BoxeR - 임요환
Lim Yo Hwan
Main Race:
Terran
Team:
SK Telecom T1
(From Wikipedia)
Lim first came to fame by dominating professional Starcraft while choosing to use the Terran race at a time when this was seen as a relatively weak choice in comparison to the other two Starcraft races. In fact, Lim admits in an interview that he actually chose Protoss as his race when starting to play early on, but later chose the more defensive Terran race over the offensive Protoss or Zerg. This reign of dominance earned him the nickname the "Terran Emperor". During this early time in his career he innovated heavily, creating many new strategies which are still used today, most notably making much more effective use of the Terran Dropship unit than had been achieved in the past. He also gained a reputation for being able to turn around matches against the odds and having excellent micromanagement (unit control) skills. In contrast, his weakness is thought by some commentators to be poor macromanagement (economy/unit production) skills in comparison to other top-level professional Starcraft players, although his macromanagement has improved over the last few years.
Though he is no longer the dominant force he once was, he was ranked 11th in the April 2006 Korean e-Sports Players Association (KeSPA) rankings, and made it to the finals of the EVER Ongamenet Starleague of late 2004 (losing to iloveOOv by three games to two) and the finals of the 2005 So1 OnGameNet Starleague (losing to Anytime by three games to two).
Lim has played professionally since version 1.07 of Starcraft, and has managed to stay competitive by constantly changing his style, and has had a great influence of the development of modern playing styles, especially for Terran players. He is the all-time leader in games played and won. He is a two time OSL champion, MSL champion, two time WCG champion, and former leader of the SK Telecom "T1" team. He is considered to have a strong eye for talent in that position, as he drew Choi Yeon-Sung (iloveOOv), among others, from the amateur ranks. His team has consistently been the strongest in the Proleague. He now leads the Korean Air Force Team.
Last August Lim announced at the MSL group draws that he had received his draft letter from the government, and would be entering the air force by the end of the year. He later said he would try his best to return after his 2 and a half years of service.
After Lim joined the Airforce he started putting his fame into work, after a month and a half an army progaming team was created, BoxeR found some retired progamers who joined the army before him, including H.O.T-Forever, CLon, ChRh, fOru, Rage, Qoo)Sunny and MuMyung. Together they formed the first army progaming team ever. After 2 months the team was announced, ACE (Airforce Challenge E-sports) was official. ACE is playing in the 2007 ShinHan Proleague.
