EPTForeword:
Making a list like this was always problematic. With nearly 5 years of gameplay there is a huge amount of information to parse. First, there is prestige of a tournament, measuring and making judgements on the GSL as compared to international LANS, tournament formats, and paths taken to the Championships. Next, the player’s level relative to the time must be considered with several caveats: the increased talent pool in modern times, the mass migration of KeSPA pros, and then the mass retirement of former KeSPA players and ESF players. Consistency over a long period of time as compared to peak/clutch has often been considered one of the most important measures, but their effect on the game itself is equally important. We must consider the innovation and creativity they used to make strategies as well as the refinement of pre-existing strategies, the meta in which they played and the outside factors they had to face during their reigns.
Another thing to keep in mind is the tiering of tournaments. A basic guideline is Blizzcons(Only 2013+) > GSL > OSL/SSL/Kespa Cup/WCS (2012 KR)/WCG KR/Blizzcon 2011 > International Tournaments. Blizzcon is at the highest because after 2013 it became the end all for the year, increasing the amount of pressure to win it. GSL is next as it has had the best format since Jan 2011, has the most preparation per round and has the best competition. The format and amount of players is what puts it slightly above the other Korean LANs like OSL, SSL, KeSPA/Hot6ix Cup, WCS KR 2012 and WCG KR. International tournaments are roughly below them, though depending on the player pool it can go all the way up being very close to GSL levels of prestige if many top players attended the event.
It is inevitable that many will argue for or against the inclusion or exclusion of certain players in the overall top 15 depending on what criteria you’ve used to judge their placing. However, as there is no definitive list to argue for or against, this is my attempt to codify a list of the all time greats as of this very moment.
#15 | Leenock, Prince of War
![[image loading]](http://assets2.photos.mlg-cdn.com/shared/photos/3948/3948-width=800_height=400_fit=true.jpg)
Notable Achievements:
Tier 1 Events:
MLG Providence 2011- 1st
GSL November 2011 - 2nd
IPL 5 - 1st
MLG Fall 2012 - 2nd
Tier 2 Events:
MLG Summer Championship 2012 - 1st
Dreamhack Open Stockholm 2013 - 1st
Tier 3 Events:
DH Valencia 2014 - 4th
Greatest Series Played:
Leenock vs Clide - GSL Open Season 3 ro64 game 3
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3
Leenock vs Mvp - GSL November 2011 Semi-finals
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5
Leenock vs Jjakji - GSL November 2011 Finals
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 Set 4 Set 5 Set 6
Leenock vs Oz - MLG Fall Group A
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3
Leenock vs Life - MLG Fall 2012 Finals
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Set 6 | Set 7
Leenock vs Life - GSL Season 1 2013 Group G ro32
Set 1 | Set 2
In order to become the greatest in your field you need a rival. Someone that pushes you to the breaking point and forces you to surpass your own limits and achieve a new level of skill. For Kasparov it was Karpov. For Flash it was Jaedong. And for Life in 2012, it was Leenock. The two of them have met 5 times: GSL Code A, GSL Blizzard Cup, MLG Finals, IPL 5 and Iron Squid. Each of the series was incredibly close and explosive as both loved to fight. If Life hadn’t been there, if Life was just less clutch in 1 game than he was, perhaps we’d be talking about Leenock as the first young prodigy of the zerg race.
Yet even in the shadow of Life, Leenock had huge achievements of his own. He won MLG Providence, IPL 5 and got second at GSL November 2011 and MLG Fall 2012. While three of those 4 were international events, the player lists that attended them were strong enough that they were as close as an international tournament could get to becoming as difficult as the GSL—the only major difference was the amount of players, preparation time and format. Even then, the marathon style of international LANs required specific skills that couldn’t be emulated in the GSL such as dealing with delays and technical issues and adapting to a vast array of players and play styles on the fly with no preparation.
And even in the shadow of Life, Leenock could pull out something magical, something that was so distinctly him that you knew after watching it that no other zerg, not even Life, could emulate it. For Leenock, that moment was in game 4 against Life in the MLG Fall 2012 Finals. Life had gotten into an impeccable positions as he maxed out on roaches, hydras and infestors while securing his 4th. Leenock was stuck on three bases with mass roaches and burrow movement. Left with no recourse, Leenock forced open a path of victory with amazingly fast simultaneous multi-pronged attacks on Cloud Kingdom in a flurry of movement that left Life always a step behind. It was a beautiful sequence of attacks flowing into more attacks as he punished Life’s overeager 4th. A 4th base that would have been the right move against anyone else but Leenock in that one moment.
Beyond that, he won a few tier 2 events in MLG Summer 2012 and Dreamhack Stockholm 2013. The biggest difference between these two events and the others was that the player level was much lower with only around 10 players that could realistically take the Championship and among those were only a handful of world destroyers. Even during his relative slumps he was fairly consistent, generally making Code S and keeping his name on the maps with small results in Korea.
Style of Play:
![[image loading]](http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/images/news/SonyEricssonSTARCRAFTIIOpenSeason2_009480057.jpg)
The first time I saw Leenock play was in GSL Open 2 2010. In that season he played against NaDa. A BW legend and easily one of the greatest to have ever played the game. An icon of professionalism and universally respected by his peers and fans. Then Leenock 6 pooled him. Afterwards they played two macro games—the second was the first game by a terran to ever transition from mech into bio, a style that would re-emerge nearly 3 years later in HotS. And in many ways that has defined the entire way he has looked at the game.
