Team Liquid Greatest of All Time Contest

3rd place match





The poll are open until

After more than 5 months of voting (each days more necessary than the other) we are finally down to two players! And in a week we'll know who the TL community chooses as GOAT

Bonus poll for placement

SEMI-FINAL 1
Innovation vs soO

As we are almost at the final point of this tournament, I wanted to bring out my own look at the two semi-finals matchup and why I think one is greater than the others. Keep in mind that while I’m obviously right, some delusional individual may be clinging to their inadequate view of the world. If you are one of those people feel free to manifest yourself, we will notice your cry for help.



soO: soO early game defense is one of the best in the game as he also has a lot of early rushes and cheeses, he liked to pull out particularly against protoss. His early defense against zerg in particular is one of the best of all time.

INnoVation: Aside from the 2-3 rax or marauder rush once in a while, Inno isn't a big fan of committing in the early game. He worked on this hole in his play a lot and became more adept at early-mid game pushes, but it still hurt him in tvt where early game decisive skirmish is sometime impossible to avoid.

Verdict: Avantage soO


soO: soO mid-game is defined by a very active and aggressive style but with a lot of roaches and variably muta, hydra or bane, while staying on a relatively low drone count.
He tend to try to pounce on a winning position and close the game in one or two attack and is always decisive in his actions. His great creep spread, mechanics and micro shines the most in the mid-game. The very high pressure he put on his opponent tend to pin or punish any counter attack.

INnoVation: INno mid game tends to be the direct the direct continuation of his early game (shocking I know) with most of his build coming together in the mid-game in a way that become the meta game for everyone else to follow.
His multiprong and multitask isn't all over the place, but he knows to press where it hurt, preferring an excellent two or three way attack than trying to manage 5 different drop at a time.

Verdict: Tie


soO: Have you seen his late game!?

INnoVation: As one of the game most patience player INnovation has always felt very comfortable, at least at time when the meta allowed for it. He's done it the most with mech, particularly in tvz, but he's also very good at the bio-nuke tvz or skyterran tvt and can plan a decent late game tvp although he tends to try to avoid it.

Verdict: Advantage to INnoVation


soO: soO got the clear title of the best zvz player in the word in 2014, as he went on a lengthy zerg win streak in proleague as well as achieved an almost flawless year in individual tournament. His after mention overwhelming macro mecanics and roach micro and positioning made him a master of standard zvz. With strong early game defense, including a famous game vs Solar where he shut down a 10 pool with only workers, he was always trying to get to the roach vs roach games. As Hots developed and Lotv came around and zvz started to go away from the roach game, soO sometime had trouble keeping up, Rogue for exemple with his tech heavy zvz gave him a lot of problems. soO is still the king the roach, as his victory over Serral at Katowice demonstrate, but he sometime lacks a bit of adaptability.

INnoVation: INno is a two-faced nightmare in tvz, playing both bio and mech to perfection. The great innovator of the parade pushes his tvz in 2012 and 2013 are legendary, although a closer look at the number tells us it wasn’t the absolute domination we could remember, losing to a couple of the strongest zerg. His non stopping parade pushing strategy was kind of a brute force way to achieved victory, just shove as many units as you can in the other player face until you can break him. In 2015, INnovation started to show his other monstrous head as his turtle mech composition made zerg everywhere scream imbalanced, this time he played the other role, the one more than happy to sit back as zerg throw everything they had at him until they killed themselves and outside of meltdown against Life at Blizzcon he seemed almost untouchable in the matchup.
In Lotv INno continued to switch between bio and mech played, mixing it in series depending on what he tought would be most useful in the situation, even sparkling it with some bio-tank and all-ins attack. As such he stayed the model tvz player, playing pretty much all the styles to perfection.

Verdict: Advantage to INnoVation


soO: Even tho soO lost most of his final to protoss, it’s his dominance in the match up that truly made his career. Like in his other match up soO has always been a big fan of the roaches play in zvp, but there he is also an adept of the mutalisk and seemed to be able to switch in and out of composition more easily on top of having a lot of deadly all ins in his bag. The usual soO zvp is geared toward killing his opponent in the mid-game, usually after some kind of early pressure, that on top of probably the strongest early game defense in the game made him a deadly zvp player, altought the silver surfer tends to have some problem playing the ultimate late game.

Innovation: Already a very meta dependant player, Innovation tvp is his most volatile match up, where he can find a way to play it in his comford zone, he’s the best terran at it, but he’s easily thrown off balance in situation that are not geared to his advantage. Typically he has been strong in time were terran had the opportunity to mount powerfull attack and end the game in one or two move, for exemple pulling svc or making tanks-raven pushes, but weaker in situation where protoss were able to dictate the pace of a macro game, usually unwilling to adopt the full blown all in madness of a Maru or the chaos of a TaeJa. He's still one of the best tvp player we ever saw but the match up as been a long nemesis of his.

Verdict: Advantage to soO



soO: By far soO worst match up, not has much statistically (he has a solid 57% in the matchup), but in his play, soO zvt are ugly affair. While at the start of Hots he was still relatively ok playing the normal LBM game, and excelling at it, he started to have trouble has terran (helped with some patches) became better an better against it, exemplified by his defeat at the hand of TaeJa at Blizzcon. But it was when the swarm host meta that thing started to go bad, soO may have been the only zerg on the planet impossible to sit back on his ass letting endless wave of locust crashes on his opponent, as he was always someone able to miss micro a unit that barely had to be micro to begin with, thing went from bad to worst with the SH change of course. It’s in zvt that soO problem with ultimate late game showed the most, as he was part of some horrible late game vs mech (surprisingly not the worst thing YoDa gave us). In front of this enigmatic weakness, soO zvt relied on roach or hydra-bane all-ins or mid game pushes, which while very strong, can be counter by some savy opponent. On the plus side, soO is the only zerg who could possibily have some decent amount of success with his style of play, frequently toppling top terran with his trademark pushes everyone can see coming a mile away.

INnoVation: While some of Innovation most high profile defeat came at the hand of terran he’s always been a master in the matchup, while the very aggressive opening of tvt isn’t his forte (not having some kind of volatility there is impossible), but it is in the longer macro tvt that he’s the best of the best. His patience is most rewarded in this match up, as he made sure to never take a bad fight, staying forever patience with his tank and rooming around the mad for an opening to snipe a base or jump on an army without creating an opening for his adversary in return. In tvt, like in tvz, he’s able to play both mech and bio and he rarely loses game that go pass the 8-minute mark.

Verdict: Avantage to INnoVation



soO: 1 Kespa Cup, 6 GSL silver, 1 GSL semi, 1 GSL vs The World semi, 1 SSL Challenger, 1 Global challenge semi, 23 Premier Korean league qualification (SSL, OSL, GSL)

The great silver surfer still holds the mark for most GSL final, until his semi-final defeat at the hands of Stats at the start of 2018 he never lost a non-finals playoff matches in the league, going 6 for 6 in playoff runs.
soO consistency in GSL, going to 4 straight finals, then 2 more back to back his only matches with his inability to win the whole tournament, a weakness that followed him around like a shadow. He still has his Korean championship, in the form of a Kespa Cup won at the hands of Dark and for the longest time his only trophy. soO 7 Koreans final is second only to one man (sadly his adversary) tied with Dark, Mvp and Maru. soO also is also one of only 5 zerg to reach a GSL final since WOL and a very consistent player in every tournament, rarely dropping out of tournaments in qualifiers.


INnoVation: 3 GSL, 1 GSL vs The World, 1 IEM, 1 SSL, 1 WCS season finale, 1 GSL silver, 1 VSL, 2 GSL semi, 1 Super Tournament semi, 25 Premier Korean league qualification (SSL, OSL, GSL)

With his 4 Korean league win (5 if you count VSL) and 3 weekender wins as well as a GSL final, he is the most successful player on Korean soil. He won his tournament in many different meta, reaching back to back final only 2 time (GSL 2013 season1-WCS final season 1 / GSLvsTW 2017-GSL 2017 season 3) instead winning a bunch of tournaments at different time. Every time INno doesn’t win a tournament in Korea it is seen as a disappointment for him. He is also one of the few players who can do just as well in weekenders event as in the preparation format and also

Verdict: Advantage INnoVation



soO: 1 IEM Katowice, 1 Blizzcon final, 1 IEM final, 1 Suning Invitational, 1 MLG vs Proleague, 1 Dreamhack final, 1 HomeStory Cup final

soO has not leave Korea a lot in his career, although he won on his first try at MLG vs Proleague, his first outing at Blizzcon and various WCS finals were quite disappointing, but things got better quick as he started to collect silver in the west culminating in his Blizzcon final run. He would however go back to a world championship stage (being the 3rd player to reach an Blizzcon and IEM Katowice finals) where he would finally win and get his world title. On 12 foreign attempt soO scored an incredible 6 finals and a championship.

INnoVation: 1 IEM, 1 WESG, 1 Gold Series, 1 HomeStory Cup, 1 HomeStory Cup final, 1 Dreamhack final, 1 Dreamhack semi-final, 1 MSI semi-final

Innovation is one of the most dominant player vs foreigners the same can not be said when he is the foreigner. Innovation inability to win either a Blizzcon an IEM Katowice or even a Dreamhack Winter/Summer. Big global event are the scene of his most (and only) glaring failures on his resume, two disastrous showing at Blizzcon (vs duckdeok and Life), defeat at the hands of TaeJa at Dreamhack Bucharest and multiple false start at IEM Katowice denied him a foreign trophy worthy of his talent.

Verdict: Advantage soO



soO: 2 master coliseum, 1 Olimoleague yearly, 1 teamliquid map contest tournament, 4 weekly cup montly final wins, 8 weekly cup, 2 Master Coliseum final, 1TLMC tournamemt final, 1 Olimoleague winter final, 9 weekly final

Not a big adept of online cup, soO showed up when in count with his 4 Master coliseum final + his Olimoleague and TLMC wins he won pretty much the biggest online tournaments around, silently beeing one of the earniest online player. soO tend to have very simillar online and offline results, altought his trademark ability to win a series against everyone seems to get a buff.

INnoVation: 1 Destiny one, 1 Olimoleague winter, 4 olimoleague monthly, 1 Blazing series, 2 Dragon invitational, 1 NoDice Gaming invitational, 29 weekly/biweekly cup, 2 monthly finals, 11 weekly finals

A bit of a more frequent faces in the latter stage of online cups he has sucess in a couple of medium size online tournament and a pretty good, but not enormous amount of weekly cup. He dosen't play his best in online tournament (at least not individually) sometime make it look like he's using some of these tournament to try out build idea rather than always try to win.

Verdict: Advantage soO




soO: 59-44 Proleague record, 1 Proleague championship, 1 Proleague final, 1 VSL, 1 Nation War

soO constant success in GSL cut his proleague time quite a lot compared to some of his SKT teammates. On a start filled team, going far in GSL pretty much meant getting bench, but when he got to played, he was a very good option. His zvz in particular was very deadly, altought his particular way of playing mixed with some match up weakness made him a opponent possible to snipe for other teams. Outside of Proleague the Silver surfer has had very little teamleague play.

INnoVation: 67-36 Proleague record, 58-15 ATC record, 12-2 GSTL record, 1 Proleague MVP, 1 Proleague final MVP, 2 ATC, 2 VSL, 1 Nation war

Widely considered the best teamleague player in Starcraft 2 Innovation is a perfect choice to send out in any situation. He carried Acer to a victory in GSTL, clutiching a win against SuperNova and also went on to dominate the 2013 proleague season week in and week out. He also was one half of the infamous cheating duo of Acer with MMA dispatching of the league twice in a row. Having Innovation on your team is the best way to win a trophy. His very steady way or playing help in a lot in teamleague scenario where he had to faced a variety of opponent, he is also almost impervious to losing to opponent clearly inferior to him, a talent crucial to any great teamleague player.

Verdict: Advantage INnoVation


soO: The theatrical drama of soO is one of the most well-known storylines in the scene. A story that became all the more complete with his Hollywoodian victory at IEM Katowice. The career long strugle of soO in the final made him one of the most beloved figures in the scene.

INnoVation: While the whole "machine" thing is an interesting story line, it cannot hide the fact that it's mostly a jest on how stiff he his, or at least used to be. We got to discovered his clownish/trollish side in the last few years, but he still isn't a player who captured the heart of the crowds. His career has been one of quiet domination as he never seemed to crown his streak of victory, falling to either win a world championship or multiple consecutive GSL.

Verdict: Advantage soO


Final verdict:
+ Show Spoiler +

Semi-final no.2


Placement matches

7-8th place


6-5th place


The poll are open until



Maru : With probably the best micro in the game, the earliest part of the game is where Maru shine, while most of is exploit came offensively, he’s also one of the very best defensive early game terran, essentially being bullet proof to cheeses. It of course does not matter in most games since his insanely high degree of aggression and risk-taking make put his opponent under all the pressure in the world, real or fake, as Maru himself always seemed to transition smoothly to a mid-game however bad his build order matchup could have been.

Mvp: While also a believer in taking risk when it is the right time always mixing in all-ins in his series, Mvp was a more standard player, liking to use early game to take map control and set the pace of the game if possible. Also, very good at holding off all ins and aggressive build, he was less prone to take decisive early game action, using all-ins in a series to make sure he would be able to go in the mid-game in a comfortable if not advantageous position in the other games.

Verdict : Advantage Maru


Maru: Maru mid-game style has evolved quite a bit during his time as a pro, but for the most part it was and still is a very franctic one. For a long time one of the fastest pair of hands in the game Maru like to pull and push his opponent from every angle with a highly aggressive way of playing marked with lots and lots of drops and multiprong attack and harrash. An almost exclusively bio player, or at least fast pace composition, at least in the mid-game, his pedal to the metal style is aimed at destabilizing his adversary before jumping on his army in a moment of weakness, he’s not a fan of seeding control like other highly active player like Polt, but like controlled chaos. His style slow down a bit in Legacy of the void as the addition of new units made him go tge way of slower but more decisive push with liberators or ghost, but he always try to task his opponent multitasking, especially against lower caliber player who he frequently overshadow that way (if not just by some rather glaring ‘skills check’ proxy). His mid-game, while incredibly strong is sometime lacking in decisiveness, his multitask sometime being his downfall as he want to do to much and can miss certain timming, something that was especially true in HOTS.

Mvp: A swiss army knife of a mid-game player, Mvp had a bag full of timings aimed at exploit specific flaws in players playstyle. In the mid-game Mvp was very active in the map and liked to get control of the map even if he didn’t always bring out pure aggression, he made sure to know and control everything that was going on in the match, adapting to the situation. He established the standard metagame for pretty much all three matchups. The diminution of his mechanical skills starting in 2012 hit his mid-game the hardest since it was heavily support by out playing his opponents, he relied more and more on strategic counter late WOL early HOTS but it was ultimately not enough for him to stay relevant in the scene.

Verdict: Advantage Mvp



Maru: For a long time Maru late game pretty much was an endless continuation of his mid game, in WOL and especially in HOTS Maru approach to late game was to keep on his mid-game pressure endlessly trying to slow down his opponent transition to the late game, while a very peculiar approach it worked great to counter the lack of terran late game option that described a lot of the middle part of Starcraft 2 history. In Lotv he is a lot willing to transition with composition based on ghost, ravens and liberator, but usually always keeping a good amount of bio-ball, late game still isn’t his most comfortable phase, but it’s one he’s well equipped to battle anyone in.

Mvp : A revolutionnary late game player, he was a late game terror, contrary to most great late game player he was very active in this phase of the game, always willing to challenge other player for control of the maps rather than turtling, he patched ghost pretty much all by himself in WOL. Going to a standard late game versus Mvp was pretty much game over unless you had all the might of brood lord infestor at your back. In late WOL and HOTS he liked going mech more and was just as great with it, playing a fairly active mech style with lots of hellions or even tank run-by that made his strategic genius shine without taxing his back and wrist too much.

Verdict: Avantage Mvp



Maru : In WOL and Hots tvz was his achilleas hells, while still a very good player in the match up his very aggressive multi-prong style work to his disadvantage in certain scenario in series with elite zerg, both against ultra-mobile LBM composition in the late game and solid roach play in the mid-game, he sometime painted himself in a corner. In LOTV he fixed those problems, adding an extremely strong late game tvz to his toolbox. (when he doesn’t forget to lift his building) With his strong cheese opening, dynamic mid-game and good capacity to play for the long haul he is one of the most feared bug hunters in the scene.

Mvp: Mvp matches versus zerg are central part of his career, his first great confrontation was against Nestea as he had to confront him for the title of greatest in the world. His aptitude in the late game with ghost and bio was dominating, but it became harder and harder as the brood lord infestor meta rise. In this seemingly impossible balanced Mvp switch to mech was the best attempt out of everyone to overcome the darkness period of Starcraft.

Verdict: Avantage Mvp


Maru: Maru revolutionized the tvt matchup, for the longest time the match up was considered the best mirror, it was the site of long macro games where players tried to out strategized and out positioned their opponent, centerd around the idea of mobility, tank lines and air control. Maru threw all of that by the window and instead brought in the pvp madness to tvt, he made everyone realized that the macro meta of tvt was just based on a habit of playing it safe. Maru used of various cheese and aggressive opening to destroyed INnoVation in OSL progressively became the standard way to play and of course Maru was one of the best at playing it. He was one of the first one to set up the trend of more and more complex tvt build order, with things 1-1-1 build with 30 steps where the 5th one is integral to the 21th. He of course is also a very good macro player, especially with bio and can do just fine at playing the longer game.

Mvp: The king of the GOMTVT era Mvp was a master of the terran mirror, one of the best at the long macro tvt player that earn him a dominance in the matchup he also had an incredibly wide array of builds in the matchup, and while he had a preference for macro bio-play he could also play aggressively or pull out mech composition. It was in tvt that Mvp made most of his success winning multiples duels against MarineKing, MMA and Top to establish the standard meta for terran going forward, at least until Maru came around.

