Greatest Players of All Time: The Finale Text by stuchiu Graphics by shiroiusagi



Foreword:



Making a list like this was always problematic. With nearly 5 years of gameplay there is a huge amount of information to parse. First, there is prestige of a tournament, measuring and making judgements on the GSL as compared to international LANS, tournament formats, and paths taken to the Championships. Next, the player’s level relative to the time must be considered with several caveats: the increased talent pool in modern times, the mass migration of KeSPA pros, and then the mass retirement of former KeSPA players and ESF players. Consistency over a long period of time as compared to peak/clutch has often been considered one of the most important measures, but their effect on the game itself is equally important. We must consider the innovation and creativity they used to make strategies as well as the refinement of pre-existing strategies, the meta in which they played and the outside factors they had to face during their reigns.



Another thing to keep in mind is the tiering of tournaments. A basic guideline is Blizzcons(Only 2013+) > GSL > OSL/SSL/Kespa Cup/WCS (2012 KR)/WCG KR/Blizzcon 2011 > International Tournaments. Blizzcon is at the highest because after 2013 it became the end all for the year, increasing the amount of pressure to win it. GSL is next as it has had the best format since Jan 2011, has the most preparation per round and has the best competition. The format and amount of players is what puts it slightly above the other Korean LANs like OSL, SSL, KeSPA/Hot6ix Cup, WCS KR 2012 and WCG KR. International tournaments are roughly below them, though depending on the player pool it can go all the way up being very close to GSL levels of prestige if many top players attended the event.



It is inevitable that many will argue for or against the inclusion or exclusion of certain players in the overall top 15 depending on what criteria you’ve used to judge their placing. However, as there is no definitive list to argue for or against, this is my attempt to codify a list of the all time greats as of this very moment.



You can read part 1 here:

You can read part 2 here:

You can read part 3 here:

You can read more about my criteria here:







#2 | Life, The Heir Apparent









Achievements:

Tier 1:

GSL Season 4 Code S 2012 - 1st

MLG Fall 2012 - 1st

Blizz Cup 2012 - 1st

MLG Winter Championship - 1st

DH Bucharest - Top 4

DH Winter - 2nd

GSL Season 1 2014 - Top 4

IEM Toronto - Top 4

Blizzcon 2014 - 1st

DH Winter 2014 - 2nd

SSL - Top 4

GSL Season 1 Code S 2015 - 1st

IEM Taipei - 1st



Tier 2:

Iron Squid 2 - 1st

IEM NY 2013 - 1st

DH Bucharest 2014 - 1st



Tier 3:

Asus Northcon - Top 4



Greatest Series Ever Played:

Life vs Mvp - Season 4 Finals

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Set 6 | Set 7



Life vs Leenock - MLG Fall 2012 Finals

Set 1 Set 2 Set 3 Set 4 Set 5 Set 6 Set 7



Life vs Last - MLG Winter Championship 2013

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 Part 1 | Set 3 Part 2 | Set 4 | Set 5



Life vs Sjow - Dreamhack Summer 2013

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3



Life vs First - IEM Toronto Ro8 2014

Set 1 | Set 2 Part 1 | Set 2 Part 2 | Set 3



Life vs ForGG - Dreamhack Winter Finals 2014

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Set 6



Life vs Taeja - Blizzcon Semi Finals 2014

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5



Life vs Taeja - IEM WC 2014

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4



Life vs Maru - IEM Taipei Finals

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Set 6 | Set 7



Life vs Dream - NSSL Semi Finals

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Set 6 | Set 7





“Life is the best Zerg right now and will end his career as the best Zerg there has ever been.” - Soulkey interview with ToD





At the very end of WoL I made a prediction. I said that the future of SC2 would be written by three players: Life, Taeja and Creator. I believe many thought the same thing. Creator was fighting on par with the two best protoss players on earth, but was incredibly young and had time to grow. Taeja was another prodigy, and he was one of the few terran players to stay relevant and even win a Premier Tournament during the BL/infestor era. Life was a world beater. Life was utterly unstoppable except in ZvZ, where he had been tripped up multiple times during the latter half of 2012. Yet even then you could not help but think Life was destined to follow in Mvp's footsteps and become the next greatest player on earth.



Taeja fulfilled my expectations perfectly. Creator made me look like a fool as he crashed from one of the Top 3 protoss into the ground immediately upon HotS’ release. I should have chosen his teammate Maru. And Life?



I thought for certain Life was going to continue his reign of terror. He had won the first Premier event of HotS in a meta that zergs were notoriously weak in and he won that MLG Winter Championship in spectacular fashion. Even going into history's greatest group of death, I still believed he would prevail. He didn't. And in the end he lost that famous series to Sjow and that was the final passing of any hopes in thinking Life would continue his reign from 2012.



And even then he was still one of the better zergs in Korea—though the gulf between Soulkey and the rest in 2013 and soO and the rest in 2014 was a gigantic chasm of skill. Yet one day in 2014, Life realized he had somehow accumulated enough points to make it to Blizzcon. And he decided (just like before his reign in 2012) that it was time to take the game seriously. He came into Blizzcon as one of the underdogs. He left the as the undisputed "strongest" player on earth.



He turned what was supposed to be the hardest tournament of the year into a cake walk. Barring the series against Taeja, Life may as well have been playing Code B players. Life stared sternly at Zest and Zest crumpled into a heap. He breathed at San and San collapsed like a pile of twigs. His series against MMA was like stealing candy from a child. Sure you felt bad for the kid, but Life wanted his candy and MMA tried to bite him. The only thing that makes Life’s Blizzcon run more memorable than sOs’ (in terms of content) was his series against Taeja. It was like an avalanche stopping a tidal wave. It was two forces of nature colliding as the second and third greatest players fought each other for dominion of all of SC2. And in that battle, Life was reformed and returned to the peak he had in 2012.



It is obvious to everyone and it should be obvious to you that Life is the heir apparent. After Blizzcon he won IEM Taipei. He won his GSL, lost in NSSL semi-finals, and lost his IEM WC in the Ro16 because of INnoVation. He is murdering everyone and the only people that have stopped him so far have been INnoVation (Top 1-2 terran) and Dream (Top 1 ZvT). And even then they were close sets of 2-3 and 3-4. He will be the one that will finally surpass Mvp. He is the chosen one. For Life there are no more rivals. The Leenock in 2012 has fallen and it looks like he can never reach that place again. Mvp has been dormant for years as he has finally succumbed to the injuries. Taeja, the ever present thorn in his side has finally declared retirement and doesn't appear to have taken the game seriously since Blizzcon.



There is no more Life vs Leenock, no more Life vs Mvp, no more Life vs Taeja. There is no longer one man that can stop Life, now it will be the entire world. From now until the end of HotS, it is Life against the world. Life vs Zest, Life vs INnoVation, Life vs Maru, Life vs Dream, Life vs soO, Life vs Solar, Life vs herO, Life vs Stats. And in a battle between Life and the world, my money is on Life.



Play Style:







Life was born to attack. It is as simple as that. He knows he has better attacking instincts than his opponents and he tries to crush them whether it be in the early game, mid game or late game. The other thing Life loves to do is counter-attack. He loves it when a protoss or terran or zerg moves out and he instantly backstabs them. Of course it isn’t as simple as that, but that is the basics of understanding Life.



A few things keep it all together. First is his micro. He has arguably some of the best ling micro of any zerg and is great at finding positions of better engagements. Second is his sense of timing. He has a different kind of timer to everyone else and hits at awkward transitioning points against the other races. These transitioning points are when a player moves out, a player is likely to go back to macro or when he takes control of a player's eyes on one side of the map and attacks the other. The third thing is his reactive intelligence. Life knows how and when to react to every build and when he doesn’t he has almost always been able to improv an answer as to how to defeat the opponent. And finally it is his composure. Life very rarely cracks and has almost always played to his level.



If there was a weakness at all, it is the fact that Life is so good at attacking. There are times when a player can defend it. The two biggest examples are Taeja and Dream. When you see a player defend Life’s attacks, it is like watching Life punch gigantic holes into the ocean. They are huge strong attacks that could kill any other terran. But if a player can survive it, if a player can defend it, dissuade it, avoid it, they can take away Life’s greatest strength and take the series from him. This is why I think it is wrong to say something like Life threw the series against Sjow or he threw the series against Dream. It is in his very nature to be aggressive, to fight to conquer. It is what has gotten him so far and you cannot extol his triumphs and deride his losses if he is playing at the exact same level and executing the exact same kind of attack to achieve both.



Difference between Life and Taeja







This at least was easier. Not only does Life have the prestige, he has the recent results, he has close to the same number of Championships and most importantly, path for path, he ekes out ahead of Taeja by a decent amount. In terms of consistency Taeja is superior as he was a top 5 Terran for 2.5 years, 1.5 of which as the Top 1 terran. Life was a top 5 zerg for the same amount of time, but the gulf between him and Soulkey in 2013 was gigantic. It was the exact same gulf between Nestea and Zenio back in 2010. And in 2014 soO was the best zerg by far for almost the entire year and the gulf between him and Life wasn’t much smaller than that (not counting his resurgence at Blizzcon). Taeja on the other hand could be counted on to best any player in the world for all 2.5 years of his consistency, so in that and that alone Taeja was superior. What it came down to was Life’s peak. His peak level was so high that he won the biggest tournaments in succession and what ended up happening was after balancing the paths they took, Life just simply put had a few more significant results to put him firmly ahead.



Life

Tier 1:

GSL Season 4 Code S 2012 - 1st - Nestea, Seed, MKP, Taeja, Mvp

MLG Fall 2012 - 1st - Violet, Taeja, Flash, Leenock

Blizz Cup 2012 - 1st - Sniper, Rain, DRG, Leenock, PartinG

MLG Winter Championship - 1st - Polt, Last, MC, Flash

DH Bucharest - Top 4 - Supernova, loss to Taeja

DH Winter - 2nd - MMA, Polt, StarDust, JYP, Naniwa, INnoVation, loss to Taeja, loss to Taeja again

GSL Season 1 2014 - Top 4 - RorO twice, Maru, loss to soO

IEM Toronto - Top 4 - Scarlett, MC, First, loss to Zest

Blizzcon 2014 - 1st- Zest, San, Taeja, MMA

DH Winter 2014 - 2nd - Taeja, San, Leenock, Bunny, First, loss to ForGG, Taeja, loss to ForGG

SSL - Top 4 - Classic, herO, Dear, loss to Dream

GSL Season 1 Code S 2015 - 1st - GuMiho twice, YoDa, Soulkey, INnoVation, herO, PartinG

IEM Taipei - 1st - ForGG, Soulkey, HyuN, PartinG, Maru



Tier 2:

Iron Squid 2 - 1st - Creator, Leenock, MKP, DRG

IEM NY 2013 - 1st - loss to HyuN, Zest twice (pre Zest godmode), HerO, Curious, Naniwa

DH Bucharest 2014 - 1st - Leenock, StarDust, INnoVation, Impact



Tier 3:

