#6: Zest – Greatest Players of All Time

The Greatest Players of All Time

By: Mizenhauer

• Multiple championships and runner-ups in the biggest tournaments
• Player of the year run in 2014
• First player to win Code S with three or fewer map losses in the modern era

Notable tournament finishes

• 2014 Code S Season 1: 1st place
  
• 2014 GSL Global Championship: 1st place
  
• 2014 IEM Toronto: 2nd place
  
• 2014 KeSPA Cup: 1st place
  
• 2015 IEM World Championship: 1st place
  
• 2016 Code S Season 1: 1st place
  
• 2016 HomeStory Cup 14: 2nd place
  
• 2017 HomeStory Cup 16: 1st place
  
• 2018 Code S Season 2: 2nd place
  
• 2020 IEM Katowice: 2nd place
  
• 2021 IEM Katowice: 2nd place
  
• 2021 2021 Code S Season 3: 2nd place
  
• 2022 GSL Super Tournament 1: 1st place

Zest is best! Well, perhaps not quite the best, but his tremendous career resume earned him the #6 spot on this Greatest of All Time list.

Zest claimed two Code S championships and an IEM world championship during the KeSPA glory years, and enjoyed multiple stretches as the clear best player in the world. Although he did experience lengthy periods without success in Premier Events, the heights he reached in 2014, as well as in the first half of 2016, rank among the highest peaks achieved by a player in any era of StarCraft II. While he struggled to reach such a level in the post-KeSPA years, he showed uncanny longevity by returning to Code S and world championship finals in multiple, far-apart years.

Early on, Zest fit the archetype of the near-perfect macro player, the final boss on top of the mountain. But the key to Zest's longevity was the intelligence and adaptability that saw him dictate the Protoss meta. Whether it was late-game macro in Heart of the Swarm, modern Glaive-Adept openers vs Zerg, or the practical application of Blink-DTs in PvT, he gained advantages with cutting edge strategies and tactics that other players would inevitably copy.

Even though the second half of Zest's career lacked the visceral impact of the first, his peaks combined with his fantastic aggregate results earn him this high placement.

Career Overview: Dominating peak + incredible longevity

As with the first four players on this ranking, Zest entered the StarCraft II scene in May of 2012 as a part of the KeSPA 'invasion.' The first year and a half of his SC2 career was fairly unremarkable, as he failed to qualify for a single Korean Individual Leagues (Code S, OSL, SSL). Still, Zest distinguished himself as Flash's right-hand man in Proleague, suggesting there was some potential waiting to be realized.

Indeed, Proleague would be the stage on which Zest gave the first major tease of his career-defining 2014 campaign. The 2014 Proleague Round 1 playoffs in February came down to a classic telecom derby finals, with SKT's supersquad taking on a KT Rolster roster headlined by Flash. However, the god of Brood War didn't even get a chance to play in the match, as Zest opened and ended the series with an all-kill against the all-star line-up of Rain, Soulkey, soO, and PartinG.

That momentum carried over to Code S Season 1, where Zest had already made his debut and won his RO32 group. He continued to collect the scalps of top players, defeating Dear and Soulkey in the RO16, sweeping BlizzCon winner sOs in the RO8, and taking a 4-2 over the mighty Rain in the semifinals. Even the previous season's finalist soO couldn't stop Zest's march down the royal road, and the upstart Protoss took a 4-3 finals victory to win his first ever major championship (in doing so, Zest became the fourth and final Royal Roader in Code S history).

Zest's other two Code S campaigns of 2014 ended in the RO8 and RO4, but he picked up more titles elsewhere. He won April's GSL Global Championship with a victory over PartinG in the finals, while he put on a PvP masterclass to win the inaugural KeSPA Cup in September (as a bonus for winning the KeSPA Cup, he also got to smash foreigners as the lone Korean representative at IeSF 2014). He also enjoyed success with his team, as KT Rolster clinched the 2014 Proleague championship.

