When you see Horang2, what do you think of? For many of you, it’s words like “Cheesy” and “PvP Sniper.” But for me, I see something different. I see a Protoss player who can hang with the best of the. One who will slam out 30 units at a time from his very prettily placed gateways. And yes, one who will cheese you all to hell if he feels like it. Still, more than that, he is the most pimptastic player on the scene today. I’m here to explain why.
Them pretty gates. Hell, that’s not even his main.
Who is Horang2?
Starting out as one of the key players in the Elite School League, Horang2 managed to make it to play with the big boys as a member of Hite Sparkyz. To understand Horang2’s beginnings, we have to first look at his very first broadcast set of games. He was a complete unknown placed into an MST group with Flash and GGPlay. With both of those players already holding OSL golds, nobody so much as glanced at Horang2. How silly we were.
First he comes up against Flash on Byzantium 3, already gearing up to spread his reputation as a filthy cheeser. He was Dark Templar rushing Flash. But a simple DT rush isn’t very cool and boss-like, is it? Horang2 looked at other Protoss players proxying their Templar tech and went “No, that is not manly.” So instead, after making his Templar tech in his main, blocking the ramp with a zealot and nothing else, he went ahead and slapped gateways two and three in the middle of the map.
That marine just needs to look down at the user interface and see that there’s a Templar Archive there!
A few moments later, that marine does find the gateways. Flash, perhaps thinking it was going to be a big bust at his natural, throws up a bunker. But little does he know that Horang2 is up to something else entirely. Something much more bullshit. Flash soon realizes what’s up and his vulture mines are finishing just in time despite the proxy gates, so he might be able to hold. Horang2, however, is prepared for that too.
Horang2 apparently had a better Minesweeper coach than GGaemo did.
Finally Flash is starting to throw up some Turrets in his main. But there are few Dark Templar now and they’re just bashing them down.
“Dont just stand there, help me build faster!” - SCV
Horang2 continues to cut down mines just as fast as Flash can plant them.
Apparently mines need to collect some dirt from the ground before they can blow up.
After much trouble, Flash manages to get up a Turret by his mineral line. But by this point, Flash is just about out of units, which you’ll note are important to have in this game. Flash’s new-found detection does little to help against the zealots that are now streaming in and, as his only factory is just about dead, he types out the GG.
If those zealots had mouths, they would be grinning ear to ear. Well they would if they had ears.
With that, Horang2 advanced to play against GGPlay. Though that game wasn’t quite as cool as the one against Flash, it was still funny as hell. Let’s take a look at it, shall we?
A PvZ on Destination, Horang2 holds off on the insanity and forge expands. It’s not until much later that we see what badassery he has in store for us.
4 Gate Speedlot/ Archon attack. Also known as the Baby Punch Build (sure why not?) for its goal to take out the zerg before he really gets going.
About a minute later, Horang2 rolls out with a handful of zealots and a single archon. He started +1 really late so it’s not going to be ready for a long time.
All good armies march in the shape of a lollipop.
But GGPlay is really good and has a great simcity prepared at his third. Those zealots are going to be hard pressed to get back to those Sunkens. Surely Horang2’s attack is doomed to fail, right?
No way you’re sticking your lollipop in there, 50 Cent.
I’m sure GGPlay was mighty disappointed when he realized Horang2 never even considered making his way over to that third. He ran straight for the natural which, though it has those thin bridges that need to be crossed, has no real simcity protecting the Sunkens.
Those terrible Rodeo ClownLings are totally getting fired.
Seconds later, the natural is getting completely overrun and GGPlay is looking hard-pressed to hold off the attack.
Super brave drone mining that gas. Lest we forget.
By this point, Horang2 has 6 gates making pure zealot and all rallied straight across the map into GGPlay’s natural. He holds it off impressively for over 5 more minutes, but ultimately is forced to type out.
“I have no clue who this guy is or what I just watched.” - Literally everybody
With those games, Horang2 advanced out of his MST Group first with his wins over two OSL champions. Unfortunately, he was knocked out the MSL in the group stage with losses to Kwanro and DoctorK. But for Horang2, this was only the beginning.
