The Greatest Players of All Time

By: Mizenhauer

• Second most final appearances in Code S history
• 1-1 in world championship finals
• Had the best ZvZ in the world for 5+ years (2012-2017)

Notable tournament finishes

• 2013 Code S Season 3: 2nd place
• 2014 Code S Season 1: 2nd place
• 2014 Code S Season 2: 2nd place
• 2014 Code S Season 3: 2nd place
• 2014 DreamHack Open Stockholm: 2nd place
• 2015 KeSPA Cup Season 2: 1st place
• 2015 IEM Gamescom: 2nd place
• 2017 Code S Season 1: 2nd place
• 2017 Code S Season 2: 2nd place
• 2017 WCS Global Finals: 2nd place
• 2019 IEM World Championship: 1st place
• 2020 TeamLiquid Starleague 5: 1st place

soO enters this list at #7 by being a fixture in the grand finals of StarCraft II’s biggest events. Despite never winning Code S, he reached the finals an astounding six times across a span of eleven seasons. soO also reached the grand finals of both the WCS Global Finals and IEM World Championship, in the latter of which he finally won the first “tier-1” title of his career.

His eight combined finals appearances in Korean Individual League (Code S, OSL, SSL) and world championship tournaments surpasses the count of other greats such as Rogue (7), INnoVation (5), Zest (3), and TY (6), making him one of the game’s most accomplished, long-term championship contenders.

soO was the embodiment of lore-accurate Zerg with his swarming macro style, and he trampled opponents to death with superior numbers. However, he was also tremendously quick and finesseful in his army movements, which was well reflected in his masterful Zerg vs Zerg play.

soO’s trophy count is far lesser than the other players on this list, but his overall resume is still one of the most impressive in all of competitive StarCraft II.

Career Overview: Fall Seven Times, Rise Eight Times

Like many of the players on this list, soO began his StarCraft II career in May of 2012 as a KeSPA player making the official transition out of Brood War. His adjustment process occurred at a more ‘normal’ speed compared to the three previous players on this list (Rain, sOs, TY), and he would make his first notable run in Code S Season 3 of 2013—around sixteen months after he switched to full-time StarCraft II.

“Yo, HyuK, you figure we’ll still be playing StarCraft II in 7 years?”
“Not a f***ing chance, man.”

There, he blew past his previous best finish of top 16, and reached the grand finals while picking up wins against elite players such as Bomber, INnoVation, PartinG, and Soulkey. However, the grand final match against a peak-form Dear went poorly, resulting in a 2-4 loss. Still, there was a silver lining to be gleaned from the defeat. After all, second place was a fantastic result for a player relatively new to SC2, and taking two maps off of Dear was quite respectable considering the surging Protoss had gone 16-2 prior to the finals. Who knew what the future might hold for the talented, 20-year-old Zerg?

Indeed, soO used that runner-up finish as a rocket-powered springboard, and made 2014 an unbelievable breakout year. He reached the finals in all three seasons of Code S, setting a new record by reaching four consecutive Code S finals. Only the great Mvp and Nestea had even reached two consecutive finals prior to that, making soO’s mark of four feel like an unbreakable, historic accomplishment (which later served to make Maru’s fourth consecutive Code S title in 2019 all the more remarkable).

Unfortunately for soO, his finals opponents continued to be some of the most fearsome players of the time—Zest, Classic, and INnoVation. They handed him three more painful finals defeats, branding soO as StarCraft II’s first kong. Adding insult to injury, soO picked up another silver medal at DreamHack Stockholm, losing to Solar in the finals after starting the tournament 14-0.

Making you feel old through pictures.

Whether it was due to demoralization or simply the innate difficulty of playing championship-level StarCraft II over a long period of time, soO’s Korean Individual League results fell off considerably in 2015-2016. For two years straight, he was stuck as a middle-of-the-pack player, failing to reach the RO8 in any Code S or SSL event.

