Cheese Sells, But Who's Buying?

A player’s ability when playing within the standard metagame usually offers an accurate measure of their skill. After all, 'standard' is the cumulative sum of knowledge that the StarCraft scene has accrued over a period of time, through painstaking trial and error. As that standard metagame fluctuates, so does the landscape of professional StarCraft II.

Has' nonconformity is the defining characteristic of his style. Conventional wisdom says he should never get worthwhile results, but the Mad Scientist has proven time and time again that going against the grain—coupled with a drop of ingenuity—can pay off. Having won nine out of the eleven regional qualifiers for WCS events in the last three years, saying Has is the best player in Taiwan is an understatement.

Although his home-turf dominance can’t be overlooked, Has rarely proved that he was actually capable of contending with the big boys. In premiere tournaments, Has' domain remained strictly limited to the occasional upset, bizarre games, and comic relief. At least, that's how it was until 2018.

Despite a wonky start to the season, WCS 2018 has been, without a doubt, Has’ best year in StarCraft II esports. His 2-3 loss to Hong Kong's GogoJoey in the WCS Leipzig Qualifiers was both shocking and entirely unsurprising—anything could happen in a series with Has. He got back on track by qualifying for WCS Austin in June, landing in a RO32 group with Stephano, HeRoMaRinE, and souL. Though Has failed to advance any further, it was at least a step in the right direction after such deflating start to the year.

After earning another RO32 seed to WCS Valencia a mere month later, Has begun his tournament by facing Elazer. Has had already beaten the Polish Zerg in the qualifiers for the second season of GSL Code S and—despite Elazer's claims that he'd focused on practicing against cannon rushes in particular—Has defeated him with an aggressive opener. Rallying roaches, ravagers, and queens out of a proxy hatchery on Lost and Found, Elazer failed to break through the defensive wall of immortals and shield batteries on the other side, giving up a point.

The second game must have left a bitter aftertaste in Elazer's mouth as he put the hurdles in his own path after hitting the big red panic button. With the threat of a zealot immortal all-in hovering in the air, Elazer battened down the hatches, putting himself further and further behind against Has’ macro(!) transition. When the push eventually came, the Taiwanese player had a two upgrade lead over the 2017 Valencia champion, mowing down the pure roach army with ease. Has went on to face off against SpeCial in the winners’ match.

Starting out on Lost and Found, the Mad Scientist’s cannon rush threw a wrench in the works, messing up SpeCial’s opening early on. Despite finding only a few workers’ worth of direct damage, the Taiwanese Protoss pulled back to an already finished natural nexus, whilst Juanito hadn’t even started his own CC. SpeCial’s haphazard attempt at retaliation was stopped in its tracks as the opponent had taken the necessary precautions. Has’ bizarre mass blink stalker / sentry follow-up—paired with his in-your-face approach to the matchup—kept SpeCial continually pinned back. With a strong, unhindered economy, Has outmacroed(!!) his Terran opponent, forcing out a direct engagement from SpeCial. With an inferior economy, worse upgrades, and missed EMPs, the Mexican Terran tapped out.

Embracing the notion of patience as a virtue, SpeCial held out the initial aggression on Dreamcatcher. Has’ proxy oracle only managed to cut down five workers and—despite delaying the natural CC for a short while—his economy back at home wasn’t in prime shape. Upon scouting Has' attempt at taking a gold base, SpeCial pulled the trigger—only to find his attack stifled by a handful of Stalkers. The Mexican Terran eventually found deliverance in Has’ overeagerness to close out the game, keeping up his aggression far too long after cancelling stimpak research midway. Gaining no real value in trading up a ramp, Has found his economy crippled by a single liberator. Having no answer to the single medivac that followed, the Mad Scientist pulled back, only to be rolled over by a Terran with superior upgrades and tech.

Upping the ante on Acid Plant, SpeCial’s day was promptly ruined by a gas steal, followed by a proxy immortal / shield battery rush. The warp prism micro was as crisp as a Stevie Ray Vaughan guitar solo, giving SpeCial no option but to tap out. Has, made it to the Round of 16.

If it ain’t broke, why fix it? Kelazhur, who’d no doubt watched the Has’ previous match, ended up having to defend against the very same build on Catalyst. Through a combination of prudent tank positioning and a quicker switch to vikings, the Brazilian Terran thwarted the build that had killed SpeCial, claiming the first map in the Best of 5.

Faking out the possibility of more proxy shenanigans, Has successfully planted the seed of doubt in Kelazhur’s mind, leading the latter to build a command center in his main and having to deal with a gas steal—all the while taking a gold base natural of his own. A quick three gate stalker + warp prism follow-up through the Terran’s backdoor gave Has even more freedom, locking Kelazhur down on two regular bases. The Protoss, being on four bases himself (including a stolen gold base), pulled the trigger as soon as Kelazhur had chosen to claim his third. Superior upgrades and a 50 supply lead evened out the series.

