EPT![[image loading]](http://img.dailygame.co.kr/news/201203/attachments/20120311_fe30710f89703e616085a0dc002dbb13.jpg)
mini has been a progamer since 2010, but he didn’t play his first official match until just last season. Before the season began, STX’s coach told us to expect big things from mini, and although he had a rough start, he is definitely one of the most exciting progamers to watch for this OSL.His first televised match was in the last STX masters cup, where he defeated snow in a pretty tense PvP. Watching this game can introduce to almost all of mini’s strengths: great micro, strong multitasking, and a fondness for shuttles and reavers. While most protoss players will only make one shuttle and 2 reavers in a PvP, mini is one of the few that is constantly producing these units all game, and not only does he not fear using 2 shuttles at the same time, but seems to prefer it.
The micro
While it may be going too far to consider mini some sort of protégé’ of
Kal, it is not hard to believe that at least some of Kal’s strengths have rubbed off on mini while they were on STX together. They have an extremely similar play-style, and both have incredibly strong shuttle-reaver control. Look no further than mini’s first official match last season when he played Free on outsider:Just like Kal, mini’s shuttles seem to become super-shuttles once they are in red health. Not only does he exhibit great harass skills and maneuverability with his shuttles, but he shows off his control quite a bit at certain points in the game when he constantly juggles his reavers with his shuttle to keep the reavers from dying to storms. Mini utilizes speed shuttles to their fullest, putting them on the harass when he can but also bringing them back to support his main army when needed, or to defend from the other player’s harass.
The cheese
Mini is not afraid to cheese. His only official PvT sees him destroying piano with a proxy gateway complete with in-base shield battery.
But mini also uses other unorthodox strategies. In 2 separate PvZs, mini went for a forge FE followed up by 2-gate zeal pressure, delaying stargate tech to put a lot of pressure on the unsuspecting zerg, forcing them to make a lot of lings instead of drones. It is then followed up with 2 stargates to deal with the inevitable mutas:
while his timing was slightly off vs roro (and he was a bit too careless with his zealots), it worked much better a few months later in the ODT against hyuk:
The PvZ
At first it appeared to me that mini would be known for his PvP, where his superb multitasking and micro would set him apart. Instead it seems that his becoming known as one of the best PvZers in the world. After two close losses to roro and jaedong, mini is on quite a PvZ streak defeating effort, hydra, crazy-hydra, hyuk, and action throughout the proleague, ODT, and OSL qualifiers.
Perhaps because he practices with
Calm all day, mini has shown incredible decision-making against hydra busts and early/mid-game all-ins. Against effort in the OSL prelims, mini barely held effort’s all-in and eventually won the game, with some good multitasking to boot (harassing effort’s main with zealots and defending from effort’s backstabs pretty well).www.twitch.tv/notyuna/b/313533961?t=91m02s
Mini later defeated crazy-hydra in the group final, beating down a hydra-bust in the final game and entered the ODT where he went 2-0, destroying hyuk and defeating action in arguably the best game of the ODT:
After beautifully defending against action’s mutas and attempted hydra bust, mini goes on the offensive. He attacks action all over the place with corsairs, speed zeals, DTs, and a shuttle.
Group selection is next week, and while we don't know who he will be grouped with, mini has shown that he will be quite a force to reckoned with. His only unknown is his PvT, where he is largely untested. He has only played one PvT officially (a win against piano), and his prelim record is lacking. But then so were his other matchups before this season. Assuming that mini has improved his PvT as much as his other matchups, he will be a contender to take his group no matter who is there, although I bet he will prefer as many zergs as possible
note:
While a lot of our favorite players are already out of this OSL, they have made room for a lot of newcomers. Mini is just one of many fresh faces for this OSL. This very well may be the last OSL, and thus essentially the only chance for so many rookies to ever achieve glory in BW (the only glory that counts). You better believe that mini and the others will be giving it their all this OSL, as it's the only place they can put it all.