Leenock loves to attack with unorthodox openings. During the era of 2012, Leenock had the most one-off builds of any zerg including: double spire, mass infestors, nydus, roach busts, roach burrow builds, roach bane busts, early pool all ins, 3 hatch all slow ling all ins. He had also incorporated multiple Nestea all-ins like the proxy hatch at the 3rd against terran and the lair rush into proxy spore queen roach bane bust against terrans.The only zerg that could use a larger variety of builds at that time was Curious. And his mastery of BL/infestor was the lynchpin that allowed Leenock to have a strong stable backbone to his insane play. Perhaps his signature play was his tactical usage of burrow. Particularly his burrowed baneling mines, burrowed roach play and burrowed infestor play.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/g9XhU6C.jpg)
Because of that he fell off nearly immediately after HotS when both terran and protoss had much stronger early game defense that nullified a huge amount of his openings and BL/infestor play was nerfed. This left Leenock to try to reinvent his game from the ground up.
Comparisons between sOs and Leenock:
There is a very interesting and real case for sOs replacing Leenock as 15th place on the list. sOs has won Hot6ix, IEM WC, Blizzcon and got second at WCS Season 1 Finals 2013. In a case like this it is easier to look at the paths they took for each of their major results.
Paths:
Leenock
MLG Providence: Oz, loss to DRG, MMA, idra, Huk, Mvp, DRG, Naniwa
GSL November 2011: Polt, Huk, Nestea, aLive, Mvp - Loss to jjakji
MLG Fall 2012: Rain, San, loss to Oz, Rain, Oz, Bomber, Bomber again, loss to Life
IPL 5: Life, Polt, Violet, Violet again
sOs
WCS Season 1 Finals: Symbol, HerO, Alicia, Soulkey, Loss to Inno
Blizzcon: HerO, Polt, Bomber, Jaedong
IEM WC: Oz, Jjakji, Taeja, herO
Hot6ix Cup: Rain, TY, Innovation, SkyHigh, MarineKing
For brevity’s sake I've taken out the no-names and middling tier players (Like Apocalypse and TheSTC in Leenock’s run). Now let us look at the individual runs. In Leenock’s MLG Providence run every player I noted was around the top 5 of their race. The weakest player there was Idra, who was still in the top 10 of his race at the time. Leenock’s only loss was to DRG and he still came back in an extended series to beat him. The only weak opponent in his GSL run was aLive who didn't hit his peak performance until the beginning of 2012. In his MLG 2012 all his opponents were in the upper class, though San still had nerve issues at the time, making the victory over him less impressive. And in IPL5 he beat Life, Polt and Violet. Life was the best zerg and Polt was hitting around top 5 terran. Violet was somewhere in the top 10, but what made him interesting was that he played his best by far in international events so a victory over him was very strong.
In comparison sOs had a very strong run in the WCS Season 1 Finals (though its hard to rate HerO and Alicia as both had moved to WCS NA so there wasn't enough vs Korean games to judge). His Blizzcon run was just a bit weaker as HerO was in bad form, though the rest of the run was really strong. At IEM WC the only two impressive victories were over Taeja and herO. At Hot6ix, I was only impressed with Rain, Innovation and MarineKing. TY has had massive problems in individual tournaments and played badly in bo3+ series. SkyHigh, while having masterful TvT was fairly weak in PvT.
In total, Leenock had tougher opponents in the 4 runs he had, though he only won 2. While at the same time sOs had weaker runs, especially Hot6ix and IEM WC, he won them. In the end the larger pool of competitive players was what swayed me towards Leenock over sOs. Another factor that made sOs a contender was his impact on the metagame. Early 2013 protoss play was largely impacted by what sOs had popularized during his first GSL run in 2013 and while Leenock had a huge variety of strategies, so did sOs. This favors sOs as his builds and compositions entered the metagame as standard for a time and are still sometimes used today.
Beyond that the other deciding favor that made me favor Leenock over sOs was consistency. sOs was super dominant in some of his runs but also fell off for months on end. After getting 2nd in WCS Season finals, he didn't do anything all year until Blizzcon. That form extended to the end of the first season of GSL in 2014 before he fell off again and reappeared at the end for Hot6ix Cup. Overall Leenock has had a longer stretch of results over a longer period of time. Though just barely.
#14 | DRG, Man of Pusan
![[image loading]](http://www.gaming.com.tw/media/news_thumb/SC2/SC20930B002.jpg)
Achievements:
Tier 1:
Blizzard Cup 2011 - 2nd
GSL 2012 Season 1 - 1st
OSL 2012 - 2nd
Tier 2:
MLG Winter Arena - 2nd
MLG Winter Championship - 2nd
MLG Spring Championship - 1st
Iron Squid 2 - 2nd
Tier 3:
IEM NY - 1st
MLG Raleigh - 3rd
IEM Singapore 2013 - Top 4
Greatest Series Played:
DRG vs MMA - GSTL 2011 Finals
Set 7
DRG vs MMA - Blizzard Cup 2011 Finals
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Set 6 | Set 7
DRG vs MKP - Finals - Winter Championship
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Set 6 | Set 7
DRG vs EffOrt - WCS Korea 2012
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3
DRG vs Nestea - Code S ro16 Group D
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3
DRG vs INnoVation - Code S 2013 Season 3 ro32 Group F
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3
IDs or aliases are a unique phenomenon in eSports, another way to distinguish yourself from your peers and make a new name and identity for yourself. For most players though its just a harmless nickname and not given much thought. But every once in a while you get an ID with meaning, an ID that can tell you something interesting, something that can inform you about the very core of the player. DongRaeGu is such an ID.