Verdict: tied


Maru : For a long time the beacon of hope in the tvp matchup, Maru highly aggressive, low tech, approach to the matchup centered around marauder and drops was the best solution anyone came up with to beat protoss in HOTS. It was also a highly entertaining style that won him the heart of fans and made his reputation. In LOTV he revolutionized the match up one again this time with his proxy madness and various cheeses build that overwhelmed protoss player from the get go, while also being quite strong with liberator pushes.

Mvp: Mvp established the tvp meta with strong ghost play and a air tight defense against all ins, although greatly help by a meta that was favorable for terran until at least 2012, he was still a very strong tvp player at the start of WOL. Outside of a strong GSL 2012 season 2 run against protoss and a dismantled of Rain, he ended his career with a tvp under 50% against Koreans player, sometime playing to passively in the match up.

Verdict: Advantage Maru



Maru: 4 GSL, 1 OSL, 1 OSL, 4 GSL semi-final, 1 GSL vs The World semi-final, 1 Hot6ix cup semi-final. 29 Korean premier league qualification (GSL, SSL, OSL)

A veteran and master of the preparation style Korean league, Maru 6 league championship is head and shoulder above anyone else. (INnoVation, Mvp and Life all have 3) In preparation matches Maru is almost untouchable, even in the years he didn’t dominate he was a lot of the time the best terran in theses leagues, and of course, when he dominated he was an absolute tyrant. His 4 back to back GSL trophy is a insult to the inherent instability of Starcraft and a feat who’s probably never gonna be matched. Outside of Korean Starleague tho, the young devil is less than great, two semi-final in a 9 year career poses a strange enigma to Starcraft fans as player who he beat on regular basis gets the better of them when the format changes.

Mvp: 3 GSL, 1 GSL world championship, 1 WCG, 2 GSL final, 1 Gainward invitational, 1 GSL code A final, 1 GSL semi-final, 1 Blizzard Cup semi-final, 1 WCS season final semi-final 15 Korean premier league qualification (GSL, SSL, OSL)

The first king of GSL, his 3 trophies in 2011 (2 code S and 1 WC) as well as 1 final and a semi-final was a dominating performance which he reinforced with another trophy and a final in 2012. It was in Korea that he demonstrated a genius ability to plan ahead a series and prepare adequate build and rhythm against specific player. His 18 months between his first and last final in Korea (and 12 between his first and last win) is however a bit of an asterix on his resume. His move away from Korea in Hots does feel a bit like fleeing away from competition.

Verdict: Advantage Maru



Maru: 1 WESG, 1 WESG final, 1 IEM final, 1 WCG, 1 Asian Games, 1 WESG 3rd place, 1 Blizzcon final, 1 WCS final semi-final, 1 IEM WC semi-final.

Maru foreign carrer can be separated in two categories, Asiatic tournament and non-Asiatic tournament. His success in Asia made him the richest man in Starcraft, it’s also there he lost his only finals in nail bitter series against Life and TY. Maru ability to play at Starcraft does seems to diminish with each meter he take outside of the GSL studio, in Europe he had some disastrous performance in the west, including early outing at Blizzcon and IEM Katowice or an elimination at the hand of Scarlett in 2013. His two semi-final run, especially in IEM where he almost beat Rogue were adequate results, but overall Maru is a perennial under achiever in theses region. A part of it is also that Maru as a famous dislike in travelling abroad, pretty much only going to the west when he’s obligated.

Mvp: 1 Blizzcon, 1 MLG, 1 IEM, 1 WCS Europe, 1 IEM World championship semi-final, 1 MLG fourth place

The first ever triple crown winner, Mvp has not travel abroad that much in WOL but he made the most of it, beating his teammate NesTea at Blizzcon as well as winning his first MLG and his first IEM. His decision to move the Europe at the start of Hots earn him great success at first as he went on to win his first WCS event, but untimely it was the site of his slow demise as he was unable to keep up with a weaker competition with injury dragging him down until he was unceremoniously cast aside.

Verdict: Advantage Mvp


Maru: 73-37 Proleague record, 12-11 IGN team league record, 9-11 GSTL record, 19-7 KSL record, Rookie of the year proleague award, 1 Final mvp award final, 1 Proleague championship, 3 Proleague round, 1 KSL, 1 IPL Team Arena, 1 Proleague championship final.

While an obscure player in WOL he was still a very adequate teamleague player for Prime, going for a solid 50-50 record against a lot of the best in the game. When he became one of the better in the world, it decupled his already great team league performance, he made his debue with JinAir at the same time as sOs as the dynamic duo would revitalize the laughing stock that was Team8 and made it one of the best team in the league. He would only get better and better with time, culminating in a 2016 season where he would go 18 and 2 scoring the best record in SC2 proleague history.

Mvp: 10-11 GSTL record, 4-2 IGN team league record, 1-1 Proleague record, 2 GSTL, 1 IPL team Arena

As the undisputed best individual player in the world, Mvp was a rather forgettable team player, in WOL GSTL he was alright but not great, not stepping up in important moment, and he never did much effort to play in others teamleague, usually a no show in foreign teamleague (partly due to his success in GSL) and didn’t participate in ATC or proleague in Hots.

Verdict: Advantage Maru



Maru: 1 Asia Starcraft League, 1 Starwars league semi-final 1 monthly cup winner, 6 weekly/daily cup winner

Almost invisible in online tournament, Maru played in 25 online individual tournament in over 9 years of competitive play, so around 2-3 a years, as such he has unsurprinslgy pretty much nothing to show, altought his vitory in the Asia Starcraft League over fellow Prime player and saddest Starcraft caracters BBoongBBoong was his first individual win in Starcraft.

Mvp : 1 Team Ace invitational, 1 MLG global invitational, 1 Sagacity invitational, 1 Igromir cup, 1 weekly cup, 1 Geforce invitational final.

Also not an adept of online play he did play and won a bunch of invitational with strong Korean player, notably winning over MMA, he chose well the time he played in online cup, only having 14 online entry on liquipedia, but he always delivered when he did, rarely having bad showing.

Verdict: Advantage Mvp


Maru: Both the youngest and one of the oldest veteran of the Korean Starcraft 2 scene, Maru whole life being dedicated to Starcraft as we saw him grow and slowly opening up before our eyes. While he clearly like playing the game and hangning out with his friends, there’s still something a bit off putting about the fact that he doesn’t seem to care that much about winning. For the richest player in the game it can be paradoxal, but his repetated bad performance in global event doesn’t seem to bother him a second, and I don’t feel like he would be particularly distressed if he ended up never winning a world championship. He’s not a particularly outgoing characters outside the game, while quite a funny fellow, he’s more of a background kind of guy than a front and center person.

Mvp: The King that was promises, Mvp was one of the few decently good BW player to make the switch right of the batt, deciding to opt out of the stability of a Kespa team. As a SC2 player he made sure to be the hero of the story, a very emotional player who performed at his best in clutch scenario (at least individually) he fascinated fans and fellow players, constructed strong, but civil, rivalry, and gave us many of the best moment in the scene outside of the games. His struggle with injury and comeback at the start of HOTS gave the final touch to his career.

Verdict: Avantage Mvp

Final verdict:+ Show Spoiler +

Why TaeJa is the greatest Starcraft 2 player of all time
TaeJa achievements: 3 Dreamhack, 3 HSC, 2 AsusRog, 1 IEM, 1 Blizzcon semifinal, 2 GSL semi-final, 1 IEM Katowice semi-final, TeamLiquid Ace player aka The Summer Prince.


An unmatched stockpile of pure talent that's what TaeJa represent, he has dominated the era of the weekenders cleaving his way time and again against the best in the world becoming Starcraft 2 most titled player.

After two straight rounds of 8 run in GSL at the start of 2012, where he both times participate in eliminating the reining champ (DRG then Mvp) he won his first weekenders collecting an AsusRog an MLG and a Dreamhack back to back while making it to a GSL semi during the height of BL-Infestor. The first summer of TaeJa would end with him losing in the grand finals of Dreamhack Winter to his teammate HerO, but he was just getting started. He won 5 more tournaments in 2013, including back to back to back sweep of sOs, Life and INnoVation at Bucharest, another trophy over Life at Dreamhack Winter and a HSC win over HerO - Symbol and HyuN and while he failed to capture WCS season 2 and IEM Katowice he would notably eliminate INnoVation, Rain and Life at theses events, proving once again his class in weekenders.

2014 was the Prince untimely last year a full-time competitor, he would go on to win 3 more event including a perfect, 17-0, run at Dreamhack summer and an IEM over Zest and Solar. TaeJa end of 2014 would have been one of the greatest stretch of one career for almost everyone else, scoring 5 semi-final in a row in weekender, including at Blizzcon, but two losses to both Flash and Life, the latter he had beaten so many time before, left a strange after taste as the best Terran in the world at that moment took at step back from the game. He still showed up once in a while after 2014, and even if his lack of consistent showed clearly he was able to pull out a few upset along the way against Zest, soO or Rogue.

In 3 and a half year of competition in foreign land TaeJa never got eliminated of an offline tournament by a foreigner, and when he retired in 2015 had a 90.5% match win rate vs foreigner in bo3+ a single lost away from Serral 2018-2019 91% win rate, and considering one of TaeJa 16 losses was a 2-0 online loss vs American terran ''Sunny'', a man who has a recorded loss vs GGemini, it's safe to say that TaeJa was a wrecking ball in the western world.
Of course, TaeJa foreigner crushing way are known to all, but it's far from enough to make him the greatest to ever touch a keyboard and a mouse. It’s was his ability to tango with the best over and over again, sometime completely dominating Koreans player who were considered steps over him because they played on their home soil. TaeJa also didn’t do it by some kind of trickery he was always willing to go into the macro game where his uncanny ability to find the way the path to victory even in messy situation would shine the brightest.
TaeJa list of quality could go on and on about his god like ability to appropriate a build after one quick look at it or the fact that once you gave him an inch of a lead he was unreachable for the rest of the game, but most importantly, TaeJa made all of it look fun.


In the sweat shop world of Korean team houses where so many scarified their youth to reach the top, TaeJa was just chilling. I'm sure there was a time he actually had to work for it, but overall he was just crushing to success. He didn't overly exhort himself, he played when he felt like it, if he wanted to win a particular tournament, he would practice it a bit more, but never to the point of madness.

Some could see it as a lack of commitment, TaeJa didn’t overcame losing a thousand final like soO, he didn’t kept working through injury until he was forcefully kick out of the competitive scene like Mvp and he didn’t sacrifice all his life to the game like Maru, yet I see it as a mark of greatness. We like to tell ourselves story of sweat and tears, we ravish seeing others go through our dally ladder struggles, surely only a complete dedication at Starcraft is worthy of success, but at the end of the day TaeJa make us remember that it’s just a game and what’s the point of playing it if at the end of the day you can’t do a silly clap.


Why INnovation is the greatest Starcraft 2 player of all time
INnoVation acheivements: 3 GSL, 2 IEM, 1 SSL, 1 GSLvsTW, 1 WESG, 1 VSL, 2 time Proleague mvp, 9 time team league champion, aka The Machine

The most consistency great Starcraft player, INnovation six years between his first premier championship in WCS Final season 1 in June 2013 and his latest championship at GPL last month is the longest spawn of time between two championship in all of the game. Between these two Innovation has earn 7 premier tournaments on Korean soil, 2 more than anyone else, as well as being the only 2-time ProLeague mvp and carrying Acer to GSTL and ATSC championship. There’s never was a time when Innovation wasn’t a scary opponent, even in the brief time he was stuck in the dept of code A at the start of LoTV, everyone knew he could turn everything around a win a championship at the first opportunity.

INnovation has been THE terran ever since his entry into the game, everyone knew he was something else, the model for all to follow, from the bottom of bronze league to the world biggest stage trying to copy INno style is always the way the go, it's the ''right'' way to play Starcraft. Innovation relentless macro mechanics and his dedication to his game plan is the key to starcraft greatness, not to say that Inno has not bust out the odd build once in a while, but every step, every transition is always planned ahead and it's always the right one. Innovation also reinvented himself, from a pure macro/2rax players at the start of HOTS he started to add more and more complex opening to his arsenal, playing a lot of tech heavy tvp and tvt build as time went on and predictable macro opening started to failed him.

When INnovation is on point he is probably the most dominant force in Starcraft, from his trademark parade push at the start of his career to his meching tvz of 2015 and his 13-1 stomp at GSL vs The world in 2017, he make certain meta and compositions seems totally imbalanced, he doesn’t always win in the most flashy way there is, although he’s more than capable to pull off a win of his hat when the time ask for it, but tend to roll over his opponent.

INnovation robot like attitude has long been pointed out as being far away the truth, as he seemed to have more in common with Scarlett than ShoWTimE, god awful balance idea included. Yet if Lee Shin-hyung is more akin to an Internet troll than an emotionless android, Innovation the player is very much The Machine. He has win rate of 72,5% through all his career and never had a single year under a 70% win rate, a number usually brought up to highlight one dominance in a single match up during a particular meta game. INno isn’t a stranger to the odd, or even embarrassing loss once a while, but those happen once or twice a year and behind them are countless showing of Innovation doing business as usual, over and over again almost without a break for years.

We probably still have a few years of Innovation playing and as such even more Innovation crushing faces. He still has the opportunity to take down a 4th GSL and tie Maru and Mvp but most of all for Innovation, he has the chance the take down a world championship. He’s currently outside the top 8 in Korea (in a year with 2 trophy and over 160K) but with his results ramping up once again he has a very good shot at making it once more at Blizzcon and maybe putting the last stone to his cathedral.

Why soO is the greatest Starcraft 2 player of all time:
soO achievements: 1 IEM Katowice, 1 Kespa Cup, 6 GSL final, 1 Blizzcon final, 1 Dreamhack final, 1 IEM final, aka the Silver surfer


Long before soO became a Kong he was in fact the grand winner of the very first SC2 tournament he ever qualify for, winning the MLG vs ProLeague invitational beating TY-Flash-Soulkey and finally Oz in the final, not long after he beat Mvp in his first ever code A, kicking out the King of Wings of the GSL for the first time since it’s creation, and he was already doing it with roaches.

As the Hots switch slowed down soO rises a bit, the world wasn’t quite sure where the future would take him, as Soulkey established himself as the quintessential Kespa zerg. Hardly a lovable figure at the time, the ‘‘angry zerg’’ reached his first final in relative indifference and as everyone hopped in the Dear hype train, a single final seemed more than what soO deserved as he had a disappointing end of the year, but enough it became evident that a final appearance was in fact more than soO deserved, but it was no reward, it was a crushing punishment.

After Dear came Zest, then came Classic, then came INnoVation, then Solar, then Stats… then GuMiho… then Rogue.
Time after time after time soO tragedy repeated itself. The once forgettable soO became the game biggest Kong and everytime he lost a final he seemed farter and farter away from winning one, as each run was harder than the one before. And it’s fair to say that went IEM Katowice came around last February soO winning didn’t even crosses anyone mind as many wouldn't even have put him in the top 5 zerg players. Despite all this, it was the time soO finally got what he deserved, beating both Blizzcon finalist to get his first real trophy and the tittle of no1 in the world.


During his long reign as Kong soO went to many gameplay phases, from the roach all in of his early day, to his macro monster days of 2013-14, to the strange build and all in of 2017 and finally ending his reign with what could only be describe as ‘fuck it’ zerg which is mostly roaches forever.

At each stage of his career one thing stayed clear, both in game and outside the game soO spirit was stronger than anyone else, at least until suddenly, at the last second, it crumbled. In the game he always stayed true to his game plan, even in front of a counter build or against a seemingly stronger opponent soO never deviated. It made for some stunning and rather strange situation, most noteworthy his seemingly debilitating inability to play the standard late game vs meching terran should have broke his career, instead he was one of the strongest zerg of 2017, beating the top terran all year with all kind of mid game pushes or a mobile zerg style reminiscent of bio vs mech.

Outside the game it's an enigma how soO kept going all these years, it was never quite clear what made him the most dominant force in GSL until Maru, the Sisyphus allegory has been used before to described soO, but Sisyphus was forced by the gods to roll that stone, nothing forced soO to keep playing a game so cruel toward him. But in the end he vanquishes in demon, in and outside the game soO sometime incomprehensible stubbornness is the key to his Starcraft greatness.

Why Nestea is the greatest Starcraft 2 player of all time:
NesTea achievements: 3 GSL, 1 Blizzcon final, 10 straight code S participation, 2 GSTL, aka The creator of the universe

Nestea can seemed like an odd choice for the title of greatest in the game, with a 54% win rate, he’s double digits behind everyone else in the top 8, his 3 GSL trophy is the second smallest collection of premier, just in front of soO, he had the shortest period of dominance with only a year between his first and his last final, played just a bit over 700 maps and ended his career in the relative anonymity of early round of WCS America.

Yet despite all this, Nestea is still hailed as a legend of the game and one of the most popular players of all time. Nestea is an anomaly, a 26 years old 2v2 expert who stayed 5 years on KT doing jack shit was one of the weirdest choice to become the game first star. Brood war stars like NaDa and boxer were front and center, even when he created his team, Incredible miracle, with fellow Kespa B teamer he wasn't the leading man, Mvp had a decent BW career and ChRh could even be consider a good player in the early BW days, meawhile the blossoming SC2 scene saw the rise of new stars like MarineKing and Leenock who dazzle the crowds with their charm and inspired play.
Nevertheless, Nestea outshined them all, the married man had his first shot at a perfect GSL run on his second try as he went 13 and 0 including a 4-0 over Boxer to reach the final of the second GSL. There another Boxer waited for him, but despite his boyband look MKP was disposed of in a close bo7.


From then on Nestea was the main attraction in Starcraft, hype beyond belief by Tastosis who maybe saw in him a reassurance that they too could keep up with the kids, the zerg macro monster was a joy to watch as he not only innovated how the game was played but also did his own funky builds, something he would keep doing until the end of his career.
Nestea would go on to score two other GSL, including the only perfect run of the tournament history and the last 4-0 final until almost a decade. After the first year of Starcraft he was a 3 time GSL champion playing in the final of Blizzcon for the chance to be crown the first (real) world champion.


