit each other in the first four games, Jaedong took out Stats while Flash beat Backho, the series was eventually tied 2-2 and was ready to move into the Ace Match. The rematch everyone was waiting for seemed imminent. That was before HiyA got up and made his way over to the booth. A lot of people claimed that JD and/or Oz’s coach didn’t think Jaedong could take Flash but I’m not here to get into that. HiyA stepped up and gave Flash one hell of a game, which we’re going to look at in depth in just a moment.

But first, let’s look at some of the comments in the LR thread right before the Ace Match.

I`m rooting for Hiya here,but i guess he doesnt have much chance.

USES SPLASH
BUT IT DOES NOTHING

Well, hope hiya cheeses, don't really want to see him slowly destroyed in a half hour game.

Regardless of whether Jaedong could have won, HiyA’s the one who got the opportunity. Let’s see how he does with it.

The game is on yet another blue map, Polaris Rhapsody, with Flash at the top in brown and Hiya at the bottom in teal. They both open almost identically with a one factory expand but Flash goes right for the Machine Shop while Hiya gets out a few Vultures first.

Expansion timing pictures are always the hardest to write jokes for. That’s why .. um .. screw it, watch this again.

Remember when I casually said Hiya squeezed out a few Vultures before Machine Shop? It turns out that’s pretty important.

“The Cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.” - Homer Simpson (presumably) talking about the Vulture.

Because of that Vulture and a second one that came after, HiyA netted three SCV kills, all ones that were working on the CC. So he ended up with a noticeably faster Command Center even though they started at the same time. Also, because of the extra scouting information he picked up, he was able to go second Factory before Armory while Flash had to do the opposite. This in turn allowed HiyA to make the first move on the map.

Remember kids, never eat those weirdo mushrooms.

But Flash, being Flash, scouted Hiya’s attempt to swing in from the top. Hiya, realizing the jig was up, tries to move back home. Unfortunately, Flash is still Flash and has cut him off, forcing Hiya to just siege up on the high ground.

“No, you come up here!”

Eventually HiyA thinks it’s safe to come down and try to get home. It turns out it wasn’t.

That’s probably the aforementioned Splash Attack.

Flash finds some more tanks that are out on the field and tries to kill them with Vulture/mine surrounds. Unfortunately for him, Hiya is secretly amazing so he micros out it spectacularly.

I’ll bet Jaedong wouldn’t have microed his tanks like that … …

Moments later, Hiya does something else Jaedong wouldn’t have done. He lifts his CC trying to place a scanner.

Hiya doing his best impression of me. How endearing.

Trying to establish himself a nice position, Hiya moves forward. It’s now his turn to make a big Vulture attack on some tanks.

Vultures are famously free and kill everything so want as many as you can !

He’s quite successful with this attack, so we get a nice Doom Zoom on Flash.

“No freaking way.” - Flash

With some more nice micro, HiyA manages to push Flash back entirely and forces him to lift his third. With the help of some more Vultures coming in from the bottom for a surround, Hiya tries to brank Flash’s position outside his natural. Again, he’s pretty darn successful with it. So we quickly get another one of these:

“NO FREAKING WAY !”

Ultimately Flash manages to hold. Hiya can’t make it any deeper so he’ll have to be content with his third CC which, though he built considerably later than Flash, he has operational quicker. With some nice control, he breaks Hiya’s contain and the game moves on. Hiya then tries to set up outside Flash’s third with hopes to push into it.

Don’t judge me for failing to come up with a joke, because there’s a certain Leta-related video I could link again if you do.

With some well placed mines and a Vulture advantage, Flash manages to crush Hiya’s task force, giving him his own Doom Zoom. Flash pushes down the map and handily wins another battle in the center, giving himself a fantastic position.

Things not looking too good for our friendly neighbourhood fishiking.

Hiya gets out a Wraith which delays for a little bit but a Goliath shows up quickly. Eventually Flash realizes that he’s not going to be able to cross the skinny bridge and attack Hiya so he swings around to set up a position towards the left side of the map.

The Bouncer SCVs make sure the Tanks are safe.