The Man of Pusan, Park Soo Ho took on the handle of DongRaeGu, a district in Pusan, his hometown. He took that place and made himself the metaphorical and physical representation of his home—he was later given official recognition by his town to wear a badge and represent them. And represent he did as he became the zerg to inherit Nestea’s position as the greatest zerg on earth and fought for the throne of the strongest in early 2012.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/HawaiianPig/GSL/blizzcupfinalsBORING.jpg)
Yet you cannot talk about DRG without noting the parallels between him and his greatest rival, MMA. Both were chosen by Boxer to be the next great stars of SC2. Both became aces of their team. Both fought each other in their primes in GSTL and the BlizzCup Finals. Both made names for themselves in MLG. And both hit a downturn in their careers before picking themselves back up again (though DRG could only make it to the playoffs in GSL). For MMA, he had to leave Korea or be engulfed in controversy and drama that would have consumed him and dogged him at every step. For DRG, he stayed in Korea because in his heart of hearts, he was and would forever be a man of his people. He could no more abandon Korea than he could get rid of his own name. And so he stayed.
And that was what broke him. In his 2012 run, for the first time ever they were going to host both the GSTL and GSL Finals in Pusan. DRG had made it to the semi-finals of both. DRG fell in both. For a man who loved his home more than anyone else this was too much to bear. And though he still played well throughout the rest of the year, you could feel that onerous failure haunt him for the rest of his days.
Which was why it was unexpected to see him nearly a year later challenge INnoVation. INnoVation was on top of the world. He was the greatest TvZ player by a mile. He had only ever dropped 1 map in a late game TvZ macro game throughout all of 2013. You could trick him, you could make him choke, but you could not beat him at his own game. Until the day he met DRG. For one last night, for one last match, the 2011 era of DRG came back roaring to life. It was a clash against INnoVation in his prime against DRG, a year past his. And DRG fought INnoVation in his game in his best matchup and won.
After that brief moment in the spotlight, DRG burned out again, and just like before, he pulled himself out of despair to make it to the Ro8. In 2014, the entire MVP team disbanded. Choya reformed it later, but the entire family that DRG had grown up with was disbursed into the wind. He had no home and he had no team. People expected retirement. Instead DRG got back up and fought against an entire system. It was DRG against the world. DRG against the entire KeSPA system. And for one month he fought them all with no team, no sponsorship, with just the help of Catz and some ex-MVP teammates. He then won Red Bull Global and pushed his momentum all the way to the GSL Ro8, where he was finally cut down by the man he had turned mortal an year earlier, INnoVation.
The quality of a player can be judged not by how strong he looks during his prime, but after his fall. And DRG can account himself as one of the greatest.
Style of Play
There is a concept in SC2 called a timing attack. It is a strategy predicated on attacking at the exact moment where your army is at its strongest in relation to the enemy army. In many ways that is how DRG plays, though there are important differences between a normal timing attack and what DRG does. For DRG it isn't predicated on upgrades or army composition advantages, but rather he hits the exact moment in the game where DRG’s skills shine the most, the mid to mid-late game.
DRG’s best games have him hit his peak at this exact time where all of the best aspects of his play come out. DRG has amazing mechanics which translate to great map awareness and larvae injects (something that becomes much less valuable as the games goes on). At the same time it utilizes his great tactical sense of engagement in mid to large army scuffles that rely mostly on quick tier 2 units (mutas, hydras, speed banes, roaches) that pressure the other player into a fast paced tussle with constant battles. This allows him to overwhelm the opponent at a time where his skill eclipses theirs for that brief moment in the game.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/8QDP2EB.jpg)
The most notable examples of this can be found in his series against INnoVation in 2013. Before that game, INnoVation was viewed as a God of TvZ. A player that had almost never lost a macro ZvT (the only two losses being to Soulkey, 1 in Proleague and 1 when he was on tilt in the GSL Finals). Beyond Soulkey, no one had even gotten close to scratching him. Until DRG played him in that GSL Group where they played three games head to head with both playing their most preferred styles in ZvT. And DRG succeeded. In many ways that was the fall of INnoVation: before that game there was an aura of invincibility in that matchup yet afterwards, he was just another mortal.
As if bookending his impeccable mid game along with his uncertain late game, DRG was fairly susceptible to early game attacks. And in the later stages of the game after his peak timing, DRG fell off dramatically as his style was incompatible with the slower tier 3 units of zerg.
This is not to say DRG was a one trick pony. He also had incredible intelligence which he used to refine his builds and play that allowed him to survive early aggression and all-ins. And while rare, he showed he was willing to throw in unorthodox strategies (most notably in his MMA finals where he went roach bane drop). He also had decent preparation given the chance to study his opponents. The black mark on DRG’s career was his inability to ever wrap his head around protoss and it has been a huge detriment to his career post 2012 as he could never find a way to hit that DRG timing against protoss like he had in early 2012.
