Bomber made it to Blizzcon as the #1 received and was rewarded by being allowed to face Jaedong in the first round. But even there, against an opponent he was supposed to beat handily, he was met with trouble. Edging out a relatively on-form JD and moving on to face MMA in the Ro8 made it seem like the more serious threat had been dealy with. His loss to MMA, in the light of his brutal stomping of Cure and repeated victories against Polt, was surprising. Bomber played well, but his play wasn't as crisp or as without fault as it has been during some periods this year. The one game he won was in typical Bomber fashion, but the ones he lost were more reminiscent of his 2012/2013 days of brutal inconsistency than the Bomber we've come to know as a constant championship threat in 2014. I would love to place Bomber higher on this ranking because the games he played versus MMA were so entertaining, but there are no other players I would bump down for entertainment factor alone. Perhaps losing to the eventual finalist - evidently in some of the best form in MMA's recent career - can be of some consolation.

proxy 2 gate. proxy two gate. sOs Proxy 2 gate. Proxy 2 gate. Proxy two gates. Proxy two gateways. Zest Proxy 2 gate. Proximity 2 gateways. 2 Proxy gateways. 2 Gateways in Proximity. 2 gate. Classic Proxy 2 gate. Too. Gates. Proxy to the Proxy Gate. forward 2 gates. 2 gates in forward proximity. proxy gate + proxy gate = proxy 2 gate. Proxy the 2 gate. Naniwa. 2 gate. Not Warpgate. 2 gates in proxy.
Proxy 2 gate? PROXY 2 GATE!

Seriously, herO, scout your damn base. Katowice should have taught you that people will happily proxy you when $100.000 are on the line.
With thanks to stuchiu for creative input

While a large part of the world elite traveled to Burbank and Anaheim to duke it out for the title of World Champion, Solar and a small contingent of Korean players made their way to Taiwan for the MSI Beat IT tournament. There, Solar tore through a playoffs lineup of First, Rogue and Parting (staging a comeback from an 0-2 deficit in the finals) and made it look fairly easy. Although not all games were streamed, it's safe to assume that Solar at least properly scouted, both his opponent's bases and his own. With his championship in Taipei, Solar maintains his spot as one of the world's three best Zergs and the spot as the by far most underrated multiple champion.

It should tell you quite a bit about Classic that some people were surprised when he - a fairly recent GSL champion - made it to the semifinals. His run was not as illustrious as Life's or Taeja's, but his breadth of strategy versus Polt and the complete calm under pressure versus herO (in other words, his opponent's polar opposite) are both important parts of being a championship contender. With that said, the loss he suffered against MMA hurt his credibility somewhat. I may be underestimating MMA, but the engagements Classic took against the Acer Terran were uncharacteristically poor - at least in part forced by MMA, granted - and that hurt him badly.

After a tournament of Blizzcon's magnitude, I feel a little bad for not placing MMA any higher. With that said, I also cannot find grounds for putting him above any of the remaining five. He made a mostly impressive surprise run to the finals by beating Stardust 3-1, Bomber 3-1 and Classic 3-1 before falling to Life in unceremonious fashion. After the finals, I'm left asking how things could have happened different. Undoubtedly MMA's form was the best it had been in a long time, his TvP and TvT looking better than it has in a long while. So what if MMA had faced herO in the semifinals, would he have won that match? Or against Jaedong in the quarterfinals? Could he have made something happen against Taeja, with the beating he gave Bomber in mind?

For me, the answer to all of these questions is a tentative "No". MMA made it three rounds deeper than I expected him to before the Global Finals began, and perhaps I am giving him too little credit, but I still cannot shake the feeling that he dodged several bullets on his way to the finals. Whether he dodged those by virtue of his own skill and preparatin or because his opponents crumbled and the brackets turned out favorably, I cannot confidently say. But when you feel like a player didn't achieve what he did through his own strength alone, that's usually an indication that you also don't consider him one of the best in the world.

There isn't much I can say for soO's Ro16 elimination from the Global Finals other than that he lost in the most honorable way possible for someone like him: he did not choke, he did not make mistakes that he would not make on other, smaller stages, and he played to the best of his abilities. Against Taeja's his standard level of play, with all that it entails, that simply wasn't enough. I don't doubt that he could have given Innovation a run for his money in the quarterfinals or made Life fight tooth and nail in the semifinals, but those scenarios belong to the long list of "What if?" that follows soO around while other players rise and surpass his quiet consistency.

