5. LG-IM_Seed

The story of Seed is one of coming from nothing, triumph, and then a deep fall down back to nothingness. The LG-IM Protoss came out of nowhere in the third season, making two historic comebacks in the knockout rounds against Byun and Symbol to make the finals, and then rolling over the king of Protoss, MC, to take his first GSL championship and give LG-IM the first triple crown in history. With his charismatic interviews and ceremonies, enjoyable style of play, and knack to come back in the most lopsided situations, no one in Starcraft had a higher stock than Seed in the summer. A lot of people will say the summer of 2012 will be remembered as the Summer of Taeja, but Seed was doing just as well or even better, winning IPTL for LG-IM over Taeja's Liquid, winning the GSL championship, and making a deep run in WCS Korea.

After the Summer of Taeja Seed concluded, he started to fall back to earth. A lot of people thought he could be another jjakji-type champion; win his title in spectacular fashion after being a relative unknown beforehand and never get close to that point again in his career. He had more than one great tournament during the summer, being the main reason why they won IPTL and also won himself a spot in WCS Asia, but his results continued to slide as the temperature started to chill. The amazing comebacks turned into frustrating losses, and he found himself in Code A by the hands of his eternal rival Symbol just a season after winning the champion.

The reason for Seed's lack of results came from Nestea during one of his winner interviews after winning a round in Code A. Nestea said that while Seed is a very good player, he became lazy and seemingly lost his passion after winning his championship. Getting knocked out of the GSL altogether by Center might have been the low point of Seed's 2012, but having a legend like Nestea come out and say that you lost your passion might hurt even worse. Winning the GSL might be one of the hardest things to do, but keeping your spot on top of the mountain against the people desperately trying to knock you off is the toughest task any Starcraft 2 player has. We've only really seen MC, Nestea, MMA at points be able to withstand the pressure below them and take a second (or third in Nestea's case) championship, but Mvp is the only one who repeatedly makes it to the top of the peak and has been able to keep his spot throughout two years of rivals trying to take his head off.

Seed got here by the charity seed due to Parting winning both BWC and WCG, so he gets one more chance in 2012 to redeem himself. He is coming into this tournament as the coldest of the ten competitors, but if we finds the form that he had in the summer, there is no reason why he can't get very deep in this tournament. His skill is still there, and he can be one of the most powerful Protoss when he's focused. MMA and Polt were charity seeds last Blizzard Cup (where Mvp qualified 3 times), and both of them made it into the knockout rounds, MMA ending up as champion. If Seed can discover his passion once more, the sky is the limit for him, but with how well the four players in the group are playing at the moment, you can't put him anywhere but last.


4. SKT.Rain

Rain was the golden boy of KeSPA for a while and he might very well still be with him being the ace of SKT, but with how well Flash is progressing and Bogus making a name for himself, some of the sheen has come off the OSL champion. His championship in the first season of the SC2 OSL is still very impressive, but with how disappointing DRG played in the finals and the Bo1 format the tournament had, it's not holding the same weight as if he had been able to win a GSL. Everything was still going pretty well for Rain until he or someone close to him decided that going to MLG Dallas and forfeiting Code S would be a good idea, and he came back to Korea with only a 6th place finish to show for it. He went to Texas for a championship trophy, got overshadowed by Flash, and Leenock and Bomber showed that he wasn't an unbeatable juggernaut.

The wheels came off the Rain hype train in the first round of the most recent Code A season, getting smashed 2-0 by MVP's young Terran Dream. He got outplayed from the get-go, getting stretched thin by Dream's constant drop pressure, and looked like a shell of his former self that we saw against MVP in the fourth season semifinals. Falling out of GSL and finding himself back at the qualifiers at the start of 2012, the former candidate for player of the year will have the Blizzard Cup to win back some of the fans he lost with his faulty play of late. The bandwagon might be a bit lighter with his disappointing results of late, but a championship win during the Blizzard Cup would give him the distinction of winning a GSL, OSL, and WCS Asia in a single year and solidifying himself as the head of the Starcraft world once again.

