[WCS] Global Finals 2014 Day 1 - Page 520

The light emanating from the computer reflected off of TaeJa's smooth skin as he loaded up SCII. The area, which happened to be the main stage of Blizzcon in Anaheim, California, where the final eight players were to be competing for $100,000, was being set up by various production members. The main stage was, in fact, still dark. None of the other players had arrived; TaeJa was intending to get a feel for the main stage before playing against INnoVation later that day and he didn't want any interruptions. While he had managed to defeat soO 3-2 in close games a week ago, he had been having difficulty concentrating in TvT while practicing in the previous week, and INnoVation's dismantling of HyuN without dropping a map had been… unnerving. All TaeJa really needed was a few quiet hours before the day got crazy.


Bomber entered the front door of the convention center where blizzcon was held, and he was distraught. Just weeks after clinching the WCS American title on his last run, he had lost a disappointing series to a weakened Jaedong, where everything he did went wrong. Even though he had won game 1 in a macro game, Jaedong still managed to fight back with all-ins in the next three games, winning 3-1. And he, Bomber, of all people, had managed to lose to a 6 pool in game 4! All of the other terrans had even won against all of their opponents. Bomber shook his head. He had still been invited to Blizzcon to play in a few 4v4s along with some of the other losers of the previous weekend, but to miss out on such an opportunity to win the world title in such a way was extremely disappointing. Bomber tried to get his mind off of the matter, and decided to stroll down a hallway leading towards the main stage.


"What's the best way to use these these nunchucks and bananas to BM Polt after I beat him?" MC had just defeated herO in a 3-1 series the previous week and was now asking him about ceremonies. herO just shook his head. MC sighed, put the bananas and nunchucks aside, and rummaged through a large bag he happened to be carrying. "How about these American flags? Maybe I could find a shield somewhere…" herO just gave MC a blank look, so MC gave up asking him questions and walked over to the main stage to see what was going on over there.


Meanwhile, one of the more rabid TaeJa fans had arrived early to Blizzcon to take selfies and get autographs from his favorite players. He was a few hours early, but he wanted to catch TaeJa entering the building… where TaeJa was going to enter from, the fan wasn't sure. He decided to check out the stage before TaeJa arrived.


Bomber got to the main stage, where TaeJa appeared to be practicing. It must be nice to have Blizzcon to mentally prepare yourself for, he thought. He walked over to TaeJa's computer, where he appeared to be playing a ladder game against a terran player on Deadwing. However, this appeared to be no ordinary game. TaeJa had just 5 workers and a factory, as well as a few supply depots, and the main base he was in was nearly mined out. Additionally, he for some reason had a refinery on the other side of the map. Bomber suddenly noticed that TaeJa was moving a medivac with 3 marines inside of it around the map, and realized that something funny had happened this game. Bomber took a closer look and made a surprised noise upon discovering that the game had gone on for 57 minutes already.

"What's going on?"

Bomber turned around and MC was standing next to him, looking just as surprised as he felt. "TaeJa seems to be on a 1 base economy in his main base on equal terms an hour into the game. His opponent seems to only have a small army himself… I wonder what's happened this game." MC remarked that TaeJa had probably pulled a Bomber and pulled SCVs over and over, eventually realized that both players were on 0 SCVs and tried to macro up again. Bomber gave him a funny look and continued watching.

"By the way, MC, what's in the bag?"

"Oh… nothing."

A bit later, after TaeJa had successfully re-established 5 bases and was massing battlecruisers and ravens, an American teenager that neither Bomber nor MC recognized walked up to the main stage and asked, "How busy is TaeJa right now? I want his autograph. And possibly a selfie with him. And maybe an interview. Also I wouldn't mind playing a few 2v2s with him… or really doing anything with him."

MC responded "Bitch please" and turned his back to him. The teenager suddenly noticed the game timer on TaeJa's computer and started watching intently. TaeJa began attacking his opponent, who had a powerful mech army of his own.

The lights on the stage suddenly flickered on, blinding all three viewers. When their eyes had adjusted, they saw that TaeJa had won the game and had turned around.

The teenager looked confused. "How did you win so quickly when none of us could see?"

TaeJa rubbed his eyes and remarked that he just closed his eyes when the lights came on and guessed which units he needed to micro. Bomber made a strange noise and seemed frustrated upon hearing this, but made no remark. The teenager suddenly became very excited and asked for an autograph and a selfie. TaeJa looked confused, as he didn't know what a selfie was, but got out a marker and signed a mouse pad, a mouse, a laptop, a starcraft II fanfic book, and a shirt before complaining that his wrists were starting to hurt. His fan apologized and decided not to ask for an autograph on his phone cover or either of his TL jackets. TaeJa stood up to leave the stage.