ASUS Northcon - Top 4 - INnoVation, VortiX, loss to Scarlett



Achievements:Tier 1:GSL Season 4 Code S 2012 - 1stMLG Fall 2012 - 1stBlizz Cup 2012 - 1stMLG Winter Championship - 1stDH Bucharest - Top 4DH Winter - 2ndGSL Season 1 2014 - Top 4IEM Toronto - Top 4Blizzcon 2014 - 1stDH Winter 2014 - 2ndSSL - Top 4GSL Season 1 Code S 2015 - 1stIEM Taipei - 1stTier 2:Iron Squid 2 - 1stIEM NY 2013 - 1stDH Bucharest 2014 - 1stTier 3:Asus Northcon - Top 4Greatest Series Ever Played:Life vs Mvp - Season 4 FinalsLife vs Leenock - MLG Fall 2012 FinalsLife vs Last - MLG Winter Championship 2013Life vs Sjow - Dreamhack Summer 2013Life vs First - IEM Toronto Ro8 2014Life vs ForGG - Dreamhack Winter Finals 2014Life vs Taeja - Blizzcon Semi Finals 2014Life vs Taeja - IEM WC 2014Life vs Maru - IEM Taipei FinalsLife vs Dream - NSSL Semi Finals“Life is the best Zerg right now and will end his career as the best Zerg there has ever been.” - Soulkey interview with ToDAt the very end of WoL I made a prediction. I said that the future of SC2 would be written by three players: Life, Taeja and Creator. I believe many thought the same thing. Creator was fighting on par with the two best protoss players on earth, but was incredibly young and had time to grow. Taeja was another prodigy, and he was one of the few terran players to stay relevant and even win a Premier Tournament during the BL/infestor era. Life was a world beater. Life was utterly unstoppable except in ZvZ, where he had been tripped up multiple times during the latter half of 2012. Yet even then you could not help but think Life was destined to follow in Mvp's footsteps and become the next greatest player on earth.Taeja fulfilled my expectations perfectly. Creator made me look like a fool as he crashed from one of the Top 3 protoss into the ground immediately upon HotS’ release. I should have chosen his teammate Maru. And Life?I thought for certain Life was going to continue his reign of terror. He had won the first Premier event of HotS in a meta that zergs were notoriously weak in and he won that MLG Winter Championship in spectacular fashion. Even going into history's greatest group of death, I still believed he would prevail. He didn't. And in the end he lost that famous series to Sjow and that was the final passing of any hopes in thinking Life would continue his reign from 2012.And even then he was still one of the better zergs in Korea—though the gulf between Soulkey and the rest in 2013 and soO and the rest in 2014 was a gigantic chasm of skill. Yet one day in 2014, Life realized he had somehow accumulated enough points to make it to Blizzcon. And he decided (just like before his reign in 2012) that it was time to take the game seriously. He came into Blizzcon as one of the underdogs. He left the as the undisputed "strongest" player on earth.He turned what was supposed to be the hardest tournament of the year into a cake walk. Barring the series against Taeja, Life may as well have been playing Code B players. Life stared sternly at Zest and Zest crumpled into a heap. He breathed at San and San collapsed like a pile of twigs. His series against MMA was like stealing candy from a child. Sure you felt bad for the kid, but Life wanted his candy and MMA tried to bite him. The only thing that makes Life’s Blizzcon run more memorable than sOs’ (in terms of content) was his series against Taeja. It was like an avalanche stopping a tidal wave. It was two forces of nature colliding as the second and third greatest players fought each other for dominion of all of SC2. And in that battle, Life was reformed and returned to the peak he had in 2012.It is obvious to everyone and it should be obvious to you that Life is the heir apparent. After Blizzcon he won IEM Taipei. He won his GSL, lost in NSSL semi-finals, and lost his IEM WC in the Ro16 because of INnoVation. He is murdering everyone and the only people that have stopped him so far have been INnoVation (Top 1-2 terran) and Dream (Top 1 ZvT). And even then they were close sets of 2-3 and 3-4. He will be the one that will finally surpass Mvp. He is the chosen one. For Life there are no more rivals. The Leenock in 2012 has fallen and it looks like he can never reach that place again. Mvp has been dormant for years as he has finally succumbed to the injuries. Taeja, the ever present thorn in his side has finally declared retirement and doesn't appear to have taken the game seriously since Blizzcon.There is no more Life vs Leenock, no more Life vs Mvp, no more Life vs Taeja. There is no longer one man that can stop Life, now it will be the entire world. From now until the end of HotS, it is Life against the world. Life vs Zest, Life vs INnoVation, Life vs Maru, Life vs Dream, Life vs soO, Life vs Solar, Life vs herO, Life vs Stats. And in a battle between Life and the world, my money is on Life.Play Style:Life was born to attack. It is as simple as that. He knows he has better attacking instincts than his opponents and he tries to crush them whether it be in the early game, mid game or late game. The other thing Life loves to do is counter-attack. He loves it when a protoss or terran or zerg moves out and he instantly backstabs them. Of course it isn’t as simple as that, but that is the basics of understanding Life.A few things keep it all together. First is his micro. He has arguably some of the best ling micro of any zerg and is great at finding positions of better engagements. Second is his sense of timing. He has a different kind of timer to everyone else and hits at awkward transitioning points against the other races. These transitioning points are when a player moves out, a player is likely to go back to macro or when he takes control of a player's eyes on one side of the map and attacks the other. The third thing is his reactive intelligence. Life knows how and when to react to every build and when he doesn’t he has almost always been able to improv an answer as to how to defeat the opponent. And finally it is his composure. Life very rarely cracks and has almost always played to his level.If there was a weakness at all, it is the fact that Life is so good at attacking. There are times when a player can defend it. The two biggest examples are Taeja and Dream. When you see a player defend Life’s attacks, it is like watching Life punch gigantic holes into the ocean. They are huge strong attacks that could kill any other terran. But if a player can survive it, if a player can defend it, dissuade it, avoid it, they can take away Life’s greatest strength and take the series from him. This is why I think it is wrong to say something like Life threw the series against Sjow or he threw the series against Dream. It is in his very nature to be aggressive, to fight to conquer. It is what has gotten him so far and you cannot extol his triumphs and deride his losses if he is playing at the exact same level and executing the exact same kind of attack to achieve both.Difference between Life and TaejaThis at least was easier. Not only does Life have the prestige, he has the recent results, he has close to the same number of Championships and most importantly, path for path, he ekes out ahead of Taeja by a decent amount. In terms of consistency Taeja is superior as he was a top 5 Terran for 2.5 years, 1.5 of which as the Top 1 terran. Life was a top 5 zerg for the same amount of time, but the gulf between him and Soulkey in 2013 was gigantic. It was the exact same gulf between Nestea and Zenio back in 2010. And in 2014 soO was the best zerg by far for almost the entire year and the gulf between him and Life wasn’t much smaller than that (not counting his resurgence at Blizzcon). Taeja on the other hand could be counted on to best any player in the world for all 2.5 years of his consistency, so in that and that alone Taeja was superior. What it came down to was Life’s peak. His peak level was so high that he won the biggest tournaments in succession and what ended up happening was after balancing the paths they took, Life just simply put had a few more significant results to put him firmly ahead.LifeTier 1:GSL Season 4 Code S 2012 - 1st - Nestea, Seed, MKP, Taeja, MvpMLG Fall 2012 - 1st - Violet, Taeja, Flash, LeenockBlizz Cup 2012 - 1st - Sniper, Rain, DRG, Leenock, PartinGMLG Winter Championship - 1st - Polt, Last, MC, FlashDH Bucharest - Top 4 - Supernova, loss to TaejaDH Winter - 2nd - MMA, Polt, StarDust, JYP, Naniwa, INnoVation, loss to Taeja, loss to Taeja againGSL Season 1 2014 - Top 4 - RorO twice, Maru, loss to soOIEM Toronto - Top 4 - Scarlett, MC, First, loss to ZestBlizzcon 2014 - 1st- Zest, San, Taeja, MMADH Winter 2014 - 2nd - Taeja, San, Leenock, Bunny, First, loss to ForGG, Taeja, loss to ForGGSSL - Top 4 - Classic, herO, Dear, loss to DreamGSL Season 1 Code S 2015 - 1st - GuMiho twice, YoDa, Soulkey, INnoVation, herO, PartinGIEM Taipei - 1st - ForGG, Soulkey, HyuN, PartinG, MaruTier 2:Iron Squid 2 - 1st - Creator, Leenock, MKP, DRGIEM NY 2013 - 1st - loss to HyuN, Zest twice (pre Zest godmode), HerO, Curious, NaniwaDH Bucharest 2014 - 1st - Leenock, StarDust, INnoVation, ImpactTier 3:ASUS Northcon - Top 4 - INnoVation, VortiX, loss to Scarlett #1 | Mvp, Creating the Incredible Miracle









Achievements:

Tier 1:

GSL WC - 1st

August 2011 Code S - 1st

GSL October 2011 Code S - 2nd

GSL Nov 2011 - Top 4

Blizzcon 2011 - 1st

GSL Season 2 Code S 2012 - 1st

WCG Korea - 1st

WCS EU Season 1 2013 - 1st

WCS Season 1 Finals - Top 4

MLG Providence - Top 4

Blizz Cup 2012 - Top 4

GSL Season 4 Code S 2012 - 2nd



Tier 2

MLG Anaheim - 1st

IEM Cologne 2012 - 1st

IEM WC 2013 - Top 4



Tier 3:

WCG 2011 - 1st (No one noteworthy)



Greatest Series Played

Mvp vs MMA - GSTL Finals

Set 9



Mvp vs Squirtle - GSTL Finals

Set 8



Mvp vs TOP - GSL August 2011 Finals

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5



Mvp vs Naniwa - Season 2 2012 Quarter Finals

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4



Mvp vs PartinG - Season 2 2012 Semi Finals

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4



Mvp vs Squirtle - Season 2 2012 Finals

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Set 6 | Set 7



Mvp vs Rain - Season 4 2012 Semi Finals

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5



Mvp vs Leenock - GSL November Semi Finals

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5



Mvp vs INnoVation - WCS Season 1 Semi Finals

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5



Mvp vs Tefel - WCS EU Season 2 2013

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3



Mvp vs Life - GSL 2012 Season 4 Finals

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5 | Set 6 | Set 7



Mvp vs MMA - GSL Code S Season 4 2014

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3



Mvp vs Slivko - IEM Cologne 2012

Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4



Mvp vs Snute - Red Bull Online Qualifiers 1

All Sets



Mvp vs DRG - Red Bull Online Qualifiers 2

All Sets



“What was my dream? I just wanted a larger house.” - Mvp







That small dream would one day spark the beginning of the greatest SC2 player to have ever played the game. Growing up, Mvp’s family was poor, but he was still able to play Brood War. Because of that his father saw his talent and pushed Mvp forward to first become a BW pro, and then eventually become a SC2 pro. That was how the first year of SC2 was written.



And in that year, Mvp dominated like none other. He won three GSL titles, 1 MLG, 1 WCG Korea, WCG and Blizzcon. He was de-facto the single best player in the world and he did it by beating all of the other best players in the world to get there again and again and again.