Still, this phase of soO’s career was not without some bright spots. He enjoyed his best season of Proleague in 2015, helping SKT win their first SC2 championship as arguably the team’s best player (a somewhat tricky designation given how SKT’s super-squad let them share the workload evenly). Also, he found success in some of the smaller individual tournaments, finishing second place at IEM Gamescom and even winning the KeSPA Cup in 2015.

While soO did say that winning the KeSPA cup was a wonderful experience that gave him motivation going forward, it ultimately ended up being one that ‘didn’t really count.’ Both community narrative and soO’s own expectations demanded that he win what the Korean fans called a “tier-1” tournament, and so the curse went unbroken in the minds of all those involved.

The dissolution of KeSPA Proleague in October of 2016 was a major turning point in StarCraft II, sending players down wildly different paths. One could have reasonably expected that soO—who had basically become a Proleague specialist by the end of 2016—would join the wave of retirees. Instead, out of nowhere, he made a huge individual league comeback in 2017.

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soO abruptly broke his Code S dry spell, blazing a path of destruction through Season 1 of 2017. Players like Classic, Dark, TY, and sOs all fell in his path as he reached the Code S finals for a fifth time. Alas, the ultimate result for soO was the same as in his previous five tries: defeat to a player enjoying one of their career peaks. This time, ’17 Stats was the executioner, bringing the ax down in a 4-2 finals victory.

Being the subject of an awful cosmic joke didn’t slow soO down. He came back just as strong in Code S Season 2, making another impressive run to the finals that included wins over Rogue, Classic, and Maru. soO must have felt a sense of relief that it was GuMiho who emerged from the other side of the bracket, marking the first time he wasn’t playing one of the undisputed best players in the world. Sure, GuMiho had won over many converts with his stellar play during his finals run, but he didn’t have the aura of ’14 Zest or ’14 INnoVation. He was clearly soO’s best chance of breaking the kong curse. But, in the end, GuMiho proved to be a worthy vessel of the StarCraft gods’ cruel will, and defeated soO 4-2.

Once again, soO had made Code S history in the most unfortunate way. He now sat atop the mountain with six finals appearances, surpassing the venerable Mvp’s five. Obviously, soO already had the record for most runner-ups locked up since 2014, with two silver medals being the most any other player had achieved. There would be no repeat of 2014’s triple Code S silvers as soO exited Season 3 in the RO16, but it was no mercy—there was an even more disastrous fate in store.

Back-to-back Code S finals appearances were more than enough to earn soO a spot at the WCS Global Finals, where he would compete for the first time since 2014. Fortune actually seemed to be on soO’s side at first, with a slip-up from Rogue allowing him to advance easily from his RO16 group with wins against WCS Circuit players Nerchio and Neeb. The quarterfinal draw against GuMiho was sure to have brought back some unpleasant thoughts, but soO vindicated himself in the rematch with a 3-2 win. soO got another lucky draw against a foreigner in the semifinals, as he ended SpeCial’s underdog run in a 3-0 sweep.

And so, once again, soO reached the precipice of vindication, and was set to face off against Rogue in the grand finals. In hindsight, this was soO’s most doomed finals of all—we now know Rogue was on the verge of one of the highest individual peaks in SC2 history, where he would win double world championships at BlizzCon and IEM Katowice. But, at the time, it actually started off well for soO as he took a 2-1 lead. There was a moment where fans might have believed that soO would finally have his day, and that Rogue—who was overhyped for wins in some smaller events—would finally get exposed.

Of course, disaster struck again, this time in a way that felt even more unfair than in the previous six defeats. Game four on Catalena saw soO draw the short straw in terms of starting positions, spawning at the one spot where the Creep spread pattern prevented him from building a full natural wall at a normal time. Intentional or not, Rogue exploited this with a Speedling all-in, tying the series. From there, the series was all Rogue, as he took two more maps to clinch his the world championship and hand soO his costliest grand finals defeat yet.

Unscrupulous fan calls for match-fixing.

