Twelve years ago, the aspiring terran player Yo-Hwan Lim appears on the BroodWar scene, wielding his race as none before him. His unmatched understanding of the game and uncanny control pave a highway to a total domination and by the end of 2001, he would become the most known name to have ever played the game. He’d become a StarCraft icon, a living legend, an emperor. A bonjwa
Later in the years, four more players would dominate their era unrivaled and join that monarch in being called “bonjwas” before the tome with pages of yore called BroodWar history is closed and the term left to gather dust. With StarCraft now in the era of its sequel, the historians of new are still cautious about revisiting that particular title, knowing that it's necessary for it's meaning to be revisited considering the differences between the two scenes.
Today, as another terran player named Mvp is on his way to accomplish the unthinkable in a historic GSL final, we ask the question “Has it been long enough?” and isn’t it time to bring the “bonjwa” stamp back in circulation?
The BroodWar years
Traceable all the way back to 2008, Mvp’s progaming career starts horribly. The first two years of playing BroodWar get the Woongjin B-teamer nowhere and by early 2010 he has three poor GOM Classic runs, a 5-15 record in Proleague 08-09, a 5-12 in Proleague 09-10 and one Ro32 OSL exit – results that in the years of reigning bonjwas and tyrants meant complete tournament eclipse for the young terran.
Not until he enters the Hana Daetoo MSL in the spring of 2010 does Mvp show any indications that he might have a future in professional StarCraft. Placed in a Ro32 group with Stork, Hydra and BeSt, MVP would play a solid, nothing-out-of-the-ordinary macro terran and finish second. That proves to be the biggest bullet dodging for the MSL Cinderella as finishing first would have meant playing Jaedong and not Baby in the next round.
As if qualifying from such star-laden company is not impressive enough, Mvp proceed to 2-0 Baby who, at that point, carries a nine wins out of ten games record, his victims including Jaedong, Stork, ForGG and July. Mvp’s momentum continues in the playoffs as well and after forty-five minutes of TvT action, Flash suffers his first loss after a twelve-game win streak. The “Ultimate Weapon” is left with something to think about during the one-week pause before the conclusion of the series.
Sadly for Mvp, Flash does think about it and returns reinvigorated, dealing the underdog three losses in a row and casting him out of the MSL. Coincidentally, this will not only mark the end of Mvp’s story but also be the last time he would make the BroodWar headlines. The magic run dries for Jong-Hyun and he tops the MSL elimination with more and more losses until on July 3, 2010 he plays his last televised BroodWar match (a loss to Kal that casts him out of the Bigfile MSL in the Ro32) and finish this chapter of his life with a total record of 30-36 (39.47% win rate), statistics that are disappointing by any standards.
The rise, the fall, the rival
With the launch of StarCraft 2 in 2010, a chance is given to MVP to reboot his career and start a new climb to the top. In October the same year, he enters the scene as one of the big hopes of team IM, an aura somewhat strengthened by his recently active, albeit unremarkable, BroodWar career.
Whatever hype surrounded MVP, however, is not backed up by results at first and early exits in GSL 2 and 3 after 1-2 to Zenio and 0-2 to Choya keep him away from the spotlight. Being the first to hit 3000 points on the ladder would only steal so much attention from the big of the day and for the most part, Mvp’s first steps into StarCraft 2 are humble at best.
Mvp would have to wait till 2011 before making a break and erupting as the first champion of the new year, pinning his first gold medal at the small in prize but heavily stacked on talent Gainward Tournament. Although winning him just a little over $4,000, Mvp’s 12-1 run through the tournament not only puts him on the map but also hands him victories over a BroodWar bonjwa, a GSL champion and one who would later the same month become his first and only rival. A new StarCraft 2 god and all that defines him is born, inarguably Gainward’s only contribution to eSports.
At that point of time, Mvp’s playstyle is much more an adaptation to the early 2011 meta than something revolutionary, or at least this is what it looks like on first sight. His heavy preference towards bunker rushes and early aggression are only the lobby that leads into Mvp’s biggest strength: quicker expansions and unstopping and unfaltering unit production that would later win him the nickname “Game Genie Terran”. As time goes by, the emphasis on macro play in Mvp’s style grows larger, its culmination happening in the grand finals of GSTL in a match against Squirtle - a game still considered one of the best late-game TvPs ever played.
Not letting his new fame fade into nothingness, Mvp would coin another championship in the first ever Code S after an even more impressive 16-1 record and victories over not one but two GSL champions. This triumph becomes the next cornerstone in Mvp’s career as he becomes the first terran GSL champion and the first to not lose a single map in the final, 4-0’ing rising star MarineKing in his own game of marine-centric action.
Four, as in 4-0
Before the end of spring 2011, MVP and MarineKing will play each other one more time in the GSL World Championship finals, making the rivalry even more official and weaving one of the best and most popular recurring themes in StarCraft 2 that, to this day, has been manifested in a total of seven instances with MVP coming ahead each and every time. Although of varying importance, these face-offs would become an inseparable part of Mvp’s being and, in late 2011, make him a champion of the world for a second time in one year.
