The Man With Two Faces

by TheOneAboveU

125-74 (62,81%) vs Korean Terrans in Heart of the Swarm
12-6 (66,67%) vs Korean Terrans in recent matches
11-5 (68,75%) vs INnoVation

Statistically, things look fine for ByuL. Statistically, things look great. One could not name three players in the world at present that are decidedly better than ByuL. Save for his teammate herO, one could not name another player to match his consistency this year - nor his peaks.

Yet all this must take a backseat to a much more worrying trend: going into this duel with INnoVation, ByuL has a final mountain to climb. His record in StarLeague finals is, by a long shot, more disheartening than his consistency elsewhere is encouraging, as his floundering 1-4 and 2-4 losses against Rain and herO have cost the Zerg two championships already. But the numbers look bright. Terrans don't stand a chance against him right now, no matter if they are playing the dreaded mech style or working the finesse of the time-tested bio-mine. For ByuL, he has one shred of confidence to defy his consecutive defeats: he hasn't lost a series against INnoVation yet. Over the last weeks, several notable Terrans have tried to topple ByuL, and all have failed. Some made it close, some were shut down before they could even pass their challenges off as legitimate. For the Zerg, this is still the era of ByuL. The unfortunate other side of the coin is that he stands before a crossroads: a victory will redeem him, a defeat will take him down the most infamous path of Starcraft finalists: the Kong line.

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So here we are… again. For the third time in a period of only four months, ByuL is standing in the Grand Finals of a Korean individual league, his dream of becoming a champion seemingly within range... again. People often say that third time’s the charm, but for ByuL the third time must be more like some hell on earth. It's a chance, but it is a chance that he must not fail to take.

Two times his dream was in sight, two times the chances of his dream becoming reality have been brutally shattered. When soO was in a similar position last year, we began to ask ourselves how much mental pain a player can bear before his mind breaks. For the SK Telecom Zerg, five second places in premier tournaments was the limit. But while soO became angrier with every loss and each championship taken from his hands, completing the gruelling climb back to the finals again, again, again, each defeat driving him forward, ByuL doesn’t seem to be angry at all. ByuL’s face is empty when we see him in a booth at the moment, a void of emotions rather than a maelstrom.

And recently, the seemingly unbreakable ByuL, famous for his mental fortitude, renowned for his indomitabilty, has suffered from this inner struggle. The wall around his mind has cracked, and doubts have crept through. Weaknesses, slithering through. Doubts in his abilities to shake off losses and setbacks, to win in a desperate situation with his back at a wall. To doubt one's greatest strength is a sure way path to tragedy—and ByuL seems to be doing exactly that. The CJ Zerg’s fans need to hope that the disastrous game against sOs in Proleague this week was a wake-up slap. It showed the symptoms of a broken spirit: doubts, indecision and nerves, epitomized by a lack of direction and a fumbling of advantages. That’s not the ByuL we know, and that is not a ByuL who is going to win a high-stakes series against INnoVation.

The other ByuL could. The one who carved himself a path through S2SL and GSL despite a loss in the finals, driven by the sheer strength of will and a desire for redemption. That ByuL has eliminated INnoVation from S2SL Season 3 and is probably the best ZvT player on the planet— most definitely the best at handling mech. But to be this person again, this merciless beast of a player, he needs to let go of the doubts - if such doubts exist - poisoning his mind right now. Because what makes him such a great player, especially against mech, is his mental strength, his ability to withstand pressure and to think clearly, even in the heat of battle. He can take hit after hit and still be in the game, cling to what little opportunity he has when other players would have already surrendered. ByuL has the right amount of patience needed to temper the heat of his killer instinct. The combination is ideal for facing deep siege tank lines, or a complex mech death march threatening his bases. He knows when to attack, when to defend, and more importantly knows when to sacrifice assets for survival, and the chance to fight in just the right moment. He is a scary player to face, especially for INnoVation, an opponent often called out for his predictability and weakness against surprise attacks. An opponent whose natural counter is ByuL.

