Bisu will always be remembered best for that one magical evening ten years ago when he took down Ma "sAviOr" Jae-yoon against all odds: the 3.3 Revolution, the least expected and most significant upset in Brood War history. It is still celebrated in the Korean esports community every year on the third of March. Its context has been chronicled to exhaustion, deservedly so. And as long as StarCraft esports exists, it will live on as folktale, even if the characters fade into Homeric caricatures over time.

Yet looking back on what came after, one cannot help but wonder if his early claim to timeless glory ultimately held him back from achieving all he could have. And that sounds patently ridiculous because Bisu is undoubtedly the greatest Protoss to have played the game; what more could you want from a player who won 3 MSLs, 5 Proleague titles, 3 Proleague MVPs, and was always considered the crown jewel of SK Telecom T1's golden armada? But despite all that, it's undeniable that he had the talent to win so much more, fly so much higher. Anyone with the faintest understanding of the professional game could see it, and was pained by it, until the end.

Last November, roughly two weeks before his leave for the army, Bisu conducted over the phone what would be his final interview with the media. He had always been simultaneously open and reticent in interviews — charming, polite, approachable, willing to share a few funny stories but never giving away much beyond that — so it was expected to be a formality. Largely it was. Yet amidst the cheerful but banal exchange was a theme: acceptance and happiness.

"I think we should just be proud and happy that the game has lived on for so long, and focus on enjoying what time we have left together," he said, regarding the scene's recent decline.

"I would give my career an 80 out of 100," he said, acknowledging both his post-2008 drought in premier singles tournaments and his perennial consistency in Proleague.

"I feel very fortunate and grateful to have had so many fans who liked me as a person, and kept cheering for me regardless of whether I was playing well. I guess I was pretty good when I was a pro," he said, reminiscing his post-KeSPA years as a streamer, during which he continued to disappoint in tournaments but remained ever popular. "I'm a lucky man."

Everything he said was perfectly reasonable. It's unlikely that the game will again become mainstream; 80 is a fair and objective score; and yes, he was pretty damn good as a pro. Yet it also showed the lamentable leniency of his disposition.

Bisu might be the only Brood War legend devoid of the desperate, greedy kind of ambition shared amongst top players. While he always was a practice-room workhorse and a model professional, he had little of the self-destructive drive that every other all-time great possessed. Lee "Jaedong" Jae-dong and Lee "FlaSh" Young-ho, for instance, would never have given themselves an 80 out of 100 had they failed to reach a single OSL/MSL final for 4 straight years.

Bisu admitted to as much. "Compared to Jae-dong or Young-ho, I guess I didn't have that much ambition," he said. "Maybe, back then, a part of me subconsciously thought that I didn't need to try as hard since in Proleague I had already done well enough."

Brian Phillips once wrote that the saddest moment in the career of a great athlete is the one when he's tagged with the word "still", as in "still fast". But this never applied to Bisu, for until the very end he was fast, not still fast. So perhaps there should be an addendum: an equally sad moment is when the athlete tags himself with the word "enough", as in "well enough".

One cannot help but wonder. Had Bisu not attained immortality so early on in his career, had he needed much more glory to secure his place in history — what heights could have he reached?