#4: Mvp – Greatest Players of All Time

The Greatest Players of All Time

By: Mizenhauer

• Greatest player of Wings of Liberty
• Widely considered the GOAT until 2017
• Eight Liquipedia premier tournaments won during two-year peak

Notable tournament finishes

• 2011 Code S January: 1st place
• 2011 GSL World Championship: 1st place
• 2011 MLG Anaheim: 1st place
• 2011 Code S August: 1st place
• 2011 Code S October: 2nd place
• 2011 BlizzCon Invitation: 1st place
• 2011 World Cyber Games: 1st place
• 2012 Code S Season 2: 1st place
• 2012 IEM Cologne: 1st place
• 2012 Code S Season 4: 2nd place
• 2013 WCS Europe Season 1: 1st place

Every player on this list was dominant to some extent, but Mvp may have been the most dominant player ever within his own era. He attained three Code S championships and two runner-ups during Wings of Liberty, becoming a grand finals regular back when merely qualifying for the tournament ten times in a row was deemed worthy of an award.

Mvp was excellent outside of Code S as well, picking up five Liquipedia-premier titles in “weekender”-style tournaments during Wings of Liberty. A handful of players came close to him in terms of either domestic achievements (Nestea) or international success (Leenock, TaeJa), but no one could match his combined resume in WoL. The simple fact was that Mvp was light years ahead of his contemporaries in the foundational years of SC2.

The reign of the King of Wings could be roughly broken down into two different eras. 2011 saw him rule as a ‘traditional’ StarCraft tyrant, outplaying his opponents in every aspect of the game and attaining absurd win-rates. From 2012 onward, wrist and back issues slowly forced him to adapt a more cerebral playstyle, beating opponents with planning and cunning rather than overwhelming mechanics.

While Mvp’s career may have been much shorter than the other players featured on this list, his era-defining play make him unquestionably one of the greatest of all time.

Career Overview: The King of Wings

Just like players 10 through 5 on this list, Mvp began his career as a KeSPA convert from StarCraft: Brood War. However, unlike those players, he did not make a forced transition during the official KeSPA migration of 2012. Instead, he was one of the early adopters, jumping into StarCraft II during its launch year of 2010.

Mvp wasn’t immediately ready to go upon Wings of Liberty’s official release in July—he was tied up with his KeSPA team Woongjin Stars until August, and even considered retiring from progaming at that time. However, he decided to give StarCraft II a shot on his father’s recommendation, and made his debut in GSL Open Season 2 of 2010. Mvp was the most high-profile Brood War player to switch games at that point, being the only regular Proleague rotation player to make the leap. Considering that reputation, his first tournament was a disappointment as he finished in the RO32 of the 64-player tournament. Open Season 3 was similarly unremarkable, though Mvp improved slightly for an RO16 finish (most notably beating IdrA on the way).

However, by the time 2011 came around, Mvp’s adjustment period was complete, and he was ready to ascend to the throne. In GSL January: Code S (the first season to have official Code S branding), he stormed through the group stages without a loss, and continued his hot streak into the RO8 with a 3-0 over Trickster. In the final two rounds, Mvp took out both finalists from his tepid debut tournament just four months prior—Nestea (3-1) and MarineKing (4-0)—to make it absolutely clear that this was a different Mvp. Even to this day, Mvp’s 16-1 record in Code S January is one of the best runs in tournament history (only NesTea managed to win Code S with fewer losses—going 14-0 in the July edition of the tournament in 2011).

A championship hangover came quickly for Mvp, as he languished in the lower rounds during the March, May, and July seasons of Code S—even briefly falling to Code A during GSL May (ironically, Code A’s semi-standalone structure at the time made it so that Mvp’s reputation didn’t take much of a hit due to this 2nd place finish). Even the ₩100,000,000 first place prize of the first GSL Super Tournament couldn’t wake Mvp from his torpor, as he dropped out after two rounds. Still, those spring and early summer months weren’t entirely fruitless, as Mvp hit gold again in the first GSL World Championship held in April, winning the trophy with another victory against MarineKing in the finals (4-2). And, while this specific article series considers the GSL WC to be lesser than Code S in hindsight, this was regarded as a “full” GSL win for Mvp at the time (understandable given the historical context) and reaffirmed him as one of the top players in the world.

