Moments in 2007 - A Year in Progaming

Welcome to this heavily photographic review of 2007. After re-reading Carnac’s awesome review of 2005 and the lack of a review for 2006, it seemed appropriate to pick up where Carnac left off.

Many of you will remember this year as the year of the protoss, the year in which Bisu became the first protoss ever to reach number 1 on KeSPA (September). The GomTV S1 MSL should be familiar to you if nothing else – with the historic 3-0 defeat of Savior at the hands of Bisu. It was a great year for Starcraft.

Before we start, thanks to Carnac and gh-skyglow1 for their assistance

January

The year started by closing the last few chapters of 2006 with the Grand Finals of Proleague between SK Telecom T1 and MBCGame Hero.

MBC had a great 2006, coming second in Proleague season 1 and fighting their way up from 4th place in Season 2 all the way to 1st. In doing so, they earned a spot in the Grand Finals against SKT1. After seven intense sets, Sea[shield] clenched victory for MBCGame Hero 4-3 and capped off a great season for Hero. No one bothered to write any battle reports, so heres the live report thread so you can relive this great day for MBC fans.

"Oh, it was nothing, guys... Really. Seriously."

The player on everyone’s mind at the start of the year was of course Savior. It started out a great year for the Maestro. CJ Media hosted Superfight 4, for those of you who don’t remember, this Superfight was an Ace match tournament between the 12 Proteams, and in this event Savior showed us why he is the best player in the world winning all 4 sets for CJ.

February

After ravaging Superfight 4, Savior went on to claim his first OSL Victory! In doing so he completed the path of the Bonjwa (3 MSL's then the following OSL). Savior walked the royal road in Shinhan 3 OSL and defeated NaDa 3-1 in the final. In doing so, Savior looked to end the 2006 season on a very high note. Everything you could possibly want to know about this OSL can be found in Grinq's Results and Standings thread

March

After winning Shinhan 3 OSL, Savior entered the GomTV MSL finals the heavy favourite against the relative newcomer Bisu. Everyone was predicting an easy win for the Maestro;

Bisu walked away victorious over Savior 3-0 in one of the biggest upsets of the year. After fighting off Terrans from every angle, the Maestro was taken down by a Protoss. Despite this silver medal, Savior had a great 2006 with 2 MSL Victories, a second placing in MSL and an OSL win. However it would be Bisu who was focused on for the rest of the year. jkillashark's awesome Results and Standings thread has all the info you need to revisit this monumental occasion in the history of Starcraft.

As promised in when they sponsored 3 OSLs, Shinhan Bank sponsored the Shinhan Masters tournament. Iris followed up on his strong Shinhan 3 appearance, dropping 1 set on his way to the Masters. However, Masters ended up to be a rematch of last seasons OSL final. After a series of great games, NaDa defeated Savior 3-1 in the final becoming the Shinhan Masters Champion and getting his revenge for his defeat in the OSL.

After the conclusion of the 2006 season, the 2006 Progaming awards were given out! Some of the more prestigious were;

Most Improved – Hwasin

Team of the Year – MBCGame Hero (Coach Ha and Captain Park Ji-Ho (Pusan))

Best Rookie – Bisu

Player of the Year, Best Zerg and Highest Winrate of 2006 – Savior

After the upset of Bisu defeating Savior, another of the year’s most shocking moments occurred. KeSPA sold the rights to the Proleague to IEG, angering MBC and OGN. This argument rocked the Starcraft scene to the very core and threatened to end progaming all together. After KeSPA ordered the players boycott of the MSL Prelims, MBC and OGN were forced to make many concessions to KeSPA and IEG. Thankfully, Shinhan sponsored Proleague despite this and the year was salvaged. The whole confusing saga can be found here

MBCGame Hero after their victory over OGN in the 2nd KeSPA Cup

KeSPA also held the 2nd ever KeSPA Cup with IEG as the main broadcasters behind them. The tournament was in the Korean Clanwar style (Winner stays, first to 4 takes the victory). Ironically, the final was between MBCGame Hero and OGN Sparkyz – the two teams sponsored by the broadcasting companies who had battled with KeSPA. MBCGame took the win with Sea once again winning the closer (4-3).

CJ Media was active again and hosted Superfight 5 – Race Wars. Three of the best players from each race took part on the new beta versions of the new Proleague maps. After some intense battles the Protoss team emerged victorious! The team consisted of Bisu, Anytime and Nal_ra. This was a sign of things to come as the rest of 2007 was without a doubt the year of the Protoss.

April

The new Proleague was born! 5 days and 40 games a week – there would never be a shortage of games for pros that missed the cut in the Major leagues. But most importantly in the new Poleague there would be 12 teams! Air Force ACE became an official Proteam after a few months of them participating in small events. Read all about ACE In GTR-2-GO's in depth look at the team

ACE with high ranking Air Force officials after the inauguration ceremony

In addition to the revamped Proleague, MSL and OSL changed their format. OSL reverted back to the classical OSL with 16 players and no wild cards. Whereas MSL expanded their league to include 32 players in the first round.