Difference between DRG and Leenock
If you just take a glance at their achievements, it seems like DRG should have a clear advantage as he went the distance in three Korean LANs, and though he lost two of them, it was to MMA and Rain in their respective primes. However if you look internationally, Leenock won both MLG Providence and IPL 5. Both were near GSL level in terms of competitive player pools. In addition he lost to Life at MLG Fall 2012, another tournament that was very close to GSL level competition. DRG’s OSL on the other hand had a bad format: split preliminaries between KeSPA and non-KeSPA players, split Ro32 for KeSPA and non KeSPA players, and a Ro16 round robin Bo1. For now here is a list of the paths they took for their major tournaments:
DRG
Tier 1
Blizzard Cup 2011 - Mvp, MC, HerO, loss to Stephano, MC, loss to MMA
GSL: Loss to Genius, sC, JYP, Nestea, MKP, Parting, Gumiho, Genius
OSL: Jangbi, MKP, loss to Rain, Oz, MC loss to Rain
Tier 2
MLG Winter Arena 2012 : Ganzi, loss to Parting, Sase, stc, ret, Naniwa, Parting, Oz, Huk, Loss to MKP
MLG Winter Championship 2012: Naniwa, JYP, Heart, Loss to MKP
MLG Spring Championship 2012: Oz, MC Heart, loss to Socke, Puma, MKP, Alicia
Iron Squid 2: Ganzi, Leenock, Creator, Stephano, Nestea, loss to Life
Leenock
Tier 1:
MLG Providence 2011: Oz, loss to DRG, MMA, idra, Huk, Mvp, DRG, Naniwa
GSL November 2011: Polt, Huk, Nestea, aLive, Mvp - Loss to jjakji
MLG Fall 2012: Rain, San, loss to Oz, Rain, Oz, Bomber, Bomber again, loss to Life
IPL 5: Life, Polt, Violet, Violet again
Tier 2:
MLG Summer Championship 2012: Alicia, aLive, Violet, stc, First
Dreamhack Open Stockholm 2013: Gumiho, Grubby, HerO, Naniwa
Given these paths, Leenock’s results at MLG Providence and IPL 5 were more similar to DRG’s GSL win and more impressive than DRG’s OSL loss. At the same time, Leenock’s GSL was about the same as DRG’s BlizzCup. The difference is that Leenock’s tier 2 events weren’t nearly as tough as DRG’s even though Leenock won both of his while DRG got 2nd in three-fourths. What clinches it for me with DRG over Leenock was one thing: consistency. DRG was the best zerg for the first half of 2012 until Life won GSL. And even then he was very solidly the third best zerg after both Life and Leenock for the rest of 2012. While both DRG and Leenock had a hard time after HotS came out, DRG has had more results at a higher level in the expansion, giving DRG the slightest edge over Leenock.
#13 | Maru, The Youngest Veteran
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/thumb/b/b0/Maru_IPL4.jpg/250px-Maru_IPL4.jpg)
Achievements
Tier 1:
OSL 2013 - 1st
GSL Season 3 2013 - Top 4
WCS Season 3 Finals 2013 - Top 4
Bizzcon 2013 - Top 4
GSL Season 2 2014 - Top 4
SSL 2015 - 1st
IEM Taipei - 2nd
Greatest Series Played:
Maru vs Dear - GSL Season 3 Semi-finals
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4
Maru vs Dear - WCS Season 3 Finals 2013
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4
Maru vs Flash - WCS Season 3 Group D ro16
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3
Maru vs Life - IEM Taipei Finals
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Set 6 | Set 7
Maru vs EffOrt - Code A Season 4
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3
Maru vs Jjakji - GSL Season 3 2013 ro8
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4
Maru vs Stats - NSSL Semi-finals
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Set 6
“That’s why I think Maru will be good for a long time. Because he started very young. He didn’t start at the top, he climbed his way steadily there.” - Naniwa
34:52
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Hot_Bid/GSL/Day3Maru.jpg)
Maru is one of the members of the first class. The rare breed of player that entered the first ever GSL Open and have survived nearly 5 years later after numerous patches, metas, influxes of new players and an expansion. And for Maru most of it was spent in complete seclusion and failure. It took him a year to qualify for Code A before he dropped out. Then another 6 months to qualify again. Then another year and a half before he won his first ever Championship in HotS.
Many call Maru a young prodigy. A player with incredible talent that was destined to be at the top of the SC2 world like Life. Yet their roads to the top could not be any more different. Maru grinded game after game after game; he spent years trying to get to the top only to be met with constant mediocrity. Life on the other hand had been playing SC2 as a hobby for all of 2011. He and his entire team was picked up by StarTale where the new coach made Life start to take the game seriously. In a month's time Life had skyrocketed to the top of SC2.
Perhaps Maru does have a natural talent for the game. Even in his first ever GSL Open Season 1 game, Maru showed a real grasp of micro as he eliminated Cella. Yet that talent was not one that came easily. It took years of toiling, of playing, of perfecting a way to play that expressed who he was and how he believed the game should be played. In comparison, all it took for Life to become one of the greatest players of all time was to take the game seriously and have a good regimen from StarTale.
