DON'T LEAVE US JAEDONG, WCG Korea results and predictions

To your right: the most successful esport player of recent history, holding a mouse of solid gold as a testament to his cheer amazingness. His hourly pay? Less than an undergraduate student flipping burgers at mcD's.

I am talking about Lee Jae Dong, the Zerg superstar from team Hwaseung Oz. His contract with the team recently came to an end, in an attempt to improve his working conditions and salary his parents declared him free to pick up for other teams.

To keep him on the team, Oz promised to nearly double Jaedong's salary to 140,000,000 won (~$110,000). It was not enough for Jaedong's parents and they declined. So the time came for other teams to bid on Jaedong's young body. But as regulated by the Korean big-daddy of esports KeSPA the offer needed to buy out Jaedong has to take into account his current salary and the new salary that was offered to him. This needs to go through a hocus pocus formula to result in an astronomical number no team can afford to spend.

Jaedong's future
No team bid on Jaedong. Jaedong is left in a position where he can either cave in and accept whatever slave wage Hwaseung Oz decides to offer him, or ... retire.

It's a dire situation and quite depressing to see how little input the players making all of esport possible have to say in this. Starcraft just wouldn't be the same without Jaedong. Sure Fantasy is tired of collecting silver medals, but that gold medal won't rid him of the title of kong if there ain't no 'Dong.




Come on Oz, man up! When you go the lengths of having your players dress up and dance as transvestites, pay them accordingly.


WCG Korea Ro8
Zergs have just been dominating every recent tournament. Blame the map pool, blame luck, or blame Jaedong, but the result has been a massive amount of Zerg vs Zerg in the final rounds of every major tournament so far. As a loyal Zerg player, I can't complain. ZvZ is a lot like watching RMP mirrors: it doesn't take long before someone takes the upperhand and the game turns into a fastpaced back-and-forth dance. One minor mistake is enough to start a snowball effect you'll just never recover from.

But just like RMP mirrors there's only so many games I can stomach before I turn to other sources of entertainment, like watching the grass outside my window grow.
That's why I was delighted to see the final rounds of WCG come together with at least a fairly well balanced (and exciting!) lineup:

Luxury (Z)

YellOw[ArnC] (Z)

Stork (P)

Fantasy (T)

Bisu (P)

Flash (T)

Jaedong (Z)

Kwanro (Z)

 

I'm extatic to see the three titans Flash, Bisu and Jaedong reunited again in a round of 8 to represent their respective races. Could we see all three of them representing Korea at the WCG Global Finals? One can hope.

 

Round of 8 Day 1

YellOw just got absolutely demolished by his twin brother Luxury in a 2-0 fashion and won't be representing Korea. You had your chance at the OSL finals YellOw, it's Luxury's time to shine!

Watch Game 1, Game 2

 

Fantasy won't be going either as he has been taken out by Stork! I was so happy to see stork in shape again. He's really bounced back from his WoW addiction and picked up some new skills along the way. The first game was an amazing display of multitasking ability from Stork whereas the second game was a complete mind**** where he exploited Fantasy's disability to adapt to unfamiliar conditions. One dark templar after another poured into Fantasy's base untill he finally decided it was time to put up a turret against Stork who was just toying with his vulture mines.

Watch Game 1 (recommended), Game 2

 

Stork has historically done well at WCG Korea and this year will be no different, expect him to go through together with Jaedong, provided he manages to iron out his team issues.

My bets for the third spot are on the winner of Bisu vs Flash, played live tomorrow morning at 11:30 CET (05:30 EST). You can follow the action on OrangeTV at http://tv.zeroboy.net/ .