May

DMZ made progaming history by being the second map ever to be removed from the map pool mid tournament. The other map to do this is of course “Valley of Wind” from the 2004 Proleague Season 1. Due to immense fan pressure placed on KeSPA, the map was pulled. I guess no body loved 4pool/scv rushes

! Sadly, some of the best 2:2s of the season took place on the map after this announcement was made.

Everyone loves progaming drama, and when Gorush said in the MSL Group Picking ceremony to Savior; "In our past, I am leading 2-0", "if he can't beat me with zerg, he should change and play as terran", Savior called his bluff and played Terran against him on Desperado. As everyone expected, Gorush mopped up Savior in style (CC Infest anyone?) But it was great to see some drama back into the group selections.

July is not happy

With the massive success that MBCGame had had over the past year, two of their star players, Pusan and July, were angered to see their paychecks cut dramatically. Pusan negotiated a $50,000 contract, while when July’s $80,000 a year with no incentive contract was rejected by MBC, he was asked to be put on a waiver. And…

SKTelecomT1_Julyzerg was born

But the biggest news of the month was…

After 10 long years of waiting, Blizzard announces its plans to create a sequel to our beloved game at WWI 2007.

Bisu also got to show off his skills once again as he stomped all over savior at WWI 2007.

+ Show Spoiler +

I like the looks of that

June

ACE picked up some new recruits in the form of Oversky and Daezang, but the departure of Oversky meant his spot had to be filled in the MSL. An 8 man single elimination wildcard tournament would be held to fill the spot left behind. This tournament proved to be the saving grace for Stork, who was able to rejoin GomTV S2 MSL after being knocked out by Savior.

Flash after defeating Bisu

The half-year ended with Bisu being cheesed out of the OSL by the KTF newcomer Flash and Savior falling to teammate Iris. Savior’s fall continued when he lost in the Quarter final round of the MSL to FireBatHero 3-2. As the half year closed, all that was on the minds of people was Savior’s fall, and the Rise of the new Protoss force - Bisu.

July

Bisu’s ascent to the Protoss throne would not go unchallenged, and the second half of the year was all about the Bisu/Stork rivalry. After fending off challenges from the Terran faction in the form of Hwasin, and the Zerg beast Savior all that was left for Bisu to achieve was to dominate Stork. Bisu’s victory over Stork (3-2) in the GomTV S2 MSL asserted his dominance over all other players and was quickly called the next bonjwa. jkillashark's Results and Standings thread is your GomTV S2 MSL bible.

Despite Stork’s crushing loss to Iris in the semi-final of Daum OSL 3-0 and his loss to bisu 3-2, he came back to dominate the player who knocked Bisu out of the OSL- Flash. In a convincing display of PvT superiority, he defeated Flash 3-0 and picked up a Bronze in Daum OSL.

Crowd for Daum OSL Finals

In front of a large audience, GGPlay took out the Gold in Daum OSL over Iris (3-2) in a close final full of action and earned himself a place in the history books. He also put Hanbit back on the map, who had been lacking a champion for some time now. Iris could do nothing but walk away having fell short yet again. The whole Daum saga is captured into a single thread by Grinq in his Results and Standings thread

At the start of the Month, Ex announced that Pantech had pulled sponsorship from their team due to financial difficulties. KeSPA propped the team up for the remainder of the season then the difficult search for a sponsor took place. After some searching…

WeMade sponsored Ex and WeMade FoX was born.

While the e-Sports year was well underway and evolving rapidly, Teamliquid went through an evolution of its own.

The Team Liquid Progaming Database was officially launched in July 2007. The usefulness and depth of this new feature was quickly the envy of other Starcraft fan sites. In case you have been living under a rock, the TLPD has match, map and player statistics for every official game ever played. On top of that, it has a list of all progaming maps ever used (and download link) with map statistics as well as both the Power Rank and the KeSPA rankings in addition to an elo system to rank players. We are lucky to have such an awesome free tool at our disposal here at tl.

August

One of the WTF Moments of the Year

The Season one of the 2007 Proleague concluded with Samsung Khan defeating Lecaf OZ in the final 4-0. With an amazing Proleague performance all season, Stork was awarded MVP of Season 1, and along with his Bronze and Silver was on the heels of Bisu’s throne.

The second Blizzcon ever took place in August, and with it came an invitational tournament. The final ended up being a rematch of the Holy Wars from 2006 - Savior vs Nal_ra. Savior took the win over Nal_ra quite convincingly. Blizzcon also gave TL a chance to chat with some of the progamers we love so much. We also gave them some cheerfuls (and easy buttons). Hot_Bid's collaborative blog gives you a great review of the whole thing.

With the Absence of Proleague, the first ever Seoul e-Sports festival was held. The Starcraft section featured a 256 man single elimination tournament.

After the dust had settled, Jaedong emerged victorious over Jangbi 2-1 in the final. This would not be the last we’d hear about Jaedong this year either.

The break also gave way to the annual IEF tournament (formerly CKCG). Korea sent one of their fiercest lineups to date including Savior, iloveoov, Nada and Bisu. Once again it was a Bisu/Savior final and Bisu walked away champion for the third time.

