ride can be a terrible thing. Pride can make a monster out of a kind man. Pride goeth before the fall; it is the cruel brother of Honor and the poison of empires. I think it often a grave frailty of mankind. Sometimes, though, in those darkest hours when we have nothing else, we turn inwards and lean on our Pride. Sometimes, when we can't walk, Pride pushes us forward nonetheless. A man with Pride would rather die on his feet than live on his knees, with all the good and all the evil that comes with that choice. At its best, Pride is the resolute denial of the inevitable, a middle finger held to the man. Pride makes us alive, distinguishes us from animals or machines.
And when, in the 13th match of the 2012 GSL Season 3 Up&Down Group D, StarTale_Hack was up against Liquid_Zenio, the only thing motivating Hack was Pride. You see, at this point in the group, three players had a record of 3-1, and three players had a record of 1-3. There was no way any of the bottom 3 players would advance, but only two of the top three players could advance, so more games were played. Hack, destined for Code A, was matched up against Zenio, of destiny indeterminate. Wolf commented, I believe, that Hack could easily cheese or do some crazy strat, because he no longer had a shot at Code S-- his only motivation was Pride.
Hack proved Wolf wrong, though. He pulled no punches. He opened with an aggressive expo -> hellion -> banshee -> quick third base BO, dealing some modest but inconsequential damage. Standard as hell. As he transitioned into the midgame, he didn't falter. He didn't play for appearances. He didn't all-in. He tried his ass off. He displayed multitask that changed my opinion of him from "who's that?" to "nerd baller extraordinarie".
You see, Zenio tried this thing called "expanding" but Hack wasn't having any of that. While Zenio prodded Hack's front, Hack dropped Zenio's 10:00 base AND Zenio's 5:00 base, taking out the 10:00 base and dropping the 5:00 base deep into the red. Hack was on fire.
He also wasn't down with any sort of zerg frontal assaults, which he swatted away like small, partially-winged flies. In fact, he was utterly unafraid to launch a frontal assault of his own on Zenio's third, WHILE dropping Zenio's fourth and walkbying into Zenio's fifth. The casters and observer could barely keep track of it all.
In the space of 5 seconds, Zenio literally went from being on 4 bases with a 5th coming up to being on 2 bases, neither of which had any minerals left. I'm not even fucking kidding you. Watch the VoD, and at some point suddenly the zerg player just doesn't have bases. Hack just kept on pounding away at him, unrelentingly, and eventually Zenio couldn't hold any of the fronts any more. They all collapsed at once, like a house of cards where there's one big card on the bottom and Hack just kicks the shit out of it. Zenio lost his greater spire and half of his hatcheries and all his creep spread in a matter of moments.
Zenio is no small foe, either-- he easily a high Code A quality Zerg, and I even thought he was going to win these up/downs along with MC and get into Code S where he belongs. He was putting his all into this game, trying his hardest to make it into the upper division of the GSL. Zenio wanted this, and he wanted it bad. You can tell by the way he plays, by the way he hungers for glory. And you can tell by the look of despair, of enormous sadness, that's on his face when it all falls down.
This was a man who was crushed. Zenio gave it his all. He'll be back next season, no doubt, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him in the Up&Downs or even going directly into Code S. But this was a man who was hungry for victory, for promotion. Clearly, Zenio was motivated, by the chance for Code S, and everything that comes with it.
Hack, though, was already eliminated. This game would determine Zenio's fate, not his. All Hack had motivating him was the Pride of a progamer.
On May 26 2012 21:23 SeeKeR wrote: Great blog Blazinghand
I was actually able to grab a short statement from Hack that day. I recorded it on my iPhone
He basically said "I know I am known for my all ins but I promise to work really hard so I can be recognized as a real progamer."
And he did just that Oo
I remember him for being the guy on zenex who always made the finals of the TL opens. Who might not have the cleanest play but was a really good player. Really great to see these types of players give it all they have, despite being relative unknowns to most of the viewership. my respect goes out to these types of players who work so hard to try and break into the korean SC2 scene(Which is hard as most of the aueiance dont really care about korean players exception of the few top ones/popular)
Last edit: 2012-05-26 21:50:40
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Blazinghand United States. May 26 2012 22:41. Posts 11972
It's cool to hear that he's working hard. I imagine the life of a progamer must be very difficult, especially for a guy like Hack who has only recently made it into Code A and isn't popular in the foreign community. I do my best to watch Code A, and the up/downs in particular, to keep an eye out for new progamers and interesting performances.
I feel like GSL has the highest level of Sc2 play in both divisions, and so of course some of my hype blogs should be devoted to outstanding players in Code A.
When you stare into the iCCup, the iCCup stares back.
Primadog United States. May 26 2012 22:44. Posts 4395
Nice blog, and it was indeed a really well played game by Hack. I was personally kind of dissapointed in Zenio's play that match though. He tried mutas which does work, and I personally love ling bling muta vs marine tank medivac, due to the fact that it takes loads of multitasking and skill from both players (imo the best matchup/metagame in the game). As the Zerg has to constantly fly around and watch out for his mutalisks, meanwhile terran constantly has to defend the harass and try to send out dropships where the mutalisks currently are not. But this game simply didn't play out like that, Hack was allowed to drop freely as Zenio sat in the middle with his mutalisks, and simply died as he didn't utilize the mutalisks strength and thus only got the weakness of not having infestors to the same extent as a ling infestor player.
ThorZaIN, TLO, SaSe, Naniwa, Morrow, Demuslim, Illusion and more :)!
Jedclark United Kingdom. May 26 2012 23:49. Posts 844
5/5, this should be a featured blog. It's amazing.
"They make it so scrubnubs can PM me. They make it so I can't ignore scrubnubs!" - "I'm gonna show you how great I am." MKP fan since GSL Open Season 2 #hipsternerd
acrimoneyius United States. May 26 2012 23:54. Posts 973
This is cool but the fact that the match was on Antiga Shipyard, a Terran favored map in TvZ because of how hard it is to defend all of your expos at once since they are all so spread out.
MCDayC United Kingdom. May 27 2012 01:00. Posts 11807
On May 27 2012 00:32 DemoraliZ wrote: This is cool but the fact that the match was on Antiga Shipyard, a Terran favored map in TvZ because of how hard it is to defend all of your expos at once since they are all so spread out.
Yeah. This blog is cool as fuck, and definitely we need more of this rather than all the balance shit continuously cycling through the forums, but literally the only reason Hack won this game is because Zenio went for Mutas on Antiga Shipyard, and Hack punished him for it.
Stanlot United States. May 27 2012 02:27. Posts 5591
Great blog post! I have nothing but respect for Hack and any other pro who plays not only for his own gain but also to win and show his best in any situation. That last picture of Hack shows the eyes of a stone cold boss.
MC: "Sentry Forcefield Forcefield Marauder... cage Marauder die die"
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ride can be a terrible thing. Pride can make a monster out of a kind man. Pride goeth before the fall; it is the cruel brother of Honor and the poison of empires. I think it often a grave frailty of mankind. Sometimes, though, in those darkest hours when we have nothing else, we turn inwards and lean on our Pride. Sometimes, when we can't walk, Pride pushes us forward nonetheless. A man with Pride would rather die on his feet than live on his knees, with all the good and all the evil that comes with that choice. At its best, Pride is the resolute denial of the inevitable, a middle finger held to the man. Pride makes us alive, distinguishes us from animals or machines.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/X2J7e.png)
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Korea (South). May 26 2012 21:23. Posts 17288
SeaSwift Scotland. May 27 2012 02:04. Posts 4485
