• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 12:36
CEST 18:36
KST 01:36
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Serral wins EWC 202522Tournament Spotlight: FEL Cracow 20259Power Rank - Esports World Cup 202580RSL Season 1 - Final Week9[ASL19] Finals Recap: Standing Tall15
Community News
[BSL 2025] H2 - Team Wars, Weeklies & SB Ladder2EWC 2025 - Replay Pack2Google Play ASL (Season 20) Announced36BSL Team Wars - Bonyth, Dewalt, Hawk & Sziky teams10Weekly Cups (July 14-20): Final Check-up0
StarCraft 2
General
#1: Maru - Greatest Players of All Time Serral wins EWC 2025 Greatest Players of All Time: 2025 Update Power Rank - Esports World Cup 2025 EWC 2025 - Replay Pack
Tourneys
Sea Duckling Open (Global, Bronze-Diamond) TaeJa vs Creator Bo7 SC Evo Showmatch Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament FEL Cracov 2025 (July 27) - $10,000 live event Esports World Cup 2025
Strategy
How did i lose this ZvP, whats the proper response
Custom Maps
External Content
Mutation # 484 Magnetic Pull Mutation #239 Bad Weather Mutation # 483 Kill Bot Wars Mutation # 482 Wheel of Misfortune
Brood War
General
BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ Google Play ASL (Season 20) Announced Dewalt's Show Matches in China Shield Battery Server New Patch Help: rep cant save
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues [BSL] Non-Korean Championship - Final weekend [BSL20] Non-Korean Championship 4x BSL + 4x China CSL Xiamen International Invitational
Strategy
Does 1 second matter in StarCraft? Simple Questions, Simple Answers Muta micro map competition [G] Mineral Boosting
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Nintendo Switch Thread Total Annihilation Server - TAForever [MMORPG] Tree of Savior (Successor of Ragnarok) Path of Exile
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine UK Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Stop Killing Games - European Citizens Initiative
Fan Clubs
INnoVation Fan Club SKT1 Classic Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
Anime Discussion Thread [\m/] Heavy Metal Thread Movie Discussion! [Manga] One Piece Korean Music Discussion
Sports
2024 - 2025 Football Thread Formula 1 Discussion TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 NBA General Discussion
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Gtx660 graphics card replacement Installation of Windows 10 suck at "just a moment" Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
TeamLiquid Team Shirt On Sale The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Ping To Win? Pings And Their…
TrAiDoS
momentary artworks from des…
tankgirl
from making sc maps to makin…
Husyelt
StarCraft improvement
iopq
Socialism Anyone?
GreenHorizons
Eight Anniversary as a TL…
Mizenhauer
Flash @ Namkraft Laddernet …
namkraft
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 622 users

The Greatest Comeback In Starcraft History

Forum Index > SC2 General
Post a Reply
StarcraftHistorian
Profile Joined November 2022
United States135 Posts
March 30 2023 11:31 GMT
#1
[image loading]

GSL is the most significant tournament circuit in the history of Starcraft 2. Legends were born, tempered, and sometimes destroyed by, the competitive furnace that was the Global Starcraft 2 League. Thousands of Korean fans would come out to watch the titans clash, to see who was able to lift that trophy, and claim a coveted GSL victory pin. In 2013, during the very first season of the Blizzard sanctioned “WCS Korea”, we saw two of these immortal figures, (T)INnoVation and (Z)Soulkey face off in a series that could never be forgotten.

InnoVation was looking absolutely unstoppable going into this finals, having overcome (P)Rain, (Z)HyuN, (T)Flash, (Z)Life, (Z)RorO, and (Z)Symbol to get there. Soulkey was certainly no slouch, having taken down (T)Maru, (T)YoDa, (P)Flying, (P)PartinG, and (P)sOs to reach these finals, but Inno was a bit of a favorite. Known for his impeccable mechanics, and ability to just have more units on the field relative to most Terran counterparts, InnoVation was already known by that time as, “The Machine”. Reaching the finals of a Premier event was also a career first for both of the finalists, so no matter who was crowned, a new champion would be born.

