The StarCraft Bible - Page 8

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The Book of StarCraft
"Successful innovation has consistently proved to be fluid and flexible, fast and furious - that is, passionate."
Robert Heller

There was life Before StarCraft (BS) and after. Its 1998 release was obviously a milestone and an evolutionary leap for not only the genre, but for video games as a whole. The culture surrounding games was never the same after '98 and StarCraft was a huge contributor to that. Half-Life, Resident Evil 2, Tekken 3, Unreal, Metal Gear Solid, Ocarina of Time, Brood War and several other phenomenal games make it a watershed year in the history of gaming. For the sake of our sanity, let's keep our focus on StarCraft. Just typing that last paragraph made me dizzy with nostalgia.

As I've explained in the previous chapter, StarCraft's RTS contemporaries were quality games, often with innovations and worthwhile gameplay in their own right. Upon StarCraft's release, legitimate arguments were taking place wondering which game was superior and which would reign supreme. Total Annihilation and Command & Conquer fans touted their games as above and beyond StarCraft for years.

StarCraft's superiority was not so apparent immediately following its release. It took patches and the development of the game into a fast-paced strategic masterpiece that supported an intellectually impressive meta-game and a bloodthirsty competition like none other in order to fully arrive at the fact of its dominance.

Once one begins examining the state of today's competitive StarCraft, it becomes apparent that the game is worlds away from where it was in 1998. The key to StarCraft's superiority is not so much in where the game has gone as it is in the fact that the game can so readily go places. Most other games are monolithic and immovable objects. Following StarCraft from its release has been like speeding in the world's first automobile while most bystanders just keep walking.

A combination of luck, patience and excellent decisions led StarCraft to become the premiere competitive game of all time, so stubborn that after a decade of high level play and passionate fans, it would not be bled dry.

The discussion of which game was at the top of the RTS genre was a legitimate one in 1998. In 2010, if you are still having that discussion, there is something that millions of fans know that you don't. Allow us to enlighten you.



Blizzard today is a company known for its delays, a group of people who will wait and wait until a game is truly ready, no matter the cost. In the middle of the 90's, the opposite was true. After releasing a torrent of mostly middling console games from '91 to '93, Warcraft and Warcraft 2 were released within eight months of each other. StarCraft was slated to move out at a similar pace.



In 2008, Sam Didier, the art director at Blizzard, told EuroGamer that the team moved quickly and took some of the old Warcraft stuff, and said 'let's draw over them and give them a space feel.'
"We did that and it was rushed," said Didier, "and obviously [it was] not the coolest thing in the world."
Everyone agreed. StarCraft's first public showings at the 1996 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and the 1996 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) were universally panned as "Orcs in Space", simply a unenthusiastically made knock-off. This was a criticism that was startlingly accurate. The artwork as well as the dynamics of the game essentially added up to a clone of Warcraft 2. Those involved have since fessed up, admitting that a purple-tinged clone is exactly what they were aiming for.



However, it is not what they would end up with. Negative reviews of the new game were everywhere Blizzard looked and so the team set to work on rewriting the game engine and creating a new look for the universe that came to be known as StarCraft.

3D tools (specifically, 3D Studio Max) were used to create a different aesthetic, visually and in the gameplay itself, though a full 3D conversion was avoided by Blizzard. This decision, made with the opinion that 3D would sacrifice the quality of gameplay, was lamented by some at the time. Years later, with numerous lackluster 3D RTS titles on the market, the developer's feeling of vindication for that choice has not worn off.

StarCraft was Blizzard's first strategy game in which the faction's units were not remotely symmetrical. The designers thought of Warcraft 2 as a game with chess pieces - equal parts, for the most part, doing battle on equal terms. On the contrary, the diversity of units in StarCraft was and, for the most part, is unparalleled. The Zerg, Terran and Protoss are three utterly unique factions whose main characteristics are completely exclusive of the other two races.

As development continued, ideas were added and shed. One particularly strange idea that did not make it to the final product was revealed by Bill Roper, the producer of StarCraft, in 1996: There would be three theaters of war (space, planetary and installation) and only a small number of units would be available in each, thus requiring completely different approaches to strategy. This idea was dropped quickly.

The 1997 showings of the game were received much more positively thanks to the many changes implemented. Rather than the top-down view of Warcraft, StarCraft adopted an isometric view so as to give the world a 3D feel. Likewise, the units had received major visual upgrades. Glenn Stafford, the man behind the music of Warcraft 2, was charged with creating a soundtrack for the new sci-fi game. The interface was shifted and given a much-needed face lift. It is considered so efficient and well done that a decade later, StarCraft 2's interface is not much more than a shinier copy of its predecessor.

As has become standard Blizzard practice, units were born and transformed throughout the development process. Many of the units we know today went through various phases (the Terran Science Vessel once had legs, the Wraith was called the Phoenix) before reaching their final name, appearance and functionality.



After almost two years of soon-to-be characteristic delays, March 31, 1998 saw the release of StarCraft in the West (it would be released in South Korea later). Already, a relatively major competitive scene had developed.

