by CosmicSpiral

One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.

It’s the unfortunate reality of writing that precision is often sacrificed for the sake of narrative. When composing a preview for a group stage or individual match, time and word constraints demand that we pluck one or two story strands out of the great haystack for elaboration. At the same time those strands benefit greatly from being recognizable concepts repeated over and over again by the community. They offer an immediate way to grab your attention, to set up a tale you implicitly acknowledge and accept. Is Innovation truly a Terminator built for StarCraft domination? Maybe (science will provide answers soon). Does it benefit us to describe him that way? Definitely!

Sometimes that approach mystifies rather than illuminates. When SKT T1 Rain first appeared on the scene, he was a pioneer in so many aspects that elaboration was necessary. It didn’t matter that he was rather unremarkable in terms of personality or unfailingly polite to the point of absurdity. Rain was a fascinating curiosity unlike any other Protoss. No one else combined base management, warp prism harass, and expansion timings quite like he did. No other KeSPA player rose so fast and shined so bright during KeSPA’s first foray into SC2. And unlike the likes of Flash and Jaedong, Rain had no legacy to embellish his wins or cushion his losses. Before the transition he was just beanstalk By.Sun, a moderately successful Proleague player who had never qualified for the OSL or MSL. He was both a representative of the old guard and a symbol of the potential still waiting in their ranks. So we were more than happy to define him almost entirely in terms of his gameplay and his connection with KeSPA.

Slightly Cloudy

Today the descriptions that made him stand out in WoL no longer apply to him alone. He still remains one of the best players in the world but his clear superiority over the rest of his brethren no longer exists. Flash and Jaedong have both matured greatly and are starting to make serious noise in tournaments. Innovation has seized the spotlight as the player to beat in HotS, with Soulkey chasing close behind. When it comes to Protoss players there are more than enough to satisfy any predilection. If you want to watch slightly more exciting PvZ with intricate build orders, there’s Trap; sOs provides crazy strategies that inexplicably work; JangBi charms the crowd with two OSL wins and impeccable micro. Even the best vanilla ice cream seems plain next to the allure of Rocky Road and cookie dough.

The more serious blow came with the slight homogenization of Protoss play in all matchups. The defining aspect of Rain’s play during his rise to fame was the ability to badger with warp prisms while maintaining precise defensive positioning. It was an art hard to appreciate as the good micro, judgement on engagements, and total comprehension of the game could only be seen from the viewpoint of Rain. This ability was particularly important in PvT and PvP as Rain could essentially create two fronts of battle while simultaneously shielding his new expansions. In Heart of the Swarm, safe Protoss play is the norm due to the power of the Mothership Core. Photon Overcharge and Mass Recall can compensate for bad positioning while allowing the protoss army to be more aggressive with pushing.

So here is Rain, the champion who might as well be a wallflower next to his opponent. Maru comes into COEX Mall riding a wave of momentum unlike any other. He did not play perfect games, far from it. His journey to the finals was a prime example of bar-room brawling fighting at its dirtiest. All the more outrageous that a minor was involved! Maru used proxy buildings, never-ending assaults, mass drops, and any strategy that could confuse and befuddle the opposition. And it worked out beautifully. Symbol, a player far wiser in the ways of deep tournament runs, limply flailed on his belly against this young threat. Innovation went into the semifinals expecting a standard TvT chess match and came out humiliated in a stunning upset. The fact that Maru went for three straight all-ins only confirmed him as a true competitor and made Innovation look unskilled as a planner.

Meanwhile Rain arrives as quiet as a mouse. His run lacked the flair and daring of Maru’s simply because he was the assumed favorite in almost every match. For the most part he played as if he was the favorite. Rain managed to reach the finals showcasing his signature dominance against Terran. But elsewhere there were signs of cracking. Strange plays from hyvaa messed with Rain’s decision-making; First clearly outplayed him in their Ro16 series. The SPL playoffs additionally stoked fears that he suffered from chronic choking. Once again Rain failed his team in crucial PvP sets, going 0-3 overall in a round where STX Soul won every series by a 4 - 3 margin. Losing to Innovation in the ace match was acceptable but his inability to defeat Trap and Dear brought back bad memories of last year and CJ herO.


You Can't Predict the Weather

Yet something is different and the change could decide this series. For Rain the story of the tournament has not been his victories but the manner of them. In contrast to his fabled defensive play, Rain has been sometimes aggressive, crafty, and even daring with his opening strategies. Perhaps he accepted the criticism that he was too passive, too predictable with his gameplay and enemies were exploiting it. Maybe he just got tired of doing the same things every match. Whatever his reasoning, the change was amazingly effective. Supernova and Bomber expected to be the attackers trying to outfox Rain before he reached the late game; instead, they were caught off guard by archon/immortal pushes and proxy dark shrines. Beforehand Maru might have entered the final confident that he could try and break Rain’s resolve with unpredictability but now he must be wary of the same risk.

