Inven's Kim Hong-Je recently caught up with Jang 'MC' Min-Chul to talk about his retirement and return to progaming. The following is the translated interview:
Q: It feels new seeing you on CJ Entus.
A: Somehow I've ended up as a progamer again. I know that some people are happy for me, while others aren't so pleased. I hope to get good results and become a player who's welcomed by all.
Q: You announced your retirement in June of 2015. As far as we know, your passion as a player had cooled down?
A: That's correct to some degree. However, I hadn't considered going so far as retirement. I was looking for a new team, but there weren't any teams that fit my conditions. That made me feel some doubt, and since I had to worry about making an immediate living, I naturally came to retire.
Q: You streamed actively after you retired. How was life as Jang Min-chul the BJ?["broadcast jockey" in Korean internet lingo]
A: There was a lot of commotion during the early phase of my stream (laughs). There were a lot of areas where I was a bit lacking as a BJ. Actually, I hadn't planned to stream StarCraft 2 early on. I had put meaning in the fact that was I taking a shot at a new field. However, my fans wanted me to stream StarCraft 2, and Legacy of the Void was fun when I tried it after it came out. So I ended up just doing StarCraft 2.
Kongdoo [A management agency for streamers that MC was signed to] gave me a lot of help. I earned about 2,000,000 won [approximately $1700 USD] a month while streaming. I want to use this interview as an opportunity to thank Seo Gyeong-jong [former Brood War progamer Shark, presently top executive at Kongdoo] for being completely fine with it when I told him I wanted to return to being a progamer, even though I had time left on my contract.
It was a good experience when I think about it, and I'm thankful to everyone who watched and supported me. So I don't embarrass those fans, I want to show them an amazing side as a progamer as well.
Q: You participated at IEM Taipei 2016 as an amateur(?).
A: The organizers gave me an offer. Before that, I had won an Archon mode tournament at Red Bull Battlegrounds alongside HuK, so I think that overseas they figured 'MC' wasn't dead yet and gave me a pass (laughs).
Q: From what we know, you actively approached CJ Entus first in order to restart your progaming career. Is that correct?
A: In January of this year, I wanted to join a Korean team through KeSPA's posting system but things didn't work out the way I wanted. However, I kept participating in qualifiers, and I had some talks with Orion and iloveoov [CJ and SKT head coaches, respectively] while I was there. After talking to Orion at the last GSL qualifier, I ended up joining. Breaking through the qualifiers and getting a taste of victory again was critical.
Q: You hadn't been aiming for CJ Entus from the beginning?
A: Rather than me wanting to join, it was more that as long as there was a team that wanted me, it didn't really matter to me which one it was. I was confident that if I joined and played well, the team would also improve.
Q: Have you finished adjusting to your teammates?
A: I've been friends with ByuL and Ragnarok since our IM days, and I've been friends with herO as we went to a lot of foreign tournaments together. Also, I have a relationship with CJ practice partner Jang Wook from the times he helped me practice while I was on foreign teams. The rest I didn't know that well, but now I get along with everyone.
Q: You've reached the pinnacle as a progamer, so your present goals must be a bit different now that you've returned.
A: I took a year off from progaming so I want to bring my skill back up quickly. My personal goal is to get through my Code A match on the 17th and reach Code S. If I get opportunities to play in Proleague, I want to get around three wins in Round 3. Pros speak through their results, and don't results thus lead to getting paid? I want to play well and get results, and make a lot of money.
Q: What level are you at right now?
A: By tournament game standards I'm about 3rd~4th place on the team. Because I have a lot of experience and since I'm confident at best of ones, I'm confident I can get the most wins after herO and ByuL.
Q: You seem a lot more modest than in the past.
A: I'm still being cautious. Among CJ Entus fans, a lot of them were negative about me joining. A lot of people saw it as simply filling a spot on the roster since the team was lacking in players. Because I want to prove myself through results, I'm being careful about promising anything with words beforehand.
Q: You made it through the Code A preliminaries not long ago. What are your realistic chances of making it to Code S?
A: It would have been tough if I had a hard opponent. However, I think Jouney is someone I'm completely capable of taking on. I don't think he'll be difficult. I even beat him on ladder recently (laughs).
Q: Have you received a lot of help from herO?
A: We just give each other some advice. We don't get that involved. Rather, it's ByuL who has a tough time versus Protoss so I'm giving him advice. Also, as an older player, I want to say that Hush is really good in practice, even if that hasn't shown up in televised games.
Q: You're a divisive player because you have a knack for banter and have a strong sense of showmanship. Any final word for your fans?
A: When the news broke that I was making a comeback, there were more flames than positive comments. However, that made me good. I thought that it was better to be flamed than not be commented on at all. I'm thinking about it positive, taking it as a sign that I'm not dead yet. I'll become a progamer plays well, and makes a lot of money and speaks through his results.
Wow, I did not expect MC to get flamed. I guess he is not as popular over there as he was in the foreign scene? Koreans don't dig the the cocky personality and showmanship as much I guess.
