In StarCraft, Mastery Warps Time
As once-adoring fans turn their attention elsewhere, a generation of elite Korean players approach the first great e-sport with startling originality
Creator’s hands blur. When I lose focus, they look like little creatures. His screen flutters through a haze of action: stalkers on the front lines shoot beams of light, each one shuffling their skinny legs outside enemy fire. A warp prism flies north to a blind spot in the opponent’s base. It unfolds metal wings like a bird, warping in units away from prying eyes. Two workers peel off from a line marching toward fresh minerals, beckoned by an invisible call to create. And all of this happens, now, in such quick succession that things appear more simultaneous than sequential.
Jang Hyun-woo, better known as Creator, is a professional Protoss player in the Global StarCraft II League (GSL) in Seoul. I’m watching him play, casually, at a PC gaming cafe in Songpa District. The computers clack furiously, though none of them but Creator’s are running StarCraft.
Known to some as “the origin of all e-sports”—an ascendant global industry now worth more than a billion dollars—StarCraft first took root in South Korea, gaining millions of fans and mainstream fame. The game is “complex but beautiful at the same time,” says Shaun “Apollo” Clark, a prominent figure in the e-sports community. It’s lightning fast and relentless. It involves mind games where players, wielding a mouse and a keyboard, conceal strategies, deceive, and react to each other’s play in real time. It requires the tactical-thinking of a chess player, the dexterity of a cellist.
Yet now, nearly 25 years after its release by Blizzard Entertainment, StarCraft’s popularity has been eclipsed by more popular titles which, ironically, owe their commercial success to the e-sports landscape StarCraft 1 created. Meanwhile, for the last decade Creator has struggled, rarely advancing past the GSL’s first round and sometimes failing to qualify for the tournament itself. That all changed when he made it to the 2022 GSL Season 1 Finals, outclassing the best players in the world, to the shock of the gaming community. Now, Creator finds himself in a unique position—among a handful of elite StarCraft pros whose potential for stardom has dimmed.
Lufthansa 718: a beefy German flight attendant insists that passengers tighten their already-buckled seat belts. He waits with an expressionless face until they cave to his demands.
“Dat’s bettah,” he says.
A TV on the train into Seoul cycles through news about North Korea’s ballistic missile tests in the Sea of Japan, and the need for a distressingly vague “strong response.” I transfer to Seonjeongneung station in Gangnam, the district in southern Seoul where the GSL studio is located—and which is the subject of the YouTube hit “Gangnam Style.” On street level, I walk along a series of residential apartments while seemingly endless lines of motorcycles careen downhill. There are no sidewalks.
The GSL studio is a straight shot from my hostel down Teheran-ro, a massive commercial street that cuts through the heart of Gangnam. High-rise buildings, luxury hotels, finance and tech companies, car dealerships and law firms loom above.
The studio is located in the unassuming concrete Medytox building, named after the biopharmaceutical company. In exchange for my ID, a receptionist hands over a radio headset for English commentary of the games, a raffle ticket, and a commemorative card of the recent GSL finals between Rogue and Creator.
I’ve been a GSL fan since 2011, and have seen pieces of the studio from camera cuts and the brief outros AfreecaTV uses during their live streams. As I recognize certain things—computer booths, the pre-recorded interviews where players awkwardly banter and talk trash, the camera men and women pointing large equipment inches from their faces—I get a strangely concurrent feeling of nostalgia and utter bewilderment. Everything is eerie, unmediated by pixel. I swivel to take in the onrushing world.
Along the walls are massive posters of this year’s promo shots, continuing a humorous tradition where GSL participants take pictures in various themed attire. Past seasons have featured sailor outfits, silky robes, and three-piece suits. This season’s theme appears to be farmer/safari chic. Players sport earthy tones with sunhats and bolo ties and flowers, with expressions that range from serious to amused to mildly sensual. In Creator’s photo, he holds binoculars, staring ominously into the camera.