Here is the chance for Rain to reinvent himself in a memorable way. He is no longer the Protoss who dominates all conversation with his brilliant play and the time of being the KeSPA torchbearer has long passed. He still remains one of the most solid players in Proleague and individual tournaments. For now he will be the SKT ace looking forward to redemption. After August 10th he may add another description to that list: the two-time OSL champion, a distinction only shared by eight other players in history. This is his chance to join the ranks of JangBi, GARIMTO, Boxer, and iloveoov and come closer to the hallowed legacies of Flash, Jaedong, and Nada. And certainly, we will argue about his place among them. The old arguments between BW and SC2 may be reignited. But there’s no doubt that if he accomplishes his goal, we can happily refit him with one of the oldest clichés: best in the world.

by Fionn

In a time when everyone in StarCraft 2 is looking for something new, exciting, or unique, we are presented with a curiosity in MaruPrime. He is one of the youngest progamers at just 16 years of age, yet he has is one of the most experienced StarCraft II players, having played since the start of Wings of Liberty. Before HotS was released and reshuffled the SC2 hierarchy, Maru was seen as a sort of failed experiment, an example of wasted potential. Though he was never a bad player or someone who weighed his team down, he was never a favorite to get far in any tournament he entered—the perfect definition of a fringe Code S player.

Not surprisingly, he was quickly overshadowed by the achievements of other young players like Creator and TaeJa who won championships, and Life who ruthlessly dominated the end of WoL. They were the innovators, the ones upsetting the established order of the pro-scene, and the ones fans looked forward to becoming the next generation of superstars. Overshadowed by even his own teammate, Maru was became largely ignored by most fans, with some maybe giving him an off chance to finally evolve and live up to his potential after three years on the scene.


Maybe most people gave up too early. A three year veteran he may have been, but Maru was still just a fifteen years of age as Heart of the Swarm was released. That was several years younger than most players when they hit their primes, giving him plenty of time to change and to grow.

Heart of the Swarm gave the wayward prodigy a lease on life, and he dived head-first into the beta and made waves with his impressive ladder record. If the end of Wings of Liberty was created for the fifteen year old Life to dominate, then Heart of the Swarm was the game where fifteen year old Maru could match him. Staying near the top of the Korean ladder and building up some reputation of his own, Maru transformed from a fringe Code S player into being the true ace of Prime with the official release of HotS. With MarineKing, Creator and Byun—the three other core members of Prime—all struggling with the transition to the new expansion, it was the fast learning Maru who carried his team.

Although Maru was once again thwarted in the Ro32 in his first HotS Code S, it was still an encouraging run on closer examination. He went out after losing to Soulkey twice, the player who would go on to win the entire tournament. Maru just barely lost to the eventual champ, and along the way he showed off some interesting strats such as mech while mixing in the perfectly executed cheeses that made him famous in WoL.

Walk the Royal Road

With Prime dropping out of the GSTL in last place and his own early elimination from Code S, Maru had a lot of time on his hands to work to become a better player in time for season 2 of WCS Korea, the Aucion Starleague. Getting out of his Up-and-Down group without too much trouble, defeating Hero, Fantasy, and Keen in succession, he was qualified once again to take a shot at the Korean crown, heading into his first season of the OSL with some momentum behind him.

Maru went under the radar in the Ro32, starting off the tournament with a loss to soO, but being able to make it out with a victories over Effort and the WCS Season 1 runner-up sOs. Heading off into the second round, he attracted some attention by finishing first in a relatively weak group of Supernova, Trap and the Progamer Formerly Known as Losira.

It was the Ro8 series against Symbol where Maru really started getting a second look over. He still held underdog status heading into the match, with most people believing that the super-consistent ace of Azubu would be able to take out Prime's ace-by-default. However, the result was a shocking upset, with the former GSL runner-up completely unable to stand up against Maru's aggressive strategies, looking out of sorts as he was crushed in a 3 - 1 series.

While it was impressive that the just-turned sixteen-year-old could make the OSL semi-finals in his first season, it was pretty clear that the royal road was going to end there. It was great that the poster boy of squandered potential was now a pretty strong player, but he'd still need more time to develop his skills fully and advance to another level. For he was going up against the best player in the world, the reborn one, and the reigning champion of WCS Season 1, INnoVation.

Or, that's how it seemed at the time. The week leading up to the semifinals was full of talk about who it would be more fun for Innovation to face in the finals—the guy who upset Innovation in the Ro16, Bomber, or the defending OSL champion and the best Protoss in the world, Rain. For all the improvement Maru was showing in Heart of the Swarm, no one really thought he could put a dent in Innovation's armor, with the STX Terran having become the most dominating force in Starcraft 2 by reaching two major finals in a row.