INnoVation’s mech is his bread and butter against Zerg right now— and ByuL is the best Zerg player against mech. Bio is the alternative, but ByuL has crushed any such attempts, with widely different execution, without quarter. Cheese is the SK Telecom Terran's weakness, and ByuL has a lot of cheeses of his sleeve. Of course, we cannot circle the elephant in the room forever: INnoVation has been in this position before, facing a Zerg with a statistically favoured style one time before. He clashed with Soulkey in the very first season of WCS Korea, and there Soulkey put his weaknesses on full display. Soulkey found no success in the mundane and the ordinary, but when he clenched his teeth and did what was necessary to win, he not only won - he did it confidently, dominantly, and threw INnoVation far, far off balance. This time, it is the Zerg who holds the advantage beforehand, whose history of dominance overshadows his opponent. This time, it is the Zerg whose mental fortitude we must now question. Will we see one ByuL, the one we know, or the other - the one we don't?

This old ByuL would have probably welcomed INnoVation as his opponent in the Grand Final of GSL. His best match-up against an adversary that has never defeated him— sounds like a dream, too good to be true. Both still hold true - ByuL is most comfortable in ZvT, and remains undefeated against his opponent. Yet this is no dream. With the cracks in his armor visible and doubts plaguing him, ByuL isn’t as immovable as he was a few weeks ago, when he last faced INnoVation. The ByuL of last week was nothing but a shadow of the player he was supposed to be, the player we assumed would carry CJ all the way.



"Why do we fall, ByuL?"

The first time ByuL lost a final, he stood next to the champion on the stage, in tears, at a loss for words. The world saw his sadness and asked if he would ever stand upon such a stage again, if this broken heart was one that would mend. The answer was a resounding yes.

The second time ByuL lost a final, he did not stand next to the champion on the stage. ByuL stayed in his booth, hidden from the world, with only his mother and a few teammates to console him behind the scenes, because everyone else celebrated with the victor. And the world, seeing ByuL's struggle, once again asked if he would ever stand upon such a stage again. Would the once-mended heart, when broken, mend again?

Again, ByuL stood stiff-backed and told us yes. After all he went through, ByuL remains the master of his fate. It lies in his hands and his mind only. He dictates its direction. His might be taken down the edge and made to accept defeat once more, piling greater weights on those that already lay on his shoulders, or he might turn around and fight, fiercer than the time before, and the time before that.

Faster, smarter, uglier. All that is necessary. Hell has its own charm—and it might bring out the best of ByuL.


"So we can learn to pick ourselves up."

Old And New, As One

by Destructicon

As 2015's twilight draws close so does the end of this tournament, the last GSL played under Heart of the Swarm. Throughout its rich history the GSL has witnessed multiple generations rise and fall, the seemingly inevitable takeover by KeSPA players, numerous meta changes and the myriad of stories carried on their crest. Whether by fate or coincidence, the last GSL of this era will mimic the very first one: a TvZ showdown between the best players of their respective race.

Just like his climatic finals against his nemesis Soulkey, INnoVation enters as the favorite. His meticulous focus on mechanics has served him well throughout his career, being the linchpin of his 67% career win rate. Meanwhile has racked up an slightly better 68% win rate in TvZ. While at first glance it is not as frightening as his 90%+ win rate before his previous final, the caliber of players he has defeated and how much better they have become, it may be even more terrifying. The head count over the last two months for INnoVation includes HyuN, Hydra, Losira, Curious, soO, Life and Rogue.

The only loss INnoVation has suffered over the past two months has been a close 2-3 series against his current adversary. But judging from all the opponents he's plowed through to reach this point, Mr. Roboto seems unscathed by that failure. He is riding a recent high, his TvZ is the best it has been in recent memory and the meta favors his mechanics and his style a lot. Surely INnoVation has this in the bag, right? That's what INnoVation thought a long time ago too. Hubris cost him that championship, and he'll need to revisit his past to make sure he doesn't make the same mistakes tomorrow.


Say what you will about INnoVation, but he possesses a look of unrivaled serenity.

