A Fight For Freedom

by Zealously

There are many kinds of players converging on the WCS Global Finals. The champions, laying claim to championships numbering dozens between them. The winless, players of indisputable prowess whose trophy cabinets stand empty not for their own lack of merit - but for the outstanding abilities of others. herO, Maru and Life stand at the forefront of the first category, while players such as Dream and ByuL headline the second. Indeed, the players belonging to these categories by far outnumber any outliers, because the WCS system greatly rewards players achieving high peaks. Life and Maru - possessed of two of the highest peaks this year - both secured their tickets to Blizzcon early, and once ByuL hit his stride he quickly cut his way through the rankings to arrive safely at 8th place, accruing nearly 4000 points in a span of two months. Last year was strikingly similar, where nearly every player boasted either championships or, at the very least, multiple close calls.

HyuN and FanTaSy are, for the most part, outliers. In more ways than one, the two players vying for the coveted sixteenth and final spot at Blizzcon (and the somewhat less coveted match against herO) are drastically different from their field of competition. Not only do they not adhere to the commonality of a mostly streamlined metagame, they find their success in breadth rather than height, diligently striving for success in multitude rather than in concentration, traveling far and wide instead of buckling down to take on the gauntlet posed by the Korean scene.

What should be considered their greatest strength - resilience and an unflinching will to continue to compete in the face of lacking results - can also be construed as their common weakness. Fallen from the very top, both HyuN and FanTaSy are players with memories of having more. Of being more. HyuN's legacy in Starcraft II might foremost be one of almost and not quite, but his mark on the competitive scene is undeniable. From humble beginnings as an amiable but mostly harmless Brood War player to being the first "elephant" reaching a GSL finals and becoming one of the most successful globetrotter players of 2013, Spider Hyun has carved for himself a niche in the game: perhaps not all that he had hoped for or all that he could have achieved, but respectable and memorable nonetheless.



FanTaSy, contrary to his opponent, was once the very best. He might never have received the recognition he so deserved, and Brood War's final hours might well have come too soon for the SKT Terran, but he left the game with a reputation of indomitability and near-enough peerless play. As the last professional Brood War tournament concluded, FanTaSy's record of five OSL finals (and an additional two semifinals) was second to only a select few in the game's decade-long history, and his influence on the game could not be overlooked. He has not been invisible in Starcraft II by any stretch of the imagination, but to the lofty expectations set by his ascent in Brood War, FanTaSy could just as well have been a B-teamer. Not to say that he has not provided memorable moments aplenty in Starcraft II:



But although his offbeat style has gradually edged towards a more familiar and standard brand of Terran, the man once nicknamed the Terrorist for his brilliant and aggressive use of vultures and mines still inhabits his own little perch of Terran. He is a player, one of few, that bullheadedly fights for himself with no regard for others. In many ways, his venture into Starcraft II mirrors his deceptively long history in Brood War. Successes never admitted, victories never recognized, great moments overshadowed by others. That is what FanTaSy is about - the long run, the fight against odds that never seems to end. He fought an uphill battle against the presence of a dominant and immensely popular quartet in Brood War, seemingly doomed to walk in shadow. In Starcraft II, he has doggedly rebuilt himself, climbed from a place of weakness to a place where the fight lies with him. Anyone that has watched FanTaSy's games - be they in Brood War or Starcraft II - knows that he can be the most scrappy player in the world, epitomizing the mantra of "Never surrender" in such a manner that it puts even Marineking to shame. He can play the ugliest manner of game, so entirely unconvincing as to draw the harshest of criticisms, to force that one unlikely moment - the one instant - that gives him the victory.

FanTaSy is not immensely talented, but driven by a desire - a need - to win. It is a driving force, a fuel for a competitive spirit rivaled by few. A need to prove himself. In this, HyuN is much the same. This is his tenth year of progaming, his tenth year of chasing success that has come to him only sporadically, to achieve dominance that has been afforded him for only short periods in a very long career. In leaving Brood War for Starcraft II, HyuN let go of stability and security for a chance at greatness. He saw an opportunity and seized it, made from it the most that he could. FanTaSy was forced from his stability, from his place of strength, and took a leap of his own - from SK Telecom to Dead Pixels, an almost entirely unknown foreign team.