Well if he can show results, he won't have to care about it.
On June 08 2016 05:00 Musicus wrote: Thanks for the translation!
Wow, I did not expect MC to get flamed. I guess he is not as popular over there as he was in the foreign scene? Koreans don't dig the the cocky personality and showmanship as much I guess.
Well if he can show results, he won't have to care about it.
iirc he's considered a "runner" by Korean netizens
On June 08 2016 05:00 Musicus wrote: Thanks for the translation!
Wow, I did not expect MC to get flamed. I guess he is not as popular over there as he was in the foreign scene? Koreans don't dig the the cocky personality and showmanship as much I guess.
Well if he can show results, he won't have to care about it.
It will go over with time, especially as he hopefully gets results. He was pretty popular before leaving ogs and starting to live in the foreign scene, but its seen as "betraying" them.
thanks so much for the translation, always love to hear from MC. he's got a great personality, loves to talk shit, and gives great interviews. hopefully some ceremony can bring more hype to proleague.
Ah, MC, my first SC2 crush. Watching him wreck noobs again is something I'm yearning for. He can win with disgusting cheeses I would never even tolerate in the hands of any other P, I don't care. He's MC, he's the Boss.
On June 08 2016 05:00 Musicus wrote: Thanks for the translation!
Wow, I did not expect MC to get flamed. I guess he is not as popular over there as he was in the foreign scene? Koreans don't dig the the cocky personality and showmanship as much I guess.
Well if he can show results, he won't have to care about it.
iirc he's considered a "runner" by Korean netizens
sry
by the way, wasn't it PartinG that first called them runners (or at least the first pro to use that word)?
On June 08 2016 04:44 Waxangel wrote: A: When the news broke that I was making a comeback, there were more flames than positive comments. However, that made me good. I thought that it was better to be flamed than not be commented on at all. I'm thinking about it positive, taking it as a sign that I'm not dead yet. I'll become a progamer plays well, and makes a lot of money and speaks through his results.
Wow, quite a large difference from the foreign scene reaction, I think everyone was super hyped here.
Well, you'd understand why koreans don't necessarily like mc if you listen to how he talks in korean.... he can definately use vulgar tones. However, seeing from how well mc behaves in the foreign scene, I think it's more of a fault of the environment and the lack of enthusiasm of mc's personality in korea than anything else. He most likely mean good things and I am not the one to judge.
Great interview, thanks for the translation!!! Well, MC has certainly much more fans around the world than the rest of the team has, so if the Korean fans were not super friendly at the beginning, he must know, around the world he is loved! :-) Can't wait for getting him into my FPL team :-)
It was quite sad that he said he got flamed, because as far as I knew, my local community (which is very small), TL, Reddit and Twitter all seemed to be celebrating it. I hope he can get a few wins early on to show those Korean fans how awesome he was and why we foreign fans all love him.
Also it's funny that MC approached oov, but SKT has too many Protoss right now, their Terran player Sorry couldn't even get in in FPL roster. I'm really happy to see him again though.
Hush is probably the practice bonjwa at this point.
As much as I like Koreans and South Korea, they can be so weird and angry for one little thing. I don't think any other Asian country in the world is like that? There's Hong Kong hating China but that's more of a political thing and how people from Mainland present themselves and the type of hate isn't like South Koreans how they'll immediately turn on you for one thing. Maybe I need to learn more about Asian culture even though I'm Chinese... Getting couped up in North America for my whole life doesn't help for sure.
Hope MC can show some strong results and continue to be the MC that we love.
On June 08 2016 15:30 Shadowbite wrote: What is meant by the term "runner" by south Koreans? I'm unfamiliar with the terminology. I wish MC much luck in his matches.
He "ran" away from the korean scene when he left korea to live and play with foreigners. Pretty dumb and arrogant to expect some odd loyalty or whatever.
On June 08 2016 15:30 Shadowbite wrote: What is meant by the term "runner" by south Koreans? I'm unfamiliar with the terminology. I wish MC much luck in his matches.
He "ran" away from the korean scene when he left korea to live and play with foreigners. Pretty dumb and arrogant to expect some odd loyalty or whatever.
On June 08 2016 15:30 Shadowbite wrote: What is meant by the term "runner" by south Koreans? I'm unfamiliar with the terminology. I wish MC much luck in his matches.
He "ran" away from the korean scene when he left korea to live and play with foreigners. Pretty dumb and arrogant to expect some odd loyalty or whatever.
Well, that's Korean culture for ya.
The only thing MC ran from was inferior paychecks, guy ain't afraid of anything. Frankly I'm surprised he's so level about it, but then he was always at least partly an act.
The way I see it, the backlash against MC is because fans are used to the established progaming culture from 10+ years of Brood War. The Brood War scene evolved to be very sanitized and controlled, with pros rarely saying anything provocative while their public images were crafted by the teams and broadcasters. It's not just MC—a lot of fans have expressed disappointment in how old BW players act while streaming on Afreeca, without their KeSPA masks.