It would be easy to give Rain a pass for his loss to Dream and blame it on jet lag or him not being prepared, but I won't. Rain, while still being one of the stronger Protoss in the world, is no longer seen as a monster who has no holes in his game. He is now no different from any other player stuck in Code B, and he is going to need a strong tournament to put himself back into the best player in the world debate. Dream is a very strong player with a bright future, but he picked apart and embarrassed Rain in their match, making the OSL champion look like the rookie and himself the former champion.

Rain isn't in as bad of a spot as Seed has, still more than likely having his motivation intact, but he is going to need to bring the same type of games he played in GSL two seasons ago if he plans to make it into the knockout rounds. The three Zergs in his group are all good enough to take him out, and he'll need to play better than he did against Leenock at MLG if he wants to get one of the top three spots. The luster of being the golden boy of KeSPA might be wearing off, but it only takes one night to change everything.


3. Azubu.viOLet

There are a few monsters in the Starcraft 2 world. Life, for winning a GSL and MLG at the age of fifteen while he has to balance middle school homework with his career as a progamer. Mvp, with his ability to always stay atop of the Starcraft 2 world and never fade away, even winning a GSL with a broken down body and almost taking his fifth championship against Life in a close series that went to the seventh map. You could probably a name a few others that have an aura about them that puts fear into the hearts of the player they go up against, but one monster you don't hear a lot about is Violet.

Think about Violet's career for a second. He started out in MVP, made it into a single Code S, and then got thrown back into Code A without much trouble. He wasn't very strong in team league, got his ace Zerg role taken away from him by DongRaeGu after only a single match in the GSTL, and he was never seen as a player who would be good enough to be a consistent in Code S. He left MVP without much fanfare, moved away from Korea, and started his career abroad in America.

Since moving to America and jumping from Empire to Azubu, Violet has done maybe the most amazing thing so far in Starcraft 2: he has improved leaps and bounds outside of Korea with no Korean teammates. On the North American ladder, playing without any top tier teammates, and living in the United States, Violet turned himself from a middling Zerg to one of the best Zergs in the world. Life will even admit that he really didn't fill into his potential until he stepped foot into Startale and had an environment that allowed him to be his best. Violet somehow took the book of How to Become Godly at Starcraft, disregarded every page in said book, and has become the outlier in the system. He went from a fringe Coda A player on MVP, went to America, and transformed into a top five Zerg with top finishes in various live tournaments.

When asked to return to the GSL, Violet showed that he wasn't only good in foreign tournaments, getting top sixteen in the second season of GSL and barely missing the quarterfinals. He forfeited his spot in the Up/Down matches after that season, returning to his home in America, and continuing to pour on the international results. Getting second place during IPL5 and NASL, losing two close series to players also in the Blizzard Cup, Violet is still searching for his first major win that will make people realize he is one of the best players on the planet.

If Violet was American, Australian, or anything that wasn't Korean, he would no doubt be considered one of the best players on the planet. He doesn't get the added exposure from being a foreigner, and he isn't considered a top Korean because he isn't constantly proving himself in the GSL. There is no other player like Violet in the world, and he is a one-in-a-billion player that makes you rethink your views on how a player can improve his play. Instead of being in a team house filled with top players, Violet got better in his own special way. His name might not have the hype around it like Rain does, but his results speak for himself. If you underestimate this Korean turned American for a second, you'll be out 0-2 before you realize it.


2. ST_Life

While Leenock has temporarily grabbed the best player in the world hot potato due to Life's shortcomings in the last GSL season and IPL5, Life is still the scariest player on the planet. If Life is on his game and is playing at his absolute best, it's almost impossible to stop him. From his zergling micro to his overall macro, everything seems superhuman when Life is dialed in and is in a good rhythm. When he is off his game, especially in recent ZvZ matches against Soulkey and Snute, Life looks less like a monster and more like a middle school kid with still lots to learn before becoming the best. With a bit of growing up and transitioning more into becoming a full-time SC2 player, Life should develop into his role as the strongest player in the world, but in the ever changing world that is e-sports, you can never be sure about a player's future.