For a player who had just suffered unfathomable disappointment, soO started off 2018 surprisingly well with a top four run in Code S Season 1. However, everything went downhill from there—he suffered group stage elimination in the following two Code S Seasons, and he failed to garner notable results in any secondary events. It seemed that whatever spark soO had rekindled in the 2017 campaign had been completely snuffed out, finally swallowed up by the despair of so many defeats. And, then, when the StarCraft II world expected it least, that spark came back as a roaring inferno.

soO entered IEM Katowice 2019 as an afterthought, with players like Serral, Rogue, Maru, Dark, and Stats being counted among the top contenders for the championship. soO was still solid enough to get through the RO76 play-in stage, but a 0-3 start in his RO24 group seemed to affirm his status as a player whose best days were far behind him. However, in perhaps the biggest (and long overdue) stroke of luck in his career, soO cheated death. He won his final two matches in the group, and all of the other results broke in a way that he won a four-way tie on map score and advanced to the playoffs.

Finally getting one good break seemed to make all the difference, as it triggered soO to go on one of the most improbable underdog runs ever. First, he took out Zest in the RO12—this win wasn’t the craziest as Zest was prone to wild swings in form at the time. However, soO seemed to be drawing completely dead against his RO8 opponent in Serral. The Finnish Phenom had won the WCS Global Championship just three months prior, and his success even had European Zergs talking about how the aggressive, risk-heavy style of Korean ZvZ was flawed. Their “random” all-ins shouldn’t work against someone who was playing optimally, and Serral was proving that point.

After splitting the first two games (neither of which were particularly competitive), game three on Year Zero would be the turning point in both the series and soO’s career. In an epic showdown that would become an instant game of the year contender, soO stuck to Lair tech while Serral looked to Hydralisks and eventually Hive. soO was certain to lose if he let Serral stabilize with superior tech, so he had no choice but to do what he did best: attack. The game teetered on a knife’s edge for over fifteen minutes, with a new wave of Roach-Ravager crashing in whenever Serral finally got some breathing room. The game came down to a final skirmish at the 27-minute mark, with soO’s final five Roaches and single Ravager taking on Serral’s mix of one Roach, one Ravager, a pair of Hydralisks and five Drones. When the dust settled, soO had emerged with the victory. Riding that wave of momentum, soO took game four and moved onto the RO4.

It cannot be overstated how much of a shock it was to see Serral defeated by the long slumping soO. Serral was the best player in the world and felt utterly invincible, but soO had actually dictated the tempo of the series and taken a 3-1 victory. As it turned out, his experience from years of Roach wars against the likes of Soulkey, ByuL, Rogue was still valid, and just enough to usurp the newly crowned global champion.

While a player like soO could never fully shed the aura of impending doom around him, the victory over Serral on Year Zero steeled him for the final push to the summit. He took down herO 3-1 in the semifinal series, moving on to face his old Code S finals foe Stats in the grand finals. Another soul-crushing defeat seemed to be on the horizon after Stats went up 2-0, but this time, soO found the keys to victory. He took four straight wins in a row, winning a 4-2 comeback victory to dispel the curse that had afflicted him for five years. He was undeniably and incontrovertibly, a champion.

After this career validating victory, soO’s career finally started to wind down in an irreversible way. There was simply no longer a need to go all out to try and win that elusive championship. Amusingly enough, this more relaxed version of soO managed to take one last trophy for the road. In 2020’s all-online Team Liquid Starleague 5, soO took out INnoVation in the finals, getting a small bit of revenge for his GSL finals loss six years prior. While soO recently made a comeback of sorts after completing his military service, it’s been more of an epilogue than a continuation. He’s content to compete at a more casual pace, knowing that he has nothing left to prove.

The Tools: Mid-Game Magic

soO is arguably the greatest Lair-stage player of all-time, and at the very least, he deserves that distinction in Heart of the Swarm. Prior to the Legacy of the Void economy changes, StarCraft II was much more mid-game oriented and featured more game-deciding battles between tier-1/2 troops (okay, the turtling was a lot more insufferable if it got past the mid-game, but nevermind that for now). In this environment, soO excelled by being the most mechanically sound Zerg. He had the best Creep spread, hit the most injects, and simply made more units than any other Zerg player. These macro superpowers helped soO grind his opponents into the dirt with a combination of speed and brute force.