The pictures reveal an entirely male competition pool. Absent this season is Canadian Zerg player Sasha “Scarlett” Hostyn, who has the most GSL Code S appearances of any “foreigner,” the term used for non-Korean StarCraft players. In 2016, the Guinness World Records recognized Scarlett for having the highest career earnings of any professional female gamer. One famous match against the Korean player Bomber ended when she dramatically exploded his marines with burrowed banelings. Some commentators call it the greatest game of StarCraft II ever played.
Another wall displays past GSL champions, titled the “Hall of Fame.” Some years are missing, reflecting the numerous past titles of Life, the infamous Zerg player who, in 2016, received a lifetime ban from competition after his involvement in a match-fixing scandal.
On a second level inaccessible to fans, the English and Korean casters—the name for in-game commentators—prepare for the night’s games. The GSL has perhaps the most famous English casting duo in all of e-sports. Americans both, “Tastosis”—a combination of their two StarCraft usernames, Tasteless and Artosis—balance StarCraft analysis with endless nerdy and irreverent banter. In a much-memed 2011 GSL rant during the Zerg player NesTea’s reign of dominance, Artosis joked that we don’t exist, but rather live inside dreams conjured by NesTea’s “infinitely complex brain.”
Unlike turn-based games, in StarCraft, all decisions are made simultaneously. A player chooses between three races—the humans (Terran), insectoid creatures (Zerg), or the sapient humanoids (Protoss). Every StarCraft II game begins with one home base and 12 workers. Players gather resources, which allow them to build more bases and workers, expand their economy, research technologies, and build an army for the end goal: destroy the opponent’s buildings. Though it has many game modes, 1v1 is the type used in competitions. From this basic structure, a world of highly competitive play was born; and it all began in South Korea.
Fifteen years ago, StarCraft enjoyed massive popularity. Juwon, my translator in Seoul, thought the best analogy to the game’s golden era in South Korea was American football. Even non-gamers would attend pro StarCraft I “Brood War” matches. Entire stadiums swelled with wild fans. In 2010, the OSL Finals took place on a literal airplane hangar, where the Terran player Flash made a dramatic, mist-filled entrance on a Korean Air commercial jet. Companies like Samsung and SK Telecom sponsored teams. Players leaned into showmanship. After winning in the 2008 Proleague Finals in Busan, the player firebathero tore off his clothes, vigorously danced in white and orange underwear, and jumped into the ocean while thousands of fans cheered him on.
At the turn of the millennium, South Korea was uniquely suited to embrace the game, said the StarCraft caster Jessica “ZombieGrub” Chernega, who has taught StarCraft theory and practice at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. For one, she said, the country was committed to building infrastructure for high-speed Internet. And though not many people owned computers, South Korea already had a burgeoning culture of PC bangs—cafes with gaming PCs—that allowed people to play StarCraft with friends, transforming it into a popular social event for young people. As the game’s popularity grew, so did the number of PC bangs across the country. Finally, in the late nineties, Korea’s import ban on Japanese electronics prevented companies like Sony and Nintendo from selling popular games in Korea. Thus, the American-made StarCraft franchise was the big fish in an artificially small pond.
Teams formed. Top players became celebrities. TV channels devoted themselves to broadcasting professional matches and stadiums filled with fans. The government even created the Korea e-Sports Association (KeSPA) to oversee the industry. StarCraft was practically a national pastime. According to the video game media site IGN, by 2007 StarCraft had sold 9.5 million copies worldwide. Of these, nearly half were sold in South Korea.
The game crept into the U.S. Dwight from The Office dressed up as the Zerg Queen of Blades for Halloween. The irreverent party game Cards Against Humanity created a card referencing the often-yelled Protoss command, “YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS.” StarCraft also memorably captured the hearts and minds of the 1999 NBA Championship-winning San Antonio Spurs. Former Spur and two-time NBA All-Star Sean Elliott told me that he, Tim Duncan, Malik Rose, and David Robinson all fell in love with the game. “Basically, that season that’s what we did,” Elliott said. “A lot of teams played cards or gambled. We played StarCraft at the front of the plane.”
