It’s strange how victories are followed by brief marriages. The champion strides out of his booth, infused with the heraldic power of the winner, and is presented with his bride. He picks her up, sometimes grinning, sometimes weeping, draws her golden curvature to him, and, right in the light of the cameras and the roar of the crowds, kisses that dear old trophy.
It must feel good being Nestea. Does he have dreams - does any champion? - where the trophy sneaks into his bed as he sleeps, and, just barely calling him back to wakefulness, whispers, pucker up, fella?
I would wager not. That is the province of the loser. But let’s not go there. Let’s spare No.2 the embarrassment. Let’s not remind him of his failure. We were cruel enough to keep from him the bronze, after all, giving him silver instead, and silver shines just enough to draw the magpie.
I’m being very matrimonial about this but shall we recognize that it takes more than one to make good Starcraft? Where would Bisu be without his sAviOr? See: the answer’s already in the question. In a sense, the loser makes the winner. More precisely, the quality of the defeated makes the quality of the victor. A lot is riding on our friend, No.2; much depends on his cooperation, on his willingness to be the greater fool.
It’s nothing personal, these are just the constraints of the game. Starcraft seldom produces a veto, so it never accepts one. You either go with it or you don’t. Why anyone is ever surprised that a favorite may lose in the round of 32 is the stuff of wildest fantasy. “Everybody knows only amateurs play in the round of 32,” the fans seem to cry. “The good players start in the quarter finals only.”
Results are deceiving. A best of three enforces advancement and elimination, but as a measure of skill it is anything but universal. Personal value is only loosely related. It is by no means the final word. What’s more, we know the game lies in the performance, not the statistic.
(Just ask yourself when you last saw your friendly neighborhood Broodlord without his cadre of Infestors. It’s a bit like a politician and his muscle: they only allow babies and their motherships in the vicinity.)
But let’s get back to No.2. I’d like to ask MarineKing a question. Was he in any way worried that his brief stay at the top would expire before getting the chance to win Code S? One would argue a real champion doesn’t particularly care about any single title, in the same way a writer doesn’t particularly care about any single idea. To be either of the former is to have an abundance of either of the latter.
I know: it’s unfair to single out MarineKing. He did make plenty of winners before being made one himself.
