At face value Creator is a sixteen-year old Protoss player for the Prime Team. You might know him as the WCS: Korea champion or maybe one of the TSL4 semifinalists. While perhaps more people know his name nowadays, let me take you on a quick tour of how I became a Creator fan.
The GSTL 2011 Season 1 marked Creator’s first performance for Prime in the Team League. Previously, Prime was was considered a fairly mediocre team, especially as their top Terrans like MarineKing, Polt and Maka couldn’t carry their weight in team leagues. They were carried by their solid Zerg, BBoongBBoong, and barely qualified for the playoffs, only doing so after Fenix defeated MC in a surprise upset. Their roster was pretty different from the one that they carry today.
Prime’s reaction to qualifying for the playoffs.
Prime came into the Playoffs as the clear underdogs against the StarTale. After all, Prime had never progressed far in the earlier 3 GSTLs, and many were predicting them to be dumped out again. Creator would be their starter. It would be the opportunity for Creator hipsters to come out from underground and have Creator prove to them that he, indeed, was solid stuff.
Creator took the first game, destroying July would really solid play. He took the second one against AcE too in another upset. Unfortunately, he fell to Curious in game 3, but putting up Prime 2-1 allowed for the rest of the team to close it out and upset the clear favourites StarTale.
This was just a sign of things to come. Very soon after, Prime, after having defeated StarTale, would go up against Team SCV Life. TSL then is not the TSL we know now – they were considered a very solid top-tier team, boasting Team League monsters like aLive, RevivaL and JYP. Prime and TSL had met earlier in the tournament, where PuMa unceremoniously dumped Prime out – even when Prime had Polt to play for them.
Now, Polt had left Prime and joined TSL (although he wouldn’t be able to play for them). Things were, as again, looking dim for Prime – even dimmer than their match against StarTale. And indeed dim did it look. Gerrard pulled an admirable IMCoach impression for the first games, sending out Zerg after Zerg to take on PvZ specialist JYP. While he did catch to his senses when he was 3 games down, sending out MarineKing, soon he would face a 4-1 scoreline when Clide sniped MarineKing’s then-weak TvT.
Prime was down to their last player, and they needed him to take four games in a row to advance. Creator steps up.
Reception to his choice was mixed, to say the least. While the kid performed pretty well a few days earlier, Prime still had players like HongUn to send out. The LR thread is amusing to read at this point – MooMooMugi would eat his pants if Creator won 4 games in a row, while Shellshock 1122 suggested the TL 10 million dollar poll curse.
Creator took out Clide. He then beat Heart, and RevivaL in tense games.
Hey, look at that. It’s a 4-4 scoreline, and aLive comes out for the ace match – Creator beats him, too.
Creator after defeating Alive
That was really Creator’s moment – where he became a much more respected and really made a splash in Starcraft 2. Prime, the underdog, the consistent underperformer – had they found their ace player? The hero that MarineKing, Polt, HongUn, Maka, Check and anypro could not be? Sadly Creator would fall in the Grand Finals of the GSTL to Noblesse, after an intense base trade.
Now, you may wonder what all that was for – after all, we’ve already had battle recaps of that GSTL. It’s because, during those playoffs – I became a Prime and Creator fan. Now, I’m not the most hipster of fans – hardly noticing Creator when he nearly took out Mvp (I missed the matches) nor when he knocked Leenock to Code B – but the underdog story, and the holy-crap-I’m-fifteen story really got me. There was something about Prime’s reaction to qualifying – and then showing their grit and determination and heart when they got to the finals, where few would have expected so.
After his rise in the GSTL, Creator was considered a consistent Code A level Protoss as well as one of Prime's GSTL regulars. Up until very recently, GSTL has been where Creator has really shined – he has a 14-2 ace match record in the GSTL. That’s an insane statistic that none of DongRaeGu, MMA, Bomber, Mvp or jjakji – or anyone in the world – can say for their team. More recently he's proven himself to be one of the very best Protoss in the world after he won WCS: Korea.
Creator also is one of Prime's models
Creator is only recently sixteen (Western age). This is really, really young. It’s five years younger than Mvp and MC and Seed, eight less than MMA, and barely half Nestea’s age. Few can imagine performing amazingly well at such an age, and his fans are delighted to see what he might do in the next five years – when he will only have turned 21. Creator has also had quite the revolutionary impact on the metagame. His PvT build would be the Protoss’ ray of hope against the TvP lopsidedness, and in recent times, he’s shown excellent PvZ play (that Day[9] did a daily on) and PvP skill too.