2009-2010 Season
In Horang2’s first full Proleague season as a progamer, he enjoyed considerably playtime as Hite’s top Protoss. He continued his trend as a bit of a strange player with oddities like his low ground, out of base gateway against Darkelf.
Wait, somebody run into his booth real quick and tell him that’s not where gateways belong!
Or, he could impress with standard but shockingly solid play. Like this game over Effort on Polaris Rhapsody.
Overall, he closed out the season with a respectable record of 15-12 in Proleague which made him one of Hite’s more reliable players. However, although he was able to play well for a team, he was much less enviable in the individual leagues. From October of 2009 through to July of the following year, he dropped out of his MST group to Baby and Saint, lost 1-2 to Frozen in an OSL, and barely fell out of another MST group with dual losses to Hyuk. Altogether during that time period, he went 19-20. But we started to see a pattern emerge. Even though we wasn’t doing great overall, there was clearly something a bit strange going on.
That.
Okay. Granted, a lot of those big wins, specifically the ones against Kal, Stork, and Jangbi, were matched by losses to the same person. But something was definitely wrong. I’d like to take a look at one of these games to show that Horang2 wasn’t getting lucky or anything, but was rather just incredibly solid in the match up.
It’s a game between Horang2 and Kal on Fighting Spirit. Now, call me crazy if you have to, but I felt like Kal was one of the strongest Protoss players around in 2010. But that’s a story for a different time. My point is it’s not like Horang2 was beating up some scrub.
Horang2 in red at the 1 o’clock and Kal in yellow at the 7 o’clock, cross positions. The game starts off kind of fun already with Kal trying to block his ramp with a probe and Horang2 trying to zap his way in. Eventually he manages to make it in.
Also look how Horang2 scouted the middle for proxies used his magic powers to find Kal right away.
Kal first scouts top left and upon seeing he’s not there and judging from the quick scout time, figures Horang2 must have been at one of the closer spots. So he starts his long journey to the bottom right, not realizing that Horang2 is actually just a genius.
You can see on the minimap that there’s also a dragoon headed in that direction. It pokes his head up the ramp then walks away in shame.
Both players went for one gate goon range followed by a robo. The first deviation happens when Kal goes up to two gate while Horang2 stays on one, and Kal goes Observatory before Support Bay while Horang2 does the opposite.
There doesnt have to be a joke under every picture, does there?
Kal takes a Nexus pretty soon after, and Horang2 goes Reaver before Shuttle. This is a bit unfortunate for Horang2 since the Reaver first signifies he’s content with staying defensive for the time being which means he probably would have liked to have the quicker nexus. Not too significant though because Horang2’s nexus starts shortly after.
“My zealot friends... You must push me.” - Reaver
Before the Shuttle ended up popping out, I was kind of confused. Why did Horang2 go Robo Bay before Observatory but Observer before Reaver or Shuttle? How did Kal get a quicker Nexus despite being on two gates instead of one? But when the Shuttle came out, it all made sense. He went for a fast Shuttle speed upgrade. Also, seeing there’s an Observer in his base, he takes a roundabout route through his base with the Shuttle so it’s not seen.
It’s hard to tell with a still picture, but just trust that Shuttle has speed right now !
Horang2 moves forward with his army and starts to prod at the front. He’s deflected pretty easily by Kal’s whole army sitting in the natural, including a Reaver.
Check out that baby Recall that’s somehow happening in the middle.
But because of Horang2’s sneakiness with that speed Shuttle, there’s something more interesting happening at the same time.
Whoops. And yes, that was the very first scarab fired.
Even after that initial brutal shot, Kal was pretty slow on the probe pull. After 2 more scarabs fired, the Reaver takes his 12 Probe kills and flies off into the night.
What a lonely Probe. Also, you never notice how much graphics are recycled until you start freeze framing at random times. Tell me that’s not a tiny Dark Swarm over the mineral line.
Kal smartly tries to cut off the Shuttle with a few Dragoons but because of Horang2’s smart quick Shuttle speed build, he escapes handily.