It was not to be, 2011 was a far as Nestea dominance would go on, Nestea wasn’t the most successful Starcraft 2 player of WOL as this honor was given to his younger terran teammate at Blizzcon, neither was he the most dominant GSL players we ever saw, as another even younger terran took that crown, but what Nestea played wasn’t Starcraft 2, not in the way we understand it.

What we know is an intricate structure of builds, moves and counter moves, chained by a series of commandments beknown to all, to deviate from them an inch is groundbreaking. The gamed played by Nestea was a naked horizon, where a one base spire rush made just as much sense as a hatch first. It’s was there that Nestea came, as the creator of the universe he charted this braved new world, he didn’t make everything up himself, far from it, but he was the one ruilling over the creating, pointing out what’s good and what’s bad at every turn. And when his work was done, he went back to the shadow as his creation continue to thrive and evolve away from him.

Bonus poll for placement 8 to 4


The poll are open until

Why Maru is the greatest Starcraft player of all time
Maru achievements: 4 GSL, 1 OSL, 1 SSL, 1 WESG, 4 GSL semi-final, 1 IEM Katowice semi-final, 1 Blizzcon semi-final, youngest player to ever play in GSL, aka The fourth race

The youngest player to ever play in GSL, Maru is a true prodigy of the game, but even prodigy have to work, and it is only around 2012 after 2 years in the game that Maru would become an elite player his first big breakout performance would occur in the KSL a now rather obscure teamleague where Maru 19 and 7 record would be the best in the whole tournament as Prime won the league.

The young terran would also reach his firsts code S in 2012 and establish himself has a big hope for the future, but the future would come a lot quickly than anyone was thinking. In mid-2013 he rock the world, after coming out of two grueling group stage and a quarter final against Symbol, Maru faced the undisputed best player in the world in INnoVation and otherlly destroyed him. Maru now trademark high aggression play style stomped the Machine as Maru went on to do the same to Rain and at age 15 won the second and last OSL.

His first victory was a shock in the Starcraft world, his endless bag of all-ins showed everyone how the high-risk high-reward style of protoss pioneer by MC could also be applied to the Terran race. He would follow his performance with 4 semi-final results until the end of the years confirming the was no flukes.

Maru passage from Prime to JinAir (at the same time they acquired sOs) marked a turning point in Korean Starcraft the Prince departure from his original team was a passing of the toarch, the days of the GSTL teams were over the future now was in Kespa.

In the JinAir (awful) jersey, Maru would become one of the most prolific proleague player being arguably the league best terran player and one of its more popular one. During the great terran hecatomb of 2014, Maru would be one of only two terran to stay in code S all year using his frantic bio drop play to resist protoss including inventing the marauder drag-and-drop strategy where he bombed rush enemy colossus by dropping directly on them. With probably the best terran micro in the world Maru became the flag carrier of his race in Korea, at least until the meta developed back into a slow mech composition as other terran took the center stage.

Maru would end his Hots day with another Korean championship, an SSL won against Dream, one IEM final in Tapei and 6 semi-finals, as well as one of the best Proleague record. When Lotv came around it seemed like the game was made for him, one the fastest pair of hands in esports should have beneficiate from the acceleration of the game, or so I thought, instead despite having arguably the greatest year in the history of SC2 proleague, Maru 2016 was a terrible year and it seemed like he was already a figure of the past, the 18 years old was already phased out of the scene. 2017 reminded us that Maru wasn’t done yet but a couple of tvt losses vs TY and GuMiho denied him another championship.
After 8 years of Maru it seemed like the prodigy prince that was promised had fallen short of expectation, 2018 change all that, Maru found the perfect solution to his problem: Proxy

Sweeping the GSL year with an unpreceded domination of the circuit in a time when Terran was widely assumed to be the weakest race, Maru whell of aggression backed by unparrallel micro and strong macro mecanics also earn him a WESG as he quickly became the richest SC2 player of all time, a well earn honor for one of the longest career.

A defeat in the hands of teammate sOs and Rogue denied him a world championship, but Maru would pick a forth and final straight GSL, becoming the league greatest player, not only are his 4 straight GSL trophy an historic achievement, Maru also has the second highest amount of code S appearances, with 21 code S only his fellow GSL one participant Gumiho as more with 22 qualification.

Maru is a time keaper of the Starcraft 2 scene, he was there every step of the way. He was there when GSL launch back in 2010, he was there in the glory days of MLG, he played in GSTL and IPL, he saw the forthcoming of Kespa and the rise and fall of Proleague, the blossoming of the foreign circuit scene and the rabid Korean fight for survival after the region lock, at just 21 years old Maru is an ancient figure of the game. His entire life has been marked by the twist and turn of the Starcraft scene; he saw everything from the inside.

It is maybe the reason why Maru never seemed overly competitive, it always struck me that he seemed way happier hanging out with his JinAir teammates than actually winning championship. (I personally suspect his inability of winning teamkill is not only due to mind game but a guiltiness playing his friends) It make sense after all, having spent half his life in team houses, Starcraft gave a second family to the shy pre-teen, playing is just what it take to be part of it.

Dark once said about the programmer life that Starcraft had stopped being fun years ago, playing a game as a full-time job killed all the pleasure in playing it, it was a work through and through. While I suspect that’s true for most, Maru may be one of the single exceptions to that rule, not because grinding SC2 games seemed that much more fun for him, but rather because Starcraft is all his world, it is most of his memory, his friends and his future. It is hard to imagine that someday we will have not have Maru as a programmer, but I suspect he will be among the last to leave and until then the race for even more trophy is on.

Why Stats is the greatest Starcraft player of all time
Stats achievements: 1 GSL, 1 SSL, 1 Cross final, 1 Super tournament, 16 other top 4 results including a Blizzcon, a GSL and 2 IEM Katowice final, aka the shield of Aiur

Any respectable fan of Starcraft have been on the Internet to pledge their everlasting appreciation for every part of the game: ‘The beauty of Starcraft is that there’s no one way to play it’ - ‘Timing attack takes years of practice and dedication to pull off ’ - ‘Mindgames are a central part of becoming great at Starcraft’.

Nevertheless deep down we all know what’s up, when were alone on the ladders and 3 reapers jump into your main at 2 minutes, when a bunch of dark templars snipe your spore in a second, or when the fourth straight nidus into your base goes up, somehow it’s not right, it’s not the reason why we love this game. It’s the punishment we have to endure to find that one great game, the fabled back and forth macro game, the one only selected few can give us, and in that group, non-other is better than Stats, the Shield of Aiur protecting Starcraft from the chesse.

If we had to watch a single player in all the game, Stats is the obvious choice, the god of macro protoss, had the slow but unrelentless climb toward the world elites, respecting the old adage ‘more GG more skills’ he started his career as a decent Proleague player having no individual success, than became a good proleague player, than a great one by the time we got to the end of HOTS, a time that saw him having his first individual success with a double round of 4 finish in SSL.
The first year of Lotv, when he once again resited the temptation of mass adepts just like he had resisted the blink all-ins and cannon rush, was even better scoring his first final against Dark in SSL, carrying KT to a proLeague final and finishing top 4 at Blizzcon.

From this point forward, he was the most consistent player in the game scoring 17 podium finishes in Legacy, including a GSL and a SSL win as well as a Super Tournament. Three wins out of 17 tries isn’t a great success rate, as Stats failed to win his 3 World championship final (1 Blizzcon and 2 IEM) as well as GSL and a GSLvsTW final. His relative failure at the latter stage of the tournament shouldn’t blind us to the most important point tho, for the last 4 years Stats has been the best player in the game and his dedication to the honest macro game have given us many of the greatest series in the game. Maybe if Stats had given in and thrown out a bunch of silly all-ins, mass proxy and full out coinflip games he would have won even more, maybe he stand where Maru stand today, maybe he would be world champion right now. It’s a moral challenge we all have to face every day. Take the easy road, just proxy those gates no one is watching, Stats is the beacon of true and justice, the demonstration that we can all take the high road to the top, play the game the way we all want our opponent to play and make Starcraft the best it can be.

The poll are open until

Why Zest is the greatest Starcraft 2 player of all time
Zest achievement: 2 GSL, 1 IEM Katowice, 1 Kespa Cup, 1 GSL Global Challenge, 2 HSC, aka Zest is best

When Zest came into the forefront of the game, destroying GSL out of nowhere he instantly installed himself as the world best protoss. It’s not just his almost unrivaled skills that made him the face of Starcraft excellence, but also his hypnotic charisma. You would think in a competition where you get to see the actual player a few minutes for an interview between game, how a player comport himself outside of the keyboard wouldn’t be important.

Yet it would be a misunderstanding of the way we relate to the players we love to watch, it’s not just their play that captivate us, it’s how their personality translate into the game, how Maru nonchalant attitude couple with burst of happy energy translate into him taking incredible risk over and over, how INnoV robotic personality is couple with a swiss clock of a macro or how soO years of struggle translate into the Starcraft version of punching a wall. Zest himself oozes calm, confidence and decisiveness. He fit every box of our social idea of what a champion should be like, walking in the footprint of great like Federer or Ali, Zest IEM WC celebration half a decade away is still used to represent Esport perfection.


Of course, poster boy good look is nothing if you can’t back it up with in game excellence, and Zest did plenty of that. The two times GSL champ was a master of mid to late game zvp in HOTS and was able to ride the storms of pvp, having a great 70% match win rate in the matchup. He finishes Hots as probably the best protoss in the game with 4 premier tournaments, a proleague mvp trophy and an IEM final.

While Zest had some bump along the road (TANGTANG anyone?) he continued to be one of the best players in Lotv harvesting another GSL, as well as a silver medal and an HSC.
The term ‘Zest macro’ often use to talk about his tendency to bank huge amount of money in crucial scenario, very usually with seemingly no impact on his ability to win the game. The meme is a very rightfully earned one, but it also demonstrates a miss understanding on how you become good at Starcaft. Looking at the resources number is an easy way to apprehend the skills of someone, small number are good, big number are bad, but just looking at the number ain’t enough to get what Zest is doing.

He’s great at the hardest part of the game, his army positioning and movement is top notch as well as his composition choice and he always know when to push for the advantage. A skill that made him the deadliest protoss around and someone who’s always a threat to anyone whatever his current form is.

Why Mvp is the greatest Starcraft 2 player of all time
Mvp achievements: 3 GSL, 1 GSL World championship, 1 Blizzcon, 2 GSL final, 1 WCS EU, 1 MLG aka The King of Wings

Usually Starcraft player have some strong and weak points, some prefer a particular playstyle, others struggle in a certain matchup or thrived in particular meta game, Mvp excelled in every single facet of the game.
Able to play the long macro game or the cheesy aggressive rush, at ease with either mech or bio and in every single match up, the ex Brood War pro really was the King of Wings. After becoming the first ever terran to win the GSL, usurping the short-lived reign of MKP as the best terran in the world while he almost pulled out a perfect run, dropping only one map to NesTea, he earned his first World Champion crown at the GSL world championship.
Just a year after his start Mvp was than already at the top of the SC2 world, he would keep on going at the top adding a second GSL, an MLG (on his first try) and of course a Blizzcon tittle, a certain Slayer terran would deny him his third GSL of the year as well as a chance to get his 3rd global championship at Blizzard cup but overall his results were head and shoulders above everyone else in the world.

2011 marked the end of the surprisingly not infamous GOMTVT era of Starcraft as a series of balanced change and adaptation from players terran stopped being the dominant force they were in the earliest days, and the, this time very infamous BL infestor meta, was starting to show the tip of his noses. The new year also marked a personal transition for the King, it was the year were we attained the greatest height and when he had to contemplate his inevitable demise.
In his fifth GSL final, Mvp ran into a young protoss player looking to conquer the game in the form of Squirtle. The rest is history, an epic bo7 ensure as Squirtle shook off a hard start to win 3 straight game tiying up the series 3-3, it was than that Mvp pulled out the oldest and most iconic of Starcraft build, putting everything on the line with a 2 rax. After Mvp kissed his fourth GSL trophy, nothing seemed to be able to stop it, yet his body was already starting to crumble.


Sufferring from bad back and wrist Mvp had to gradually reinvent himself, switching to a less taxing mech composition and inevitably cutting practice hours. It was in theses conditions he mounted off his run for the conveted G5L trophy. Overcoming Kespa greatest Rain in the semis he faced Life BL-Infestor, yet it wasn’t to be, the young zerg overcame Mvp in a series going the full 7 maps.

A new expansion gave Mvp a chance to bounce back, even with a shorter practice regiment he could use his unparallel understanding of the game to cut corners, he easily won the first season of WCS Europe, achieving the first ever double triple crown, and as he returned to Korea for WCS season 1 final, he made us dream what last time. Going the distance against INnoVation, it looked for a second like the King would rule against but it was in the end a futile effort.
With every passing months, Mvp felt lower and lower as we had all to accept that the man once at the top of the world was barely able to play at the top level. Mvp stayed in Starcraft until the very end, it took him a complete elimination of the WCS circuit, losing to MorroW in challenger to finally accept the fact that his condition would never truly comeback and throw the towel.

It was an end unworthy of his career, but it’s a merit to him that it’s an end we were all to ready to forgive, no one think of it when reflecting on Mvp time as a Starcraft 2 players, as the saying goes: ‘The King is dead. Long live the King!’

Alright now that we are done with the placement matches time to get back to the main event!

Match 1 TaeJa vs Solar


TaeJa highlight : TaeJa vs Zest IEM Toronto group stage match. Game 3
+ Show Spoiler +

One of the best move of TaeJa, a great read on what Zest was doing and a rather good try at defend it (a zealot immortal rush very well executed by Zest) followed by an amazing basetrade scenario where in the spand of maybe 30 second TaeJa goes from a un-winable situation to putting Zest in check mate. He seemed to have known exactly what he needed to do to win it (ignore a probe transfer caught mid-map to focus the production, give the main to lure Zest away from the ramp and sneak everything away, harass the new base from TaeJa


Solar highlight: Solar vs PartinG Dreamhack LOTV championship. Game 5
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A fairly enjoyable game leading Solar to his first LOTV championship, an expension that seemed perfectly tailor to his set of skills as he keep up his good result at the end of Hots to dominate early LoTV.

I will not lie it is not exaclty the best game ever, but as someone who passed nearly 2 hours trying to win a meaninfull game of Solar that was not him either him doing an all-in or getting all-in, or just dominating the game from A to Z not a lot of them exist.
Solar vs sOs game 5 at DH Stockolm 2015 is also a strong contender for his highlight.




Match 2 INnoVation vs Classic

INnoVation highlight: INnoVation vs ByuL 2014 GSL season 3 final. The entire series
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Now the next two do not really work without at least a little write up
Throught all of 2015 INno was destroying every zerg but never managed to win vs BuyL amazing macro mechanics, including an almost 3 hours series of pure macro mech game in the SSL round of 8. In his final INnovation really pulled all of the move and mind game openning up with six very different builds and while still losing two out of the three macro game he won the final easilly.

It was amazing to see that INnovation recognizing that he had in front of him someone who was as good if not better than him at the standar macro game despite a favorable meta and exploiting his predictability to the fullest, him catching ByuL trying to rush into the standard game with bio fake out or hellbats all-in showed a great adaptability.

Classic highlight: Classic vs Polt Blizzcon 2014 round of 16. Game 5
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Like INno this one is more for his significiance than the quality of the game (altought it is a great game), when Classic faced Polt at Blizzcon he seemed like the biggest GSL champ bust we had seen since Seed. A quick (and humiliating) elimination in GSL, failling his team in the round and then the Grand Final of Proleague and finally an elimination by the hand of Jaedong in the round of 16 of a Dreamhack that also saw him losing to soO made his GSL run (where 4 of his last 5 matches were played against fellow SKT player) look like an anomaly.
Polt could have been the final nail in Classic career as he came back from 0-2 to tie it up and had a good final map to take it.
The match itself is a great showing of Classic ability to play multiple styles, going for a kind of macro chargelot-storm build with pheonix defense that turn out to be the right call to keep up with Polt agression as he ended it falling back to colossus to counter the ghost Polt made in response to his initial composition. His eventual semi-final at Blizzcon reassure us that he was not a one trick phoney while it would take until his dual IEM and SSL victory to really assert himself as a legit elite player in the eyes of many.
It was also a great showing of Classic determination and capacity to win series from behind (something we saw notably when he reverse sweep sOs and Dark)



Polls are open until Wednesday June 19 arround 8pm EST

More polls!

Match 3: soO vs herO[jOin]

soO highlight: ex aequo: soO vs Zest GSL 2014 Season 3 semi-final, game 7. AND soO vs Serral IEM Katowice 2019 round of 8, game 3
+ Show Spoiler +

+ Show Spoiler +

One game isn't enough to display all of soO brilliance so I chose 2 of them.
The first one was the cornerstone of soO curse, in his final GSL run of HoTS soO faced the best protoss player in the world, back then he had lost 3 consecutive GSL final, all to protoss player as it seemed like the later could be his problem more than the former. The start of the series certainly give credit to that idea, Zest gave himself a comfortable 3-1 lead and looked garante of a duel vs INnovation in the final. What come next is a brillant display of soO unbrokable spirit, as he come down with the next 2 games in close situation, and finally on Foxtrot Labs soO ling-roach attack at Zest third was deflected and the Starcraft history tells us were in for a innevitable protoss win as a low tech zerg get run over, instead soO seemingly had an unlimited amount of units as he kept on barreling down roaches for ever stopping the +2 immortals blink army of Zest until he reach mutalisk and went on to his 4th grand final.
The whole series was one of the most impressive comeback in GSL and almost gave hope to the fan he would ''finally'' has his title, of course non of it happen, he went on to lose 2 more final in the next week, this time against a zerg and terran and was in for many more to come.