Unfortunately for Zest, who had been incredible all year, he drew an unlucky first round match against Life at the 2014 WCS Global Finals (which was being played in a 16-player single elimination format at the time). This meant the end of Zest's career year overlapped with the start of Life's own career-best stretch, and he gave up a close, 2-3 loss to the eventual tournament winner.

Compared to the high standard he set in 2015, Zest declined slightly in 2015 as he failed to reach the finals of any of the Korean Individual Leagues. Still, he attained top eight finishes in three seasons of GSL/SSL, and had an MVP-candidate season in Proleague after being passed on ace duties by Flash (Proleague didn't give actually out regular-season MVP awards at the time, but Zest did tie herO for most regular season wins). But, most memorably, Zest won the 2015 IEM World Championship, going through Hydra, INnoVation, Bbyong, and Trap on his way to the single biggest payday of his career until then. Alas, Zest ended 2015 on another deflating note, as he was swept by INnoVation in the first round at the 2015 WCS Global Finals. It was an underwhelming end to Heart of the Swarm for Zest, who had played a large part in the evolution of how Protoss approached StarCraft II during its first expansion.

The introduction of LotV at the end of 2015 caused major upheaval in Korea. Not only did a host of players retire (most notably Rain), but Dark, Stats, and TY—players who had been mired in the second tier of Korean StarCraft II for years—rose up and became championship contenders. However, in 2016 Code S Season 1, Zest made it clear he was still a cut above the rest. After defeating Maru in Code A, Zest made mincemeat of his opponents in the Code S main event, recording a stellar 15-1 map record en route to the finals. TY managed to make Zest actually work a little, taking two games off his teammate before being defeated. Even then, Zest’s 19-3 record during the first Code S season of Legacy of the Void made it the most dominant season since Mvp and NesTea's runs in 2011.

Zest's trend of starting strong and falling off continued, as that super-dominant Code S run would be his highlight moment of 2016. His results trailed off for the rest of the year, and the decline continued into 2017 where he suffered the worst slump of his career. He only qualified for the first seasons of Code S and SSL, and failed to make the cut for either in the summer and fall. The only thing that kept Zest in the public eye was his success at HomeStory Cup events, as he won tournaments number 15 and 16. Zest later attributed some of this slump to the end of Proleague and the dissolution of KeSPA teams (excluding Jin Air), as he had found it hard to maintain the same level of discipline outside of the team house environment.

Whatever the reason for his poor 2017, Zest launched an impressive comeback campaign in 2018. After returning to the Code S RO8 in Season 1, Zest earned his first finals appearance in over two years in the following Code S Season 2. Alas, his finals opponent was Maru in the middle of his Code S four-peat, and he was dismantled like all of Maru's other GSL opponents during that period. That second place result would be the high watermark for Zest that year, and he closed 2017 out with top four finishes in Code S Season 3 and HomeStory Cup 18.

In rather INnoVation-esque fashion, Zest repeated that bad-year/good-year pattern again in 2019/20. His 2019 campaign wasn't quite as disastrous as 2017, but it was still rather forgettable as his best Code S result was a singular top eight finish in Season 3. Thus, heading into 2020, fans could have been forgiven for thinking Zest was finally finished as a championship-tier player. He was over two years removed from even winning a secondary title (HomeStory Cup in 2017), and the rise of foreigners like Serral and Reynor had kept the top-end of the scene very competitive. Making one major career comeback was already hard enough, and players not-named INnoVation didn't just casually phase in and out of championship contention on a yearly basis. However, against all expectations, Zest proved he still had plenty left in the tank.

Fortunately for Zest, the 2020 IEM World Championship didn't require points to qualify for, and he scored a RO24 spot through the qualifiers. He began the tournament on firm footing, advancing as expected from a group that included Rogue, ShoWTimE, Reynor, soO and Armani. With the wind in his sails, Zest took advantage of a favorable initial bracket draw against sOs and Dear to reach the final four.

