Honor before money. Even if there was no money, I’d still want to be Champion. - Fantasy (link to interview)
Today Fantasy announced his retirement, making him the fourth big-name player to retire in the same number of weeks. Just like Flash, Rain and MMA, Fantasy will leave his own unique mark on Brood War and StarCraft 2.
For the last few years of competitive Brood War, Fantasy was consistently one of the best Terran players in the world. He never reached the dizzying heights of Flash or Jaedong but proved that he could beat them head-to-head, so long as it wasn’t in a finals. Despite all his skill, Fantasy never dispelled the Kong curse: his only victory was against Stork in the 2010-2011 Bacchus OSL, another Kong. Still he was an incredible player. At the end of BW he was the best Terran and arguably the second best player after Jangbi.
Fantasy never stood in the spotlight for long though. When he rose through the ranks, the fans and media talked about his relationship with iloveoov and how the legend had singled him out as his successor. But when he made it to finals, he choked and watched as Jangbi, Stork, Flash or Jaedong kissed the trophy in his place. In the last Proleague finals he defeated Flash in an incredible TvT, only to get upstaged by Bisu in the ace match. When people talk about the greatest Terrans of all time Flash, iloveoov, Boxer and Nada inevitably come up before his. Fantasy was certainly respected but when compared to his contemporaries, he was always overshadowed.
His SC2 career was much less glamorous. Like all BW transitions, his move was initially greeted with exuberance and expectation from the community. Fantasy was never venerated yet he ended BW at the top of his game, and supporters anticipated a debut comparable to Jaedong or Innovation. It was a wish left unfulfilled. By the time Fantasy got used to SC2, his peak had passed. Compared to Flash, MMA and Rain, his career looks mediocre. His gameplay was too riddled with flaws to ever be championship material: Fantasy’s macro was sloppy and only got worse whenever he was forced to multitask.
Oddly enough, that flaw was what made Fantasy so compelling to watch. The reason was because Fantasy seemed to understand his own weaknesses. He could never be as clean or as sharp as even the weaker INnoVation Terran Kespa clones. Instead Fantasy went all-in on his harassment, his tactics, his grit. When you watched Fantasy play, you watched desperation incarnate. He fought for every inch, every second, to the last tooth and last nail, for every worker, every mineral. The most prominent example of this were his series against TRUE but he did it against others, most notably Rain, Shine, HyuN and soO.
Fantasy admits it even in his own interview. Even back in BW he was unwilling to give up a lost game, where he had become infamous for his “Fantasy GG” timings. His remarkable stubbornness persisted in the hope that he could pull off that one miracle, that one incredible once-in-a-lifetime moment that will remain long after his retirement. For Fantasy, that game came against soO.
Strangely, Fantasy’s best SC2 year came after he had left SKT. It is widely known and accepted that the KeSPA regime is the best for training players because of its coaches, infrastructure and dedicated practice partners. After years of playing on the team with meager results in SC2, Fantasy decided to huff it with Dead Pixels to see what he could do alone.
That last year of Fantasy’s career was something else. In many ways it resembled the exact way Fantasy played games. It was tense, scrappy, ugly and bitterly fought till the end. He had no big tournament runs during this time, just a constant stream of Ro8s and Ro16s. Despite such unremarkable success he kept grinding over and over against better players, and got just enough upset wins that he landed a tiebreaker match against HyuN where he just barely won 3-2. Once he got to Blizzcon he was clearly outmatched by the competition, but still gave herO a scare before he was sent out. Fantasy’s last year of SC2 was fought with every ounce of grit and effort he had left in his body. He expected this to possibly be his last year, but was unwilling to go out without trying his hardest. Every game seemed like an attempt to grasp that miracle win, that once-in-a-lifetime incredible game.
Glance over Fantasy’s entire career and two stories emerge. The first was of a prodigy who rose to become one of the best of his generation; the other describes his descent into mediocrity and ultimately disappointment. However when you look at his games and his attitude, they coalesce into one.
