MATCH-FIXING SCANDAL that almost RUINED KOREAN Proscene - th-cam.com/video/DWbaUr8kZaU/w-d-xo.html Check out Our new Project FGC Storyteller - www.youtube.com/@fgcstoryteller Check out my personal channels - www.youtube.com/@Gaming_Essays & www.youtube.com/@RTSCasts Timecodes: 00:00 What is this video about 00:48 StarCraft 2 scene and brief history 01:30 Korean Dominance in StarCraft 2 03:09 How Koreans conquered StarCraft 2 04:25 The "Foreign" scene and the appeareance of NaNiWa 04:41 Why NaNiWa became so famous 06:07 The rise of NaNiWa 07:24 Bad manners and misbehaviour of NaNiWa 08:56 Alliance hires NaNiWa: biggest achievements 10:56 NaNiWa's IEM Katowice 2014 11:44 The Hiatus, controversy and end of NaNiWa's career 14:40 The Aftermath
Honestly I totally buy his excuse about the soundproofing thing. You dont need to hear the casters or specifics, you just need to hear/feel the crowd go crazy and the fact that youre getting cheesed becomes incredibly obvious.
But everyone already knew by 2015 that Naniwa is a cheeser. Players also got use to being cheesed. Scouting is very important. But the best cheeser is HAS.
NaniWa was known for cheesing by that point as well, regardless of sound proofing, if you cheese 1/3 of your games or more, people are going to get used to scouting for it
@@AB_n_C This isn't an argument, though. You can't just say "Well who cares if the crowd gave it away, he probably would have figured it out." You can apply that sort of reverse logic to everything to reverse engineer it. "Player X had 200 higher ELO so who cares if he cheated, he probably would have won anyway." Either you play on a fair field or you shouldn't play at all.
@The Advocate they both played on even playing field. Polt had no 'advantage' over Naniwa. Everyone knows there is a crowd. Naniwa is a veteran player who understands the cheese aspect of playing in a tournament. U can use whatever u can within the aspect of the tournament. The tournament staff also agrees w my statement hence why there is no do-over. Naniwa left becuz he lost the game on a emotional level.
I remember IdrA explained how you can’t actually soundproof booths before SC2 entered beta. Game 1 in Stork’s OSL Finals win over Fantasy was designed around how Fantasy would try to bait out a crowd response with an SCV patrol if Stork was proxying and that was bait for Fantasy to bring more SCVs and get blocked by the 2nd Gateway that walled off the first but was meant to get cancelled for more minerals for, etc. In real-time the Korean commentators were correctly guessing Fantasy’s SimCity would doom him - better building placement and he could have won.
Just discovered you, hope you continue making these. They don't even need to have any 'clickbait controversy', it can just be a in depth look at some of the players journeys on the scene, glory days and inevitable fall offs. There have been so many interesting SC2 players in the last 30 years. Also note: I was hesitant to subscribe since your name implied you cover all e sports, but then saw they were all sc2 vids so i subbed. Hope this input helps.
I actually plan to cover at least 3 esports, but since I have an SC2 background, I'll make sure to post 3-4 videos related only to StarCraft 2 each week. Maybe 1-2 for Dota 2 / CS:GO and the last day is a day-off or something that I personally want to talk about :D
8:00 This is what I also don’t like about specific SC casters. The “Everything is hype” mindset and “Narrate whatever is currently happening”. To contrast this, you know Artosis would be saying “What is he doing? Is he running 6 probes across the map? When has this ever worked, Tasteless?” and Tasteless would respond “I don’t know Artosis, but Naniwa is the kind of player who could make it work!”
@@EsportsStoryteller you should make an effort to correct the video maybe a caption or something, as a storyteller of esports history you should strive for accuracy
@@boyzvird yeah it actually pretty seriously hurts the integrity of the channel since i kind of accept everything else as true in other documentaries without verification.
Yea I was a big fan of Neeb after that. But he never did anything spectacular after that the GSL win. Only showed that Koreans stopped playing Starcraft. They really went downhill as Serral dominated Starcraft.