Yet their very paths to the top are telling on how the two players’ careers have played out. Life went on a slump following his early 2013 MLG and never reached the top again until the end of 2014. Once Maru reached the top of OSL, he stayed there and never let it go and has been one of the top 3 terrans in the world until now. And unlike the previous members on this list, Maru still has the capacity to grow, to increase his legacy, and is one of the few threats left that may actually stop Life from taking the throne.
Play Style:
![[image loading]](http://www.gosugamers.net/files/images/StarCraft%202/October%202013/dear-maru-1.jpg)
I can say without a shadow of doubt that there is no terran player that has better micro in the world than Maru. In fact there has been no terran player since Maru’s OSL run in 2013 that has even come close to reaching his level of control in any of the matchups. Maru has taken micro to the extreme. For a basic run down of his abilities: splits bio forces in such a way that single marauders tank colossus shots, microes marines in such a way that he moves back the marine that has been charged by chargelots to the back to get maximum damage, innovated widow mine drops, created widow mine burrow micro, and reinstated drop style play in all matchups against the run of the meta.
Maru’s vision of SC2 is simple in concept, but exceptionally difficult in execution. Maru believes that every battle no matter how small should be won. That every small scale engagement should be won so that the momentum, the cost efficiency and the psychological advantage stays in Maru’s control from beginning to end. And because of this belief in his own micro and battlefield superiority, Maru has a large number of builds and compositions he can use. He’s used bio, mech, mech into bio, bio tank vs protoss, cloaked banshees in TvP, and he was the first player to use bio mine pushes pre-WM buff. And though rare, should Maru go into the late game, his max army control is also amazing and he has very nearly won lost games off of the back of that alone.
The most underrated aspect about Maru’s play is his preparation, the greatest example of that being his semi-finals match against INnoVation. INnoVationhas always been static in the way he plays and views the game. Because of that Maru went for the counter in game 1 and opened up with a 1/1/1, surprising him with cloaked banshee harass that softened him enough to die to the attack. In the game afterwards, INnoVation tried to hard counter cloaked banshees by getting a raven and marines. Maru predicted this and did a proxy starport into marine hellion harass and then finished it off with a double drop into INnoVation's main. The third game Maru followed it up with an 11/11 predicting INnoVation's love of greed again and instantly picked up the third win. After that victory, the series was sealed and INnoVation was easy pickings for Maru in the 4th game. Yet recently Maru’s preparation has gotten worse since joining Jin Air as he is given much less time to prepare for his individual tournaments (once citing he had only gotten a day to prepare for a Ro16) and that the team had wanted him to focus on Proleague.
Difference between Maru and DRG
This ranking was easier to decide as both DRG and Maru have had a similar amount of time at their peaks (1.5 years). The difference is that Maru had much more success in the Korean leagues and put on much stronger consistent results from 2013 to now. In the 13 Korean or Korean level LANs attended he has only ever done badly in the WCS Season 2 Finals (his second time out of the country) and dropped out in two GSLs in two group stages (both groups happened to be the group of death). After that the worst result he’s gotten has been Ro8 or higher consistently against the top players in the world. This is even more impressive when you consider that Maru was the only terran doing well at all in Korean during the Blink Era (late 2013 to mid 2014).
#12 | soO, Icon of Second
![[image loading]](http://img.plures.net/dfdc/e21e/efb3/16a8/007b/38ce/bd9e/914c.jpg)
Achievements:
Tier 1:
GSL 2013 Season 3 - 2nd
GSL 2014 Season 1- 2nd
GSL Global Championship - Top 4
GSL 2014 Season 2- 2nd
GSL 2014 Season 3 - 2nd
Tier 2:
DH Stockholm - 2nd
Greatest Series Played:
soO vs Zest - GSL Season 1 Finals 2014
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Set 6 | Set 7
soO vs Flash - GSL Season 3 2014 Ro16 Group D
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3
soO vs Zest - GSL Season 3 Semi Finals
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Set 6 | Set 7
soO vs Stats - GSL Season 3 Quarter Finals
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4
The beginning of soO’s career can be summed up in one sentence: “Look at me!” He was a man recruited into SKT T1, a player who dreamed of becoming like Boxer. Instead he found himself in the SKT Zerg line, a line of players whose legacy was to become losers, quacks and bumblers. And even once he had reached the finals, it was quickly dismissed as Dear was on a hot streak and turned a 2.328% chance (as calculated by Die4eva) into a reality as he entered Blizzcon at the death.
And in his next GSL Finals, soO was once again done in, this time by Zest, the rise of an all time great. And again soO was forgotten, soO was left in the dark. Most players get some infamy after reaching a GSL Finals. Reach 2 GSL Finals in a row and you’re treading in a place only Mvp has ever walked. And yet the talk of the town was Zest. And again soO reached a GSL Finals. One could have been a fluke. Two forced people to pay attention. At three they were forced to accept begrudgingly that soO was the real deal. And again he lost, this time to Classic. A strong protoss, but not one that had shown the form of Dear or the greatness of Zest.