There was immediately a large immigration of players from Warcraft 2, whose competitive scene effectively ceased to exist soon thereafter. The StarCraft beta test saw the development of individual talents and the game was already developing into a giant of e-sports. Finally, upon release, overwhelmingly positive reviews combined with hype from Warcraft and the red-hot RTS genre added up to an enormous sales and player base.

"Slick."

"Cutting edge."

The game was Blizzard's biggest launch to date, selling one million copies in three months - an impressive feat in that era.

In 1998, you had to strain mightily to find a critic who found major fault with StarCraft. They did exist, of course, and the comment sections of their articles have since been filed with 12 years' worth of I-told-you-so put downs.

Before I continue on to discuss some of the major complaints about StarCraft, I must note that the game as it stands today is not the same game which Blizzard released in '98. It took approximately three years of patches and fixes until May 2001 (patch 1.08) before the game had essentially the same foundation as it has today. Still, many of these complaints do not apply to anything changed during that period, rather to core game concepts and so I think that they are worth briefly discussing.

Some critic's negative remarks focused on the lackluster single player, revealing that the author so thoroughly missed the point that they had come back around and hit themselves in the face. As with all Blizzard's RTS titles before StarCraft 2, StarCraft's single player is a dinky little distraction in the grand scheme of things, fun for some (I enjoy it on occasion) and skipped by others but of relatively little lasting impact.

On the other hand, this was 1998 and the "average" gamer (as '98 critics understood them) was not necessarily looking for a multiplayer experience such as the one StarCraft offered. I understand this and, so, I do see the critic's side of it. You must forgive me for getting defensive and insulting back there. I don't know what got into me.

The most common complaint at the time was that the game lacked originality. I find myself cutting these critics some slack. The game was released on the (heavily modified) Warcraft 2 engine and so, even with the substantial visual upgrades, could certain be pointed out as clearly Warcraft's offspring - Warcraft itself started with questionable originality.

A few critics pointed to Dune 2 as the originator of asymmetrical armies and said this was yet another copycat job by Blizzard. As we've already thoroughly been through, there is the smallest, tiniest bit of truth there! And yet these critics get no slack cut as over a dozen years of play have proven their dismissive underestimations of the game's diversity wrong again and again and again and . . .

Critics of the multiplayer (inexplicably including a Blizzard employee or two) have moaned and continue to bellyache that the game is more about speed than strategy, all about clicking quickly and not at all about thinking through your actions. Although these criticisms are among the most frustrating to hear, they are understandable. Without having a somewhat clear sense of the incredible depth of the StarCraft meta-game and the countless strategies visited over the course of the decade, it is easy to see astronomical numbers (300 to 400 actions per minute by professional players) and assume that speed is the lone, overwhelming factor in StarCraft success.

As we will explore, this particular qualm is largely wrong but do not rush out in a hate mob to assault the nearest critic just yet! Instead, we will explore the game and try to illuminate what it is about these assumptions that are false. But just in case, get your pitchforks sharp and torches burning.

Finally, any detractor whose principle complaint is that the game is not "original enough" deserves a roll of the eyes and this: Yes, the personality of the game was ripped from science fiction archetypes such as Warhammer 40K. Yes, the gameplay is clearly descended from its forefathers in the genre. And? When the sum total of the parts is superior and long-lasting brilliance, then complete originality for its own sake - rather than for the sake of quality - is overrated.

The short version: So what?

Now that I've been through some of the original complaints (original sins) and have got your blood boiling, we can recall that StarCraft has won honors such as 'Game of the Year' and 'Greatest Game of All Time' dozens of times as well as going on to sell over 11 million copies. Clearly, you and I are not the only fans of the series.



In the beginning, the competitive scene developed in places where Warcraft 2 had been thriving. A new Battle.net attracted newer players while Kali, the old online gaming network, was home to Warcraft 2 veterans turned StarCraft players and immediately saw the very top level of play for most of the eight months in which the original StarCraft was an only child and for some time beyond.

On November 30, 1998, the expansion pack known as Brood War was born, thus shoring up the game's transformation from 'Game of the Year' to 'Game of the Future'.

As became the norm for Blizzard titles, Brood War spent part of its time in utero in public view: beta testing. The expansion had, of course, been fully planned prior to StarCraft's release - units such as the Valkyrie had brief stints in the original game's beta testing before being removed temporarily. Competition steadily grew in intensity inside the beta, culminating in a Blizzard-sponsored tournament a week prior to the retail release of Brood War. Tom "Zileas" Cadwell, a Protoss player, was the beta's champion.



Zileas was an MIT computer science student at the time and would go on to develop an independent and well-received RTS game dubbed StrifeShadow and, later, would work at Blizzard on Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne and World of Warcraft before leaving in '05 to obtain a MBA degree. As of 2010, he is working at Riot Games on the title League of Legends, one of the most highly regarded video games releases of 2009.

The second place finisher in the tournament was Agent911, a former WarCraft 2 player and Terran user who later went on to work at Gas Powered Games, the developer for Supreme Commander, the 2007 "spiritual successor" to 1997's Total Annihilation.

Clearly, 'StarCraft savant' is a nifty thing to have on your resumé.