After having the greatest year of his pro gaming career, Mvp knew time was running out. He had gotten an injury, one that could never go away. One that ate at him for the rest of his pro gaming career. (http://www.playxp.com/sc2/bbs/view.php?article_id=4047287)







Mvp: The fact is that my neck condition is really severe. Because of the pains in my spine, sometimes my arm will go numb (T/N: Like paralysis numb) too. My shoulders feel terrible. Sometimes, I can't even pick up the mouse. There's no choice. I just have to cut down on my practice time. I need to constantly think of new strategies and builds, and test them through practice, but it is really tough to practice. My teeth would be clenched as I sit in front of the computer, but the pain would inevitably force me to stop. To be honest, if a professional gamer can't even go about practicing properly, how can he improve? It's quite a miracle to even be able to maintain at a particular level.



Yet how could he stop? His family was poor and for the first time in his gaming career he was making enough money to support them. And yet retirement was inevitable. With an injury this significant, it would only get harder and harder and harder to practice each day. And the practice he did get would be bad practice as he'd constantly be distracted by the pain. The gap between him and his peers had shrunk, especially since players like DRG and MMA were catching up and an entire new wave of players was bound to rise. Mvp was in a battle against time. He had fulfilled his dream of getting a house, but he wanted to do more for his family which had supported him until then. He didn't want to go out like this, letting the whims of fate rob him of his pro-gaming career before his time.



Could Mvp do it? Could he make a miracle happen when all signs were pointing against him? He knew it was possible; after all, he had seen with his own eyes how Nestea created the first miracle of SC2 with his own career. It was then time for Mvp to create the second.



Heading into 2012, Mvp held no illusions. In his own words from a 2012 interview: "To be honest, I think that among the players taking part in the GSL, my ability is of a lower rank."







He knew without a shadow of a doubt that his time had passed. At the time and even now, I’d have put Mvp as a Ro32 Code S player, on the same level of Ensnare in mid 2011. Even if you looked at the content of his games alone you could see a marked difference in how he was winning his games compared to when he was in dominant form. During his 2011 run he was destroying people off his mechanics and safe play alone. He was like Zest if Zest had better micro. He was like INnoVation if INnoVation had stronger strategic thinking. He was like Taeja if Taeja knew how to perfectly plan a series.



Yet he had lost it all and in his wake he knew that he only had three things left in his arsenal: his intelligence, his will and his experience. With these three pieces alone he was going to do the impossible. He was going to create an incredible miracle.



In GSL Season 2, he barely scraped by both group stages (losing a set to Naniwa and HerO in each group). It was a time of protoss revolution, a time when protoss was learning and creating and pushing forward a multitude of new builds, compositions, reactions, timings and metas. In that time Naniwa was playing the best games of his life. In that time Mvp was playing some of the worst games of his life in his worst matchup. The pros, fans and experts predicted Naniwa to win in a close series, maybe 3-1 or 3-2, when they met again in the quarter finals. Instead, Mvp won.



In the next round, he played PartinG, who was, at that time, playing the best PvT in the world. Mvp had gotten by Naniwa because he had the perfect read and attacked his greed. That meant nothing to PartinG and going into it was utterly confident in his victory claiming a 3-0 victory, “Or maybe 3-1, because you know it’s Mvp.” Again, Mvp won.



Squirtle was playing the best protoss in the world and was by consensus the single best player in the world. He had seen both of Mvp’s series earlier and had seen all of Mvp’s TvPs that season. Everyone favored Squirtle. Squirtle favored Squirtle. They had a miniature pre-show where they had gathered pros, casters and fans and every single one of them down to the last man chose Squirtle to win. Who could blame them? After all, Mvp’s mechanics were still that of a Ro32 player at best. He had prepared well for Naniwa, and he had used pure psychological warfare to break PartinG’s soul. Maybe, just maybe, Mvp could win if he created an entirely new strategy, if he completely controlled the psychological warfare from beginning to end and if he caught Squirtle by surprise with a plethora of unpredictable builds. He did, and that was how Mvp created the miracle of his 2012 Season 2 victory.



“I think a match of that quality and emotion, even when you include BW matches, is hard to find. I could feel the chills and emotions. Not just this match, but the one before it with the battlecruisers, the atmosphere was perfect. It was the best match hands down.” -TheMarine







One miracle like that could last a lifetime, but this was Mvp. And once more he created a miracle. Once more he dug out inspiration from his mind to find his way to the top. This time he recreated mech in order to defeat the BL/infestor, and won IEM Cologne by creating an entirely new build the world was not ready for.





IEM S7, TvZ map win percentage:

Playoffs: 42.4%

Total: 57.6%



Mvp: 72.7%



Without Mvp

Playoffs: 18.2%

Total: 52.9%



Statistics from IEM Cologne 2012



He then went into GSL Season 4 Ro32. He barely scraped out of groups, this time by defeating his long standing rival MMA and reversing the triangle. In the Ro16, he barely beat JYP and then abused the fact that MKP was afraid of his shadow to make it to the Ro8. There he met Symbol, a player people were touting as the next great zerg, the next in line to DRG. A complete macro zerg that had beaten the entire IM team in the greatest reverse sweep in history. Symbol was favored by the fans and the experts to be a 2:1 favorite at the least. Mvp crushed him in a performance that hearkened back to his glory days in 2011; he crushed Symbol on every front.



He then had to face Rain, a Top 3 protoss with no equals. Mvp lost the first game on a massive error and it appeared as though he was done. Yet this was when Mvp's mind games started to take affect. Mvp all-ined twice in a row. First it was to instill in the mind of Rain that Mvp was in an aggressive stance. Second it was a decent gamble since one of the two was bound to work. He reached game 4 after winning one all-in and losing the next. It set up game 4 perfectly as Mvp took an economic gamble realizing that Rain would play extra defensively. Mvp lept ahead and drew the series even. In the final game, Mvp knew that Rain was scared and once again got away with a triple orbital build. Shaken, Rain resorted to DTs, but Mvp sensed what the SKT Protoss had planned and prepared to defend. He repelled the DTs and crashed down the gates with an SCV pull to reach the finals once more.



And there he met Life, the second greatest player of all time and in the BL/infestor meta. It was a composition that better players with able bodies could not solve, but Mvp—the man and his broken body—knew the trials of the impossible more than anyone else. And he came up with an answer. He tailored a mech build to counter Life's early ling aggression and to strike exactly during the morphing phase of Life's BL transition. He did it for 7 straight games, either because he knew it was his best weapon or because it was all his body was able to do. Against belief, the second greatest player on earth combined with the power of BL/infestor was brought to the very brink of despair, brought to a deciding 7th game. Though he would lose to his heir apparent, the man with a broken body had carried his bones further than anyone could have imagined. That was Mvp's third miracle.



He had forced his way to victory three times against all odds and against his own body, against better players and against the very meta itself. His mechanics were that off a Code S castaway, and if this had been any other man he would have stopped. Most great players would have never been able to make the first miracle run happen at all. The greatest players of all time could have, perhaps, conjured one miracle run. Mvp had made three miracles. And then he created a fourth.



In the first season of 2013, Mvp moved to WCS EU. He won the tournament midst tepid expectations, and then returned to Korea for the Season 1 Finals. He advanced from the group stages and faced ForGG, a player that had a 94% winrate in TvT. Mvp crushed him. He then had to face the consensus best player on earth, INnoVation. INnoVation was, in many ways, the complete opposite of Mvp. He was KeSPA trained and had god-like mechanics. He was the most skilled player we had ever seen at that point, and he was an aggressive war machine in a meta (the hellbat drop era) that favored his style extremely well. Mvp had spent the last 1.5 years using only his intellect, his willpower, and his experience to win matches. This was a monumental mismatch, and Mvp was once again the underdog. TvT at that point in time was very much a match of mechanics. With the new speed boost it meant that players were forced to simultaneously attack, defend, and micro on multiple fronts, thus leaving Mvp in a hole before the game had even started.



In game 2, that nightmare scenario happened. INnoVation killed 23 workers leaving Mvp with 9. INnoVation had 30 workers to Mvp's 9. In a mirror matchup where you can't catch up on workers with either chrono boost or inject. But isn't that what always happens to Mvp? Dead in the water, Mvp decided to create one last miracle. This would be his tombstone, a last reminder in the game of HotS that there will always be only one King. They went into the mid game with INnoVation up 40 supply, and the Machine tried in vain to end the game. Mvp defended with increasing desperation, but each round Mvp closed the supply gap by a handful at a time. He maximized every mistake and made sure that INnoVation could not kill him immediately. Somehow, someway, he reached a max army, scouted perfectly, and evened the game by hitting a perfect timing. From there he showed INnoVation that mechanics weren't everything. That mental fortitude, grace under pressure, will power and strategic decision making were worth so much more when you needed to force a comeback.



But no miracle can last forever. In a dying blaze of glory against one of the most mechanically talented players of all time, a player who none of the best players in all of Korea could even scratch except for Soulkey. Mvp won a game 20 scvs down and nearly won the series. This was Mvp's last miracle.



I once wrote how IDs in esports are a unique phenomenon that could shed light on a player. By itself the name Mvp is an innocuous, if optimistic, name. And yet how fitting is it that the man named Mvp joined IM to create the hardest miracle year anyone has ever seen in the history of SC2?



I have great respect and admiration for all players, both foreign and Korean. I have watched from the very beginning in 2010 to now. I was here for Fruitdealer’s first miracle to Life’s GSL victory over PartinG. And in all of that time I can say this without a shadow of a doubt: there is only one man I have ever recognized as “The King” and his name is Mvp.



Play Style:



"And when I was watching Mvp games, I didn't have high expectations either. In a way I did personally root against Mvp back then. But to win 2 games against Innovation's prime, his performance was amazing. And to evaluate Mvp's past matches, there was a difference between Mvp and other players when it came to their thoughts. Normally, when the plan they were guarding fails, that's game over for most players. But Mvp constantly changes his plans during the match. When he feels like something doesn't work he takes a detour, his processing speed is very quick. So he can think 'I fell behind this much here but if I gain this much here I can win.' The fact this this process is very versatile allows for more emotion in his matches."

- TheMarine, Brood War Analyst/Caster and former Pro-gamer Star 'Hangshow' Season4_Ep 08



The most important thing to understand about Mvp’s playstyle is that he started off as an incredibly strong mechanical player who liked to play safe solid strategies because he wanted to maximize the effect of his mechanics as well as his superior understanding of the game. From there, he became terran's biggest early innovator for all three matchups and created the basics and the fundamentals from which all terrans have come to understand their race. There is no other player besides Nestea that has been as influential in the development of their race’s future and present.



In TvT he created and refined mech both against bio and against other mech. In ZvT he took MKP’s innovations with marine control and gave it a safe and solid backbone of tank support fire. He was the creator of the most important opener in TvZ, hellion-banshee, and was the father of both the mech and bio transitions from it. In TvZ he also created mass ghosts and subsequently got them nerfed. In TvP he was responsible for the SCV pull, and for that INnoVation and Flash are eternally grateful.



Analysis of Mvp's Mech build by Engine, GSL caster

+ Show Spoiler + The reason why previous mechanic builds could not be the mainstream build is that they had a severe weakness to certain timings. One is when Zerg teched up to Lair and another is when Hive is done.



When Terran players continuously make Thors and Hellions, speed-up Roach drop or Nydus could end the game. But when Terran makes too many Seige Tanks, scared of roach attacks, surprise Mutalisks do lots of damage. So when Terrans try to go defensive, they can never have a lead during the game. Furthermore, going defensively can give Zerg too much time to tech to Broodlords.