It seemed like the tournament would end there for Zest, as he was going up against the ZvP monster Serral. Zest was 0-6 in matches against Serral up to that point (1-12 in maps), making the situation seem especially hopeless. However, at this moment, Zest pulled out his most meta-defining trick yet, using the nascent Glaive-Adept openers to score a shocking 3-2 upset. And, while he lost in anticlimactic fashion to Rogue in the finals, he had reestablished himself as a game changer and a championship contender.

After tailing off again in the later half of 2020, Zest came back strong in 2021. With rumors of military service swirling around him, he embarked on a last ride that would be his most impressive stretch since 2014. He returned to IEM Katowice (virtually, since this was the pandemic-stricken online version), where he scored wins over players like Reynor, Clem, Trap, and PartinG to reach the grand finals once more (the series against PartinG was one of the more memorable, hyper-chaotic PvP's we've seen in high-stakes tournament). In doing so, he became both the first player to ever reach back-to-back IEM world championship finals, and also the first to reach three total finals.

The grand finals pitted Zest against Reynor, with Zest having already defeated the Italian Zerg once in the group stage. He started off strong in game one, jumping ahead to a 1-0 lead. However, Reynor proved to be better prepared for the rematch, and he rattled off three wins to take the commanding series lead. Zest managed to take back one more map, but Reynor wouldn't allow the comeback and finished the series 4-2.

In familiar Zest fashion, he cooled down as the year progressed, finishing in the RO8 and RO16 of the first two Code S Seasons. However, in 2021, he had an October surprise in store. He gathered himself just in time for Season 3 of Code S, where he ran through, KeeN, Trap, Dream, and Rogue to reach the Code S finals for the fourth time overall. Like the 2020 IEM World Championship, this finals run was memorable because Zest pulled off what felt like an impossible PvZ feat at the time. In Poland, he had defeated the invincible Serral. In Korea, he brought Rogue's mythical unbeaten record in offline BO7 matches to an end. Alas, for the fourth straight time in major tournament finals, Zest fell just short of winning the trophy. Every tournament is someone's tournament of destiny, and this time Cure took on the role of protagonist with his dominating TvP.

With the farewell tour reaching its end, Zest managed to take one final trophy for the road in 2022's GSL Super Tournament 1. That briefly raised hopes that he might make another run at IEM Katowice 2022, but it was not to be as he was eliminated in the group stages. After a couple of uneventful seasons in Code S, Zest (and the Korean military) decided it was finally time to bow out, and officially retired in June of 2022.

The Tools: Macro Titan and Protoss Trailblazer

While not one of the absolute best in terms of micro and macro mechanics (Zest banks come readily to mind), Zest more than made up for it with his ability to control the larger game. His use of the humble Zealot run-by might be the best encapsulation—he rarely microed them in a way to maximize their damage (they often did hilariously little direct damage), but they always came at the right place and time needed to give himself an advantage.

Thus, even without a lot of individual flashy plays, the overall way in which Zest managed his games was equally impressive. Every decision he made seemed to work while every move made by his opponents backfired in their face. His peak play bears comparison to the likes of players like Rain, Serral, or INnoVation at their very best, with their games almost inevitably flowing toward victory through the accrual of small advantages.

In many respects, Zest is the player who had the most individual influence on Protoss strategy. Sure, MC and PartinG may have defined all-in oriented play early on, and Rain may have been the first master of macro. But Zest had more of a lasting impact over a long period. After starting by establishing various macro standards for Protoss during their era of HotS domination, Zest kept being a trendsetter in LotV by popularizing Glaive-Adept openers in PvZ and demonstrating the power of Blink-DT harassment in PvT. While not all of his ideas were long-term gamechangers (various forms of 2-Stargate Phoenix in PvZ come to mind), Protoss players could always look to him for a spark of inspiration.

Even as Zest declined in his later years, and his comprehensive macro wins became rarer and rarer, there was still a huge 'know how to win' element to his play. That helped him remain a lurking title threat, and score huge BO5+ upsets against the likes of Serral and Rogue in high-profile matches.