Over the course of the tournament, Zileas became such a feared Protoss player that his units began to receive their own colloquial names. When carrying Reavers, his Shuttles became known as "the Shuttle that fires Scarabs" because of the speed with which he maneuvered his harassing Reavers. He was so fast that it became almost impossible to hit his Reavers before they had launched their Scarab bombs into groups of enemy workers. Zileas' revolutionary work with the unit changed the way it was used and forced Blizzard to weaken Reavers through balance patches, increasing the Scarab cool down and build time. Even so, the deft touch he displayed served as a model for Protoss players for years to come.

Over the course of seven games in the finals, a wide range of strategies were thrown at each competitor including proto-early expansions and a now-bizarre looking Scout and Zealot rush. The many balance patches of Brood War have changed much, such as making the Scout one of the few utterly unusable units in the game. However, in 1999, they were utilized to great effect despite their expensiveness.

` It is important to note that in addition to balance changes, replays and game speed have also altered the fundamental nature of the game. It took until May 2001, in the milestone 1.08 patch, for replays functionality to be added to the game.

During the beta tournament, the game speed was 'fast' as opposed to 'fastest'. Blizzard employees have stated several times that the game was never meant to be played competitively on the 'fastest' setting. However, community pushes and the quality of competitive play quickly made the quickest setting the default for almost every level of play. One notable exception was the Battle.net ladder, which remained set to its default speed of 'faster' until its demise years later. For this reason as well as a general deterioration of play and rampant cheating, the Battle.net ladder quickly became obsolete, abused and eventually disbanded.


Zileas, of Brood War beta fame, was one of the most influential StarCraft players of his era.
In the early Brood War era, a rift persisted between the old Warcraft 2 turned StarCraft players and the "new school" who had come to the game through other avenues. In addition to the social breaks, the style of play also differed greatly between the two camps.

"[Warcraft 2] players strive to build a strong economy to finance overwhelming hordes of units," read an ancient and now lost article on Sirlin.net. "When they outnumber the enemy 10 to 1, they attack; 5 to 1, they surround you. You get the idea. Individual battles matter little to these players, since it's more important to build a large mobile force capable of attacking the opponent's weak spots."

The article continues, explaining the difference: "Warcraft's interface and units didn't allow players to gain much benefit from micromanaging individual battles. Warcraft's units were more homogeneous, meaning you didn't see kill ratios of 50:1 like Templars and Reavers are capable of in Starcraft. In short, macromanagement was the only way to go. Build a large army. Divide the enemy's army. Concentrate the firepower of your army."

Cue the "new school".



"And then there was Zileas," concludes the article. "He came along and pointed out the amazing effects micromanagement of individual battles can have in Starcraft, and he preached the revolutionary ideas of divide and conquer and concentration of firepower on the small scale, that is."

Fundamental moves such as shift-queue (allowing groups of units to have a list of orders to follow) attacks, paying special attention to unit formation, constant worker production and the art of worker harassment can all be traced back toward Zileas.

It must seem strange to many that the idea of constant worker production had to be invented, that the habit of harassing workers needed to be devised. After all, it all seems so obvious now.

Simply put, StarCraft was very much a blank slate upon its release. Ideas as seemingly simple as transferring groups of workers to newly built expansions (rather than building them one at a time) were groundbreaking. It took a player the caliber of Miguel "Maynard" Bombach (a former Age of Empires player), probably the most dominant American player of all time, to invent a concept as simple as the worker-transfer. And it changed the game forever.



Dudey, an accomplished old school StarCraft player also known as ilnp, had this to say about Maynard at his peak:

"You guys have no idea what dominance is -- you weren't around when the game was new. The only people who could come close to Maynard's sort of dominance was Grrr.... and BoxeR. We're not talking win most everything, win a lot, impressive play. We're talking most of the top players were directly influenced by his play and his play alone, after a long period in which many refused to play him because they swore he cheated. We're talking literally invincible in even 2 on 2 play with shitty allies against every other top player in the world in practice, ladder, and tournament games."

Maynard's thorough dominance, borne out mainly on the Kali server and before modern competition had truly taken off, has thus largely been forgotten. He is remembered more for the worker-transfer bearing his name than his God-like status in the first year of Brood War.



Although he stayed near the top, Maynard's hold on the title of world's greatest player slipped as 1999 progressed.



That same year, Koreans started popping up on Battle.net with greater and greater frequency. Christopher "Pillars" Page, an American who spent four months as a professional gamer in Korea, explains Korea's rise in the StarCraft world.

"Both Starcraft and SC:BW were released later in Korea, and it took them a while to get up to speed. What one noticed about them at first was the relatively mechanical and robotic style of play. The way many Koreans seemed to learn to play was to master a single racial match-up on a single map and come as close as possible to perfecting it. They followed build orders rigorously, and often very efficiently, but didn't adapt well to new situations or creative responses by their opponents. Often they would play a moderately strong game for the first ten minutes of the match, but once the game became more dynamic and opened up a bit they would have difficulty doing anything other than throwing the same mixture of units at you over and over again.

