WCSThis is, without a doubt, a tough announcement to make.
Today, we’re announcing that after having him as part of our family for more than a year and half, Evil Geniuses will be releasing Ho Joon “PuMa” Lee from our roster. We’ve parted ways amicably, with both sides very much appreciating what we’ve done for each other. You guys hear this kind of thing a lot in press releases (a player separating from a team, with both sides saying nothing but nice things about the other), and you’re usually skeptical about such public warmth – rightfully so, as oftentimes, it’s a bunch of fluff, with juicy, dramatic, behind-the-scenes details being withheld from the public eye. But this is not one of those cases.
It doesn’t take an expert statistician to figure out that the PuMa we’ve all seen over the past six months hasn’t quite been the same PuMa that we saw in dominant form in the second half of 2011 and the first half of 2012. While a pessimist might snidely remark that this is because the 1-1-1 build isn’t in its prime anymore, we at EG attribute this difference in performance largely to the fact that, over the past six months, EG as a team has focused more on Korean competitions than ever before – most notably, via our participation in the ever-demanding and rigorous Proleague. And, really, Korean competitions were never Ho Joon’s specialty – his Proleague performances were lackluster, and even in his prime, it seemed that he could never catch a break and get out of Code B. But, just as much as he struggled on Korean soil, he excelled outside of his home country.
Looking at it objectively, PuMa’s collection of top three finishes from July of 2011 to March of 2012 is one of the most impressive international (non-Korean) tournament runs Wings of Liberty ever saw. Including his breakout performance at NASL Season 1, he accumulated more than 130,000 USD in prize money over this period, racking up wins at IEM Cologne and NASL Season 2, coming in second at DreamHack Winter and the IEM World Championships (in each case losing by only one map), and coming in third at IEM Guangzhou and ASUS ROG Winter. Over this span, PuMa’s prize money total comes second to only the legendary IM.MVP; if you take into account only tournaments that took place on non-Korean soil, PuMa is far and away StarCraft 2′s biggest earner during this period of time. And, with the exception of NASL Season 1, he was an EG player while earning all of these accolades.
Ho Joon made just as many headlines, it seemed, outside of the game as he did via his tournament accomplishments. This was the case from the very beginning of his tenure on Evil Geniuses, with his decision to leave his Korean team, TSL, drawing the ire (whether deserved or not) of many in the community, including TSL’s Coach Lee. While it may be commonplace now for pretty well-known Korean players to be on non-Korean teams, you have to remember that back then, it just didn’t happen. PuMa was the first notable Korean player to sign with a non-Korean team, and this took a lot of nerve and courage on his part. In 2011, PuMa to EG was quite the headline, even earning a “Biggest News Story of the Year” nomination in TeamLiquid.net’s 2011 Year in Review.
PuMa’s famous 1-1-1 build was extremely polarizing – brilliant to his fans, and cheap to his detractors – and easily “won” the 2011 TeamLiquid.net award for “Best (and Worst) Strategy“. Whether you liked his style of play or not, the simple fact is that you saw Ho Joon in the headlines very often in 2011 and 2012, and he contributed a great amount to our team and the community during that period. His amazing rivalry with Liquid.HerO entertained us all (those two players going back and forth was the driving force behind EG vs. TL winning the “Best Rivalry” award that year, and his accomplishments played a major part in our team tying with Liquid for International Team of the Year 2011. Additionally, he was a fun, goofy presence on our team, and really helped lighten the mood despite the language barrier.
We at Evil Geniuses are very, very thankful for PuMa’s contributions to our team, which obviously begs the question: why are we now parting ways with him? Well, the answer to this is actually pretty simple. Going back to the beginning of this write-up, just as much as Ho Joon is a force to be reckoned with outside of Korea, his performance within Korea has been pretty lackluster. And, for a team that definitely needs a shot in the arm in Proleague, and that has made a commitment to its fans to improve in Proleague, it doesn’t make sense to invest so heavily in a player whose performances come far more frequently outside of Korea than they do within Korea. PuMa was one of our highest-paid Korean players, and we felt that to truly improve our performance in Proleague, we needed to get more results for our investment. We view Ho Joon as a member of our family, and we didn’t want to simply remove him from our team – in fact, we wanted to, and tried to, renegotiate his contract in a way that would make more sense for both sides (perhaps by balancing a decrease in salary with less Proleague participation and more non-Korean event attendance), but ultimately this approach was not desirable to him, and both of us agreed that it would be best to release him.
We will miss you very much, Ho Joon, and we wish you nothing but the best. There’s no doubt in our minds that you’ll see success again in the future, and it will be very strange to see you sporting a different jersey.