Mvp shook off his Code S funk as he moved into the second half of the year. First, he gave a little preview of what was to come at MLG Anaheim, beating DongRaeGu, Boxer, and MMA to win one of the most hyped international tournaments to date. Then, upon returning to Korea, he made his struggles in the past three Code S events seem completely irrelevant in Code S August, winning his second Code S title and third GSL title overall with another historically great map score of 14-2. He took out a number of the biggest names in the scene along the way—including MC, Polt, Nestea, HuK—before taking out TOP (now better known as Kiwian) 4-1 in the finals.

There would be no post-championship slump this time around, and Mvp went straight back to the finals in Code S October. Again, he took out some of the star players of the time, beating Bomber (2-0) in the RO16 and Nestea (3-2) in the quarterfinals. However, the grand finals against MMA saw Mvp forced to play a supporting role in a career-making performance for the SlayerS Terran, who avenged his finals loss to Mvp at MLG Anaheim to claim his first Code S championship.

Mvp closed out his 2011 Code S journey with another strong result in Code S November, finishing in the final four. Mvp was undefeated through the group stage (where he beat eventual champion jjakji) and the RO8, but bowed out of the RO4 after suffering a narrow 2-3 loss against the rising Zerg Leenock.

The last quarter of 2011 was also a huge success for Mvp in terms of non-GSL competitions. At the 2011 BlizzCon Invitational and the World Cyber Games—two ‘Olympic-style’ tournaments with diverse international representation—he fulfilled his duty as Korea’s top representative by annihilating the rest of the field and claiming the championship for StarCraft’s adopted homeland. In particular, the WCG victory had extra symbolic meaning, as Brood War greats such as Boxer, iloveoov, Jaedong, and Flash had all previously won the gold medal as an unofficial rite of passage (in a sad but funny twist, Mvp won the right to represent Korea by defeating personal punching bag MarineKing again in the finals of the qualifier). At MLG Providence—the grand finale to the 2011 MLG season—Mvp attained a respectable 4th place finish after bowing out to eventual champion Leenock in the losers’ bracket.

After his tremendous 2011 where he achieved two Code S championships and one runner-up, Mvp stumbled to begin his 2012 campaign as he was eliminated in the RO16 of Code S Season 1. While Mvp had already made his issues with wrist pain known in 2011, this abruptly poor result abruptly turned it into a point of major concern (later, we would learn Mvp also had issues with a slipped disc in his back, which further impeded his ability to practice). While some fans were slightly overzealous in using Mvp’s health to explain his decline entirely (the next generation of players was definitely getting better at the same time), something was clearly not right with the former best in the world. Mvp even quietly declined to attend the spring’s IPL4 and MLG Winter Championship events—by far the most important and lucrative international tournaments he could have played in—suggesting he really needed the time off for recovery (later that year, he would explicitly decline his IPL5 spot due to health issues).

In April of 2012, just ahead of Mvp’s Code S RO32 group, his team Incredible Miracle posted the following message on Facebook: “MVP has been resting for quite some time. He is preparing to make a comeback so please cheer for him.” And what a comeback it was.

In Mvp’s most dramatic Code S championship saga, he showed us the most noticeable effect of his deteriorating health: a drastically changed playstyle. In 2011, Mvp had loosely fit the Terran macro-monster archetype of player, beating his opponents by being better at all aspects of standard play. However, 2012 Mvp leaned more heavily into his strengths that weren’t mechanics related—his ability to strategize in series, and his superior understanding of late-game scenarios. This meant more cheeses and more mech—both things he enjoyed mixing in before, but were now cornerstones of his extremely crafty style.

Early indicators were mixed. Mvp just barely squeaked through the first two group stages, getting second place both times. However, in the RO16 group decider match against Leenock—who had defeated Mvp in their last two meetings and was one of the fastest rising stars in the game—Mvp pulled out a vintage performance from 2011 to beat him 2-1 in straight-up games. Even though Mvp said his hands were going numb by the end of the series, it was the kind of performance that made fans believe the old Mvp might be back.

