EPT
Bunny asked if there were any articles that talked about players style, strategies etc and since I couldn't think of any.. Well.. I just wrote some stuff, then it went from there and then, 4 hours later I'm done ;p (I was watching the OGN finals as well, then I watched - listened to - 2 hours of commercials while writing, now I'm listening to the re-run :D)
So here it is;
BoxeR (Terran, Im Yo Hwan) is known for his ability to make ingenious builds, his amazing micro and great strategy. Also widely considered the greatest player ever, nicknamed 'Terran Emperor'. Won 2 OGN Starleagues, been in the finals of 5 and is making his 6th appearance tomorrow. Won 2 WCGs and 1 MBC Starleague as well. Multiple 3rd place finishes as well.
Should he win the final tomorrow, he'll be the only player to ever win 3 starleagues and will be awarded with a 300g golden mouse (initially he was supposed to get 2 autoseeds as well, one for the next starleague as well as one for the following one, however, both boxer and the fans protested and OGN changed it).
UPDATE:
Boxer lost the final 2-3.
This guy MADE modern BW, he's invented half of the terran tricks in use, he's the creator of almost all the terran cheese rushes, he's the man who invented so many of the micro tricks used not only by terran (garimto adapted a lot of boxer's terran tricks for protoss I hear).
He might not have invented marine vs lurker control, nor dropship control but he might as well have - he's the god of both. I could write so much about this guy, but it wouldn't make him justice anyway. He also handpicked iloveoov for his team while oov was still an amateur.. Talk about a good choice!
BoxeR played Grrr... in a special exhibition match (a goodbye to the 1.07 patch) which he won 3-0.
He also beat slayer (one of the worlds best players at the time) 3-0.
In his match vs Grrr he also created a famous barracks block outlined here; http://www.sclegacy.com/features/pimpestplays_2002.php#7
Later, when the map bifrost appeared boxer won quite a few games by landing a barracks in a way so that it blocked the way up to his opponents cliff overlooking their main, then bunker rushed with them being helpless to defend.
In one particulary amazing move vs elky, who had made a supply depot nearby to spot (or block, I'm not sure), he used it to make a wall with sup/rax combined.
Some other boxer patented moves include mass blind + wraith vs carriers
(http://www.sclegacy.com/features/pimpestplays_2002.php#6)
The boxer nuke+emp rush: http://www.sclegacy.com/features/pimpestplays_2002.php#5
The boxer lockdown (vs chunsang, considered to be the next boxer but unfortunately he never made it big). Boxer locks down a score of battlecruisers within seconds.
http://www.sclegacy.com/features/pimpestplays_2002.php#2
He's got a 560,000 member fan club, has appeared in one movie (that I know of) and makes 180,000$/year (3 year contract) with a yearly bonus of 80,000$ for doing well.
Has written a book and owns a PC cafe.
Most wins on OGN. Most games on OGN (I think?). Yellow is second in both categories I believe. He's got a very big winning record vs yellow, as they've played eachother something like 35-40 times on TV.
NaDa (Terran, Lee Yun Yeol) sort of created modern macro style (while still having awesome control, it's not nearly as flashy as boxer's).
Called 'Genius terran', invented tornado style TvP pretty much (harass while building up a giant force which you then use to steamroll the protoss, previously most TvPs had been more slow push style). Won 2 OGN Starleagues. 3 MBCs (6 finals) and 1 or 2 ghemtv starleagues, as well as the first KT-KTF.
He really deserves much more of a writeup than this.. He changed the way people played the game really. In 2002, shortly after reach had beat boxer 3-1 in the SKY 2002 final, nada 3-0:ed him in their MBC Final (though reach's mindset obviously wasn't the greatest, having just won a (more important sort of, as Ongamenet is a bit more prestigious than MBC) final a week or so earlier, it was still quite a demonstration
Iloveoov (Terran, Choi Yeon Seong) sort of revolutionized the way you macro, burst into the scene about 2 years ago and immediately won 3 MBC starleagues back to back (nada had done so just before him, and in oov's second final he beat nada) and looked set to win an OGN Starleague as well but the phenom Julyzerg stopped him cold at the semi final. Oov did win the next one though, after a very close final vs boxer.