Both HyuN and FanTaSy have made it here, to the very doorstep of the year's by far most important tournament, with sheer strength of will. Where skill fails them, where preparation deserts them, where their best efforts leave them trailing greater players, they have never admitted defeat. They have crisscrossed the globe in a madman's hunt for WCS points, scavenging chump change where the champions have raked in thousands, and never stopped to rest. It might not be the glorious road they both desire, or the noble rise to power we so often praise, but it is a road, the dirty road, the arduous road.

For HyuN, the journey has been almost surreal. From an unlikely quarterfinals run in the first season of Starleague to a silver medal behind Solar at Dreamhack Stockholm in the eleventh hour, HyuN's year has been as eventful as it has been varied. Zergs elsewhere struggle with mech, facing considerable adversity in their hunt for a solution to the powerful Terran late game, but HyuN does not bend knee to standard. His roaches are as ubiquitous now as they were in 2012, and his all-ins are every bit as common now as they have ever been. That he can still use them, and still achieve the degree of success he has, speaks more to the merits of his mind and mettle than he is given credit for. Like FanTaSy, it is ugly. Like his opponent plays, so does he - scrappy, underhanded, different. The more you look, the clearer it becomes that HyuN and FanTaSy share commonalities beyond their histories, beyond their approaches to the game. Two sides of a coin.


Like the fiercest of attack dogs, when HyuN bites he never lets go.

But even a coinflip must end one way or the other. Even mirror images have their differences, however small, and in this face-off one must come out ahead of the other. One will touch down in Anaheim alongside fifteen other players three weeks from now, while the other must watch from the sidelines, first among the losers. A hair's width of difference, but enormously important.

FanTaSy and HyuN came face-to-face mere weeks ago, where they faced off in the Ro16 of Dreamhack Stockholm. HyuN played to his strengths while minding FanTaSy's, and overcame the Terrorist's late game with an unorthodox viper-heavy style, while his mid game was cut short by a barrage of attacks in keeping with the Roach King's favorite approach. It was not a proud outing for FanTaSy, and it very nearly eliminated him from Blizzcon contention. He has been given one last chance, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to not only get back at HyuN tenfold, but to place himself in the company of players many times outmatching him. It may sound a grim prospect, fighting one nemesis for the chance to play another even more fearsome one, but if there is something FanTaSy has proven without a doubt, it is that the peculiar and the unbelievable lay firmly within reach of his fingers. What do Rain, Zest, soO and Innovation have in common? They presently count among the very best the Korean scene has to offer. What else do they have in common? They have all been beaten in offline settings by FanTaSy this year.

This is not a match that can be passed off as easy to predict, and FanTaSy's victory over HyuN might be a far cry less likely than the reverse. HyuN will show up ready to fight tooth and nail (or rather, roach and baneling), and there is no telling whether FanTaSy can do the same. He will try, just as he always does, but trying is not always enough. This is the first time in Starcraft II that FanTaSy has been allowed the preparation afforded Starleague playoffs, a setting with which he is intimately familiar. For a player whose Starcraft II career has been one of perennial disappointments, flashes of brilliance amid oceans of muck and misery, this is his opportunity. A trite cliche, perhaps, but I cannot see a world in which HyuN's desire for this victory is as intense as FanTaSy's.

When reduced to nothing, when you have only your own resilience to rely on, when you face a player who has defeated you in the past and now stands in the way of lasting glory, that is when a player's true mettle is put on display. When skill alone will not carry you all the way, when you must be prepared to be both clever and dirty, that is when FanTaSy is given his greatest opportunity to shine. It is this, or nothing. This is the fight for for redemption - for acceptance in a scene that worships champions and gives no credit to the weak but determined, to the wayside competitor whose greatest strength is their defiance in the face of defeat.

This is the fight for freedom.

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FanTaSy 3 - 2 HyuN