New esports like SC2, and especially LoL, have pushed the soft reset button on this kind of culture. Even so, there's still a lingering feeling that the ideal progamer is a consummate professional like Flash, rather than a maverick like MC.
Not much of a story lol. I mean, he retired because he lost some passion and couldn't find a team then came back when he got an offer after trying to find a team again. Still, a good read, thanks.
Sorry to burst the loyalty theory that some guy pulled out from his armpit, but "runner" is used in the fact that the player couldn't make money anymore in Korea, so he "ran" to other places for easy money. (e.g. NA and EU) To explain the animosity we will have to go back to the old days with Kespa vs the newly founded eSports Federation, as well as BW vs SC2, as well as the SlayerS incident (Crank: What did you ever do for me!).
Many of the runners are from the E-Sports Federation, which SGall(the major community), hated because it was a BW community as well as it being very pro- BoxeR and Slayers. Its sense of superiority (Kespa> Federation) is heightened by the fact that the Federation failed to dominate the BW transitioned players from Kespa, even though they had much more experienced players.
PlayXP, on the other hand, tends to remain pro Federation, due to the fact that their SC/SC2 community was differentiated from each other, and don't often use the terminology 'runner'
Conclusion: don't try to explain what you don't understand
On June 08 2016 15:30 Shadowbite wrote: What is meant by the term "runner" by south Koreans? I'm unfamiliar with the terminology. I wish MC much luck in his matches.
He "ran" away from the korean scene when he left korea to live and play with foreigners. Pretty dumb and arrogant to expect some odd loyalty or whatever.
Well, that's Korean culture for ya.
The only thing MC ran from was inferior paychecks, guy ain't afraid of anything. Frankly I'm surprised he's so level about it, but then he was always at least partly an act.
the guy knows how to not take himself too seriously. and he wins. great to see MC back.
On June 09 2016 09:28 RCCar wrote: Sorry to burst the loyalty theory that some guy pulled out from his armpit, but "runner" is used in the fact that the player couldn't make money anymore in Korea, so he "ran" to other places for easy money. (e.g. NA and EU) To explain the animosity we will have to go back to the old days with Kespa vs the newly founded eSports Federation, as well as BW vs SC2, as well as the SlayerS incident (Crank: What did you ever do for me!).
Many of the runners are from the E-Sports Federation, which SGall(the major community), hated because it was a BW community as well as it being very pro- BoxeR and Slayers. Its sense of superiority (Kespa> Federation) is heightened by the fact that the Federation failed to dominate the BW transitioned players from Kespa, even though they had much more experienced players.
PlayXP, on the other hand, tends to remain pro Federation, due to the fact that their SC/SC2 community was differentiated from each other, and don't often use the terminology 'runner'
Conclusion: don't try to explain what you don't understand
Well that is just as dumb, because he was top8(lost to the champion) in the gsl as well as top4(lost to the champion) in the first hots tourney(with quite alot of kespa in it)as well. So saying that he could not make money anymore in korea as he left is pretty dumb imo. The time were he slightly started to fall behind was when he lived in EU for a while.
I'm glad to see MC is back. He's the only Protoss I ever really was a fan of (not because "ProtossOP!1!", but because it's the least interesting race to watch IMO), though Zest has definitely been winning me over for a while now.
On June 09 2016 09:28 RCCar wrote: Sorry to burst the loyalty theory that some guy pulled out from his armpit, but "runner" is used in the fact that the player couldn't make money anymore in Korea, so he "ran" to other places for easy money. (e.g. NA and EU) To explain the animosity we will have to go back to the old days with Kespa vs the newly founded eSports Federation, as well as BW vs SC2, as well as the SlayerS incident (Crank: What did you ever do for me!).
Many of the runners are from the E-Sports Federation, which SGall(the major community), hated because it was a BW community as well as it being very pro- BoxeR and Slayers. Its sense of superiority (Kespa> Federation) is heightened by the fact that the Federation failed to dominate the BW transitioned players from Kespa, even though they had much more experienced players.
PlayXP, on the other hand, tends to remain pro Federation, due to the fact that their SC/SC2 community was differentiated from each other, and don't often use the terminology 'runner'
Conclusion: don't try to explain what you don't understand
Well that is just as dumb, because he was top8(lost to the champion) in the gsl as well as top4(lost to the champion) in the first hots tourney(with quite alot of kespa in it)as well. So saying that he could not make money anymore in korea as he left is pretty dumb imo. The time were he slightly started to fall behind was when he lived in EU for a while.
Exactly. He ran to EU for easy money and he lost his skill. The idea is that if the Federation was good as they claimed, they should have dominated the first hots tourney, because they have years more experience than the Kespa players (actually transitioned after 2012). MC making it to the Ro4 and then later leaving for foreign lands gives some people the impression that he "ran" from quickly budding competition.
EPT
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