Image source: Team Liquid
Seoul, South Korea.
An esports tournament organizer has to rent out an internet cafe to host an overwhelming crowd, which has already filled its studio. Fans of StarCraft: BroodWar, the oldest eSport, have flocked to watch something legendary. The two best players to have ever touched the game are playing each other again after more than eight years.
Alongside the Seoul throng, more than 60,000 are tuning in to online streams to follow the action. BroodWar, an 18-year-old game, is experiencing a true renaissance, reaching numbers which its successor – the moribund StarCraft 2 – rarely sees outside its world championships. For a single day, a day of purest nostalgia, BroodWar is the fifth most watched game on Twitch.
None of that would have likely been possible had it not been for these two particular players seated in the booths. Jae-Dong “Jaedong” Lee and Young-Ho “Flash” Lee are about to rekindle a narrative which had defined BroodWar for years and years. Flash vs. Jaedong, or the LeeSsangRok as their bouts were known as, is a rivalry dating back to distant 2008. Many of the fans watching the LeeSsangRok on January 17 will be taken back to their very first contact not just with StarCraft, but esports altogether. Their memories, primed simply by the appearance of the two gods, usher them into a long-gone golden age when the hardest esport ever made was played to absolute perfection and filled studios, and stadiums, and beaches. This author is one such fan.
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Jaedong gives the audience an aria of metal and flesh, and gunfire.
The LeeSsangRok is likely the most documented and hyped-up rivalry in the history of esports. Waged over multiple premier grand finals and featuring two competitors who have transcended all else, the story of Flash vs. Jaedong has been told and re-told, examined from every angle and in relation to all the significant events which defined that era of BroodWar. Their latest face-off, however, played in the semi-finals of the Afreeca Starleague Season 2, is of equal interest. It will be a moment historians will go back to for years to come.
The set-up
When BroodWar ultimately faced its final decline in 2011, the LeeSsangRok had already died off. Jaedong and Flash played each other for the last time in September 2010 in the final of the Korean Air Starleague and before that in the final of the Bigfile MSL of the same year. The year marked the third consecutive time the LeeSsangRok defined the MSL finals – the first and only time this has happened in franchise’s history – and the subsequent OSL finals was what won Flash his Golden Mouse (a trophy given to those players to have won three OSL golds) and put an end to the rivalry.
What had started with successes for Jaedong ended with him losing the grand finals race. Flash had turned the score around and had recorded three wins to Jaedong’s two. The legendary rivalry went into a cryostasis. Even though Jaedong found success in StarCraft 2 while Flash never did, the Zerg Tyrant had to compete knowing his nemesis is one up and will likely stay that way forever. After all, with both of them retired from StarCraft 2 and BroodWar long forgotten, what stage would they even play on?
The build up
The renaissance came unexpectedly. The first season of the Afreeca Starleague kindled the flame, giving local StarCraft fans what they’d been craving and what the lackluster sequel couldn’t consistently provide: A gritty, uncompromising warfare thriller. A battle, which tests the generals’ very limits, both mental and mechanical. A battle, decided not through the clash of maxed-out deathball armies, but through intelligent maneuvering, split-second tactical decisions and unit control so precise in the face of the rigid interface that only the God‘s elect can command.
What StarCraft 2 had forgotten or let go, BroodWar remembered.
For the most part, StarCraft 2 had forgotten or had let go of the old ways. But BroodWar remembered, and so did the tens of thousands glued to the screens.
Rivalries as old as the LeeSsangRok never unfold in ordinary matches, and both Flash and Jaedong know that. Before the clock counts down to the first game on Eye of the Storm, the two bonjwas have already played out the majority of the match in their heads. The mindgames will be decisive.
Familiar with his opponent’s invincibility in late game, Jaedong knows risking drawn-out warfare will be his doom, especially in the Terran-friendly ZvT. Jaedong also knows Flash – like everyone else in the world watching this new chapter of the rivalry – is aware of his dreaded mutalisk control, especially off of a 2-hatch build, something he revolutionized during his rise to power.
Brilliantly, Jaedong avoids all the pitfalls while giving an elegant curtsy to an infamous moment in the LeeSsangRok. The first game of the ASL semis sees Jaedong open 3-hatch before pool, the build order that preceded the unfortunate game on Odd Eye in the 2010 NATE MSL, decided not by the players but an untimely power outage. This was Jaedong’s last BroodWar championship and the last time he defeated Flash in a Best of 5. Sneakily, the slow overlords of Jaedong drop lurkers in both bases of Flash, while the Tyrant defends the counter push at home. The Terran God stabilizes and barrages Jaedong with dropships and land attacks, but the Tyrant is everywhere, impenetrable, multitasking frantically.
The first GG is typed, and the crowd screams. Contrary to some predictions, the Zerg revolutionist will not go down on a blank score.
The fall of the curtain
The set-up and the build-up of this modern LeeSsangRok almost makes it obligatory for Flash and Jaedong to go the full distance, and they do. On Circuit Breaker, Jaedong’s second attempt at 3-hatch lurker is shut down at Flash’s ramp and on Demian, the Terran strangles the Tyrant out of a third base and pummels him to death with marines and medics.
There's grace in the old Tyrant. There's no shame losing to a God.
Even on match point, however, Flash is not invincible and Jaedong has no intention to play standard, determined to avoid the late game at all cost. Before Flash can establish a solid 2-base defense, hydralisks swarm in and for all the SCV and marine micro, the Ultimate Weapon can’t do it. The match is tied. What more can one want?
On Eye of the Storm, a jacket-off, sleeves-pulled-up Jaedong plays the final game against his arch-rival, and loses. It’s the fourth time in a row now. It’s a heart-breaking loss, but there’s grace in the old Tyrant. In his fall, he’s given the audience a masterpiece concerto, an aria of metal, flesh, and gunfire.
Opposite him, Flash can hardly contain his emotion. After eight years, he’s once again bested the only opponent who dared challenge his divinity: A legendary rival, an integral part of his own legacy. A dear friend and a valiant enemy at the same time.
For Flash, the future holds the tenth premier tournament gold of his career, an achievement which escaped even the legendary bonjwa Yoon-Yeol “NaDa” Lee. And for Jaedong there’s the anticipation of next season bathed in the sunlight of fan cheers, as well as the respectful acceptance of this day’s loss.
After all, there’s no shame losing to a God.