It was during his fourth consecutive GSL finals run that soO finally got the respect that had been his due for months. And he got it by killing God. Flash was on a hot streak. He was murdering Proleague, destroying individual leagues and had just won one of the toughest IEM Tournaments to have ever been run. After one IEM victory, the world had been convinced that not only was Flash the best terran on earth, but he was going to win GSL, KeSPA Cup and then miraculously qualify for Blizzcon. And again soO was left forgotten. After one victory Flash had become the hero, the man destined to revolutionize SC2 and bring in a new age. After 3 consecutive GSL Finals, soO could barely get people to remember he existed. But he changed all that as he took an axe to God. In two games Flash got the early game advantage. He killed 29 drones in the first game. Flash denied soO his 4th base in the second game. Yet soO easily overwhelmed Flash in the first and very nearly took Flash out in the second. In the third game when they both finally arrived in the mid game on even footing, soO smashed Flash into the ground.
Now all eyes were on soO as he made his way through the pretenders. He narrowly beat Zest in the Ro4 and made it to his fourth consecutive GSL Finals. And for a fourth time, he lost. soO had finally gotten the world to notice, to acknowledge his strength. But he wasn’t the champion he had set out to be. soO had spent his entire life trying to become the next Boxer and instead he found himself as YellOw.
Play Style:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1x7ckqJ.jpg)
The first thing to note about soO is he is just mentally fragile in finals. If there wasn’t a mental road block before, there almost certainly is now. For that reason many call soO a player with a weak mentality. But if you look at his runs altogether it tells a different story. Yes, he’s bad at finals, but any time before that he can be very clutch when he has to be, most notably when he beat Life 4-3 to get to his second GSL Finals and when he beat his nemesis Zest 4-3 to get to his 4th GSL final.
The second thing to note is that soO plays his best by far when he prepares for Bo3+ series. He comes up with fairly strong plans for every map and is extremely flexible with his strategies depending on what he is seeing that day.
This is even scarier once you realize that soO is an all-rounder zerg. He can play both aggro and defensive. He is fairly good at both defense and offense. He has a wide variety of builds and is the most open of all Korean zergs that freely steals builds and takes advice from the foreign scene. In fact soO has credited Catz numerous times for helping him in preparing for matches as well as being an integral part of his plan in defeating Zest in the semi-finals. The only super stylistic thing about soO is he prefers muta/corruptor and tech switches in ZvP far more than the swarmhost or aggressive styles of other zergs.
Beyond that his ZvT was especially scary as he had the best larvae injects of any zerg (especially at points in the game where other zergs get distracted by drops, harass or fighting, soO always keeps it up). Because of that he often overwhelms his opponents in the matchup and was able to show that zerg could easily fight with 2/2 ling/bling against a 3/3 bio terran off creep if you had the momentum, better engagement and the mechanics to pull it off.
Difference between soO and Maru:
This was another really close choice. Here are the paths they took for their tournaments:
soO
Tier 1:
GSL Season 3 2013: YongHwa, loss to Super, Bomber, loss to Jjakji, Super, INnoVation, PartinG, Soulkey, loss to Dear.
GSL Season 1 2014: Panic, sOs, Trap, Bbyong, PartinG, Life, loss to Zest
GSL Global Championship: Oz, loss to San, Maru, loss to Zest
GSL Season 2 2014: RagnaroK, loss to TRUE, Trap, herO, loss to Classic, Parting, Solar, TRUE, loss to Classic
GSL Season 3 2014: Trust, DRG, DRG again, Flash, Stats, Zest, loss to INnoVation
Tier 2:
DH Stockholm: Leenock, Classic, ForGG, loss to Solar
Maru
Tier 1:
OSL: EffOrt, sOs, Trap, SuperNova, Symbol, INnoVation, Rain
GSL S3: Sleep, Bbyong, loss to PartinG, Losira, Flash, jjakji, loss to Dear
WCS Season 3 Finals: soO, duckdeok, MMA, loss to Dear
Blizzcon: MC, duckdeok, loss to Jaedong
Hot6ix Cup: soO, lost to Soulkey
GSL Season 2 2014: MyuNgSiK, DRG, Dark, Stork, Soulkey, lost to Classic
NSSL 2015: loss to Dream, TY, Dark, Leenock, Stats, Dream
IEM Taipei: TRUE, loss to PartinG, Hydra, herO, Soulkey, loss to Life
Overall I give a slight edge in difficulty to soO. soO had to beat INnoVation, Parting 3 times, Soulkey, sOs, Trap twice, Life, Zest, herO, Solar, TRUE, DRG twice, Maru, Flash and Stats to make it to his four consecutive GSL Finals. I took into account when soO had played each of them and every player on this list was either a top 5 player or their race or higher at the point they met.
In comparison Maru played sOs, Trap, Symbol, INnoVation, Rain, Flash, Jjakji, soO twice, MMA, MC, duckdeok twice, DRG, Soulkey, Dark once (the time in 2014 Dark was not close to top 5 of his race), Leenock, Stats, Dream, herO.
The breadth of top tier competition soO faced was stronger and it was all during his runs in GSL which gave time for all his opponents to prepare for him. Given that he had become the staple of GSL and had huge amounts of video on him that makes it even more impressive.
Another reason I picked soO over Maru was peak consistency. Just as Maru was picked over DRG because he had larger results over a consistent period of time, soO one-upped Maru and reached 4 consecutive GSL Finals. Arguably the single hardest feat anyone has ever done.