While soO was strong in all three match-ups, his mechanical gifts made him especially good at Zerg vs Zerg. Within a year of his Code S debut, soO had already become the best player in the mirror, with him and Soulkey setting the meta for the match-up. When looking at win-rates in major competitions, soO stands out as the best overall ZvZ player for nearly five years during 2012-2017.

Due to soO’s comparative weakness in the late-game, his mid-game oriented style could be a double-edged sword. To fully leverage his macro advantage and finish games before they went too long, he had to take aggressive fights off Creep and charge into defended bases. While this approach won him countless games, it sometimes led to defeat in situations where other Zergs could have played things safer and won with a late-game transition.

The rigidity of soO’s style translated poorly to the StarCraft II metas of 2018 and afterward, leading to an overall decline in results. And yet, he still won his world championship in 2019 with his stubborn way of playing. In sum, the overall balance of soO’s strengths and weaknesses was well in the positive, allowing him to achieve historic greatness.

The Numbers: Silvers and Gold

a: SSL 2017 was excluded due its 10-player format.
b: Includes one RO16 finish in a 16-player SSL tournament + one RO12 finish when SSL used a 16-player double elim-format.
c: Includes one RO16 finish in a 16-player SSL tournament.
While the great

a: SSL 2017 was excluded due its 10-player format.
b: Played in a 16-player, double-elim format.
soO’s primary peer group consists of Maru, Zest, sOs, and INnoVation—players who were generally considered the most successful in the scene between 2012 and 2017. Interestingly enough, none of these players enjoyed a hyper-consistent individual league stretch like #8 TY or #10 Rain, but they were clearly the dominant and defining players of the time.

While the greatest triumph of soO’s career came at the IEM World Championships in 2019, soO secures his place among the greatest of all time largely on the back of his historic performances in GSL Code S during this mid 2010’s period. soO equaled Mvp’s mark of four Code S finals appearances by the end of 2014, and surpassed him in 2017 after reaching finals number five and six. Maru eventually broke soO’s record by making it to a seventh final in 2022 (ten total now), but soO remains above all others in the GSL.

While soO’s record in Code S finals is dismal, an amusing side effect of reaching so many finals is that soO has one of the best Code S RO8 + RO4 records in history at 13-2 in matches (87% win-rate). Mvp is the only player who is clearly better with a 11-1 record (92%), and even winningest Code S player of all-time Maru has a surprisingly weaker 23-10 record in comparison (there was a long period before 2018 where his lack of Code S success was a major criticism).

a: To correct for record inflation from international tournaments during an era where the Korea-World gap was at its widest.

While soO was a strong all-around player, his ZvZ is worth singling out for some extra attention. During his ‘prime’ run during 2012-2017, soO was the best ZvZ player in the world. He beat out nearly all of his contemporaries in terms of both wins and win-rate, and often by a comfortable margin at that (for a time, Soulkey was a worthy rival). For ranges of a year and longer, only Nestea’s initial 2010-2011 stretch and Serral’s 2018+ stretch surpass soO in terms of raw win-rate in offline matches. However, cross era comparisons are tricky here due to generally higher win-rates for top players in Serral and Nestea’s eras.

a: SSL 2017 was excluded due its 10-player format
b: WCS Global Finals 2013-2019, IEM Katowice 2014-2023 (except 2016), WESG 2016-2018, Gamers8 2020

When it comes to final appearances in Korean Individual Leagues and world championships, soO has one of the highest counts in SC2 history. Maru’s farming of the GSL in recent years has left everyone else in the dust, but soO still manages to come in third place on the list despite having ceased to be a major title threat in 2019 (in that regard, his 2020 TSL win is rather baffling).

a: The 2011/12 season was excluded as it was played in a hybrid Brood War + SC2 format.
b: Playoff statistics included.
c: Classic played nine of these games as Terran, going 2-7.

While soO’s Proleague record falls short of absolute best players in league history, he firmly belongs in the very next tier down. SKT’s calling card during the Proleague era was its super-teams that had both top-end strength and depth, which meant none of their players had to shoulder the heavy game count of workhorses such as Flash and herO. Still, soO excelled whenever he was called upon, and achieved a strong 64.4% win-rate over 90 games played (equal to his teammate Classic).