If you close your eyes and pretend, you can see those Dragoons shaking their fists.
Now Kal is pretty afraid so he has some nicely positioned Dragoons waiting to intercept any incoming Shuttles.
But it turns out...
Fun fact I just learned: I saw the Reaver had only 10 kills on it even though I was pretty sure it had 12 so I ran an experiment. Apparently if you pick the Reaver up into a Shuttle before the scarab actually explodes, the Reaver doesn’t get credited with the kills!
Unfortunately for Horang2, that scarab ended up dudding. But still a pretty suave maneuver if I do say so myself.
Anyway, at this point Kal pushes Horang2 right back to his natural. But with the amount of Probe kills he got, I’m sure he doesn’t mind. He’s got a nice position on his end of the fat bridge so he’s not getting broken any time soon.
You shall not pass etc etc..
While Horang2 has been the master tactician in this game so far, Kal decides he’s got some cool moves of his own. With his position established outside Horang2’s bridge and his army threatening enough to make him commit all his units there for defence, Kal swings a bunch of Dragoons around through Horang2’s natural third to get a surround while sending his Reavers over to the natural mineral line. But then this happens:
Which in turn leads to this:
Still, Kal manages to get himself positioned rather nicely for a big fight. I’m not going to even try doing justice to a battle like this, so I invite you to watch a few minutes of the VOD. It will start at the battle.
Ultimately Horang2 loses both his Reavers while Kal’s both barely survive by the roboskin of their roboteeth (Robots). Still, he manages to push Kal back and this is followed by a pretty long period of passivity during which both players get up their Templar tech. Eventually Horang2 puts up his third while having a Probe in position to see that Kal has not yet taken his own.
The peace treaty is finally broken by Kal as he scouts Horang2’s third and responds by running his army up a ramp after it and taking his own third behind the attack. Horang2’s army is hot on the trail but Kal barely manages to target down the Nexus at the cost of his army.
“Ha! I got your Nexus!” - Nobody because they’re all dead.
Meanwhile, Kal has two Reavers in Horang2’s natural getting a ton of Probe kills. But he loses his Shuttle and consequently the two Reavers with it.
“Ha! I got your Nexus Probes!” - Nobody because they’re all dead robodead.
Because of those two exchanges, Horang2 has a massive army advantage but an equally massive economic disadvantage. So what do you do when that happens? This:
“Oh dear.” - Kal
Again, I’d like to direct you to the VOD for this final battle, though I assure you its not particular close !
And with that final facerolling, Horang2 picks up the W.
2010-2011 Season Again, this refers to the period of time between October 2010 and July 2011.
Even though his previous season had certainly been respectable, it was only with Hite’s merger with CJ, and consequently Horang2’s new environment, that he really became an incredibly potent force. Still, however, his results in individual leagues remained lackluster. He bombed out of the Bacchus 2010 OSL with a 1-2 loss to Hyun and lost in the MST to S2 and Roro. His next MSL run, the ABC Mart MSL, greeted him with a bit more success. In his MST group, he defeated Paralyze and Shine to come out first. Then in the group stage of the MSL Proper, he took his revenge on Hyun and beat Ruby to move on to the Ro16. But there, his run would end with a 1-2 loss to fellow Protoss Grape.
Just like last season, it’s when we look at his Proleague stats that I start to get amazed. First, I’ll just state his overall record on the season: 21-11 for 65% wins. But the cool thing is how many different ways we can break those numbers down and have them still be astonishing!
He’s 5-1 on Neo Aztec He’s 9-3 on La Mancha At most in the entire PL season, he dropped 2 games straight Freakin this: + Show Spoiler +
But of course, statistics never tell the whole story. People often write Horang2 off as a PvP sniper who’s abysmal, or mediocre at best, in his other match ups. To be frank, that is entirely unfair. Which of course means its time to look at another game! Let us watch a PvZ against Shine on Neo Aztec.
Horang2 is the red Protoss at the 12 and Shine is down at the 4 in yellow. The game opens as normal as can be with Horang2 forge expanding into a Stargate followed by Citadel while Shine goes three hatch into Lair.