Bomber suddenly asked TaeJa, "How did you get into a crazy game like that? Why did neither of you have units an hour in?"

TaeJa sighed, and explained how he had been having TvT problems recently. "My TvT is really bad. I can't win any mind games anymore. If I go for any build, my opponent expects it and prepares for it. It makes it really hard to win any games. When I opened with a raven in that last game, I delayed my scout in order to cut a few corners and get a faster expansion. But he went for a fast third base and I was so far behind economically, that I tried going for a 2 base all-in. Well… that worked, but he had a way better economy, and he managed to keep me off his production. Then he started dropping."

The TaeJa fan interjected, "Is that how you lost your economy?"

TaeJa shook his head. "I managed to keep most of my economy intact and I broke through his tank line. His drops came from the diagonal position and I was reinforcing so he had to avoid my marines, and it took a fairly long time."

Bomber interrupted and mentioned that it was not a bad idea to drop on top of the tanks to try to cause splash damage and cripple TaeJa's attack.

The fan asked, "But weren't you in the vertical position at the end of the game?"

TaeJa: "Yes. Eventually, when I broke his tank line, he loaded up like 8 medivacs with marines and SCVs and dropped my main base. And he wasn't Bomber, so he managed to not lose them before doing any damage at all."

Bomber: "……"

The fan was getting really excited, listening to TaeJa talk. MC looked really bored and mumbled something about big heads being imba against marines, but was still listening impatiently. This story was getting really long and MC wanted to talk about how good he was.

TaeJa: "I had to lift a third CC that I was building and move it to the other corner while base trading. He settled on his fifth base, I took the horizontal third base. But we kept trying to cripple each other and eventually we moved around the map. Before we knew it, I was in his main base and he was in my third. I think that's where you started watching?"

Fan: "Did you think you were going to lose that game?"

TaeJa: "Not really…"

Fan: "…Did you feel good about winning the game?"

TaeJa: "I guess so."

Fan: "Do you feel prepared for today's games?"

TaeJa: "No, I told you, I don't feel good about TvT."

Fan: "…What do you think your chances are?"

TaeJa: "I think I can win."

Fan: "…Anything else you want to say for your fans?"

Bomber whispered to MC, "Is this guy conducting an interview?"
MC looked bewildered and replied, "If he is, maybe he'll give someone else an interview. Probably not you though since you got eliminated."
The teenager turned around. "Oh, I'm just here for my favorite player TaeJa. Also, I am super passionate about this game and I just had to see everything live. It's going to be too good to miss!"

TaeJa hadn't responded to that last question. The teenager had sat down in TaeJa's chair and gotten out his laptop, and was typing at a rapid speed into it. He stopped and thought for just a second, then resumed typing at an even quicker rate. He suddenly slammed his laptop shut, put it inside a backpack, put the backpack on his back, and asked TaeJa,

"So, what are you doing before the games start?"

TaeJa didn't respond to that either. Bomber whispered something in MC's ear, and as MC listened he frowned and started nodding slowly.
"I have an idea," MC said after Bomber finished whispering in his ear. "Just as a fun warmup before anyone gets here, the three of us could play a free for all. Then we could go somewhere and cast the replay in English. Fans would love the banter TaeJa and I would have, since I'm probably beating him in the finals if he makes it there."

"That's a really cool idea MC," the teenager remarked. "Only you could come up with something like that." Bomber looked very annoyed but didn't say anything. "Where are we going to play it?"

MC replied, "Oh, that's easy. We can play over there." He pointed to a row of computers far away from the main stage, and he, TaeJa, and Bomber all walked in that direction, chatting in korean. The teenager looked extremely excited and he ran after them, trying to get their attention. MC turned around and looked confused. Then he realized how he had worded Bomber's idea and told him, "Oh, we weren't really including you…"

The teenager looked crushed. "Come on, I know how to play starcraft. I play the game. I can do this."

MC gave him a look, and sighed. "Fine. You can play in the FFA against us. But you are noob and you will get crushed by my big heads easy peasy." The teenager grinned. They had arrived at the row of computers, and the fan got out his laptop and mouse/mousepad and started setting up. MC was unimpressed. "You use your laptop to play when there are computers right here?"

The teenager nodded and remarked, "Sometimes, I don't even use the mouse! But I'm playing such good players that I sort of need to."