Mvp’s RO8 match against NaNiwa—one of the few non-Korean players who could play at a Code S level at the time—projected to be tricky, but Mvp leaned heavily on SCV-pull all-ins to take the 3-1 victory (much to the chagrin of international fans). Mvp’s next opponent of PartinG posed a much greater challenge, as he was widely regarded as the best PvT player in the world at the time. But somehow, despite PartinG having had plenty of time to scout the series against NaNiwa, Mvp got his cheeses to work again. An SCV-pull all-in did the job in game one, while a 1/1/1 narrowly beat PartinG in game two. Though PartinG got to show off his best-in-world macro play in game three, Mvp sealed the deal with Marine-Medivac drops in game four.

That set up Mvp to face one last PvT trial, which would be the most difficult of his entire run. His finals opponent would be Squirtle, who had just finished second place at IPL4 with wins over several of the top players in the scene, and had put up a 14-1 map record in Code S on his way to the finals. However, Mvp’s continued defiance in the face of long odds had won fans over, and the finals looked to be a toss-up between the Squirtle’s objective might and Mvp’s magic.

After three games, it appeared that fans had underestimated Mvp’s veteran savvy yet again. He reeled off three wins off the bat, putting himself in a historically unloseable position. However, Squirtle proved he was also possessed of a strong mentality by fighting back, going on a 3-0 run where he comprehensively outplayed the Incredible Miracle Terran once both players were established on three bases (including the infamous late game affair on Metropolis). That sent the two players to a seventh and final game on Atlantis Spaceship, a ridiculously macro-favored map where Protoss had a 60%+ winrate against Terran.

Mvp must have known full well just how bad of a position he was in. Squirtles pace and precision had played a large part in his comeback, while Mvp struggled to keep up with his limited dexterity. Needed to negate Squirtle’s biggest advantage to win the series, Mvp put it all on the line with a game seven cheese.

In one of the most daring games in StarCraft II history at that point, Mvp forced Squirtle’s hand by building a pair of Barracks on the Protoss side of the map. After an intense back and forth battle in Squirtle’s main, Squirtled seemed to have stymied the all-in. In any other situation, Squirtle would have won the game. He was ahead in virtually every metric and his Stalkers were a perfect counter for small groups of Marines. However, the incredible composure Squirtle had shown to tie the series left him in this moment, and he moved to counterattack far too soon. Unfortunately for Squirtle, Mvp had been gathering Marines and SCV’s for one final attack, and he seized upon Squirtle’s mispositioned units to deal a championship-winning blow. Mvp had won his third Code S, fourth GSL, and with it, the title of “Greatest of all Time” in StarCraft II’s young history.

After going on such an incredible run, Mvp went back to looking like an injury-wracked veteran in his next couple of tournaments. He fell in the RO16 of both Code S Season 3 and the inaugural StarCraft II OSL, leaving fans to wonder if the Code S Season 2 had been the final great performance of a legend. Mvp continued to manage his workload, declining even more major events in the WCS Korea nationals and IPL5. Still, when he did make a rare overseas appearance at IEM Cologne, he proved that even a diminished legend is greater than the majority of players in the world by defeating a foreigner-heavy pool to win the championship.

As it turned out, Mvp did have one final flame to burn in Code S Season 4. He stumbled a bit in the RO32, picking up a loss before advancing in second place, but looked better in the RO16 as he advanced in first place. Mvp was an underdog against his first two playoff opponents in Symbol and Rain, but after the experience of Code S Season 2, no one was surprised when he used his veteran know-how to once again quell the momentum of rising contenders (the TL.net previews of the time listed the strengths and weaknesses for the playoff contenders; for Mvp, the strengths column led with “is Mvp”).