@@AB_n_C Neeb was just not consistent, he’d often have those fairly deep tournament runs and show great play but then have a bad day and make relatively basic mistakes
I was there, sitting in the audience. When NaNiWa left his booth me and my friend we started running towards back of a stage to catch him and ask few questions on what happend, why he left etc. When we saw him, he had tears in his eyes and was very moved. When we started talking to him, his girlfriend (I think) only said to us "interview later". We have waited but he never showed up again. I hope he was able to process what have happened and moved on. I wish him all the best. Nice video BTW. Looking forward to see your channel grow :)
Naniwa is not retired, he created a pretty good build last year! I rooted for him a lot throughout the years, but a level of humbleness earlier in his career might have done some good. That being said, thank you for the excitement you brought me upsetting S tier Koreans in WoL/HoTS esports eras
Most of the pros I had the pleasure of working with were genuinely nice people, and even when they were tense or stressed at these events they were still regular people. Naniwa on the other hand was consistently late, rude to staff, and demanded ridiculous stuff. I remember one time he refused to go on stage until someone went to his hotel room and got him a pillow to sit on. Just a real dismissive asshole to people working around him. I don't know, I hope in life he's grown up and matured.
@@bohneneintopf In short, he retired to do the military service in South Korea. He also has a degree from University of Texas. Sometimes he used to stream, but his last once 2 years ago. I guess he just found a job either in America or in South Korea. I'll make a video about him someday
@@bohneneintopf Polt did his military duty and then went on streaming on SC2 and then Teamfight Tatics. After that, he became T1's marketing manager, he is still doing E-sports, but much more of a back end capacity.
11:23 - I remember watching this game live, in Katowice. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED was silly beyond belief... SC2 and LOL were sharing the same huge stage, and LOL players just scored "first blood" and half of the venue went absolutely bonkers to this degree that I remember floor vibrating. So the super-hype from LOL might have given Polt a hint since the 1st blood timing had been just a few seconds earlier vs the moment you're showing at 11:23. It wasn't like Ace vs Moon during IEM Cologne.
dude I remember how crazy it would get. I competed in the 2008 orlando event for halo, and I had trouble hearing my teammates through full volume and screaming because the SC2 fans were so loud and crazy. Like you said I could feel the vibrations from a whole venue away.
He wanted to be the bad boy so bad. I hate when people compare idra and naniwa together, since idra was truly THE bad boy in the scene and performed the role really well to the point no one was not really sure was it just a role or just him naturally, where as with naniwa it was brutally clear for majority that he was most likely just bullied kid in school who chose to try to be the bad boy. His physical maneuvers, stuttering and overall awkward presence gave it away. I've been a tournament official with both. Idra never was rude to tournament officials and when the cameras weren't there. He never did anything that makes staff life more difficult. Then we had naniwa, who blocked all other competitiors in bnet and forced the officials to organize the match-ups, whined about every single detail about the venue and after losing the last game broke the tournament computer by forcefully pulling all the cables out. I think it was one of the last tournaments in his career. Jackass throughout... I felt bad for the guy, since he clearly wasn't naturally douche, but he clearly just chose to be one.
Nice video. As for Naniwa, he was a nightmare toxic person to deal with back in the WC3 days. Actually one of the worst top players in that regard, and that's saying something back then.
I was wondering if this was warcraft3 player I saw on tv in a bar in thailand like 20 years ago seemed to be a random swede in asia having anime hair plaing warcraft 3.
I don't like Naniwa, but I wish you had mentioned him beating MVP and Nestea at that MLG side tournament, that was a cool moment where he earned a bit of my respect.
Naniwa was in a way of retiring at the time or as he called it taking a rest from the game and was out of practice. Also so it happens that i was watching a lot of Polt streams at the time and he was scouting literaly every game the same way since he is very metodical player, but naniwa didnt take the time to research his opponent and didnt knew about that one. So this video is just kinda twisted. Im convinced that polt just did his regular scouting as he was doing literaly every game on the ladder and tournaments at the time.
regardless of what you think about him, he was 100% in the right for iem 2014. everyone including polt admitted soundproofing was an issue and losing a match because of venue flaws is unacceptable and unprofessional. he gg-ed and forfeited in protest but was very mannered about it.
you can literally say whatever you want, but him getting ouf of that tournament was 100% legit, since his own opponent proved him right about the sound proofing being horrible this day. He didn't immediatly left , he 1st asked to cancel that game and restart the series + asking the crowd to be silent. I would have reacted the same, since if i can hear the crowd, logically my opponent can hear it too. There are also player perspective videos that showed him completly switching face as soon as he heard the crowd being excited of that proxy, way before polt scouting.
@@GhostStyle007 If it's really such a game breaking issue, why wouldn't he get the support from all the other participants and jointly boycotted the games? Ultimately you abide by the rules even if they are unfair, because that's respecting the other players, who also share the same rules. The fact that he went out alone in such an arrogant manner is on him.