"Obviously, this didn't remain the case for long."



The first true superstar of StarCraft, the one who truly attained celebrity, followed Maynard's domination with a two-year burst of brilliance that burned brighter than almost anyone in the past decade. I speak, of course, of the Protoss French Canadian, Guillaume Patry "Grrr...."



In late 1999, before launching into stardom on the Korean professional circuit, Grrr.... was the most feared player in the world. Online ladders and live events alike fell to him like dominoes and he took prize purse after purse for thousands of dollars in total loot. The AMD Professional Gaming League and the i2e2, the two largest prize pools in the world at the time, were both taken down by Grrr.... prior to his landing in Korea.

In early 2000, Grrr...., Maynard, Pillars and Jérôme "Thor" Rioux were approached by General~Khalsa, a well-known member of the Kali community, said Pillars, and were offered to start a professional gaming team composed of foreign players which would move to South Korea and compete in the burgeoning Korean professional StarCraft leagues.

"This seemed like a pretty insane and fun opportunity," wrote Pillars in 2008, "and I eventually decided to go. The four of us showed up in Korea in early 2000. We stayed in the international dorm section of a prominent women's college (Ewha Women's University) in Seoul for the first few months and made Slki Bang (the internet cafe and home to the best Korean professional team of the time) our training space."

For Pillars and most of the foreign invasion, their results in Korea were lackluster and their motivation and willingness to dedicate their lives simply did not measure up to the natives' will power.



Guillaume Patry, on the other hand, was an unstoppable force in StarCraft and Korean culture.
In an era where perfect technical play was a distant dream, Grrr.... stormed through opponents - or, rather, he Scarabed through them - with relative ease.

He remains the most successful non-Korean of all time by far, having won several prestigious tournaments including the all-important first OnGameNet StarLeague (OSL), consistently the most prestigious league in all of StarCraft, predating its little brother MBCGame StarCraft League (MSL) by two years.

As the televised StarCraft scene began to boom, Grrr.... was its chief celebrity. He appeared on talk shows and was the subject to more than his fair share of screaming female admirers. His good looks and charisma (call me, Giyom, we'll go out to dinner sometime) added up to a level of celebrity not seen before him.

His in-game dominance and his relatively laid back training schedule led to the myth that he almost never trained. Compared to other Korean professionals playing the game for a full work day and beyond (10+ hours per day), the Canadian's schedule was light. Like the other foreigners who had at first accompanied him on his trip to Korea, the motivation to keep up with the native's hours was hard to find. For Grrr...., though, the lighter hours did not detract from his winning in the beginning. However, his "lightest" schedule while still an active player, about a year after he left Korea and was well past his peak, was 20 hours per week in 2003 - that's three hours per day, every day.



The OSL's position as the superior tournament is in its perceived pedigree. It is older, its television ratings are higher, its live audience is larger and its original champions are StarCraft legends: Grrr...., Garimto and BoxeR. As the late 2000's have come, other tournaments have risen in prestige - particularly the MSL and the team-based Proleague - but the OSL has remained on top, if only because of history.

Outside of the world of StarCraft, other major e-sports tournaments had been established by 2000. Notably, the Cyberathlete Professional League, a semiannual FPS-focused tournament based in Texas, began in 1997. It would eventually hand out millions of dollars in prizes for various games (most consistently Counter-Strike) before sputtering mid-decade and folding in 2007. The CPL was, for years, the pinnacle of e-sports in the Western world.

While the CPL was streaming its footage online and holding twice-a-year events, the OSL and MSL had dedicated television channels and were packing arenas with crowds of over 10,000 on a weekly basis and 100,000 on the big days. The OSL's prize began around $15,000 and has skyrocketed to as much as about $90,000 for first place in 2010. The 'Golden Mouse', the trophy one receives upon winning an OSL championship, is the most coveted prize in StarCraft.

The StarLeague popularized the idea of tournaments producing custom maps to keep strategies fluid and games interesting. The constant flow of well-balanced but constantly changing maps has, from both a player's and spectator's point of view, kept StarCraft progressing rather than at a standstill.



"Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war."
David Foster Wallace



In mid to late 2000, Grrr....'s run as the world's best ran out of time. Although he would continue to play at a top level (his last great tournament was placing third in the May 2001 StarLeague), the lack of hours put in caught up to him and his dominance had come to an end.

The mantle of the world's best Protoss passed to Kim Dong Soo "GARIMTO". However, for most of his prime, Garimto would sit in the shadow of StarCraft's all-time greatest celebrity, the most renowned and revered professional gamer of all time: Lim Yo Hwan "BoxeR".



If this is the bible of StarCraft, BoxeR might just be Jesus with spiffier clothes. The man known to the hundreds of thousands of members of his fan club as "The Emperor" landed in the throne of StarCraft right as patch 1.08 hit, introducing replays to spread the word of BoxeR around the world.

Ironically, 1.08 ended the era of patched balance changes, so as to balance the game perfectly right before an unheard of 20 year old came out of the dark arcades and showed that in StarCraft, factional balance meant little when genius was at hand.

