When you look at the time periods of some of the greatest players of all time, there is a trending pattern among the very greatest players of the game. When you look at their peak consistency levels, the amount of time they were able to hold the title best player of the world you notice a trend. Specifically you notice that a run of dominance from a great player usually runs for about 6 months to an year, except for Mvp whose dominance lasted the first 2 years of play.

This article examines the peaks of some of the greatest players, how they got there and why they were unable to keep up their form. And then it will explain how Mvp was able to break that trend and last for another year of competitive play despite getting massive injuries half way through his reign.

There are three other players who have had a significant era of domination of the rest of their peers. They are Life, Taeja, Zest, and to a lesser extent soO.

In the case of Life he had two period of peak dominance that lasted about 6 months each. It lasted from his first GSL win in Sept. 2012 to March 2013 when he won the first HotS tournament at MLG. The reasons of Life's ascendancy were because of a few factors. Most importantly, he shifted the paradigm of Zerg play increasing the tactical options of Zerg and thus changing the tempo. These changes would start to become implemented by other Zergs a few months after he unveiled them in his GSL 2012 run. Secondly, his first peak coincided with bl/infestor which allowed him to have a natural end game army and a way to deal with mech and Protoss end game (Both things Life has historically had a hard time playing against.) Life's fall then coincides with other players increased understanding of his playstyle as well as the newness of the MMMM in HotS. Life seemed either unwilling or unable to deal with the new meta and didn't do much again until the end of 2013.

Life's second reign lasted either 5-6 months from his Blizzcon 2014 victory to April or May of 2015. While he didn't create a paradigm shift as he did the last time, his play returned to its peak form (and it was confirmed later that he just hadn't taken the game seriously again until the month leading into Blizzcon). While Life's tactical plays were spread throughout the meta, Life has always had a stronger intuitive understanding of his own play as well as a strong understanding of series play on when to use an all-in. With those three aspects he was able to dominate SC2 once again until his run was cut short by Dream twice (who played arguably the best BiovZ games of all time skill-wise against Life). Additionally the SH was nerfed which allowed both Protoss a better late game army and Terrans mech, both things Life was unable to deal with for the rest of 2015.

In Taeja's case his reign was much more complex. He was close to the best Terran at the end of 2012 to early 2013, but transferred to WCS NA which took a few months. He then dominated the rest of the next 1.5 years as one of if not the best Terran in play. He did it off his unique defensive playstyle that has yet to be emulated by any other Terran in the world as in many ways it requires a level of game sense and understanding about the game that is nearly unmatched except by the greatest players SC2 has ever produced. The question is whether or no it could be considered a long dynastic pattern as while he beat the best players in multiple international lans, he was never in Korea to win the GSLs. Taeja again proves to be an anomaly in this sense and depending on criteria either does not count or is the second player after Mvp to have had a reign lasting longer than an year.

Finally we come to Zest and soO. Both of them reigned for about 1 year (longer for soO if you count his first GSL finals in 2013) in 2014. Both caused a paradigm-shift. Zest was on the cutting edge of Protoss build orders in every matchup, but especially so in PvP. This is important as the reign of Protoss started with the blink era (early 2014) and essentially continued to a lesser extent through the rest of 2014. soO was in a similar boat as he was the best Zerg in every matchup, though rather than refinement of builds, it was a combination of arguably the best Zerg mechanics seen up to that point (and arguably ever), incredible decisiveness in game (barring finals), and very careful series preparation that had him above the rest of the pack except Zest in 2014.

From this we can see a pattern. The greatest players rise above the rest for a period of time (usually 6 months to an year) because they shifted the meta forward in strategic/tactical ways or had a way of playing that was mechanically or stylistically superior to their peers. They all fell off once they could no longer keep up that form and their paradigm shifts became rote.

So the question is how did Mvp last 2 years? His first year is similar to Zest and soO's. He was both one of the most mechanically sound players, he had great series preparation and he shifted the paradigm forward. However at the beginning of 2012, his form fell way off and if he had followed the pattern of Taeja/Life/Zest/soO, he should have fell off. Instead he came back to win.

Mvp's 2012 year was essentially built off of only intangibles. The first thing to note was his grit. His almost pathological unwillingness to go down without a fight both in-game and outside the game. Once Life seemed to hit a block in a meta game, he'd just seemingly give up and not try again until the end of the year when Blizzcon came. This was in contrast to Mvp who kept going despite meta hurdles in the game, his own injuries and his own failing form.

Secondly, Mvp was the forefather of Terran in SC2 and because of that he also had the largest variety of builds any Terran and could do all of them at a decent level. He combined this with his meta knowledge. Meta knowledge in this case considers both the standards of any particular matchup as well as his own reputation and approximate skill level his opponents think Mvp is at and thus what he will do. Mvp was constantly catching players off guard. If they thought he was going for a late game, he'd cheese. If they thought he was playing standard, he'd play greedy. If they thought he was playing cheesey, he'd play super greedy. This combined with the wide variety of builds he could employ meant that he was incredibly hard to predict. He then combined all of that into a series plan. Rain was already a standard safe Protoss player, but Mvp all-ined early on to make Rain even more afraid allowing Mvp to play for the super greedy macro game and allow him to beat Rain in the late-game. This kind of psychological warfare made Rain both afraid of the early and late game and had him playing to Mvp's tune their entire series.

Finally it was his innovation. Mvp created multiple niche builds to surprise players on his runs. He shifted the paradigm of both TvP and TvZ twice in order to win tournaments (His 3CC Hellion/banshee and creating the SCV Pull vs Rain). He also had multiple niche builds (the max battlecruiers split map vs Squirtle) comes to mind.

While Mvp had a 2 year reign, the second year was completely different from the first. The first year was done multiple times and is fairly similar to other players like Nestea, MC, Life, Zest or soO. Off his first year alone, he'd still be one of the greatest players ever. It was his second year that made Mvp's reign so unique. He was out matched mechanically and inform by nearly every major player he faced, yet he kept coming out on top with his mind-games, his experience and his strategical thinking. When we think of dominating run by SC2's greatest players, we have to consider the context of those runs and how they were done. In Mvp's case his 2012 run was the largest miracle SC2 has ever witnessed and is still the highest bar set for the strongest run ever done off of the strength of one player's strategy and grit.