1 OGN Starleague and 3 MBC Starleague wins. 2 OGN 3rd Place finishes.
Anyhow, he's called cheater terran or busdriver terran (a reference to how he absolutely dominates players at times), cheater terran comes from how he always has an army much larger than what would seem humanly possible.
Xellos (Terran, Seo Ji Hoon) should be mentioned, nicknamed 'Perfect Terran' for his standard, safe and, well, perfect play. Won OGN Olympus Starleague (3-2 vs yellow). Probably the best TvT in the world (he beats boxer, oov, goodfriend but loses to nada, nada is even with boxer, loses to oov and I'm not sure about goodfriend, goodfriend is even with boxer and oov I think, oov is even with boxer and beats nada, loses to xellos and sort of even with goodfriend.. yeah).
Won WCG 2004 (beating Midas 2-0 in the final) and is heavily favoured to do so again.
Has a perfect pokerface while playing.
Julyzerg (Zerg, Bak Seong Jun) rose to the top about a year ago and within that time he's been in 3 OGN finals, winning 2. Prior to his wins, no zerg had ever won OGN, but in one year him and gorush won a total of 4 big leagues together (july winning 3 of them).
His style is based around crazy ling lurker attacks and the most beautiful mutalisk control you'll ever see. There's been a highlight video of him which showcases how he plays perfectly, it's in the thread I linked above.
He's called 'God of Fighting' (Tusin/Toosin) because of his beautiful control.
2 OGN Starleague titles, one OGN 2nd place and 1 KT-KTF win.
Won the first starleague he participated in (Gillete), beating reach 3-1 in the finals. He is the first 'Royal Road player' (winning the first starleague you play).
His name is the same as on-the-rise player Zergman.
Yellow (Zerg, Hong Jin Ho) is the perpetual 2nd place finisher, he's been around almost as long as boxer and in their time they've clashed multiple times; at first, in Coca-Cola starleague they met in the finals, at a time when boxer was considered invincible vs zerg yellow managed to take 2 games from him, but beating boxer twice on hall of valhalla + ragnarok (a hugely terran favoured map) was too much and he lost a very close series.
They have since met in the finals of WCG 2002, the finals of the first KPGA Tour (now the MBC Starleague), and the finals of 2-3 king of king events. Yellow has never won any of their starleague meetings (semi finals, finals etc) but has won a king of king event vs boxer.
Yellow doesn't only lose to boxer in finals, in oov's first mbc starleague he lost 0-3 to the newcomer, this after overcoming nada in the winners final, but Oov's style was just so new and unheard of that yellow just got walked over.
When nada won his first OGN starleague yellow was there to lose vs him in the semis (again, to a player who brought something new to the table). When Xellos won his first starleague, it was vs yellow in the finals (closest finals ever I dare say, brilliant play). When reach won SKY 2002 he beat yellow in the semis with absolutely brilliant play (the man was on fire, no doubt about that). Stormed everything in sight with deadly accuracy.
When boxer, only last year, once again brought in a new killer build (the 8 rax), yellow was there to lose 0-3 to him in the semis. All but one game was under 10 minutes.
Yellow has won one starleague though, beating NaDa in the GhemTV Challenge Open Starleague
Yellow also owns a PC Cafe.
When Garimto won SKY 2001 yellow was, once again, there to lose to him in the semis.
He's insanely consistent, a master of special events (winner of blizzcon, winner of snickers allstar, winner of at least one MBC Winners championship, winner of the 2nd OGN King of Kings) but has always fell short of winning any of the majors. Got a pretty huge fanbase and hopefully he can return and win a final (he's not been true to form lately).
Nicknamed 'Storm Zerg' because of his aggressive, low eco play where he'll just harass everywhere (look at his blizzcon replays, beautiful drops/mutas and then - defilers).