But MVP's recent mechanic build improvised on that weakness. The key point is Banshees. Normally, producing only two banshee is the standard. These two Banshees can be easily dealt with Queens and while they may be annoying Zerg players can go for Ling-Roach push. However MVP produces Banshees continuously and when 4-5 Banshees are produced, their firing power can easily kill roaches and banelings. What Zerg can do against this is producing lots of lings to push, ignoring banshees. However ,MVP makes unbelievable amount of Hellions. He uses these Hellions to defend if Zerg pushes with lings, and if not, he goes for drone kills.



This means that ground attacks from Zerg is prevented. Therefore Terran can easily take 6 gas much earlier than the standard timing. Then the build delays seige tank production and rather produce lots of Thors. One disadvantage of this is Banshees are only strong around Terran's base or the centre of the map. They can't support Thors if Terran decides to push as Queens can take on Banshees and Banshees won't be able to help to kill roaches. This means that Terran also can't push out which makes the game to go for longer.



While MVP's build is great against offensive Zerg players but against defensive player, it's not that effective. So MVP tries to overcome this problem with upgrades, as Terran took 6 gas easily without threats - early upgrades from 2 armory is possible. So he saves his firing power to receive great interest from upgrades which is great against Hive units.



Broodlings stay alive longer when Terran goes for mechanic than bionic. In this case, when mechanic units have well upgraded armour, Thors stay alive so much longer and with the effect of better weapons upgrade - you can observe thors killing Broodlords and Corrupters which normally you can't see.



So his build is very well built against both offensive and defensive players without ruling out any strategies from Zerg players.







Even beyond his innovations, Mvp had the largest variety of builds of every terran player to have ever played. He could use anything against anyone at any time. He was one of the few players to have used mech against protoss; he has also used bio tank; and is the only one to have ever gone Max Battlecruisers against them. In a sense Mvp had every build and every composition in his play book which also helped him become the greatest preparation player of all time in SC2.



Mvp was also incredibly creative. I’ve mentioned his mech games already, but if there was one game that displayed that creativity it was the first game he had against TOP in the GSL Finals.



Here is what you need to know. First, TOP was an incredible TvT player, one of the best that era. Second, he was one of the few mech TvT players along with Mvp that understood exactly how to defend, transition, and split the map. During the game, both players constantly fought for the tactical high ground in order to secure bases while harassing each other in turns. Near the end of the game, they had split Daybreak and had made it no man's land. At this point in the TvT meta (even now) it is very possible for the entire map to be mined out. Doubly so when medivacs didn't have speed boost to guide them over defensive turret rings. In this case Artosis predicted correctly that the game would go on for a very long time as the two players fought for incremental pixels to further their positioning. What he didn't see was Mvp prepare for the end game. Mvp never ever let himself get caught out of position for the entirety of the game and never let TOP gain a single edge. And during that time Mvp slowly fed away his SCVs to TOP while he built a mega death fleet. And when he was ready Mvp unleashed hell on Daybreak.



Mvp executed the single greatest tactical move to ever be done in a TvT. One that has never been outdone even 4 years later. He trained 4 ghosts, built 4 ghost academies, readied 4 nukes, prepared 4 medivacs, assembled 3 Thors, gathered 8 ravens and amassed 35 vikings. He lifted his thors and ghosts into his medivacs and used his vikings and ravens to shield their transport as they flew into TOP's main. Mvp unloaded and proceeded to ravage the main with his thors while blanketing the entrance to the main with nukes. TOP was locked out of his own base and it disappeared in the blink of an eye. With no choice but to defend, TOP was drawn out of position, allowing Mvp to break the center and take the game (and, incidentally, TOP's career as a top player).









"How he never gives up and goes down dragging his opponent reminds me of Boxer."

- Um Jae Kyung, Brood War Caster Star 'Hangshow' Season4_Ep 08



Yet you cannot talk about Mvp's style without mentioning his tenacity. Most people remember his insane comebacks against Tefel or INnoVation. But there is one that people usually forget. In the GSL Novermber semi-finals, Mvp played against Leenock. Leenock had just come off his MLG Providence victory and was declared (and with good reason) to be the single strongest player on the planet. And in game 2 of that series Leenock crushed Mvp's attack to earn a massive lead 58 drones to 10, 120 supply to 60—no, this is not a typo. At the 20 minute mark Tastosis had rightly declared the game was over. But it was Mvp. Mvp fought back with every scrap of energy, every trick, every move, to the very last mineral and forced that game to extend for 20 more minutes, fighting from deficits of 140 supply to 70, 120 to 60, 70 to 20 and 40 to 20. It was awe inspiring and even when he looked dead for the 20th time, a voice in the back of your mind kept reminding you, "But it's Mvp."







How many times have we said that this game? - Tasteless



There is not a single player in the entirety of SC2 that has ever gotten close to the skill in preparation that Mvp has. To be fair no other player has ever had to win a GSL almost solely on preparation and psychological warfare either. For this I will only focus on one series, Mvp vs Squirtle Season 2 2012 Finals.



Mvp knew Squirtle had seen every one of his series from that GSL and had probably seen every one of his TvP series since becoming a pro-gamer. By then Mvp was known for a few things: all-ins, standard bio play, bio+tank, and the 1-1-1. Not only that, but Mvp knew he was by far the weaker player while Squirtle was on top of the world. Mvp ranked himself among the lower tier of players. So in game 1, Mvp opened with a build he had never used in that season: a 1 base marine hellion medivac attack to counter Squirtle when he moved out. The surprise worked and Mvp won the game.



Artosis once said, “The Cheesiest thing a cheesy player can do is play macro.”



At the time Mvp was very much the premier cheddar distributor in TvP. So he went for a macro game. In that game he blindly assumed Squirlte would go for a templar army and was caught off guard as Squirtle had instead gone for collosus. But Mvp prevailed and in a move that would have made Polt proud, Mvp got a massive surround on Squirtle’s max army and EMP’d the sentries to win the battle and the game.



Now up two games with two surprise strategies he came onto Antiga Shipyard. The idea here was simple and played to his strengths while negating Squirtle’s. He’d move out with a marine push which was fairly standard at the time, but he would not attack head on. Instead Mvp decided to wait for Squirtle's stalkers to move out and counter attacked from an immediate position. Instead of fighting in the middle of the map where stalkers could dance around his marines, Mvp fought where Squirtle's micro could not be used at all. And with that he won the game.



Three games, three different strategies. Game 1 and Game 3 had worked as planned. Game 2 hadn't worked out, but Mvp was still able to find a way to clutch it out. He had used three builds and variations of builds that Squirtle had never really seen him use before. At this point, Mvp had probably negated Squirtle’s entire pre-match preparation. He had caught him off guard as he had gone aggressive -> standard -> aggressive in the series keeping Squirtle mentally unbalanced.



But Squirtle back then was known for being a clutch player. He had proven that in his IPL 4 runner-up rampage which many believed he had only lost because of pure exhaustion, mental strain and fatigue. He had just played a 3 day marathon, he had just lost the most controversial GSTL series of all time, he had come from the lower bracket and had to win double Bo5 against a Top 3 TvP player in the world.



If this was any other player, if this was sOs or Maru or INnoVation they’d have tried to end it all here with a cheese. After all you’re 3 games up, why not take the risk and go for the “easy” win. Why not just go for 4 11/11s in a row and hope one of them sticks? But that is the difference between them and Mvp. Because Mvp understood that 11/11 was his last and only silver bullet. The one build that could negate Squirtle’s incredible strength in the mid game and late game. But a bullet Squirtle had seen too many times, a build Mvp had already used a huge amount of times to get to the finals.



Of all of Mvp’s builds, his best chance was the 11/11. But the strength of the 11/11 is built on the surprise factor. It isn't like in TvZ where Maru can use it and either kill or easily transition against whoever he’s playing against. In addition to that Mvp could only use it on 2 player maps, leaving it for Daybreak, Cloud Kingdom, Dual Sight and Atlantis Spaceship. And more importantly, Mvp understood Squirtle. He knew Squirtle had it in him to be mentally clutch (Squirtle had proven it in his IPL Finals). So with 4 games left to go, he had to simultaneously find three strategies that gave him the best chance of winning while making Squirtle forget about the 11/11. That meant he had to go for three macro builds. So in game 4, Mvp tried to macro hoping Squirtle would just crack. Squirtle was back to form and won.



It is game 5, 6 and 7, and the ordering of them that makes Mvp’s series against Squirtle such a masterpiece. In Game 5 he slowed down the pace and split the map. He then unveiled a strategy never seen before in the history of SC2: maxed 3/3 Battlecruisers. But Squirtle, in one of the greatest moments of SC2’s entire history, vortexed the army and won the game.



Game 5 was brilliant by both players. But for Mvp he had created an entire new strategy that could only be used on one map, that fit the criteria of being a surprise punch Squirtle would not expect while at the same time making Squirtle’s mindset be more lax to early game pressure.







Game 6 was a continuation of what Mvp had done in Game 5, but in reverse. Game 5 had the game slowly ramp up into an explosive finish. Game 6 had Mvp play for the mid game as he pulled out the bio tank strat, but instead of playing defensively as he did against Naniwa, he went on the offensive and very nearly crushed his opponent, but Squirtle at the very edge of his rope held on.



And this is the glory of Mvp’s game 7. He had slowed down the pace of the game again in game 4. In game 5 he threw a massive surprise that ramped up the pressure, and anyone other than Squirtle would have cracked. In game 6 he changed the pace again and tried to end it in a fast paced mid-game that didn't work. He had done the best possible of creating an atmosphere where Squirtle was likely to forget the very existence of the 11/11. And he had done it while still maximizing his chance for victories from games 4-6. Yet as expected, it wasn't enough. What makes Mvp’s 11/11 on game 7 so amazing is four things. First, he had gone 6 games without using a single 11/11. Second, Atlantis Spaceship was the worst map in the pool for 11/11 as it had the largest rush distance. Third, it was at game point, with all the glory on the line. Fourth, it was right after a very intense game that could have left Squirtle jittery. And even with all of the psychological warfare, all of that preparation, Squirtle was still aware enough and smart enough to scout and see that Mvp's base had no raxes. And he pushed back the initial push. If this was anyone else the game would have been over, but it was Mvp. The choice Squirtle had always made with his early stalker was to move out. It is a smart move; Squirtle's micro is better than his opponent's so he did not have to fear their marines. Doubly so after a failed 11/11 attempt. But Mvp knew this and had abused it earlier in map 3 by circumventing it. This time Mvp ambushed Squirtle. Mvp used the map architecture to his advantage (putting units behind vision barriers), created a small flank and pulled his SCVs to take the game from Squirtle’s hands and make it his own.







The last thing to talk about when considering Mvp style is what I like to call the Mvp paradox. It isn't something that has only ever happened in SC2. But they always call it something different in each esport. In CS:GO they call it NiP Magic. In FGC they call it the Wong Factor. It is that moment when all seems lost, when the odds are stacked against you; when one of the NiP players is forced to win a crucial round or crucial match against opponents on their best maps in a critical series; when Justin Wong is on his last pixel with no X factor; that they pull out a miracle from nowhere.