I once wrote that the story of the GSL was not about the greatest players, the greatest rivalries or the greatest teams (though they are all there). It was about the insane pursuit to be the best, no matter the cost, no matter how hard the challenges. It is about players like MMA who rise and fall, only to rise again. It is about miscreants like YugiOh who utterly fail to reach Code S time and time again. Yet when Koreans were leaving Korea for easier money abroad, YugiOh refused to join the exodus. Playing in a scene without the best surrounding him was inconceivable. Honor before money, glory before reason: very few players exemplify those words, but Fantasy was certainly one of them.
Photo by itsjustatank
That is the original Crown Prince's legacy. A player who refused to let the Gods of BW crush him, a player who tried to conquer his own weakness with pure obstinacy. Fantasy who fought tooth and nail in every game he was in, and refused to give up and roll over as long as he still had more to give. He may never be beloved like the other greats of BW, and he was nowhere close to one of the great players in SC2. Yet he had that undeniable spark of competition, that madness to pour everything into his games no matter how ridiculous it looked or how hopeless the outcome seemed. For that he will always be one of the most respected players to have ever graced our scene.
You can take the soO match if you want, but for me there's no game which better encapsulates FanTaSy in SC2 than that first match against TRUE on Whirlwind. There's something beautiful about a player fighting for every last inch even though he knows he has already lost, and yet somehow, some way convincing everyone else he hasn't.
On January 05 2016 11:27 thecrazymunchkin wrote: You can take the soO match if you want, but for me there's no game which better encapsulates FanTaSy in SC2 than that first match against TRUE on Whirlwind. There's something beautiful about a player fighting for every last inch even though he knows he has already lost, and yet somehow, some way convincing everyone else he hasn't.
Absolutely. That game and the one against TRUE on Star Station are two of my favorite games ever.
FanTaSy games were completely out of the world. He was the only player that I would really enjoy watching him play. No matter who he plays, vs top S class players to B players, it will always end up to 1 last small scrappy fight with 3-4 units for each.
If you never watched FanTaSy's games, then you have no idea what a close series is.
My memory is a bit fuzzy, but what I remember of fantasy is that many of his games end up as slugfests\wars. He is pretty much the Robbie Lawler of Sc2 (without the champion status).
I feel like the current wave of retirements is depleting stuchiu's inspiration, as the delay between the retirement's announcement and his article is increasing each time (;
On January 05 2016 16:12 OtherWorld wrote: I feel like the current wave of retirements is depleting stuchiu's inspiration, as the delay between the retirement's announcement and his article is increasing each time (;
Let's just say that if there's one thing which shouldn't be questioned, it's how quickly stu is capable of cranking these out
On January 05 2016 11:09 TeamLiquid ESPORTS wrote: He could never be as clean or as sharp as even the weaker INnoVation Terran Kespa clones. Instead Fantasy went all-in on his harassment, his tactics, his grit. When you watched Fantasy play, you watched desperation incarnate. He fought for every inch, every second, to the last tooth and last nail, for every worker, every mineral.
...that is why I'll miss him so much: he was the first to be aware of his limits and especially in sc2 he often played driven by desperation which makes a "standard-godly" player a gosu one!
On January 05 2016 11:09 TeamLiquid ESPORTS wrote: The most prominent example of this were his series against TRUE...
...never forget!
GLHF FanTaSy and remember to always GG as late as you can!
no matter what he faced he never gave up, just like an anime hero character facing a stupidly OP villain... Never give up no matter how strong your opponent is, give the hardest you have, and they will fall no matter what. Even if FanTaSy did not win most of those games, you can never ever say that any series FanTaSy played was a one sided one. NEVER!
Going to miss Fantasy so much, definetely my favourite player in the end of WoL and during HOTS. I think Fantasy had the highest "epic game" ratio compared to any other player, always entertaining and nailbiting games when it came to him.