Gorush (Zerg, Bak Tae Min), he's been around since the very first WCG (when it was called WCGC, world cyber games challenge) he dropped off the map for a couple of years before returning to the limelight about a year or so ago, winning vs NaDa 4-2 in the finals of the You Are The Golfking MBC Starleague, finishing 3rd in IOPS Starleague - I think, might have been a later one, the name escapes me.
Also the runner up of the second KT-KTF (which julyzerg won).
Reach (Protoss, Bak Jeong Seok) is generally regarded as the best protoss of the day (perhaps ever, but garimto should hold this position imo). He's only won 1 OGN starleague, 2nd place once as well as one or two 3rd place finishes. He's been the runner up of 2 MBC Starleagues.
He's known for his amazing storms ('mudang storms', mudang meaning something like exorcist, shaman etc) and flawless macro (one of the few to ever match Oov in a completely straightup macro fight - Oov even said he never understood why people rated reach's macro so highly until their semi final games in Ever 2004, an encounter which Oov won 3-2, very, very close series. Reach did beat Oov 3-0 in the most recent MBC however).
His PvP and PvT are pretty much the best in the world, no doubt, his PvZ could be seen as his one weakness but at times (Sky 2002, Ever 2004 3rd place game) that too is beyond almost everyone.
In the most recent MBC Starleague (Uzoo), where he finished second he beat chojja (3-2, very close series with reach coming back from 1-2, and in the second to last game - where both players ran out of expansions - he won it by maelstroming, and then storming, about 3+ control groups of devourers) to get to the final.
He lost the final 1-3 to IPXZerg (a new zerg star, came from absolutely NOWHERE and just dominated his way to his first title).
In OGN he's beat Boxer 3-1 for the Sky 2002 title, and lost to julyzerg 1-3, finishing second in the Gillete starleague. As previously mentioned, he lost one MBC Starleague (I think it was still called KPGA Tour then) to nada 3-0.
He's nicknamed hero toss, because at times when no other toss players were achieving success he was there - winning.
Nal_rA (Protoss, Kang Min) is like a protoss version of boxer when it comes to ingenuity (or a newer version of garimto), who took his fair time actually making it into a starleague (but when he did, which coincided with some very nice maps for protoss coming into play, it was all nal_ra - almost).
In his first starleague appearance (I think it was his first, someone correct me if I'm wrong) he made it to the final, beating reach in the semi, only to run into Kingdom - old school returnee and Protoss vs Protoss GOD.
He lost 3-1. However, the very next starleague he was back, and beat zeus 3-1 in the final (ZeuS is a very old school protoss player with awesome PvZ, PvT but a bit worse PvP).
Won the Stout MBC Starleague (2-0 nada, but since he came from the winners bracket he started with 1-0 so 3-0). Finished 3rd in the Spris MBC Starleague and 4th in Hanafos MBC Starleague.
He's got loads of nicknames, really, LOADS... For some reason I can't remember his most famous one.. I think it's sun god toss or something (I assume because of the Ra part of his name, nal_ra means 'want fly' btw).
Only other name I remember is Flower toss (because of his love of photon cannons, and their resemblence of flowers).
Field of Flowers Toss (cannons) and Dreamer Toss are two of his other nicknames.
Much like garimto and boxer, he often hides buildings, or proxies them (like he did vs mondragon in blizzcon). Also very, very skilled with reaver/sair (often from a fast expand) - indeed, he might be the best reaver sair player ever as his use of magic and reavers is just impeccable. Very good at fast expanding. Does lots of unusual and cute things.
One of his most famous plays is his arbiter rush vs goodfriend on the island map Parallel Lines (has an expo in main) where he prepared 2 fast arbiters for a massive recall, was scouted (resulting in goodfriend putting up lots of turrets) and reacted by hallucinating his arbiters, and then recalling around 2 groups of zealots/dragoons in goodfriend's main.
Garimto did a very similiar thing in one of his last games before retiring, vs boxer on forbidden zone he arbiter rushed from 1 base (boxer's build on forbidden zone was a fast cc - before barracks and this was pretty well known) and garimto's play seemed to work brilliantly, but boxer managed to shut down his only expansion at another main thanks to ghosts (lockdown), tanks and vultures.
