Back-to-back championships don't just happen.

Early this year, after the events of Assembly Winter and Code A March, this writer argued with a friend that HuK was going to be the best non-korean player within six months. It was an easy prediction. Mediocre results non-withstanding, the building blocks that led to this weekend's Dreamhack and Homestory Championships were already in place in February. HuK has long been known as one of the hardest working foreign players as well as one of the most confident. In each and every one of his games at Dreamhack and Homestory, and in the poise with which he conducted himself outside of competition, his hard work and high expectations were evident. These are the fundamentals of success, and they beget other things. For HuK, the main missing element to his game in the past; smart decision making, has come with time and more hard work. The story of HuK's triumphs is nothing more—and nothing less—than these basics.


Watchers of HuK's stream know that he is most comfortable playing his games on a knife's edge. There may not be a player in the world today who is more at ease in weird and unorthodox late-game situations than HuK. Indeed the typical HuK win often seems to involve multiple lead changes, heavy damage on both sides, and the eventual victory of perseverance and creativity. So it was not a surprise to see HuK draw multiple oddball late-games over the week—especially at Dreamhack—and to acquit himself in each one. And no game was weirder than HuK's group stage defeat of Moon on Metalopolis. After an early zealot-sentry attack, HuK held an early advantage through the midgame, securing his third easily. But Moon conjured up a large mutalisk flock and sought to regain control of the game with relentless harass. This was a tremendously dangerous position for HuK, as he was forced to defend multiple points of attack while at the same time risking falling behind economically as Moon took his fifth base.



Yet HuK's multi-tasking was up to par, and he held up against Moon's mobility and daring. Moon would continue to gamble, keeping up his pressure and trying to sneak expansions. But HuK was on top of it all. For every probe that Moon killed, HuK answered back minutes later by shutting down an expansion. As his army held on and Moon's dwindled, HuK remained poised in the face of ever more desperate aggression. Even with both players around 70 supply, and worker counts in the single digits, HuK seemed perfectly in control, neither committing to over-defense or over-aggression, which is the best, and hardest way to play. Had he used his entire army to attack, he would've run the risk of losing a base trade. Had he defended exclusively, he ran the risk of Moon finding a way to restart his ailing economy. Instead, with precise unit choices and constant multi-tasking, HuK , maintained a balance that slowly choked out any chance Moon had of coming back.

This is one of the prime values of practice, especially on ladder. Builds and gameplans can be plotted out in custom games. Micro can be refined on specialty maps. But the end game is much harder to prepare for. The player who can properly play out late game situations is at a huge advantage over his competitors. Ladder practice routinely puts you in uncomfortable situations. While the game against Moon may have been the most dramatically unusual situation HuK played out, but it was not the only one. But for each unexpected maneuver or tech choice, HuK always managed to find an answer.


In an interview before the third day of Dreamhack, HuK mentioned that his Ro8 opponent, Socke, has been his kyrptonite in the past. But he did so in a nonchalant way, with the kind of tone that made the whole thing seem a bit ridiculous. It wasn't an emotional thing, it wasn't a personal grudge. It was a fact, and HuK wasn't afraid to admit it. There's something to be said for passion and competitiveness, but it's easy to let that become a defining and consuming emotion. At Dreamhack, HuK never allowed his facade to show a seam. He respected his opponents, and because of that he did not underestimate them. He expected to win every match, and he channeled this confidence into concentration.

In the two games that it took HuK to demolish Socke in, he seemed to have absolutely no trouble. A safe three gate->robo->twilight build in the beginning was deftly executed, as HuK had the right units in the right amounts with the right abilities all at the crucial times. His play at Dreamhack was a far cry from the tentativeness he showed in the GSL Super Tournament against San. PvP can often be a treacherous match-up to take the initiative in, but HuK simply played exactly as he had intended to, and easily brushed Socke off his shoulders.



The second game was the clincher however, as both players inevitably four gated on Tal'Darim and HuK flattened Socke like a piano falling out of a fourth story window. And he also proxied a pylon in Socke's main. Oh yeah, and he lost four stalkers and two zealots to Socke's eight stalkers and six zealots. And he was 1-5 with two tournament eliminations at the hands of Socke this year? That's the kind of confidence that says you might win a battle or two, but I'm winning the war.

The match against Socke might have been the crucial match for HuK for the entire European trip. Of course, in the semi-finals he played July, a golden mouse winner in BW and the player who knocked him out of the previous Code S season, and at Homestory he played MC and NaNiwa and IdrA and so on. But the match against Socke was a high stakes match in PvP, the match-up that HuK always seems to lose in. Yet against Socke he seemed supremely comfortable with PvP, and that confidence appeared to snowball over the two weeks. The only game HuK lost in the tournament that wasn't in the finals was a group stage PvP loss to Bischu.


His perennial achilles heal, HuK's series and game decision making was pitch perfect in Europe. While his mechanics and confidence seemed to have risen at steady rates over time, they often outstripped HuK's field vision and overall strategy. Witness HuK's loss at Assembly to Socke, at TSL to HasuObs, and his defeat against July in Code S. In each game, HuK was often wrong footed by opponents who abused his aggressiveness. But at Dreamhack and Homestory, HuK's decision making proved to be the missing shell in his arsenal.