@@zxbc1 he asked the support the support and they negociated for around 20 minutes, and the game was scored, he then left the scene. And what you say is completly wrong he didnt get boycoted by everyone , half of the players backed him up concerning the isolation problem even polt did. They even had to reconsider this issue for the next tournaments. The reason why he didnt get much of a support is his history , he is well known for being an A**hole, but it wouldnt bias my judgment for this particular drama.
@@zxbc1 It is only respecful of the organization, and perhaps some spectators, but not the players. Eh it's not actively disrespectful either. But I would consider it an act of respect to the scene to boycott events that don't respect the culture of competition, it's far more insulting to the game than bad sportsmanship. I see it the same way as if everyone gets unfairly underpaid at a workplace, if you had the opportunity to go on strike or unionize, it wouldn't be the guy who decides to still show up to work saying "don't stir up trouble just respect the rules" who is being respectful of the other employees.
If it was any other player telling about the soundproofing thing it probably would have been different, but it was a "The boy who cried wolf" situation. Nobody is going to take you as seriously if you constantly use excuses, and you saying only after you lost combined with his record didn't make it that believable.
@md.hasibulhasan925 The moment he has heard cheers or had other way of confirming it was not sound proof he should have notified the staff, not after losing. If you know that there is something wrong but only report it after you've lost then it's your fault. Also notifying everyone of this problem by flaming the other player in the chat is not the right way. Also I don't know if it wasn't actually soundproof or if that was just an excuse. If it was really a problem the production team is to blame but you're obligated to notify them when you learn of that fact, not after you've lost to a normal scout. With his behavior it just seemed like an excuse, are you surprised he wasn't taken very seriously? This part was his fault only
Doesn't look like he has a "dark side", just an edgy dude with no manners, that ran away crying when he got his ass handed to him (saying he didn't even really want to win either...what's he, 12?). Never going to understand people getting a big head out of playing an esport.
Nice take on one of the biggest jerks in SC2. Arguably, the soundproofing was an issue, what you can't argue though is that he was very salty and toxic player. So when he left that game in Katowice, he cemented the image he build for himself.
Great video, sc2 is how i discovered Justintv/Twitch , back in the day for years i would watch all sc2 tournaments and play the game a lot I still remember back in like 2012 or so losing to a 9-10 year old Reynor the Italian pro in a Esl for fun tournament , he was Diamond and i was Platinum league Then winning against his dad, a few years later losing to his little brother that was in Master league I haven't watched or played sc2 since like 2017 , but it's good to see that Reynor became one of the best in the world
Just want to point out that I myself was forced to manage a PR nightmare after his probe rush against Nestea, but together and with his help and genuine growth as a person and a player, we took all the steps and made all the statements in a highly professional manner, resulting in Mr. Che of GOM TV/GSL eventually returning Johan his RO8 Code S seed. He was without doubt a difficult person to manage, but I think I learned as much from him as anyone during that time. His brilliance and drive for victory, was the clearest expression of his truth, and I both respected and admired his sheer will and determination. Both he and SaSe were truly outstanding players and people, and I still keep in touch with them both on occasion, even 10+ years later.
@@Hephera Yeah, there was also a twitter conflict with HellRaiser where NaNiWa wished a bomb to be dropped on his house (HellRaiser is from Ukraine). So I guess he's still quite toxic
I saw this back then on twitch and knew that this was usual scout. Naniwa was just mad his cheese did not work. That being said I like him and watched his streams often after he stopped being a Pro Player edit: autocorrect
I don't know the scene, but I had to relate to that "what are you suppose to say to that", that was the commentators fault for making a bad start to the conversation.
I remember watching most of these matches, such good times. I was a big fan of NaNiWa and always hoped he would overcome his attitude. Same with Idra. I remember when Jinro went deep into the GSL and would wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning to watch the matches live on GomTV in 360p haha. If you haven’t done a video on Jinro that’d be awesome, he got into MMA after SC2 I believe.
I know this is off topic but One thing I love about South Korea being huge with sc2 is a story I read about the world cup how the south Korea footballers, actually had the top South Korea starcraft 2 team come in to "Cheer them up" because in SK at the time they was the Heroes of a generation to me thats wild
I was there, Polt's SCV didn't change the scouting route, so NaNiwa blaming discovery of his proxy on soundproofing is just BS. We counted on him, as he was the only foreigner on that IEM and him leaving the booth after first game deserved all the booing.
