MC: Farewell to One of the Greatest Text by TL.net ESPORTS Graphics by v1









Personally, this was a hard article to write. MC has been one of the most successful and accomplished players, one of the great revolutionary players of his race, one of the greatest players overall, the player that has won the most prize money of any other and one of the few to have complete control over his image. Yet the hardest thing to grasp was the fact that MC was retiring at all. When the tweet came out, I stared blankly at the monitor hoping it was a joke, trying to will the tweet out of existence, refusing to believe the reality that was in front of my eyes. At midnight on June 18th, 2015 Jang "MC" Min Chul announced his retirement on Twitter, ending his 5 year career as an SC2 progamer.Personally, this was a hard article to write. MC has been one of the most successful and accomplished players, one of the great revolutionary players of his race, one of the greatest players overall, the player that has won the most prize money of any other and one of the few to have complete control over his image. Yet the hardest thing to grasp was the fact that MC was retiring at all. When the tweet came out, I stared blankly at the monitor hoping it was a joke, trying to will the tweet out of existence, refusing to believe the reality that was in front of my eyes. The term "legend" has been abused so many times by casters in recent years, I have become extremely loathe to use it. But MC is one of the few who rightfully deserves that moniker. He was one of its greatest SC2 players ever, not only in terms of gameplay but as a stand-in for the dedicated passion of the community. He functioned as role-model, entertainer, icon, and pillar of consistency, alternating between roles on a regular basis. He appeared to be an eternal star in the night sky, poised to outlast all the competition.

. Every star burns out and on this night, MC’s finally ended. He walks away with one of the most successful SC2 careers in the history of the game, He is the only Protoss to have won 2 GSLs and the only member of his race to reach the finals three times. He has the most premier tournament podium placings of any player (26 in total). MC stayed a reliable force from his 2010 debut to the beginning of 2015, where he was still able to make it to the Ro16 of Code S. This is without touching upon his in-game influence and how MC’s ideas, strategies, compositions and builds persist to this day. In terms of pure achievements, only TaeJa, Life, and Mvp can be argued to be ahead of him. Additionally he has won the most prize money of any SC2 player with a grand total of $492,485.40. What we will remember most will be his larger-than-life personality. No one put on a song and dance quite like MC, and his antics held us rapt in fascination and amusement. MC earned infamy with various hilarious displays such as his Murloc dance, his Teemo dance, walking onto the stage of OSL Group selections as the Undertaker and casually trash talking his opponents in multiple languages. He was one of the first Korean players to understand the importance of meeting his fans halfway, and he gladly engaged with his foreign followers in English. He has served as caster and analyst, created his own team house in Europe, and has adopted/made multiple nicknames for himself including Kratoss, BossToss and the Protoss President. Looking back on his oeuvre, was it any surprise MC started his career as a BW player by menacingly slitting his throat at his opponent? He lost his match but it demonstrated a desire to break the mold. That fervor to be both an entertainer and a great player has subsequently driven the course of MC’s career. It was why he was one of the first professional BW players to switch to SC2, why his championship reigns resembled the theatricality of WWE wrestling more than the tight-lipped fortitude of his contemporaries. As befitting his grandiose airs he put on, MC started his SC2 career as royalty and never entirely left. He was one of the rare players to qualify for the first ever GSL Open. In that first season, he met an ignominious end at the hands of Polt in the first round (who used the first ever televised 1-1-1 build). Nearly 5 years later his career ends as a masterpiece. He leaves as one of the most storied and loved players ever, having accomplished nearly everything he had ever hoped for. Though MC’s star no longer shines, his brilliance will continue to illuminate the night and remind us of a time when a titan walked the earth.