Photo Credit - Header: jjcb via flickr

There's a new hero in town. With a 4 - 2 victory over San in the grand finals, CJ Entus' herO took first place at IEM Singapore and claimed the first major championship of his career.

HerO came into the tournament as an accomplished Proleague player, holding a position as CJ Entus' Protoss ace and having played a crucial role in CJ Entus' hybrid BW/SC2 Proleague championship. However, success in individual leagues had eluded him, with just a single Code S appearance in his career.

After the months long hiatus following the end of the 2012-13 Proleague season, herO re-emerged stronger than ever. His impressive performances in the IEM Singapore Korea qualifier, where he defeated players like Symbol, Maru, soO, and stats, already portended a breakout performance. Yet, even with some of the analysts cautiously predicting him as a championship contender, few would have expected him to win the tournament in such an emphatic fashion.

In the Ro16, herO took out Bomber and Dream with overwhelming PvT. Mvp soon followed in the quarterfinals, with even his mech builds unable to save him from getting swept. Forced to play a PvZ for the first time in the semis, herO made short work of DongRaeGu by smashing him 3 - 0. In the finals, herO seemed like he might be shaken by playing for such large stakes as he went down 0 - 2 to San. That turned out to be far from the case, as herO recovered to win four straight games in a row to defeat San and lift the trophy.

Already well known for his ever-present smile and cheery demeanor after every Proleague win, herO was pleased enough to even attempt a cartwheel after taking his first major title. With such expressiveness and willingness to play to the crowd, it was no wonder that he also won the IEM "Sick Nerd Baller" (popular vote) award for the tournament.

herO's win wrapped up not just a great weekend for himself, for but CJ Entus as well. Also playing at Singapore, CJ Frost took second place in IEM's League of Legends tournament. Meanwhile at WCG 2013, CJ's Sora took second place in StarCraft 2 while CJ Blaze took the gold in League of Legends to complete a four medal weekend for CJ Entus.

Game One - Frost

The finals started off with the familiar PvP scenario of two heavily contrasting builds. While San opened with an oracle, Hero went for a seemingly good counter in blink stalkers. However, the game played out with Hero going on the offensive with his stalkers and leaving his probe line wide open to get devastated by a single oracle.

On the other end of the map, San managed to squeeze out void rays and gateway units just in time fend off Hero's blink stalker attack. With Hero playing from a twelve probe deficit to start, the rest of the game turned out to be little more than a formality before San turned his lead into a win. San 1 - 0 Hero

Game Two - Bel'Shir Vestige

Hero responded to going down a map by attempting a risk build in game two, but it failed to pay off. He appeared to be in a good position after his proxy-stargate audaciously placed into San's natural went undetected, but a glance inside Hero's main gave San all the warning he needed. After fending off the oracle with a handful of stalkers, San immediately went on the counter attack with a pylon he had casually built inside of Hero's main. With the attack coming far before he could recover from his failed cheese rush, Hero had no choice but to GG out. San 2 - 0 Hero

Game Three - Whirlwind

Game three began deviously with San going for DTs and Hero opening oracle, but both players decided to take it easy and expand instead after realizing they would be unable to catch their opponents off guard. However, San had one more trick up his sleeve, ceasing probe production and combining his dark templars into archons to go for a quick attack on Hero's natural. Alas, the thought behind San's idea was far better than the execution, and his attack was easily fended off by Hero. With a significant economic advantage, it didn't take long for Hero to build an overpowering force and force the GG from San. San 2 - 1 Hero

Game Four - Yeonsu

San and Hero mirrored builds for the first time in the series with 2 gate starts but quickly diverged in strategies. Hero added a stargate to go for oracle yet once more, while San added a third gateway to try for an early attack. San seemed to be on the verge of dealing Hero a killer blow when he managed to hide a pylon inside Hero's main, but Hero was just barely able to force-field off his own ramp to prevent San's main force from joining up with new troops being warped in. San tried to force the attack anyway, but only ended up allowing Hero to kill his army in two, easily handled portions. Meanwhile, Hero's oracle netted a tidy amount of probes in San's base, giving him a decisive advantage.

San attempted to go for dark templars to recover, but it was to no avail. Hero had detection ready with time to spare, and was able to easily roll his advantage into another win. San 2 - 2 Hero

Game Five - Derelict Watcher

For the fifth game in a row, oracles figured into the proceedings, this time on San's side. However, they proved to be more of a hindrance than boon, with Hero able to hold off the oracle easily while applying some stalker pressure on the other end of the map. This allowed Hero to take his natural faster while being ahead on tech, forcing San to play catch-up.

Instead of trying to play it out slow, San decided he needed to force the action and went for a big attack with gateway units while Hero working his way to a more high tech army. Great forcefields from San allowed him to trade efficiently, he did not do enough damage to prevent Hero from pulling further ahead in economy and tech. With his third up faster, and with a higher quality army, Hero was able to roll over San to take the lead in the series. San 2 - 3 Hero

Game Six - Polar Night

The final game on Polar Night opened with a succession of aggressive ploys from Hero as he opened with a 10 gate and transitioned into dark templars. Yet, he did not commit to either of the strategies, seeing that San was more than prepared to handle an attack. The early game passed rather quietly, with both players taking their naturals and pondering their next move.

Despite his investment in DT tech early, Hero was able to put together a powerful army of immortals due to a fast robotics transition. On the other hand, San had invested into blink stalkers, delaying his tech units compared to Hero. The CJ Entus Protoss was able to hit a strong timing with four immortals against San's largely stalker army, killing off many troops while pulling ahead in probe count as well.

Yet once more, San decided that attempting to recovery slowly from behind was futile and cut probes to go for a big two base attack. And like all the other games before, the attack proved to be futile as Hero had just enough troops to defend. With DTs countering attacking San's bases and his main force more than enough to hold off the frontal attack, Hero received the final GG to win the first major title of his career.

Hero wins 4 - 2 to win IEM Singapore!