His unquestioned supremacy, his unparalleled charisma in game and out as well the maturing of the professional circuit meant that he has remained the iconic figure in StarCraft history, nearer to Michael Jordan or Diego Maradona than most other e-sports stars. His popularity helped raise professional gaming to a new plateau in Korea and the widespread love of BoxeR has long outlasted his playing abilities.

The President of the Korean E-Sports Association (KeSPA) had this to say about BoxeR when writing the introduction to the legend's biography:

"Lim Yohwan, with the thorough mentality of a professional as his foundation, has imprinted on the minds of the public through his sincere games that progamers are not "game-addicts without any prudence," but "hard-working professionals."

BoxeR is one of the few e-sports professionals who transcends not only the game he plays but, often, the escapes the box of games at all and slips comfortably into the expansive idea of greatness.

At the dawn of the age of BoxeR in early 2001, Terran was considered a weak, slow race with miles of ground to make up before it could match Protoss and Zerg. A Terran had never even made it out of the group stage in the OSL - in the first two seasons, both winners were Protoss users Grrr.... and GARIMTO.

Turning the game on its head, BoxeR was a pioneer of creative attacks and an artist who was able to take disadvantageous positions and throw them in the face of his opponents as he stretched each of his units beyond their prescribed physical limit. The hulking, immobile Terran race became a sped-up monster in his hands. Dropships became lethal hit-and-run weapons. Floating buildings became mobile fortresses, ready to land in an opponent's base at any time.

Micromanagement, the ability to control units on a small or individual scale, was BoxeR's greatest advantage. Some of his most iconic signature plays include: the simultaneous Ghost Lock Down of almost a dozen opposing Battle Cruisers. Killing a Lurker with a single Marine shooting, running and avoiding spikes, shooting and running and shooting. Irradiating two Science Vessels and using them to wipe out a player's worker population.

The worth of a single unit was never looked at in the same way once BoxeR landed on top. As Zileas had taken strides in this direction, Grrr.... had highlighted the use of a few key units in the Protoss aresenal, it was BoxeR who took the entire Terran army and proved their worth beyond all previous measure.

BoxeR won an unprecedented two straight StarLeagues in 2001, the Hanbitsoft OSL and the Coca-Cola OSL. Only Garimto, the best Protoss in the world, prevented him from winning a third straight. The SKY2001 OSL finals, which Garimto came back from a 2-1 deficit to win, remains one of the most talked-about upsets in StarCraft history. Additionally, BoxeR won the KPGA Tour in early 2002 over his greatest rival, the best Zerg in the world at the time and forever the "King of Second Place", Hong Jin-Ho "YellOw".



Of these three players (BoxeR, Garimto and YellOw), it was surprisingly YellOw who was able to maintain the highest level of play for the longest time. Garimto faded first and BoxeR's reign as "unbeatable" had ended in 2003 and his position as a top-level professional fell soon after. YellOw was consistently on top of the Zerg race until 2004, an impressively long hold on the top.

Even after BoxeR's fall from the very top, his popularity remained at unparalleled levels until his entry into the South Korean military in 2006. He was more than the sum of his victories, he was a heroic testament of artistry and willpower rising to the throne.

Cementing his international fame were his two victories in the World Cyber Games of 2001 and 2002. Although less prestigious and stocked with talent than the Korean leagues, the WCG has the air of an electronic Olympics. BoxeR faced off against non-Korean opponents and his games were shown throughout the world, boosting his already considerable notoriety.

In fact, the 2001 and 2002 World Cyber Games proved the pinnacle of the competition as far as StarCraft was concerned. Although it was the most popular game in each successive year, the title of WCG champion became increasingly irrelevant with each passing tournament.



As the game of StarCraft was exploding in South Korea, it was changing in the West. The RTS genre continued to march on, most significantly with the release of Warcraft 3 in 2002. Warcraft 3's most lasting contribution to the genre was permanently shifting the status quo to 3D.

With its release, an excited fanbase was quickly established and a pro circuit analogous to StarCraft's solidified in Korea with significant tournaments running in Europe as well. While the Warcraft 3 pro circuit was organized similarly to StarCraft's and was easily one of the most successful of all time, its early momentum was not sustained. The popularity of the televised leagues never matched that of its sci-fi older brother.

As time passed, competitions with a significant prize pool were becoming much less common in the West and, overall, the level of play began to sink. Although several westerners did play in televised Korean leagues throughout the decade (Dutchman "Liquid`Nazgul" and American "Idra" were two of the more famous), they generally had limited success while competing.

One notable exception was the Australian Peter "Legionnaire" Neate, who is the only non-Korean to complete an all-kill - that is, a individual 4-0 sweep of the pro team Toona.

As the financial support for the game dried up in the West, a cult following began to amass in various corners of the internet around the birth of replays in 2001. Although several websites significant to western fandom have come and gone, the one truly worth mentioning is Teamliquid, which has been the most important outside of Korea for almost seven years. Founded in September 2002 and grown as a mix of Europeans and Americans, it has served as the central beacon for western StarCraft through thick and thin.

