EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/9YrUZDa.png)
So, some of you might think, Ryung? Who is Ryung? Or why Ryung? What's so Special about him? Well sit right the fuck down and I will tell you.
Through out history of starcraft there have been many great Terran players, and the word mastermind is a strong word to use, but believe me, if anyone deserves that adjective It's Kim Dong Won aka Ryung!
I have followed SC2 since the beginning and Ryung was one of the first players I became a fan off. So why him, during an era where MMA, MarineKing,
Mvp and to some extend even the Emperor himself BoxeR were either up and coming or dominant Terran players? Well First off he played on SlayerS (RIP in peace) , and being a Boxer fan I had a slight SlayerS bias. Secondly he looks so god damn badass! I Mean If he wasn't a professional Starcraft player I would have though he was a mob boss. People talk about Jaedong's death stare, man that ain't even a corn dog compared to the eyes of Ryung. And that was basically it, everything I needed to be a fan, playing on SlayerS and looks cool, gogo Ryung!. Now it wasn't a authentic fandom without seeing him play first, so I looked up the good ol GSL schedule and saw that hey, he's actually playing this week. And dear mother of god.... My First encounter with the Terran commander
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Fz3vBPr.jpg)
This was 2 years ago. I was laying in bed at like 8 in the morning, tired like a clubbed seal, with a laptop on my stomach, eating eggs and bacon in my underwear like a true G, and watching the GSL. Shit was good. And Ryung vs DongRaeGu is the first game of the day. And some of you kids reading might not know how it was back in the days, so let listen up and uncle IcookTacos will tell you.
This was WoL. Let me say that a again, Wings of motherfucking Liberty. Feather Appendage of Freedom baby! And some of you might have heard the tales of past from the traumatized people who survived this dreaded expansion. Zerg. Was. Strong. Like really strong. Like Arnold-Schwarzenegger-before-he-was-governor strong. Or as some might say "IMBA IMBA IMBA IMBA IMBA IMBA"
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/vIulI8j.jpg)
So let's take a look at Ryungs odds going into this game:
TvZ obviously in Zergs favor with 58% wins that GSL season
The opponent:
DRG who today is not the scariest Zerg player. But back in the days of 2012, he was a complete monster. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/JRvmVGp.jpg)
The map: Whirlwind. The biggest map in the pool, Zerg favored, and even player favored to DRG with him being a very economic and mechanical player who is great in macro games.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/tCi9mCs.jpg)
And of course the infamous Brood Lord Infestor combo was absolutely batshit crazy, and on top of that Whirlwind being a big map makes it easier to tech into hive.
TL;DR: Ryung is fucked.
I'm laying there in my undies smelling like shame and bacon with very low expectations for my new found Terran player.
Ryung turns on beast-mode and DRG gets absolutely dismantled.
See for yourself
So let's take a good look at this game. Now all of the things I listed above, Ryung is aware off. He knows he's the absolute underdog, he knows DRG is gonna do everything to play it long. He knows the map is in his opponents favor. BL is gonna be easy to get and impossible to kill. So with this in mind most players would take out a good old 11/11 with SCV pull, you know taking the realistic and to some degree smart approach. Not this bad boy. He thinks even further. Of course DonRaeGeu will do the standard mid game into BL/Infestor, a comp that's next to impossible to kill. So in the 10-16/20 minute mark that most refer to as the mid-game, the general meta was to kill the Zerg. Either you killed them before greater spire, or you played TvZ wrong.
So what does Ryung do? To the untrained eye, nothing fancy really. Very basic army movement, with a rather defensive posture, taking out as much creep as possible when It's safe. No big engagements. No kill-moves. No doom drops. Nothing. And this is all part of his genius.He let's DRG dictate the game and get his optimal army. This ladies and gentlemen is mind games at it's finest! Ryung wants to fight the BL/infestor, why? Because Whirlwind is BIG, and BL/Infestor's are SLOW, and on a BIG map this army is even SLOWER. And what is Terran? Terran is FAST and MOBILE , and on a BIG map Terran is even FASTER and more MOBILE. So there is absolutely no reason why Ryung would ever have to fight this army. He simply avoids it and exploits it's bad mobility with drops, flanks and stray marine run by's.
This is Ryungs general game plan and strategy for this game, and it works like butter. To summarize; Ryung let's DRG tech into BL/Infestor and uses the size of the map to his favor, playing a fast but weaker army to avoid the slow yet stronger army.
On top of this he incorperates on of Terrans forgotten tools. The Nuke.
And he uses it in a very tactical way. He does two types of nukes.
1. The Stray Nuke - This serves one purpose and one purpose only. To get a psychological edge. They are placed in pretty obvious parts of the map, not meant to kill, just to scare. Nukes work's like Nydus worms, the opponent don't need to have vision of it, it can be wherever on the map and the enemy will still get a sound and text notification when It's launched. So with this he get's into DRGs head.
2. The Preemptive Nuke - This is where he tries to lure and / or estimate where the army is gonna be and land a nuke on it.
These two works perfectly in tandem with each other, the first get's DRG on edge, it also makes it seem like the threat of a nuke is lower than it is. Imagine a game where one nuke is launched. As soon as you hear Kerrigan go "Nuclear launch detected" you are gonna peel those eyes like never before and put all effort into taking zero damage from the nuke. Now imagine a game where ten nukes are launched, It's gonna be both mathematically and psychologically easier to get hit. And when Ryung tries to nuke the army, DRG is gonna kinda careless since there's been so many nukes that game.
And in true Ryung fashion let me illustrate this using MS Paint. (Haven't yet installed PS on this computer but Part 2 and 3 will have better pics, promise)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/nRReOyp.jpg)
In the last minutes of the game Ryung starts to build his own deathball army with BC/Viking/Ravens however he gets the win before he really get's it going. This play style was at the time revolutionary, today It's the general mindset of every Terran, but I strongly believe that this was one of the absolute first games of what would later become the modern TvZ. And with everything against him Ryung took a big game against the dominant DRG.
Don't miss the upcoming parts where I take a look at Ryungs famous TvT and his lesser known TvP and some of the big historical moments in Ryungs career.
The Terran Mastermind - Ryung! Part 2: The artist and the art of TvT.
The Terran Mastermind - Ryung! Part 3: Welcome back commander.
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Hello everyone I'm IcookTacos, I like Starcraft and to write about Starcraft.
Check out my other works!
Good Night Sweet King