It was until this second game. IEM Katowice is close enough to us to remember that everyone else had forgotten about soO appart for the eternal memes and a disapointing group stage wasn't gonna help us giving him credit before his confrontation against the world champion. It has been a long time soO had lost throne, once the undisputed best zvz player in the world, he had been overtook in Korea by Rogue and Dark playing more complex and diverse composition. On the opposite side, Serral was comming of a nearly perfect year of zvz acheived by dragging his opponent into the late game and drowing them, but when Serral challenge the roach king to his own game he was in for a nasty surprise.
Game 3 devolved into a well named slug fest, as soO apparent stubornest to stay on a pure roach ravager army turn out to out to be the good call and he became the first player to world champion, saved his tournament run and as you guys may remember had a pretty good end of the tournament.

herO[jOin] highlight: HerO vs Rain IEM San Jose 2014, game 5
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After being crush in back to back final against sOs at IEM Katowice and Zest at Kespa Cup he seemed to be ready to lose yet another pvp final. This time it was a a revitalize Rain that stand in front of him and was trying to innovate the protoss meta once again with a bunch of templar build. On Overgrowth Rain didn't go for the storm drop and instead went the way of the most traditionnal chargelot archons composition. After herO understood what was going on he stayed defensive but after a while he thought he could pounce on half of Rain army but instead he walk right into a trap.
Rain got the full surround and everyone thought he had found the winning move. Instead it was a moment to see CJ herO trademark quick thinking as he perfectly micro out of the surround, splitting his zealot to wall off Rain away from his tech unit on both side, while making sure his collossus lazers do the job, in one of the best (understable) pvp fight.

Also now that I have met my pvp cota, you can also go watch herO vs HyuN at IEM Katowice game 4.



Match 4 Polt vs NesTea

Polt highlight: Polt vs Hydra WCS 2015 season 1, game 6
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From one of the most prolifict highlight maker in Starcraft 2 history, I propose you his last tournament final. Hydra was looking like the man to ruin Polt WCS party after the ban of Koreans. The former CJ zerg beat Polt in group and swept his playoff bracket as his terran opponent struggle all the way to the final and continue to do so, getting down 1-3 in the grand final.
Comeback usually involved some kind of switch up in style, for exemple Soulkey busting out the roach-bane build in GSL final, instead Polt stay true to his style and played to last three game with frentic biomine vs LBM macro games. It lead to one of the better final of SC2, with game 6 beeing the best of the best, and giving bio tvz his last great classic.
Polt dedication to beeing the greatest show in Starcraft hurt him a lot of time especially in zvt, meching or cheesing the final would have be the easy solution but it's also what made him one of the most popular player around and be in more memorable game than almost anyone.

NesTea highlight: NesTea vs sC GSL May 2011 semi-final, game 5
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The best game you never watch.
The start of Starcraft 2 was a whole different world and to understand early players greatness we need to look back at it.
A quick way to look at it would be that the players didn't understand know how the game work, and while it's certainly a part of it, a good part of it was there was nothing to understand.
Crossfire was considered one of the better map at the time, and I mean just look at this thing.
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The third is like 5 screen away from both the natural and the main and has a main base ramp and as anyone who ever played a game of Starcraft realize, it make it a very jucy target for a tank push, something SC and Nestea realize just as well.

After an early defense on the first push, Nestea was unable to stop SC getting the strong siege position in the middle of the map and was on the back foot for the rest of the game, and by back foot I mean he looked like he was 100% dead for 5 minutes. The rest of the game is a textbook exemple to play zerg from behind, Nestea giving ground as slowly as possible forcing SC to siege and unsiege while countering the terran economy and isolating his stronger army until he enventualy was able to stop it at the exact time as it hit his bases.



Polls are open until Sathurday June 22 around 8pm EST

Alright now for the second part of the round of 16
Match 5: MMA vs Maru
MMA highlight: MMA vs DRG Blizzard cup 2011 final game 7 (although the full series deserve a watch)
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The definite game of the glory day of pre-Kespa Korean StarCraft and most likely the best final map of a tournament we ever had.
Coming in a game 7 after starting up 3-0 on the world biggest stage was a terrible situation for MMA, most other would have crumble, but MMA somehow got his head into the game and gave us almost 40 minutes of a razor edge back and forth macro game, where he had to not only fight non stop to establish his half map economy and stopping the DRG from growing, but also always keep in check the tech switches of the zerg. And of course all of theses 40 minutes of decisions, moves and conter-moves ending up in a single final yes or no question: Can MMA stop DRG brood lords to get to his production?
All of hit with the roaring of the crowd and a top tier performance from Tastosis made this game a worthy of MMA coronation as the best player in the world

Maru highlight: Maru vs Cella GSL 1 round of 64 game 3
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Maru has one of the biggest library of game out there, even tho his high agression play style doesn't always make for the most entertaining of games almost 7 years of going deep in every tournament, a good number of ProLeague classic he goes to as well as an unparalleled 5 Korean league trophy tend to create a lot of highlights.

Yet despite all of those I chose his first ever televise match, that came in the first ever week of competitive Starcraft 2 in Korea. His match was also surprisingly one of the most anticipated opening matches of the first round of GSL, the young 13 years old that manage to qualify certainly turn head (funilly enough the comparaison with a certain Baby was already made during his first ever match, a story line ending 8 year down the line) but his was mostly his adversary Cella playing in for the ''Werra'' clan that grabbed the attention. 10 years his elder Cella was one of the most popular Korean in the western land and one of the first streamer of the game as well as a TeamLiquid forum poster, hopes were high for him.

Instead the little Maru, looking just as bored as he is now, brought on the show and brought Cella to the brink of tears. After an agressive spire play from Cella (I'm talking of course about the good old 1 base-2 spines-2 queens-no creep spire play) destabilize Maru, who managed to got a thor just in time, the whole affair devolve into a 1 base vs 1 base 20 minutes game worthy of the depth of the NA ladder.
Now I could try to tell you that we already saw the making of legend in Maru, but outside of the signature nonchalant wrist spin, there's not a lot of the strategical and micro genius in this game. I didn't chose it because I wanted to show that Maru was able to leapfrog tank, but rather so we could see how much Maru has grown before our eyes. Having played is GSL match before Losira and GuMiho he has the longest SC2 carrer of any Korean player despite beeing one of the youngest. Maru whole life has been SC2, he's one of the only singular point we can track across the entire history of our game, and from his humble (yet successful) opening game to a 4 time back to back GSL champ we can follow his play getting better time and time again.



Match 4: Stats vs MC

Stats highlight: Stats vs soO 2016 Proleague round 2 playoff semi-final map 4
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The final year of Proleague was a great year for Stats, in 2016 he was still hadn't won a tournament, a final loss in SSL against Dark had earn him the respect from the fans, but his was his Proleague performance that really turn heads. The penultimate Kespa tournament had been the favorite playground of Stats since the start of his career, being one of the best player in proleague HOTS despite being a rather forgettable player individual tournament.

The playoff of round 2 gave us yet another Telecom derby, Stats quickly cleave through the SKT team, putting his team up 3-0 until SKT chose soO to get the reverse all-kill. King Sejong station was the chosen map and the potential of the map was fully used, giving us yet another great macro game. Stats was the first to put on pressure, but very quickly he was put on the defensive and had to prove that he was in fact the ''Shield of Aiur'' defending soO lurker, lings and mutalisk and putting pressure while making sure to never fully commit until forcing the SKT zerg to launch a last ditch attack against him.

MC highlight: MC vs IdrA MLG Providence 2011 winner bracket round 4 game 2

It is surprisingly hard to find game from MC greatest day, all of his GSL march final seems to have been completely loss to history, so his a lot of the 2011-12 foreign tournament, yet there's one type of MC highlight that exist in drove on the Internet, video of MC shit talking other players and most of all IdrA.
MC rivalry against IdrA is the type of narrative that a lot of people wanted to make happen for a long time, it was a mainstay of any MLG, almost every time IdrA would win the group or winner bracket matches but MC would win every time he needed to.
The winner bracket at MLG Providence was the final great chapter of this rivalry, as MC demonstrated full dominance over the American champ. Beating IdrA is far from MC biggest SC2 achievement, but his legacy couldn't be understand without these MLG duels and the opportunity it made for him to garnish the love and support of fans.

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Theses polls are open until Wednesday June 26 around 8pm EST

Time to find out who will be the final two in the round of 8, and we may have save the best for last.

Match 7: PartinG vs Zest

PartinG highlight: PartinG vs Flash HSC X final, game 7
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Just like MMA vs DongRaeGu, Parting vs Flash was one of the great SC2 final that ramped up to an even greater final game.
Up 3-1 against Flash in the final of the biggest HSC yet, Parting let the series slip through his finger as God tied the final.
Game 7 started horribly for Parting, his proxy stargate got counter easily and he got sloppy trying the follow up contain.
With his tournament life on the line, and the crowd more than ready to welcome the BW legend as their champion, Parting stay true to himself and went into full agression. It looked completely impossible for the Big Boy as an overwhelming bio ball was ready to roll on him, instead Parting showed once again that he passed perhaps the best micro in all of Starcraft history and perfectly isolated part of Flash army taking advantage of the low medivac count by forcing Flash to stim time and again. In the end he was able to completely turn the game around breaking the defense of Flash and finish a classic final.

Zest highlight: Zest vs soO GSL 2014 season 1, game 6
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Zest penultimate game of his royal roader GSL championship was a turning point in Starcraft history. At the time soO wasn't considered a Kong, after his defeat at the hand of future bonwja Dear he was keen to proved he wasn't a fluke and up 3-2 he look to be on the giving end of a 4-2 defeat. The angry zerg took advantage of the cross position on the absurdly large Alterzim Stronghold and quickly completely overgrew a Zest that was unable to put on any dedicated pressure. 20 minutes in Zest at 160 supply was looking at a max out zerg with a 4500-2000 bank, but Zest stay calm and slowly chipped away at soO bank and army for 20 minutes until he was able to overcame soO on the wire after 40 minutes.



Match 8 sOs vs Mvp

sOs highlight: sOs vs MarineKing Hotsix cup 2014 game 3
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For a 3 time world champion, one of the greatest Proleague player and a 2 time GSL finalist a Kespa Cup final can seems a odd choice, yet his final vs MKP represent the best of sOs genius, an uncanny ability to make other player look like complete dumbass.
MarineKing run late 2014 was suppose to be his redemption story, he overcame a complete bracket of protoss beating Stats-herO-Parting and Zest, it was one of the greatest tvp performance of all time. Instead MKP Kespa cup run will for ever be remember for the brutal, stupid, hilarious beating sOs served him. After a quick look at his replay sOs knew perfectly how to counter the terran ready opening and we could all observe the JinAir protoss killing him over and over with early push, crown by this game 3 where sOs make a zealot a stalker, run them all the way across the map and kill someone who played more than 100 000 game of Starcraft in his life. Add 10 more minutes of humiliation and MKP was looking like an absolute fraud that got lost on a Starcraft stage.
It wasn't sOs greatest game, a kind of triumph without opposition, but it's my favorite of his humiliations, a list that include Maru, HerO, Jaedong, Solar and INnoVation.

Mvp highlight: Mvp vs Rain GSL 2012 season 4, game 4 and 5
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A double pleasure to had ever more tvp to this half-week polls. Mvp last great GSL run and his pursuit of the G5L put him straight against Kespa greatest, at the time everyone was ready to bury the first era of SC2 has the elephant were already starting to put on strong results. Instead the greatest terran of WOL found the crack in Rain armor and broke him in standard macro games and proved that even with the injury he wasn't ready to put down his crown.



Polls are open until Saturday June 29 around 8pm EST

Time to get serious

TaeJa vs DongRaeGu: The mountain monarchy

TaeJa: 4 Dreamhack, 3 HSC, 2 AsusRog, 1 MLG, 2 GSL semi-finals, Liquid ace
DRG: 1 GSL, 1 MLG, 1 IEM, 1 Blizzard Cup final, 2 MLG finals

For most of us Starcraft is a struggle, an impossible mountain to climb happy to throw rocks at you whenever you start to get higher, TaeJa is the exception. He’s the prince of Starcraft, someone for whom being good at Starcraft didn’t seems like a struggle or even an accomplishment, he was the one at the top of the mountain watching others climb not in anguish but with calm assurance that at the end of the day he would always have his place at the top.

Winning everything was the way of the word, and boy did he win, in any meta, against anyone. He stayed at the top of the mountain pushing people over, sometime with absurd ease. As royalty, he never seemed to feel the need to stoop to entertainment; he spent half a decade in the West never saying a word of English, never learning to open a bottle of champagne or give a half decent interview, he didn’t need those to win the heart of the crowds; just a wave, a smile and an otherworldly ability to win at Starcraft. He did lose once a while, but it never felt like a crushing or embarrassing defeat, just a top tiers series not going his way, deserving of nothing more than his little head-shake as he immediately went back to winning.

It would be clearly wrong to say that DongRaeGu wasn’t also a rare Starcraft talent, but it never felt quite as easy for DRG, you could see the struggle. Like TaeJa his first win came outside of Korea, but contrary to the Liquid Prince he wasn’t happy ruling these far away land. He wanted to keep climbing and so he went back home to rule not as a prince but as the King. It’s something TaeJa never did, even the most die-hard GSL elitists couldn’t deny that TaeJa had the skills to win a GSL, but at the apex of his career, he chose to turn his back to Korea and to a potential GSL crown and droped his chances at Blizzcon to finally be address as the clear world best.

DongRaeGu made that choice, he went back to his beloved neighbourhood and was immediately rewarded by one of the hardest lost anyone ever had. Against MMA at the Blizzard cup final he mounted perhaps the best comeback in all SC2 in only to see victory slip through his fingers in the last seconds of the final game. He wouldn’t stop climbing, and after his GSL win and subsequent domination, he did become the undisputed best zerg in the word, embracing his role as the game front most star. It wasn’t only his unparalleled ability at long macro game that put him at the top, but also his capacity to rotate between his builds and unbreakable spirit. But his wasn’t the calm domination of TaeJa, the struggle never seemed to stop for DRG, and multiple final defeats piled on, as is the Korean zerg destiny, and as HOTS came around, he had lost his throne.
The last few years undoubtedly have been hard for the Dongraegu native, but even military service couldn’t keep him from trying to reach once again that oh so sweet place at the top of the highest mountain.




Solar vs GuMiho: OlimoLeague weekly number 127

Solar: 1 SSL, 3 Dreamhack, 1 MSI, 1SSL final, 1 IEM final
GuMiho: 1GSL, 1 ST final, 1 Dreamhack final, 2 GSTL

You all remember it, maybe you had a little time of before starting your day, maybe you decided to watch a last few games at the end of a late evening, maybe it was a slow day at work, you opened TL and saw that there’s an OlimoLeague, a Leifeng Cup, an OSC Master cup or whatever Korean online cup going on. You may not care about the actual tournament, but as you tune in you know you are in for a great series as before you is a duel between the two gods of online Korean Starcraft: GuMiho vs Solar.

With a little over 200 maps between each other, these two have one of the most prolific rivalry in Korean Starcraft 2. GuMiho 29 weekly finals and 13 monthly finals make him the most successful Olimoleague players, only missing a single weekly wins to be at the top of all the statistical standing (something Solar himself was all to happy to denied just last week), Solar himself has win his fare share of Olimoleague in his ever growing list of now almost 200 online tournament wins.
Outside of their online rivalry Solar and GuMiho are two of the most likeable players in the scene. Defined by extreme consistency, they both have been in code S every time for at least 4 years, Solar being in every code S since he first qualified back in 2014 season 1. They also both had good times making soO life miserable at some point.

The comparisons stops there. It’s easy to forget but Solar is the 3rd most decorated Zerg players, winning more tournament than NesTea, DRG, Dark or Stephano. The Happy Roach has been perhaps un-rightly forgotten by history, as his lack of success in GSL or major global tournament sometime overshadow runs just as impressive in others less well recognize tournaments. The first LOTV champ and arguably the SSL greatest, he’s the only zerg to win a Korean league in LOTV and only the 3rd since HOTS launch in 2013.

GuMiho has been mainly known for his dedication to play Starcraft his own way, innovating the terran meta multiple times and finding solutions instead of whining, but he never was quite shower with the same praise as other top terran players. Yet he has one of the most long-lasting careers of the scene. In 2012 as one of the best GSTL players he carried FXO to back-to-back championship with an 8-0 record in the finals including one of the best TvT ever played vs MMA and an upset of soon-to-be GSL champ Sniper. As an outsider in 2015 he scored a perfect 15-0 in Tours before dropping the last 3 maps of the final vs PartinG, and just a few weeks ago he defied all balance whine to reach the finals of a Super Tournament stack with protoss. But it’s his GSL championship that remain the sole jewel of his career, as his dedication to playing the game his own way finally put him ahead of the pack as his mech play rolled over soO mid 2017.



Polls are open until Wednesday may 15 around 8pm EST.

Serral vs Classic: Holding up the storm
Serral: 1 Blizcon 4 WCS, 1 GSL vs the World, 2 WCS finals, longest offline series streak of SC2 history
Classic: 1 GSL, 1 SSL, 2 ST, 1 IEM, 2 Blizzcon semi-finals, 1 IEM Katowice final

7 years ago, a storm started to brew in the far land of what is barely still Europe, as Serral was poised to make his entry into the Starcraft world. First came the rounds of 64 at his first four Dreamhack, then the rounds of 32, 5 in a row in 2014, then 3 rounds of 16 as the next year come to pass. By the time Serral hit his first premier round of 8 in Leipzig and started to show results in others smaller tournament in 2016 rumours of the storm started to go around. 2017 confirmed those rumors, his 4 rounds of 8 in premiers confirmed his slow but inexorable rise in results, but it was when he pushed Neeb to the brink of defeat in the grand final of WCS Jönköping that the world at large finally took notice of the ever-closing storm.

The foreign world was at first glad at the perspective of another talent joining their fray in their fight for recognition against Koreans, fool enough to think that simply blowing in the sense of the wind made them part of the storm. When it finally hit their shore in the start of 2018, they finally saw it for what it was, a hurricane that was gonna engorge them all. At first it seemed like the Koreans tranches would hold on, as he was hold by Classic and Maru, but after soO put on the last defence at Nation Wars, they too were swept away by the storm.