Huh? Watch the replay at 13:00. The caster screams "HE'S PROXYING" within the first minute of the game. You can see Naniwa is visibly annoyed immediately after the caster said that. This was well before his opponent sent his scouting SCV out.
Another good example of someone ruining their career was Life, the guy was an absolute legend in matches. If he wasn't matchfixing could only imagine how far he would of went. Would of loved seeing serral vs life for zerg dominance.
this guy hasn't gotten much better. recently he said (on a barcode) that he wished the war in Ukraine had killed hellraiser when hellraiser beat him in a game. disgusting act.
To be fair, naniwa saying that his victory is the only thing motivating him, not the fans or anything else, is probably the bravest and most honest answer out there. And the statement holds true for most athletes (family aside). He's still an ass though.
It's every pro players goal, they play the game to be the best, not for every thing else. Now they do say thx to the viewers and support but we all know deep down it's only for themselves, to be the number 1
Someone did a poll of Olympic athletes. They asked them, if they could be given a pill that would never be detected but would 100% win them a gold medal at the next Olympics - the catch being they would only live for 8 more years after taking the pill - over 70% of them said they would do it. For some, glory and recognition trump everything else. Their skill and workrate comes from nothing but ego, rather than competition and fun.
Yeah, some shit you just dont say out loud. There are a lot of celebs in different markets that really do value their fans, but the ones that don't are still smart enough to pay lip service to the fans. Without fans you better be the best by a large margin, and he was not.
@@TheVanillatech Right. At the highest levels of any sport you have to have the ego and unrelenting drive it takes to sacrifice everything but your goal. They want to be the best, and it's not for anyone but them. That's why you will see the "good guys/gals" hang it up early for their family or something. For those kinds of people, they must have a change of heart or a plan to get in, get their goal, and get out. If I was the highest skilled athlete in the world, but the only sport I could play was American Football, and I'd make obscene amounts of money per year on a contract. I would get rich and get the fuck out. BC playing in the NFL is guaranteed brain damage that accumulates over time. It would be a matter of how much of me do I want to let die to guarantee financial security for my family. And the answer is "as little as possible".
Man, IdrA. He's still my favorite personality in professional SC2. He was the Phil Hellmuth of esports. "No wonder you people play this way. It's so much easier than being good."
@@cho4d That wasn't intended as a compliment was it? That dude is one of the saltiest whiners I've ever seen in competition. He talks so much weak shit and is a flabby fat turd then cries when he loses or gets shit talked. He's pathetic.
Can you consider doing a video about SaSe ? He was also Swedish and I used to root for him back in WoL and Heart of the Swarm , I think he retired in 2013, the man with the stylish hat !
Sounds like "the boy who cried wolf". Something for the rest of us to learn from! Don't blame everything else for your own performance because when it finally is an external reason no-one will believe you.
interesting story. i think if a player does such a thing (just quitting the a series bc of soundproofing problems) he is pretty burnt out anyway and he would quit one way or the other from the game soon possibly.
I disagree, if you aspire to have a pristine competitive environment and you are constantly denied it then that is the game burning you out. I don't think this is the same as him wanting to quit. Besides it wasn't like SC2 was hurting for money, they could have easily addressed the issuers because of the revenue being pulled in. The same could be said about any job, if you are understaffed and underequipped it makes the position unenjoyable or unsafe. You leave out of self preservation, not so much frustration.
NaNiWa always shows up when Protos is OP and he quits when Protos no longer is OP. Like he said, he only cares about winning and thats less difficult when your race is OP at the time. There is a reason SC2 players always complain about balance issues, thats a great way to blame losing on something outside your realm of influence. Not much else to do when you don't have teammates to blame like you do in League🤣
NaNiwa returned to competitive play by 2020, but probably not as seriously as before either. 15:15 Neeb won the KeSPA Cup in 2016 and 3 WCS events in 2017. Serral was the first foreigner to win the WCS Global Finals, but other WCS events are Premier events as well.
I might of believed Naniwa.... if it had been anyone else then Captian Polt. Polt was the most clinical player of his era. you could not cheese that man he always had a scout.
One thing that wasn't mentioned was NaNiWa's work ethic. He was one of the few non Koreans who trained over 8-10 hours per day in order to get to the level he was.
@@FlamencoDeniz well that's just blatantly wrong. Because there is a pretty big correlation between the fact he put in the amount of time he did and the fact he was the only non korean at the WCS Global finals. Mind you the other Koreans played just as much if not more. I'm not sure what your SC2 experience is, but this isn't the type of game you play for 2-3 hours per day and end up at the biggest event for the year.