The cheeser finally became the 'cheesee' on Dreamcatcher, where Kelazhur managed to catch Has with his trousers down. A hidden barracks in the Terran’s own natural, although scouted, was quickly followed up by a second gas and factory. The one base cyclone rush ended up being held with relative ease—however Has’s poor map awareness saw him lose a shield battery for free, forcing the phoenixes to join in the fight at the natural ramp. Kelazhur, finding a window of opportunity, snuck a viking into the main, killing off nine workers on top of a stalker. With the tempo advantage on the Terran’s side, Has found himself falling back to his signature gateway heavy style. A relatively quick nexus at the gold gave Has the necessary resources to force a lift on Kelazhur’s own third base. Clawing his way back into the game, Has followed up with a fourth, solidifying his eco lead and choking the Terran out. The Taiwanese Protoss was up 2-1.

Safety was the name of the game for Kelazhur, who quickly sniffed out Has’s proxy pylon on Lost and Found. A blind raven, followed by a tank, and a bunker at the front further reinforced the Terran’s defensive stance. A few brash attacks with blink stalkers cost Has most of his army while a cloaked banshee went unanswered for an extended period of time. With a sufficient lead, Kelazhur launched an attack which ended up spiraling into a base trade. The Protoss production could not hold a handle to Kelazhur’s macro capabilities, and he pushed through to victory force a game five.

The very same defensive opening ended up being stopped in its tracks, as Has, re-adjusting his play, opened up with a stargate. A very similar approach to controlling the game with just a handful of phoenixes was exemplified in Has’s series against SpeCial. Has’s bluffs yet again went unchecked, as the Protoss macroed up to four bases, whilst applying enough pressure to scare Kelazhur into turtling up. In the end, the Taiwanese macro(!!!) engine overpowered that of the Brazilian player, bringing Has a step closer to that coveted WCS championship.

The next opponent in line turned out to be Nerchio, whose series against Has turned out to be a damp squib. It was as if he’d not watched Elazer struggle in the third group stage. Similar mistakes playing into Has’s hands, whose builds were pretty much the same all throughout the tournament. Fake zealot pressure into an immortal- zealot-sentry push on 16 bit, which put Has on the board, followed by a cannon rush on Redshift, where Nerchio evened out the series. The Taiwanese Protoss then put himself on match point with a two base zealot immortal all-in on Acid Plant, only to have the three base version of that very same build pushed back on Catalyst. If I were a betting man I wouldn’t put my stack on seeing Has try that again on Lost and Found. Perhaps I should take up gambling, cause the Mad Scientist pulled out the same three base zealot-immortal-sentry all-in yet again. And it worked.

The prevailing theme of Has’s run in Valencia was him getting into the minds of all the players in his way. The very same thing happened in the semifinal series against ShoWTimE, who narrowly missed out on a chance for a rematch against Serral in a WCS final. With a 2-3 score, Die Mauer ended up making mistakes he wouldn’t against any other opponent. Has got in his head. Has played the unconventional game. Has played the Has Brand™ of StarCraft. And he made it work yet again.

But there was one player, who wouldn’t let that get in his way: Serral, the champion of Leipzig and Austin, the player who went on to become the second foreigner ever to win a premier-class StarCraft II event on Korean soil. Suddenly, nothing seemed to work. Serral was one step ahead of Has—who had dispatched the rest of the foreign scene in an unprecedented show of ability—bringing his own take on RTS games to the table. Has finally ran into a proper wall, after dispatching of another. Only managing to take a single game off the now four-time WCS champion, his tournament road came to an end.

Stepping out of line is risky business, as proven by the mixed response to Has’s sudden performance spike. Very few things happen overnight, though, and becoming a StarCraft superstar certainly isn’t one of them. Who knows, perchance in time the fabled Taiwanese legend that is Sen will have to step down and make way for Has. Or maybe the stars happened to align the right way just this once and Has never manages to pull off something quite as remarkable ever again. Time will tell.

The WCS point acquisition did not stop there, as Has, having joined Taiwanese e-sports organisation J Team, went on to make the playoffs of WCS Montreal, where he narrowly lost to TIME. Prior to that he’d also got to compete in GSL vs. the World, giving SpeCial a chance at revenge for Valencia. And that’s Has’s 2018 story so far, with one final stretch remaining: his very first BlizzCon. The culmination of years of going against the mainstream idea of having to fit in, Has’s appearance at the Global Finals, unthinkable in the past, has become a reality.

There’s a Bruce Lee quote on the Internet (and I hope it’s genuine, because try as I might I couldn’t find the source - though, even, if it isn’t, it still rings true), that says: I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. And, although Has’s bag of strategies holds many a build, they generally follow a similar modus operandi. Confuse, confound, proceed immediately to a non sequitur follow-up. And that’s where Has’s strengths lie. He’ll reel you in and make you dance to his tune in his wicked theater of anarchy. Has, the puppeteer of surrealistic beguilement; he’s the one pulling the strings; he’s the one calling the shots. And no matter who you cheer for, the fact that Has’s play is a spectacle in itself has to be recognized. In the end, cheesing is his business… and business is good!