What follow is history, from WCS Austin Challenger in mid-may 2018 to IEM Katowice in February 2019 Serral would win every single offline tournament he signed up, win all his offline series, have a 98,75% win rate in overall series (damn Neeb), become the second foreigner to win a triple crown, complete the WCS grand slam, and most of all cleave through the Blizzcon bracket to become world champion. As he stood triumphant in Anaheim, it seems like Serral was finally ready to rest, the teary-eyed man overlooking his trophy contrasted with the unrelenting storm that had rework the SC2 landscape. The start of 2019 was pointed as many as the start of a new dawn, the last man to deny Serral a championship in soO would do it again in Katowice followed up by defeat in the final of WESG and WCS Winter. When there was nowhere up to go, it seemed like Serral has become mortal once again, but the winds have start howling again and the coming months may prove us that we are just in the eye of the storm.


Classic was very much off the radar at the start of the Kespa switch, the STX Terran had some traction in his last BW years, but his SC2 start while not straight up abysmal was still pretty bad; he didn’t qualify for anything and ended up being bench by his team in Proleague after he became the first Korean in almost a decade to lose to a foreigner. He looked destined to fade away in the switch like hyvaa or Flying.

His decision to switch to protoss completely revitalize his play, he became a solid player in STX roaster, but stayed in the shadow of INnoVation and Dear and even when he conquered GSL code S on his second try (lien) the focus was pretty much evenly split between the soO tragedy and balance complain about a 2014 full of protoss champions. His subsequent elimination in the round of 32 made fans think he would follow in the path of Seed, a stigma that even a semi-final at Blizzcon couldn’t erased. It took an SSL and IEM victory and a slew of strong proleague appearances for us to finally accept that he was truly part of the world elite.

Strangely it’s when he finally got recognition that he entered somewhat of a drought. He would spend the next 3 years without winning a single championship. He was far from being outclass, playing in 8 semi-finals of premier tournaments and never making anyone doubt he had what it takes to win every single one of them, but something what missing. It wasn’t his play, always rightly balanced between cheesy and macro back by a calm but decisive execution and a very good ability read the game, but he just never seemed able to take that final step anymore, to come down with a series when he needed it the most.
As Classic first announced his incoming retirement due to his military services, it seemed he would retire as “one of” the great protoss of his time. Fast forward a few months he has been in the final of 3 of his last 4 tournament, winning 2 super tournaments. With his Blizzcon ticket all but punch and all the momentum in the world going into this GSL, Classic run against the clock to fulfil all his career dreams before the military come for him, seems to have push him to even bigger heights.

The next few months are gonna be decisive for Serral and Classic legacy, as both seems ready to dominate the rest of the years, but even without that they already have made a great case for Starcraft greatness.



Leenock vs INnoVation: The real monster
Leenock: 2 MLG, 1 IGN Proleague, 1 Dreamhack, 1 GSL final, a very good GSTL player
INnoVation: 3 GSL, 1 SSL, 1 GSL vs The World, 2 IEM, 1 WESG, 2 time Proleague MVP

Folk tales are full of monsters, great beast with claws the size of a minibus, creatures made from combination of others animals can could only have been thought by a mad god, sprites and fairies happy to lure you into the dark. Since the oldest days of Starcraft one of those monsters roamed around, don’t let his chubby smile and his silly dances fools you, as soon as you set foot in the murky Starcraft waters you’ll see him stretch his tentacles all around you and before you know what is happening the ]Leenoctopus will have eaten you whole.

Leenock was great since the very start of the game but his rise to Starcraft fame came as he denied Mvp his 3rd straight GSL final, only to fall to jjakji. Leenock may have failed to win one of the most one-sided final on paper, but he wouldn’t miss his chance to hunt SC2 heroes as his lower bracket run at MLG Providence was an “who’s who” of Starcraft superstars beating BoxeR-MMA-IdrA-Mvp-HuK-DRG and NaNiwa.
Leenock would go on to win 3 other premier tournaments as well as reach another final of a stack MLG, but it is still his first win in Providence that is the most remembered and in some way is the best incarnation of his career. Shortly after his MLG win he would be overshadowed by fellow zerg DongRaeGu, and his second string of victory at the end of 2012 is remembered more as the time a young idiot name Life came to his own.

Leenock was in his element in the background, but as he little by little was forgotten by all except some ancient story teller he never went anywhere. Leenock was in code S every single year except 2015, when he was top 8 at SSL, and all this time the Leenoctopus would be all to happy to lure in foolhardy travellers too prone to dismiss the ancient tales. (1-2-3)


Just as the Leenoctopus went back to lurking in the shadow a new kind of monsters appear, not one made of flesh and claws of but a modern monster, a machine coming out of the corporatist factory of Kespa, someone who isn’t phase by the flowers of victory but is all to happy to laugh as he’s crushing a man lifelong dream. INnoVation didn’t get to hide, he was always in the blinding neon lights of the Starcraft biggest stages, from the second he stepped in the scene to this day no one could ignore him. Everyone knew the game has entered a new era, gone was the amateurish fun of the MLG, the 200 tl pages of silly drama, the exuberant celebrations, the time for games was over.
Less than 4 months after his SC2 debut, he reached his first Code S final and although Soulkey, with his back against the wall, managed to found the flaw in INnoVation practice, he would just comeback stronger and faster winning the season finals just after. The new Korean machine would quickly conquer the Starcraft world.

Against most INnoVation macro was enough to crush his opponent, they could do whatever trick they wanted, there was nothing stopping someone who was not merely stronger, cleverer or quicker, but just “more”.
The world elite would catch on quickly to INnoVation and he had plenty of epic duel at the top of Starcraft (and quite a few embarrassing one if we are honest), but it’s all the other one; the aspiring amateurs, the hopeful foreigners and the hard-working veterans that would be forever left in the dust.

In the next years INnoVation would go on to win 4 Koreans leagues, 2 IEM, a GSL vs The World and a lot more, as well as be one of the most dominant team league players ever. And while the world championship tittle still eludes him, he’s on everyone lips when we start to talk about the greatest to ever touch a keyboard.


When Leenock came up to the scene, there was still that dream that if you work at it hard enough you too could go on a rampage in a lower bracket of an MLG and beat the world greatest stars. It was a silly idea, but it was still there. In this new world of Innovation all of that is gone, it’s painfully obvious that we’ll never be able to do what those new monsters do, he took Starcraft and dragged it away from us. Nevertheless, Leenock is still there, lurking around and taking down those who think they are above this ancient monster of the game, and when the GSL light closes down for good he might very will still be there waiting for his moment to snatch one more victim.



Polls are open until Saturday may 18 around 8pm EST.

Liquid HerO vs soO: Facing your fears
Liquid HerO: 2 Dreamhack, 1 WCS NA, 1 IEM, 1 NASL, 1 Dreamhack final
soO: 1 IEM Katowice, 1 Kespa Cup, 6 GSL finals, 1 Blizzcon final, 1 IEM final, 1 Dreamhack final

I came to SC2 quite late in his life, and the first ever live offline tournament I watched was IEM Cologne. Looking back a part of me is quite disappointed that I didn’t have the knowledge to fully appreciate what turn out to be a timeless classic; Patience and jjakji teaming up to take down what was left of Dear reputation, Polt running circle like a madman around Rain and Classic to beat two of the best in the world at what was then considered an impossible match up, but most of all Liquid HerO overcoming a gauntlet of the world best to conquer the last IEM trophy of the season. His path to victory included a dismantlement of INnoVation and an answer to Polt magic, but the highlight of it was his mesmerizing comeback in game 5 of the semi-final after going down bellow 60 supply against Jaedong he pulled everything, even his probes, and manage to snatch it under the nose of the Tyran.

After such a clutch win with thousand of euro on the line, one would expect to see someone pop off, jump of his chair or wink at the camera, but what we got was a man head in his hand, who for lack of better word: seemed so f*cking done with this shit.

HerO was a peculiar but inspirational character in the Starcraft 2 world, nerves problems have plagued many a player, but perhaps no one showed it more than HerO. The Liquid player regularly looked like he was about to explode on stage, but as soon as it switches to the game screen nothing of that showed. Time and again HerO was one of the much clutch players of all time, someone who could juggle an immortal for days way before Blizz decided they had to do it for us because it was too hard, execute a cheese with perfection in high pressure situation, and pull of great defence with his life on the line. The level of nerves HerO felt when he was on stage would have broken a lot of players, but HerO refusal to gave in when he probably wanted to be anywhere else but in front of all theses cameras made him one of the most successful SC2 player. While he never manage to win that all to sweet Korean tournament, he was a force to be reckon with in foreign tournament being the only player to win 2 Dreamhack Winter and on top of his big trophy collection being a solid team player on TL along side his friend and second half of the worst rivalry of all time TaeJa.


Many, many, many words have been written about soO story, lots more insightful then these one, yet as all the others I can’t but remiss on his harsh but ultimately fulfilling journey. When he was first victorious at the MLG vs Proleague invitational beating TY-Flash-Soulkey and Oz, the world knew that the young man who would go on to eliminate Mvp from code A a few weeks later was someone to keep an eye on in the coming years. A quick entry into code S in HOTS and a GSL final run in late 2013 confirmed that we were right to have high hope for soO, but he wasn’t a fan favourite or anything, mostly brushed aside as another top faceless Korean that couldn’t stop the future Bonjwa that was Dear, his play while very good wasn’t particularly peculiar or exciting. As the coming months started to pass tho two things became extremely clear, soO was a winner unlike anyone we ever saw in the game able to pull out a win in any situation by what seemed like pure resolve, and secondly soO was completely unable to win a final.

In his 4 GSL final run, his complete collapse against Solar in Stockolm days before his semi-final saw him fly all the way back to Korea and fight with the energy of desperation 3 maps down against Zest to win by the skin of his teeth, but as everything was said and done we could all remember Tastless words “SoO has lost Again”.

soO 4th GSL lost in row seemed more then enough to broke anyone spirit, and many thought he would never be the same, both in his winning and losing side. His Kespa Cup victory and IEM final defeat a year later seemed like both a small reward and a small pain compared to what had come before, as it seemed like he would remain a very good but not amazing zerg player. As 2017 rolled around soO showed us that he himself had never given up and he mounted once again a back to back GSL final run including comeback against both TY and Rogue, but as each final came less and less people were ready to give him a chance, soO was trapped in a cycle of eternal defeat.

But soO pull himself together and went on one last desperate and enraged attempt at Blizzcon, he would finally overcome GuMiho mech play in a razor edge quarter and was put once again at harm length of victory. It would have been the fairy tale, after all he had go through what better ending than soO finally winning on the biggest stage of them all, but there was no fairy tale yet for soO as he fell one more step into despair. With his Blizzcon defeat everyone accepted soO faith, his first GSL of 2018, where he seemed to be all to happy to let Stats steal the semi-final series if it mean avoiding another final, was followed by a disappointing year the world came to the conclusion that soO was finally done, it took an incredible time but the silver surfer was broken in the end.

No one was thinking about soO at the start of IEM Katowice, and him limping out of the group stage with a negative game score predicted another early exit. It was forgetting who soO was, as he overcame the world champion in his best match up, we were suddenly remember of that was, someone whom will power alone could carry him to victory against the worst of odds and hope started to return. Nevertheless, when Stats smacked him on Cyber Forest giving himself the 2-0 lead, we cursed soO for making us lived through this one more time, but something snap. This time wouldn’t be the same, when he was down and out, he was finally able to pull out his winning magic in the final, and it’s fair to say that in all the years of Starcraft no victory was ever as sweet as this one.


HerO and soO stories both go to show that it takes a lot more then simple clicks and button press to make a great Starcraft player, and while their career took way different path they both manage to overcome their demons on the way to greatness.



herO vs Dark:The tree that hide the forest
herO: 3 IEM, 1 SSL, 1 Kespa cup, 1 Super Tournament, 1 IEM final, most ever maps, aces and wins in Proleague
Dark: 1 SSL, 1 Blizzcon final, 2 SSL final, 3 GSL semi-final, 18 premier tournaments round of 4

Now I told you a moment ago that my first ever live SC2 tournament was IEM Cologne, so can you guess what my second live tournament was? Well actually it was the group stage of WCS NA but we don’t talk about this kind of thing here, but my 3rd tournament! It was none other than the infamous IEM Katowice 2014, contrary to his little brother in Cologne this one was experience best at a time I was barely understanding what was going on but was enthrall by a huge crowd of rabid fans. When I saw NaNiwa pack his thing up after game one I could enjoy plenty that raging man and all the drama without the knowledge that I was watching one of the West best walk away under the boo of the crowd, when Revival flew 30 muta into a pack of mine I could marvel at the unpredictability and unforgiveness of this game, I could still buy that giving all the 100k prize pool to the winner was a good idea, but even me, who had yet to play a single SC2 game, couldn’t watch stalkers dancing in the main of what was once a smiling, cartwheeling, man and not realize I had just watch one of the most vicious beat down to ever took place in this game.

There is much to bet that if herOdidn’t fall for sOs tricks his whole career would be remember a lot differently, it’s strange that one of the most successful players ever is mostly thought on as the victim of the type of defeat he handed to so many across the years.

herOcame to the forefront of the scene with a dominance in the IEM circuit in 2013-14, his impressive pvt as well as the many battles and eventual dismantlement of the infamous Snute swarmhost style using an agressive double warp prison response build his reputation as one of the most dangerous protoss around as he reach 4 IEM finals in a row, winning 3. He was foiled for a while in Korea losing in the final of a KC and the semi of GSL but would then win back to back trophy with another KC and an SSL late 2015. During all that time he was the ace of CJ in Proleague, it’s a job that can be a nightmare task (just ask Solar and Creator) but being the face and soul of CJ Entus was a role herO cherish as he was all to happy to be the one that made, almost by his lonesome, his team an actual contender for the playoff, playing day in day out from the first to the last day of ProLeague, being both the most use and the player with the most win in the league history.

As Lotv came around it seemed like the game was perfect for him, he won the first GSL Preseason and look poised to continue on his success but while the last few years have been pretty good including 3 top 4 at ST with a trophy and a couple of good GSL results he has yet to get that big GSL or international trophy that escaped him all these years ago in Poland.


Like herO, Dark was always one to thrive in front of the crowd, he famously announces to the world that he would go on to win 10 premier championships back in 2016. The claim seemed outrageous at first for someone who had just arrived at the top of the scene but as we were starting to realise Dark isn’t afraid to talk big and his word have frequently bite him in the backside. In a world of polite and humble Starcraft players Dark stand out has one who would be all to happy to vote for himself in this tournament.

Nevertheless, his 10 tournaments claim really wasn’t one of his grandiloquent declaration, in the last 4 years Dark as reach 18 top 4 in premier tournaments, he’s by far the most consistent LOTV playe if not all of Starcraft and a constant hurdle in everyone path. Dark was perfectly right on his potential when he said he would become the most decorated player in history, like he was tight every time he felt confident trash talking an opponent.

We have seen Dark destroy the best in the world since 2015 (some of the most memorable: zvz master Life, best tvz in the world 2015 Dream ,great foreign hope Neeb- Runner up of IEM Katowice Classic and we have watch him beat every foreigner for 5 years straight, but so many time the coin fall on the wrong side for Dark. He has lost 10 final or semi-final by a single map, and been mostly used to give the champion an incredible series at the end of his road. No one could give ByuN, Stats or Maru such a hard run for there money and even if he got the short end of the stick almost every time, Dark role as guard captain of the trophy room, while not the one he wanted, is one he accomplished with every bit much of skills as those who inevitably broke in the vault.



Polls are open until Wednesday may 22 around 8 PM est

Bomber vs Nestea: Let the kids do their things
Bomber: 1 WCS Season, 1 MLG, 1 codeA, 1 WCS NA, 2 Redbull
NesTea: 3 GSL, 1 Blizzcon final, 2 GSTL

It’s a well know Starcraft truthism that it’s a game for the young, a lot of reason are brought up; better reaction time, healthier wrists, less distractions from the game, a faster brain to comprehend the game… As the two oldest players left in the competition, theses next two competitor defy this. It wasn’t only their age that made them stand out in a crowd of teenagers, it was their disregard for all the tenants of SC2. The thousand of young overexcited dreamers could have their fun pretending to know the perfect way to play, the perfect strategy, the perfect practice regiment, Bomber and NesTea have been there long enough to know full well that when push come to shove all that matter is those few short moments in the boot.

Long time Startale player Bomber entered the top echelon of SC2 competition with a bang, running through a gauntlet of TVT to win his first ever code A over already two times GSL champ Mvp. He would quickly follow this initial success with solid run in code S, a Dreamhack semi-final and his first major win at MLG Raleigh over CoCa. Bomber never was the cleanest of player, but his ability to out macro pretty much all his opponent made him more then able to become one of the best in Korea. He would pretty much follow the meta for most of WOL but with less and less success as time went on as everyone else caught up to his mechanics and exploited his predictability, and it seemed like he would be phase out of the scene like most of the older generation of progammers as new young blood came in.

Bomber probably realize this himself and when HOTS and the Kespa transition arrived he seemed to have decided to stop trying to run after the younglings and just do his own thing. It was never the super out there, Has style, weirdness, but just a bit different, where you watch it and you are not always quite sure if he’s either exploiting the meta or just not caring about it. Be it walking 15 naked marines across to map with a 3 rax 3CC build worthy of a theory crafting between 2 gold leagues, building tanks and doing his best re-creation of the badly aged Indiana Jones vs the scimitar wielding Arab, proxying reaper half a decade before and after it was cool (g5) or finally proving right every 2010 whiners going pure, 120+ marines vs Polt. His new ability to mix up his builds only enhance his strong macro and rather greedy play that give us some legendary series versus Scarlett (every single one of them), Polt or Pigbaby.

The new man Bomber got to the top of the world, he won WCS season 2 against the best Korea had to offer, and finish in the top 4 of Blizzcon. He then went to a quick one-year trip in North America dominating the region as he went to reach 4 tournament final, winning 3 of them only falling to Pigbaby on a mission.