Back in the finals for the second time in 2012, and now challenging for a newly created G5L trophy, Mvp found himself facing yet another meteoric rising player in Life. At this point, old-man-Mvp’s ability to take down more talented but less experienced players was legendary—perhaps even more so than his 2011 reign of terror. It was completely reasonable to think that Mvp would just magically conjure a victory again, and a short poll of progamers and TL.net writers favored Mvp by a 11-to-5 score. MMA’s comments summed up what many fans were probably thinking “I think it’s really 50/50. Life’s mechanics are way ahead, but Mvp is just different in tournaments. It will all depend on how Mvp prepares.”

In what would become a painfully familiar pattern in the next few months, the games were largely decided by whether or not the Terran player could prevent the Zerg from assembling the deadly Brood Lord-Infestor composition. Mvp wouldn’t slow Life down in the first two games, and tapped out to Life’s ultimate high-tech force. As one would expect, Mvp was completely unrattled, and fought his way back from the deficit. He tied up the score with two straight games of blue-flame Hellion openers, and then took the lead by winning game five with his signature mech. However, Life successfully played to this win condition in the final two games, navigating the early/mid-game to assemble his Brood Lord-Infestor swarms once more. For all his preparation, Mvp didn’t have an answer for this invincible composition—BL-Infestor might be the only thing that equals Mvp as an icon of the WoL era—and he surrendered the championship to Life.

Despite the finals loss, Mvp’s fantastic all-around performance left fans wondering if he could stick around Code S and continue to manufacture deep playoff runs out of sheer cunning and willpower. Unfortunately, Season 4 was truly Mvp’s last ride in Code S, as he was knocked out of the RO32 in the next two seasons. With the release of Heart of the Swarm in March of 2013, Blizzard also introduced a radically changed WCS system for esports (the world was split into the GSL, WCS Europe, and WCS Americas regions, but without a ‘hard’ region lock). Presented with an opportunity to leave the GSL and play in the easier WCS Europe region, Mvp decided to say farewell to the tournament series that had made him a legend. To some, this signaled the start of a gradual road to retirement. To others, it was an opportunity for Mvp win one last tournament before his body forced him to call it quits.

Both groups turned out to be correct. After showing he was ready for Heart of the Swarm by placing top four at the 2013 IEM World Championship (the first ever HotS major), Mvp emerged victorious in the very first season of WCS Europe. In the finals match against Stephano—himself a slowly declining legend of WoL—Mvp proved he had a little more left in the tank by taking a 4-1 victory.

Mvp was clearly running on fumes by this point, but he had one more “he’s still got it” performance left in him. Winning WCS Europe earned Mvp a spot in the WCS Season 1 Finals a competition between the best players from the GSL and WCS. As he was wont to do, Mvp found a way to make it through the RO16 group stages before taking out fellow WCS Europe player ForGG in the Round of 8. Having reached the semifinals, Mvp found himself at an extreme disadvantage against INnoVation. Mvp may have spent 2012 putting down players who could be called ‘the next big thing,’ but the STX Soul Terran looked like he was on a different level entirely.

In what would prove to be Mvp’s last hurrah, he pushed INnoVation to his limits in a way no one expected. In particular, Mvp’s astounding comeback win in game two on Akilon Wastes proved that even if it was just for one game, Mvp could briefly become the best player in the world. Mvp even managed to take the lead temporarily after taking game three as well, but finally, father time, the gods of ligaments and joints, and fate came to collect their long overdue debt. All the mind games, tricks and feints in the world were never going to be enough to make up the mechanical difference between the two great Terrans. INnoVation proceeded to win games four and five, eliminate Mvp, and sweep sOs in the finals to win the entire tournament.

After a one-and-a-half year farewell tour in WCS Europe, Mvp announced his retirement in mid 2014. He did so as the unquestionable, undeniable, Greatest StarCraft II player of all time. Now, nearly a decade removed from his retirement, Mvp is still remembered as one of the best to ever play StarCraft II.

The Tools: Brains, Brawn, and Heart

The 2011 version of Mvp was made in the image of the Terran greats of Brood War. Like Nada, iloveoov, and Flash, he was simply better than his opponents at what seemed like every aspect of the game, administering comprehensive and one-sided beatdowns. Still, as with those three BW legends, Mvp had one area in which he particularly excelled: late-game play. Macro and late-game play are often the last things to get figured out in a new RTS, and Mvp was ahead of the curve in terms of his understanding. Like many players with this disposition, this led to a particular affinity for mech.

