The Unending Rebellion

The current implementation of the WCS Circuit came too late. That was the opinion lurking in the shadows of the scene as 2016 reared up, with world-class stars such as Stephano and NaNiwa so far past their primes as to be rendered irrelevant. Even when 2015 came, look at the list of foreigners who made it to a quarterfinal in a WCS competition that year: Kane, TLO, ShoWTimE, Snute, Bunny, Lilbow, MarineLorD, Zanster, GunGFuBanDa, Petraeus, MaNa. If you told someone from that year that only two or three of those players would continue to be relevant at an elite level even a year later, they'd be dumbfounded. It becomes even sillier when one realizes that the two players who have replaced this breed of players as championship stars in 2017 were Neeb and Elazer. Neeb, who had been a borderline Ro.16 player for enough years to become predictable, and Elazer, who was thoroughly dissected by Hitman's brand of protoss cheese in the Round of 32, and only advanced due to what was effectively a miracle. But here Elazer is. One of three foreigners to win a WCS championship in the post-Schism era, and the only zerg. Not Snute. Not Nerchio. Not Serral. Not Zanster, who was a game away from being the favorite in the finals of 2015. It's Elazer.

What's happened in a year to shift opinions so drastically? There's nothing quite as severe as a changing of calendars to make perfectly valid opinions seem so utterly inane. One year, Zanster is a borderline superstar in the foreign scene, and MaNa is on the verge of rediscovering the dominant protoss he once was. The next, both are irrelevant at the highest tier of competition. Elazer has known this more than almost anyone; in 2014, he didn't exist at all. He played matches, surely, and was even signed to a team, but did anyone bother to learn his name? Yet, hardly two years later, it was the taste lingering on people's tongues as he ascended to the semifinals of BlizzCon over the well-decorated and overwhelming favorite ShoWTimE. But even then, it was all so easy to discredit. He only beat foreigners, people squeaked. He was crushed by Dark. It wasn't even close. He won't make it there again, anyway.

But the changing of years came again, and it was merciless. Elazer has never been gifted a golden road. He lost in the qualifiers of WCS Austin to Bly, and one could almost taste the validation in the air; he didn't even attend the event. He was just another fading star. Just another dying breath. But Elazer's played too many games to be only that. He's tried too hard. To put their difference in mentalities into perspective, Elazer has already played twice as many games as NaNiwa in his young and largely fruitless career; the youth of now cares deeply about taking advantage of the deepened tournament scene, online and otherwise, and Elazer embodies the youth of now more than anyone. When he returned to the qualifiers for Jönköping, it was with the winds of glory in his lungs. He came back against ShoWTimE. He crushed Nerchio, and qualifier star Namshar. Elazer at his greatest embodies this sense of boundless ambition more than most foreigners ever could, of unstoppable dreams and unhalted victories. It's interesting to see Kelazhur and Elazer end up in the same group as, for all of his great play, Kelazhur has never quite been able to win the battle against fate. Yet it is Elazer who triumphs, over and over again, in the face of the worst odds and the most heart-aching of matchups. It is Elazer who eliminated Nerchio when the Blizzcon quarters are on the line. It is Elazer who doomed ShoWTimE to failure, both at Blizzcon and at Jönköping qualifiers. It is Elazer who stole Nerchio's thunder at WCS Valencia.

It is Elazer who crushed the heart and soul of the foreign scene, Snute, coming back from being 3-1 down in his first ever finals. With nerves of steel and a heart of iron, it was Elazer who stood on that stage and lifted that trophy. Even at WCS Montreal, he took revenge on Serral, who had eliminated him from Austin and often dominated him early in the year. Even with all of this success, though, Elazer finds himself in the shadows. Sure, he is king within the shadows; he is the second-most accomplished foreigner of the year. But there is a 'second' next to the title he's so diligently sought. Without a single match played against Neeb, Elazer has been held back by him; he's been relegated to a rebel. Because that is the way of the StarCraft scene. Your accomplishments last year do not matter. Elazer was the last foreigner standing; last year. People are not loyal to the past, and only become less loyal as it grows with distance. People are loyal to tyranny, and tyranny only. Only by being absolutely dominant can one win over trust, the way Neeb has - and not Elazer. Never Elazer. Regardless of his unrelenting effort, of his trips to Korea, of his upsets of GuMiho and Stats online- he is the rebellion. It is in his blood. It was in his blood ever since he upset all those the audience loved to become the Dark Horse at Blizzcon - he was not Dark Horse because people adored him. He was not Dark Horse because he was favored, but people were too shy to say it. He was Dark Horse because every other horse was dead. In hindsight, it's been his birthright for much longer than just the Global Finals; he shouldn't have been at that BlizzCon at all, with many rooting for uThermal to make the upset over him in the dying moments. But that was never to be.

In 2016, Elazer learned that a peasant's only claim to fame is by being a rebel; in 2017, he learned that rebels can never be King. He won WCS Valencia, and Neeb still won three tournaments in the year and utterly dwarfed his accomplishments, without a single head to head between them. Serral arguably gets more claim to fame, because he was the promised prince; Elazer was promised nothing. If anything, he was promised irrelevance, and through sheer persistence has overcome the promises of fate to ascend to a mere false king. A fluke. That word stains everything he's done - the HomeStory Cup semifinals, the WCS Winter quarterfinals, WCS Global Finals run, the WCS Valencia victory, it was all one long fluke. One fever dream where a borderline WCS Premier zerg ascended to become somehow greater than players such as Nerchio and Snute, who were always going to be destined for the Hall of Fame. The only way for Elazer to seize the crown is to surpass it. If he does as he did last year - squeeze an upset over herO, draw some crowd favorite foreigner in the Quarters, then get 3-0'd in the semis - nobody would care. Sure, they'd say now that they would care, but that has already come and gone. In order to be King, Elazer needs to ascend even further. He would need to gather his vengeance against Dark, the Slayer of Foreigners and Tyrant in Korea. It is then, in that moment, that Elazer would have the strength of the entire foreign scene behind him. All of those men Dark has 3-0'd over the past couple of years. All of those crowd favorites. The heat and energy of a dozen dead men at Elazer's fingertips. It is then, with burning hatred, that Elazer could seize his throne.

It's a wish. A daydream. But none more grandiose than last year's miracle was. Elazer originally didn't deserve to be at BlizzCon; he tied with viOLet, and many assumed the Korean would edge out in their matchup. But then Hydra cancelled, and he was moved up to eighth seed. A cancellation from Polt moved him to seven, and now in a group of death featuring his idol Nerchio, a path was forged. An informal prophecy. As we have learned since, there is nothing that could stop Elazer from fulfilling a grandiose dream. Facing off against his idol, the favorite of the foreign scene, at the biggest tournament of the year. Down 2-1 against ShoWTimE with both player's years on the line. Down 3-1 against Snute in his first ever finals. It is Elazer who plays the role of the rebel, no matter how precarious. It is Elazer who is the peasant, forever rising to become a King. It is Elazer who fulfills his dreams.

And what dream more sweet than defeating the Dark?