In all his career Bomber ever got eliminated of a tournament three time by player older than him, Sen when he won the Taiwan open, WC3 legend Moon who has barely a month over him older and finally none other then the allfather of SC2, the creator of the universe NesTea (more widely known as NESSSTEAAAAA).
At 25 he was already considered an old man when he played his first SC2 game. In Brood war he was a solid 2v2 player, which isn’t quite as sad as it sounds in SC2 but still was a far cry from a success story. SC2 was his ticket to greatness, while the first ever GSL escaped him giving us the chance the hear Artosis advancing the idea of FruitDealer being the first SC2 Bonjwa (spoiler he wasn’t). He went 13-0 in the second ever GSL before triumphing over young star MKP 4-3 in the final and became the first truly great Starcraft player. He would also be one of the founding fathers of IM along side notable players Losira and Mvp and would lead them to the first GSTL win playing only a single map in the entire tournament as the last player to come out in a 3-3 lock grand final. Nestea would go on to win 2 more GSL, including the only perfect run in the history of the tournament, be the first to qualify for 10 consecutive code S, and reach the final of a Blizzcon.

Maybe it was his time as back bencher and KT coach in BW that helped NesTea be able to figure this new game faster and better then anyone else. He understood how zerg was meant to play right of the bat and use the new macro mechanics and easier commands of SC2 to pioneer zerg reactive macro play. While FruitDealer success was build on alternating between all ins and full on greed, NesTea understood that map control and a fine balanced between drones and units was what would make and break his race in this new Starcraft and happily exploited everyone else lack of understanding of the game to rule as the best Zerg in the world for almost 2 years until guys like DRG and Leenock caught up to him.

Nowadays you would be hard pressed to find someone who could look at Nestea GSL brackets and remember who half the player were, his battles against, Ensnare, sC, Virus, TheWinD, anypro or Zenio evoque at most a vague recollection, as the games themselves have been largely lost to time in the dept of the Internet. But no one ever forgot Nestea, the time he erased a quadrillion thors with 5 quadrillions banelings, the time he made Inca who went in the final with a 10-1 record look like a lost child or the many many Tastosis jokes. He was the first SC2 Korean superstars and proved everyone else that there was more to this game then fast fingers.



Polt vs Neeb : Capitain America civil war
Polt: 2 WCS NA, 2 WCS, 1 ST, 1 MLG, 1 Asus Rog
Neeb: 3 WCS, 1 KC, 1 GSL Semi-final, 1 Dreamhack final

Polt was an odd choice to somehow become nickname “Captain America”. Coming from WC3 he spends his first years in the GOMTvT where is first contact with the western scene would be a defeat in the hand of Jinro in GSL 3. His triomph in the Super Tournament crowned by a crushing victory against MMA in the final included an elimination of fan favorite HuK. The first time he went to America for MLG he eliminated 5 straight foreigners in the championship bracket only to fall to the first Korean he faced, he then went on to win Asus Rog versus foreign hope Stephano. When he went on to face ThorZaIN the final of Dreamhack Stockolm he was very much the Korean enemy for the hometown hero to defeat and the only flag we could have fathom him wave was that (sick) Prime flag.

When Polt decided to migrate to America, he was considered a very solid code S player with a Korean championship under his belt, but was somewhat hidden by the shear masses of top Terrans in the region. Yet again he seemed like the perfect representation of Koreans who flew away from competition only to make a living bulling foreigner. Polt would be on the forefront of the Koreans dreamcrushing army; he straight up tilted the best US player IdrA into retirement in WCS season 1, something he would do again to the best foreign toss NaNiwa not even a year latter.

Polt dominated his first year in America, winning 3 straight tournaments (MLG, WCS NA 2-3) eliminating NaNiwa at MLG and destroying fan favorite JD in the final of WCS season 2. It’s pretty much at this point that the US fan made their choice, if you can beat him, join him. Polt knowledge of the english language, his decision of living in America and his confident, borderline cocky, attitude were deemed enough for him to become the US champion in a tournament scene full with Koreans.

Polt himself would thrive in this new identity, more liberty in his practice regiment only heighten his skills and he would fully embrace the unbreakable spirit and scrappy persona of the Marvel hero. From a rather standard terran in Korea he would find his own playstyle base on his ability to find opportunity to comeback and create chaos in game. In his tvp battle in the 2014 protoss hellscape that was IEM Cologne he would out-multitask the best in the world, against Hydra he would refuse the mech way to play long drawn out bio macro game even when he was on the backfoot, or when he tune it up to 11 to beat Neeb in WCS Montreal.

He would go on to reach six more WCS semi-finals with two more trophy and become the most dominant WCS circuit in HOTS and early LOTV. Still with the exception of his IEM Cologne run, Polt had little success outside of WCS, contrary to fellow expatriate like HyuN, MMA or TaeJa, he was never able to really make a strong impression in global or Korean events.


In a world where US starcraft had to adopt Koreans to lure themselves into thinking they had success in this game Neeb came as a saving grace. The fire truck amateur passed his first years as a young terran up and comer of the NA scene, which in non bullshit term meant someone who occasionally got pass the first group stage of a WCS only to lose when he had to face half decent Koreans.

Like Classic before him, his switch to protoss as well as a new expansion help him get his career going. He would reach 4 top 4 in the new WCS circuit composed of only a couple of Korean two of them, Polt and Hydra, would stop him late in tournament. Neeb seemed to have beneficiate just as much of the WCS changes as Polt before him, and while he was the first real good US player in forever it was hard not to link it to the expulsion of Koreans.

Then, just as Polt retired, came Kespa Cup. In the Korean capital is where Neeb would truly become the new Captain America, his masterful control over the pvp match up with the yet unknown stalker disruptor meta carried him to what was a rather easy victory. For the first time ever in the game a non-Korean had won a Korean tournament, and an American on top of that. From the laughing stock to the top of the world, Neeb proved there was more to NA Starcraft then meme builds, rage and perennial “up and comer”. (Although let’s be honest he never loss his good old NA mass adepts)

Neeb would go on to have a (very shortly) historic dominance of the WCS circuit winning 3 out of 4 events, but he would be unable to make deep run in global tournament in 2018, a trend strangely similar to Polt before him. A fast look at the standing board would lead someone to believe Serral overtook Neeb in 2018, but Neeb in fact never faced Serral in WCS, instead losing to other top foreigners. Despite this disappointing year in WCS Neeb would find success elsewhere, getting one map away from a GSL final and winning the Hangzhou Carnival against Koreans as well as having solid run in IEM and WESG.



Polls are open until may 25 around 8 pm EST

MMA vs TY: Team houses
MMA: 1 Blizzard cup, 1 GSL, 2 WCS EU, 1 Iron Squid, 2 GSTL MVP, 1 Blizzcon final
TY: 1 WESG, 1 IEM Katowice, 2 GSL final, 1 Blizzcon semi-final

If we had to find a star for a Starcraft movie MMA would be the perfect candidate. On top of good look and poise in front of the cameras, he has everything from hailed as the savior of his team, to a messy breakup from his tutor, from getting upset by outsiders to being the one creating the upset and from cruising as the best in the world to a desert dry period before getting back at the top.

He began his illustrious journey on Korean legendary team SlayerS, well before his first code S appearances MMA would become the unexpected ace of BoxeR squad. Leading the team to back to back GSTL championship, earning two MVP award and defeating a triumvirate of the best in the world: MC (lost to time), DRG and Mvp in ace matches.

He had a shot at calling himself the best in the world before even qualifying for a premier tournament, but he would quickly remediate to that as he went to the final of Super Tournament playing pure tvt, his glorious entry was sadly spoiled by a sound defeat at the hands of Polt. He would nonetheless make a quick trip to the US to get an MLG trophy, followed by a silver medal at his second MLG. His second try would also be the good one in Code S as he rolled over Mvp to win his first GSL in October of 2011 (fun fact he once again played almost only tvt, losing his only non mirror of the tournament vs NesTea).
The end of the first act of "MMA : the high and low of a Starcraft legend" would culminate at the 2011 Blizzard Cup with first another resounding victory against his rival Mvp and then an amazing rally in the ultimate map of the final to stop DRG reverse sweep and be crown world champion. As MMA was thrown into the air by his teammates in front of a delirious crowd, he seemed destined to dominate the Starcraft world. He wouldn’t win his next 2 GSL but dual victory in IEM Kiev and Iron Squid as well as overall strong results would more than make up for it.

As the second act open, the sky would fall down on top of MMA late 2012. Controversy began to grew in the SlayerS team and it reach the Internet where thousand of fans discussed, lash out and spread false rumours on the subject for weeks. In the end, the Emperor prodigal son left the team in infamy as Boxer team collapsed soon after. At the same time, and probably not randomly, his results took a big nose dive. He would be quickly kick out of Code S and disappeared of the latter stages of tournaments for more then a year. Him signing with Acer and going to Europe was already a way to acknowledge his failure in Korea, but a defeat in the round of 16 of WCS, including loss against Strelok and Feast was hard to digest and his biggest rival Mvp would pile on the humiliation winning the whole thing.

As MMA individual career was in an all time low it seems to have been the opportunity to restart playing in team leagues that rekindle the fire, his comeback to GSTL and the start of the ATSC in 2013 was exactly what he needed. A round of 4 in WCS EU season 2 signalled somewhat of a return to form and his first WCS trophy at the end of the year conjugate with a GSLT win as well as being one of the most dominant players in the ATSC, bringing his team to three final and two trophy, confirmed us he reconnect with success.

However, the context was far different from his early time as SlayerS ace. GSTL had become a second tier team league and victory was achieve mostly by Acer buying ProLeague star INnoVation, he was the champion of the weakest WCS region and ATSC, despite how dominant he was in it, was, at the end of the day, an online team league where most of the players were foreigners.

With two others WCS EU finals including a revenge over MC and a win in a pretty easy Dreamhack where he faced jjakji in the final. The middle part of MMA biopic would see him getting accustom to be one of the best in the European circuit but failing to show up against Kespa Koreans. Coming on his 27 birthday and military service, it seemed like MMA had manage to make a nice place for himself behind the ping wall of Europe to finish his time enjoying success in the small leagues after an illustrious career.

When Blizzcon 2014 came around MMA reminded us why he was the hero of the story, upsetting Bomber and Classic in the semi final and stand once more on the biggest stage of them all. In the end, he was unable to regain the title world title, falling to Life. Still he surprised everyone at the tournament and reminded everybody that WCS results were nothing to scoff at as he kept going with a semi-final in the following GSL.

A lazy end to MMA movie would have seen him triumph at Blizzcon or conquer GSL on his return to Korea, getting back to where he was at the start. Instead, years after he got threw into the air by his SlayerS teammates, the victory chants of M.M.A. echoed once more but this time in an overcrowded German loft, followed not by bombastic music but by a serenade of his old friend MC as the entire Starcraft community came together to give a last farewell to one of the game great.

MMA story ended at the perfect place, Home.



When BaBy/TY became the youngest player ever drafted by a Kespa Team at just 12 years old it was clear that someone saw in him a talent unlike any other. Now more then 12 years after, we can safely say that the WeMadeFox staff was wrong, TY isn’t a particularly talented Starcraft player. He was a good BW player for a teenager but didn’t explode into the scene, neither was he particularly great at SC2 when it came out. But the Kespa scout gave him an opportunity few ever had, spending half his life in a house surround by a dozen other peoples playing, eating and breathing Starcraft 24/7. At an age when others kids where thrown into the maelstrom of teenage life, he was spending his time analysing replay with a bunch of 20 years old and earning money playing match on TV.

For the first half of his SC2 career, TY barely hold on to keep his place as an elite player. He would qualify only three time for Code S before 2015, losing in the round of 32 every time. In proleague for Team 8/Jin Air then KT he would be good enough to be worth sending out every pretty much everyone but not good enough to carry his team. His strong macro play and his ability to plan out intricate build and exploit pattern in his opponents, a talent he acquire in his young days, would carry him to many victories, including an impressive 7 straight wins at the start of the 2014 season, but ultimately it wouldn’t be enough to overcome a lack of in game flair, as he would end his proleague career with only a single year a little over 50%.

He started to show growth in 2015 getting a GSL round of 8 and losing in the semi-final of SSL, only missing his first final by a single map as ByuL managed to best him on Mech heaven Terraform. It would be in 2016 after the release of LOTV that TY finally found success, he would have a solid run in the first ever LOTV Dreamhack and would sweep series against fellow hopeful terrans Dream and Cure in GSL to score his first ever final, losing it to Zest.
He would continue to impress the rest of the year, elaborating great build and getting praise as one of the best terran in the world, it seemed like TY had finally made it to the top, but he failed to reach another final, losing multiple series he came in as the favorite.

When proleague finally ended at the end of 2016 and the KT team house closed its doors, TY was sent back into the world. A 22 years old man who had spend most of his teenage and early adult years getting housed, feed and surrounded by staffs and players so that someday he could finally live up to the what everyone said was his potential.

Finally it was in the 2016-17 “off” season, more then 10 years after he was drafted, that he finally tastes victory, proving that all those years were not in vain. He chose his moment to do so, earning 300k in a back to back winning effort in WESG and IEM Katowice. TY didn’t do it in dominant fashion, against Maru in the final of WESG he had to pull every trick of his bag to win a tvt nail bitter and in IEM he would finish 20 and 14 in map saving 8 tournaments games and playing one of the great tvp series of LOTV. TY has not taste victory since then, sometime by the smallest of margins, but he has been one of the best terran in the last 2 years, getting to 2 premier finals and 3 semi-finals. For one hailed as a prodigy it paradoxically took him a lot more time and practice then most to finally get Starcraft, but TY his experience of spending half his life in Kespa to make himself into someone impossible to forget when thinking about this game greats.



Maru vs HyuN: The greatest jobber
Maru: 4 GSL, 1 OSL, 1 SSL, 1 WESG, 1 ProLeague MVP
HyuN: 1 WCS NA, 1 Dreamhack, 1 GSL final, IPL Fight club longest reining champ

As we get in the latter stage of this tournament, we get more and more heart-breaker choices, looking in at this match up it doesn’t really seem like one. I try flipping it any way, but there isn’t really a lot of way I can put HyuN in front of Maru, except maybe swagger. Does this mean HyuN is a chump? Not a all, he’s part of the Starcraft great, but let’s be honest HyuN is the greatest Starcraft representative of one entertainment oldest tradition: The jobber.

A jobber is someone who’s whole job is to make his opponent look good, but a good jobber doesn’t take a dive at the first punch, he makes it interesting. He must find a good balance between making people stay interested in the upcoming match with a certain array of uncertainty and knowing when to pack up his bag and give the spotlight to his opponent.

HyuN fit that role perfectly, he dressed in funny costume, was a great off game entertainer without stealing the show, look buffed and most off all he was the perfect bench mark for everyone else. Beating HyuN was always an accomplishment and getting overwhelm by HyuN roaches was never truly embarrassing, if a commentator wanted to make a case for someone chance in the upcoming match nothing could match: “And of course he beat HyuN who, we all know, is an amazing zerg….”

Would anyone remember the rightly name “destroyer of worlds, dreams and fun” Sniper if it wasn’t for his GSL win? Of course not, but who better than the TSL zerg to make his final a rather enjoyable watch while still putting the final touch to Sniper infamous legacy. The IEM New York could have ended in a boring zvz, but instead we get foreign hope NaNiwa getting up against Life on the back of a pvz upset. What better ending for the storied career of Sen, perhaps the best non-Korean Starcraft player that side of Serral, than a victory on the wire in front of his home crowd? What zerg could have given the opportunity for Pigbaby to demonstrate show that he wasn’t just a pvt sniper on his way to a WCS? Would Captain America ever have existed if HyuN hadn’t given Polt a close back and forth series in the MLG final? Would we remember INnovation meltdown at Blizzcon the same way if we hadn’t seen him stomp HuyN in the same match up a week earlier?

Of course, a great jobber can’t always lose, he has to win once in while but even then HuyN knew how to chose his moment, be it either eliminating fan favorite of tournament to set up his upcoming defeat at the hand of someone else or win a few tournaments when the time was right. Jaedong 2013 would have been a dry story line if he had won a final before Blizzcon, breaking his Kong line and there was no better time to win a WCS and confirm his place as a constant treat then the one when the rest of the top 4 was relative unknown Oz, Alicia and Revival.

Is HyuN a greater player then Maru? Well I’m gonna let you decide that, but I will restrain myself from talking about Maru right now, let’s just say I expect I’ll have a lot to say about someone victory over an amazing zerg in a few weeks.



Bracket are open until may 29 around 8 pm EST

Rain vs Stats: Splitting the archon
Rain: 1 GSL, 1 OSL, 1 Kespa Cup, 1 WCS Asia, 1 HSC, 14-8 record as STK ace.
Stats: 1 GSL, 1 SSL, 1 Super Tournament, 1 Cross final, 1 Blizzcon final, 2 IEM Katowice finals

Rain vs Stats is personally one the hardest matches I’ve come across yet, they are both eerily identical in their results, playstyle and the place they similarity of the positions they occupied in the Starcraft word would make a Deleuzian go mad.

The community always had a love/hate affair for the protoss race, tending heavily toward hate. It’s frequently considered a cheesy, coinflip race and protoss players are regularly accuse of being either abusers or straight up bullshiting their way to victory against better, more “skill” zerg and terran players. (See Patience for example) In the midst of all this, Rain and Stats both stood as beacons of hope, protoss who showed you could play Starcraft the “right” way.

Rain came out of the gate swinging when Kespa abandoned BW to go to SC2. He was by far the best Kespa protoss, and even the best Kespa player overall following the switch. The SKT Protoss achieved the most SC2 wins in the 2011-12 Proleague hybrid season, he reached the top 4 of his first ever GSL, only losing narrowly to Mvp, was the best performing Kespa player in 4 of his 6 first event, and the second best in those last two. And of course, he was the first ever Kespa player to win a tournament just a few months after his SC2 christening. He would go on to win another premier before RorO finally gave another champion.

Rain would shock the protoss meta, protoss was still dominate by the MC and PartinG approach of aggressive builds, all-ins and mind games, but Rain would instead bring a slow and strong defensive play, checking all the box to make sure he could go to the late game.

Rain ice cold patience would lead him to many success including constant Proleague success as he became Proleague most reliable ace as well as one of the best protoss in the league, playing in some of the league most memorable game. Rain style became the thing every protoss wanted to emulate, (or the one every NA 2 base alliner said they wanted to) although few ever did.