The MBC Slayer

STX also held the 2007 Gyeungnam STX Cup Masters between MBCGame Hero and STX Soul. MBC gained an early lead going 3-1 (including Ruby > Tossgirl). However, in the end Soul walked away victorious 4-3 after Hwasin turned certain defeat into certain victory (from 1-3 to 4-3).

MBCGame Hero was busy in August and participated in the Game Channel Derby with OGN Sparkyz. On the 30th and the 31st of the Month, the two teams faced off in Korean Style Clanwar format – with a 2v2 card that could be called by either team at any time. MBC Won both – 4:3 on the 30th and 4:2 on the 31st.

September

History is made when Bisu reaches number 1 on the KeSPA rankings. After years of getting close, the protoss race finally clenches the number one spot. Stork takes out the number 2 spot in what is truly a great time to play protoss. A full review of the KeSPA year can be found here.

More drama unfolded in September when the story of trouble in OGN Sparkyz between Casy and Manager Lee. Long story short, Casy was forced to leave Sparkyz since he was essentially excluded from the team and seeing as no teams could meet OGN’s demands he was about to turn to the airforce to game. However, OGN eventually accepted an offer from WeMade FoX and Casy joined WeMade! For the whole drama between Casy and Lee check out this thread and the official announcement of Casy's move to FoX

All-Star events are always a lot of fun

The mid-season Proleague All-Stars event was held once again. And as always, it was a fun filled event with many laughs including some hilarious moments between Nal_ra and Chalrenge. Here is the All-Star games in all their joy, wonder and fun. With Proleague Season 2 about to start, FoX was officially accepted into the second season.

October

In a move that shocked KTF fans world wide, Goodfriend and Chojja were demoted to Online practice partner. What this meant is that they would no longer live at the KTF headquarters nor play for the team. At the same time, KTF removed Sync and Aqua from their team altogether - they are not even online practice partners.

Stork finally wins something! After a shocking WCG (PJ > Savior anyone?) Stork emerges victorious over the Chinese player PJ and earns himself the Gold medal.

IEST also happened this month, and with it came more drama than ever before.

The infamous Hwasin/Calm match fixing scandal hit the Progaming world.

A.G)Andy explained that he was watching Hwasin's FPView live before the beginning of game 4 and he noticed that Hwasin had gotten a tell from Calm, revealing that Calm would 12 pool and suggesting Hwasin put a barracks in the center of the map. A.G)Andy said he thought they were chatting about game 3-- the previous game-- but as game 4 unfolded, Hwasin built a barracks in the center of Tau Cross and he realized that the players had been planning for game 4. Then again, before the beginning of game 5 A.G)Andy reports that Calm wrote, in part: "all drone 1 sunken." Hwasin replied, in part: "2sunken no ring."

While denying the accusations as expected, many fans felt cheated due to this incident. Perhaps the BW Gods took note of this incident, and ever since Hwasin has dropped out of every major league. A proper writeup of the controversy can be found here thanks to Tadzio00

November

After the 10th November Proleague match between SKT and KTF, Midas’s mother informed him that his father had passed on. In respect for Midas, his OSC group was pushed back to December. Read over the condolences from tl.net in this thread

Bisu climbed ever higher during this month. He dominated Savior once again in the Quarter Finals of EVER OSL and convincingly made the GomTV S3 MSL Finals.

Unfortunately for Bisu, the new WeMade star, Mind defeated him in the finals 3-1 casting serious doubts over Bisu’s PvT. Most impressively, Mind had one of the hardest MSL runs ever – having to plow through OOv (2-1) and Savior (3-2) before defeating the reigning Protoss champ in the finals. The GomTV S3 MSL can be found here

December

After 2 months of waiting, it was finally announced officially that Idra would be joining eStro. This news follows his victory in the Starcraft Superstars tournament held by eStro. We wish Idra the very best of luck in his progaming endeavors.

EVER OSL proved to be quite dramatic. Stork dominated Bisu 3-0 in the Semi-finals; heating up the rivalry the two have for the Protoss throne. But he could not go all the way, losing to the Seoul e-Sports festival champion Jaedong 3-1. Jaedong walked the royal road, as savior had done in the first OSL this year. All the information one could wish for is right here

More news from Korea reached our ears when the formation of the Proleague Minor League was created. The league would be for the B Teams and newcomers to test for new talent in the progaming scene. All the coaches agreed that this league was a necessary step for them, and so far has been highly successful.

Just before the year ended, one of the greatest Protoss players of all time revealed that his arm would often fall out of its socket in the shoulders. As this got worse, Kingdom started to receive therapy for it but now it has reached a point where a decision needed to be made - surgery or physical therapy. Kingdom chose surgery in early January 2008, and will be admitted on the 7th. All the details can be found here

The year ended with another foreigner announcing his move over to Korea. Tasteless, one of the greatest, if not the greatest caster the foreign scene has ever known got a job casting Starcraft and Warcraft III matches for Arirang TV. Goodluck Tasteless!!

It has been a great year for Starcraft, even though it almost didn’t happen. The Bisu/Savior, Bisu/Stork drama is carrying on well into 2008 and is looking to make 2008 a year better than the one we just had.

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