After that championship season, Tim Duncan visited Elliott while he recovered in the hospital from kidney surgery, bringing laptops to play a match. Bedridden and on a morphine pump, Elliott still beat “Timmy” in a Terran vs. Protoss game using a somewhat gimmicky strategy—building ghosts to call in nuclear missile strikes, which take several seconds to land and can generally be avoided. When Duncan could not locate the cloaked ghosts, Elliott said he “nuked Tim’s base out of existence.” Afterwards, Duncan sat up, humbled that he lost to his recovering friend.
“That was a good lesson,” Duncan said.
“Yes it was,” answered the veteran Elliott. “You’re not ready to snatch a pebble from my hand just yet.”
In 2010, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty was released. It closely resembled the original game but offered new units, graphics, and game engine. Yet in Korea, Brood War’s popularity declined, and StarCraft II never caught on like its predecessor. ZombieGrub believes a combination of factors are responsible, including the onset of the Great Recession, the 2010 discovery of a large match-fixing ring led by sAviOr, which scared away sponsors and destabilized the market, and Blizzard Entertainment itself, who battled KeSPA over broadcasting rights of matches and pressured the industry to switch over to StarCraft II. In 2012, Blizzard made the controversial decision to make Proleague—the most popular Brood War team tournament—into a hybrid league before it fully transitioned to StarCraft II. In 2016, Proleague was discontinued.
GuMiho and DRG sit at computer booths on the stage. Their physical likenesses are hidden behind monitors, but their faces are projected on screens in front of either booth. Each player uses their personal mouse and keyboard. StarCraft players can be exacting with their setup. The player Flash famously brought a ruler each time he competed, ensuring his keyboard was in precisely the correct location.
herO warms up on his computer, headphones clamped and fingers rattling. The only other player competing tonight in Group A (Rogue, the defending GSL champion) has not yet arrived. He’s known for a masterful “macro” style of play, taking bases and controlling the map, all while slamming his opponents with large, intricately controlled armies. Besides the Terran player Maru, he’s the only player to have won four GSL championships. Creator isn’t in attendance. He’ll compete in a later group.
The bathroom offers a break from the night’s nervous anticipation. Upon reaching the familiarity of porcelain, I hear a sound. The door.
Rogue approaches the urinal next to me. I grow somewhat faint, my mind thinking many things, but most clearly: Good God, I’m currently peeing mere inches from the most successful Zerg in GSL history. What do I do? Stay? Leave? Maybe just—
Time slows. Memories of past tournaments… Zerg units surrounding unsuspecting armies… banelings exploding… a hazy recollection of the 2021 GSL Season 1 Finals and Rogue’s smothering, 4-1 victory over Maru.
Unknown to us in the GSL audience, herO will use a new Protoss versus Zerg style he’s innovated since returning from Korea’s mandatory 18-month military service. A massive reel of pre-recorded interviews project on the wall behind him. Rogue comes last: “I don’t have much time left,” he says. “I’ll take my 5th championship trophy before I serve in the military.”
The interviews disappear to a screen where the players are outlined with stylized, blue and black versions of their gamer names. Intense electronic music blasts with a catchy violin riff. Rows of bright and continually spinning spotlights shine down from the ceiling, momentarily blinding a fan to my left. Then: heavy guitar and drums and a voice singing the phrase “I came for war,” over and over. Though a few thousand people watch the stream online, the live audience is much smaller than I imagined. There are only fifty seats in total. Most are empty.
The adrenaline-inducing sequence gives way to scattered applause. A few fans scribble pictures and words of encouragement on cheer cards provided by the front desk. The atmosphere feels more tennis tournament than traditional sporting event. People are restrained, entirely focused on the game itself.
As the match begins, both players build an additional base beside the minerals known as their natural expansion. Rogue and herO expand again, and then take a fourth base around the six-minute mark. This is already unorthodox. herO’s playing Protoss like a Zerg player—building bases, workers, and letting Rogue develop his economy basically untouched.
