EmNGiantNome Profile Blog Joined October 2012 United States 125 Posts Last Edited: 2017-08-01 04:24:59 #1 The term Kong was initially used to describe the Zerg player YellOw in Brood War after he became legendary for making it to finals but never winning. In premier tournaments YellOw made six separate finals in two OSLs, one MSL, two KGPA tours, and one WCG. So it almost seems fitting that in Starcraft 2 his legacy would be carried on mostly by Zerg players, although MKP and Squirtle did their best to carry the torch as well. Throughout Starcraft 2’s history there have been some amazing Zerg players. From Life, NesTea, Jaedong, soO, Dark, and DRG the Zerg race certainly hasn’t been lacking in talent. That is, until it comes to finals. In total finals appearances Zerg players have won twenty six and lost forty one, a total win rate of thirty nine percent. And that already abysmal win rate is that high due in large part to Life, arguably the greatest player in Starcrafts history. If you remove him Zerg players are sixteen and thirty seven in finals appearances which is a combined win rate of thirty percent. In comparison Terran players are twenty four and fifteen, a combined win rate of sixty one percent, and that’s without adding Taeja and Mvp, the only two players who contend with Life for the title of G.O.A.T. And Protoss players are thirty four and thirty two in premier finals appearances, a combined win rate of fifty two percent. So what is it about Zerg players, at least in Starcraft 2, that keeps them from winning finals.



YellOw’s most apparent heir is soO. soO is inarguably Starcraft 2’s silver G.O.A.T. He’s made more GSL finals than any other player in history, made more consecutive GSL finals than any other player in history, and has famously lost them all. If you only consider the GSL that puts soO at six losses, one more than YellOw. But soO isn’t just cursed to lose GSL finals. He’s also lost an IEM final and a Dreamhack Open final. In total soO’s record in premier tournament finals is one and eight, an eleven percent win rate thanks to his win over Dark in the Kespa Cup. The worst part about soO’s losses is that he wasn’t even an underdog in many of them. He actually has a winning record in series against Classic, Solar, and Stats except when it comes to finals. His record against Zest isn’t terrible either. If you exclude the singular finals loss to Zest, soO has a match record of five wins to seven losses against Zest. In fact when soO met Stats, Zest, and Classic in the GSL playoffs, on his way to the finals, he beat all three of them including a three to one victory over Stats and a four to zero victory over Classic. Interestingly soO’s only finals victory, in the Kespa cup, was over Dark who is another Zerg player with a terrible win rate in finals.



Dark has only won in two of his seven finals appearances. He was able to win against Stats in the SSL finals and against Solar in the WCS Korea cross finals. Both Stats and Solar are however responsible for two of his five losses. Darks lost more than seventy percent of the finals he’s played in. Obviously when soO and Dark met they couldn’t both lose and so soO came out victorious by beating another Zerg Kong. If Dark had a better win rate in his total finals appearances I could let the loss to soO slide. But because of his abysmal thirty percent finals win rate combined with the fact that one of those losses is to the greatest Kong in Starcraft 2 history Dark is also relegated to Konghood.



While being two and five in finals appearances is terrible, it isn’t quite as terrible as soO’s one and eight or YellOw’s zero and six, which is likely why people don’t consider Dark a Kong. But many people do consider Jaedong a second place king in Starcraft 2. During Jaedong’s Starcraft 2 career he also went two and five in finals. Admittedly his two wins were slightly worse than Darks because they were both in “premier” tournaments where he beat foreigners Scarlett and Snute in the finals, but his record in premier finals remains the same as Darks. Furthermore many of Jaedong's five losses weren’t to opponents as impressive as Darks. Jaedong lost to Bomber four to zero, Polt four to zero, Hyun one to three, and Stardust two to three. The reason Jaedong made the Kong cut is twofold. Firstly he wasn’t a Kong in Brood War. There seems to be something special about Zerg Konghood in Starcraft 2 that is different from both Broodwar and Starcraft 2s other races. Secondly Jaedong did make the Starcraft 2 global finals in 2013 so he was clearly a world class player. Despite his losses in previous tournaments to lower class players Jaedong was able to defeat Mvp, Dear, and Maru on his way to the finals where he would ultimately be defeated by sOs four to one.