Has been in a severe slump when it comes to individual leagues as of late but has been absolutely tearing it up in the Sky Proleague (Teamleague) where he has won every single 5th and deciding game he has played for his team (KTF). Something like 8-0 total I believe.
Garimto (Protoss, Kim Dong Su) is like the Boxer of protoss. He invented the archon splash on zealot to kill lurker, he was the first (I think?) to do proxy reavers and the like (one famous game vs st.eagle in Sky 2001 he actually made the robotics for the reaver at st.eagle's natural expansion).
Another famous play of his was when he mindcontrolled an overlord instead of teching to observers (though this was not in a TV match).
He's won 2 OGN Starleagues but not really done that much in the way of tournament wins outside of that (still, the only people to manage 2 starleague wins is him, boxer, nada and july).
He retired shortly after I started following progaming so I can't really speak from personal experience of having watched his games live etc.. But he's just an amazing protoss who really should be mentioned here despite being retired.
Nicknamed 'The Zealot' because of his hardcore zealot rushes and use of
mass zealots.
Kingdom (Protoss, Bak Yong Wook) is another player who you should mention I guess, as he's won 1 OGN Starleague (Mycube in 2003), finished 4th in one (Hanbitsoft starleague.. Grrr finished 3rd, this was back in 2001) and was the runner up of the Spris MBC Starleague (lost 3-4 to oov).
He's sort of the inventor of a zealot/reaver timing rush, which he used to great effect in the korean wcg qualifiers 2004, however, while attempting to proxy gate julyzerg he managed to get his zealot trapped against the edge. Unable to get it out, he lost. Quite a famous mistake
He's the king of PvP, has awesome control (him and reach have some devil probe control, they kill scvs with ease by backing up -> shooting, ie not running away just backing up out of range of the scvs attack and using the probes range
also very good with carriers) and is very good at PvZ.Nicknamed 'Devil Toss' because of his reavers/dts/probes.
There's a new generation of very skilled protoss players coming up these days, Pusan (Bak Ji Ho) and Anytime (O Yeong Jong) being the most noticeable. While they haven't accomplished enough yet to be mentioned individually I think they deserve at least a few lines;
Anytime and Pusan both made it into starleague relatively quickly, straight through all of the incredibly hard qualifiers (almost), and they both advanced into the semi finals, Anytime beating oov 3-1 and pusan losing to boxer 2-3, Oov then beat pusan with the same score as boxer, 3-2. Anytime vs Boxer will be played tomorrow).
They are both incredibly solid players with awesome macro and solid play, anytime seems to be good at making builds as well. Solid PvZ.
Pusan is called 'attack ground protoss' because of his mass units style (the 'Ji-Ho mode', from his name Bak Ji Ho). Anytime is called 'zealot factory owner' because of his ability to churn out zealots at an unmatched rate. His second nickname is 'Sasin' or god of death because of his excellent dark templar usage. Anytime has a shot at being a 'Royal Road player' (winning the first starleague you appear in starleague).
Update:
AnyTime (Protoss, Oh Young Jong) became the 4th royal road player (boxer, nada, july, anytime) by beating boxer in the SO1 2005 OGN Starleague by a score of 3 to 2. His nickname of zealot factory owner describes his style very well, as his macro is stunning, and during the course of this starleague he also proved his strategic cunning, making very solid builds for all games.
He started of in groups by beating Yellow, and rising zerg star GGplay (who is very good at ZvP) and losing to Oov. His build vs Yellow was particulary interesting, as it made great use of his trademark dark templars.
He then proceeded to win vs xellos 2-1, iloveoov 3-1 and finally boxer 3-2. In the process of one starleague he beat 3 of the top 4 terrans (maybe 3 of the top 5 if you go by current form and put goodfriend ahead of nada) in a very convincing manner.
His nicknames are; Sasin (god of death, referencing to his great dark templar usage) and Zealot factory owner.