In SC2 that is the Mvp Paradox. In all of 2012, there was a very famous mantra that was uttered independently by fans, casters and pros. It often went, “Mvp is injured and jet-lagged, he can't win...but it's Mvp." "Mvp is in his worst matchup against a Godlike player, he can't win....But it's Mvp." or "Mvp doesn't stand a chance, he fled to Europe and he's now playing the best player on Earth....But it's Mvp." "Mvp has to fight BL/infestor against the best zerg playing right now, he can't win...But it's Mvp."







People often call players who do something ballsy "Mvp-esque". Players like Naniwa or sOs or TY, players who are willing to gamble on the last map with an all-in. It is true that daring that bravery is what makes Mvp so special. But it is more than that. It is when, even after your all-in gets scouted and denied, you still win. It is when everything is stacked against you. It is when you are injured; and jet-lagged; and facing the greatest players of that time or all time; to be stuck in a meta that is stacked against you; in your worst matchup; to be put in an untenable situation; and win. It is being down 20 SCVs against the best mechanical player in the world; it is your 11/11 getting denied and creating a plan to win anyway; it is making you believe that a 40 minute, 3 marine attack after climbing back from a 70 supply deficit could win the game.





Mvp vs Life



This is the final fight; it all comes down to this. In terms of prestige the two of them are very much the same. In terms of dominance, again it is the same, even in terms of the paths they took for their major runs. Here is a list of achievements:



Tier 1:

IEM WC - 1st - HuK, July, San, MKP

August 2011 Code S - 1st - MC, Polt, Nestea, HuK, July, MKP

GSL October 2011 Code S - 2nd - Clide, Bomber, Nestea, Ganzi, loss to MMA

GSL Nov 2011 - Top 4 - aLive, MKP, jjakji, GuMiho, sC, loss to Leenock

Blizzcon 2011 - 1st - loss to Nestea, Sen, Nestea

GSL Season 2 Code S 2012 - 1st - loss to Naniwa, Puzzle, Ryung, July, loss to HerO, Leenock, Naniwa, PartinG, Squirtle

WCG Korea - 1st - Happy, Supernova, MKP

WCS EU Season 1 2013 - Stephano

WCS Season 1 Finals - Top 4 - Ryung, Losira, ForGG, loss to INnoVation

Blizzcon 2011 - 1st - loss to Nestea, Sen, Nestea

MLG Providence - Top 4 - Rain, Bomber, loss to MC, HerO, Haypro, MC, loss to Leenock

Blizz Cup 2011 - Top 4 - MC, HerO, Stephano, loss to DRG, Polt, loss to MMA

GSL Season 4 Code S 2012 - 2nd - loss to Taeja, beat MMA twice, MKP, Symbol, Rain, loss to Life



Tier 2

MLG Anaheim - 1st - Ganzi, DRG, Boxer, MMA

IEM Cologne 2012 - 2nd - Nestea, VortiX, Nerchio

IEM WC 2013 - Top 4 - Stephano, loss to YoDa



Tier 3:

WCG 2011 - 1st - No one noteworthy



Life

Tier 1:

GSL Season 4 Code S 2012 - 1st - Nestea, Seed, MKP, Taeja, Mvp

MLG Fall 2012 - 1st - Violet, Taeja, Flash, Leenock

Blizz Cup 2012 - 1st - Sniper, Rain, DRG, Leenock, PartinG

MLG Winter Championship - 1st - Polt, Last, MC, Flash

DH Bucharest - Top 4 - Supernova, loss to Taeja

DH Winter - 2nd - MMA, Polt, StarDust, JYP, Naniwa, INnoVation, loss to Taeja, loss to Taeja again

GSL Season 1 2014 - Top 4 - RorO twice, Maru, loss to soO

IEM Toronto - Top 4 - Scarlett, MC, First, loss to Zest

Blizzcon 2014 - 1st- Zest, San, Taeja, MMA

DH Winter 2014 - 2nd - Taeja, San, Leenock, Bunny, First, loss to ForGG, Taeja, loss to ForGG

SSL - Top 4 - Classic, herO, Dear, loss to Dream

GSL Season 1 Code S 2015 - 1st - GuMiho twice, YoDa, Soulkey, INnoVation, herO, PartinG

IEM Taipei - 1st - ForGG, Soulkey, HyuN, PartinG, Maru



Tier 2:

Iron Squid 2 - 1st - Creator, Leenock, MKP, DRG

IEM NY 2013 - 1st - loss to HyuN, Zest twice (pre Zest godmode), HerO, Curious, Naniwa

DH Bucharest 2014 - 1st - Leenock, StarDust, INnoVation, Impact



Tier 3:

ASUS Northcon - Top 4 - INnoVation, VortiX, loss to Scarlett



Here is a run down.



Mvp in his first GSL beat a Top 2 Z, Top 5 P, Top 4 P, Top 1 Z and Top 2 T. This was about as hard as you could realistically get for any GSL run. Because of that I’ve made it equivalent to Life’s 2013 MLG Winter 2013. There he beat a Top 5 T, Last (Who was plying close to Top 5 level), Top 5 P and Top 3 T. Both were done in the early phases of WoL and HotS respectively. But GSL has more prestige and preparation time and Mvp had harder opponents relative to his time so I added Life’s lackluster Top 4 at ASUS Northcon to even it out.



Jan 2011 Code S - 1st - Fruitdealer, Choya, Trickster, Nestea, MKP

vs

MLG Winter Championship 2013 - 1st - Polt, Last, MC, Flash

Asus Northcon - Top 4 - INnoVation, VortiX, loss to Scarlett



Second we have Mvp’s GSL WC. Many mocked it for having half foreigners but no one has bothered to actually look at Mvp’s path. He had HuK a Top 3 to Top 5 P at worst, July a Top 3 Z, San a Top 2 P and MKP Top 2 terran. He beat 4 of the best 6 players other than himself at the time. Because of that I made it equivalent to Life’s Fall MLG where he beat a Top 5 Z, Top 3 T, Top 5 T and Top 2 Z.



GSL WC - 1st - HuK, July, San, MKP

vs

MLG Fall 2012 - 1st - viOLet, Taeja, Flash, Leenock



Next is Mvp’s August GSL win where he beat Top 1 P, Top 5 T, Top 1 Z, Top 5 P, Top 3 Z and Top 2 T. That may actually be the single hardest run anyone has ever done in GSL in terms of best players in the world. He was only missing MMA. Because of that I made it the same as Life’s 1st in GSL Season 4 2014. There he beat a Top 3 Z, Top 3 P (this was right around the time Seed fell off, but he was still playing well), Top 5 T, Top 3 T and Top 1 T.



August 2011 Code S - 1st - MC, Polt, Nestea, HuK, July, MKP

vs

GSL Season 4 Code S 2012 - 1st - Nestea, Seed, MKP, Taeja, Mvp



Then there is Mvp’s GSL October silver. There he beat a Top 3 T, Top 1 Z, Top 5-10 T and lost to MMA at Blizzcon. This was about the same as Life’s BlizzCup run where he beat a Top 5 Z, Top 3 P, Top 5 Z, Top 2 Z and Top 3 P. While the list is better for Life, the format was worse as it had less players, less preparation and the finals of GSL at Blizzcon increases the prestige.



GSL October 2011 Code S - 2nd - Bomber, Nestea, Ganzi, loss to MMA

vs

Blizz Cup 2012 - 1st - Sniper, Rain, DRG, Leenock, PartinG



After that is Mvp’s 1st in GSL Season 2 Code S 2012. There he beat a Top 5 P, Top 10 T, Top 3 Z, Top 5 P, Top 2 P, and the best protoss. In comparison to that I equated this to Life’s Blizzcon and IEM NY runs. At Blizzcon he beat a Top 1 P (though jet lagged), Top 10 P, Top 2 T and a Top 5 T. The format again was better for Mvp and so was the player list. Yes there was prestige for Life, but the era in which Mvp was playing was worse for terran against protoss than it was for zerg during Blizzcon. Because of that I added in Life’s IEM NY run where he beat Zest (who was a complete non factor at that point), a Top 10 P, Top 10 Z and Naniwa.



GSL Season 2 Code S 2012 - 1st - loss to Naniwa, Puzzle, Ryung, July, loss to Hero, Leenock, Naniwa, PartinG, Squirtle

vs

Blizzcon 2014 - 1st - Zest, San, Taeja, MMA

IEM NY 2013 - 1st - loss to HyuN, Zest twice (pre Zest godmode), HerO, Curious, Naniwa



Next is Mvp’s second place at GSL Season 4 Code S 2012. There he beat a Top 5 T twice, another Top 5-7 T, Top 5 Z, Top 3 P and lost to Life. I decided to equate this to Life’s GSL Season 1 Code S 2015 run as GuMiho was a Top 10 T, YoDa the same, Soulkey was a Top 5-10 zerg, INnoVation was a Top 3 Terran, herO was a Top 3 P and so was PartinG. Again this favors Mvp because he was in the worst era of terran weakness, but to make it fair I threw in his WCG 2011 victory, which didn’t have any notable victories but adds just enough to make it even or in Mvp’s favor.



GSL Season 4 Code S 2012 - 2nd - loss to Taeja, beat MMA twice, MKP, Symbol, Rain, loss to Life

WCG 2011 - 1st - No one noteworthy

vs

GSL Season 1 Code S 2015 - 1st - Gumiho twice, YoDa, Soulkey, Innovation, herO, Parting



In his GSL Nov 2011 run, Mvp got to the Top 4 after beating a Top 5 TvT, Top 3 T, Top 10 T, Top 3 T(could very well have been the best terran as this was Jjakji's peak). I put this even to Life’s run at DH Winter as he beat Top 10 T, Top 5 T, Top 10 P, JYP on a hot streak, Naniwa, Top 3 T before losing to Taeja twice.



GSL Nov 2011 - Top 4 - aLive, MKP, jjakji, Gumiho, sC, loss to Leenock

vs

DH Winter 2013 - 2nd - MMA, Polt, StarDust, JYP, Naniwa, INnoVation, loss to Taeja, loss to Taeja again



Next is Mvp’s Blizzcon title where he beat Sen and Nestea. In terms of prestige it was higher, though the run wasn’t very strong. So I equate this to Life’s DH Bucharest where the only notable player he beat was SuperNova combined with his GSL Season 1 2014 run where he beat RorO (top 5 Z) twice and a Top 3 T to reach the Top 4.



Blizzcon 2011 - 1st - loss to Nestea, Sen, Nestea

vs

DH Bucharest - Top 4 - SuperNova, loss to Taeja

GSL Season 1 2014 - Top 4 - RorO twice, Maru, loss to soO



After that is Mvp’s WCG Korea win against a Top 5 TvT, Top 5 T and Top 2-3 T. I considered this even to Life’s SSL Top 4. He beat Classic (close to Top 5 P), a Top 3 P, Top 10 P before losing to Dream. Both had only dealt with one matchup and in terms of prestige and victory Mvp is ahead by a decent amount. That was why I combined it with Life’s IEM Taipei run. There he beat a Top 10 T, Top 5 Z, HyuN (who had fallen off and was at most a Top 10 Z), Top 3 P and Top 1 T. To balance that out I included Mvp’s Season 1 Finals run where he beat a Top 5 TvT, Top 5 Z and Top 5 T.



