Sixteen-Year-Old StarCraft II Pro Wins IEM NY

[MarlaDesat]

Sixteen-Year-Old StarCraft II Pro Wins IEM NY

Only one tournament remains for professional players hoping to qualify for Blizzard's Grand Final at BlizzCon.

South Korean professional StarCraft II player Lee "Life" Seung Hyun beat out Swedish player Johan "Naniwa" Luchessi yesterday to take first place and a $10,000 prize at the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) New York tournament. The sixteen-year-old professional gamer is now twelfth overall for total earnings in competitive StarCraft II with $117,000. The semifinals saw a decisive 3-0 victory for Lee over fellow Zerg player and StarTale teammate, Lee "Curious" Won Pyo. A third Korean Zerg player, Ko "HyuN" Seok Hyun, proved a difficult challenger for Luchessi, who plays Protoss. Hyun won the first two games of the series, but Luchessi came back with three consecutive wins in an impressive end to the series. The best-of-seven finals match ended with four wins for Lee, losing two games to Luchessi, and continuing the trend of Korean players dominating the tournament scene.

The IEM tournament, held at New York Comic Con, was the penultimate chance to earn World Championship Series (WCS) points. The StarCraft II World Championship Series consists of 13 events spread over the year, divided into three seasons of regional events that culminate in global seasonal finals. The three regions are WCS Europe, WCS America, and WCS Korea. The last chance to earn WCS points will be at the WCS Season 3 Finals in Toronto, Canada from October 25 to 27. The sixteen players with the most WCS points will compete at Blizzard's WCS Grand Final in November, at BlizzCon. The Grand Final features a $250,000 prize pool, with the first place winner receiving a whopping $100,000 USD. Lee, who stands at 27th in the WCS rankings [http://wcs.battle.net/sc2/en/standings], will not qualify for the Grand Finals, but Luchessi may still qualify. In second place, Luchessi received 450 WCS points; first place would have earned him 750 points and a slightly more secure ranking. Now, he sits at 15th in the rankings and whether or not he qualifies for the Grand Finals depends on the performance of other players at the WCS Season 3 Finals. The Season 3 Finals gives large WCS point awards to the top four players (3,000, 2,000, and 1,500 for first, second, and third or fourth, respectively) and could force Luchessi out of the top sixteen.

The 2013 StarCraft II World Championship Series Season 3 Finals will be BlizzCon Virtual Ticket [http://wcs.battle.net/sc2/en], priced at $39.99 USD.

Source: GameSpot [http://www.gamespot.com/articles/sixteen-year-old-starcraft-ii-player-earns-10-000-at-iem-ny-at-comic-con/1100-6415555/]

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[mirage202]

16 and already raking it in like that?

Well done sir, well done.

 

[Aussie502]

16 and already raking it in like that?

Well done sir, well done.

He started his career when he was 14, having won a GSL title (biggest league in Korea) when he was 15. He is one of the youngest Starcraft 2 players ever. It's really hard to believe that he's only 16 though, feels like a veteran already.

 

[Tanakh]

It was a good series. Naniwa had a lot of heart, thank god he lost (i hate [A]).

 

[AldUK]

I really wanted NaNiwa to win this, he came so close and really played amazingly well, in one of the final games that he lost, Life had something like 7x the resources lost to NaNiwa, but he just had such a bad economy and wasn't allowed out to take more expansions. Over all IEM this year was brilliant though, a foreigner in the final, a fantastic venue at NYCC, great crowd, great commentary team and I enjoyed watching it over the weekend. I hope they host more events at cons, it's a great idea.

 

[funksobeefy]

Life fell off the map for a bit when HotS came out but now it may seem like hes back at it. I always root for a foreigner in any tournament, and Im still waiting for my main man Catz to pull of an incredible victory!

 

[Strazdas]

Congratupations on finding what you can excell at and filling it to the fullest. may this not be the highpoint of your career but go even further

 

[Hagi]

What's the average age for SCII players anyway?

And, more importantly, when will China get involved to start training kids from frighteningly young ages for these competitions?

 

[Monsterfurby]

What's the average age for SCII players anyway?

And, more importantly, when will China get involved to start training kids from frighteningly young ages for these competitions?

It's a sport like any other. With all the properties and pitfalls of one.

And people like me will always detest it in the same way as we detest other sports. Not because we dislike sports, but because we dislike people taking something fun and making it SERIOUS BIZNEZZ (tm)...

 

[AldUK]

What's the average age for SCII players anyway?

And, more importantly, when will China get involved to start training kids from frighteningly young ages for these competitions?

Average age is about 21-22, 16 is unusual and it makes his play all the more impressive for it.

Chinese scene is really just picking up speed, since Blizzard had trouble with the game regulators getting a full release over there. There are several pro-players from China who can compete at the top-level already though, Sen comes to mind. (Though he's actually from Taiwan, AKA Chinese Taipei.)