The Elephant In The Room - Lee "Life" Seung-hyun - Page 2

On November 07 2023 09:10 luxon wrote:

Respectfully, this is the dumbest comment I've read on this site. No one has ever been as dominant as he was, maybe except 2017(?) Serral. Except Life was 15 or something.

Edit: everyone all up and arms about matchfixing yet we still let Macsed play (yes he's terrible so he never makes it deep but I know Gabe won't play against him because of that). And his was more egregious than any of the others, at least Life lost to a pro. Macsed lost to a diamond leaguer and we decided to let it slide.

On November 07 2023 07:14 Waxangel wrote:

Practically speaking, the best chance of seeing Life at a tournament is in an international showmatch held by a non-major org. This actually happens with Savior, who has occasionally competed in random Chinese events that are barely watched in Korea or the West.

On November 07 2023 07:14 Waxangel wrote:
Bypassing any personal moral judgment, it's untenable because of how the Korean SC scene would treat it.

Savior almost found a home on AfreecaTV briefly in the early 2010's, but eventually AfreecaTV caved to public pressure and disallowed proven match-fixers on their platform. Also, as a reminder, we're presently in a world where Flash, the greatest BW player of all time, won't stream because of his non-criminal involvement in a potential crypto scandal. This stuff is just treated extremely severely in Korea, and it's an absolute non-starter for any KR tournament entity to entertain the idea of having match-fixers back in the fold.

Even for the big international orgs, there's just too little benefit in inviting match-fixers back. Maybe you get an interest boost out of having Life at an event, but you ruin your reputation (especially since there's a high chance that a major esports org is, or will inevitably be, dealing with the South Korean scene).

Practically speaking, the best chance of seeing Life at a tournament is in an international showmatch held by a non-major org. This actually happens with Savior, who has occasionally competed in random Chinese events that are barely watched in Korea or the West.

On November 07 2023 19:47 Nakajin wrote:


Life also used to play in a lot more foreign event than the average Kespa pro, which help him a lot. He only has a single Korean trophy in the Kespa era (2 is you want to stretch it to Blizz cup in 2012, but Kespa had not quite finish the transition IMO). I don't think is close to beeing the most dominant player.

On November 07 2023 21:40 Poopi wrote:
It was played on WoL afaik, in the most imbalanced era of sc2 so the 4-3 victory is telling us more about mvp prowess than Life’s.

On November 07 2023 21:51 Durnuu wrote:

ByuN had his best wins in an era with 60% TvZ winrate but for some reason I have a gut feeling you won't dismiss his wins quite as easily

On November 07 2023 22:03 Poopi wrote:

Where do you get this winrate from?
In 2016 (best year for ByuN), zerg won more money than terran Winnings/2016 ; the balance was bad but in a clown fiesta way. Zerg had invincible ultralisks but terran had strong reapers and tankivacs, that sort of stuff.
Whereas 2012 had literal no names like johnnyrecco or miniraser having results

In 2016, TooDMinG won more money than INno, :x

On November 07 2023 22:18 ChuChuRocket wrote:


Ok lets just square something away. These are kids being dealt with by powerful, rich, authoritarian men. During this era they were all around 15-18 years old a lot of them. When does the issue becoming the grooming they were put through? Life was so damn good, who even introduced him to matchfixing? If you were an upcoming Bonjwa, how did these players have access to this seedier side of Kespa, Match Fixing, an the nature of Illegal betting in South Korea. Everything feels metaphorically at knife point with dealings regarding everything Sc2 related. Never forget, Life was just a kid, who spent a good number of those formative years, in a team house, 24/7, surrounded by men who groomed them all. How many times do you think they stroked Life's ego, look at all this money! Look at all this money you can make, you can live that high life! How many times do you think they have threatened their players with something legal? Throughout all the years of Starcraft in South Korea? Something, anything? Where is the reponsibility? The culpability? The admittance, that we are exiling them, for what? For whom?

On November 07 2023 23:32 stilt wrote:


In the end you're right, that's quite terrible for the one who would have been the goat of sc2
He was so much superior to maru or any zerg it wasn't even funny

On November 07 2023 23:36 SupremeMaddox wrote:


It is indeed a mystery how he got into the dark side, right? especially the one who were upcoming bonjwa and a star player? You say he was at young age and there were the ones who would only manipulate the guys like him but teams doesn't work like that. Sure he struggled in Federation Teams, but no matter how shitty it was at least many teams had a code of conduct. They wouldn't want another fucking nightmare after it all happened years prior. The source being PRIME was no mystery there, because they didn't have any experience towards it besides the problem of THE MANAGER BEING ONE OF THE BROKERS. Funny how they all suffered from the previous matchfixing scandal and all the nightmare and he still didn't learn. They had previous precedent to prevent all that stuff from happening.

Let me tell you one thing, being young age and forced to do something illegal doesn't mean you can be forgiven. When same thing happened in ahq Korea in the LCK back in 2014, Promise exposed the owner and committed suicide. Sucks he became sexual predator after he survived that though. Not everyone reacts the same, and especially when you have the spotlight you should also know how to bear the weigh of it. Faker, for example, he had a lot of spotlight as well since his appearance, and considering ahq Korea's incident coincides with his debut (his debut was 2013). We can fairly say he debuted on the wild west. I can tell you also, T1 back then in LCK wasn't in the position like today. If that's your take, Faker should've fallen into that temptation long ago, but he didn't and turned out to be the greatest gamer in the history of League, and further the No.1 eSports player IN THE WORLD. Nobody said it would be easy. But be that as it may, you cannot JUSTIFY the act. For what they ban Life? For what they ban Savior? For what they ban all the matchfixers known into the system? To show it as a fact, that you CANNOT come back from those crimes and thus is to prevent further things to happen.

SC2 is now a community-driven. And that's why it is more vulnerable for things like that. How can you watch over all of that happening even when we didn't prevent on the KeSPA managed era?

As a host and KR community commentator I often see the demographics on my casting stream, and when I see it I find some of the origin as illegal betting sites. They infiltrate even on the community streams like myself, so how can you guarantee they won't commit again after all that?

Please, knock it off. As much as I would like to see more people playing SC2 competitively, there's still a line.
And if you would ask CranK about this matter, you will get immediately banned for it, because I can tell you,
he experienced all the aftermath of the matchfixing scandal firsthand, and he knows how hard it is to be inside of that shitstorm when he was barely 20. Koreans know how painful it was as a fan to see all that suffering from other guys who didn't even commit getting audited, all that crap, because some of the people did it. It is the deep trauma still lives on until this day. So I can definitely say the exile is indeed for all the Korean SC2 fans who truly loves the game and still watch eSports.