A substantial following also took root in China during the decade. In the second half of the '00's, China's StarCraft scene was almost certainly the most impressive outside of Korea, producing several professional gamers of some merit and holding numerous significant tournaments. Language barriers maintained separation between the West and China but various competitions and collaborations in the latter part of the decade have brought the two communities closer together.


As BoxeR began to fade, the Terran Lee Yoon Yeol "NaDa" took on the mantle of greatness.

BoxeR's strength was always his micromanagement. His weakness was his macromanagement, his inability to consistently secure the resources and army size generally thought to be required for victory. During his reign, BoxeR confounded those expectations and won titles with sheer force of will. As now seems inevitable, another great player eventually came to the top, using BoxeR's weakest point to do so.



NaDa's ascendancy was a milestone in top-level StarCraft play. NaDa's play was considered technically perfect, a product of countless hours of practice, unheard of timing and a huge focus on macromanagement. The style was accurately summed up as 'pure power'.Whereas before NaDa, a less technically sound player had always reigned at the top (Grrr.... and BoxeR), one with the focus on micromanagement rather than the entire game, after NaDa, the entire pro-circuit and the top in particular became much more focused on macromanagement and technical perfection in their games.

The old adage of 'BoxeR is Jordan' led American Protoss user Rekrul to sum up the new player in 2003 this way: "NaDa is Shaq."

NaDa's powerful and utterly muscular play rolled over opponents. By long-term statistic measurements, NaDa is the greatest player of all time. He won three straight KPGA tours in 2002 (the precursor to MSL), an OSL in 2003 and two more OSL championships over the course of four years. He is the only player to have won three of each tournament. By the middle of the decade, he had won several hundreds of thousands of dollars and had cemented his place among the greatest of all time.



While NaDa's championships came over the course of four years from 2002 to 2006, he was not universally considered the best in the world during much of the last two of those years. Choi Yun Sung "iloveoov" wore the crown for most of that time.

If BoxeR was the brightest star in the StarCraft universe, iloveoov was the black hole which devoured him.



Iloveoov's style took NaDa's powerful macromanagement style and raised it to levels never before seen.

According to longterm statistics, iloveoov is the second greatest player of all time. However, during his peak, he was so far and away the most dominant player that he owns the records for both the greatest single streak of all time (33-3 in major matches during the first half of 2004) and the greatest single Terran versus Zerg streak of all time (25 straight wins versus Zerg in 2004).

Although his two OSL and three MSL championships fall one Starleague short of NaDa's record, it is the opinion of many that iloveoov's more intense peak play proved him to be the best player of all time.

In 2004, he won three straight MSL championships against YellOw, NaDa and the Protoss Park Young Wook "Kingdom", one of the greatest Protoss players of the era.

November 2004 saw him win his first OSL in convincing fashion against Boxer, perceived to be his mentor. Iloveoov's already considerable negative status among fans only intensified after Boxer broke down in tears on stage following the match and the arena emptied quicker than any Starleague in memory.

The Terran's hated status can be traced to two roots: his unprecedented consistency during his peak and overpowering style which led to many to see him as an unthinking robot, much in contrast to the view of BoxeR as an intelligent artist blazing paths with a new medium.

With hindsight, one can see that this view was based more in emotion than fact. Iloveoov invented and honed more new strategies and build orders than almost any Terran has during the television era.

The final root of the hostility was the front of confidence he put on in interviews.
"I always use interviews strategically," said iloveoov. "That’s why I would mock my opponents, or pretend to be strong. I thought all of that was momentum."

In retrospect, it seems inevitable that his ostentatious bragging and his technically superior play would lead to hate amongst fans.

However, at the time, even through the hate, one could do little but stand in awe of his accomplishments.



The Proleague, a team league in which players battle until an entire team is eliminated, has its roots in 2003. It proved an overwhelming success: in 2004, the Proleague Grand Final saw a live audience of over 100,000 come out to watch the greats play.

Meanwhile, the OSL continued to grow and the MSL, though more than viable commercially, remained the second string.

For the first half of the decade, the best players in the world were almost always Terrans. BoxeR, NaDa and iloveoov won seven OSL championships and seven MSL titles (counting the KPGA tours).

Until the middle of 2004, it seemed that winning championships was something that only great Terrans, excellent Protosses and no Zergs could do.

Six Protoss OSL championships were won from 2000 to 2004: Grrr...., Garimto twice, Reach, Kingdom and Nal_Ra.

During that time, five Terran titles were won: Boxer twice, Sync, NaDa and Xellos.
For seven of those finals match ups, Zerg players came in a disappointing second place: H.O.T.-Forever twice, SKELTON, JiNam, YellOw twice and ChoJJa.

In the MSL, the story was similar.

From 2002 to 2004, seven Terran MSL championships were won: three by NaDa, three by iloveoov and the first by BoxeR.

Nal_ra won the only Protoss MSL title of the time in mid-2003.

Zergs fell to the runner-up position four times during the period: Yellow did it three times and ChoJJa fell once.

The Terran race was top-heavy for much of the opening of the decade. Legendary players Boxer, NaDa and iloveovv carried the race to title after title but this did not translate to thorough domination on every level of the pro circuit. Protosses still won a significant number of titles and competed on every level.