In StarCraft, players view units and buildings onscreen from a God-like point of view, as if they’re generals looking down on troops. Large battles resemble scenes from Star Wars. Bullets and lasers erupt as units sprint about and die, often with dramatic sound effects. Each unit noise is uniquely peculiar—the insectoid Zerg units sound off-puttingly moist, with hisses and clicks and strange rattles.
Received wisdom says herO should “tech up” for powerful units such as immortals, archons, or disruptors, which can counter a large Zerg army. He does none of this. His only attacking units are stalkers (a very basic unit that loosely resembles a mechanical spider with four legs) and oracles (a quick but fragile flying orb that deals high amounts of damage) which he continually uses to fly around and keep tabs on Rogue’s expansions and army location. The casters are bewildered. herO’s using finesse units, not anything that would scale well later in the game.
“Maybe there’s something fluid to his play,” offers Tasteless. “It’s not easy for us to catch everything.”
Crucially, StarCraft players have an incomplete picture of their world. The map is covered with a “fog of war,” meaning one can’t view their opponent unless a unit or building’s small line of sight is in range. Hence, a player is usually in a state of relative uncertainty about their opponent’s strategy, army location, and when they might attack.
One strength of Zerg is their “creep,” a gooey substance spread on the map via creep tumors. When the ground is covered with creep, it increases the speed of Zerg units and also gives the player vision of the map. With diligent creep spread, Zergs can see the exact location of their opponents’ armies.
herO knows this. Seven minutes in, he sends small groups of stalkers to kill creep tumors, push back the creep spread, pick off stray units, and use their “blink” ability to jump and avoid damage. But that’s not all that’s happening. Throughout, herO pings around his home bases, builds workers, production facilities, and takes a fifth base. If he cannot manage all these moving components, he won’t have the resources to make units for this relentless pressure. The strategy will fail.
StarCraft players can only have their screen at one place at a time. They are limited by what they choose to pay attention to, and how quickly and efficiently they may do it. Speed of play is vital and measured in actions per minute (APM), a statistic that is shown onscreen while players compete. Top players perform around 400 APM throughout a match. This means that, every second, they click the mouse and keyboard about six or seven distinct times.
herO is often considered to have the best multitasking and unit control of any Protoss player. His stalkers dance on the edge of creep, sniping Rogue’s zerglings—small and fast velociraptor-esque creatures—with beams of blue light before baiting them into a fruitless chase. It looks effortless, but during these moments of blinking dance, his APM spikes toward 600.
Rogue grows frustrated and chases herO off creep. All the while, herO moves his screen to other parts of the map, sending groups of zealots—the expendable Protoss melee units that run on two legs and resemble the creatures from the movie Predator—to kill workers at undefended bases.
A theme emerges: herO’s never doing one thing, but splits up Rogue’s units and attention with endless multitasking. From an omniscient view, it’s difficult to comprehend how a single person does it all. herO’s units arc and change direction like schools of fish before splitting off, each subgroup carried by an unseen intelligent hand.
A game of StarCraft is not something that can be understood in isolation. Not really. It’s an amalgamation of the matchup itself, players and their skill sets, past and current tendencies, the specific map, metagame, and so on. StarCraft II’s difficulty even drew the interest of DeepMind, Google’s artificial intelligence research lab. Igor Babuschkin, research engineer for DeepMind, said that after their success solving Go—the famously difficult board game—their team turned to StarCraft because “it was such a big step-up in complexity.” In 2019, DeepMind unveiled AlphaStar, a StarCraft II engine that was successful in beating 99.8 percent of human players, but still lost games to elite professionals when they used unconventional tactics. “Seems like there’s still no substitute for human creativity,” Babuschkin told me.
