Pandemonium in a Bottle

Meticulous. Medivacs and MM pushes pick apart the world’s best players and end a tournament in a stunning sweep, a symphony of annihilation. Explosive. Gumiho goes out in a blaze of glory, the game as out of control to him as it is to his opponent. Unpredictable. Unusual compositions, timings bordering on the bizarre and an unmatched potential for streaks inject a dose of fear into the bloodstream of the Korean competitive circuit. Affable. A seven-year career goes unmarred by controversy. Resilient. The ceiling of a booth collapses during a match and hits him in the head, and he proceeds to win the game after a break. Timeless. He neither burns out nor fades away.

For a player of so many defining characteristics and fabled moments, who has been praised in as many ways as he, Gumiho is a perpetual shadow over the world of competitive Starcraft. From GSL playoffs in 2011 to jaw-dropping GSTL sweeps in 2012, through his nailbiters against Losira on repeated occasions and all the way through Heart of the Swarm into the game’s current iteration, Gumiho has maintained that tinge of alacrity that sometimes fade from players that iron out their mechanical identities. Some players – most, in fact – can only thrive in the microcosm they create for themselves in-game, in which they dictate the terms. INnoVation has often been a good example, matched in the foreign scene by the 2010-2011 boneheaded game plans of IdrA. There are players who excel in their zones, who will push the boundaries when left to their own devices. Gumiho, on the other hand, has neither feared the nitty-gritty multitasking that so defined early Terran play nor shied away from the carefully planned mech play that became an almost mandatory skill once Swarm Hosts became talk of the town in Korea. Left to his own devices, Gumiho has tended to make something new for himself each time.

No, Gumiho’s shtick has always been that he has no devices. At least, none that so bind him that he becomes crippled in an unfamiliar scenario. If bio play would not do the trick and mech proved to unwieldy, Gumiho mastered the degrees in between. When nothing formulaic would cut it, Gumiho levelheadedly abandoned the algebra altogether. Instead of mastering the predictable, he has found his greatest successes in metagame flux and in games that spiral way out of control. In games that are too strict and detail-oriented, Gumiho possesses a battering ram of a playstyle that cracks anything more rigid than he. There is something a little comical in a player who gets his nickname from sweating profusely (see: hyperhidrosis) – something typically associated with nervousness or significant stress – being at his very best in panicked situations. But when a game spirals out of control, Gumiho takes the reins, and very few players have ever been able to stop him.

He has been pinned as a future champion not once or twice or a dozen times over the years but countless, as revered for his adaptability as he is respected for his mechanics. That he finally joined the ranks of GSL champions in 2017 might have felt overdue for how good he has been at many points in his career, but it is also endemic to the small subset of players to which Gumiho belongs: a category that he, with his trophy and his longevity, now headlines. It is of course impossible to claim that he has always done everything better than everyone else – that Gumiho has suffered long bouts of insignificance is hardly a secret. But it is similarly impossible to claim that Gumiho has ever been helpless, or out of contention completely. Like a lightning bolt let free of its mystical bottle, he can surge skyward at a moment’s notice, only to bend over the horizon in the next. That his GSL victory came almost six years later than many of us expected was surprising, but also an incredibly fitting conclusion to his long hunt for a Starleague trophy.

All of this said, no fantastical story or unique identity pays the bills. A moderately successful stint on a CJ Entus that never lived up to its theoretical potential puts no dent in the history books. If Gumiho is characterized by his perseverance and brilliant moments burned onto our collective retina by the light of a star, then he has need for the second occurrence to cement the first. Gumiho is a champion now, and his place in the annals of the GSL can no longer be disputed, but this is rarely enough. There is need for expansion, for the next step on the perilous ladder of tournament merit. The title of champion gives Gumiho undeniable cred, but opens a door to much greater glory that might close at a moment’s notice. Each year added to the final tally of a Starcraft player’s career makes the continued investment difficult, both physically/mentally and motivationally. There is no indication that Gumiho would throw in the towel here and now, but “the next year” always tastes of unknowing and risk. What if 2017 is his best opportunity, and the Global Finals presents Gumiho with the best opportunity at immortalizing himself?

Gumiho must strike now. Not because he is at immediate risk of fading away, or because his wrists carry the immutable signs of Carpal Tunnel that seem to strike all Terrans, or because his skills are deteriorating past the point where they allow a revival.

No, this is the best opportunity for Gumiho because of who he is – lightning in a bottle, a wild storm sweeping in over land, the wild fluctuation inherent to a scene so cutthroat as to defy long-term prediction. He is the Starcraft embodiment of the double-edged sword, the equivalent of a kamikaze with a taste for survival. Gumiho was always capable of winning, always possessed the skillset necessary to do it. That it has taken him so long to get here is a byproduct of what has also given him this opportunity: the capacity for streaks, the ability to break barriers. Ask anyone what defines this player, and the answers will be polarizing. For bridging gaps between playstyles, for achieving success in Korea as well as overseas, in offline settings and online. For doing the unthinkable in one moment, falling far short of the simple in the next.

Gumiho might not be a favorite to take this trophy. Unquestionably, there are at least several players whose current forms seem better than his. But he has demonstrated championship form this year, as he has every year, and if we have learned anything from his blitzes, it is that he could very well do it again. After all, the player to eliminate him the season after his own championship victory later went on to win the event. The score between them at the time was 3-3.

Blizzcon is, in essence, year-long form pulled tight into a week-long event. Is this a boon or a hindrance for the most historically unpredictable player in the field? It will depend entirely on who shows up; whether he unleashes the lightning or leaves it locked in its bottle.