Despite being the first truly dominant player in SC2, Mvp might be more well-known and beloved for his dramatic runs as the injury-wracked veteran in 2012. During this time, his cunning and intelligence came to the forefront. He had an amazing sense for when to cheese, when he could get away with a straight-up game against a ‘better’ player, and when he needed to play safe himself.

Finally, Mvp had one of the strongest “knows how to win” factors in all of StarCraft II history. This highly unscientific attribute encompasses all of the intangibles: composure, intimidation, adaptability and the like. Perhaps some day, someone will accurately break down SC2’s murky terms like “mental” and “condition” into more objective and measurable factors. Until then, it will suffice to say that Mvp was one hell of a winner.

The Numbers: A Brief But Glorious Dynasty

a: The 2010 Open Seasons and the 2011 Super Tournament were included due the number of players and amount of prize money. The GSL World Championship was counted as a “weekender” for the purposes of this section.
b: 64-player tournament.
c: 16-player tournament

a: The 2010 Open Seasons and the 2011 Super Tournament were included due the number of players and amount of prize money. The GSL World Championship was counted as a “weekender” for the purposes of this section.
b: SSL 2017 was excluded due to its 10-player format
c: INnoVation is 4-1 in finals when including SSL 2017
d: Dark is 3-3 in finals when including SSL 2017
c: Stats is 2-4 in finals when including SSL 2017

When it comes to Korean Individual Leagues, few players enjoyed as successful a prime as Mvp. His run between January of 2011 and October of 2012 was one of the most dominant in Korean Individual League history, as he reached the finals in nearly 30% of his tournament appearances and won the championship 18% of the time. Both of these absurd marks stood unchallenged for nearly a decade, until Maru finally surpassed them in a very different era.

In hindsight, Nestea and MC should have been grateful that Mvp was just slightly slower in adapting to SC2, allowing them to pick up two GSL Open championships in 2010. Because, from 2011 onward, their combined record of 3 Code S championships and 1 runner-up still fell short of Mvp’s solo mark of 3 championships and 2 runner-ups (and that’s with me being stingy and not counting his GSL World Championship win, which actually had quasi-Code S status at the time).

Mvp’s name and legend may have been made in Code S, but he was also extremely accomplished when it came to the “weekender” tournaments of the time.

For the sake of convenience, I used Liquipedia-premier tournaments to measure success in the above chart, knowing that the category encompasses a broad range of events in terms of difficulty and prestige. Still, just counting trophies gives us a rough estimate of Mvp’s success, and tells us he was in the running to be the King of Weekenders on top of Code S (Leenock, Stephano, and Mvp all have a case, depending on how one weighs each individual event).

a: To adjust for record inflation from international tournaments during an era where the Korea-World gap was at its widest.
b: Match records can be misleading in this period due to best-of-one Proleague matches. While they were included for references, game records are probably a better indicator of ability.

In terms of historically great statistical stretches, Mvp’s 2011 still stands the test of time. What’s especially impressive is that Mvp wasn’t just mowing through the rank and file—he was also crushing the top players of the early SC2 era in MC, Nestea, and MarineKing as well. While the new crop of players that started to emerge in the second half of 2011 put up a better fight, overall, Mvp was clearly the top dog of his era in terms of both tournament resume and statistical win-rates.

The Placement

Mvp’s greatness derives from how thoroughly he dominated his era. He was far and away the greatest player of Wings of Liberty, and was already the StarCraft II GOAT in the eyes of many fans when he won his third Code S title and fourth GSL overall against Squirtle in May of 2012. That status held for nearly five more years until INnoVation won a third Code S of his own in 2017.