The Numbers: God-like peak and uncanny resilience

a: SSL 2017 was excluded due its 10-player format.
b: The opening round for these tournaments was the RO32 except the following: Code S 2020 (RO24), 2021 (RO16), 2022 (RO20), 2023 (RO16), SSL 2015-16 (RO16), OSL 2012 (RO16).
c: For Code S 2022, the RO10 finishes were counted as RO16 for the sake of simplifying results in this table.
d: For Code S 2020, the RO6 finishes were counted as RO8 for the sake of simplifying results in this table.

a: Included tournaments: WCS Global Finals 2013-2019, IEM Katowice 2014-2023 (except 2016), WESG 2016-2018, Gamers8 2023

Having appeared in 22 seasons of Code S, Zest boasts one of the longest and most successful careers in StarCraft II history. Zest entered the league alongside luminaries such as soO, INnoVation, sOs and Rain and, while he was not the first of the group to win a Korean Individual League, he was the one that lasted the longest before finally retiring. Along the way, Zest reached the Code S round of 8 or better 14 times, a mark only exceeded by INnoVation’s 16. His four final appearances in Code S is bettered only by Maru (9), soO (6) and Mvp (5).

In terms of world championship-tier events, Zest also belongs in an elite group of six players that reached three or more finals. Thus, despite his many slumps, Zest managed to build one of the best overall career resumes over the course of a decade.

a: To adjust for record inflation from international tournaments during an era where the Korea-World gap was at its widest.
b: Match records can be misleading in this period due to best-of-one Proleague matches. While they were included for references, game records are probably a better indicator of ability.

A good portion of this list comes down to cumulative accomplishments, but there is something to be said about a player's aura of dominance. There's no perfect way to sample this stat so that it's fair to everyone, but if we arbitrarily choose yearly halves as our time period, Zest enjoyed one of the most dominant stretches of the KeSPA era during the first half of 2016. Not to give the future rankings away, but Zest's first-half 2016 was one of the few stretches where a player actually came close or surpassed INnoVation's multiple periods of dominance.

a: Maps required to win differ for 2011 tournaments due to frequent format changes.
B: Played in a 16-player format. Dark's record was 18-4 when counting his Code A match.

In particular, Zest's performance in Code S Season 1 of 2016 ranks among the most dominating performances in StarCraft II history. While NesTea, MC and Mvp (twice) won the event while picking up less losses than Zest did in 2016, they all did so in 2011 when StarCraft II was more stratified.

Once KeSPA players arrived in 2012, Code S champions lost anywhere from 6-11 games per season over the next four years. Then, out of nowhere, Zest totally disrupted the status quo while only losing three games on the way to his second Code S title (for comparison—the other players who won Code S in 2015 and 2016 picked up 11, 6, 6 and 7 losses respectively).

And, while Maru and Dark posted similarly impressive records on their way to Code S titles in 2018, 2019 and 2021, they did so during a period where the Korean scene went through a phase of restratification as many players retired. Thus, one could make a case for Zest's 2016 Season 1 being the most dominant Code S run ever.

a: The 2011/12 season was excluded as it was played in a hybrid Brood War + SC2 format.
b: Playoff statistics included.
c: Classic played nine of these games as Terran, going 2-7.

Zest easily had one of the best Proleague careers ever, and it's in the conversation to be THE best, period. As stated in the sOs article, the Jin Air trickster has a stronger case in terms of overall wins and win-rate, but is hampered by his lack of ace match contributions. If you throw ace match responsibilities into the mix, either Zest or herO could also be considered to have had the greatest SC2 Proleague career.

a: To correct for record inflation from international tournaments during an era where the Korea-World gap was at its widest.

While not a key factor, this article series has highlighted when players were especially strong in certain match-ups. When it came to Code S, Zest recorded a whopping 59-27 career map record in PvP. His 69% win-rate ranks among the best match-ups in Code S history alongside Mvp’s TvT (43-21, 67%), MC’s PvZ (29-11, 73%) and NesTea’s ZvZ (17-7, 71%). The fact that he was able to maintain a competitive win-rate over a longer period of time and larger sample of games makes it more impressive than the marks recorded by those older legends.