Soon after the January finals, however, the avalanche that is MVP starts to slow down and, barring the World Championship, a look from above betrayed an unpleasant vista of a champion down in Code A, fighting tooth and nail to restore his status. A Ro32 elimination from the Super Tournament strikes another blow to Mvp’s reputation and so does the poor performance at Code S July, only the revamped format of which saves Mvp from another trip down to Code A. Statistics freaks would point out the subpar 18-15 record in individual leagues in the period between March 1st and July 27th, making videos like this one seem premature and obsolete. What average players would call an OK win ratio was a total disaster for a player of Mvp’s renown. And although fans of the Game Genie never stopped believing in their idol, it was a field day for the skeptics: could this have been the end of MVP’s golden era?
Resurgence
As Korean tournaments turn their back on him, Mvp has to travel abroad as part of the recently established MLG/GSL partnership to experience his rebirth. Going undefeated in his group sends Mvp to the upper bracket semi-finals but not until his victories over DongRaeGu, Boxer and finally MMA – the player that had, at that time, taken over Mvp’s throne as world’s hottest terran – does Mvp truly win his divine status back.
The MLG trophy opens the valve to an influx of high finishes that by the end of 2011 make Mvp something exceptional, a specimen like no other. As his style continues to evolve and improve, growing from a simple macro builds into something that pioneered heavy ghost-play in TvZ and again set new standards for how terran should be played, Mvp grows fatter and fatter on championships, crushing everything and everyone with unstoppable velocity. The months Anaheim win him another Code S title, a fourth Code S grand final and a Blizzcon championship in a time-frame of one weekend, the WCG Korea gold and the WCG Grand Final trophy, making him the first ever WCG world champion for StarCraft 2.
SC2's first World Champion - a none too shabby title to wrap up the year with
The raging beast will not calm down until mid-December 2011 when Mvp makes his last tournament appearance for the year, finishing “only” fourth in the Blizzard Cup. The final reckoning? 103-33 in international and 52-24 in Korean matches since MLG Anaheim for a total of 73% win rate and two twelve- and one eleven-game win streaks, records that would erase the embarrassing performance earlier that year. With six premier and five major/other golds, two team league championships, four more grand finals and five more top fours, the year belongs to IM_Mvp, leaving every other so called top contender far behind.
At that point there is not a sliver of doubt: the first StarCraft 2 bonjwa was in the making.
2012: Against all odds
After the explosive 2011, 2012 starts glacially slow for MVP, something not entirely his fault. Wrist pains remind the IM ace that even gods are fragile and following a bad GSL Season 1 run and equally terrible MLG Winter Arena, the talks about Mvp’s demise resurface. During one of the most heavily stacked periods of StarCraft 2 talent-wise, the odds of a dazzling return for the Game Genie seem to grow smaller by the second.
GSL Season 2 starts shakily for MVP as well. His two second places in the group stage get him to the playoffs but, all in all, the king of 2011 is still overshadowed by GSL’s youngsters like Squirtle, Parting, HerO, Taeja and Naniwa, the latter experiencing a career resurgence of his own.
The way fans perceive MVP does not change with the coming of playoffs and, probably for the first time in his career, he is counted as the underdog in every single match. Cheesing his way through the quarter final against Naniwa also pins a very impulsive badge of flack as Swede’s fans would condemned Mvp for having lost his edge and being afraid of an honest, real match against Naniwa’s late-game. With a semi-final series against world’s best PvT-er inbound, the bigger part of the StarCraft world is certain in one thing: this can very well be the end of Mvp.
Said world fails to account for one thing, however: Mvp’s unmatched ability to plan a BoX.
Seasoned in more championships than anybody else, Mvp comes prepared and tears apart Parting’s colossus/templar playstyle by surgically piercing its mid-game vulnerability. It’s not a back-to-back race, it’s a slaughter and Parting is dealt his first BoX PvT loss since mid-2011.
Mvp’s victory is so tremorous that even the grand final finds it hard to top it and has to go into full seven games before ending in a dramatic fashion and with a gold for the terran god. As Jong-Hyun walks on stage to receive his fourth GSL title, the striking resemblance between Mvp’s early career and the start of 2012 cannot be overlooked: the slow beginning, the following gold medal and the epic game against Squirtle are all there, pieces now pulsing with augural energy.
Soon thereafter, Mvp falls into slump once again, his place in the spotlight taken by another terran (the SlayerS-gone-Liquid Taeja) and the plot continues to strictly follow the patterns from last year. Even his win-rates are strikingly similar and in the period between 20th of May and 15th of August Mvp is at 52% win-rate, just 2% lower than the one from last summer. And if 2011 taught Mvp’s analysts one thing it’s that such a slump can only be broken by, that’s right, a trip abroad to a premier foreign event.
IEM Hanover catches Mvp and the SC2 meta in general in a period of total zerg dominance over terran after the changes to the ghost have essentially erased the unit as a viable counter to brood lords. Mvp’s flight lands in an swarm-infested Europe with every zerg - from rising star Vortix to hailing from a HSC V gold Nerchio - more than capable (or even preferring) to play the late-game style. Once again, Mvp is against all odds.
Many “unbalanced” TvZs and many seeker missiles shrapnels later, the Game Genie is champion once again for the sixteenth time in less than two years of professional career. And as he prepares for his fifth Code S grand final - number no one has ever gone close to let alone achieve - there is little doubt today what Mvp truly is.
The first StarCraft 2 bonjwa.