WCG Korea - 1st - Happy, SuperNova, MKP

WCS Season 1 Finals - Top 4 - Ryung, Losira, ForGG, loss to INnoVation

vs

SSL - Top 4 - Classic, herO, Dear, loss to Dream

IEM Taipei - 1st - ForGG, Soulkey, HyuN, PartinG, Maru



Now to the nitty-gritty. Life’s DH Winter 2nd place had him defeat a Top 2 T, Top 10 P, Top 10 Z, 2nd best foreigner, Top 10 T and then lost to Top 10 T. Because it was a second place I gave this the equivalent of two of Mvp’s runs. His MLG Providence run where he beat a Top 3 P, Top 5 T, Top 5 P, Haypro (who played the best tournament of his life here), Top 5 P. I then included his IEM WC 2013 run where he beat the best foreigner in Stephano.



MLG Providence - Top 4 - Rain, Bomber, loss to MC, HerO, Haypro, MC, loss to Leenock

IEM WC 2013 - Top 4 - Stephano, loss to YoDa

vs

DH Winter 2014 - 2nd - Taeja, San, Leenock, Bunny, ForGG, loss to ForGG



Here we have Mvp’s Anaheim win where he beat Ganzi (who was playing at a Top 5 T level), Top 2 Z, Top 7-8 T, and a Top 2-3 T. I made this equivalent to Life's title at Iron Squid 2 where he beat Top 3 P, Top 2 Z, Top 6-7 T and Top 3 Z. But Mvp’s Anaheim had more prestige because it was live the entire way through so I had to include the IEM Toronto Top 4 run from Life, and to counter that player pool I had to include Mvp’s Blizz Cup 2011 Top 4 as well.



Blizz Cup 2012 - Top 4 - MC, HerO, Stephano, loss to DRG, Polt, loss to MMA

MLG Anaheim - 1st - Ganzi, DRG, Boxer, MMA

vs

IEM Toronto - Top 4 - Scarlett, MC, First, loss to Zest

Iron Squid 2 - 1st - Creator, Leenock, MKP, DRG



Finally it came down to this. Is Mvp’s IEM Cologne first place greater than Life’s Bucharest? Life did beat a Top 5 T in INnoVation, but in the end the double victories and the bad meta for Mvp carried it out. Life was playing INnoVation on the pre-thor, pre-WM patch so it was highly in favor of ZvT at that time as well.



IEM Cologne 2012 - 1st - Nestea, VortiX, Nerchio

vs

DH Bucharest 2014 - 1st - Leenock, StarDust, INnoVation, Impact



And even after all of that Mvp still has his WCS EU Season 1 2013 over Stephano. In terms of pure results Mvp is ahead though depending on the scaling you could still make an argument for Life. The results themselves aren't definitive and they could be argued either way even though I ended up putting Mvp head by just 1 Tournament.



What really clinches it for Mvp over Life are the extenuating circumstances. Mvp stayed as a Top 3 Terran for 2.5 years. In those 2.5 years the only player that was considered better than him was Nestea and MMA for a total of 5-6 months max. That means Mvp was the Top 1 Terran for 2 of those years and the best player overall for 2 years. Now compare that to Life. Life has been a Top player for 2 years. Like I said in the previous Taeja article, excluding the times he was on Top, there was a massive gap between Life and the top players in the world and the top zerg in the world even though he stayed at or around the Top 5 of his race. Next you count his peak years of performance. They account to 1 year total. The latter half of 2012 to early 2013 and the very end of 2014 to now. Did Life have stronger peak performance? I think so, but I've judged every other player off of consistency and peak performance and looking at the raw numbers that way Mvp is ahead of Life by 1 year as a Top player.



Next you have to talk about innovation. Life changed the way zerg is played, there is no doubt. In the beginning most zergs found it hard to play Life's style and players found it hard to deal with. Yet by 2013-2014 Life’s counter attack heavy style was incorporated by multiple zergs at different points in their careers including Soulkey, Jaedong, Solar, Curious and Byul. Now look at what Mvp has done. He created terran in his own image. With an assist from Jinro, Mvp created the very foundation of macro terran play, how it goes into the early game, mid game and late game. He refined TvT compositions for bio-tank vs bio-tank and created and refined the entire mech vs T style as well as mech vs mech. In TvP he was responsible for popularizing and refining bio-tank compositions, and the marine hellion drop counter attack style of 2012 (which later came back into popularity in 2014). He was the first player to make a build solely for the SCV pull (his games vs PartinG at Season 2 and his games vs Rain in Season 4 2012).



After that is his TvZ. Where MKP went into that matchup guns blazing, it was Mvp who had to find and create and refine solid stable TvZ bio tank builds. He created the mass ghost strategy and got them nerfed. He then created the most important opening in all of TvZ: the hellion banshee. The hellion banshee off of 1 base had been done before (By TOP in his ST games against Nestea), but had been abandoned after the queen range buff. Mvp saw that if you made it more macro oriented off of 2-bases you could keep map control while transitioning into bio or mech. In every terran game until now, even after the countless patches and new units and new strategies in HotS, Mvp remains the foundation from which all terran strategy is based on. It is no surprise that the two major sets that Life has lost in TvZ were against ForGG and Dream. Players who both used the hellion banshee opening as the very base of their strategies in order to defeat Life. Even years after Mvp was last relevant, he is still haunting Life through the metagame.



And finally the most important thing to me: it came down to adversity. Greatness can only be made through adversity. Its great if you win over a large field of players stomping them into the ground and pronouncing yourself as the best there is. And even during the BL/infestor era Life had a hugely tough time with ZvZs while Mvp dominated the GomTvT era. Of course that’s a little unfair to Life. His MLG Winter Championship run was done in a very weak era for zerg (though he dropped off immediately afterwards thanks to the Group of Death). Beyond that is Life’s current run. In the current meta, zerg is a little bit weaker. They have less depth in their players and less Premier wins. But it isn't close to what I’d call being imbalanced.



Compare that to Mvp. In his 2012 Season 2 championship, protoss was having the largest revolution of ideas it had ever had in SC2 up to that point. Every player was pushing forward the meta for them including PartinG, Squirtle, MC, YongHwa, Seed, Creator and Naniwa. In that vortex terran was in a bad state for its first time and was in my mind weaker than zerg is today. Yet Mvp in that environment was forced to created multiple strategies and mind games to compensate and win. Even more telling is the rest of 2012 dubbed the BL/infestor era. In that time the maps were Whirlwind, Daybreak and imitations of Daybreak. Almost all of the maps could be split, every map you could get a secure third, and thus in every map BL/infestor was spawned. Even in difficult metas, Life has had multiple zergs who he could emulate and learn from such as Solar, soO, Soulkey, Dark, Rogue, and Leenock. Other players proposed solutions and Life simply had to master them. In Mvp’s era, he faced the forces of Aiur and withstood the swarm alone. He was innovating for his entire race in a bad map pool against an unbeatable composition and won. In his finals against Life, he was playing against the second greatest player of all time in his prime, in the strongest meta zerg has ever had, with a broken spine, and still took him to the 7th map.



And that is what it comes down to. It is easy to be swept up in the wave of Life. Because when he is on his game, when he is strong, when he is in the zone almost nothing can stop him. He very much looks like the greatest player on earth. When you saw Mvp in 2012, what you saw was a man with a broken neck, broken wrists and broken shoulders. You saw a man stuck with the worst race, a man who had no help from his peers, a man who was fighting on bad maps in the worst meta the game has ever created. You saw a man who was mechanically unable to compete with most of Code S. Everything about him screamed at you, Mvp can not possibly win. And yet he won again and again and again creating the Mvp paradox.



I've tabulated the results. Mvp vs Life is either slightly ahead or even based on your criteria. In terms of longevity, peak and consistency Mvp is ahead. In terms of dealing with adversity, Mvp is ahead. In terms of pure impact on the game, Mvp is ahead. In every intangible quality that I define as the greatest, Mvp is ahead. I don’t know by how much or what exactly Life needs to do to overcome that. Is it 1 major tournament victory, 2, 3? The answer is up in the air.



In Thorin's interviews of pro players, he often asks the question, “Imagine if aliens are invading the world, pick 5 pro players to defend the world. Anyone from any era in their primes.” How you answer that question says a lot about your personal biases and what you value most in a player.



Now let me ask you a question, “Imagine if Earth was attacked by Aliens and you had to elect 1 leader to save us based on SC2 skills alone. And after that the world goes into a world war, then a civil war happens in your country, and the zombie apocalypse occurs, with time traveling robots from the future coming to kill everyone. Oh and the player you choose will be crippled.”



Me? I would choose the Mvp every time, 10 times out of 10. I choose the player whose WoL dominance was so strong Flash considered it a parallel to his own. I choose the player who had the come back miracles of Boxer if Boxer had beaten both iloveoov and Anytime in his finals. I choose the player who created the race and has fundamentally charted its course through history like Savior did for his in BW. I choose the player who fought alone and unaided in the worst meta of his race. I choose the player who could literally not feel the button clicks of his keyboard and mouse. I choose the player whose 11/11 got denied in the final game and still found a way to victory. I choose the player who took the second greatest player of all time to the brink of destruction in the BL/infestor era because he was hitting 30 second timing windows. I choose the player who could make you believe he could win a 70 supply deficit on 1.5 bases against the best zerg on earth. I choose the player who fought and defeated one of the greatest mechanical players of all time down to 11 SCVs against 30.



If you were choosing a player at their best you could convince me of it being one of the other players on this list, any of them. But if you asked me to choose a player and put him at their worst, at 10% of their peak strength in a position where they are in a meta that actively works against them while facing the best player possible, if you’re asking me to choose a player who must defeat all of the greatest odds both inside and outside the game, the answer will always be Mvp. I’d choose Mvp at 50% strength over any other player in the entirety of SC2 at their 50% capacity. For me choosing the Greatest Of All Time is more than just the numbers on the stats sheet, it's more than just looking at who's the best. It is more than consistency and more than innovation. It is all of these combined. It is watching his games years later and still being in complete awe of how he dragged himself across the finish line again and again and again. It is making your name such a legacy that it is invoked as a tautological explanation for the very essence of the words courage and victory.



Hail to the King.