Like soO, Zest will remember this Blizzcon as a tournament of unfulfilled expectations. The player most expected to make it deep into the tournament losing in the Ro16 was surprising, the way in which he lost even more so. Uncharacteristic mistakes - whether they were forced by a fear of Life's unusual style or lingering effects of jetlag - haunted Zest in all five games he played against Life, and his elimination meant that I would have no more games to judge him from. He played mostly well in October, but failing to build on his reputation as the best player in the world makes it hard for me to give him any more than a fourth place based on past merits. Next year, Zest, next year.

While fellow GSL his fellow KeSPA stars soO and Zest were eliminated due to simply not being good enough on the given day and for their given match, Innovation's defeat at the hands of Taeja feels a little unclean, a little questionable. I don't doubt Taeja's mental composure or that the Liquid Terran's experience with hour-long delays and the unique features of international tournaments made him better fit to handle delays than Innovation, but I also admit to not being completely sure about whether or not Taeja could have beaten Innovation without those delays. As the night dragged on and yet new issues emerged to succeed past ones, Innovation seemed to slowly crumble. At some point, he looked on the verge of tears. You might argue that mental composure is a key part of being a progamer and I would agree, but that does not change the fact that Innovation won a fairly clean first game through classic high-level TvT and played like someone else entirely once the breaks were over and the games resumed.

He looked every bit as sharp against Hyun as he did when he beat soO to take home the final GSL of the year, so perhaps his focus had been on TvZ more so than TvT. Perhaps he expected a rematch against soO in the quarterfinals. It is impossible to say exactly how well Innovation could have done against Taeja if those delays had never happened and his keyboard had never broken. Taeja was in great shape at the time, but the questionable circumstances of the entire match makes it hard for me to judge Innovation completely fairly.

The fact that the lower half of the Blizzcon bracket was much more stacked than the upper part made it clear that the eventual champion would eventually emerge from those eight players. Of contenders like Zest, soO and Innovation, Taeja faced the opponent most likely to take him out – soO – and made him look like a joke in at least one game, remaining ahead and fighting better against a renowned for being almost perfect in these areas.

Beating soO was a statement, a challenge to the remaining champions in the tournament. Although the final quarterfinal would be haunted and tarnished by technical difficulties, disconnects and hardware issues, Taeja remained completely calm while his opponent Innovation imploded, destabilized and brought out of his element by factors he couldn't control. But after his first loss against Life, the aura of invincibility he had radiated against soO and Innovation dissipated, and as his mentality broke Life found a way to beat him. Unquestionably, Taeja was one of the best players at Blizzcon. But ultimately, losing to Life when it mattered the most was uncharacteristic and enough to stop him from taking the championship.

If one single thing has characterized Life's career, it has to be perseverence in the face of seemingly insurmountable opposition. Very few saw Life as a true contender for the WCS title when he was paired with triple champion Zest in the first round. His victory there – one long and awkwardly executed game on Nimbus aside – indicated that he had come to Blizzcon with his eyes set firmly on the trophy, but it remained hard to believe that he could make it happen. And yet, every step that took him closer was a step where he displayed all of the skills that once made him the best player in the world. Against both Zest and San he showed that preparation is something he, too, can learn to master, and that greed as a way to fight greed is something he is more than willing to utilize.

But although the matches against Zest and San spoke volumes about how good Life can be when he is truly on his game, he shoots to the first spot on this ranking for his match against Taeja. The Liquid Terran is a monster in tournaments where instincts, composure and mechanics play a larger role than preparation. He excels in turning chaos into his order, beating down aggression and outmaneuvering unorthodox players to ultimately win with play that looks standard. When you consider that he made soO, four-time GSL finalist and (previously) considered the best Zerg in the world, look outmatched in ZvT it makes Life's victory over Taeja so much more meaningful. After their series, no one can say that Life did not have the skill to take Taeja on in straight-up macro, or that he isn't one of few capable of tilting him. Game 2 was a display in how to bring the most mentally composed Terran in the world out of his comfort zone and pick him apart in the kind of game he normally does not ever lose.

After the matches against Zest and Taeja, sweeping MMA aside to take the championship was a formality. Although his run to the championship itself is worthy of much respect, the manner in which he made it there is what truly puts him above all others with Blizzcon now behind us. In reproducing exactly the kind of run he made in 2012, Life can now proudly call himself both World Champion and the best player in the world.