Still, at this time there’s no real possibility of Flash pushing any further since he would need to either brank a ramp or cross a skinny bridge. As such, Hiya will be pretty content chilling for the time being, sitting on the same amount of bases as Flash. Both players start their fifth bases as exactly the same time on opposite ends of the map.

Hiya’s Command Center is, of course, cooler. You can tell because that’s the one I screencapped. I mean, why else would I do that?

Shortly after Flash’s +1 attack finishes, Hiya’s +2 does as well. Also, he’s managed to mostly beat back Flash’s position on the left side for now.

Yeah you better run.

Hiya starts fortifying his fifth base with mines, turrets, and some Tanks realizing that, as this TvT starts to enter the late stages, his fresh bases are going to become incredibly important to hold. But meanwhile, at the Legion of Doom:

Flash suddenly decides he wants to be baller who gets add-ons to his Science Facility, like a certain other guy.

However, always a man of action, Hiya decides its time for a big attack on Flash’s fifth base. He flies in with dropships while running units in on the other side of the wall. But will it work? !

Whenever you ask the question “Will this attack break Flash?”, remember the answer is almost always an emphatic “No.”

Hiya turns out to be no exception to the rule and gets his attack crushed pretty heavily.

Or maybe “pretty heavily” was a bit of an understatement.

Again showing us why we should love him, Hiya gives us one of these:

Aw, shucks.

Still, Hiya stabilizes pretty well and can’t be broken just yet. Unfortunately for him, a few Battlecruisers are now out with more on the way. But all of a sudden, Hiya throws down 5 more Starports. The commentators point out that he didn’t leave space for Control Towers and therefore will be going Wraiths.

Hey guys, I think he might have scouted the BC switch. (Hiya then made another Starport but I already took and uploaded the screencap !)

Hiya hits +3 while Flash is still at +1 on his ground, presumably because Flash has been getting Air Weapons. Some marauding (hehe) Vultures scout out Hiya’s Starport collection.

Wait a minute …

After their shocking discover, those Vultures try to get some worker kills but Hiya cleans them up without much of a problem. After a brief period of relative peace during which Hiya built up his Wraith fleet, he decides its time for another kill move: a drop in the main. Flash has a ton of Turrets set up to prevent such a thing but Hiya doesn’t care. He draws fire with the Wraiths then drops his units in.

“Hey, man.” - Hollywood Fishiking

Now begins the dance of Battlecruisers on one side and masses of Cloaked Wraiths on the other, with both sides complimented by Goliaths. This is the last play of the game and it cannot be expressed in words so I suggest you watch the final 3~ minutes and see how it turns out (I couldn’t possibly include 2 out of 3 games with HiyA losing, could I?!)

Some things to note:
- Goliaths are among the dumbest units in the game, there’s no way in hell they’re ever getting up that ramp.
- This whole time, Flash is losing production and supply. This being a two player map, there’s not even another main for him to try to rebuild.
- Hiya had the presence of mind (and the micro ability) to prevent his Wraiths from getting decimated by the Valkyries.
- Holy shit.

With that win, Hiya secured the Proleague set for Oz. And with one hell of a game, if I may say so myself. Yes, I’m sure people were still disappointed by the lack of JD vs Flash rematch, but that game was spectacular nonetheless. Could Jaedong have taken out Flash? Maybe. But Hiya sure as hell did.

I hope anyone who read this and wasn’t aware of how key Hiya was can now understand. Eventually Killer stepped up and arguably became Jaedong’s partner in crime but for a long time, it was all Hiya. Even after Killer rose to stardom, Hiya was absolutely key to Oz’s performance. And it’s on that note I want to end. If anything comes out of the time I’ve put into this, I hope its that people acknowledge Hiya for what an incredible and special player he truly was.

Goodbye Hiya. Thank you for the many amazing games you have shown us over the years and the endless entertainment you brought in and outside of the game. You will be missed.

+ Show Spoiler +

Bibbit is a Starcraft fan who apparently has too much time on his hands. If you want to be the first to know when he writes more ~~overly sappy~~ tributes, follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Bibbit_Mack

HiyA: A True Hollywood Fishiking Story

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