Man Out of Time

In 2015, the WCS world was a much simpler place. Even after the changes made to the competition’s residency requirements, Korea still ruled the roost. Polt and Hydra took a WCS Season each alongside several other deep runs, and ForGG, StarDust and Jaedong all made the playoffs on at least one occasion. While it’s true that the pendulum had slowly begun to swing back away from the motherland—take Lilbow’s win in Season 3, for example—there was still no doubting where the power lay. The one exception was viOLet. Two exits in the Round of 32, with another in the Round of 16 was scant reward compared to the sky high expectations he’d set himself.

*****

At the start of Wings of Liberty, viOLet was yet another mediocre zerg among a sea of Korean hopefuls. Poor performances in the GSTL for MVP (alongside the rise of DongRaeGu as a championship-tier player) led to his benching in the teamleagues, while he lay firmly below the Code A / Code S boundary in the GSL. Then, he decided to risk it all, moving to America and signing with Team Empire.

The effect on his results was astonishing, as viOLet steadily improved his gameplay outside the Korean team system a whole year before his friend Polt pulled off the same trick. Training purely on the NA ladder, without any top tier teammates, viOLet slowly morphed into one of the most feared operators on the weekender circuit. Golds at MLG and IEM in early 2012 announced his arrival as a genuine threat, and he continued to deliver throughout the year with top 8 finish after top 8 finish in premier tournaments. Twelve in all over 2012, stretching from small events to the biggest tournaments of the year. Placing in the top six at Blizzard Cup confirmed that he was a top tier talent; making the grand finals of IPL 5—still to this day the most stacked weekender in StarCraft history—was an apt display of the tenacity and solidity that characterised his play.

If certain players have become famed for their ability to snipe opponents in the Korean starleague format, given weeks of preparation time for a single series, then viOLet trended in the opposite direction. He’s never been particularly efficient in prep-based competitions—a single Code S Round of 16 the best of his career results (albeit curtailed after forfeiting his GSL spot to return home to America)—but give him a gauntlet of players to run through and he’ll fight to the bitter end. While some Korean players have been known to fatigue and crumble under the pressure of game after game after game (see INnoVation’s reaction to the multiple pauses during his series against TaeJa at BlizzCon 2014), others buckle down and grind away with their superior mechanics. Cure’s a player famed for his indefatigability—take his infamous 24 hour qualifying marathon campaign for IEM Katowice 2015, finishing with a successful 400 ping run in the EU servers while playing from Korea, for example. viOLet was much the same—a player whose rock solid consistency and unorthodox techniques made him more dangerous the deeper he progressed in an event.

Then, disaster struck. After his breakthrough 2012, it was announced that viOLet did not have the correct visa to participate in the offline stages of WCS America. Twice he progressed through the opening group stages; twice he had to forfeit his spot in the following round, while he exited the few tournaments that he attended early on. A few short months after earning a reputation as one of the best players in the world, viOLet was left stranded with nothing to play for.

Some players complain about losing a month or two of dedicated practice when they exit a Korean or WCS league early on. A lack of exposure to tournament play, and the resulting loss of urgency in their practice routine, leads to stagnation. For viOLet to lose a year of competitive play is a gap almost unheard of in professional StarCraft 2—ByuN’s the only other example in the history of the game amongst top tier players. So even when he was finally awarded his visa in 2014, the spark that characterised his play in 2012 had left him. The false dawn of a trio of top 4s at MLG Anaheim and Red Bull Atlanta and Detroit in 2014 gave way to his bleak 2015.

*****

With the announcement of the changes to the WCS 2016 format though, viOLet was suddenly expected to be back in the hunt. The region lock was one thing; the switch to a pure weekender format was another. Suddenly, viOLet was back in his comfort zone; suddenly, viOLet was back doing what he did best. As expected, he’s been consistent all year long. Two top 4 finishes, two top 8s and two further top 16s is hardly a record to be embarrassed about. But for a player who once ruled his domain as one of the most dangerous zergs in the world, 2012 seems four long, long years ago.

Those hard earned top 8s won on the global stage in 2012 are now fought in the isolationist dome of the WCS system. Where viOLet once stood on the brink of conquering the world, he’s now in the second tier of challengers in the new world order of the non-Korean system. Where viOLet was once denied by the cream of the crop in Korean StarCraft, he’s now being beaten by the hungry set of top tier foreigners gunning for the title at BlizzCon this year. It’s not that he’s gone backwards; just that in his absence everyone else pushed on. There’s still a chance that the champion of old will emerge. He’s still come out with plenty of upsets over higher ranked opposition over the course of the year, but as the years tick by, that's very much become the exception, rather than the rule, as more and more challengers have surpassed him. Increasingly, he looks like a man out of time, left behind by the rest of the field.

Once upon a time, viOLet was the future of Starcraft; a Korean willing to travel the world and leave the teamhouse system. Here, he'll be looking for a return to the past.