On January 05 2016 16:12 OtherWorld wrote: I feel like the current wave of retirements is depleting stuchiu's inspiration, as the delay between the retirement's announcement and his article is increasing each time (;
Let's just say that if there's one thing which shouldn't be questioned, it's how quickly stu is capable of cranking these out
Fantasy my last connection to Starcraft. When I first started watching BW he was my favorite not flash, bisu, JD. The harass was just so good. Nobody had vulture control like Fantasy. I would then only watch SC2 tournaments to follow him. When he left skt1 I changed my TL favorite team to DeadPixels just for him. He will be missed.
But still for some crazy reason my best memory of him is the entire SKT1 team dressing up in dresses and wigs and dancing. Fantasy was the best looking one lol.
On January 05 2016 16:12 OtherWorld wrote: I feel like the current wave of retirements is depleting stuchiu's inspiration, as the delay between the retirement's announcement and his article is increasing each time (;
Let's just say that if there's one thing which shouldn't be questioned, it's how quickly stu is capable of cranking these out
It's kind of sad that stuchiu has to shell out these retirement tributes every other day now.
I started by hating fantasy because of all those @(#%@)( vultures. I hate vultures. Can't control them myself, can't stop other people's. Stupid unit.
But that final vs. Jaedong was just fantastic. I think if fantasy had won I might have doubled down, but since he lost he started being a player I anticipated watching. I still rooted against him at the end playing Stork and Jangbi - but somewhere the hate turned into a grudging respect (and the occasional maniacal laughter when somebody lost a drone line to more vultures than it ought to be possible to build).
"Yet he had that undeniable spark of competition, that madness to pour everything into his games no matter how ridiculous it looked or how hopeless the outcome seemed. For that he will always be one of the most respected players to have ever graced our scene."
Fantasy was always an anomaly. He was a southpaw swinging and hitting ducking and missing. And he missed a lot. And he will be missed a lot too. Yeah, he gave us that amazing win on king sejong station, but he also gave us losses we'd rather forget.
My memory is of him massing starports in a corner of his base and going massive Wraiths in BW. Or his Vulture control.
If I were a coach and needed a terran back in the day, sure, Boxer, or Iloveoov would be great. Even better would be Flash, the greatest terran ever, but if I wanted to throw a wrench in the machinery of my opponent ... I would use Fantasy.
Yeah ... I mean it. Fantasy is in my opinion probably the most intelligent player to ever play the game. He was not the greatest in pure mechanics (hmm ... yeah that could use some improvement), but had great micro ... not the best but top tier definitely. What he had in spades was game sense.
Boxer had micro and intelligence, Iloveoov had macro and intelligence and then Nada and the greatest of the terrans Flash that seemed to have every thing. But Fantasy (and to some extent Skyhigh) seemed to have a field marshals sense of warfare.The ability to create a victory out of a whisper.
Fantasy is one of the greatest terrans of all time.
On January 06 2016 11:34 Spinoza wrote: Fantasy was always an anomaly. He was a southpaw swinging and hitting ducking and missing. And he missed a lot. And he will be missed a lot too. Yeah, he gave us that amazing win on king sejong station, but he also gave us losses we'd rather forget.
My memory is of him massing starports in a corner of his base and going massive Wraiths in BW. Or his Vulture control.
If I were a coach and needed a terran back in the day, sure, Boxer, or Iloveoov would be great. Even better would be Flash, the greatest terran ever, but if I wanted to throw a wrench in the machinery of my opponent ... I would use Fantasy.
Yeah ... I mean it. Fantasy is in my opinion probably the most intelligent player to ever play the game. He was not the greatest in pure mechanics (hmm ... yeah that could use some improvement), but had great micro ... not the best but top tier definitely. What he had in spades was game sense.
Boxer had micro and intelligence, Iloveoov had macro and intelligence and then Nada and the greatest of the terrans Flash that seemed to have every thing. But Fantasy (and to some extent Skyhigh) seemed to have a field marshals sense of warfare.The ability to create a victory out of a whisper.
Fantasy is one of the greatest terrans of all time.
I feel like you downplayed BW Fantasy too much even though you tried to be nice lol. He overtook Flash in the end of brood war. His vulture micro was THE best of any terran player. I feel his coaches took too much credit for his abilities.