TaeJa career story - part 1 (WoL)

As a 15 year old, TaeJa began playing StarCraft II for fun, with the game released in the Summer of 2010. He picked Terran as his race due to watching the play of Ensnare during the beta period and considering him to be almost unfairly good. After the youngster had begun placed highly on the ladder, a teacher encouraged him to try to qualify for the first GSL (GOMtv StarCraft League) Open season. So it was that TaeJa entered the preliminaries of the inaugural season, progressing through into the main tournament. After a walkover victory put him into the Ro32, he was defeated by the Zerg player Fruitdealer, who went on to win the tournament.

Over the rest of 2011, TaeJa would continually enter online tournaments in Korea, particularly the ESV TV Korean Weekly, a tournament specifically organised to give a chance for Code A and Code B players to prove their worth. TaeJa would finish first in six of these tournaments, twice going on runs of three straight weekly wins. Adding in his two victories in MyCall StarCraft II League Seasons, TaeJa's online form for the year saw him quickly catch the eye of those looking out for rising talent within the Korean scene.

Just over a week after his GSL Ro8 disappointment, TaeJa flew to New York City for the MLG Summer Arena tournament he had qualified for. At this tournament TaeJa would unleash an unbeatable run of form, blitzing through seven straight series and to the title. Along the way he dropped only four maps total, making his map score 14:4, and defeated the likes of GanZi, LosirA, First and Alicia. The latter, his finals opponent, had made the final of NASL3, the previous week, and was equally considered to be in blistering form. With a 4:2 win over Alicia in that final, TaeJa secured his first ever offline SC2 trophy.

That SlayerS win had put Team Liquid into the final of the tournament, where they were set to face Incredible Miracle, the Korean team that boasted three time GSL champions Mvp and NesTea, as well as newly crowned GSL champion Seed. Coming from the lower bracket, TaeJa's Liquid needed to win two matches to take the title. In the opening series TaeJa continued to be an unbeatable master of the game, all-killing IM. Among his victims were the aforementioned Seed and NesTea. Liquid were now one series from winning the tournament, all on the back of exceptional play by a single player.

With Team Liquid team-mate HerO reaching the final from the other side of the bracket, spectators could be forgiven for imagining TaeJa was going to add a fourth foreign title to his haul for 2012. The previous two times the two had met offline, at ASUS ROG Summer and the MLG Summer Championship, TaeJa had beaten his fellow Korean. If Protoss had been a bane for TaeJa in key moments in 2012 then this final would prove the ultimate embarrassment against the sons of Aiur. TaeJa was swept out of the final in a 4:0 stomp by HerO.