The history of competitive StarCraft is full of whimsical innovations. One famous shift happened during the 2006 GOMTV MSL Season 1 Finals, when the then little-known Protoss player, Bisu, beat sAviOr with a novel strategy: harassing the Zerg with corsairs and dark templars, which later became popular and immortalized as the “Bisu Build.” Liquipedia—the online encyclopedia of StarCraft history—calls it one the most influential tournament finals ever for the new ideas it introduced to the Protoss vs. Zerg matchup. If herO’s new playstyle catches on, this series against Rogue might be emblematic of a new Protoss vs. Zerg paradigm.
A single line of zealots sprint toward a bottom base, pinning their backs against a wall and holding position to fight. This prevents Rogue’s zerglings from surrounding them. Meanwhile, herO’s main army sharks in from the north, shaving off a few of Rogue’s units. herO briefly touches 1,100 APM, a speed that’s difficult to physically produce, let alone achieve through meaningful, strategic actions. herO sends another group of zealots into Rogue’s base. They’re killed, but that split second of distraction is enough. herO baits Rogue’s main army, stutter-stepping his stalkers back while the oracles do their work above.
herO senses the momentum shifting and pushes onto creep. This is Rogue’s best chance to take a fight, and he does. But as always, in this game of seesawing action, committing to a battle has a cost. With Rogue out of position, herO sends in another zealot force to the south. The timing is deadly. The first half-dozen attempts were shut down, but this one is different. His zealots easily overwhelm the small number of defending zerglings. Rogue’s broken on all fronts.
“GG,” Rogue types into the chat. Looking a bit bewildered, he leaves the game, arm aimlessly reaching behind his head.
After another dominant victory, herO, who will go on to win the GSL and become the first Protoss champion in five years, takes the series 2-0. In his post-game interview, he smiles, satisfaction transforming a normally stoic demeanor. “This is a homework assignment the Zergs must solve,” he says.
The next morning, I have plans to meet Creator—the Protoss player who’s finally realizing himself as a world-class competitor. Although he’s only 25 years old, Creator has played in the GSL since 2011. He’s known for his outbursts after losses, violently slamming his keyboard and headset in frustration. Mental lapses and mechanical errors in his play have made him lose, even in games where he’s ahead. In the 2020 GSL Season 1 group stages, Creator lost a nail-biter against RagnaroK that he was initially easily winning. After the game, he held his head in his hands before ripping out his earbuds and storming off the stage. Then something changed. Creator made an unprecedented run to the 2022 GSL Season 1 Finals, before eventually losing to Rogue. He seemed like a new player: confident, decisive, unpredictable.
I arrive early to Banapresso—a Korean version of Dunkin, offering chain coffee, bright colors and sweet-looking snacks. Juwon, the translator, arrives not long after. He says he grew up playing and watching Brood War, though his interest diminished once StarCraft II arrived. While serving in the air force, he witnessed the legendary Terran player BoxeR arrive for his own military service and get comically overrun by swarms of StarCraft-loving soldiers.
Creator rolls up on a bike, sporting a blue Team NV Jersey and sweatpants. He says hello and smiles, jumping off to lock up. Juwon insists on buying the drinks. He’s happy to be here and meeting us, he says. When the order arrives, Creator makes a kind gesture, taking my green tea and putting a straw through it.
Creator first played StarCraft at 7 years old. Inspired by the Brood War prodigy Flash—who competed in televised games at just 14, and is often called a “Bonjwa,” the Korean term for a uniquely dominant player—Creator practiced hard and dreamed of going pro. The name “Creator” came one day when he was looking through a book of English words. It stuck out to him: a thing which makes something from nothing. He first played StarCraft II at age 14. At the time, his parents adamantly opposed his ambitions of being a pro gamer. But when he qualified for the GSL Code S tournament in 2011 and was recruited by the prestigious StarCraft team Prime, they relented.
