Photos: Daily eSports
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It is the night of October 18th and Code S is hours away from what is very likely its strangest grand final ever. After three years of existence and seventeen crowned champions (not counting the winner of Code A back when it had a full bracket), tomorrows face-off is throwing SKT’s soO and SouL’s Dear in the pit, on whose floor lie the $20,000 first place prize.
There is one thing that makes this particular final odd. Throughout Code S’ entire history, at least one of the finalist has been a player in his prime. Sometimes he would be paired with equally dominant name and the two will give birth to a legendary encounter like Mvp versus Squirtle in May 2012 or Soulkey versus Innovation in June this year. Other times that dominant force would be paired with an underdog and the end result would be a merciless slaughter like NesTea’s lynching of InCa in May 2011. And occasionally, that very underdog would be the trigger for a historical upset such as Seed’s 4-1 against MC in July 2012.
Tomorrow’s grand final, however, is different as this history lesson you just read aims to suggest. Neither of soO and Dear has ever been so high in a tournament. Ever since they emerged on the professional scene – regardless of if we’re talking BroodWar or StarCraft 2 – they’ve stayed in the shadows of much greater men who carried their respective teams into fame and glory. They were questioned every step of the way during this season and with the talent pool in S3 so heavily stacked, I assume that literally zero people expected this to be the last match of the tournament.
But here soO and Dear are, flocking from the opposite sides of the top eight bracket, having overcome the greatest of challenges and beaten the ugliest of odds. In their feet lie the bodies of DongRaeGu, Innovation, Parting, Bomber and Supernova. They even managed to destroy both of Korea’s former winners thus ruining a potential all-champion face-off, robbing the community of a substantial amount of hype. In the pursuit for their first title, they became the 2013 equivalent of MVP.Sniper.
The underdog story of those two extends beyond this particular tournament and both of them have personal demons to fight. On one side of the rings stands soO, a representative of a peculiar type of bird known as SKT Zergs who have been notoriously inferior the other two line-ups all throughout team’s history. They have been a subject of mockery (good-willed or otherwise), carried on the mighty shoulders of their legendary Terran and Protoss team-mates and their presence in Proleague has been only justified by league’s requirement to have at least one Zerg play.
Being no exception to the rule, soO’s StarCraft 2 career has been wildly fluctuating ever since the switch. While players like Rain and PartinG regularly made the headlines, soO was ping-ponging between Code A eliminations, Premier league top 16 finishes and one decent-but-not-too-great international appearance. People would notice and compliment his great ZvT but that would be nothing more than a glancing attention as every good performance was followed by the inevitable crash.
Eleven years after Boxer founded his team, soO now has the opportunity to redeem not only himself but the entire SKT Zerg estate as well. The responsibility, to put it lightly, is colossal.
Like soO, Dear, too, struggled for recognition within SouL. Although he was a core part of the Classic-Mini-Trap-Dear Protoss quartet that helped STX win the Proleague, it was Innovation’s individual results that accumulated the majority of the attention. Dear’s only international trip – his chance to compete away from his usual habitat and achieve something for himself – resulted in a loss to a foreigner and a top six finish. Being completely absent from the first two premier leagues also didn’t help him much and Dear continued to watch his talent be unappreciated.
That was until a whole new Dear arrived for Season 3. It was as if the departure of Innovation was the uncorking that he needed before he could truly shine and he overcame every obstacle with admirable ease. Showing aptitude in every single match-up, Dear drilled deeper and deeper into the tournament, eventually outracing even his famous (and now former) team-mate of his. The life-long dream of being on top of Korea at least once was getting closer with every match. For the first time in his career, Dear was in the spotlight and wasn’t just a cogwheel towards his team’s well-being.
We can safely say that both soO and Dear have already accomplished what they went out to do. A win tomorrow will be of course great, but the achievements have already been unlocked. The Zerg has proven that there’s more to SK Telecom than PartinG and Rain and Dear has made it clear that even with a large chunk of their staff gone, SouL is still capable of producing champions. They have represented their races, their teams and themselves outstandingly and have earned every right to play on the big stage.
Tomorrow, we either crown a new GSL royal roader or give the trophy to an SKT Zerg and I don't know which is more exciting.