We all know what happened. And in fact, it was actually kind of boring. Out of context, there would be no reason for anyone to watch Maru's 4 - 0 of INnoVation in the semi-finals. The games were short, boring, and ended due to one player going for an all-in and the other player not scouting correctly or playing too greedily. Maru beat Innovation in four straight games, using every trick in the book to take out the best player in the world, not afraid to jump from all-in to all-in, downing the seasonal champion with a never ending parade of aggression.

Not an Innovator, Just a Winner

People hollered, complained, and criticized Maru, proclaiming that the only way that such a lowly player like Maru could ever beat a god like Innovation was through cheese and backhanded play. Which, truthfully, might be true, but why would a championship caliber player ever play into the hands of a player who has one gigantic, unfixed hole in his game? Innovation, for all he is good at, is simply not a good Bo7 player. We have now seen it in the past two seasons, that while he was able to lead STX Soul to their first Proleague title and go through the group stages like they're nothing, that planning for and playing a Bo7 just isn't his forte. To give you a quick breakdown, let's look at the four Bo7 series that Innovation has played in since the start of WCS Korea 2013:

Win vs. Symbol (4 - 2): This series should have never gotten this close. Innovation went up 3 - 0, then lost two straight games to roach and bane aggression from Symbol—the only thing Symbol had been doing for a month in ZvT. Luckily, Innovation had enough buffer to adjust, get tanks up for the sixth game, and advance to the finals against Soulkey. For how much better Innovation was than Symbol on the night, giving up two free games was a bad sign for things to come

Loss vs. Soulkey (3 - 4): INnoVation started off the series beautifully by going for a double proxy rax and succeeding. For the second straight Bo7, he went up 3-0, but then did the same exact thing he did against Symbol and lost two quick games to Zerg all-ins. On the ropes, Innovation decided to do the same cheese he did in game one, wanting to end the series right there and then, but failed and tied up the series. He would then choke in the final game, flying dropships into mutas, and became the first player in GSL finals history to be reverse swept.

Win vs. sOs (4 - 0): Innovation killed him. Not to say that sOs didn't have his chances, but the guy was a nervous wreck, throwing games left and right. No matter how Innovation had played the series, he had the experience in a finals situation that sOs didn't, giving him the edge without needing to go deep into a series.

Loss vs. Maru (0 - 4): A complete one-sided stomp by Maru. If you want to know why, it really isn't that hard to figure out. Everything Innovation isn't, Maru is. The Prime Terran might never light the world on fire with his macro, and he might never be be called perfect or "The best RTS player of all time", but Maru knows how to plan out a long series. He has been one of the most successful players in Up-and-Down history due to his ability to play the right strats, knowing when and when not to cheese, and how to map out the best course of advancing. His strategies might be a bit ugly, but they get the job done. It's the same reason why Mvp has four GSL championships, is the king at the Bo7, and plays beautifully within the confines of a long series.

Weathering the Storm

When Maru goes up against Rain in the finals, he's going to be playing against a player who has not just only won an OSL, but who plays the style that most would believe is the kryptonite to Maru. Solid as a rock, Rain is a player that won't simply give you a free win in a Bo7, having the best defense of any Protoss, or maybe player, in the world currently. Most believe that for Maru to win this series, he will need to beat Rain in four straight-up games, not having the ability to steal games with his quick, ultra aggressive strategies that he was able to knock out Symbol and Innovation with.

But Maru can do it, for he is the perfect combination of all the Terrans that have come before him on Prime.

• With the power of BitByBit, Maru has no fear about pulling SCV's and going for an all-or-nothing attack in the early game.
  
• With the power of Maka, Maru is not afraid to build three CC's before making more than five marines, able to eco-gamble with the best of them.
  
• With the power of Polt, Maru knows how to map out and plan for a long series, knowing what builds to use in the right sets to lead him to victory.
  
• With the power of MarineKing, Maru has some of the best micro on the planet, being able to pull out victories with his units than most people couldn't dream of.
  
• With the power of Byun, Maru has mastered the ghost, able to pull off timely EMP's and snipes in the heat of battle.

As the small, fused together version of the other five main Terrans in Prime's history, Maru is on the verge of becoming their second ever major Korean champion, with only Polt having won the Super Tournament two years ago. Similar to Maru, Polt was considered a pushover against MMA in the finals, not really being given a legit shot to make it through. When the finals came, Polt had the better strategies, mapped out the series better, and eventually won in a 4 - 0 sweep, remarkably similar to how Maru defeated Innovation in the semifinals.

With a victory over Rain, Maru will not only become the second Prime champion, but also be given the title of OptimusPrime, awarded to a Prime player when they are able to win a major Korean championship. Polt was given the name after defeating MMA, but dropped the title after moving from Prime a few months after winning the Super Tournament. Having not been touched in over two years, this is Maru's chance to claim the throne of Optimus, and truly become the ace of Prime for the present and future.

Failed prodigy he might be, coming into his own almost three years after he made his SC2 debut, but none of that matters anymore. Four victories on Saturday, and he'll be the new OptimusPrime, the youngest Royal Roader in OSL's storied history.