The Tyrant's journey home (Jaedong SC2 story)

The man every BW professional feared and fan worshipped was now labelled a 'kong', someone cursed to pile up silver medals and heartbreak while others made off with golds and the glory. No long fit to truly bear the title of 'The Tyrant' and promising fans over and over that he would return to the top, Jaedong's journey finally reached the promised land yesterday. This is the story of one of BW's greatest winners tumultuous dredge through the wasteland of finals heartbreak, every loss propelling him further towards a seemingly looming retirement.

Just as Jaedong had always been the benchmark against which Flash's one-time ailing BW career had always been compared, when the young Terran had failed to win more than a single title by late 2009, now Flash would become the SC2 yardstick for Jaedong's own struggles to be matched up against. While Jaedong had flunked his debut into the GSL Flash, who admittedly had not passed his own time in Code A, had gathered some early results, reaching the quarter-finals of the first SC2 OSL and finishing in the top four of the MLG Fall Championship.

When EG's Korean Zerg star pushed through another close series to this time eliminate StarDust and reach another final it seemed as if past demons had been exorcised. Even better, the finals opponent was not a Protoss, but rather a Korean Zerg: HyuN. Not only was Jaedong a ZvZ monster, but HyuN was also seeking a first SC2 title, having come up short only weeks prior at MLG. Jaedong took the opener and stood only two maps from the title. HyuN was to be the man who destiny favoured that day, winning his first SC2 title and forcing Jaedong to again leave without completing the job.

In the third season of WCS America Jaedong suffered no defeats in the group stages, reaching the quarter-finals with only a single map loss. Escaping a tough 3:2 series against Hack put him into a ZvZ against ByuL in the semi-final. ZvZ had been a point of safety and comfort for Jaedong all year long, when his ZvT and ZvP match-ups had suffered moments, however long they may be, of fragility he could always rely on ZvZ, much as in BW, to carry him through. For the second straight WCS America season his semi-final ZvZ series went to five games, but this time Jaedong was not the one to escape into the final.

There had never been a scarier opponent for Jaedong to face in his career. Dear had not only won the WCS Korea and S3 titles, in the space of less than a month no less, but had done so by crushing elite tier Korean Zergs 4:0 in both finals. The latter had been particularly stomach-churning for Zergs around the world, as Soulkey, widely considered the best Zerg all year, had reached the final off the back of his own excellence in the match-up, beating Oz and Trap 3:0 each.