“Greetings from Seoul Korea” said Tasteless, and so began one of the greatest Starcraft finals of all time. In game 1, InnoVation opened up with an uncharacteristic cheese, a proxy 2 rax. With a late scout of what was coming, Soulkey was fighting an uphill battle from the get-go. InnoVation was able to leapfrog bunkers, pushing up to Soulkey’s natural expansion, eliminating the drones and grabbing a quick 1-0 lead.

Set 2 opened with both players taking a quick natural, and Soulkey searching the map fervently, looking for a proxy that wasn’t coming. The Korean Zerg then threw down a 3rd base, while InnoVation powered up on 2 bases, getting ready to hit with a fast Hellbat drop. With great scouting Soulkey was able to push away the attack with ease, even sniping the medivac before it was able to get out. With some Hellion run-bys and fancy micro with his follow up Hellbat drops, InnoVation was able to find some drone damage, but certainly nothing crippling. After pushing away a big mid game attack, Soulkey, in an effort to position his army to protect the 4th base he had just thrown down, moved off of creep with his entire army. This proved to be a fatal mistake, and not one that InnoVation was about to let go unpunished. The Terran bio pounced on the Zerg force, composed mostly of Hydra/Roach, and swallowed up about 80% of it. That was the beginning of the end in game 2 for Soulkey. His 4th wasn’t able to finish, and while he was able to push InnoVations main army back, “The Machine” swung a drop behind the front lines into the Zerg’s main, taking out almost ⅓ of Soukley’s economy. Soulkey ended up chasing InnoVation’s main force all the way home, but lost everything to the rallying forces from the Terran main. InnoVation then hit the main with yet another drop, and broke down the front door at the same time, pushing his lead in the series to 2-0.

[image loading]

In game 3 we saw another standard opening from Terran, but Zerg decided to get aggressive with a Baneling bust. Soulkey was able to run lings into the main almost instantly, taking out the reactor on Inno’s factory, slowing down his Hellion production. With Lings running wild and Banelings morphing in the Terran main, things were looking bleak for the STX Soul player. Some incredible control by InnoVation kept his workers alive, and with a mis-detonation of his last two Banelings by Soulkey, the rush was almost over, and it hadn’t dealt nearly enough damage to have justified the cost. A futile Baneling bust at the natural ramp was able to make a breach in Terran’s wall, but the units were cleaned up, and the wall closed up quickly. In a fit of last ditch desperation, Soukley geared up for a Roach Baneling push into Terran’s front door, but like earlier in the game, some damage was dealt, but not enough. From there, InnoVation took full advantage of Soulkey’s lack of Mutas, and picked the Woongjin Stars Zerg apart with relentless drops. One last fight in the middle of the map sealed the fate of game three, and put InnoVation in a commanding position, up 3-0, one game away from his first title.

I stayed up until 5AM to watch the finals, and by the time Inno took his 3rd map, I was exhausted, and frankly a little bored. Soulkey just seemed to have shown up missing something that day, and I was ready to stop fighting my body and get some sleep. It was clear to me InnoVation was going to be the new Code S champ, and I didn’t need to see Soulkey get slaughtered again to know it. What a mistake that was.

Game 4 saw both players opening up conservatively, with standard, solid macro play. With some well positioned Overlords, Soulkey was able to avoid damage from InnoVation’s early game Hellions.We then saw InnoVation push out and take a relatively fast 3rd base, to which Soukley’s answer was a Roach/Bane explosion. InnoVation was able to keep the first part of the push at arms length, but the second wave of Banelings was too much for the Korean Terran to fend off. Soulkey proved he was capable of drawing blood from InnoVation, but still had an insurmountable task in front of him.

[image loading]

In the 5th set of the series, Soulkey, having tasted victory with a Roach timing, decided to try it again. InnoVation took crippling damage to the Roaches and Banes Soulkey threw his way, and was entering the mid game down more than 50% economically. Soulkey powered up on three bases, and when he did finally move out, it was with a 70 supply advantage. InnoVation was able to take a very efficient fight at the mouth of his natural, but it was too little, too late. Zerg morphed a boatload of banelings right outside the Terran base, and was able to fight his way up the ramp into the natural, pushing the series to a 6th game, still down 2-3.