Particularly superb was the ease and precision with which HuK split his army to deal with multiple threats, which is one of the most difficult things for protoss to manage. Another point of excellence was how quick HuK was to consolidate and finish off a game once he had achieved an advantage. Especially in his series with Moon, July, Predy, and Tarson, HuK ended the game just minutes after gaining the upper hand. HuK's ability to drive the dagger into his opponent immediately was the result of excellent reading of each situation, and led to several quick and demoralizing defeats.

And then, of course, there was HuK's Homestory championship run, in which he achieved a build order win every single game against MC in the losers bracket finals. In the grand final, he responded perfectly to NaNiwa's preferred one gate robo play on Crossfire, riding stargate play to an easy win, and decisively shifting the momentum in the final series. Most memorably, the final game of HuK's European trip; a dramatic match on Shakuras was won with a hail mary dt tech that came long after many players would've gg'd.

But by far the smartest game HuK played was in a long slugfest on Shakuras in his second game against LaLush. HuK premiered the unusual forge FE that he later unsuccessfully tried against Moon in the finals. After taking his natural, HuK massed gateways, which he allowed to be scouted, then quickly took his third base behind a ton of sentries, following up with a tech to colossi. LaLush was expecting a mass gateway play and hesitated before attacking, which bought HuK barely enough time to hold off the attack with double robos, and some really clever pylon placement to draw fire from and funnel the zerg army. HuK attempted an attack just a minute later, but LaLush was well positioned, and forced HuK back. This was basically a game ending situation for HuK. His opponent was on four bases, had infestors on the field, had a strong standing army, and a greater spire making. Against a blink stalker/colossi army, that's generally a winning composition.



But HuK played extraordinarily calmly from this situation. He had several advantages, including his opponent's lack of creep spread in the mid-map, a significantly more mobile army, and an unusually strong protoss economy for that point in the game. In response to the situation, HuK comfortably transitioned into a war of attrition against LaLush's deathcloud. LaLush, who was massing his army in the mid map, was naturally trying to take his fifth and sixth at the inner positions to solidify his lead, but HuK swept in to take them out as they went up, then followed up again and again, ping ponging back and forth across the middle before the slow broodlord infestor army could defend. In the meantime, he took his fourth, and as LaLush seemed paralyzed by inactivity, HuK took his fifth. LaLush had probably planned to push earlier, but with his fifth and sixth constantly under siege, he instead decided to continue massing broodlords and not overcommit to an attack. But HuK was racing ahead, getting two speed warp prisms and ninja killed LaLush's third and fourth bases with two successive warp-ins of zealots and dts after harassing the main. This was the turning point. The zerg, who had seemed moments from making a final slow push to win the game, earlier was suddenly gas poor and down several hatcheries. His timing window had passed, and HuK now had enough bases, gateways and tech that his chances of winning grew as the game progressed. Still afraid to make a push he couldn't reinforce, LaLush again had the defensive posture chosen for him. HuK, game having been won ten minutes before it actually ended, wrote "TL <3" in the midmap. Even against a composition that's recently been called 'imba', HuK knew exactly how to play the game out from a disadvantage, and managed the game superbly to eek out the victory.


One final word. Major tournaments have a funny way of defining a new standard for a certain match-up. After MLG, I wrote about how MMA was redefining terran play against zerg. Especially at Dreamhack, it was HuK demonstrating the new-ish oGs protoss play against zerg. We've seen variations of this before, most notably with InCa in the GSL finals against NesTea, where his execution was leaden-handed. But this last weekend, HuK showed that with competent control and better mind-games, oGs-protoss can be devastating.

There's less of a set build order that defined HuK's play but rather a series of solutions to typical protoss problems. In particular protoss has a real difficulty judging a good time to move out and attack zerg, as the amount of units a zerg has in relation to the protoss can fluctuate greatly. Protosses have solved this problem by either putting together a single ee-han timing attack and hoping, or defending until 200/200 before moving out. But in his Dreamhack match-ups against a wide assortment of zerg players, HuK showed that fast dt play can allow protoss a presence on the map and a way to do damage, all without committing to an attack. With a DT and mass gateway mid-game, protoss can enter the late-game with a strong blink stalker army supported with storms. This solves a second crucial problem for protoss, namely the hyper-mobile muta/ling/baneling style, which is insufficiently countered by robo tech. Yet blink-templar is suitably good against the old roach-hydra style still favored by some players. Indeed, the trade off of more stalkers and less colossi gives protoss a flexibility and speed that the robo deathball style didn't offer. Protosses applying the oGs-protoss style have more options in the midgame to harass with dts, and are significantly less susceptible to zerg drops and counter play. It's really an elegant advancement by protoss players, and a more exciting one from the spectators point of view. But best of all, for HuK at Dreamhack and Homestory, it was the perfect vehicle to prove that his practice, his confidence, and his abilities have not been wasted.

And these last two weekends, it all came together. Congrats, HuK.