Achievements:Tier 1:GSL WC - 1stAugust 2011 Code S - 1stGSL October 2011 Code S - 2ndGSL Nov 2011 - Top 4Blizzcon 2011 - 1stGSL Season 2 Code S 2012 - 1stWCG Korea - 1stWCS EU Season 1 2013 - 1stWCS Season 1 Finals - Top 4MLG Providence - Top 4Blizz Cup 2012 - Top 4GSL Season 4 Code S 2012 - 2ndTier 2MLG Anaheim - 1stIEM Cologne 2012 - 1stIEM WC 2013 - Top 4Tier 3:WCG 2011 - 1st (No one noteworthy)Greatest Series PlayedMvp vs MMA - GSTL FinalsMvp vs Squirtle - GSTL FinalsMvp vs TOP - GSL August 2011 FinalsMvp vs Naniwa - Season 2 2012 Quarter FinalsMvp vs PartinG - Season 2 2012 Semi FinalsMvp vs Squirtle - Season 2 2012 FinalsMvp vs Rain - Season 4 2012 Semi FinalsMvp vs Leenock - GSL November Semi FinalsMvp vs INnoVation - WCS Season 1 Semi FinalsMvp vs Tefel - WCS EU Season 2 2013Mvp vs Life - GSL 2012 Season 4 FinalsMvp vs MMA - GSL Code S Season 4 2014Mvp vs Slivko - IEM Cologne 2012Mvp vs Snute - Red Bull Online Qualifiers 1Mvp vs DRG - Red Bull Online Qualifiers 2“What was my dream? I just wanted a larger house.” - Mvp http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/367674-interview-lg-im_mvp-life-changed-by-father That small dream would one day spark the beginning of the greatest SC2 player to have ever played the game. Growing up, Mvp’s family was poor, but he was still able to play Brood War. Because of that his father saw his talent and pushed Mvp forward to first become a BW pro, and then eventually become a SC2 pro. That was how the first year of SC2 was written.And in that year, Mvp dominated like none other. He won three GSL titles, 1 MLG, 1 WCG Korea, WCG and Blizzcon. He was de-facto the single best player in the world and he did it by beating all of the other best players in the world to get there again and again and again.After having the greatest year of his pro gaming career, Mvp knew time was running out. He had gotten an injury, one that could never go away. One that ate at him for the rest of his pro gaming career. (http://www.playxp.com/sc2/bbs/view.php?article_id=4047287)Mvp: The fact is that my neck condition is really severe. Because of the pains in my spine, sometimes my arm will go numb (T/N: Like paralysis numb) too. My shoulders feel terrible. Sometimes, I can't even pick up the mouse. There's no choice. I just have to cut down on my practice time. I need to constantly think of new strategies and builds, and test them through practice, but it is really tough to practice. My teeth would be clenched as I sit in front of the computer, but the pain would inevitably force me to stop. To be honest, if a professional gamer can't even go about practicing properly, how can he improve? It's quite a miracle to even be able to maintain at a particular level. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/371249-interview-lg-im_mvp-pt-2-neck-pains-and-family Yet how could he stop? His family was poor and for the first time in his gaming career he was making enough money to support them. And yet retirement was inevitable. With an injury this significant, it would only get harder and harder and harder to practice each day. And the practice he did get would be bad practice as he'd constantly be distracted by the pain. The gap between him and his peers had shrunk, especially since players like DRG and MMA were catching up and an entire new wave of players was bound to rise. Mvp was in a battle against time. He had fulfilled his dream of getting a house, but he wanted to do more for his family which had supported him until then. He didn't want to go out like this, letting the whims of fate rob him of his pro-gaming career before his time.Could Mvp do it? Could he make a miracle happen when all signs were pointing against him? He knew it was possible; after all, he had seen with his own eyes how Nestea created the first miracle of SC2 with his own career. It was then time for Mvp to create the second.Heading into 2012, Mvp held no illusions. In his own words from a 2012 interview: "To be honest, I think that among the players taking part in the GSL, my ability is of a lower rank."He knew without a shadow of a doubt that his time had passed. At the time and even now, I’d have put Mvp as a Ro32 Code S player, on the same level of Ensnare in mid 2011. Even if you looked at the content of his games alone you could see a marked difference in how he was winning his games compared to when he was in dominant form. During his 2011 run he was destroying people off his mechanics and safe play alone. He was like Zest if Zest had better micro. He was like INnoVation if INnoVation had stronger strategic thinking. He was like Taeja if Taeja knew how to perfectly plan a series.Yet he had lost it all and in his wake he knew that he only had three things left in his arsenal: his intelligence, his will and his experience. With these three pieces alone he was going to do the impossible. He was going to create an incredible miracle.In GSL Season 2, he barely scraped by both group stages (losing a set to Naniwa and HerO in each group). It was a time of protoss revolution, a time when protoss was learning and creating and pushing forward a multitude of new builds, compositions, reactions, timings and metas. In that time Naniwa was playing the best games of his life. In that time Mvp was playing some of the worst games of his life in his worst matchup. The pros, fans and experts predicted Naniwa to win in a close series, maybe 3-1 or 3-2, when they met again in the quarter finals. Instead, Mvp won.In the next round, he played PartinG, who was, at that time, playing the best PvT in the world. Mvp had gotten by Naniwa because he had the perfect read and attacked his greed. That meant nothing to PartinG and going into it was utterly confident in his victory claiming a 3-0 victory, “Or maybe 3-1, because you know it’s Mvp.” Again, Mvp won.Squirtle was playing the best protoss in the world and was by consensus the single best player in the world. He had seen both of Mvp’s series earlier and had seen all of Mvp’s TvPs that season. Everyone favored Squirtle. Squirtle favored Squirtle. They had a miniature pre-show where they had gathered pros, casters and fans and every single one of them down to the last man chose Squirtle to win. Who could blame them? After all, Mvp’s mechanics were still that of a Ro32 player at best. He had prepared well for Naniwa, and he had used pure psychological warfare to break PartinG’s soul. Maybe, just maybe, Mvp could win if he created an entirely new strategy, if he completely controlled the psychological warfare from beginning to end and if he caught Squirtle by surprise with a plethora of unpredictable builds. He did, and that was how Mvp created the miracle of his 2012 Season 2 victory.“I think a match of that quality and emotion, even when you include BW matches, is hard to find. I could feel the chills and emotions. Not just this match, but the one before it with the battlecruisers, the atmosphere was perfect. It was the best match hands down.” -TheMarineOne miracle like that could last a lifetime, but this was Mvp. And once more he created a miracle. Once more he dug out inspiration from his mind to find his way to the top. This time he recreated mech in order to defeat the BL/infestor, and won IEM Cologne by creating an entirely new build the world was not ready for.He then went into GSL Season 4 Ro32. He barely scraped out of groups, this time by defeating his long standing rival MMA and reversing the triangle. In the Ro16, he barely beat JYP and then abused the fact that MKP was afraid of his shadow to make it to the Ro8. There he met Symbol, a player people were touting as the next great zerg, the next in line to DRG. A complete macro zerg that had beaten the entire IM team in the greatest reverse sweep in history. Symbol was favored by the fans and the experts to be a 2:1 favorite at the least. Mvp crushed him in a performance that hearkened back to his glory days in 2011; he crushed Symbol on every front.He then had to face Rain, a Top 3 protoss with no equals. Mvp lost the first game on a massive error and it appeared as though he was done. Yet this was when Mvp's mind games started to take affect. Mvp all-ined twice in a row. First it was to instill in the mind of Rain that Mvp was in an aggressive stance. Second it was a decent gamble since one of the two was bound to work. He reached game 4 after winning one all-in and losing the next. It set up game 4 perfectly as Mvp took an economic gamble realizing that Rain would play extra defensively. Mvp lept ahead and drew the series even. In the final game, Mvp knew that Rain was scared and once again got away with a triple orbital build. Shaken, Rain resorted to DTs, but Mvp sensed what the SKT Protoss had planned and prepared to defend. He repelled the DTs and crashed down the gates with an SCV pull to reach the finals once more.And there he met Life, the second greatest player of all time and in the BL/infestor meta. It was a composition that better players with able bodies could not solve, but Mvp—the man and his broken body—knew the trials of the impossible more than anyone else. And he came up with an answer. He tailored a mech build to counter Life's early ling aggression and to strike exactly during the morphing phase of Life's BL transition. He did it for 7 straight games, either because he knew it was his best weapon or because it was all his body was able to do. Against belief, the second greatest player on earth combined with the power of BL/infestor was brought to the very brink of despair, brought to a deciding 7th game. Though he would lose to his heir apparent, the man with a broken body had carried his bones further than anyone could have imagined. That was Mvp's third miracle.He had forced his way to victory three times against all odds and against his own body, against better players and against the very meta itself. His mechanics were that off a Code S castaway, and if this had been any other man he would have stopped. Most great players would have never been able to make the first miracle run happen at all. The greatest players of all time could have, perhaps, conjured one miracle run. Mvp had made three miracles. And then he created a fourth.In the first season of 2013, Mvp moved to WCS EU. He won the tournament midst tepid expectations, and then returned to Korea for the Season 1 Finals. He advanced from the group stages and faced ForGG, a player that had a 94% winrate in TvT. Mvp crushed him. He then had to face the consensus best player on earth, INnoVation. INnoVation was, in many ways, the complete opposite of Mvp. He was KeSPA trained and had god-like mechanics. He was the most skilled player we had ever seen at that point, and he was an aggressive war machine in a meta (the hellbat drop era) that favored his style extremely well. Mvp had spent the last 1.5 years using only his intellect, his willpower, and his experience to win matches. This was a monumental mismatch, and Mvp was once again the underdog. TvT at that point in time was very much a match of mechanics. With the new speed boost it meant that players were forced to simultaneously attack, defend, and micro on multiple fronts, thus leaving Mvp in a hole before the game had even started.In game 2, that nightmare scenario happened. INnoVation killed 23 workers leaving Mvp with 9. INnoVation had 30 workers to Mvp's 9. In a mirror matchup where you can't catch up on workers with either chrono boost or inject. But isn't that what always happens to Mvp? Dead in the water, Mvp decided to create one last miracle. This would be his tombstone, a last reminder in the game of HotS that there will always be only one King. They went into the mid game with INnoVation up 40 supply, and the Machine tried in vain to end the game. Mvp defended with increasing desperation, but each round Mvp closed the supply gap by a handful at a time. He maximized every mistake and made sure that INnoVation could not kill him immediately. Somehow, someway, he reached a max army, scouted perfectly, and evened the game by hitting a perfect timing. From there he showed INnoVation that mechanics weren't everything. That mental fortitude, grace under pressure, will power and strategic decision making were worth so much more when you needed to force a comeback.But no miracle can last forever. In a dying blaze of glory against one of the most mechanically talented players of all time, a player who none of the best players in all of Korea could even scratch except for Soulkey. Mvp won a game 20 scvs down and nearly won the series. This was Mvp's last miracle.I once wrote how IDs in esports are a unique phenomenon that could shed light on a player. By itself the name Mvp is an innocuous, if optimistic, name. And yet how fitting is it that the man named Mvp joined IM to create the hardest miracle year anyone has ever seen in the history of SC2?I have great respect and admiration for all players, both foreign and Korean. I have watched from the very beginning in 2010 to now. I was here for Fruitdealer’s first miracle to Life’s GSL victory over PartinG. And in all of that time I can say this without a shadow of a doubt: there is only one man I have ever recognized as “The King” and his name is Mvp.Play Style:"And when I was watching Mvp games, I didn't have high expectations either. In a way I did personally root against Mvp back then. But to win 2 games against Innovation's prime, his performance was amazing. And to evaluate Mvp's past matches, there was a difference between Mvp and other players when it came to their thoughts. Normally, when the plan they were guarding fails, that's game over for most players. But Mvp constantly changes his plans during the match. When he feels like something doesn't work he takes a detour, his processing speed is very quick. So he can think 'I fell behind this much here but if I gain this much here I can win.' The fact this this process is very versatile allows for more emotion in his matches."