Starcraft 2 news » WCS Global Finals - Champion Retrospective
On the 14th of September in 2010, ByuN made his debut in the very first GSL—as Protoss. On the 5th of November, 2016, he became the World Champion of StarCraft II. Between these two dates lies a roller-coaster ride spanning six years; it was one that saw ByuN disappear into obscurity and eventually re-introduce himself to take home his first GSL title. It was a wild tale unlike any before, and it ensures that we will remember ByuN as one of the best of all time.
Before the Grand Finals, the analysts had mentioned that while the tournament had begun with many storylines, it was ultimately all about Dark and ByuN. While it was elegant phrasing, this statement was not entirely correct. The group stages, for example, focused on someone else. ShoWTimE had smashed his 4-0, including a decisive victory over ByuN. He was the standout performer of the opening weekend, the biggest winner of the tournament until the Quarterfinals. ByuN, in his group, was almost left behind by a player he was certainly favored against on paper.
This had happened before. In 2012, when ByuN faced Seed in the semifinals of the GSL Season 3, ByuN was supposed to win — win the game, win the series, win the tournament. He was one attack away from moving on to the Grand Finals. All he needed to do was box his units together and attack and he would have most certainly won the match. But instead, ByuN let himself be overcome by nerves and made a notorious mistake that haunted him for a long time afterwards.
At BlizzCon, ByuN showed how much he has matured since that loss. After being defeated by ShoWTimE, he swallowed his pride and approached the German to ask for practice. He realized his own flaws and immediately aimed to eliminate them. He displayed a champion’s mentality and a drive to win, something that ByuN had lacked in past years. The result of his last-second practice showed immediately, as ByuN recovered from the loss impressively by eliminating Dear from the tournament in two simple games.
Perhaps it was the profile of the loss against Seed or the manner in which he sustained it, we never truly learned. But ByuN was not the same after this momentous loss. He dropped out of the GSL soon after and went absent from tournaments altogether. A long hiatus followed. PRIME was handed one defeat after another in Proleague, yet never fielded ByuN, even though he was still on their active roster. ByuN became a ghost; he was a man who was only briefly mentioned in conversation while the community wondered where he had gone. Not a soul then thought that ByuN would, four years later, find himself in the Quarterfinals of the WCS Global Finals.
Even though TY was perhaps considered a slight favorite against him, ByuN made the KT ace look the inferior player by a good margin in the Quarterfinals. He seemed to always have a clearer view of the bigger picture and a plan to go along with it. He was constructive, not reactive. Every move he made aggressively built towards a victory. ByuN was never content to sit back and let TY unfold. Instead, he took the game to his opponent in a way that overwhelmed TY. To be so proactive — and in such an intelligent way — shows his deep understanding of the game, but an even stronger belief in his own abilities.
The two years ByuN spent in hiding have shaped him. Starting in 2015, he turned to online competition instead, perhaps as an alternative source of income. With PRIME crashing and burning behind him, and his new team, the Chinese X-Team, located in a different country altogether, ByuN was on his own. There was nobody to manage his practice schedule for him, nobody to find practice partners for him, and nobody to cook his food or wash his clothes. At this point, most would have given up, thrown in the towel, resigned, and moved on to find another occupation. But ByuN did not. Faced with the biggest challenge of his life, he learned how to survive. He learned to take matters into his own hands and take care of himself. In other words, he found the discipline within himself to continue onwards.
His reappearance in offline competition came only in 2016, when Legacy of the Void had given him a head-start over all the KeSPA players who still had to practice Heart of the Swarm for tournaments.
When asked about his newly found stride by the TeamLiquid staff, he answered: “I may have sounded confident on the stage, but really I’m not that type of guy. I’m always pressured.”
Despite what he says, ByuN has learned to rise above the pressure he still definitely feels. His decision-making no longer withers in the face of adversity. Now the opposite is true as Byun embraces each challenge placed in front of him.
Stats was swept away by ByuN in the Semifinals. The Terran seemed to play with such ease and freedom that Stats’ play appeared pale and unrefined in comparison. The builds ByuN chose perfectly reflect who he is as a player. Even in 2012, he had been fond of technical, intricate strategies to take control of games. Proxied Factories or Starports were always part of his arsenal. Four years later, ByuN proxied Stats three times, and each time his execution was on point. He took games to his comfort zone where his versatility makes all the difference. The confidence with which he seized the opportunity against Stats, one of the best Protoss players on the planet, was astounding.
“For a professional Starcraft II player to be here at BlizzCon, the annual finale of the entire season, I feel like it’s safe to be satisfied when you hit the finals. If you finish runner-up, that’s still something to be proud of; being able to say “Yeah, I made it to the top 2 of the entire world.” ByuN said before the Grand Finals. That is an odd thing for a competitor to say. To already be satisfied with reaching the finals is not what is generally associated with great champions. Zest, winner of three GSL tournaments, for example claims that “desires never end for human beings”. But ByuN’s satisfaction and joy at what he had already achieved may ultimately be what let him play the way he did.
ByuN seemed to approach every match with the mindset of a man who has nothing to lose and has no expectations at all. Every victory is icing on the cake. ByuN had been at the edge before, after all. At times during 2012 and 2015, even he himself must have thought that his career would never flourish again. To have won a GSL and to be playing in the Semifinals of the WCS Global Finals must have seemed like a distant, nigh impossible dream to him. When ByuN faced Stats, he had already accomplished more than anyone could have ever imagined.
With every series won, ByuN appeared to have more and more fun. He seemed to find joy in expressing himself through his strategies and the way he controlled games from start to finish. It mattered little who his opponents were or what race they played. What mattered was ByuN, only ByuN. Had he lost, he would have lost with a smile on his face. That he went back to his roots with three proxy builds against Stats only showed how much he was enjoying himself. He didn’t simply want to win—he wanted to have fun while winning.
When he finally faced Dark in the Grand Finals, ByuN was already a champion. He was no longer the insecure kid that lost his mind over the thought of reaching a big stage; no longer the player that postured around with his SCVs out on the map for minutes without reason against Seed. He was a GSL champion. He was the man who had just swept aside the best players the Terran and Protoss races had to offer. He had already taken from the Global Finals everything he wanted. He had already won.
In retrospect, ByuN’s victory over Dark seems obvious. Even the best Zerg in the world would not be enough to hold on against ByuN’s free-flowing attacks. Despite huge credit deservedly going Dark’s way for the performance he produced, ByuN outclassed him. It was almost irrelevant who was placed in the booth on the other side of the beautiful stage. ByuN was the best player in the world that day and he would have defeated anyone who came to challenge him.
After his grand victory, the greatest moment of his career, ByuN turned to his fans first. Anyone who stayed for a picture or autograph received it as he shared his winning moment with everyone in the arena. His face—and the smile drawn on it—displayed how genuinely happy he was. But it was almost the same expression he wore all weekend long. It was the smile of a man who had seen the worst, who had to witness his team of many years, PRIME, descend into darkness and chaos. It was the smile of someone who had been face to face with the worst aspects of pro-gaming life, and overcome them. It was the smile of someone who, when all looked bleak, found his own way to success—joy in playing a video game.
ByuN will not only be remembered as the World Champion of StarCraft II in 2016, but as one of the best players to ever touch the game. He will be remembered not only as a masterful player, but as a role model to anyone looking to find their way in life.
Congratulations, ByuN.
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