But Creator’s on-screen and in-game achievements are well known to someone to follows Starcraft religiously, which I’m sure a lot of TL members do. What is he like as a person? For that, I asked for the help of masterbreti. Masterbreti is a Canandian progamer who lived for several months in the Prime team house, and currently still resides in Korea. While I have talked to Creator on-stream, who better to ask about Creator than someone who’s lived with him for months at a time?
It’s often said that Koreans are faceless progamers, but here’s what masterbreti had to say (edited slightly):
Creator is extremely warmhearted. He tries his best to be as kind as possible to everyone. He is very shy at times when it comes to speaking English – since his English isn't good, he'll often be too shy to really say much. Often when trying to communicate with me he'll say "English hard" and smile a little bit. He really does try to help everyone out, and is willing to try his best to make people feel welcome.
His English isn't that good, so often times that can be a barrier to communication, but he always tries his best. He is a constant supporter of his teammates, and always willing to help someone in need, even though he doesn't have to do it.
Creator works extremely hard, often the first one up in the morning, he practices really hard and very long hours, and it shows. He has 3 accounts in GM, and while I was in the house he had the 1st, 2nd and 3rd spot in Korean GM a few different times. He often gets overlooked though, and that’s a shame because he deserves to be the star player in the team, but is overshadowed by players who aren't as good as him.
Creator is my 2nd favourite player on prime, with BBoongBBoong taking first. I adore Creator and I always go to support him whenever I can, Creator is one of the people I really liked in the Prime house, and even though our communication was limited by language, he was always willing to try and talk to me. He was the first one to reach out and try to help me in the house, and was the reason I switched to Protoss from Terran, because he offered to help me if I ever switched, and still tried helping me even when I was playing Terran.
And so, I’d like to thank masterbreti again for letting see a different side of Creator that we may not be aware of.
It’s been difficult to say the least, writing this just after Creator fell out of his Up/Downs group. Creator’s one of my favourite players, and his heart and determination and slick play have really gotten me as a fan.
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jeez opterown if you told me that you were going to put it in basically word for word, I would have written something more eloquent. either way glad people could see what a amazing kid creator is.
good work on the article, I'm going to link it to creator next time I talk to him.
Playing sc2 in Korea! Twitter: radrelsc
TeeTS Germany. September 02 2012 00:26. Posts 1729
wow, what a nice writeup. Creator got me, when he defeated July in GSTL Season 1 2011. At this point PvZ was only about 2base timings. (yeah they still exist, but at that time we could talk about an 2base allin rate of 80-90% of the games!). But Creator went for a super solid macro build going up to 4bases in that particular game, playing..., well what you would consider now as a modern PvZ. He is THE innovator of Protoss in late 2011. With his clever play, creating intelligent builds that abuse the, at that time unseen, strengths of all the protoss units and upgrades, he conquered my heart :-). He is now my very favorite player together with marineking. I wish him the very best, but I know that we have to be patient with the kid. He is still very young. He will not make an era of domination like MVP did in 2011 yet. But when he is able to play up to his ability, then there is noone that can stop him! Go Creator :-)
opterown Australia. September 02 2012 07:28. Posts 27555
haha, unfortunately i was writing this at 7am the morning after creator fell out of up/downs, otherwise it would have been more hyped/epic. plus it got cut down about half as well i'll post the full thing in a few days' time to hype for finals!!! YEAH CREATORPRIME
live report calendar: http://goo.gl/qc4eD
Meteo Rain Finland. September 08 2012 19:50. Posts 81
Congrats on winning the TSL4! I hope you use a TL account more often so we can see your baller icon
"Holy fuck, no wonder the guy above me has 27k posts. Guy's a fucking speedyass ninja." -Roffles | COLIN CORAN CORN QOLIN CORINNE | #1 TL WORLD OF TANKS FAN AMONG SC2 FANS > FIONN
Creator > Select
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3xhB1.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/TSL4/Hype/primemodel.jpg)
Australia. September 01 2012 06:54. Posts 27555