- TheMarine, Brood War Analyst/Caster and former Pro-gamer Star 'Hangshow' Season4_Ep 08The most important thing to understand about Mvp’s playstyle is that he started off as an incredibly strong mechanical player who liked to play safe solid strategies because he wanted to maximize the effect of his mechanics as well as his superior understanding of the game. From there, he became terran's biggest early innovator for all three matchups and created the basics and the fundamentals from which all terrans have come to understand their race. There is no other player besides Nestea that has been as influential in the development of their race’s future and present.In TvT he created and refined mech both against bio and against other mech. In ZvT he took MKP’s innovations with marine control and gave it a safe and solid backbone of tank support fire. He was the creator of the most important opener in TvZ, hellion-banshee, and was the father of both the mech and bio transitions from it. In TvZ he also created mass ghosts and subsequently got them nerfed. In TvP he was responsible for the SCV pull, and for that INnoVation and Flash are eternally grateful.Even beyond his innovations, Mvp had the largest variety of builds of every terran player to have ever played. He could use anything against anyone at any time. He was one of the few players to have used mech against protoss; he has also used bio tank; and is the only one to have ever gone Max Battlecruisers against them. In a sense Mvp had every build and every composition in his play book which also helped him become the greatest preparation player of all time in SC2.Mvp was also incredibly creative. I’ve mentioned his mech games already, but if there was one game that displayed that creativity it was the first game he had against TOP in the GSL Finals.Here is what you need to know. First, TOP was an incredible TvT player, one of the best that era. Second, he was one of the few mech TvT players along with Mvp that understood exactly how to defend, transition, and split the map. During the game, both players constantly fought for the tactical high ground in order to secure bases while harassing each other in turns. Near the end of the game, they had split Daybreak and had made it no man's land. At this point in the TvT meta (even now) it is very possible for the entire map to be mined out. Doubly so when medivacs didn't have speed boost to guide them over defensive turret rings. In this case Artosis predicted correctly that the game would go on for a very long time as the two players fought for incremental pixels to further their positioning. What he didn't see was Mvp prepare for the end game. Mvp never ever let himself get caught out of position for the entirety of the game and never let TOP gain a single edge. And during that time Mvp slowly fed away his SCVs to TOP while he built a mega death fleet. And when he was ready Mvp unleashed hell on Daybreak.Mvp executed the single greatest tactical move to ever be done in a TvT. One that has never been outdone even 4 years later. He trained 4 ghosts, built 4 ghost academies, readied 4 nukes, prepared 4 medivacs, assembled 3 Thors, gathered 8 ravens and amassed 35 vikings. He lifted his thors and ghosts into his medivacs and used his vikings and ravens to shield their transport as they flew into TOP's main. Mvp unloaded and proceeded to ravage the main with his thors while blanketing the entrance to the main with nukes. TOP was locked out of his own base and it disappeared in the blink of an eye. With no choice but to defend, TOP was drawn out of position, allowing Mvp to break the center and take the game (and, incidentally, TOP's career as a top player)."How he never gives up and goes down dragging his opponent reminds me of Boxer."- Um Jae Kyung, Brood War Caster Star 'Hangshow' Season4_Ep 08Yet you cannot talk about Mvp's style without mentioning his tenacity. Most people remember his insane comebacks against Tefel or INnoVation. But there is one that people usually forget. In the GSL Novermber semi-finals, Mvp played against Leenock. Leenock had just come off his MLG Providence victory and was declared (and with good reason) to be the single strongest player on the planet. And in game 2 of that series Leenock crushed Mvp's attack to earn a massive lead 58 drones to 10, 120 supply to 60—no, this is not a typo. At the 20 minute mark Tastosis had rightly declared the game was over. But it was Mvp. Mvp fought back with every scrap of energy, every trick, every move, to the very last mineral and forced that game to extend for 20 more minutes, fighting from deficits of 140 supply to 70, 120 to 60, 70 to 20 and 40 to 20. It was awe inspiring and even when he looked dead for the 20th time, a voice in the back of your mind kept reminding you, "But it's Mvp."Mvp should be dead. - ArtosisHow many times have we said that this game? - TastelessThere is not a single player in the entirety of SC2 that has ever gotten close to the skill in preparation that Mvp has. To be fair no other player has ever had to win a GSL almost solely on preparation and psychological warfare either. For this I will only focus on one series, Mvp vs Squirtle Season 2 2012 Finals.Mvp knew Squirtle had seen every one of his series from that GSL and had probably seen every one of his TvP series since becoming a pro-gamer. By then Mvp was known for a few things: all-ins, standard bio play, bio+tank, and the 1-1-1. Not only that, but Mvp knew he was by far the weaker player while Squirtle was on top of the world. Mvp ranked himself among the lower tier of players. So in game 1, Mvp opened with a build he had never used in that season: a 1 base marine hellion medivac attack to counter Squirtle when he moved out. The surprise worked and Mvp won the game.Artosis once said, “The Cheesiest thing a cheesy player can do is play macro.”At the time Mvp was very much the premier cheddar distributor in TvP. So he went for a macro game. In that game he blindly assumed Squirlte would go for a templar army and was caught off guard as Squirtle had instead gone for collosus. But Mvp prevailed and in a move that would have made Polt proud, Mvp got a massive surround on Squirtle’s max army and EMP’d the sentries to win the battle and the game.Now up two games with two surprise strategies he came onto Antiga Shipyard. The idea here was simple and played to his strengths while negating Squirtle’s. He’d move out with a marine push which was fairly standard at the time, but he would not attack head on. Instead Mvp decided to wait for Squirtle's stalkers to move out and counter attacked from an immediate position. Instead of fighting in the middle of the map where stalkers could dance around his marines, Mvp fought where Squirtle's micro could not be used at all. And with that he won the game.Three games, three different strategies. Game 1 and Game 3 had worked as planned. Game 2 hadn't worked out, but Mvp was still able to find a way to clutch it out. He had used three builds and variations of builds that Squirtle had never really seen him use before. At this point, Mvp had probably negated Squirtle’s entire pre-match preparation. He had caught him off guard as he had gone aggressive -> standard -> aggressive in the series keeping Squirtle mentally unbalanced.But Squirtle back then was known for being a clutch player. He had proven that in his IPL 4 runner-up rampage which many believed he had only lost because of pure exhaustion, mental strain and fatigue. He had just played a 3 day marathon, he had just lost the most controversial GSTL series of all time, he had come from the lower bracket and had to win double Bo5 against a Top 3 TvP player in the world.If this was any other player, if this was sOs or Maru or INnoVation they’d have tried to end it all here with a cheese. After all you’re 3 games up, why not take the risk and go for the “easy” win. Why not just go for 4 11/11s in a row and hope one of them sticks? But that is the difference between them and Mvp. Because Mvp understood that 11/11 was his last and only silver bullet. The one build that could negate Squirtle’s incredible strength in the mid game and late game. But a bullet Squirtle had seen too many times, a build Mvp had already used a huge amount of times to get to the finals.Of all of Mvp’s builds, his best chance was the 11/11. But the strength of the 11/11 is built on the surprise factor. It isn't like in TvZ where Maru can use it and either kill or easily transition against whoever he’s playing against. In addition to that Mvp could only use it on 2 player maps, leaving it for Daybreak, Cloud Kingdom, Dual Sight and Atlantis Spaceship. And more importantly, Mvp understood Squirtle. He knew Squirtle had it in him to be mentally clutch (Squirtle had proven it in his IPL Finals). So with 4 games left to go, he had to simultaneously find three strategies that gave him the best chance of winning while making Squirtle forget about the 11/11. That meant he had to go for three macro builds. So in game 4, Mvp tried to macro hoping Squirtle would just crack. Squirtle was back to form and won.It is game 5, 6 and 7, and the ordering of them that makes Mvp’s series against Squirtle such a masterpiece. In Game 5 he slowed down the pace and split the map. He then unveiled a strategy never seen before in the history of SC2: maxed 3/3 Battlecruisers. But Squirtle, in one of the greatest moments of SC2’s entire history, vortexed the army and won the game.Game 5 was brilliant by both players. But for Mvp he had created an entire new strategy that could only be used on one map, that fit the criteria of being a surprise punch Squirtle would not expect while at the same time making Squirtle’s mindset be more lax to early game pressure.Game 6 was a continuation of what Mvp had done in Game 5, but in reverse. Game 5 had the game slowly ramp up into an explosive finish. Game 6 had Mvp play for the mid game as he pulled out the bio tank strat, but instead of playing defensively as he did against Naniwa, he went on the offensive and very nearly crushed his opponent, but Squirtle at the very edge of his rope held on.And this is the glory of Mvp’s game 7. He had slowed down the pace of the game again in game 4. In game 5 he threw a massive surprise that ramped up the pressure, and anyone other than Squirtle would have cracked. In game 6 he changed the pace again and tried to end it in a fast paced mid-game that didn't work. He had done the best possible of creating an atmosphere where Squirtle was likely to forget the very existence of the 11/11. And he had done it while still maximizing his chance for victories from games 4-6. Yet as expected, it wasn't enough. What makes Mvp’s 11/11 on game 7 so amazing is four things. First, he had gone 6 games without using a single 11/11. Second, Atlantis Spaceship was the worst map in the pool for 11/11 as it had the largest rush distance. Third, it was at game point, with all the glory on the line. Fourth, it was right after a very intense game that could have left Squirtle jittery. And even with all of the psychological warfare, all of that preparation, Squirtle was still aware enough and smart enough to scout and see that Mvp's base had no raxes. And he pushed back the initial push. If this was anyone else the game would have been over, but it was Mvp. The choice Squirtle had always made with his early stalker was to move out. It is a smart move; Squirtle's micro is better than his opponent's so he did not have to fear their marines. Doubly so after a failed 11/11 attempt. But Mvp knew this and had abused it earlier in map 3 by circumventing it. This time Mvp ambushed Squirtle. Mvp used the map architecture to his advantage (putting units behind vision barriers), created a small flank and pulled his SCVs to take the game from Squirtle’s hands and make it his own.The last thing to talk about when considering Mvp style is what I like to call the Mvp paradox. It isn't something that has only ever happened in SC2. But they always call it something different in each esport. In CS:GO they call it NiP Magic. In FGC they call it the Wong Factor. It is that moment when all seems lost, when the odds are stacked against you; when one of the NiP players is forced to win a crucial round or crucial match against opponents on their best maps in a critical series; when Justin Wong is on his last pixel with no X factor; that they pull out a miracle from nowhere.In SC2 that is the Mvp Paradox. In all of 2012, there was a very famous mantra that was uttered independently by fans, casters and pros. It often went, “Mvp is injured and jet-lagged, he can't win...but it's Mvp." "Mvp is in his worst matchup against a Godlike player, he can't win....But it's Mvp." or "Mvp doesn't stand a chance, he fled to Europe and he's now playing the best player on Earth....But it's Mvp." "Mvp has to fight BL/infestor against the best zerg playing right now, he can't win...But it's Mvp."People often call players who do something ballsy "Mvp-esque". Players like Naniwa or sOs or TY, players who are willing to gamble on the last map with an all-in. It is true that daring that bravery is what makes Mvp so special. But it is more than that. It is when, even after your all-in gets scouted and denied, you still win. It is when everything is stacked against you. It is when you are injured; and jet-lagged; and facing the greatest players of that time or all time; to be stuck in a meta that is stacked against you; in your worst matchup; to be put in an untenable situation; and win. It is being down 20 SCVs against the best mechanical player in the wo