[3. rész] A Proleague jó, rossz és nevetséges

The Surprising Second Best* Individual Season in Proleague HistoryWhen discussing the greatest individual seasons in Proleague history, 2016 should be the year that comes immediately to mind. Jin Air’s Maru went 22-4 for a 85% win-rate, the highest of any player in SC2 Proleague history (among players who played in at least 25% of their team’s matches). Statisztikák 27-9-es mérleggel és 75%-os győzelmi aránnyal követte őt, ami minden idők harmadik legmagasabbja ilyen kritériumok mellett.

In that case, who’s second place? It’s not Flash or Rain—both of whom won a ton of games for their teams in the first two years of StarCraft II Proleague. It’s not INnoVation, who, despite being regarded as one of the greatest team league players of all time, never managed to get above the 70% seasonal win-rate threshold in Proleague.

Úgy gondolom, hogy szinte minden olvasó meg fog lepődni, amikor megtudja, hogy 2013 Klasszikus is the player with the second highest single-season win-rate in Proleague history at 80%*. Even if you’re familiar with Classic for his 2014-2015 peak, his anti-Zerg heroics in 2019, or his present-day resurgence after military service, you may have forgotten about how he first ‘arrived’ on the scene in 2013.

For the first half of 2013 season (technically 2012/13 since the season started in December of 2012, but let’s not make things too complicated), Classic was a largely irrelevant Terran player on STX-Soul, putting up a mere 2-7 record in the first half of the Proleague season. Then, as Proleague took a break at the halfway mark and prepared for the transition to Heart of the Swarm, Classic did something that seemed insane at the time: he switched to Protoss.

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A Classic annyira jó volt 2013-ban, hogy az adás folyamatosan megszakadt, miközben igyekezett lépést tartani az erejével

As it turned out, this turned out to be a career-making decision. In the second half of the season, playing HotS Protoss, Classic earned a hugely impressive 16-4 record for a 80% win-rate. One of those wins actually came in the last game of the entire Proleague season, with the new-look, elite-Protoss version of Classic taking the championship clinching victory over Woongjin’s Flying in the grand finals. All with just a half a year of Protoss experience!

Of course, you can see why all those asterisks were required. Protoss-Classic played in barely 25% of STX Soul’s total matches that season, and was thus more of an elite utility-player than a super-ace like 2016 Maru and Stats. However, when you consider that Classic basically became a high-level Protoss immediately after picking the race up, his achievements during the second half of the 2013 Proleague season definitely deserve special recognition. It’s almost certain we’re never going to see such a successful race change again, unless the balance council overcorrects wildly in favor of Protoss and Reynor decides to adapt.

Befurakodunk a szívünkbe: az indulás soha meg nem valósult ígérete

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Meg akarod nézni ezt

A Proleague egyik meghatározó furcsasága, talán még a Brood War idejére visszamenőleg, a Zerg specialista jelenléte volt. Míg az olyan játékosok, mint a GoRush, ZerO, Soulkey és soO szilárd, sokoldalú játékukkal és alkalmazkodóképességükkel rányomták bélyegüket a színtérre, furcsán sok zerg is akadt, akik szellemességgel és ravaszsággal boldogultak. Míg a legtöbbjüknek egyszerűen hiányzott a mechanika ahhoz, hogy versenyezzen a legjobb játékosokkal, mások úgy tűnt, csak a saját kedvéért élvezték a furcsaságokat.

Egyesek, mint például a Dark, a Rogue és a Ragnarok, idővel nem csak Proleague mesterlövészekké válnak. Sajnos mások soha nem gyakoroltak tartós hatást a pro-StarCraft II-re. Annak ellenére, hogy évek óta professzionális StarCraftot játszottunk, az olyan nevek, mint a Check, Sleep és Horror, elvesztek a történelem történetében.

If there’s one Zerg I want to rescue from this abyss—if just for a single TL.net article—it would be Team MVP’s Indulás. 2015-ben egy rövid ideig a hipszterek kedvence volt az élő riportszálakban, egyike azoknak a sötét lovaknak, akiknek végül kitör a szezonja. A Proligában elért rekordja kevésbé volt irigylésre méltó (0-ben 7-2014-re, 5-ben 9-2015-re végzett), de épp elég bátorságot és potenciált mutatott a rajongók számára ahhoz, hogy reménykedjenek.