#11 | MarineKing, Locked in Stasis
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/8TchdC1.jpg)
Achievements:
Tier 1:
GSL Open Season 2 2010 - 2nd
GSL 2011 January - 2nd
GSL World Championship - 2nd
GSL Super Tournament - Top 4
WCG Korea 2011- 2nd
WCG Korea 2012 - 2nd
Hot6ix Cup 2014 - 2nd
Tier 2:
MLG Winter Arena 2012 - 1st
MLG Winter Championship 2012 - 1st
MLG Spring Championship 2012 - 3rd
Iron Squid 2 - Top 4
Tier 4:
ESWC 2011 - 3rd
Greatest Series Played:
MK vs DRG Finals - MLG Winter Championship 2012
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Set 6 | Set 7
MK vs Kyrix - GSL Open Season 2 Quarter-Finals
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5
MK vs Nada - GSL January 2011 Quarter-Finals
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3
MK vs Parting - GSTL Finals
Set 4
MK vs Parting - MLG Winter Championship 2012
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3
In many ways, MarineKing’s career is reflective of his GSL Season 2 run back in 2010. During that run, which kicked off a multitude of second-place finishes, there were two critical series that came to define MarineKing’s career and how it would play out until the present day. The first was his series against Kyrix, where the two of them fought the first truly great series of SC2’s history. Kyrix unleashed his patented mass ling/bling aggression against MarineKing’s even more aggressive marine control. The Prime Terran launched one of the most important tactical revolutions in terran history by showcasing a basic concept: the marine split. Although it had been a theoretical maneuver carried out infrequently during the fledgling days of WoL, MarineKing pulled it off time and time again against an opponent whose style seemed unmatchable. It was beautiful play that excited the crowd and captured their imagination. More importantly, he demonstrated how essential the marine split was to controlling the pace of TvZ.
The other series was his finals against Nestea. In it, you saw 2 of his 3 major weaknesses that he has never quite overcome. The first is his stubbornness in both strategy and general approach to matches. In all 7 games Marineking went for the exact same build, a proxy 2 rax to set up a bunker rush. The second was revealed in the final game. The game was on close positions Metalopolis. To get an idea of how short that distance was, from ramp to ramp it was shorter than Steppes of War. Many main bases in today’s map pool cover more distance. And even still MarineKing proxied his 2 rax below his ramp. He did great early damage with his initial attack and if he had possessed the necessary composure, he would have realized Nestea was in a terrible position. If the zerg did not drone he would certainly lose the game later and if he did drone, he would certainly die under a second assault.
For MarineKing, the choice was obvious. His opponent was hobbled and he had to slit his throat as soon as humanly possible. For Nestea, he saw to the very core of who MarineKing was and made the correct prediction of MarineKing all-ining and massed lings to stop the attack, counter and win that game. And in many ways MarineKing has relived that moment again and again and again as he has been too stubborn, too muleheaded to change. Yet in those failures, in those close matchups, it made his few victories all the more meaningful.
Play style:
Back in 2012, Polt claimed that MarineKing was the best player in the world in terms of mechanics. It's doubtful whether this was the case but the anecdote showed how highly regarded MarineKing was at that point as both foe and friend. However, such talent was arguably wasted on him. Perhaps he was too enamored with his technical prowess or it encouraged intellectual laziness on his part, because in other aspects of the game he was dumb. I mentioned his three weaknesses before. The first was his stubbornness, the second was his composure, and the third was his unwillingness to change.
Look at MarineKing’s victories holistically. Every time he has gone far, every time he has made a deep run, it was characterized by two things. First was his great mechanics and incredibly control. Second it was his incredible greedy and exploitative openings. In metas where terran was strong, the meta covered MarineKing’s weaknesses so that it could not be punished. But once the queen change was instituted, zergs everywhere (starting with Symbol) started roach bane busting him every game.
In many ways his return to Korea after his MLG victory was telling. Up to that point MarineKing had only really been using two opening builds: CC first and 11/11. In their series, Symbol realized MarineKing never scouted so he went for a 7 roach 1 base build that killed both builds to eliminate MarineKing.
Perhaps that was why Mvp was such a terrible matchup for MarineKing. Against a player with similar mechanics, against a player of such pure intelligence, against a player that could see MarineKing for all that he was, maybe that was why MarineKing could never beat Mvp. In many ways it was saddening. MarineKing easily had the best control of anyone in WoL. Even now his control is still in the upper echelon if he can get there. But all of that talent and mechanics sometimes feels wasted because MarineKing was too stubborn or too recalcitrant to change.
Difference between MarineKing and soO:
Path
The battle of the Kongs is another very close difference in ranking. If you look at their peaks, soO spent 1 year as the best zerg for all of 2014. MarineKing spent 1.5 years as the second or third best terran in 2011 through early 2012 and peaked at his double MLG victories. While many point to that as a possible time in which he was “the best terran” he was never able to make it happen back in Korea during the same time frame. The rest of MKP’s 2012 was decent as he made a few Ro8s and got second in WCG Korea. In comparison soO’s 2013 was of a similar level, though slightly worse results over a longer period of time. While MarineKing has his second at Hot6ix in 2014, soO also has his other second in GSL in 2013. In terms of highest consistent peak MarineKing is slightly ahead as he had 1.5 years to soO’s 1 year, but MarineKing’s era was favorable to terran whereas soO’s was slightly worse for zerg. In terms of consistency it’s a wash.