The Placement:

Ranking soO among the best of all time begs the question: what is the value of second place when compared to a championship? soO’s 0-6 record in Code S finals has to be held against him, but it’s unclear how much he should be docked for his repeated failures.

The type and size of an event plays a big factor. For example, consider the recent iterations of the Super Tournament that have sixteen players in a single-elimination bracket. A player only needs to win three matches (nine maps) to reach the finals. Technically, you could even finish second place with a sub-50% map win-rate. In this kind of tournament, it’s hard to know the value of a runner-up finish without really digging into each match.

Code S, however, is an entirely different beast. Much of Code S’s prestige is derived from how it was the most rigorous test of skill in StarCraft II for nearly a decade. The 32-player versions of the tournament required players to win seven series and at least 18 maps in order to claim the championship. Not only that, but older versions of the tournament featured high-level players from the very beginning, with championship-level players often falling out in the first round. soO may have finished second six times, but winning 6/7 of the matches needed to get to the finals was still a very difficult feat. While there is an extra premium that should be placed on the finals, it doesn’t supersede the combined results from the RO32 to RO4. In my mind, reaching the finals of these 32-player Code S tournaments is nearly as impressive as winning the entire season.

While Dear and GuMiho won Code S with decisively better records, the margins in other series are much closer. soO’s overall map record was close to Zest, INnoVation, and Stats, and he even recorded a higher map win-rate than Classic. While there is an extra premium that should be placed on the finals, it shouldn’t completely overshadow the combined results from the RO32 to RO4.

Taking all that into account, soO’s record of six Code S runner-ups, one BlizzCon runner-up, and one IEM Katowice championship duly earns him the #7 spot on this list.

The Games

Games were selected primarily based on how well they represented a players’ style, not entertainment value.

soO vs Serral: 2019 IEM World Championships – Quarterfinals (March, 2 2019)

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(Timestamp: 21:00)

In one of the greatest ZvZ’s of all time, soO defied popular convention by sticking to roaches and ravagers all game despite Serral transitioning into hive tech and investing in hydralisks and vipers. After more than 20 minutes of non stop fighting from both sides, soO managed to upset the reigning WCS World Champion in one of the most tense finales you’ll ever see in StarCraft II.

soO vs Dark: 2015 KeSPA Cup Season 2 – Finals (July 12, 2015)

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soO seemed dead to rights after Dark’s early pool meant his zerglings arrived in soO’s main base before a single fighting unit had spawned for soO. But, against all odds soO held. Dark followed it up with a baneling bust that should have ended the game for a second time, but soO’s perfect worker splits bought enough time for his roaches to arrive and mop up the last of Dark’s speedlings. Having done the impossible, soO continued to pump out roaches before walking across the map en route to winning the KeSPA Cup—giving soO his first Premier Event victory of his career.

soO vs Flash: 2014 Code S Season 3 – Round of 16 (September 5, 2014)

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Fresh off a win against Zest in the finals of IEM Toronto, Flash had the wind in his sails heading into the Round of 16 of Season 3 of Code S. He started game one against soO as well as he could, netting 36 worker kills across the first 12 minutes of the game. But, soO clawed back in the game one with one good engagement after another. By the 17 minute mark soO was actually ahead in supply and after another few battles, soO was able to take the game, and eventually the match, to end the Flash hype as quickly as it had begun.

soO vs Stats: 2019 IEM World Championship – Finals (March 3, 2019)

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(Timestamp: 3:52:30)

A big part of being a great macro player is having the ability to survive until you can macro. Down 0-2 to Stats in the biggest series of his career, soO did just that. With Stats going for a 3-base timing, soO deftly matched him every step of the way without over or undercommiting to Drones. As a result, he was able to beat back the Protoss forces with ease, and launch the counterattack that would be his first step toward the world championship trophy.

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• Source: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/620188-7-soo-greatest-players-of-all-time