We saw the return of the unbeatable Life against the hyped up Yonghwa in the third stage of Code A. Even with proxy gateways in his main, Life was able to hang on and take out one of the hottest players in the world dead in his tracks. Life is the only player in the world where we have to look at his middle school schedule and check when his breaks are coming to wonder when we'll see him fully commit to Starcraft and started to reign once more. With winter break only coming next week, the Blizzard Cup just barely missed coming at the perfect time for Life to once again break loose from the chains known as homework and algebra to prove why he deserves to be called best player of 2012.

The biggest problem for Life is going to be that he won't be able to display possibly his strongest match-up in the entire tournament. With there only being one Terran in the entire tournament and Mvp going out without a single match victory, Life will need to get to the finals on his ZvP and ZvZ. If this tournament had been a few months ago, that would have been no problem, Life's ZvZ looking reminiscent of the old days of Nestea in the match-up. Lately, ZvZ has been the thorn in Life's side, eliminating him from the last GSL and IPL5, losing to two players you would have expected him to wipe the floor with. His ZvP didn't look like there was anything wrong with it against Yonghwa, but Seed is especially strong in the match-up against Zerg, and Rain is a player that has the ability to destroy Life if he playing below his standard.

With how this tournament is playing out, the player of the year could be decided with who wins this tournament. Leenock, Parting, and DRG, three strong contenders for the crown having already made it into the next round, and Life along with Rain can also make their statement on the debate if they can break through in the first round. He wasn't able to live up to the heavy expectations that were thrust upon him after winning GSL and MLG in a matter of a single week, but a Blizzard Cup win would make us forget his heavy losses at IPL and the Ro16 of GSL.

1. MVP.Sniper

Sniper steps into this tournament looking for one thing: respect. With the super rushed season five that finished with the semifinals and finals in Las Vegas, with Zerg at its strongest right before the infestor nerf, Sniper will always be known as the winner of the GSL that really wasn't a GSL. None of the big names got to the end, the preparation time wasn't there, and the main talking point of the entire season was when Blizzard would finally step in and bring Zerg down to Earth. Sniper ultimately ended up winning that GSL championship over Hyun in a close seven match affair and took home the grandest prize in Starcraft 2. However you look back years from now, you can't overlook that Sniper will always be considered one of the few who have become GSL champion.

He still needs to win the respect of the people, though. jjakji won his championship in a similar situation where a lot of it came down to pure luck, and he was given the chance to prove that he could stay consistent in GSL. A year after winning the title, he made it to the Ro16 once at the start of the year, but eventually fell out of Code S by the second season and is currently sitting in Code B for the second straight season after losing in the first stage once again. His group mate Seed is in a similar predicament, a half year removed from his championship victory and also sitting in Code B, being called out by teammates that he's become lazy and stopped practicing to his fullest. Sniper, who will begin his road to staying clear of those two examples, will have to continue producing results or he will be known as the reverse of FruitDealer. Instead of a hero who raised Zerg from the abyss of despair, he'll be the villain who won his title during a time when Zerg was considered overpowered and took out all the fan favorites to take the title in a discombobulated season.

The thing that will help Sniper most this tournament is that there won't be any Terran standing in his way. Even before the infestor nerf, Sniper was always weakest in the match-up against Terran. He lost to MarineKing and Bogus during his title winning season, almost lost to Ryung in the semifinals, and got bounced 2-0 from IPL in the Ro6 by Polt in a commanding victory. That's not to say that his ZvT is particularly bad, seeing as all the players he lost to or almost lost to are strong opponents, but it's by far his weakest match-up when looking how well he is preforming against Protoss and especially Zerg. Outside of Life inching out a victory over him at MLG Dallas, Sniper is really the only player to truly dominate Leenock in the past couple of months. Leenock has lost a few series, but Sniper was the only person to make Leenock look average when they faced off.

If MarineKing, Polt, Bogus or any other strong Terran had been able to slip into this group, it would be hard to say Sniper is the ultimate favorite to make it out, but only Protoss and Zerg are left in the tournament. Only having to rely on mostly his ZvZ to possibly even win the entire tournament, Sniper is a strong contender to take the entire tournament and become only the fifth player to ever win two GSL tournaments.

Maybe the world really is ending.