MC replied, "No mouse? That sounds like how I beat Bomber in a few practice games the other day." Bomber buried his face in his hands for a few seconds, then stood up straight and looked calm again. He retorted, "You were testing out a mass oracle build. I thought I only needed one hand to beat it." MC grinned.

They loaded up the map Deadwing and started playing. The TaeJa fan looked perfectly content as he proxied a starport near TaeJa's base. Meanwhile, MC was building 4 colossi and Bomber was making an impossible amount of units.

TaeJa didn't feel very comfortable playing two terran players at the same time, so he went with a very sturdy mech build even though there was a protoss player. He built up a large number of hellions, harassing his closest opponent, Bomber, fairly effectively. Suddenly, his fan typed in a very strange message.



TaeJa was confused, until 3 battlecruisers suddenly showed up in his base!! He needed to scramble up a defense. He only had one starport and it had only produced 2 banshees and a raven.

Meanwhile, Bomber was, for some reason, pulling SCVs to go attack MC, because he felt he could kill MC outright. Unfortunately, he had no economy after mostly crippling MC and he needed to build up. MC managed to fend off the SCV pull using four big heads but had to pull probes himself. And since this was an FFA, there were usually two perfectly fine players. Except...

TaeJa expanded to The_Templar's fourth base and tried to hide starports, but The_Templar just ignored everything else and killed almost all of TaeJa's workers and both of his CCs. TaeJa eventually got a few vikings but The_Templar yamato'd them. Meanwhile, TaeJa had sent all of his hellions and 3 tanks to The_Templar's base and killed everything except for some floating buildings.

MC was trying to be aggressive with small packs of gateway units but was slowly losing ground to Bomber's 4OC and mass barracks production. To retaliate, he started harassing with oracles. Bomber was having difficulty mining anything due to the frantic harassment so he scanned MC's main and natural and started landing MULEs. He also lifted his closest OC and moved it over near MC's base. This made MC devote time and units towards stopping the passive harass, and slowed down his harassment. He had a surprise coming, though.

Meanwhile, TaeJa had finally gotten out 5 vikings while The_Templar had run out of energy for yamato. Neither of them actually had any money or workers though. Eventually, 5 vikings killed 3 battlecruisers without taking any hits due to #TemplarMicro.

Due to Bomber's BM, he was finding it harder and harder to withstand MC's aggression. He also noticed that MC had specifically been targeting the marines while attacking…

The_Templar finally found a place to land his main CC, but TaeJa immediately found it with a hellion, so he sighed and lifted it back up. Soon, vikings were after it. The_Templar sighed and started typing.



The_Templar walked over to TaeJa and started clapping. TaeJa grinned and started rebuilding his bases.

Bomber had finally gotten out the perfect army, +2/2 marauders and medivacs with a few marines that MC hadn't targeted, to crush MC's aggression, which had been waning, and to destroy the "big heads" that MC had been building. He hadn't seen any colossi though…
Suddenly, 3 carriers arrived in his natural expansion.

TaeJa felt fairly confident in his ability to do something with his vikings. His scouting had revealed that Bomber and MC were both struggling to build up with the amount of pressure MC was forced to put on Bomber, so maybe he could harass both of them with landed vikings.

Bomber needed to do something about the carriers. Any marines he built were sniped by MC's excellent stalker micro, so he started up two reactored starports.

The_Templar looked around and noticed that a few people had started crowding around the computers where this game was happening. One of them, however, was distracting a large number of people by flexing his large muscles while heterosexual men were swooning all around him. The_Templar recognized him as KT.Zest, and apparently he had worked out a bit after defeating Life 3-0 the previous week.

"Best is the Zest!" screamed one of the fanboys.

The_Templar turned back around and mumbled, "Zest isn't even the best player on KT…"
Suddenly, he was being mobbed by angry fanboys who all insisted that Flash was bad and Stats got Kong'd in GSL so he wasn't relevant to the discussion. The_Templar protested, saying that Flash was terran and Zest was protoss so it wasn't black and white, but the mob wouldn't let up. Someone hit him with a red hammer and a bunch of them giggled. The_Templar mumbled, "the dream is dead…"

"I bet he thinks TaeJa is the best terran too! TaeJa will get crushed by INnoVation," one of them yelled. The mob agreed. The_Templar, who at this point was on the floor, needed to do something quickly, or he might actually get crushed by this mob, and then who would do LRs?

The_Templar suddenly had an idea. "Look, over there! Carriers versus mech!" The group of bullies turned to where he was pointing, which was the FFA that MC, TaeJa, and Bomber were playing. Sure enough, TaeJa's viking/thor/hellbat/ghost army was fighting MC's carrier-based army in Bomber's base. The crowd ignored everything they were doing to watch carriers versus mech.