The next part is to look at the paths of their major tournaments:
Paths
MarineKing
Tier 1:
WCG 2011: Oz, sC, GuMiho, Happy, loss to Mvp
WCG 2012: Parting, loss to YongHwa
GSL Open 2: Fruitdealer, Kyrix, Rainbow, lost to Nestea
GSL Jan 2011: Jinro (bo1), Rainbow (bo1), NaDa, Jinro, loss to Mvp
GSL WC: MC, loss to Mvp
GSL ST: Loss to MMA
Hot6ix: Stats, herO, PartinG, Zest, loss to sOs
Tier 2:
MLG Winter Arena: Losira, Naniwa, viOLet, PartinG, HuK, DRG
MLG Winter Championship: Ganzi, MC, PartinG, DRG
MLG Spring Championship: Symbol, Stephano, loss to DRG, loss to Alicia
Iron Squid 2: Taeja, HerO, MC, loss to Life
soO
Tier 1:
GSL Season 3 2013: YongHwa, loss to Super, Bomber, loss to Jjakji, Super, INnoVation, PartinG, Soulkey, loss to Dear.
GSL Season 1 2014: sOs, Trap, Bbyong, PartinG, Life, loss to Zest
GSL Global Championship: Oz, loss to San, Maru, loss to Zest
GSL Season 2 2014: loss to TRUE, Trap, herO, loss to Classic, PartinG, Solar, TRUE, loss to Classic
GSL Season 3 2014: DRG, DRG again, Flash, Stats, Zest, loss to INnoVation
Tier 2:
DH Stockholm: Leenock, Classic, ForGG, loss to Solar
First look at MarineKing’s WCG Korea’s in 2011 and 2012. In 2011 he beat Oz, sC, Gumiho and Happy before losing to Mvp. In 2012 the only noteworthy player (noteworthy in my case being a player in the top 5/10 of his race, top 5 of the matchup of that time or running a strong hot streak during said tournament) he beat was PartinG before losing to YongHwa. Oz was a top 3 protoss, sC was close to top 5 terran, Happy’s TvT was top 5, and PartinG in 2012 was top 3 protoss (or the best protoss depending on how you look at it). This was about equivalent to soO’s’ GSL Season 3 2013 run. He beat Yonghwa, Bomber, Super, INnoVation, PartinG and Soulkey. YongHwa was mediocre, Bomber was around the top 5 for terran, Super was a middling protoss, INnoVation was either 1st or 2nd best terran, PartinG top 5 protoss, Soulkey best zerg.
For MarineKing that’s: Top 3 P, top 5 T, Top 5 TvT,Top 3 P.
For soO it’s: Top 5 T, Top 2 T, Top 5 P, Top 1 Z.
So in my mind MarineKing’s two WCG runs are worth about as much as soO’s 1 GSL run. Perhaps you could favor soO here because he defeated Soulkey and INnoVation and the only player close to that was MarineKing’s defeat of PartinG in 2012.
Next I rated MarineKing’s GSL Open 2 and his GSL January run as close to soO’s GSL Season 1 2014 run. MKP’s run for both: Fruitdealer, Kyrix, Rainbow, Jinro, Rainbow, NaDa, Jinro. In comparison for soO it was sOs, Trap, Bbyong, PartinG, Life.
MarineKing beat: Top 2 Z, Top 3 ZvT, and 3 of the top 5 terrans at that time in Jinro, Rainbow and NaDa.
soO beat: Top 5 P, Top 10 P, top 5 T (though this was terran at its weakest point and only defeating Maru, Polt and Taeja should be considered a real achievement), Top 5 P, Top 5 Z.
In terms of relative strength, Marineking was close to facing the best of his field, while soO beat a lot of top tier opponents, 3 of them went on into slumps (sOs, PartinG and Life). What makes it even in my mind is the much better format of GSL during soO’s time. He beat them when there was more preparation and in bo3 series.
Next was MarineKing’s Super Tournament and GSL WC run. Both were surprisingly easy runs and the only real challenge he faced was MC despite finishing far in both. This is about equivalent to soO’s run in GSL Global Championship as he beat only Oz (a middle tier protoss at best) and Maru. Both just beat one elite player. Even if it was two tournaments for MarineKing, in the end the WC was just a 16 man tournament and MarineKing got the lucky draw of getting two of the weaker foreigners (Sen and TT1) before having to hit MC which was why I think his run in that wasn’t very impressive.
The next part to look at is MKP’s Hot6ix where he beat only protoss players, but all 5 were either Top 5 or close to it. Stats, Zest, Parting, herO. That was close to soO’s Season 2 run where soO beat Trap, herO, PartinG, Solar, and TRUE. While MarineKing’s list is more impressive it was during a meta that was fairly terran favored as protoss had yet to adjust to the WM patch. In addition MarineKing was never tested in TvT or TvZ. And finally the GSL fomat with more players and more preparation was what made them equal.
So this leads to the crux of the argument. Does soO’s last GSL run and his DH run outweight the triple MLG and the Iron Squid runs of MarineKing? In the end I didn’t think so. While those four tournaments were arguably weaker, they all had fairly strong competition in all of them and soO’s run at DH was fairly weak in comparison. This was what gave MarineKing the edge and put him a spot above soO. That and MarineKing actually won two of them.