Grrr... (Guillaume Patry, Giyom), was a random player turned protoss pretty much, he won one OGN Starleague in the early days of progaming as well as a King of Kings.
He's one of the few non-korean progamers and was, at his prime the best player in the world. He retired in 2003 I believe, because he said he couldn't keep up with the new players. He's made it into scores of older tournaments, but, just as with garimto, I wasn't playing back then so no personal comment.
I do know that aside from his OGN wins, he made it into the final of one GhemTV Starleague, where he lost to Oddysay.
Made it into the finals of the Seoul Cup Tournament, where he lost to October.
Won 2-3 BNET Ladder Seasons as well.
Anyhow, he changed the game a lot and was the first real star of the game I think.
Other players who should be mentioned here I feel are;
Elky (Terran, Bertrand Grospellier), from france. Retired only last year (now a poker pro), and was doing very good for a while.
Finished 4th in sky 2002 at best I think, also made it into multiple top 8s of starleagues I think.
Moreover, he was the last non-korean to make it into a starleague (not that there's been a lot of non-korean progamers).
He did well in the early days of Warcraft3 as well (2nd place in a starleague at best I think?).
Played very macro heavy with expansions everywhere (I think he was called 'The father of command centers' or something like that).
In his first televised game in korea (I think it was the first) he was still playing protoss, was up against V-Gundam and mindcontrolled an SCV, to make tanks. A move which almost cost him the game but I'm sure looked great (again, not around
).He finished second at WCG 2001 (losing to boxer) and has been to every WCG that france has sent players to I think (not sure about the 2000 WCGC). In 2001, he beat V-Gundam in the group play, nuking him. Boxer promised to 'take revenge' by nuking elky in the final, which he did.
H.O.T-Forever had a severe jinx vs elky, losing pretty much every
official game they played (elky is 7-1 vs him)
Challenged people to 50$ rock, paper, scissor matches at wcg 2004.
Always plays with sunglasses.
Nicknamed "Desperate terran" because of how he'd often struggle to survive and then come back with massive macro. And because he'd really look desperate while this was happening IIRC
V-Gundam (Jo Jeong Hyun) deserves a mention here as well, as he perfected the 'bamboo rush' or Gundam rush. This rush was, for the longest time, one of the most common builds all over battle.net, as well as in tournament play and he was really insanely good with it. He was also very good vs zerg (that's where his nickname 'bamboo terran' comes from I'm told, but I'm not sure why).
Some bad luck prevented him from ever really succeeding. Though he did come close.. Before retiring he had made it into a starleague (first time in quite a while I believe) but, in a strike of incredibly bad luck he managed to break his finger just before.
He did play if I remember correctly, but retired shortyl thereafter.
He was the runner up of the 2nd OGN King of Kings, losing 0-3 to Yellow in the finals.
Another player worth mentioning is Sync (Terran, Byun Gil Sup)), who is still around. He won the NATE 2002 starleague, a starleague which almost no one remember due to it coinceeding with the World Cup football (soccer) final held in korea-japan at the time.
His crazy marine medic charge vs zerg is widely used (he is very good at taking down sunken colonies with marines/medics/firebats). Very good infantry control. Is jinxed vs gorush.
Nicknamed 'Sparks Terran' or 'Fireworks Terran'
H.O.T-Forever (Zerg, Kang Do Kyung) is worth mentioning, as he is one of the oldest
progamers. He lost to Grrr in the Hanaro Communication Tooniverse Starleague, 2-3 (from 2-0 I believe)
and later to Sync (in nate) 1-3. Nowadays he's mostly a deadly 2:2
player for hanbit in teamleagues.
Can't tell you much about his styles I'm afraid, a bit too old school for me. I think he used zerglings extensively though, lots of zergling harass.
SKELTON (Zerg, Bong Jun Gu) should perhaps also be mentioned, he lost in the final of the OGN Freechal starleague to Garimto (0-3 I think).