There are two Zerg players who rival soO’s terrible win rate. Although neither one of them has gone to eight finals, they both lost all four of their own finals. Byul and Symbol collectively made eight finals and failed to win a single one. Byul lost a GSL to INnoVation, another GSL to Rain, an SSL to herO, and perhaps worst of all a WCS America to Polt. I put Symbol in the same category because he’s also zero and four in finals performances but it’s almost an insult to Byul. Symbol does have one GSL finals loss to RorO but his other three losses are hardly equivalent to Byul's, other than the WCS America loss to Polt. Symbol lost a HomeStory Cup to Snute, an MLG Arena to ViOlet, and an Iron Squid to MMA.

A Konghood honorable mention should be given to DRG. His three wins to five losses in premier tournament finals doesn’t meet the seventy percent loss rate bar that I used to consider a Starcraft 2 player for Konghood, but it’s close. It’s made even more close because two of his losses came at the hand of MKP who is the singular Terran Kong on this list. Squirtle is the one Protoss Kong with zero wins in three premier finals.



Throughout Starcraft 2 there have been three Zergs with winning records in Premier tournament finals. NesTea got three wins in five finals, Solar got five wins in nine finals, and Life got an incredible ten wins in fourteen finals. Solar had the good fortune of defeating Dark and soO in two of his five wins making him perhaps the weakest player to escape konghood. Although NesTea’s three finals victories weren’t particularly impressive either. He beat the Terran Kong MKP in the GSL, Inca in the worst GSL final of all time, and LosirA four to zero. But one of his two finals losses was to Mvp who boasts an incredible nine to three winrate in premier tournament finals. So even without his two easy title wins NesTea would still be one and one in finals appearances.



Finally we’ve come to Zergs greatest champion, Life. For some reason Life was able to beat anyone and everyone regardless of whether or not he was in a finals or the group stage, whether he was in NA or EU or KR, whether the meta favored Zerg or Terran or Protoss, and most importantly whether he had the faith of the analysts or not. Life beat Parting twice, Maru, MMa, Impact, NaNiwa, Flash, Dongraegu, Leenock, and Mvp all in premier tournament finals. He was only stopped by Taeja, the winningest player in premier tournament history, $O$ in a 100k blizzcon final, Creator in TSL 4, and ForGG in a tournament where ForGG took out MC, Patience, Solar, and Polt before besting Life twice. Life accounts for ten of these top Zergs twenty six finals victories and only four of their forty one losses.



If I had to venture a guess as to why there are so few top Zergs who do well when they reach finals it would be because of the races design. Zerg has the weakest units, the least aggressive potential, and the most potential to be caught off guard. So when a player like soO, who’s game lies in the defensive mechanical macro fest, steps up to the plate and gets three raxed by Byun three out of four games he’s gonna get tilted. Or when a player like Jaedong goes up against sOs in the global finals and gets cannon rushed twice in a row that's going to throw him off when sOs opens two of the other games with a nexus first. And when a player like soO, who lost his first three consecutive GSL finals gets to his fourth, fifth, and sixth GSL finals every other loss is going to eat away at him. That is unless you’re a stone cold killer like Life (http://imgur.com/m0mdc7I) who’s willing to risk game seven of the WCS global finals on a 14/14 in ZvP on the biggest map in the pool, or if you’re the creator of the universe and you’re willing to make banelings work against mech, or for some reason you’re name is Solar. But that’s just my theory. I’d love to hear others. Are there just fewer talented Zerg players? Is Zerg underpowered? Is this just the way it is? Let me know what you think!







Guidelines for players chosen:

No less than 3 finals appearances in premier events.

70% or higher fail rate in finals appearances to be considered a Kong.

Must be one of the greatest players of that race during their era or all time.





Players used for these numbers:



Solar (5W-4L)

soO (1W-8L)

Symbol (0W-4L)

Byul (0W-4L)

Jaedong (2W-5L)

Dark (2W-5L)

Nestea (3W-2L)

DRG (3W-5L)

Life (10W-4L)

Total: (26W-41L)

Total Minus Life: (16W-37L)



Marineking (2W-5L)

Byun (3W-1L)

Taeja (11W-2L)

Mvp (9W-3L)

Maru (2W-2L)

Innovation (6W-2L)

TY (2W-1L)

MMA (9W-4L)

Total: (44W-20L)

Total Minus Taeja and Mvp: (24W-15L)



Squirtle (0W-3L)

MC (6W-10L)

Parting (5W-7L)

Stats (2W-3L)

Sos (5W-3L)

Zest (5W-2L)

Classic (3W-0L)

Dear (2W-1L)

herO (6W-3L)

Total: (34W-32L)



