StarCraft in esports

The real time strategy (RTS) computer game StarCraft had an active professional competition circuit, particularly in South Korea.

There have been several commercial attempts to bring televised professional StarCraft matches to audiences outside South Korea.

[3] Many StarCraft fans outside South Korea download video files of the pro games to watch on their computer.

Notable contributors and players include Sean "Day[9]" Plott, Kevin "QXC" Riley, and Andre "Gretorp" Hengchua.

A cheating scandal in the sport came to light in South Korea on 13 April 2010, when it was found that popular StarCraft players were intentionally losing games.

[15][16] Despite the release of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, KeSPA, OGN and MBC Game decided to stick with Brood War for their competitions.

After discussions and negotiations were complete, it was announced that the SK Planet Proleague season would be a hybrid tournament featuring both Brood War and StarCraft II.

[17] Brood War professional competition was eventually phased out entirely in Proleague, although fan interest in the game continued.

Following the release of StarCraft: Remastered, the scene had no trouble transitioning as the game remained exactly the same in terms of gameplay and only had its graphics and matchmaking improved, which didn't affect professional players.

When his air force contract expired on 24 December 2008, he rejoined his former team SK Telecom T1, appearing actively in Pro League in July 2009.

Nada managed to reach the final sixteen in both the 2008 MSL and OSL, but was stifled of another attempt at a trophy by Hwasin and Jangbi respectively.

Flash holds world records such as longest TvT winning streak, longest TvP winning streak, youngest Starleague winner, youngest Golden Mouse winner, highest KeSPA rank of all time, and the highest overall Elo, TvP, TvZ and TvT ranks of all time.

Hong Jin Ho known as "Storm Zerg" was an early rival to Lim Yo-Hwan (Boxer), losing several Starleague finals to him.

Hong managed to finish second place six times in the events, never once attaining a major championship, which earned him the title "King of Silver."

His notable victories include first place in the 2003 ITV 5th Starleague, the Snickers All-Star league in 2005 and the first BlizzCon invitational tournament.

Hong suffered his last major defeat against Han "Casy" Dong-wook in the semi-finals of the Shinhan Bank Season 1 OSL in 2006, and claimed 3rd place.

The trigger was an old-fashioned 'storm-like' victory against Bisu[Shield] on 20 June 2009 in Shinhan Bank ProLeague 08–09, after 735 days of silence.

BoxeR said that the box was empty, but the account was at the Slayers clan house and if Hong ever considered transitioning into StarCraft II, he knew where to go.

sAviOr (previously known as IPXZerg) has won three MSLs and one OSL, and reached five consecutive MSL finals during the height of his dominance.

Nicknamed "Maestro" for his play, timing, and game sense, he is viewed as a strong Zerg, having defeated BoxeR, iloveoov, NaDa, Midas, Nal_rA and many other top players.

On 13 April 2010, he was implicated in a cheating scandal involving several Korean pro gamers, illegal betting websites, and allegations of games being deliberately lost.

Jaedong set a new record for the highest ZvZ streak by winning 12 games straight, only losing to Oversky in the Proleague.

In the Summer 2009 StarCraft season, he was the only player to make the quarterfinals of every Starleague: GOMTV Avertec Classic, OSL, and MSL.

In 2012, Jaedong left Team 8 and joined North American based organisation Evil Geniuses on a one-year contract, in order to compete in the first SC2 Proleague season.

He is known for his standard/solid/safe style of play, with flawless macro and use of Psi Storm (the latter of which earned him the other nickname "Mudang Protoss", meaning shaman Protoss in Korean, owing to the uncanny accuracy of his Psionic Storm use), although he has been leaning away from this slightly due to changes in the playing style of the other races.

Reach has been absent from the Starleagues and KeSPA rankings for 18 months but has recently returned to StarCraft pro-gaming tournaments, qualifying for the 2007 Season 1 OSL.

He frequently hides his buildings in other parts of the map and pioneered and standardized several notable Protoss strategies such as fast expanding and using corsairs and reavers in tandem against Zerg.

He has recently recovered from a severe slump; and qualified for ShinHan Bank 2 OSL and made it to the Pringles MSL finals by defeating Kingdom, but lost 3–1 to sAviOr.

Bisu (meaning "assassin's dagger" in Korean), nicknamed "Ninja Toss" for his creative Dark Templar use, plays at the highest level of progaming.

Stork, nicknamed 'The Faultless Supreme Commander' for his all-round ability against all (vs protoss 60.8%, vs zerg 53.9%, vs terran 66%), is one of the highest pro-gamers, 'Taek-Bang-LeeSSang'.