Stats against Dark in the Starleague Grand Finals. A match we have seen before, one that ended with Dark's first Starleague championship. They have taken different paths to arrive in this rematch, with Stats topping the Round Robin rankings to qualify directly for the Grand Finals, and Dark battling his way through the Playoffs and, with them, through the two other top Protoss.




by hexhaven
- thehexhaven


There is no mistress more fickle than time.

It’s been nearly eighteen months since Dark and Stats last met on the grand stage. For all intents and purposes, it might as well have been an entire lifetime for both players. A lot has changed and what was once deep disappointment has turned into something else altogether. For time has seen their roles reversed.

Stats now stands, without a doubt, as the best Protoss player of Legacy of the Void.

Back in early 2016, the expansion was still fresh out of the oven. Dark was tearing through Protoss opposition like a man possessed, carving a bloody path through the upper bracket in SSL Season 1. No quarter was given; none was asked for. His crop of new Zerg builds seemed to be utterly insurmountable. Decisively on his way to the Grand Finals, Stats met Dark in the semifinals, only to fall against SKT1’s superstar. What followed was a labored journey through the Losers’ Bracket, taking down then ascendant ByuN and Solar with narrow victories. Never one to stray his eyes away from the ultimate prize, Stats persisted and met Dark again, this time in the Grand Finals.

Their rematch ended in a crushing defeat for the Protoss.

Despite the brief respite provided by the following Cross Finals victory, it took Stats almost an entire year to raise that coveted Starleague trophy he had deserved. Last March he faced off against the perennial silver medalist soO, and whether the result came about due to the Kong’s Curse or not is largely irrelevant. Stats took down the Zerg 4-2, finally ending his seemingly eternal trophy drought. While he was quickly hailed as the best player in the world last spring, the results didn’t keep coming in to truly cement that status. Stats was largely swept out of the brightest spotlight as the scene flocked to another of INnoVation’s many resurgences.

But that’s not quite the whole story.

Stats is the epitome of the KeSPA trained player: resolute, unforgiving and focused. All those years spent in the crucible of KT Rolster have forged Stats into something resembling a living weapon. The reserved and mild-mannered on-stage persona masks a fearsome player when unleashed upon his opponents. And despite KT Rolster folding as a team last year, Stats has flourished under his new Splyce banner. No longer relegated to being the reliable Proleague workhorse, the Protoss now sports one of the most impressive careers in Legacy of the Void. It’s his consistency that makes him stand above the rest. While others have reached dizzying heights, their lows have been just as excruciating. Meanwhile Stats has been slowly but surely upping his game.

Since Legacy's release in November 2015, Stats has won two premier tournaments and reached the top four nine times on top of that. Ironically, the only player to come close to his record is his opponent. With two premier titles and seven other top four finishes, Dark is the most successful Zerg of the expansion, and a more than fitting adversary for the uncontested best Protoss in the world.

If both players represent the best their respective race has to offer, it's fathomable that the title of the best player of Legacy of the Void overall is on the line in their match.

Make no mistake, Dark still holds a historical advantage over Stats. But while Dark’s fortunes have waxed and waned recently, Stats’ consistency has been the key driving element in his unrelenting rise to superstardom. Finally taking down Dark in the finals of a Starleague would be the perfect way to announce the beginning of a new era. There’s no arguing against results, and what better way to make yourself heard than to match INnoVation’s two Starleague trophies this year, while already blowing him out of the water in terms of WCS Points. Crucially, unlike INnoVation, Stats has a full slate of other good results. The Machine seems to either win or go out in a blaze of glory, while Stats plays the long game. Despite a disappointing loss to Solar in the quarterfinals of SSL Season 1 this year, Stats has issued his final rallying cry of the year.

The road to the trophy won’t be easy. Dark’s uncanny ability to finish games in one swift stroke is to be feared as much as ever. Even if the Zerg’s glory days of 2016 seem to be behind him, he’s itching to prove that he still has what it takes. Once again, Dark has torn through fantastic Protoss opposition. Dear and Classic both fell against the swarm in games that seemed almost effortless on the Zerg player’s part. What’s different this time, though, is that Stats was the uncontested best player in the SSL group stage. Perhaps even more importantly, Stats was also the winner when the two finalists met there, turning the tables from 2016’s Season 1.

What’s coming up is the most difficult test Stats has ever faced. And yet, like he’s shown time and time again, he no longer folds under pressure. He’s able to pull through when it matters. Capable of taking down anyone, capable of seeing off any challenger. Against Dark's relentless onslaught game after game, Stats will rely on his core strength—versatility. Impecccably patient, impeccably decisive. He is the bulwark against Dark's aggression, the true sight against the Zerg's deceptions. Stats will plant his feet firmly in the ground, and no force in the multiverse will be able to move him.