Was one of the worlds best Kingdom under fire gamers, one of the top
gamers in the early days of warcraft 3 (he's now the coach/manager of
SK.Asia) and owns a PC Cafe. In addition he was also a champion in the korean game Atrox (http://www.atrox.co.kr has a few vods from OGN) and Jurassic War.
Perhaps I should mention Freemura (Zerg, Choi Jin Woo) as well, he was the winner of the 1999 Progamer Korea Open (precursor to starleague, held by OGNs mothercompany Tooniverse if I'm not mistaken).
IntoTheRain (Protoss, Im Seong Chun) deserves a mention, he was known for his amazing
PvZ and did very well in Game-Q, as well as finishing 3rd in the KPGA 1st Tour (now MBC Starleague). He had problems with playing infront of
big crowds and his full potential was never really seen, unfortunately
Now retired, but works as a caster for OGN or MBC, can't remember which.
Garimto does that too btw.
Intotherain played a 'hanbang' style protoss, bursting out with one big attack to kill the zerg. Was also known for his amazing use of magic
(high templars in particular, he stormed like nobody else, well, maybe
except for reach in mudang mode).
Tossgirl (Terran, Seo Ji Su) is the only female progamer to play
in the male leagues (I think, at least she's the only one doing it with any success). She recently knocked yellow out of the WCG prelims (but lost next round). Has made it far enough to get on TV in the male leagues (MBC). Also won the GhemTV Womens Starleague at least once.
When Freemura made a come back last year or so, after having been away (he had to do his military service) tossgirl beat him, FreeMura once again retired shortly thereafter. I think she has caused two returnees to retire but I'm not sure..
Legionnaire (Protoss, Peter Neate) from Australia.
Retired very recently (only some months ago), after a pretty successful
stint (he was there for 2 years I believe) in korean progaming.
At first he played for POS but was soon (along with assem) picked up by the most traditionally non-korean team (gone by many names, started as
AMD Dream Team, but when AMD withdrew their sponsorship I believe they
became Hexatron and are now called eNature).
He never achieved any great success (though the fact that he even
qualified says a lot about how good he can be) in individual leagues,
an MBC minorleague (qualifier for Starleague) appearance being his highlight but in the Team Leagues he did GREAT.
He beat Boxer, he beat Xellos, he almost beat nada. He all killed the
team Toona SG (now Pantech, the team of NaDa, and until recently;
goodfriend - though I'm not sure if nada them played there at the time, also Moon of war3 fame's team - did his contract run out yet?).
In the process of this all kill (4-0 in total) he beat S.S.M~[Silver] Ogogo, Goodfriend, and TheRock[3.33]. In this last game, he set the record for reaver kills in a televised game - I believe reach held it perviously - with a 57 kill reaver (55 or so of those were probes)..
An AWESOME report written by waxangel can be found HERE
Kyo[3.33] = TheRock[3.33]
So what else did he do..
Hm yeah, he got stuck in traffic and as a result showed up too late for his MBC Minor League game vs Yooi (yooi's coach pushed for a forfeit - this was all within the rules as he was 30 minutes late or so.. or if he didn't show up early enough, I can't remember, and well, he got a forfeit and in the next round lost 0-1 vs mumyung.
(edit Leg - that was the excuse my manager came up with to cover his mistake, he told me the wrong time to turn up as he hadn't even checked and had just presumed it was that time)
To qualify for his game vs yooi I think he had to beat silent_control
which he did 2-1.. Can't remember exactly, it might have been from
somewhere else. (edit Leg- no thats right, kim sin deok (z) first round 2-0 then silent control (t) 2-1 in 2nd round, he won the first then i took the last 2)
He was invited to a GhemTV (I think GhemTV and GameTV are the same at
least) Rookie Starleague, but due to some mistakes in communication,
he was disqualified because he was away for WCG (his games were
supposed to be postponed but weren't, unfortunately
).I remember he got his semi-pro license very quickly.. First try even? (edit Leg - Not sure if it was my first, i can't remember but it was early on. It was MBCs 512 player amateur tourney, top 16 play tv matches, top 8 become semi pros. I defeated some terran to get top 8 then lost to ggon the semi random player from samsung. in 2xZvp matches when it was recorded they were pvp! So i had very little practice, and that was the beginning of, my one and only dislike of another progamer!) Yooi, ggon, terato, and a few others made it to the top 8, there is a report somewhere i think)
Edit Leg - another memorable moment.