Nincs jobb példa DeParture egyedi kreativitására, mint a herO elleni játéka a 3-ös Proleague-kampány 2015. fordulójában. A szokásos kezdés után DeParture elsietett a Burrow frissítésével, amelyről a görgők azt gyanították, hogy megakadályozza a herO terjeszkedését. Helyesek voltak, de kissé rövidlátóak – DeParture valami sokkal érdekesebbet gondolt a folytatásként. Ahogy HerO rájött, hogy nem tudja megszerezni a harmadikat, Departure elindított egy Roach Warrent, egy csomó drónt és egy második ROACH WARREN-t???

With Burrow already acquired, Departure used his double Roach Warrens to research both Glial Reconstitution AND Tunneling Claws. As was often the case at this pre-Ravager time, Sentries made up a huge portion of herO’s early/mid-game army. Normally this would prevent all but the most committed Zerg attacks, but with both Roach upgrades done early, DeParture casually sharked under each Force Field wall herO hastily put up. herO did an admirable job at stalling given that he was down 35 to 115 in army supply, but ultimately he was just setting himself up for a FanTaSy GG-timing. No, it wasn’t the first or last double-Roach Warren strategy we’d see in pro StarCraft II, but it was still a hell of a stylish way for an underdog to take down the opposing ace.

When herO finally conceded the match, it was heartwarming to see the sheer joy on Departure’s face from having picked up such a valuable point. Settling back down on the bench, he tried to hide that his eyes were welling up, but we knew what he was feeling at that moment.

Unfortunately, for a player who had toiled in obscurity from day one, this was the highlight of DeParture’s Proleague career. In many respects, this is the perfect distillation of the dark side of progaming. For each Maru, who has earned over a million dollars and routinely appears on the grandest stages, there are dozens of DePartures whose names have been mostly forgotten (not to mention the trainees who we never learned about to begin with). I don’t know what happened to Departure afterward, and I don’t dare to claim that his victory against herO made all of his effort worth it. At the very least, I hope that when he looks back on this match, the tears in his eyes aren’t those of regret.

Sonic addig menti meg a StarCraftot, amíg meg nem teszi

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Ha emiatt nem veszel cipőt, akkor nem tudom, mi lesz

Újra és újra költőileg magyaráztam, milyen nagyszerű volt 2015, amikor szóba került a StarCraft II. Az SSL, Code S és Proleague kombinációja a non-stop StarCraft II-hez készült – mindegyik az addigi legmagasabb szinten játszott. A helyzet jóban-rosszban a hírhedt üzletember Szonikus nagy szerepet játszott az egészben. Nos, az egész Sonic-saga túl silány ahhoz, hogy itt teljes egészében összefoglaljam (referenciaként egy TL.net szál), so we’ll give you the short version.

Sonic was a caster, tournament organizer, and StarCraft super-fan who happened to spend quite a bit of money on a variety of StarCraft-related ventures. At the time, we didn’t really question where the money was coming from—we just assumed that AfreecaTV streaming was lucrative and that Sonic’s new sneaker business SBENU must be doing really well. Initially Sonic focused his efforts on post-KeSPA Brood War, but eventually got involved in the SC2 scene.

2015 tavaszán, amikor az egykori nagyszerű StarTale csapat a halálos ágyán feküdt (mi korábban megérintette StarTale’s sponsor woes), Sonic swooped in to make SBENU the new title sponsor. Not only that, but Sonic and SBENU replaced Korean search-giant Naver as the primary sponsor of the SSL heading into Season 2 (which was known for the rest of the year as the SBENU StarCraft II StarLeague).

I don’t want to say Korean StarCraft II was ‘dying’ at the time, but it sure wasn’t growing. Any influx of new money was welcomed by the scene, which was too used to seeing SK Telecom and Hot6ix sponsor the vast majority of events.

In hindsight, we probably should have been a bit more suspicious of Sonic’s financial situation. As seen in the video above, K-Pop band AOA featured prominently in promos for SBENU, and even top-tier acts like IU got involved in promotion of the shoe brand. SBENU’s aggressive marketing was paired with even more aggressive expansion, as the brand opened over 100 stores in Korea.

De nem volt minden rendben a színfalak mögött az SBENU-nál. Sonic jelentősen túlterhelte pénzügyeit, és a madarak hamarosan hazatérnek pihenni.

It all started with an allegation from a shoe factory in Busan that claimed they were owed over $2 million from SBENU. From there, the situation rapidly got worse, from reports emerging that barely anyone was buying the shoes, store owners claiming they weren’t receiving goods on time, and that SBENU was dumping their inventory at over 90% discount at clearance stores. Lawsuits were filed, accusations of embezzlement were made, the alleged unpaid debts grew to $6m+, and eventually the story got so big that the police got involved.