Dark has gotten the better of their rivalry thus far, but the tables have turned. Stats sits atop the Korean WCS ranking after a full year of excellence. And what better way to finish the greatest year of Stats' career than correcting the failure of another, less successful year? Stats is entering the Grand Finals looking to rip the crown he was denied from the very hands that took it from him. Dark better hold on to it with all his might or it will be gone in the blink of an eye.





by mizenhauer
- Mizenhauer


It all started so well for Dark. After a smooth 2-0 against PtitDrogo, BlizzCon 2016 looked bright as could be. He topped his group, only dropping a game to Stats. Foreign hopes in Neeb and Elazer fared little better and were dispatched with accustomed ease, which set up Dark’s meeting with the reigning GSL champion, ByuN. It was supposed to be the moment when Dark reclaimed his throne from the one-man army - an opportunity to derail the hype train and extinguish its object’s foolish hopes in a single, decisive stroke.

Before 2016 and LotV, Dark was unrealized potential. A two time KeSPA Cup runner-up who had been unable to make headway elsewhere, with obvious talents and equally clear shortcomings. A “quirky” player, best known for his fondness for adding roaches and corruptors to his zerglings and banelings in ZvT in place of customary mutalisks. He was solid in Proleague, another cog of the winning wheel that was SK Telecom, but far from its ace. That all changed with the new expansion.

Dark was the original king of LotV. He revolutionized and streamlined the way Zerg played across multiple match-ups. He introduced the world to ling/bane/brood lord in the SSL finals against Stats, a victory that served as confirmation of his greatness. He mastered spell casters to a degree no other Zerg could approach. Infestors, vipers and ravagers became weapons of legend under his control. It all boiled down to superior understanding atop stellar mechanics. He simply understood the game better than everyone else. He was ahead of the curve when it came to utilizing new units and abilities, capitalizing on timings and moments of weakness others couldn’t even perceive. While HotS Zerg powerhouses like Rogue, ByuL and soO wallowed in mediocrity, Dark prospered. He was the vision Blizzard had in mind when they created the controversial but welcome expansion. It seemed he was meant to rule.

But BlizzCon did not follow script. Dark was thoroughly outclassed in the finals. ByuN was ascendant and Dark, for the first time in months, looked a step behind. His loss to Solar in the second season of SSL could very well be written off as a fluke, especially since it was Dark’s worst matchup, but this was something altogether different. He failed to cope with builds someone of his pedigree should quash. Tankivacs flustered him in game one, a hellbat push did him in game four. Reapers haunted him twice in between. He even struggled in the late game on King Sejong Station, an arena which he had made all his own, one his opponent had never been to thrive in. There was no question. Dark was no longer the best. He exhibited unparalleled consistency during 2016, but ByuN was garnering all the attention as player of the year after his spectacular end to the WCS season. Stability cannot fight a tidal surge. For a player as confident as Dark, with seemingly limitless bravado and aspirations of being dubbed the greatest of all time, this was, in no uncertain terms, a grave insult. There was only one thing to do. Walk the walk.

No simple task, to be sure. Dark topped his group at IEM Gyeonggi, getting revenge on ByuN and giving eventual champion, INnoVation, his sternest test, but he failed to break through. It was a script that repeated itself as the calendar turned to 2017. Dark may have reached the semifinals at IEM Katowice, but he was unable to find any purchase in Starleagues and other domestic tournaments. Early exits were norm instead of exception. It must have been infuriating for the player who reached the finals of three of the five premier tournaments he played during 2016.

For much of 2017 it was difficult to remember the times when Dark was a veritable dynamo. Such is the nature of a condensed scene, where a few players shine so brightly and there are only so many opportunities. TY, soO, INnoVation and Stats. There were the names on everyone’s lips. Meanwhile, Dark couldn’t break through the Round of 16 in GSL, something which surely made his NesTea award seem more taunt than praise. At the same time, it was longevity that was Nestea’s most famous virtue, and Dark certainly does not lack lasting appeal.

Of course, Dark was still Dark. The change to allow infestors to fungal while burrowed seemed tailor-made for him. The alteration to ultralisk armor went unnoticed as Dark began to make great use of them as a harassment tool instead of a bulldozer in straight on engagements. He managed vipers as part of varied armies against skytoss. He still had an arsenal of cheese and an innate sense for when a flood of zerglings and ravagers could bring an early end to the game. He was the only player who seemed capable of hanging with INnoVation (in keeping with older traditions) and so the premier rivalry of 2017 took shape. Dark was a human highlight reel. He made the impossible possible when he was behind and had a knack for ending games with a flourish. He was still Dark, but the wins weren’t coming. He just couldn’t put all the pieces together.