It’s not funny but might as well just laugh anyway.
Air weapons are upgrading and Horang2 is building up his Corsair fleet. All PvZs are at least 20% cooler this way.
It’s okay to hide your Corsairs over the ocean but dont let them get Scourged or you wont be able to rescue the pilot.
The game proceeds as normal and Horang2 manages to slip a DT into the mineral line of Shine. Unfortunately he wasn’t very sneaky so he only got two drone kills, but he manages to deny mining for a little while.
“Come at me bro” - DT from Aiur Shore
Shine buckles down tight and takes his fourth base. Meanwhile Horang2 is just poking around with his army hoping to find a weak spot he can smash through.
Unfortunately the ever-present Lollipop Formation is denied.
Unable to do any damage, Horang2 just gears up to take a third base. However, Shine has a surprise for him:
That burrowed ling is giggling pretty hard, I assure you.
Horang2 continues to poke, this time at the third. Again he’s forced to back off.
“Get out of me, please.” Manner Archon.
I’m sure Horang2 considered going home, but he decided that he was actually a baller and starts to ferry units into Shine’s pretty undefended fourth.
Manner Archon is back with a vengeance.
With the help of four more Zealots, Horang2 manages to take down the base.
Note that dying Hatcheries apparently release Plague. Sadly Blizzard never thought to make it do 300 damage.
Horang2 manages to get down his third after much difficulty and he’s making his way up to 9 gates.
See? I told you he organized his gateways prettily.
Finally we get our first major engagement. Can you guess who wins the hell out of it with well placed Storms?
No it wasn’t Shine you jackass.
With that battle won handily, and +2 attack now finished, Horang2 crashes down on Shine’s third. Notice that Shine actually has three hatches at his fourth, making him pretty boned.
Look ma, no stupid tentacle things!
Meanwhile, as Shine is trying to get his army over to defend, Horang2 distracts it with a handful of Zealots he had rallied over. He’s pretty successful with it, as Shine ultimately has to burrow that Lurker.
“Sow how about that crazy weather we’ve been having?” - Distraction Task Force.
Shine’s third is entirely broken and his army mostly decimated by some more nice Storms. Horang2 continues on his merry way to take out the fourth.
Pretend Plagues... Pretend Plagues everywhere.
As he finishes off the fourth of Shine, Horang2 starts rallying his 834629 Gateways towards Shine’s natural, producing only Zealots. Horang2 also taking his fourth behind it.
Note that this is only like half the zealots in that congo line.
No description for this next event, just look. Unless you’re a Zerg sympathizer, then I advise you skip it.
Apparently people with chubby faces are really good at Storming.
Finally with Shine’s third and fourth dead, Horang2 consolidates his army, busts through Shine’s natural, and finishes off the game while Zealots continue to stream down the map.
Bam!
And with that, I conclude my writeup of why Horang2 is secretly amazing, not just in PvP, but on the whole. Whether he wants to cheese you dead in 5 minutes or if he wants to go late game and allow his spectacular macro to take over, he’s capable of taking games off the best of them. Hopefully in this coming season, Horang2 continues to be a critical component of CJ’s success. Moreover, I hope he can improve his performance in the OSL so that maybe he can get recognition as the truly great player he is. If you’re still reading this far, I thank you, and feel free to suggest players you might like to see a similar writeup of.
Cheers !
Bibbit is a Starcraft fan who apparently has too much time on his hands. If you want to be the first to know when he writes more incredibly biased overviews of players, follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Bibbit_Mack
OMG!!! what an epic writeup. haven't gone through the entire thing yet though. but still an awesome writeup. Horang2 deserves the spotlight and he's going to show everyone this season why.
One thing I always look for in a Horang2 game is whether he screws himself over by making his gateways too neatly. I swear he has some sort of compulsive disorder where he can't stand the thought of gateways and pylons not lining up in a neat line. Even if it means getting a couple of goons stuck in there.