Very Sincerely,
Alexander
CEO, Evil Geniuses
@ottersaresocool on Twitter
Today, we’re announcing that after having him as part of our family for more than a year and half, Evil Geniuses will be releasing Ho Joon “PuMa” Lee from our roster. We’ve parted ways amicably, with both sides very much appreciating what we’ve done for each other. You guys hear this kind of thing a lot in press releases (a player separating from a team, with both sides saying nothing but nice things about the other), and you’re usually skeptical about such public warmth – rightfully so, as oftentimes, it’s a bunch of fluff, with juicy, dramatic, behind-the-scenes details being withheld from the public eye. But this is not one of those cases.
It doesn’t take an expert statistician to figure out that the PuMa we’ve all seen over the past six months hasn’t quite been the same PuMa that we saw in dominant form in the second half of 2011 and the first half of 2012. While a pessimist might snidely remark that this is because the 1-1-1 build isn’t in its prime anymore, we at EG attribute this difference in performance largely to the fact that, over the past six months, EG as a team has focused more on Korean competitions than ever before – most notably, via our participation in the ever-demanding and rigorous Proleague. And, really, Korean competitions were never Ho Joon’s specialty – his Proleague performances were lackluster, and even in his prime, it seemed that he could never catch a break and get out of Code B. But, just as much as he struggled on Korean soil, he excelled outside of his home country.
Looking at it objectively, PuMa’s collection of top three finishes from July of 2011 to March of 2012 is one of the most impressive international (non-Korean) tournament runs Wings of Liberty ever saw. Including his breakout performance at NASL Season 1, he accumulated more than 130,000 USD in prize money over this period, racking up wins at IEM Cologne and NASL Season 2, coming in second at DreamHack Winter and the IEM World Championships (in each case losing by only one map), and coming in third at IEM Guangzhou and ASUS ROG Winter. Over this span, PuMa’s prize money total comes second to only the legendary IM.MVP; if you take into account only tournaments that took place on non-Korean soil, PuMa is far and away StarCraft 2′s biggest earner during this period of time. And, with the exception of NASL Season 1, he was an EG player while earning all of these accolades.
Ho Joon made just as many headlines, it seemed, outside of the game as he did via his tournament accomplishments. This was the case from the very beginning of his tenure on Evil Geniuses, with his decision to leave his Korean team, TSL, drawing the ire (whether deserved or not) of many in the community, including TSL’s Coach Lee. While it may be commonplace now for pretty well-known Korean players to be on non-Korean teams, you have to remember that back then, it just didn’t happen. PuMa was the first notable Korean player to sign with a non-Korean team, and this took a lot of nerve and courage on his part. In 2011, PuMa to EG was quite the headline, even earning a “Biggest News Story of the Year” nomination in TeamLiquid.net’s 2011 Year in Review.
PuMa’s famous 1-1-1 build was extremely polarizing – brilliant to his fans, and cheap to his detractors – and easily “won” the 2011 TeamLiquid.net award for “Best (and Worst) Strategy“. Whether you liked his style of play or not, the simple fact is that you saw Ho Joon in the headlines very often in 2011 and 2012, and he contributed a great amount to our team and the community during that period. His amazing rivalry with Liquid.HerO entertained us all (those two players going back and forth was the driving force behind EG vs. TL winning the “Best Rivalry” award that year, and his accomplishments played a major part in our team tying with Liquid for International Team of the Year 2011. Additionally, he was a fun, goofy presence on our team, and really helped lighten the mood despite the language barrier.
We at Evil Geniuses are very, very thankful for PuMa’s contributions to our team, which obviously begs the question: why are we now parting ways with him? Well, the answer to this is actually pretty simple. Going back to the beginning of this write-up, just as much as Ho Joon is a force to be reckoned with outside of Korea, his performance within Korea has been pretty lackluster. And, for a team that definitely needs a shot in the arm in Proleague, and that has made a commitment to its fans to improve in Proleague, it doesn’t make sense to invest so heavily in a player whose performances come far more frequently outside of Korea than they do within Korea. PuMa was one of our highest-paid Korean players, and we felt that to truly improve our performance in Proleague, we needed to get more results for our investment. We view Ho Joon as a member of our family, and we didn’t want to simply remove him from our team – in fact, we wanted to, and tried to, renegotiate his contract in a way that would make more sense for both sides (perhaps by balancing a decrease in salary with less Proleague participation and more non-Korean event attendance), but ultimately this approach was not desirable to him, and both of us agreed that it would be best to release him.
We will miss you very much, Ho Joon, and we wish you nothing but the best. There’s no doubt in our minds that you’ll see success again in the future, and it will be very strange to see you sporting a different jersey.
Very Sincerely,
Alexander
CEO, Evil Geniuses
@ottersaresocool on Twitter