InnoVation, feeling the heat, decided game 6 was the time to get aggressive again. Going for the same strategy as game 1, the proxy 2 rax, InnoVation was willing to risk it all in an attempt to close out the series. This time though, Soulkey sniffed it out quickly, and was even able to delay one of the Barracks with Drone harassment. InnoVation was able to force the cancel on the natural expansion, but with a Spine Crawler in the main, InnoVation wasn’t able to push further. With a flood of Lings and Banes, Soulkey was able to break the series of bunkers Inno had laid down outside Soulkey’s main. The push then instantly swung to the other side of the map, with the Zerg swarm busting down the front door of Terran, overwhelming all resistance. InnoVation was feeling the heat, Soulkey had evened up the series 3-3, and the crowd was roaring.

The ultimate set proved to be the closest of the series. Both players opened up the game with a focus on standard, economy focused play. InnoVation reached into his bag of plays and pulled out the Hellbat drop again, picking off a lot of Lings, but barely escaping with his Medivac. He followed that up with an even more committed Hellbat attack, to less success this time. Losing both medivacs, and only picking up 4 workers total on the game, InnoVation gave Soulkey an early lead. Zerg opted to tech into Mutalisks, and was able to secure a 4th base with almost no pushback from the Terran. Soulkey was able to keep InnoVation on his side of the map for the next few minutes of the game with great army movement of his ground forces. The next major blunder by Terran happened when he flew 3 full Medivacs into the Zerg main, only to have them intercepted by the Muta flock before they could unload. Followed up almost instantly by a push from Soulkey that looked terrifying, but got cut short prematurely when a huge Ling force was obliterated by a patch of Widow Mines. Soulkey’s unreal multitasking started to shine through though, when he simultaneously destroyed Terran’s 3rd and swung back into the main with his Mutas, dealing huge economic damage. The Mutas were then able to sit above the production of InnoVation, destroying infrastructure, and Terran’s ability to replenish his forces. After deflecting the last significant Terran push, Soulkey overwhelmed just about all of InnoVation’s locations at once. Terran was able to keep his head above water but just barely, and then pushed out for one final desperate attack. Soulkey devoured InnoVations last forces whole though, and completed the greatest comeback, maybe in the history of Starcraft 2, and certainly of GSL history. The shots of Soulkey’s mom crying are permanently ingrained in my memory, just as the shot of InnoVation in absolute disbelief is as well.

[image loading]

With players like InnoVation returning to the scene after their military service, the history of Starcraft II is still being made. It’s important to me that these pieces of Esports history are remembered, as they help preserve the context of how we got where we are. Thousands of fans may not be showing up for the GSL in 2023, but even a decade after that finals, InnoVation will be. I’ll be watching live, remembering that anything can, and will happen in the greatest game ever made, and that I can’t sleep until someone lifts that trophy.


All the games can be watched here

Find all my content here on my new site! https://starcrafthistorian.com/
Cold-Blood
Profile Joined March 2010
United States200 Posts
March 30 2023 14:17 GMT
#2
sheeeeesh before I opened this I thought surely it's gonna be soulkey v inno

I was home from my first year of university and stayed up all night watching this series, amazing memory

thanks for the write up historian ya dont' miss lately!
Forever and Always #1 YellOw fan.
Drfilip
Profile Joined March 2013
Sweden590 Posts
March 30 2023 17:25 GMT
#3
This was the second match of GSL that I watched. The first one was Soulkey's semifinal match.
Before that I mostly watched separate games cast by the likes of Husky and Day[9], as well as Proleague and some community events.

Soulkey was a great survivor, missing the winning part of the game. His style was very entertaining to me all the way until he quit SC2.
Random Platinum EU
Mountain Car Service
Profile Joined March 2023
1 Post
Last Edited: 2023-03-30 18:36:53
March 30 2023 18:36 GMT
#4
--- Nuked ---
Sorathez
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
Australia209 Posts
March 30 2023 23:41 GMT
#5
I still remember watching this finals as a teenager.
I watched Innovation go up 3-0, then my dad and I had to go out for a little while. And I figured, eh whatever, innovation has this in the bag.