I love these write-ups, really gives you an in-depth view of some of the lesser known players Horang2 was pretty good last PL but I didn't know he was that good xd
Piece of advice: When you're trying to convince people that someone is a good player and not just a dumb cheeser, don't use a game won with a proxy gate DT rush as your first piece of evidence.
It was a great read, thank you. Are you sure about those reaver kills that are not counted if they enter the shuttle before units die ? :o My mind is blown. Also, I think a dying hatchery looks like a dark archon as much as plague !
On November 27 2011 14:07 endy wrote: It was a great read, thank you. Are you sure about those reaver kills that are not counted if they enter the shuttle before units die ? :o My mind is blown. Also, I think a dying hatchery looks like a dark archon as much as plague !
Yeah man it blew my mind too! I was absolutely positive that Reaver was supposed to have 12 kills not 10 so I went into a game vs a computer, fired up a ton of cheat codes, and tested it out. : )
On November 27 2011 14:07 endy wrote: It was a great read, thank you. Are you sure about those reaver kills that are not counted if they enter the shuttle before units die ? :o My mind is blown. Also, I think a dying hatchery looks like a dark archon as much as plague !
Yeah man it blew my mind too! I was absolutely positive that Reaver was supposed to have 12 kills not 10 so I went into a game vs a computer, fired up a ton of cheat codes, and tested it out. : )
I had never heard about it before, I can't believe people still discover new things in BW. So Snow's record of the most kills with a reaver is probably even scarier than it is !
On November 27 2011 14:21 ]343[ wrote: nice writeup :D
I remember horang2 > flash,ggplay automatically made him the biggest goddamn thing ever, and then he failed
but now he's good!
MAN.
I still remember when horang2 JUST started playing. He beat flash, ggplay, and stork for his first three games. Such a crazy way to start off a career. Then he failed for a long while before reemerging as a macro beast.
My deepest memory with horang2, is that a caster claimed he is so good because he ate horang1. ^^" awesome writeup, sadly I only had the time to flew over it briefly. I'll reread it later.
a great player to have in a team and doesnt stand a chance to take an individual title since clearly he has no experience in a best of series games but non the less a great player/sniper for any team and his improvement in pvz has indeed been shockingly good may he gets better and better but lose horribly to any team 8 member
I'm not even joking, Horang2 has been my favourite player since I saw him play in the schools league. He's the main reason for my support of CJ. Horang2 fighting!
Pretty cool read Horang2 is a baller and Im glad that after last season's performance he doesnt get the same amount of crap as before! Now people even put him in their main team in FPL instead of anti team!
On November 28 2011 01:35 Yurie wrote: I read your write up as Horang can pvp, pvz and cheese in pvt. Thanks for the read, was funny.
Ye his PvT isn't too spectacular. But its still pretty good. There's a game I wanted to do but it's just so long. If you're interested, here's a really great macro game where Horang2 beats up Fantasy.
Woop woop. Wasn't a huge fan of him when CJ/hite merged (cheeser reputation, etc etc) but his play has impressed me and I've definitely come around to him.
This game was my first game I ever watched from Horang2
After a completely fail DT rush with his DT's walking through every single mine. He gets dismantled by vultures and if that wasn't enough, gets utterly destroyed by a mine daebak. As good as he is now, can't get the image of a fail protoss (like failhoon) out of my head.
On November 28 2011 08:11 icystorage wrote: very fun to read!
horang2good sparkyz represent!
Heh ye. I liked Horang2 when he was on Sparkyz but he pretty quickly became my favourite when he became part of my favourite team. Sparkyz was one of my favourites too, shame what happened. : (
On November 28 2011 05:38 Simplistik wrote: Horang2 vs Bisu also delivered a great game last season. It had some incredibly long fights, sustained by pretty good macro on both sides.
Nice post!
That was the game that finally clinched him the spot of my favourite player! I wanted to cover it in OP but I already did a PvP and didnt want to go too crazy.
Loved the whole writeup. Horang2 was my secret weapon in fantasy PL two seasons in a row! I remember that debut against flash and ggplay, such a "wtf" moment.