Oh, it didn’t help that the shoes were apparently of very poor quality. In fact, one can find Korean articles and blogs about mosoda tárolni tulajdonosok arra panaszkodnak, hogy a cipőben lévő festék mosás közben kimosódik, és a gépekkel bajlódtak. A hétköznapi felhasználóknak pedig meg kellett küzdeniük azzal a ténnyel, hogy ha esőben esnek, a zoknijuk ugyanolyan színű lesz, mint a cipőjük.

Ez kiáltja a minőséget

While SBENU wouldn’t officially be dissolved until October of 2016, it was effectively ruined as a business by the end of 2015 and lost its ability to be a patron of esports. Courts eventually cleared Sonic of any legal wrongdoing (he ‘merely’ racked up a ton of debt from unsound business practices and screwed over his suppliers and store operators), his name was permanently disgraced both in and outside of StarCraft.

A StarTale-t, az ezer életből álló csapatot 2016-ban az AfreecaTV mentette meg utoljára, és bekerült az Afreeca Freecsbe. Az SSL még két évig működne, 2016-ban szponzorok nélkül (a Blizzard kivételével), 2017-ben pedig a Jin Air támogatja.

CJ Entus és herO fenntartják a Teamliga hagyományait

Nem meglepő módon herO legnagyobb pillanatai az egyéni bajnokságokban adódnak

One thing that makes team competition so interesting is the diversity of team compositions. Some teams opt for a line-up of well-rounded players without any clear weaknesses, like today’s Shopify Rebellion. Some are straight up superteams like various iterations of SKT throughout the ages.

Yet, of these various team types, there’s one that tends to really stick in our memories: the one man army. Whether it’s Team TaeJa or Jaedong Oz, we tend to be most impressed when individual brilliance negates the ‘team’ in teamleague. While there are a number of examples to choose from in Proleague, I think CJ Entus and hősök A 2016-os kampány a legjobban ezt a trópust jellemzi.

Egy ideig a CJ Entus valójában a Proleague egyik legmélyebb csapata volt. Törvényes egy-két ütéssel kezdték a herO-ban és a Hydra-ban, és amikor Hydra elindult a WCS Circuitre, BByong és a ByuL stepped up to take his place. 2015 was the season where it all came together, with Mutalisk-maestro ByuL becoming arguably the best Zerg in Korea, while Bbyong continued to chug along as a reliable second/third banana. This led to an incredible campaign in which CJ finished the regular season in second place, their best result in StarCraft II (not counting the hybrid BW/SC2 season, because c’mon). Sadly for CJ, they were eliminated by Jin Air in the semifinals of the playoffs, with only herO, BByong and Sora winning games during the back to back Best of 7 series.

Míg 2015 szívfájdalommal ért véget a rájátszásban, úgy tűnt, CJ Entusnak fantasztikus alapokra kell építenie. Sajnos 2016 teljes katasztrófa volt.

First off, Bbyong got a life-time ban for match-fixing. We could probably stop right there, but there’s some comedy in describing how much worse it gets. Not only did BByong get deleted from the roster after playing a single game, but ByuL’s level of play took a nose-dive after Mutalisks fell out of the meta, going from a 21-16 player in 2015 to a 9-11 player in 2016. CJ desperately tried to fill the BByong-sized gap in their line-up, but to no avail. Bunny got the most chances but performed dismally with a 5-12 record. RagnaroK didn’t do much better, going 3-7. Hush was the worst of the options CJ tried, as he put up a donut with a 0-9 record.

It’s telling that CJ’s best support player ended up being none other than a thoroughly washed-up MC, aki a visszavonulásból kikerülve 4-3-ra kikapott a szorongatott CJ Entus alakulattól.

Meanwhile, herO recorded a spectacular 20-9 map score during the 2016 campaign, with his 69% win percentage being the third best during the season (#1 and #2 being the aforementioned Maru and Stats). On the other hand, the rest of CJ Entus went 21-43, resulting in the team finishing third from last. Only the existence of truly dire teams, Samsung and MVP, ensured they didn’t suffer any deeper embarrassment.

A Proleague 2016-os vége hatalmas csapást mért a jelenetre, elrántotta a fizetéseket és a csapatházakat, amelyek a professzionális StarCraft II-t legalább egy bizonyos fokú karrierlehetőséggé tették Koreában. Mégis, valahogy el kell képzelni, hogy herO legalább a kis kicsit megkönnyebbülten, megszabadulva a Proliga történetének egyik legnehezebb csapattárs-gyűjteményével járó tehertől.

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