INnoVation's first mistake was overconfidence in his style. For the longest time it didn't matter whether he showcased any variety, as no one could challenge his basic strategy. He parade-pushed his way through every Zerg imaginable, slaughtering the swarm in brutal fashion. First he took down Life, the Blizzard Cup champion, in their fateful Ro16 group of death; he then dismantled RorO, the previous season champion, with cold efficiency. At that point Symbol was the only Zerg that had skirted past the terror, taking two maps off the machine with early game busts. While INnoVation took the series, it was the first hint that he had a identifiable, exploitable flaw. But he didn't care much about such a minor setback and stuck to his tried and tested formula. Until the latter half of the finals, it appeared as unassailable as before. Up 3 games against Soulkey with 3 games to burn, he refused to consolidate his lead with safe play. Instead he continued to play greedy and lost game after game to Soulkey's busts. By game 6 INnoVation was in such a state of disbelief that he tried to 11/11 a second time, only to have it held and get busted again. In game 7 INnoVation's mentality was so shattered that he flew three full medivacs into the maws of waiting mutalisks.

For the first time, the hallowed Terran was defeated. What was supposed to be his finest moment was snatched away from him. However people still had confidence in INnoVation and after his victory in the WCS Season Final 1, many labeled Soulkey's victory as a fluke. Unfazed, INnoVation stuck to his winning formula and only made minor tweaks to his approach. His cool confidence came back to bite him again, this time in the OSL semifinal against Maru. In a different matchup Maru committed to the same strategy Soulkey tried, all-inning the machine three times in a row. Despite INnoVation's wildly different builds in TvT, Maru gambled that INnoVation would rely on pseudo-dedicated pressure or passive greed. And it worked: by game 4 INnoVation had retreated into full defensive mode, leaving Maru open to be as greedy as possible.

As more and more cracks were being uncovered in INnoVation's strategic armor, he retained faith in his mechanics. His few losses came against the best players in the world, and those anomalies would only manifest against the highest competition. He could still rely on standard play against the rest. That was INnoVation's second mistake. As he went into the Group F of the last GSL in 2013, little did he know that he would be humbled by someone who was barely relevant at that point. DRG, former champion turned former champion, went head to head against INnoVation in three consecutive macro games. Not only was DRG able to fight toe to toe with INnoVation, but he was actually won; if not for a hidden CC on Whirlwind, he might have swept the machine 2-0. The loss was the second huge blow to INnoVation's aura of invincibility. Shortly thereafter Curious went head to head against the machine in an IEM qualifier and managed to defeat him in straight macro games, effectively ending INnoVation's era of TvZ domination.

The last mistake INnoVation made was underestimating his opponents. He didn't give Soulkey, Maru, DRG or Curious the necessary respect. Perhaps disgruntled by his disappointing finishes in Korea, INnoVation joined Acer in search of greener pastures. Things initially looked good for him as he flew to the Seasons 2 final in Cologne. Then he met TaeJa, who dismantled RoBogus after a titanic clash on Newkirk. TvT, the last bastion of defense for INnoVation had also been breached, and it had been done by someone who never managed to even make a GSL final. To drive the point home, TaeJa defeated INnoVation again in the Dreamhack Bucharest finals.

Battered and beaten, INnoVation looked like a shell of his former self. It is then he realized what he needed to do to get back on top, quickly signing with SKT1 and moving back to Korea. After just a short time in INnoVation managed to secure his first GSL, the win that had eluded him for the better part of a year. However, having defeated the notorious Kong soO, doubt still lingered. The question refused to die. Had INnoVation truly learned the error of his ways?


If nothing else, he had at least learned the way of... posing?

The answer throughout late 2014 and early 2015 seemed to be "no". During that period INnoVation reached the quarterfinals of BlizzCon, Hot6ix Cup, GSL Season 1, and IEM Katowice. Overall these results were by no means bad, they pale in comparison to INnoVation's ambition. And there are signs that the Robot had begun to rebuild itself. He managed to win IEM X - Gamescom of the back of a dominating performance and despite losing to ByuL in the Ro8 of S2SL Season 3, it was a close affair. Even in TvP, where he was notorious for excessive SCV pulls, he reinvented himself, surprising Zest with a new widow mine build and then deflecting later aggression for a easy win. INnoVation looked like a new man. No longer content to sit back, he was now in the driver's seat with unpredictable early game pressure. And as the games went long all his old strengths came back, revealing a new impenetrable armored exoskeleton.

Heading into the last GSL finals of the year, INnoVation looks like the complete package. He has augmented his fearsome mechanics with a strong, calculated early game. But then again, we thought he was invincible two years ago. Can INnoVation fight to prevent a repeat of the past, or is it all just Bogus?