Zerg, often the most used race, was shut out of a title until (appropriately) July 2004, when a revolutionary Zerg user came to the forefront and brought his race to the top with him.

Park Sung Joon "July" was the first great Zerg.



July will forever be remembered as the man who changed the Mutalisk. The technique, known as stacking, allows entire groups of the flying unit to be controlled with such precision that it is as if they are of one body. The unit entered and remains in a state of prominence largely thanks to July's technical innovations.

In July '04, during his rookie season, JulyZerg became the first Zerg to win the OSL and begin his trek to be the first Zerg #1 in the world. He was nowhere close to as dominant as the previous #1's but, for for two years in 2004 and 2005, he was consistently among the best in the world, winning two OSL titles and earning runner-up twice.

He occupied the #1 position in the KeSPA (Korean E-Sports Association) rankings 11 months from 2005 to 2006, sandwiched in between two brilliant and oppressive reigns at #1 by iloveoov.

Still, July had proven that a Zerg could become the world's best and that simple push of encouragement is all it took for the greatest Zerg of all time to arrive.



Ma Jae Yoon "Savior" was the first Zerg to truly dominate professional StarCraft. He personally put an end to iloveoov's reign with multiple lopsided victories over the Terran master on his way to three MSL victories in 2005 and 2006. His first OSL appearance in 2006 saw him win another championship and walk the "Royal Road", the prestigious honor of winning a major championship in your rookie year.

The word "Bonjwa" came to use during this era to describe a player of complete dominance, a player at the level of BoxeR, NaDa and iloveovv: Savior.

Many believe that Savior, known as "The Maestro", was the last truly great player of Brood War, that all who came after him failed to reach the heights he rose to.

After years of macromanagement-specialized players dragging the game whichever way they wanted, Savior pulled back. With the impeccable micromanagement of BoxeR, his Lurkers and Mutalisks and, most of all, his Defilers became legendary as they were stretched beyond what anyone had imagined. Among the StarCraft faithful, his real name is one of the most recognized for one simple reason: when the television commentators watched his beautifully orchestrated battles come to apex, they could not speak but to scream "Ma Jae Yoon!" again and again, louder and louder until voices were lost.

High-profile victories against resurgent old masters iloveoov and NaDa forever ended the debate concerning Ma Jae Yoon's own greatness. While the rest of the Zerg field struggled with maps perceived to have anti-Zerg features, Savior remained atop the world. Following an especially devastating victory over NaDa to win the OSL in early 2007, the StarCraft world took a deep breath and prepared for the plunge into the extended era of Zerg dominance.

With four major titles under his belt, Savior advanced to the GomTV MSL finals in 2007 to face an up-and-coming Protoss, Kim Taek Yong "Bisu". Attempting to becoming the most successful MSL champion of all time, Savior was utterly dominated in three games by the young Protoss.



Mentally shaken, Savior's downward spiral accelerated with further losses, most notably to the Terran FirebatTheHero and, numerous times, to Bisu. The Maestro had completely lost his form and hit his first low-point when he was briefly demoted to the B-team of CJ Entus, his employer.

However, the greatest descent and the lowest point of Savior's career came in 2010, after he had apparently made strides back to a high level of competition. It was revealed in the Korean media that extensive match fixing had taken place throughout the professional StarCraft circuit. Savior and 10 other professionals received lifetime bans for the cheating from KeSPA.

In the West, the incident was often analogized with the infamous "Black Sox Scandal" in which baseball players fixed the 1919 World Series and were forever banned from the game. Aside from the fix itself, many fans theorized that relatively low pay motivated actors in both incidents to collaborate with professional criminals in order to make ends meet.

Though the scandal is a stain on his reputation and brought on the end of his career, he remains most known as "The Maestro", "The Bonjwa" and the player who brought Zerg to the stars.



Near the tale-end of Savior's reign, StarCraft 2 was revealed to the world.

This led to a long-term influx of new faces to the StarCraft community and a revitalization of the Western community in particular. Teamliquid, by 2007 the long-term king of western StarCraft, saw a rise in popularity immediately.

The TeamLiquid StarLeague (TSL) was held in 2008 with some of the largest prizes ever seen outside of Korea. The winner, Canadian Jian Fei "IefNaij" Wang took home the biggest chunk of the $10,000 prize pool after coming out on top of a field of thousands.

As the StarCraft community continued to expand, Team Liquid held the 2009 TSL with $20,000 in prizes. American ex-professional gamer Tyler "NonY" Wasieleski won, defeating professional gamer Greg "IdrA" Fields along the way in perhaps the most talked about series of western StarCraft in 10 years. Nony took home a full $10,000 for his efforts.



New players in the Western community meant new fans for the Korean pro circuit and new eyes to watch the next great player, whomever that might be.



Bisu's defeat of Savior in the 2007 MSL finals catapulted him in the eyes of the world. Afterwards, his dominance of the Zerg race was so thorough that he became known as "The Revolutionist". The Protoss versus Zerg match up was altered through his inventive use of massive Corsair fleets and his surgical Dark Templar.