The Placement:

If #7 soO required some additional explaining regarding my valuation of championships vs runner-ups, Zest's case to be #6 all time is more conventional. He reached the grand finals in seven Korean Individual League and world championship-tier events, and achieved victory in three of them. Zest is one of seven players to make the finals of Code S at least four times, and is tied with Rogue, sOs, Serral, and Dark for the second most world championship final appearances at three (when counting Gamers8 and WESG, Reynor leads with four). Outside of these most prestigious events, Zest also bolstered his resume with a smattering of runner-up and first place finishes in secondary tournaments.

Zest was also one of the best players during Proleague's 4-year stint in StarCraft II. While his win-rate falls slightly short of the top handful of players, his total number of games played and his higher burden of ace duties put him in the conversation for having had the best SC2 Proleague career ever.

The weakness in Zest's resume is his inconsistency, as he fell out of serious title contention for months, or even a whole year at a time. However, when you take the extremely long-term view and consider his career in its entirety, it's remarkable how he was able to challenge for a championship in so many different years. In that sense, he was both extremely consistent and inconsistent at the same time.

It is worth noting that I found this #6-7 line to be where there was a clear delineation. While I had various players in different orders in the #10-7 zone, none of them had a best-case finish in the top six. Thus, Zest marks the first of six players who could not fall lower than #6.

The Games:

Games were selected primarily based on how well they represented a players' style, not entertainment value.

Zest vs soO - 2014 Code S Season 1 Finals, Game 6 - (February 11, 2014)

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PvZ late-game was considered to be Protoss-favored during Heart of the Swarm, with Protoss having a high chance of winning if they could just drag the game out (with the exception of some excruciating Swarm Host metas outside of Korea). Regardless of your opinion on balance at the time, it would become clear that Zest was the best absolute player in these kinds of scenarios due to his general decision-making and ability to control the flow of the game.

soO proved to be a particularly good punching bag in this (somewhat boring) late-game demonstration, as Zest meticulously picked him apart on his way to his first ever Code S championship.

Zest vs TaeJa: 2016 Code S Season 1 - Round of 32 (February 17, 2016)

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(Timestamp - 21:20)

PvZ wasn't the only match-up that Zest dominated during his peak years. Facing off against TaeJa in his return to Code S, Zest showed the Liquid Terran exactly what he had been missing during his years of playing in WCS. The two players engaged in a proper late-game TvP brawl, where Zest slowly and patiently played himself into a winning position.

Zest vs Serral: 2020 IEM Katowice - Semifinals, Game 4 (March 1, 2020)

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(Timestamp - 12:00)

Zest’s late career resurgence kicked into high gear in 2020 as he reached the finals of the IEM World Championship for the second time in his career. But, in order to do so he had to deal with Serral.

The group stages had seen Zest bring out what was then a surprising new strategy in the form of fast Glaive Adepts, which caught many a Zerg off-guard. Serral, facing Zest in the semifinals, had the advantage of a bit more preparation time, but still wasn't entirely sure of how to deal with this flexible opener.

In this game, Serral held the Adept harassment off reasonably well, but the pressure still allowed Zest to put himself into a strong mid-game position. Serral felt compelled to try and bust Zest with Ravager-Bane, but it was too late as Zest already had more than enough Templars to defend.

Zest vs Clem: 2021 IEM Katowice - Quarterfinals, Game 5 (February 27, 2021)

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This game toward the end of Zest's career embodies the inexplicable 'know how to win' factor that saw him frequently upset younger and more mechanically gifted players. This game was a gloriously chaotic mess, which on paper should have favored the lightning-quick Clem. However, Zest was the one who made Clem play on the backfoot, and he barely came out with the victory in the end.

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• Source: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/620279-6-zest-greatest-players-of-all-time