Day[9], the famous StarCraft and e-sports personality—and brother of Tasteless, the GSL caster—has often compared professional StarCraft players to pianists. The metaphor is apt. Creator’s discussion of playing styles recalls musicians who rifle through creative influences and musical eras. Creator conceives of himself within a long tradition of Protoss players and styles, how he has studied and learned from strategies that feel compelling, synthesizing them to create his own. In the past, Creator liked to imitate players like Stats—defensive and reactive Protoss players who sit back, building lots of workers and bases and deflecting attacks until they can beat their opponents later in the game. Now he sees himself as more a fusion of players like PartinG, who is famous for an aggressive, unpredictable style, and Zest, who has mastered the art of sharp timing attacks, often taking popular builds—kind of like an opening in chess, where players memorize a sequence of workers, buildings, and units for a particular strategy—and optimizing them.
I ask Creator a fun question: which unit in StarCraft II is too strong? He responds excitedly to Juwon, who looks confused. They ping back and forth before Juwon tells me he’s unsure how to translate the word.
“Hydralisk,” says Creator, puckering his mouth in uncertainty. The name he’s going for is the hydralisk’s upgraded form, the lurker, which he finally expresses by rising in his chair, flinging his hands forward and back while making a whooshing sound, imitating the lurker’s ability to shoot spines. When I finally catch on, we all burst into laughter.
Until last year, nerves undermined his success. “I felt like my hands were frozen,” he says. In a development that he credits to his management at Team NV, in the last year or so he’s thought less and focused on what he can control: practicing seven or eight hours most days, meticulously planning for opponents, going to the gym, and playing FIFA Online to relax.
He’s also embraced “image training”—imagining the match, its possible permutations, and carrying out the game plan. Once he actually plays, he’s realizing the scenarios he’s mentally performed many times before. He constantly imagines games. Before competitions, he says he can barely concentrate when other people speak to him. Now, he’s often surprised by how fast his hands move during a match.
Will herO’s new high-pressure Protoss vs. Zerg style catch on? Creator thinks for a moment, hands folded in front. He fidgets, as if wishing his fingers could explain what’s too difficult for words.
“It’s complicated,” he says finally. The strategy involves a sort of army movement and control-heavy style that he believes only herO can pull off. At least for now, imitating it without herO’s talent would be impossible.
In preparation for his series against Rogue, Creator says he sought out training sessions from a number of top Zergs, including Serral, Reynor, and SoO. As a form of thanks, he’ll often buy his practice partners a gift card. After the finals, Rogue took Creator, Maru, Trap, sOs, and other former Jin Air Green Wings players out to dinner.
In the heyday of StarCraft I, teams were insular, fearful of sharing strategies, and often defined by social hierarchy. According to ZombieGrub, Brood War team houses—homes where players would live and train together—were notoriously secretive about their practice replays and videos of games, trying to keep StarCraft wisdom within their group. Even if you made the team and could live there, she joked that “you’d be the guy washing dishes and not allowed to look at Flash.”
The Brood War era intensity extended to the fans. While visiting South Korea, a friend of ZombieGrub’s asked Bisu for an autograph, which he met with a look of grave concern. Her friend was blissfully unaware that Bisu was surrounded by a fan club whose hierarchical structure dictated you must be a member for a certain length of time before you were allowed to hand over presents—cake or health products like red ginseng—let alone interact with players.
The three of us head to a PC bang to watch Creator play in-person. As we’re crossing the street outside the café, he turns to me.
“Futsal?” he asks. Juwon translates that Creator is playing soccer with his friends tonight, and wants to see if I’ll join. The invitation catches me off guard.
“Of course,” I say. Juwon clarifies that the friends will be other GSL players, and I nearly choke on my own spit.
The PC bang greets us with a chorus of mechanical keyboards clacking like typewriters. Computers are set up in rows of eight. In total, probably thirty people play games. Most are teenagers or 20-something year-old guys.
Along my right flank is a raised bar with ramen and drinks and other snacks. The counter is lined with anime plushies, one of which catches my eye: an ambiguously human/animal child tucked above something reminiscent of hot Cheetos. A couple decades ago, this PC bang would’ve had monitors filled with Terran and Protoss and Zerg. I do a quick scan: the games are League of Legends, Overwatch, and Valorant. Nobody’s playing StarCraft. Now, it’s just Creator.