"This is the best game ever!" remarked one. Another noted, "This is better than Zest!" and while he got angry glares, he was right. And as TaeJa and MC enacted a huge battle across the entirety of Bomber's natural and third base, the crowd was brought together as one, passionate being.

Then Bomber lost his last CC and became revealed.

Suddenly, as the last carrier fell to TaeJa's powerful mech army, as MC and Bomber both GG'd out, the main stage lit up completely, and the casters were announcing the first match of the day, Jaedong vs MMA. The crowd roared with delight and fervent anticipation. The streams began getting flooded by starcraft fans young and less young, male and occasionally female, bronze through grandmaster. The crowd was the same was, and everyone was united to see Starcraft at its finest, a high-intensity, fast paced match between two of the world's greatest players where both players were near the peak of their skill.

Blizzcon, for all of the hype behind it, the games, the personalities, and the thousand-page LR thread, was only just beginning.

TaeJa, Bomber, and MC are early for blizzcon for different reasons, TaeJa plays a cool TvT, some crazy TaeJa fan arrives, TaeJa wins despite being blinded in the final battle. The three pro players agree to play a free for all just for fun before the games start, and the TaeJa fan tags along after getting a bunch of signatures from TaeJa as well as an interview. All four of them play. The fan, who is revealed to be The_Templar (me!) battlecruiser rushes TaeJa who has 0 anti-air while Bomber habitually pulls SCVs against MC. TaeJa base trades, MC holds and begins countering despite having a fragile economy, TaeJa kills the BCs with 5 vikings due to #TemplarMicro and The_Templar GG's, Bomber eventually starts falling due to hidden carriers. MC and TaeJa build up as Bomber is basically dead. People have been gathering near the computers where the four were playing and are getting ready for blizzcon, hyping their favorite players. Zest gets too much attention, The_Templar mumbles that he's over-rated and gets attacked by rabid fans, but everyone notices the crazy game that TaeJa and MC are playing, completely ignoring Bomber. TaeJa wins and blizzcon begins.

Starcraft happens

Just master the basics. You need the fundamentals. After all, StarCraft is only composed of ones and zeros anyway. That's what Coach Choi's been saying ever since he got back from his military service. The skyline of Seoul is beautiful tonight, but that's not why a young man is out alone on a balcony. He is thinking. Four successive GSLs in a row, and four defeats. One international tournament, and one defeat there. It appears that he can't really see the city, and the only thing keeping him in touch with the outside world from himself is his insomnia. How long has it been since he's tried to become a champion? He's played on the highest stages and beat players of the highest caliber, but it didn't seem to matter.

He kept losing when it mattered most. He takes a deep sigh and focuses a little harder. How long has it been since he's started sitting out here? An hour? Two hours? The sun is in its deep slumber, and has gotten deeper still, but that has not silenced the beating drum that is his chest. Unbelievable, isn't it? How close he had been, and now far it was out of his grasp. He will have to go back to sleep soon; he needs to rest for practice tomorrow for the biggest stage he'll ever play on for his entire career. After that, it's just off-season practice and focus for the new season of Proleague. Even there, his team failed to win.

As the darkness and city lights surround him, he wonders why he bothers with any of this. He wasn't a bad student in school, and some said that he had great potential in science or mathematics. But he chose this. To play on the stage, and to treasure the moment. He moves suddenly, and a bird flaps around. The moment. That's the one reason he has stuck through this. He realized very quickly that it wasn't the money or the fame, or glory of being a pro-gamer, it was the moment. The moment when one finally breaks through an either impossible game, or a miraculous hold.

So he stays on the balcony, with the cold deepening slowly into the night. He looks around to see life at its fullest. Seoul is a city that does not sleep, and neither does the rest of the world, he reminds himself. There really isn't an easy way to stay through, and he hopes to himself, rather quietly, that he can become the champion. His mother and father have supported him, and he has one of the best coaches and teams in the world. He realizes that he's not a failure yet, but he has to work smarter. There were a few builds that he gave up on earlier in the year that he may revise when the day breaks.

A few hours pass. Or is it a few moments? It is hard for him to keep track, as he left his phone charging beside his bed. He eventually moves to get back to sleep. The only reason he's up here is to collect himself, and this place is special for him, and always has been. As he gets up, he remembers Coach Choi's advice. StarCraft is Ones and Zeros. Simple as that. One winner, one loser.