ZvZ was a glaring weakness. Dark played in nine tournaments in 2017 (SSL Premier Season 2 being the tenth). A Zerg played a role in eliminating him in six of them. Whether it was soO, Losira, ByuL, Solar or Rogue, Dark was clearly challenged in the mirror matchup. Old weaknesses were more glaring than ever and he wasn’t winning the games he used to. He was trading games with INnoVation, but the Terran was getting the better of him when it mattered. Stats’ victory over Dark at IEM Katowice was evidence that things wouldn’t be as one-sided as they use to be. Yes, Dark’s quest to reclaim the throne turned out to be far from simple, but with summer fading and autumn settling on Korea, he looks poised to change all that.

Dark’s defeat of soO in the final match of Group C was a seminal moment for the one-time SlayerS Zerg. Getting over the hump against the former teammate who’d owned him since 2015 while simultaneously reaching the Round of 8 of GSL for the first time in his career was a major turning point in Dark’s fortunes. In dominating TY, Dark continued to show that his play against Terran is too varied and dynamic for anyone not named INnoVation to handle. And while Dark eventually fell to his former teammate in GSL, he made a great account of himself. His ability to react and adjust were on full display during the series, a newfound trait that would have served him well at his height last November. With ZvZ looking like less and less of a weakness and his ZvT quite possibly the best in Korea, it’s been in SSL that he’s put on a ZvP clinic. After ending the regular season with a loss, he’s run off consecutive 4-2 victories over top five Protoss players, Classic and Dear. He looked far and away the better player in both series and his normally sky-high faith in his abilities must floating somewhere up in the stratosphere.

But as symbolic as his victory over soO was, this final is even moreso. It is LotV encapsulated in a Best of 7. The best Protoss and the best Zerg, head to head for the umpeenth time. Whereas Dark is volcanic, Stats is steady. Dark’s killer instinct and sense of timing has won him many a battle, but the same can be said for Stats’ patience and indefatigability. And while Dark is known for changing the way Zergs play, it was Stats who first popularized the use of stasis wards against Zergs. Dark and Stats have met fifteen times since their inaugural LotV match in the Winner's bracket of 2016 SSL Season 1. They have battled in the finals of that event, at BlizzCon, IEM Katowice, the Season 1 Cross Finals and a host of online events. The score sits in Dark’s favor, 24-17, with Dark owning a 3-2 advantage in Best of 5 or greater series. Their last meeting was in day eight of SSL Premier and, while Stats won 2-0, Dark has every reason to believe this finals will go the same way as their last one. Though it’s unlikely that Dark will be able to pull the rug out from under Stats as he did that April night, it’s hard to argue that Dark isn’t the proud owner of as robust an arsenal against Protoss as any Zerg in the game. He has what a Starcraft gourmet might call a cheese platter at his disposal, and can safely navigate to the late game with the mechanics required to produce a massive army of hydralisks, zerglings and banelings on demand. He’s just as liable to build swarm hosts or ultralisks as he is to unleash baneling drops. He defends well against dedicated stargate builds and shows equal resilience against more traditional strategies. Dark brings with him a swath of builds, making him incredibly difficult to prepare for. What makes him hard to account for is his continued tendency to adapt his repertoire.

General consensus is that Dark has had a down year. And with the performances put forth by some of his compatriots, it’s understandable that one would feel that way. soO made consecutive GSL finals, Solar reached that same stage in SSL. Rogue took the world by storm at IEM Shanghai, leaving Dark the forgotten Zerg lingering in the background. After all, he failed to return to the finals of a premier event until the final stretch and was notably absent from the elimination stages of GSL for the majority of the year. The fact that he was so frequently losing to other Zergs only worsened the situation. Fans began to get the sense that Dark really was a tier below those he loomed over only a year earlier. But being unseen does not make you immaterial. Dark quietly worked his way to three semifinals, his third SSL finals appearance and 7500 WCS points. A victory over Stats would vault him to third place in the overall standings. For most, his resume would be a point of pride. For Dark, it is the unfortunate admission that maintaining the heights to which he soared in 2016 was too herculean a task for even him.

Dark is staring fate straight in the eyes. It’s been ten months since he took to the grandest stage and fell painfully short. A victory here would not erase that anguish, but it would make a solid case that Dark is once more the best Zerg, and quite possibly the best player in the world. It would put him back in the race he dropped out of, vying for the title of LotV’s best player, and give him something to build upon going into his trip to California. Despite naysaying and doubt, Dark’s confidence in himself never waned. It was the audience that needed to be swayed. As Dark has experienced in the past, there is no argument more convincing than hoisting the trophy.