Rain manage to get to the final of a second OSL at the start of HOTS, but would get upset by a young Maru on his first championship tour. Rain would instead capture a Kespa cup late 2013, but his first two years of HOTS would be less successful relative to the high standard he met, as his predictability would allow some to skip early game defensive steps and exploit his builds.

Nevertheless, he kept being an absolute monster in Proleague earning the constant praise of his comrades until he surprisingly announced he would leave his successful Proleague days behind him leaving SKT for MYI and focussing on individual tournament. The switch also marks a turn away from his pure macro defensive play toward a more mixed approach to the game, something he already was starting to show hints at the end of his time on SKT. On his first showing wearing the MYI jacket he would reach the final of his first IEM, but despite not being able to best HerO he would push him to the limit with a wide array of opening.

His first GSL win definitely marked his renewal, as he used not only slow defensive play but also the dreaded, and very much worthy of the bullshit toss etiquette, “Baguette style” to beat BuyL. Rain career would end up prematurely as after he lost a philosophical duel against sOs at the last HOTS Blizzcon, he would step away from the game after ongoing a surgery to give his dad a kidney and later chose BW for his successful return.



Just has Rain retired, another protoss took his place as the new hope for a future full of standard, macro defensive play in Stats. After being a successful Proleague specialist on KT Rolster, Stats had a couple of semi-finals in 2015, but reach his first final at the start of LOTV, losing the SSL final vs Dark but immediately beat him back to win his first trophy at the cross final.
His results in LOTV would be as stable of his play, being the most consistent protoss since 2016, he won two Korean leagues as well as a Super Tournament. His strong defensive play and chirurgical ability to dominate the mid to late game would lead him to many victory over the Koreans elite, like Classic or INnoVation.

As much as he is consistent, Stats maybe lack a certain killer instinct in game, he, like Rain before him, is usually more than happy to let his opponent dictate the pace of the game, believing he’s good enough to win against everything. He is right most of the time but this lack of willing, or ability, to force the occasion may have hurt him as he became somewhat of a Kong. He would go on to lose 7 premier tournaments, including 3 world championship as well as a bunch of semi-final results. Still no other protoss found a better way to play in LOTV as he stayed one of the, if not the best of his race for all the expansion.


MC vs Rogue: The champs
MC:2 GSL, 1 IEM Word championship, 1 WCS EU, 1 Home Story Cup, 10 premier finals
Rogue: 1 Blizzcon, 1 IEM Katowice, 1 IEM, 1 Super Tournament, 8 GSL top 8

Looking at the Boss Toss history I was shock to find out just how many second place he got, with 10 silver medals he has stumble at the finish line more time than soO, yet when thinking back to MC we only remember the champion, MC missing an opportunity or choking seemed an oxymoron. MC legacy isn’t random, it’s a tribute to his realist approach to Starcraft 2, both inside and outside the game MC knew how bend the rules to his advantage.

Inside the game MC was one of the deadliest protoss we ever saw, his two bases all ins and understanding of the chaos that was WOL pvp made him the first GSL protoss champion (kind of shit game) a feat he would repeat another time before Seed earned his championship over himself The boss toss would go on to win 3 others foreign trophy in WOL, including a victory in his first HSC, a tournament he would go on to be crucial part of. MC went down as easily the best protoss player in WOL reaching 10 premier tournament finals and paved the way for the aggressive protoss standard. MC always knew how to turn an inch into a mile, forcing mistake out his opponent and making sure to kill the game as soon as he could as to not give his opponent the chance of a comeback. It wouldn’t always make for the best of games but MC would have done any old bullshit if it meant another win.

Just as he was the first ever BW pro to make the switch to SC2, he would be one of the first to expatriate himself to Europe where he would reach 3 WCS finals winning one of them. He would also be one of the most active player through out all his career, playing in every tournament, which made him the first player to reach the half a million dollars in prize money.

MC ability to sense and jump on the occasion was clear outside of the game too, in a scene where most player, and especially Koreans at this time, were seen as having as much personality as a wooden stick, MC fully embraced his role as an entertainer. His many antic, be it his murloc dance, his pop offs, his jovial and funny interviews or his HomeStory Cup casting could be seen as the action of a goofy kid in search of attention and popularity, but while MC clearly like being in the spotlight, he also understood perfectly that for his beloved game to not only survive but thrive it needed spectacle and drama. Making it fun needed to be part of the programmer job.

In a scene where a lot of the most outspoken players regularly let popularity get to their head, see IdrA, Dark and NaNiwa for example, MC, while not one to shy away from a good rivalry, always kept his eye on the prize, control his image, make a successful SC2 career and help the scene grow.

MC was one of the most influential behind the scene players, as the Korean NoRegreT he helped organize the migration of Koreans player to Europe and North America, setting up a team house, working as an agent and money managers for younger players and pushing his fellow countryman either abroad or in Korea to learn English and show personality behind the cameras.




Somewhere between 2014 and 2016, JinAir Rogue stop being a bad B teamer in Proleague and became a regular code S player, and soon after playing in multiple round of 8 in Korea as well as a couple of semi-finals in the few foreign events he could manage to attend. Rogue was hailed as one of the most entertaining and promising zerg. His multiple unorthodox strategy, for example his usage of baneling drop or his usage of spire build in zvz (lien) over the more popular roaches opening, were seen as a breath of fresh air, especially during the last year of HOTS that was rather painful for zergs.

Rogue reputation changed completely during the back half of 2016, his victory in IEM Shangai and GSL ST followed by a reunification of the Blizzcon and IEM crown would give Rogue the title of best in the world, a consideration for Bonjwa status and the record for fastest triple crown. His dismantling of the best players in the world sometime with close back and forth series (like vs HerO or TY) both most of the time one sided beating.

Rogue unprecedented string of victories should have been enough to carve him a place in the SC2 pantheon, but instead his new found popularity attracted on him another kind of attention as the dreaded P word was utter. (an article that definitely say Rogue is a no skills noob)

As 2017 came to pass and Rogue went back to his regular top 8 results, some were comforted in their measurement of his accomplishment. For them Rogue was a top tier player who got the big end of the stick in a patch and meta game carved for him. Maybe they are right, since hydras got nerfed Rogue as only a single semi-final to his name although it was at Blizzcon), but all the doubt and joke in the world can’t erase the fact that Rogue is sitting at the top of a mountain of money with a full trophy cabinet.



Polls are open until Saturday may around 8pm EST

New polls!
Match 13 PartinG vs ByuN


Match 14 Zest vs HuK


Polls are open until Wednesday June 5 around 8 pm EST

sOs vs Jaedong: The moment we all have been waiting for

Couldn't help myself, PG 13 warning+ Show Spoiler +





I would like to thanks Day9 and aviLo for the inspiration


Mvp vs Stephano : The natural order

Mvp and Stephano finding each other in the bracket and at then last of it nonetheless, is a curious coincidence. If you ask anyone who stopped following Starcraft in 2012 who was the greatest Korean and foreign player the answer would have been a no brainer, Mvp was the greatest Koreans and Stephano the greatest foreigner. This simple classification was already a preface to SC2 oldest discussion, who was better Koreans or foreigners?

The King of Wings was an adequate Brood War player, nowhere near a great one, but someone good enough to be one of the few recognizable names in the first brackets of GSL and soon his name would become synonymous with the most glorious of Korean tournaments. He became the very first GSL “Code S” champion, and also the first terran champion in the first GSL of 2011, ending the tournament with only a single map loss to score the second best GSL run ever. (fittingly his only loss was in the semi-final against NesTea)

It was the start of a 2 years dominance of the GSL circuit, he failed early in his next GSL, getting eliminated by eventual finalists July and MC. He would make good work of his stay in code A finishing second while also winning his second trophy at the GSL World Championship.

A quick trip to North America would earn Mvp an MLG over MMA immediately followed by his second GSL code S. Funny side note, in the midst of a mountain of great play and decision making the highlight of his run was when he nuked Top main base production killing like 3 add on a depot with 4 nukes, a move which is clearly, undoubtedly, a terrible one but it look sick so who cares.

The double MLG and GSL championships at the end of the 2011 summer would start an absolute domination until the year, between August and the end of the December Mvp would enter 8 tournaments, reaping 3 semi-final, 1 silver in GSL and 4 trophies. His run saw him dethrone Nestea at Blizzcon to claim the tittle of greatest player in WOL.

The end of 2011 would bring health problem for Mvp, has his bad back was already starting to limit his practice, but he would nonetheless conquer his 4th GSL trophy, by stopping Squirtle reverse sweep with a ballsy 2 rax on the final map, showing once again his strategical genius.
2012 was a lot harder on the king, but in his pursuit of the coveted G5L, he would month one last run in season 4 , eliminating his rival MMA in group stage, overcoming the Kespa champion Rain in the semi final and playing one of the great GSL final against fresh newcomer Life, whom aided by fresh hands the BL-infestor meta would overcome the prowess of the GSL King.

With the end of WOL came the end of an era, Mvp left Korea for Europe, there he would make sure to give the tone for the years of Koreans dominance to come, getting a strong result in the IEM WC and conquering WCS EU with an easy win over Stephano in the final. Contrary to others great pre-kespa player, Mvp was only a shadow of himself outside of Korea, not aided by the fact that his back wasn’t getting better, he slowly faded away until he finally got knock out of Challenger and Starcraft, fittingly fellow man out of time MorroW at the end of 2014. Like his IM teammate Nestea, Mvp back half of his career was less than impressive, yet it’s a testament to his dominance in the first golden age of Starcraft 2 that it did nothing to spoil his legacy as the game champion, even earning the TL title of “Greatest of all time” a few years back.


At the start of Starcraft, before foreigners got their face relentlessly pound in the ground, there was still an argument to be made that Starcraft the game wouldn’t be dominated by Korean like his ancestor. When 2011 came around the hope of the early days was already starting to fade as Koreans were not only consistently winning in their home land but starting to go abroad getting success in North America and Europe. Foreigners needed a champion and he unexpectedly came in the form of a young French party animal.

Stephano strong roaches pushes and control of the late game army earn him immediate success in Starcraft 2, apparently a prodigy of the game he won IPL season 3 then ESWC in front of his home crowd overcoming Koreans both times. The newly crown best foreigner would keep dominating the foreign scene, reaching eight more premier top 4 in 2012 including an impressive display of strength in NASL beating HerO, MC and Alica on his way to an NASL as well as a victory over the Durán brothers in the first European championship.

Stephano exuberance, his multiple claim that he had a lax practice regiment and his tendency for drama made him the perfect figure to oppose to the image of the soft-spoken Koreans practice machines and as time when on it became increasingly clear that Stephano was the only foreigner able to keep up with the Korean elite. Adequately, stakes were high when he decided to try the GSL at the end of WOL as some saw the chance for him to truly have a shot to take the title of best in the world outside of Korea, but an early elimination in the round of 32 after 2 loses to INnoVation crush that dream early.

Stephano would hold on to his crown of best foreigner at the start of HOTS, crushing ForGG soul to get to the final of WCS EU, but like previously mentioned failing against Mvp at the epilogue of Starcraft 2 first age.

Stephano announce his retirement shortly after, it would be the first time we realize that retirement meant nothing in Starcraft as he kept playing in tournaments every year, but like Mvp he always be remember for his WOL days, in the last 32 tournaments he entered he reached only two top 8.

Stephano “departure” left a void in the foreign scene, and for half a decade no one would be able to carry the hope of the foreign scene. LOTV and tournament rules changes gave a new boost to the foreign scene but Stephano still represent the best the foreign scene had to offer when the game was in his A days.



Polls are open until Saturday June 8 around 8pm EST

First match : TaeJa vs Nerchio

TaeJa: 3 Dreamhack, 3 HSC, 2 AsusRog and about half a dozens more win as well as a Blizzcon semifinal, TeamLiquid Ace player aka the Summer Prince.
Nerchio: 2 Dreamhack, 1 HSC, king of the polish and perennial top European player as well as master shit poster.



Match 2: DongRaeGu vs boxer

DongRaeGu: 1GSL, 1 IEM, 1 MLG as well as a bunch of second place and a Nestea award
boxer: BW legend, Slayers co-founder and one of the elite korean at the start of SC2



Match 3: Solar vs MyuNgSiK

Solar: 3 Dreamhack, 1 SSL, 1 MSI, tied for the longest streak of code S appearances (but undisputed champion of sucking in Proleague), one of the friendliest Koreans and a true online monster.
MyuNgSiK: 1 GSL Semifinal, 2015 Proleague Prime Ace, known for his tricky build



Match 4: Soulkey vs GuMiho

Soulkey: 1 GSL, 1 WCG, a great proleague player for Woongjin Stars and one of the very few people to reverse sweep a final, did a successful return to BW.
GuMiho: 1 GSL, the Towel Terran was the ace for both FXO GSTL wins scoring the three last kills vs MVP and an All kill vs Slayers, a player with an amazing consistency across SC2 history, known for his very original and off beat build and composition.



Polls are open until around Saturday April 20th around 20h00 EST

Match 5 : Serral vs San
Serral: 4 WCS, 1 GSLvsTW, 1 Blizzcon, 1 HSC, Reigning world champion, first foreigner to be widely consider the best player in the world and holder of the longest streak of series victory.
San: 1 AsusRog and 3 premier second place including WCS EU, one of the innovator of the protoss race, known for his elite pvz and his infamous "sangate" build that earn him a 72% pvz win rate in HOTS.



Match 6: Classic vs Flash
Classic: 1GSL, 1IEM, 1SSL, 1 ST(maybe two when you read this?) as well as two back to back Blizzcon Semi-final, an IEM Katowice finals and a very solid proleague career, a protoss players comfortable with almost every style of play who demonstrate remarkable consistency.
Flash: 1IEM, the greatest BW has ever seen, had amazing success in proleague, balanced by shaky individual performance, one of the best mech player in Korea for a long time.



Match 7: INnoVation vs Dear
INnoVation: 3GSL, 2 IEM, 1SSL, 1GSLvsTW, 1 WESG and a lot more major tournament wins, the only player with a premier tournament win in 5 consecutive years, winner of 5 separate teamleague (and 9 time teamleague champion) known for his excellent macro and deadly timing push.
Dear: 1 GSL, 1 WCS season, the only player with the same Teamliquid articles for 5 consecutive years (he was really good in 2013 guys), he also had multiple GSL semi-final and won one of the best game ever vs Maru in 2013.



Match 8: Leenock vs jjakji
Leenock: 2 MLG, 1 IGN Proleague, 1 Dreamhack, lost a GSL vs none other than jjakji, one of the best korean zerg at foreign event, great macro player that is still able to keep up with the world elite to this day.
jjakji:1 GSL, one of the pillar of the Artosis curse, came out of nowhere to win a GSL in only his second code S appearances but failed to replicate that kind of momentum despite all around solid results in the next years.

Match 9 : Liquid HerO vs FruitDealer
HerO: 2 Dreamhack winter, 1 NASL, 1 WCS AM, 1 IEM the second half of TeamLiquid Korean duo, a ace protoss player that shined with his excellent micro, although battling with some nerve problem throughout his career he had elite results from 2011 up to 2014.
FruitDealer: 1 GSL, champion of the very first GSL tournament back in 2010 that he won with handily with a 15-2 overall map score, figuring out the game faster than anyone, he failed to stay on top but stayed a good code S player until the second half of 2011.



Match 10: soO vs ThorZaIN
soO: 1 Kespa cup, 1 IEM Katowice, second place: all of them, not a kong anymore (savour that one), 6 time GSL finalist including 4 times in a row, one of the most resourceful and decisive zerg around and as well as an amazing zvz player. He also was one the fastest Kespa player to transition winning the MLG vs Proleague invitational in 2012.
ThorZaIN: 1 TSL, 1 Dreamhack, came out of nowhere to win TSL 3 over fellow countrymen Naniwa, nickname the Spoon Terran for his very methodical and slow macro play, he his the only Swede to win a Dreamhack in SC2 wich he did in front of his crowd in Stockholm.



Match 11: Former CJ herO vs Scarlett
herO: 3 IEM, 1 Kespa Cup, 1 GSL, 1 ST, the smiling assassin came to the forefront of the scene with stellar IEM performance, master of all in and timing as well as macro play with heavy harass and multitask, ace of the CJ Entus proleague time for almost all their seasons, the only shadow on his resume is his lack of results in GSL, well that and the shadow in the corner of his main where 2 gateway are.
Scarlett: 1 IEM, Northcon and HSC finalist, and 2 time ATC winner, the women with more fans than perhaps anyone in the scene as her games almost never disappoint to be entertaining, she has stayed one of the best foreign player for almost half a decade.



Match 12: Dark vs StarDust
Dark: 1 SSL, 1 WCS Cross Final, one time Blizzcon and 2 time Kespa cup finalist and a few more, he also have 10 semi-final finish in premier tournaments. Second in line in the great zerg Kong dynasty, he always bring the trash talk in interview as well as in the game as he has been a top 3 zerg in Korea since the start of LOTV.
StarDust: 1 WCS EU, 1 Dreamhack, 1 fragbite Master, the face of MYinsanity, his easy-going approach to Starcraft earn him a lot of results, as well as probably a few words on ladder.

Match 13 : Bomber vs Genius
Bomber: 1 WCS season, 1 WCS America, 2 Redbull battle ground, 1 MLG, 1 code A, one of the great macro Terran of Korea, after solid results in Korea he decided to go play in America and was one of the terror of the foreign scene. He took part in a series of legendary battles vs Scarlett.

Genius Blizzcon 2010 champion, 1 GSL final, he was one of the first Korean to establish their dominance in SC2 with his Blizzcon win then stayed a very solid Code S player for all WOL, playing in 9 of the 10 first code S, during his GSL final run he lost only a single map to anyone not name DRG (whom he face 3 time during the same GSL), including 3-0 over MC and aLive in the playoff.



Match 14: NesTea vs Symbol
NesTea: 3 GSL, 1 Blizzcon final, builder of a lot of baneling, he's the only player to ever make a perfect GSL run and was the most dominant GSL player in his first year winning 3 of the first 7 GSL season, and the first Korean SC2 true star. As one of the oldest SC2 player to find success, he was known for his very smart and innovative plays. He stuck around years after his dominance, continuing to make run in WCS America until 2014.