I came back an hour or two later, series is now tied and I arrived just in time to watch inno fly his medivacs into a cloud of mutas at 14:00 in set 7. Biggest WTF moment of my life.
There's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep trying till you run out of cake.
ejozl
Profile Joined October 2010
Denmark3380 Posts
Last Edited: 2023-03-31 10:51:13
March 31 2023 10:50 GMT
#6
The DRG vs Life reverse sweep in Iron Squid II, I remember as being quite crazy. I might've to rewatch some of these very
old, close bo7's. The likeliness of the biggest comeback being from WoL/HotS when LotV have been out for so long, is however, pretty slim. So I think we might be too affected by nostalgia
SC2 Archon needs "Terrible, terrible damage" as one of it's quotes.
Gavus_canarchiste
Profile Joined July 2022
5 Posts
March 31 2023 11:50 GMT
#7
Inno looked invincible entering this finals, being 21-3 in maps against Zerg in HotS with his unstoppable parade push style. Soulkey had to win more maps in a single series that every other Zerg combined.
Couldn't watch it live, and a friend told me "huh, not even close as expected", which made me think Inno won easily and spoil myself. Later, he argued "it was just a joke".
Worst spoiler in 10+ years of watching SC2, missed a gigantic upset featuring the best comeback of all time (which infuriated me more that it should have). Still watching Soulkey in BW!
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
16:00
Warm Up Cup 4
uThermal256
SteadfastSC88
Liquipedia
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
Hui .351
uThermal 256
SteadfastSC 88
goblin 68
BRAT_OK 67
ProTech65
UpATreeSC 51
ForJumy 10
MindelVK 2
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 23694
Horang2 2389
Bisu 2243
Flash 994
Mini 939
EffOrt 814
Barracks 581
actioN 413
Soulkey 194
Stork 114
[ Show more ]
JYJ77
TY 59
Rush 40
sorry 33
Shine 30
Noble 14
Aegong 13
IntoTheRainbow 7
ggaemo 1
Stormgate
RushiSC30
Dota 2
qojqva3411
Dendi1593
420jenkins478
XcaliburYe256
League of Legends
Reynor129
Counter-Strike
ScreaM3921
markeloff738
edward87
kRYSTAL_44
Other Games
singsing1893
hiko972
Fuzer 279
B2W.Neo235
Trikslyr84
QueenE72
Organizations
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 16 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• davetesta59
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• C_a_k_e 2406
League of Legends
• Nemesis3364
• Jankos1358
• TFBlade893
Other Games
• WagamamaTV562
Upcoming Events
The PondCast
17h 25m
Online Event
23h 25m
Korean StarCraft League
2 days
CranKy Ducklings
2 days
BSL20 Non-Korean Champi…
2 days
Mihu vs QiaoGege
Zhanhun vs Dewalt
Fengzi vs TBD
Online Event
3 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
3 days
BSL20 Non-Korean Champi…
3 days
Bonyth vs TBD
OSC
5 days
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

BSL 20 Non-Korean Championship
FEL Cracow 2025
Underdog Cup #2

Ongoing

Copa Latinoamericana 4
Jiahua Invitational
BSL 20 Team Wars
CC Div. A S7
IEM Cologne 2025
FISSURE Playground #1
BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025
ESL Impact League Season 7
IEM Dallas 2025
PGL Astana 2025

Upcoming

BSL 21 Qualifiers
ASL Season 20: Qualifier #1
ASL Season 20: Qualifier #2
ASL Season 20
CSLPRO Chat StarLAN 3
BSL Season 21
RSL Revival: Season 2
Maestros of the Game
SEL Season 2 Championship
WardiTV Summer 2025
uThermal 2v2 Main Event
HCC Europe
Yuqilin POB S2
ESL Pro League S22
StarSeries Fall 2025
FISSURE Playground #2
BLAST Open Fall 2025
BLAST Open Fall Qual
Esports World Cup 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall Qual
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.