Soulkey's Struggles (career story 2008-2013)

That September things seemed to have taken a turn for the better, with his level distinctly rising for the next set of qualifiers. In the MSL preliminaries he got three series deep, finally losing in three maps to type-b, who had reached the semi-final of the previous OSL a month and a half earlier. In the OSL preliminaries Soulkey defeated SaiR (now known as SuperNova in SC2) 2:0, a player who had eliminated him from the previous season's MSL qualifier, but lost to Zerg legend July 0:2.

From April through to July his ProLeague performance, Winners League having finished, saw him go 10: 7 over that period, very respectable for someone only recently inserted into the A team line-up. The match-up he was used the most for was ZvT, in which he managed a 62.5% win-rate. His ZvZ yielded 50% and ZvP was 66%, but with only three maps played. A number of his losses were to top team league players like Flash, Leta and Light. A key victory came over Fantasy, SK Telecom T1's Terran ace, well known for his skill in TvZ.

Soulkey's Ro16 opponent was CJ Terran and ProLeague star Leta. Despite having lost to Leta numerous times in the past, including in the Survivor tournament of this MSL, Soulkey may well have been confident going into the match, with the first leg coming only a week after he finally beat Leta in the ProLeague. The storyline for Soulkey repeated from last year though, losing 1:2 in the Ro16. Had he progressed he would have faced Flash in the quarter-finals.

A few days prior to the Dual Tournament losses Soulkey had begun qualification for the WCS South Korea, competing against a non-KeSPA player for the first time. In the preliminaries he was beaten 0:2 by MMA, a slumping two time GSL champion of the previous year. Based on his post-game thoughts Soulkey was well aware that it was too soon to expect any results against the eSF Koreans, many of whom had over years of playing experience on him, though losses would be vital for his development.

If TaeJa really lacked confidence in his TvZ then it didn't materialise early on in their series, with the Liquid Terran going up 2:0 to put Soulkey at elimination point. The Stars Zerg battled back to knot the series, but in the end TaeJa took the decider and the semi-final spot. Just as in BW it seemed as though Soulkey's rise would be one of gradual steps up from level to level, no gilded path directly to the crown, devoid of suffering and toil. Two Ro8 eliminations at the hands of a Terran closed out Soulkey's Wings of Liberty individual league career.

Prior to the GSL final each player was asked what he thought of the other, replying that he felt his opponent was the strongest player of that race. Due to INnoVation's dominant TvZ play many in the foreign crowd were touting him as near unbeatable in that match-up, and indeed his form seemed to suggest they might not be wrong. The STX Soul Terran had a staggering 21:3 in his 24 TvZ matches in HotS. With the final being a Bo7, Soulkey would need to hand INnoVation more TvZ losses than he had experienced in HotS. Of those three TvZ losses though, Soulkey accounted for one.