When Bisu won the next season of MSL as well, the StarCraft world wondered if they had another master on their hands. However, instead of going on a Savior-like march of destruction, Bisu confirmed fan's fears: he was inconsistent in his dominance. His career has resembled that of a high-altitude roller coaster: it is always looking to the clouds, going up and down over and over again.

While Bisu was struggling to maintain his hold on the top of StarCraft in January 2008, a future king was climbing up to dethrone him.

Lee Jae Dong "Jaedong", known as "The Tyrant" Zerg, wrote the next chapter in StarCraft history.



Winning Rookie of the Year honors in 2006, he had been climbing to the apex of StarCraft ever since, sitting behind Savior as the best Zerg for what must have seemed an eternity before finally claiming his race's top spot in the beginning of 2008. As of 2010, he remains in the top spot for Zerg and has done so for 31 straight months, breaking YellOw's streak of sustained racial dominance of 27 months.

As his career progressed, Jaedong became far and away the most successful Zerg versus Zerg player of all time. The match-up is usually called "rock-paper-scissors" because of how easily one build can beat another without a player's skill entering the picture, however Jaedong continuously shocked viewers as he built a better than 80% winning percentage against fellow Zergs with unprecedented micromanagement, in particular of his Mutalisks, and extremely solid macromanagement. Previously, a 60% winning percentage in the match-up had seemed an exceptional event.

Over the course of three years, Jaedong has become one of the best players of all time as he's raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money and guaranteed contracts. He has won two MSL titles and three OSL Golden Mice and, at his best, has showcased a level of domination worthy of being called masterful on the level that recalled Savior's highest point. Truth be told, on a level of technical skill, Jaedong is more adept than The Maestro ever was.


More than most competitive games, StarCraft rewards creativity. Players such as BoxeR (Terran), Nal_ra (Protoss) and Savior (Zerg) are remembered as ingenious inventors who turned popular perceptions of the game on their head.

As time passes, the game of StarCraft shifts and warps. Different units and build orders ascend to prominence and descend to obscurity, only to change again when the next great imagination touches the game.

Most players most noted for their imagination are famous for their micromanagement - that is, the control of small groups of units. However, it is important to note that many players noted for macromanagement skills - the control of the bigger picture, eg. economy and production - have also invented and altered the way the game is played. It is simply easier to appreciate the way one single unit acts than the way an entire economy and build order interacts to create something new.

Iloveoov is not the first player to come to mind for most when the word "imagination" is mentioned. His overwhelming macromanagement led him to be criticized as a computer. But in fact, he invented highly efficient build orders and executed them to perfection. Still, it is hard to think 'artist' when 200 units are stampeding on your base.

The modern era has seen a shift. Whereas older players tended to be perceived as either/or, a player such as Jaedong is noted both for his artistry with single units - his Mutalisk work is particularly impressive to watch - and his ability to muster the numbers to crush opponents.

The next player is noted for innovative build orders, and having a sixth sense for seeing weakness in an opponents defense.



If you take 2008 to early 2010 as one monolithic hunk, Jaedong can be named the most successful player of the era. However, even at his most dominant, his peak can't be compared with the likes of iloveoov or NaDa. Jaedong's periods at the top have fractured by great spurts of play from his chief rival, the Terran Lee Young Ho "Flash" as well as resurgences from two Protoss users, Bisu and Song Byung Goo "Stork".



Flash, in particular, has served as a phenomenal foil to Jaedong (the reverse also being true), testing each other and vying for the top perch above StarCraft professional gaming. Flash moved quickly from the rank of amateur to up-and-coming professional. He spent time in various organizations before bubbling to the top at the KT Rolster team.

His inventive Terran versus Protoss and tireless macromanagement created an unenviable amount of hype for the young phenom as the 16 year old won his first Starleague in 2008. He won three significant invitational tournaments that year, beating up on the likes of Jaedong, but would not return to a Starleague final until January 2010. After capturing his second Starleague title in an incredible match against the Protoss "Movie", Flash was in a position to become the first player since NaDa to simultaneously hold both the OSL and MSL title.

Just a week later, Flash faced Jaedong for the MSL title and the chance at history. In a well fought but decisive effort, Jaedong defeated Flash with a bold 3-1 statement.

It took until 2010 for Flash to accomplish that goal: His victories in the MSL and OSL, both, importantly, over Jaedong, have brought both great StarCraft championships under one deft hand for the first time since NaDa was atop the StarCraft world.

As Brood War continues to thrive and StarCraft 2 is released, the Flash and Jaedong remain locked in the same battle they've been in for two years now - to win ultimate supremacy before the end. Although neither player can claim to match the dominance of the greatest players of all time, they can more than match their abilities. Now, the two vie to become the last great StarCraft player.


Note: The fair majority of what was written above as well as the charts provided below were put together in late July 2010, around the release of SC2. As of 9/22/10, things have progressed and, as briefly noted above, Flash is winning left and right. An updated version will reflect the specific events that have taken place.


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COMING NEXT: The Book of Sequels
"One isn't born one's self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people's ideas -- and you have to work through it all."
V.S. Naipaul