When i was on POS, Julyzerg and myself played every week and made it to the finals of the ITV team league, we lost vs hanbit in the end, but went through every other team! (it was Bo3, both play 1 match then you can decide who plays the third) This was the location of the infamous 'wink' as i was running hot, with the last 5 matches undefeated, i heard the announcers talking about me so looked and winked at the camera.
Yeah, he retired this summer if I remember things correctly.
Nicknamed 'Wink Toss' (because of his sexy wink
) or 'Kanji Toss' for his style.TheMarine (Terran, Kim Jung Min).
If Boxer is the author of the terran book of tricks, Themarine is the one who wrote the book of
Terran basics. This guy is the most by the book terran ever, and while
he was always overshadowed by boxer he was one of the few to hold a
winning record vs boxer during the time of his dominance (I don't think
it's still a winning record these days though, but I'm not sure).
Despite this he lost to BoxeR when it mattered (semi-finals etc) so
he never did win any major.
After a long period of slumping he was back at the top for a while but
has dropped a little again (here's to hoping he'll be back
).Won KBK Twice.
Nicknamed 'By The Book Terran'
Byun (Zerg, Byun Seong Cheol) is a killer zerg from the era of
Grrr... He's too old school for me to really remember but he was one
of the greats.
He is now the coach of the PLUS Proteam.
Goodfriend (Terran,Lee Byung Min).
Doesn't have a huge following (probably because of playing too standard)
but since his appearance in the majors he's been a constant player, and
he was one of the very few who did not get rolled over by Oov when he
first did the rounds of MBC (Goodfriend is about as newschool as Oov is
too).
Lost to July in the OGN Ever 2005 Finals 2-3.
Chojja (Zerg, Jo Yong Ho).
'The Cowboy zerg', chojja was the king of ZvP for a long time and at
times a killer ZvT. He lost 2-3 to NaDa in the finals of the (MBC) KPGA 4th Tour, and shortly thereafter he lost to nada in the OGN Panasonic Starleague finals 0-3 (after losing an almost won first game he seemed
unable to recover).
Was one of the fastest players, and probably still is. Insane mutalisk
control. Nicknamed 'Cowboy zerg' because of how he uses ultralisks
(cows
).Recently lost to Reach in 2-3 in the MBC UZOO Starleague (after losing
to IPXZerg 2-3 - I think - in the winners final).
Foru (Protoss, Lee Jae Hoon).
Used to be the undisputed #1 terran killer, nowadays he's pretty well
rounded. Known for his goon+obs play vs terran and for losing a game vs
nada where he had 50 gateways (a reminder not to try to show-off).
He's unfortunately never won anything major, but this year he qualified
for WCG 2nd year running, definitely no mean feat considering how hard the korean WCG prelims are.
Recently got knocked out of the MBC Cyon MSL by boxer 1-2 in the losers
bracket after what, I hear, was a very close series.
Ogogo (Zerg, Lee Yong Beom).
Winner of WCG 2003, OgOgO sort of burst out of nowhere and won the
korean WCG qualifiers (which, that year, had a lot of surprises as
old school gosu H.O.T-Forever and new school terran player
Silent_Control qualified), and then proceeded to win the WCG 2003
finals vs Fisheye 2-1 (winners bracket advantage if I remember
correctly).
Was a progamer for a while but retired, almost made it into the WCG qualifiers through the amateur field this year. Not sure if he'll go
pro again or not.
Assem (Terran, Brian Fransioli).
American terran progamer on eNature. Not done that much so far but
still has some very notable wins vs anytime and yellow in teamleague as
well as a nice game vs kingdom.
Beat H.O.T in some qualifiers I believe.. Can't remember to what..
Challenge League maybe. He's currently in the US sorting out Visa
problem I think..