During his skirmishes, Creator micromanages each unit as if they’re sacred, pulling damaged stalkers back and re-targeting enemies so that no shots are wasted, all while directing a chorus of other units and workers and buildings. His play is crisp, devoid of unnecessary motion. Creator’s hands seem alive. They move with an embodied instinct that comes after thousands and thousands of hours training, all leading toward now: a time when he’s surprised by how fast his hands move.
Creator mumbles something toward me, eyes locked on the monitor and fingers flying. “He says playing in a PC bang is refreshing,” says Juwon. “He hasn’t been in one of these for years.”
Watching his screen flutter between controlled battle and intelligent expansion, I feel that describing StarCraft is a slippery practice. Observing Creator is to see that, in a sense, mastery warps time. Under his control, this three-second interval of game has been slowed, split open, and carved into a set of micro-adjustments and possibilities that are simply inaccessible to others. Stitch together a few hundred of these moments, and you have one game of professional StarCraft.
That evening, I change into shorts and walk to Songpanaru station. Five minutes later, Creator swings through in a rented sedan to pick me up. I see a guy near me that I hadn’t noticed walk toward the passenger door. It’s Zoun, another GSL player and Creator’s good friend. Without Juwon to translate, I sit awkwardly in the back, observing the city disappear and periodically glancing at Zoun, who watches replays of pro StarCraft matches on his phone.
Our route takes us west along the Han River—the body of water that cuts through Seoul—before turning north to a small outdoor complex just outside the city. It’s dark out when we arrive. Creator is forced to back up and around a bend into an alarmingly tight spot which he does with a suave, palm-over-the-wheel technique.
We walk onto a miniature turf field with two metal goals surrounded by huge swathes of mesh netting. Another team is finishing up. Already sitting beside the field is Solar, Bunny, Jinioh, and herO, the star of last night’s games. Also present are a couple StarCraft I pros I’m unfamiliar with, the manager of a small e-sports team, and a handful of their friends who wave as I approach.
I watch Creator lace up his shoes, the same fingers now appearing strikingly civilian. Nobody exchanges more than basic pleasantries, though it doesn’t matter once we start kicking around. They’re surprised I have a good touch on the ball. I played competitive soccer for fifteen years, and it has a personalizing effect I’d struggle to achieve through language.
The manager proudly sports a red PREP eSPORTS jersey and circular glasses over an angular, boney body. He seems to take informal charge over the group, sprinting to the middle of our circle and orchestrating an extended and highly organized stretching routine, counting reps in Korean and waiting until the group echoes back.
herO and Bunny are on my team. Someone encourages me to play forward. Creator plays defense. The game is pretty high-level, with players making off-ball runs and pinging tight passes. herO reveals himself to be a skilled center mid, the kind of player that has the ball perpetually stuck to his foot, as if there’s adhesive on his toes.
I make a slanted run behind Creator, making space and call for the ball. herO sees me and slots an outside of the foot pass that’s too wide, flying into the mesh netting along the sideline. And then a strange thing happens: I feel frustration—a very normal feeling in such a situation, I know, and yet it’s directed at herO.
In a few minutes of soccer, herO turned from a StarCraft God on a stage to someone who just played an annoyingly bad pass. My agitation passes to joy. Then I’m simply playing soccer. We go on for a couple hours, switching teams between games. Bunny sprays copious amounts of Icy Hot on his ankles. Creator tugs at his high white socks. herO instructs players with the phrase ticky tacka, which I recognize as a near-onomatopoeia for one-two passes.
During one of the games, someone shoots and the ball rockets off the post, bouncing toward the turf between Creator and I. We race toward it, a direct collision course of shoes and shin and ball that results in us both getting knocked back. I feel a flash of nerves, getting stuck in on a tackle like that. But it fades as Creator rebounds with his signature grin, hand forming a thumbs up. Then I’m back on defense to help my teammates, legs churning across the turf. ▩