Symbol: 1 GSL final, 1 MLG final, 1HSC final and 1 Iron Squid final, perhaps the grand-dad of korean zerg kong in SC2, while a true master of Broodlord-Infestor, he stayed a strong player in HOTS, but failed to make the same impact as in 2012. He's also the first person to perform a reverse all-kill in GSTL.



Match 15: Polt vs Revival
Polt: 4 WCS championship, 1GSL ST, 1 MLG and more, the only player to win premier player in 6 consecutive years, a player at his best in frantic and scrappy game very happy to open the game with bio harassment creating generally great game, nickname Captain America after his move to the US. He was frequently over performing expectation in global event against other Koreans.

Revival: 1 IEM, 1 WCS America final, despite never making it into code S in Korea he had good success in the WCS system, once saw a piano fall on ByuL head.



Match 16 Neeb vs NaNiwa
Neeb: 3 WCS, 1 Kespa Cup, 1 WCS winter, 1 GSL semi-final, the first non-korean to win a Starcraft event in Korea since 2000 on the back of the best PvP in the world, won 3 out of the 4 WCS stop in 2017, got screw of all his record by Serral, the best NA players almost none stop since LOTV.

NaNiwa: 2 MLG, 1TSL final, 1Dreamhack final and 1 MLG final, a "controversial" (gently put) figure in the scene, his very strong play can't be forgotten. He was one of the only foreigner able to keep up with korean before LOTV and he's the only non-korean to make it into blizzcon on even ground with Koreans.

Alright time for the new matches.

Match 17 :MMA vs SpeCial (aka Major, Windy, Princess, Kitty…)
MMA: 1 GSL, 1 Blizzard Cup, 2 WCS EU, the man of eternal class, he was a top player for years never to be outdone for long even after his move to the WCS circuit. He is also one of the only players to retire on top after his victory in an epic 7 map joust against Parting at HSC.

SpeCial: 1 Blizzcon semi final, 4 WCS semi final and about 20 Copa America wins, once an aspiring BW player he was one of the first SC2 players to create strong ties with the Korean scene, even getting to play for Team 8 (now JinAir) in Proleague. Despite being one, if not the best terran in the foreign scene, he failed to grab any worthy trophy losing time and again in semi final, but his great build crafting skills and top tiers micro make him a threat for anyone he faces.



Match 18: TY vs Snute
TY: 1 WESG, 1 IEM Katowice, 2 GSL finals, 1 GSLvsTW final, the youngest player to ever get recruited by a Kespa team at just 12, he was held as the future great of BW, but it finally took a decade for TY to finally taste victory. Consider one of the smartest Terran player around he is known for his very intricate build order and timing attack.

Snute: 1 HSC, 1 Copa Intercontinental, 3 WCS final, 1 Gold Series final, the one to lead foreigners during the great Korean invasion of HOTS, he scored multiples victory over top Koreans player during his career. A master at drawn out game, he was the inventor of the swarmhost turtle style. Despite being held as one of the great foreigners he never was able to win a WCS after the region lock, finishing second 3 time.



Match 19: Maru vs PuMa
Maru: 4 GSL, 1 SSL, 1 WESG, 1 OSL, 1 IEM final. Both one of the youngest and one of the most experience SC2 player, at just 21 years old he as played since the first ever GSL tournament. Contrary to fellow youngling TY, he took just a few years getting to the top, winning OSL after a stunning 4-0 upset INnoVation in the semi final. He would then linger as a top 3 Terran players for years, consistently delivering in proleague and always impressing fans with stunning micro particularly in tvp, but it’s in 2018 that he would establish his dominance over GSL, winning 4 seasons in row, shattering all the GSL marks. Despite unprecedented domination in GSL, some remark upon his lack of consistent wins in weekender still remained.
He’s also half the reason I started this thing.

PuMa: 2 NASL, 1 IEM. Despite somehow never making it into code S or code A, PuMa became one of EG stars, having great success abroad with his innovative 1-1-1 build especially vs Protoss. His career ended perhaps too soon retiring at the end of 2012, only about a year and a half after his first televise match.



Match 20 HyuN vs Dream
HyuN: 1 Dreamhack, 1 WCS AM, 1 GSL final, 1 MLG final and multiple top 4, a master of the roach style (sometime even to his downfall) HuyN first half of his career was spend in Korea where he almost stop the triumph of evil, his exile in the foreign circuit did bring him a lot of success, he was in the late stage of pretty much every tournament he entered, although contrary to other Korean great who went abroad like Polt, Taeja or MMA he was never quite able to be a consistent threat against the homebased Korean elite. Also, he can rock a pajama.

Dream: 2 SSL final, 1 IEM final, one of the greatest bio-mine players in tvz, his multiple amazing battle vs Life will forever stay as a mirage (or a….Dream) of what 2015 tvz could have been if Terran wouldn’t have gone on the Avilo path. It’s hard to not feel as he never reach his full potential but he still came very close as to win a Korean league.



Polls are open until Saturday may 4th around 8pm EST

A quick update first, I'm gonna do 3 uptade this week, one of Monday night, on on Thursday, and one on next Saturday to close the round of 64. Almost all the round of 64 match-up have been ludicrously on sided, so I'm gonna speed run it, since there's only a couple of interesting polls.

Match 21 Rain vs Creator
Rain: 1 GSL, 1 Kespa Cup, 1 HSC, 1 Starleague, 1 Blizzard cup, 1 OSL final, most ever Ace wins in proleague, with 14 (with an insane 82% winrate as ace). A player bursting into the scene with the Kespa transition, his slow and defensive play revolutionized the way protoss was played and he became one of the most respected and feared Protoss player, achieving stable success in Korea.

Creator: 1 TSL, 1 WCS Korea, 1 World championship final (the one in China), the youngest Starcraft 2 player to ever win a championship, he was held as the next Protoss super star, expectation he never was able to fulfill, breaking the top8 of a tournament after 2012, but his average to downright mediocre results in the last half decade shouldn't overshadow his great highs at the start of his career.



Match 22: Stats vs MarineKing
Stats: 1 Cross final, 1 GSL, 1 ST, 1 SSL, 2IEM Katowice final, 1 Blizzcon final, 1 SSL and GSL final and a couple other premier finals as well as a good number of top 4. One of the most successful protoss players of all time, the shield of Aiur is in many way the hair of Rain, a master of defensive macro play. Although sometime called a Kong for his high number of second place, it's also a matter of having reach a very high number of finals period, winning or not.

MarineKing: 2MLG, 2 GSL finals, 1 Kespa cup final, 1 GSL WC final, Prime ace player, perhaps the most high profile player to failed to win his group in the round of 128, one of the best Terrans of the start of WOL, he became kind of a Kong in GSL. He innovated micro for Terrans being known for his great marine split and control. He was also very loved in the foreign scene and had a very big fan base.



Match 23: MC vs Trap
MC: 2 GSL, 1 HSC, 1 IEM WC, 1 WCS EU, 2 WCS EU finals, 1 GSL final, the Boss Toss was one of the deadliest player of WOL, with 3 GSL finals appearances on the back of decisive timing. Even after his moved to EU never lost his edge, knowing to seize the moment when he saw it. Considered the greatest Protoss by pretty much everyone before the Kespa switch, MC also did maybe more than anyone else behind the scene, building the Korean scene in Europe, helping new players come in and getting their name out there. He also push other Koreans players to show their personality and embrace the "showbiz" aspect of esport (something he himself has always been a master at).

Trap: 1 MLG, 1 Kespa cup final, 1 IEM WC final, 1 GSL semi-final, forever on the bring of greatness he's been the next big thing for pretty much all his career, winning the rookie award in the 2012-13 Proleague. He had some day in the sun, but his Kespa status meant he had less opportunity to play oversea.



Match 24: Rogue vs First
Rogue: 1 Blizzcon, 1IEM Katowice, 1 ST, 1 IEM, 2 Blizzcon semi-final, the JinAir already deadly 3rd man, caught fire at the end of 2017, winning 4 premiers tournaments between July 2017 and March 2018 becoming the second player to joined the IEM and WCS crown and being the first player to truly be considered for the tittle of Bonwja. Rogue is an anomaly in the mist of Koreans zerg, being perfectly comfortable in the late and very late game.

First: 1 IEM, 1 IEM WC final, 1 MLG final, a very good Protoss at the end of WOL, he moved to the WCS circuit but altought placing high never had major victory. He also was part of one of the strangely entertaining end game of all time vs Life (very very very stupid tho) Fun fact: You had forgot he existed



Polls are open until Monday March 6 around 8 pm EST

You know how this work

Match 25: PartinG vs ShoWTimE
PartinG : 1 World championship, 1 WESG, 1 Dreamhack, 1 HSC, 3 GSL related finals, only player to have the well named Parting award for 10 consecutive round of 16 in GSL code S. One of our only player truly able to bring the trash-talk and back it up, he as always been at his best in front of the camera. A master of soul trains and all ins, he maintained stable results and success in his career, but failed to ever win a tournament in Korea as of yet.

ShoWTimE: 1 WCS, 2 WCS finals, Die Mauer the greatest German protoss came on the forefront on the European scene at the end of HOTS, but it was truly in LOTV that he became widely known as one of the best of the continent, reaching 2 finals in the first year of the expansion including a nail-biting 4-3 win over Nerchio at home in Germany. He was in the end unable to follow foreign super stars Neeb and Serral but still stayed the master of macro Protoss in Europe, and his moment may yet come.



Match 26: ByuN vs Losira
ByuN: 1 Blizzcon, 1 GSL, 1 WCA, the man of two life, his first life between 2010 and the end of 2013 saw him reach 2 GSL semi final, but his was his second life after a sudden disappearance that will make him reminded in history. When the first rumor of a ByuN return emerge of China it was mostly meet with meme, then followed an inexorable rise to the top, from the dept of Olimoleague to lifting the trophy in front of the Blizzcon crowd. Known for his exceptional micro, he also had an amazing build knowledge, being a master of a million builds. (999 998 give or take)

Losira: 1 GSL final, 1 MLG final, 1 code A, 20 code S participation. A constant face in the Korean scene, after his top results in 2011, his relatively low chance to play oversea forced him to go over and over into the GSL meat-grinder for years but still manage to find a place for himself.



Match 27: Zest vs ForGG
Zest: 2 GSL, 1 GSL Global championship, 1 Kespa Cup, 2 HSC, 1 IEM. The Best is as well known for his poster boy good look as for his expert protoss play. One of the most successful Protoss on Korean ground with 4 championship including a GSL royal road, Zest has played both defensive and aggressive masterfully in his career. Not particularly known for his impeccable micro or macro it’s his knack for finding hole in the other players play and jumping on the opportunity that made him an elite player.

ForGG: 1 Dreamhack, 1 Dreamhack final, 3 WCS semi-final, hailed as the first elephant to make the switch to SC2 almost a year before Kespa, he turned out to rather be a mouse in his beginning in Korea. He would have more success after his expatriation to France, and despite winning a single championship his 2 consecutive wins over then-world-champion Life shocked the Starcraft world. He also manages to kill himself with mines in the most wonderful way until Revival came along.



Match 28: HuK vs Harstem
HuK: 2 MLG, 1 Dreamhack, the NA Protoss champion carried the flag against the Korean alongside his nemesis IdrA both in America and in GSL, winning 2 premier over Koreans. He also was at the center of the EG-TL rivalry playing on both sides and getting the praises and shitstorm of 2011 Starcraft explosion in popularity.

Harstem: 1 HSC, 1 Gold series, we have been living in his jubilee for half a decade, the captain of the foreign scene Harstem has a took his opportunity winning tournament on his only 2 trips to a semi-final of a premier tournament. One of the most openly emotional players, he became one of the most recognizable and charismatic face in the scene. Also he is officially a greater player than MaNa, Sniper, RorO and BuyL, so good for him.



Polls are open until Thursday may 9 around 8pm EST

Alright one last time before we get into the thick of it, maybe some upsets so spice things up?

Match 29: sOs vs TRUE
sOs: 2 Blizzcon, 1 IEM WC, 1 Kespa Cup, 1 MSI, 1 PL MVP, most ever Proleague wins, the 100 000 dollars man, a true Starcraft genius able to bring out a different build every maps, he was one of the most clutch player in HOTS including a three world champion crown. At his best was perhaps the most complete Protoss ever playing the cheese as well as the macro game. His LOTV times has been harder including a couples of hard finals lost, but he's still able to bring back his madman magic and bring out the well-crafted snipe build.

TRUE: 1 WCS, 1GSL semi-final, 3 WCS semi-final, 1 Dreamhack final, the masters of lings was a fan favourites for years in Korea playing a very aggressive and fast Zergling-baneling style leading to many great games including an epic vs Fantasy. He stormed the WCS circuit after months in visa limbo, tearing through the Montreal bracket, but it wasn't the usher of a new era of domination as he was unable to reach another WCS finals but still stayed a contender and always stay "true" to his style.



Match 30: Jaedong vs aLive
Jaedong: 1 Asus Rog, 1 WESC, 1 Blizzcon final, 4 other premier finals and 8 semi-finals, the first ever player to win an event in both BW and SC2. The Tyrant was under all the spotlight when he came into SC2 and decided to sign with EG carrying his masses of fans. Despite all of his great games and multiples deep runs marked by his muta switch kill move, is sc2 career was put under a cloud of disappointment, ultimately remember more for his falls than his climb, he still was one of the great of early HOTS and one of the only great BW and SC2 player.

aLive: 1 IGN proleague, 1 ST final, 1 GSL semi-final, 1 IEM Katowice semi-final, the invisible man has been around since the 2010 days, making the world remember he exist a few times along the way especially ruining everyone story lines at IGN Las Vegas. Never quite bad, but never quite the best since IGN, his ability to stick around has to be noted.
Also he once beat IdrA in a bo7 in about 25 minutes.



Match 31: Mvp vs IdrA
Mvp: 3 GSL, 1 GSL WC, 1 Blizzcon, 1 MLG, 1 WCG, 1 WCS EU, The King of Wings, crown the GOAT by some other subpar ranking. The terror of GSL, he was always able to clinch victory from the claws of defeat, he seemed unbeatable in 2011 and even a broken back couldn't stop him has he switch his play to mech to continue to gain success despite injury. Even as a shadow of his former self in HOTS he managed to build another winning run in Europe before walking away. It's now time to see if he can defend his title more then 5 years after his departure from the game.

IdrA: 1 MLG, 1 IGN, 1 IEM, the American champion at the start of SC2 and the star of EG, came to sc2 off the back of being one of the most successful foreign BW players. Saying he was controversial would be an understatement while being a top player he never hided his lack of loved for the game and a lot of the time for some of his opponents. His rage and "no fuck given" attitude brought his as much fans as haters, but cemented his placed in the Starcraft mythos.
Also I made the most wonderful find: a 2010 MLG Washington first round winner bracket match between....IdrA and avilo Sadly it seems lost to time.



Match 32: Stephano vs Patience
Stephano: 1 IGN, 1ESCW, 1 NASL, 1WCS EU, 1 WCS EU final, the cool kid of Europe came to the forefront of the foreign scene in the back half of WOL, he would be the last foreigner in a long time to be able to tango with the best in the world in part with his infamous mass roaches attack. He isn't quite at the top of Europe since a few years but is still able to take games of everyone. He's also clearly the greatest retired player ever.

Patience: 1 HSC, 1WCA final, 1 SSL semi-final, 1 Dreamhack winter 3rd. The worst named player in all of Starcraft, an enigma of Starcraft, he ruined more liquibet than anyone, and at his best his surprisingly effective. If Classic is the incarnation of Protoss, Patience is the incarnation of that stupid no skills Protoss on the ladder who beat you despite being a total scrub and definitely deserved those 4 paragraphs of complains you wrote him after the game.



Polls are open until saturday May 11 around 8 pm EST

Here we go!

The summer prince right of the bat in a classic TL team kill and a duel between two top foreign terran.

Group 1



Group 17 (yes you read it well don't worry it make sense)



Group 18



Voting is open until (around) Wednesday 20h00 EST

Group 2



Group 3



Group 19



Pools are open until around 20h00 ET Saturday

New groups!
We go for 4 at the time from now on.
The new WESG in INno take on a group mostly compose of early starcraft great as Curious and Losira try to make a case for being the greatest forgotten Korean zerg in group 4 and 5.
And group 20 and 21 are headline with soO and Leenock as the battle between Heart and Showtime in group 21 may prove interesting.









Polls closes around 20h00 ET on Wednesday march 27

Group 6


Group 7


Group 22


Group 23

Group 8


Group 9


Group 24


Group 25

Group 10


Group 11


Group 26


Group 27

roup 12


Group 13


Group 28


Group 29

Group 14


Group 15


Group 30


Group 31

Group 16


Group 32

Placement matches

Match 1


Match 2


Match 3


Match 4


Polls are open until tomorrow June 9 around 8pm EST

Placement bracket has been added to the liquipedia page: https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/User:User:Nakajin/Greatest_of_all_time_pool_placement_matches

More polls

Match 5


Match 6


Match 7


Match 8


Polls are open until tomorrow June 10 around 8pm

New votes for place 24 to 20

Match 9


Match 10


Match 11


Match 12


Polls are open until tomorrow June 11 around 8 pm ESTThese polls are close

They see me pollin, they votin

Match 13


Match 14


Polls are open until June 12 around 8pm EST

Grand final time!
(For the 17th place)

Match 13


Polls are open until Saturday June 15 around 8pm EST

Alright before we start our top 8, let's try to rank spot 15 to 7.

Match 1


Match 2


Match 3


Match 4


Polls are open until either tonight or tomorrow morning depending of my schedule.

Let's round up our top 10

Match 5



Match 6



Polls are open until tomorrow June 2 around 11 pm EST

Two legend battle it out for the tittle of 3rd best toss ever

Match 7


Polls are open until at least tomorrow night, maybe thuesday morning and we should start our top 8 just after. (With a fresh new thread too!)