Qualified for WCG 2003, went 3-3 and tied for 4th in his group, with
chinese gosu LinYu)PJ winning it, H.O.T-Forever coming in 2nd (this
means he didn't advance).
Was invited to blizzcon where he went 1-2 vs yellow, 1-2 vs Testie.
Rekrul (Protoss, Dan Schreiber).
Was in eNature together with Legionnaire and Assem, but never did very
well (a lot of this probably had to do with how much poker he played,
where he made lots of money).
What he did do, however, was popularize the use of arbiters among
non-korean protoss players, a trend which now, almost a year after his
retirement, is also starting in korea with Pusan, kingdom and (I think) foru all using arbiters in recent games.
Nazgul (Protoss, Victor Goossens).
Spent 2-3 months in Korea in 2003, playing for the then AMD Dream Team
(now eNature, if you recall). Has made it into every WCG since 2001
(but due to holland not having qualifiers for BW this year, he will not
be present).
In the 2001 WCG he got 5th (highest ranking protoss), beating gundam, fisheye, tomson and alejandro, losing only to elky, in the groups.
Then beating MTY and CQ~2000 before losing to first Boxer then Gorush.
Brackets/results
In 2002 he was once again the highest placing protoss (this year at 7th, tied with Grrr).
He made it into Challenge League (something which no non-korean has
since managed, even though it is harder now than when he did it), where
he unfortunately lost all his games (most likely due to pressure, the
casters even commentated on him not playing at his usual level).
In Team league he beat Xellos, no mean feat.
On the MBC Show "About Starcraft", in which they invite a rookie to play
vs a progamer, he beat Jinnam, using an all new cheese build on
Lost Temple. He actually beat him twice but first game had to be
replayed due to the replay being corrupted (they always go over the
replay as part of the show.
He was then re-invited to play vs [Oops]Lee, vs whom he lost in a, if I
remember it correctly, long and close game.
He lost in the GhemTV qualifiers vs kOs (1-2).
He was one of the few high ranking non-koreans on the old gamei server,
with a high somewhere around 2100. He played a famous series of games
vs boxer there, which he lost 2-3.
Runs this site (http://www.teamliquid.net), and is retired.
Smuft (Protoss, Stephen King) is a canadian protoss player, who
was in korea for a while (not sure if he was ever pro or just amateur).
I can't say I heard much about him but I know he was good.
Don't know what he accomplished there, but he managed to 'scam' his way
to fame with the WDTour (World Dream Tour, promising an invite to play for the AMD Dream Team to the winner of it all, which it later turns out, had never been confirmed by the AMD Team management).
Later won the TLTour (teamliquid tour) beating mondragon 4-3 (I believe)
in the finals.
Got kicked out of Korea for selling drugs, and as a result he was
disqualified from WCG (which he had qualified for), and banned the
following year. This year I believe the ban was lifted, but he has
since gone inactive.
Mumyung (Zerg, Seong Hak Seung).
Now, lots of people will ask 'why do I mention this guy? Has he won anything??'.
And yeah. He has. The first MBC Winners Championship (beat yellow ZvZ, not sure about the score but I think it was 3-0).
Aside from that, he hasn't done much but for the longest time he kept qualifying for starleagues and then ended up losing in group/play offs
every time. Just thought he sort of deserved a mention.
Someone who has to be mentioned is Maynard (Random - I hope I'm not wrong on this, but I think his best race was terran?).
He hasn't played BW competitively for a long, long time but his name still lives on in the term 'Maynard transfer', which is when you oversaturate your main minerals in order to get maximum production at your expansion once it's finished (or even just used to describe the transfering of workers).
Considered the best player in the world for a while, one of the first players who understood the concept of macro.
Pimpest Plays lists:
2002
2003
2004
Thanks to Pubbanana, Raidern, Lightman, [-Bluewolf-], Nazgul, Judicator, YoUr_KiLLeR and SF)CruiseR for correcting mistakes and adding info (I'll update this as I check who else contributed in the comments
)
