EPTThe Last Stand: Maru in the GSL Finals
Written by: SoularionOnly a handful of players remaining in StarCraft II can say they had the honor of playing in the first GSL ever. ByuN, LosirA, jjakji, TLO—all of them have had tumultuous careers, and they now barely resemble the players they were in 2010. With the exception of ByuN, they are far removed from their primes, and the past year has not been kind to ByuN either. They are all survivors. Maru is different.
In the eighth year of his career,
Maru has reached his very first GSL finals. It may be surprising to hear that—it's hard to remember a time when Maru wasn't considered an incredible Terran player. But for all of Maru's consistency and greatness since Heart of the Swarm, he's never had a chance to compete for Korea's ultimate prize. In twenty-two GSL events, Maru has not made the finals even once. It's the most GSL appearances by a great player without even a single finals. Even TaeJa, much maligned for his lack of success in Korea, only made it to 14 GSL's before retiring. Maru also has the most GSL semifinals exits in history at an unfortunate four. At any point up to now, it wouldn't have been surprising if Maru had just faded away. His 2016 crash into Code A could have been the start of an endless slump, similar to one we've seen swallow up many a veteran. It's an upset that he even made it from 2011 to 2012, where the lower-tier players of GSL were ruthlessly culled. When 2017 drew to close, there was another potential end. Maru had come off of a disastrous GSL Season 3 campaign which saw him drop out in the Round of 32 without a single map win. He missed BlizzCon for the second year running. Maru could have quit, fallen into a slump—or like so many of his past and present peers—become mired in mediocrity. Instead, in Maru's eighth year as a StarCraft II progamer, we got a reminder of who he truly is: The quietest great player there ever was.
Where it all began
Maru has had a wildly successful career. He has two major Korean championships under his belt, has won an enormous amount of money in foreign tournaments, and has placed top-four in seven premier events. It wouldn't be surprising if he ended his career as a top 10 player of all time. However, for a player of that caliber, he has not once been considered the undisputed, best player in the world.
He's come close many times. When he won his first championship in the 2013 Auction OSL with phenomenal upsets over Rain and INnoVation, it was one of the greatest underdog runs in Starleague history. In that moment, maybe he was the best in the world—but only in the way that every OSL/GSL champion is transformed for a single moment in time. But he never clearly separated himself from the other elite players. He went on to lose to Scarlett in the WCS Season Finals soon after, and soon had to settle for being merely one-of-the-best players. The next season, he was eliminated from the GSL semifinals by the upstart Dear, suffering a heroic Terran defeat that would become a recurring event. He went on to lose in the semifinals of three more major tournaments to round out the year.
In 2014, Maru became a Proleague superstar, and one of the few old-school players to thrive after the KeSPA invasion. He was also the only relevant Korean Terran alongside INnoVation, somehow capable of fighting back against Protoss as the height of the Blink-Stalker era. It was harsh irony that Maru's potential miracle run in GSL Season 1 ended at the hands of a Zerg. Maru was able to match Life in standard games, but fell instead to his trickery. In the next GSL season he came close to a title again, arguably the closest he's ever been until this season. The TvP matchup had become easier in general, but Maru still lost in the semifinals to a then-unknown Classic, whose creative Observer use stopped him in his tracks.
In 2015, Maru improved even further but came no closer to winning a GSL championship. Yet, in every other tournament, he showed he had the potential to win one. He crushed Dream to win the inaugural SSL. He went up 3-1 against Life at the height of his Life-ness in the finals of IEM Taipei, only to give up a comeback defeat. If only he could've closed out that IEM Taipei set, if he only he could have edged herO out in the concurrent GSL to setup a rematch with Life… Maybe Maru was really just a couple of matches away from winning IEM, the GSL, and commanding everyone's respect as the best in the world. But it didn't happen.
The last time Maru was this good... he ran into Life at the peak of his powers
It may seem odd to say this right after Maru won $200,000 at WESG 2017, but he has earned the distinction of being a player who should have achieved more. His trophy case is far from empty, and he probably isn't complaining about his bank account. But given that he's played since the first GSL and has been an elite player since Heart of the Swarm, there's an emptiness that can't be filled with just trophies and checks. You can blame whatever reason—inconsistency, imbalance, or sheer bad luck—but Maru has never secured the title of 'best in the world' for longer than perhaps a week or two at a time. He has never rested at the top of the mountain. He has never reigned.
When he has won championships, there was always a greater player lurking around the corner, be it Life in 2015 or Dear in 2013. There have been many stretches of Maru's career where the quality of his play was undoubtedly fantastic, but he failed to make a deep GSL run for one reason or another. That certainly doesn't stop him from being an all-time great player, but it does force us to stop and wonder 'what if?' Many players are haunted by failing to live up to their potential. Squirtle never redeemed himself after losing that heart-breaking set to Mvp. soO and Dark have both won championships, but not the ones that would redeem them forever.
It is in these finals that Maru finally has his destiny entirely in his hands. There's no 2015 Life at the peak of his power. There's no 2013 Dear in the midst of a miracle run. Maru now stands at the precipice of greatness with nobody to stop him but himself. If Maru wins this best-of-seven against Stats, he won't just win that GSL title he's been searching for in twenty-two separate seasons. He'll become the irrefutable best in the world. He'll have a case to be called one of the five or six best players to ever play the game.
Maru made top four at IEM Katowice and was a single game away from the finals. He won WESG 2017, and looked dominant throughout. He looks like the most polished version of himself, eight years in the making. Someone who has all-time great micro, but also the experience and veteran savvy to play macro games, in a meta which fits his playstyle. He's no longer-shaky in long series—perhaps sOs and Rogue have passed on their audacity and cunning.
He faces this challenge in the matchup which has defined his career: Terran vs Protoss. It was the matchup he won his first championship in, beating Rain in a series nobody expected, in a way nobody could've predicted. It was the matchup that gave birth to so many great sets between him and Dear. It was the matchup that he fought against so valiantly in 2014. Now, it will be the matchup which features either his greatest victory or his most haunting failure.
There is no guarantee there will be another chance. Terrans never know when their wrists will pay the price for all the glory they've won with brilliant mechanics. Progamers never know when they'll wake up one morning and find that the competitive fire no longer burns. No competitor knows when a new challenger will come along, younger, more talented, and hungrier. The clock is ticking away, and this may well be Maru's final chance to stop it.