On this list, Mvp comes in one spot above #5 INnoVation largely due to the fact that the Machine didn’t overshadow his contemporaries quite as severely. While I’ve asserted that INnoVation was the best player from 2013 to 2017, the articles for Zest, sOs, and Rain show that there were periods where they could have thrown their hats in the ring alongside him. Mvp is the first, and maybe only player on this list who ruled his era without any realistic challengers. His closest period rival was teammate Nestea who did equal him with three Code S titles, but fell behind severely in nearly all other criteria (non-Code S tournaments, peak win-rates, championship contention after 2011). So tight was Mvp’s grip over early-WoL era competition that this writer finds it very tempting to deem Mvp the most dominant player to ever play StarCraft II.

A note on the KeSPA invasion

One of the core tenets of this GOAT list is that players can only be judged in their own time. The fact that the average 2024 progamer sent back to 2011 would beat Mvp has no bearing on either’s greatness.

However, as a tangent, I do want to argue against the occasional argument I see (much rarer now) that the greatness of pre-KeSPA players is diminished because of the eventual KeSPA supremacy that was later established.

It is true that the StarCraft II scene became substantially more competitive after the infusion of KeSPA players, and many of ‘first generation’ players were swept aside. However, many of these first-gen players continued to be relevant through the KeSPA era. MMA reached the finals of the WCS Global Finals in 2014. TaeJa reached the top four of two world championships stacked with KeSPA players. ByuN showed that KeSPA players were as much a product of their environments as their talent, winning BlizzCon 2016 as a teamless player in the wake of KeSPA teams disbanding earlier in the fall. PartinG, Maru, and Life all became marquee signings for the top KeSPA squads, and Maru would obviously go on to become the greatest GSL player ever.

The point of all this is to ask: if so many of the best first generation players enjoyed success in the post-KeSPA world, then what could THE best first generation player have achieved if his body had held up?

The Games:

Mvp vs Top: 2011 Code S August – Finals, Game 1 (September 10, 2011)

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Mvp was the undisputed king of the GomTvT era, and his sweep of TOP in the finals Code S August 2011 is a great demonstration. The most impressive game of the finals was game one on Daybreak, where Mvp comprehensively dismantled TOP in a late-game split map scenario. TOP’s play hasn’t held up well in retrospect, but it shows far ahead Mvp was of his peers in understanding how to play mature, macro-oriented StarCraft II in 2011.

Mvp vs Nestea: 2011 BlizzCon Invitational – Finals, Game 4 (October 22nd, 2011)

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Similar to the above match, Mvp showed off his late-game prowess in TvZ as he faced off against his teammate Nestea at the finals of BlizzCon. While early SC2 gets an unfairly bad rap from a certain section of the fandom, you can see here how Mvp was already laying the foundations for defensive TvZ that would be followed for years to come. In particular, Mvp was the first player to truly realize and abuse the might of the Ghost at the championship level, sparking years of balance tweaks and changes around this meta-defining unit.

Mvp vs Squirtle: 2012 Code S Season 2 – Finals, Game 7 (May 19, 2012)

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It’s amusing that the most iconic game of Mvp’s career is a loss—his late-game defeat against Squirtle’s Mothership in Game Five of the Code S finals. More amusing is the fact that his second most iconic game—the game seven clincher on Atlantis Spaceship—has very little to do with great in-game StarCraft play.

Instead, this game reflects all the qualities that made Mvp such a mythic figure in 2012. He won this game with sheer chutzpah, willpower, and mental fortitude, going all-in with a proxy-Barracks and allowing his opponent to fall apart on his own. It’s as if he had a personal Oliveira-at-IEM-Katowice-2023 field generator that he could activate at will, but for entire GSL seasons at a time.

Mvp vs INnoVation: 2013 WCS Season 1 Finals – Semifinals, Game 2 (June 8, 2013)

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While Mvp played for over a year after this match, you can still think of it as his last stand. No one gave Mvp much of a chance against INnoVation during his 2013 peak, but Mvp somehow managed to force him to five games with a throwback performance. Game Two on Akilon Wastes was the most impressive game, with Mvp overcoming a massive early supply deficit to win in a stunning comeback victory. Mvp showed us that TvT is the match-up where decision-making and positioning is most capable of making up for a gulf in terms of mechanics, which is something players like Ryung continue to prove to this day.

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• Source: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/621324-4-mvp-greatest-players-of-all-time