Also, your use of pics with captions is amazing. Extremely well done!
You forgot horang 2's proxy everything against fantasy where he lost to 1 vulture. That was a classic! Or that one game where he went 2 base carrier (oh wait that was like 85% of his games!)
In fact just hearing the name "Horang2" is enough to make me laugh. Kind of like the Jaehoon effect.
On November 28 2011 01:35 Yurie wrote: I read your write up as Horang can pvp, pvz and cheese in pvt. Thanks for the read, was funny.
Ye his PvT isn't too spectacular. But its still pretty good. There's a game I wanted to do but it's just so long. If you're interested, here's a really great macro game where Horang2 beats up Fantasy.
On November 29 2011 00:10 RavenLoud wrote: Noob question: How should we pronounce his name. I heard both Ho-ran-gee and Ho-ran-two.
There is no rule -___-
afaik Honrangee is the word for tiger and 2 is pronounced as ee so Horang2 is a fancy way to write "tiger". Personally I like "Horang-two", and I won't be changing that just because someone tells me to lol.
which doesn't overlap a great deal as I feature quite a few of the cheeses/PvP games that the OP seeks to avoid. if you're a BW noob and want to see more horangee highlights then go take a look
which doesn't overlap a great deal as I feature quite a few of the cheeses/PvP games that the OP seeks to avoid. if you're a BW noob and want to see more horangee highlights then go take a look
Heh if I'm being honest I was hoping for a spotlight. No luck but I'll be covering more players so hopefully another time. : )
And I never saw that Horang2 thing of yours! Gonna take a look at some of those games now, looks pretty sick. Coulda also been nice to see while I wrote this one. ^_^
Edit b/c I cant double post: After writing the word Horang2 so much, when I just wrote the word "orange" I accidently put a 2 at the end instead of the E. T_T
On November 28 2011 15:28 Kashll wrote: You forgot horang 2's proxy everything against fantasy where he lost to 1 vulture. That was a classic! Or that one game where he went 2 base carrier (oh wait that was like 85% of his games!)
In fact just hearing the name "Horang2" is enough to make me laugh. Kind of like the Jaehoon effect.
My hero is about to play freaking FlaSh in Proleague right now so I'm bumping the shit out of this. If anyone comments on the game after, keep it spoilered. : )
On December 18 2011 15:01 Bibbit wrote: My hero is about to play freaking FlaSh in Proleague right now so I'm bumping the shit out of this. If anyone comments on the game after, keep it spoilered. : )
horang2 is great but he's still not good enough he's been overhyped for a long time while he's still just mediocre. Maybe he has potential to hit a nice stride but so far he hasn't. Good write-up tho
On April 03 2012 19:32 alffla wrote: horang2 for OSL
If God forbid it is the last OSL, I think that would be my favourite possible ending. ^_^
All I want is another Protoss winning OSL.
Despite my race being Zerg (I shall always swear allegiance for the swarm!), I really think that a Protoss winning would be the most favorable result as it further provide proves that BW is the perfect balanced game.
Man I just started following proleague and I have to admit I just liked horang2's play in general. I'm so glad someone did a write up of him and I got to learn more. I'm going to be rooting extra hard for horang now in the OSL!! Hope he gets far.
What, he's retiring from StarCraft2? I was the biggest fan of Horang2 throughout his entire BW career, from when I saw him play against Tazza in the highschools league, to the last. I would watch every game religiously, and willed him to win no matter what. Thank you for the good times Horang2, no player inspired me like you did.
On a side-topic, I had a dream only 3 nights ago that he started streaming BroodWar. A prophetic dream perhaps..?
On December 12 2012 19:52 ImbaTosS wrote: On a side-topic, I had a dream only 3 nights ago that he started streaming BroodWar. A prophetic dream perhaps..?
Won't be possible with him going to military for two years I believe. Either way, all the best of lucks to him. He was pretty fun guy to watch.
There is little possibility of him streaming bw before enlisting to army. That's what is Pusan and Nada doing right now. Nada streams irregularly and not as much as Pusan does, but there is little hope that people shouldn't give up with.