The Three Lives of Jo Ji Hyun

In late 2013, an unknown and lovable Protoss player stole the hearts of an entire Dreamhack crowd with an unlikely stroll through the bracket that saw numerous of his reputational superiors toppled and sent home. The setting was Dreamhack Winter, and Patience struck like a bolt of lightning from a sky that was at most slightly cloudy. For a player that until that point had barely even made his existence known to the world to go toe-to-toe with juggernauts of the international circuit was, despite Heart of the Swarm’s relative youth, more absurd than it was impressive. Who is Patience, the Jönköping crowd initially asked, and why is he beating Naniwa?

The tune changed quickly, and when Patience struck down both INnoVation and MMA he lit a spark of love in the crowd that saw his popularity surpass that of every other player in the tournament. Live Report threads and Twitter reactions cannot tell the whole story of how much that shy and alarmingly unassuming Korean wayfarer grew over the course of one short event. Fans, and Dreamhack crowds are no different, tend to side with what is familiar so that they may rally to what they know. Repeat champions are favoured at the expense of those that would perhaps deserve recognition by merit. The struggle of the unknown player is well-documented and, perhaps, well-lamented. That Patience should be as successful as he was that tournament, and that he should become so popular for upsetting established players and sending them on their merry way, is nothing short of extraordinary.

A comfortable narrative would have seen success and fame come to Patience in heaps, validating the faith of the Dreamhack crowd that also ultimately had to watch him be destroyed by a resurgent Life, but this was not to be. For a very long time – what might as well be decades in Starcraft terms – Patience seemed fated to patiently await his next moment of glory, should that moment ever come. As months turned to years and teams came and went likelihood turned to fantasy, and Patience was relegated to the ignoble group of in-betweens; players that have not yet retired and remain on merit of one high or other, but seem utterly incapable of producing, or reproducing, the performances they seek. We have seen players struggle for years in this category, occasionally cracking the barriers set by cutthroat qualifiers but always floundering, watched kids with potential turn into experienced but woefully unaccomplished veterans.

I will say this now, for the sake of honesty: when Patience made the first sign that he might accomplish something else of note in his career in the game’s last iteration, I chuckled and – utterly convinced – awaited the seemingly inevitable failure that would follow. This was Patience, a player I had discarded both consciously and subconsciously. Surely there was no way.

But there was, and Patience has proven me thoroughly wrong many steps of the way. Whether it is his new environment in Afreeca Freecs or the nature of Legacy of the Void that has most aided him, I find difficult to say for certain. What is certain is that the player whose entire career once hinged on a single near-miraculous Dreamhack third place now has every right to call himself Starleague semi-finalist (and having repeated that feat, we cannot even take it from him as a fluke), who can unabashedly rank himself among the best players in the world. I still consciously resist the instinct to call it absurd, because heroic seems a more suitable word to describe just what Patience has done: dedicated years of his life to a goal that has at many points appeared unattainable, struggled in the murk for his days in the sun, and persevered where others have fallen short and given up. Of all the players that I might have expected would make it to BlizzCon, even with the changes made to the WCS system, Patience was hardly even a consideration. More than likely, the same is true for many people.

Incremental successes are often named base requirements for players that strive toward the highest echelon of competition. Always falling far from one’s ultimate goal is seen as disheartening, a hurdle which cannot reasonably be scaled. Only the players that are given opportunity to win against equals have reasonable opportunities to evolve, to climb the ladder. I would say that Patience stands testament to the fact that this need not always be the case. The fate of the Korean escapee has not always been a glorious and successful one. On the contrary, those that have moved overseas to test their luck in the international circuit in the past have often been those with the least left to prove – those that have taken to the foreign stage with the intent to grow and prosper have just as often been left disappointed. But as an exception to the often tragic endings we get to witness, this forced return to the stage he intentionally left has done Patience nothing but good. Challenges have hardened instead of breaking, misfortunes have piled to build the base of a new player that is far better, far more consistent, and far more threatening than he has ever been before. Not even that strange weekend in Jönköping some three years ago could he muster the skill and recognition of which he has made himself deserving now.

I would divide Patience’s life into three parts. There was the before, the milling days that ignited an interest in Starcraft and pushed him to the competitive scene, that placed him on Prime and Azubu and lined the first ventures into elite Starcraft. It is the part of Patience’s life that ended when he reached that unlikely third place at Dreamhack Winter 2013, his first foray into blazing spotlight.

There was the between, which more than anything else shaped Patience into a player worthy of the nickname. An almost three-year stint of missed opportunities is not easily handled, not when the lifespan of the Starcraft player is as short as it is and the opportunities to make a living are so few. The between is purgatory, where players are made, or made to give up. The between is where your mettle is really tested, where you find out if the life of the challenge is what you truly want. Many of the greatest players bypass the between, shoot straight from before to championship glory. But while prodigies inspire awe, their stories are rarely inspiring. It is in the between where character is cultivated. Patience’s between is about to end.

Then there is the beyond. Something lies beyond BlizzCon, past this greatest stage. He was not ready for it three years ago, nor in the long time between his first success and the second. Perhaps not even six months ago, when Patience’s name once again became something worthy of note. But I would say that now, with a bizarre year behind him to cap the struggles that made him the player that he has become, he is.

Patience stands on the brink of his next life, beyond the first taste of what he has worked for, beyond the strife that builds character. The next life is the most glorious, the life beyond the training montage, past the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. Eye of the Tiger has been played, and all that remains is all the things that they have led to. The third life is the final life, but the most significant. It is the one that leaves lasting legacies, that is pockmarked with trophies and matches we will never forget.

It is undying testament to Patience that this article has been written at all. Nothing that can happen will tarnish what he has already accomplished, but from the depths of doubt I have been converted, and I am utterly convinced that there is more to Patience than what he has already shown us, far more than what he began to uncover on that fated weekend three years ago, and that BlizzCon might be the first time we see it to the fullest extent.