@@axesata I don't know whether the Koreans played more hours or less. I think you don't know either. And I also didn't make any assumption on sc2. What am I supposed to do with your response when none of the points tangent the original statement?
@@FlamencoDeniz I know how many hours the Koreans played because they gave interviews. Also your initial statement didn't make any sense especially in relation to SC2 WHICH THIS VIDEO IS ABOUT. In order to perfect your play in this game you have to put in hours upon so that you can perfect timings and builds. You aren't being inefficient by playing 8+ hours, everyone you are competing with at that level does that. I see you play guitar, do you think people like Santana or Hendrix got to the level they did by playing guitar 2 hours per day? They put in the amount of hours into their craft, SC2 players put in theirs. Do you think an orchestral musician practices for an hour a day and says "meh that's good enough, more than that is not efficient"
I play a lot of Mortal Kombat. I play Mortal Kombat at a pretty high level. It may be two separate genres but when I take an L in MK I don't blame the opponent or the game. I blame myself. Like the guy with the glasses said "He makes excuses." And when you do that you make enemies because when such a player wins it's because they are so good. But if they lose it was the game's imbalance or the opponent was cheating. Such a player will never say "I lost because I didn't play well and I need to improve." And because they are like that their behavior disrespects every opponent they play against.
Naniwa ended up being such a disgrace for SC2 esports. Doing that Probe pull on GSL to throw the game or leaving the tournament vs Polt .. it has NEVER happened before or after him. He's such a very immature / disturbed kid who got to play an RTS game. Shame because he was obviously good and as a Protoss player myself I was interested in his matches back in 2012 / 2013 where Koreans were just dominating every tournament like you said.
when I saw the title "how to ruin a career in esports" I honestly thought this would be a 10 second film that just says "get a real job and a girlfriend". That will crush anyone's esports dream with the terrible consequences of having a real life.
What's interesting, he got a GF later and a baby with her some time after. They eventually broke up and If I'm correct, he got the rights for the baby because the child was born in Sweden while his spouse was American and didn't have a Swedish citizenship. It was a big drama but now he's a happy father as fas as I know.
No mention of that code s semifinal vs mvp? That was spectacular run. And didn't stephani win iem, what do you mean serial was the first to win a premier sc2 tournament?
There was definitely a lot more instances of Naniwa being a piece of shit like him telling Hellraiser (a Ukrainian) that he hoped he died during the invasion of Ukraine during a ladder game. Also I laughed at the "some Finnish guy."
So Polt is who we owe for ending both Idra's and Naniwa's SC careers? What a good guy. TLO was an inspiration to a lot of us, and he doesn't like Naniwa either. Seem like he's an overall very unlikable guy.
I think it’s kind of funny that earlier in the video you can see a game being played by NaNiwa and Serral and the score being 1 - 0 to Serral, kind of predicting the future
While the best korean players were still playing BW. And some of the BW pros switched to LoL. SC2 WoL was very badly balanced game. And the only time Naniwa was able to win some games was at international events in USA/Europe. Protoss was very strong cheese and that's what naniwa relied on. Zerg was quite weak and Terran was IMBA.
@@ac0rpbg Not true. Naniwa was also successful in HOTS, actually more in HOTS than in WoL. And he wasn't any more cheesy than any other protoss. You make it sound as if what Naniwa did was easy, but he was basically the only foreigner (except for Stephano) who could challenge top koreans for a time. If it's only protoss being strong, why weren't other foreing protosses as successful as Naniwa? Also not all BW pros were that great at SC2. Many who switched from BW to SC2 weren't that great, because they are very different games and not everyone could adapt well. For instance Flash and JulyZerg were never that great at SC2, but others like TY and Stats were more successful.
7:18 back then the peak of esports was in hotel ballrooms with a few hundred sweaty nerds. Now its held in arena/stadiums with thousands of audience and broadcast on TV. How times have changed.
Thats not completely true, if we are speaking about US/EU sure.. But in South Korea they had HUGE matches already in 2005.. There was this one final on a beach.. with like 100 000 people (that number might be wrong.. but a lot..) was several very big events around then, but it for sure died down for a while after..
@@vir042 oh yea that's right. Korea is on a whole another level than the rest of the world. They literally dominated every major eSports so hard, that the words Gosu and kek and gg became a popular meme word back then. It's so interesting because gamers in Korea gets mad pussy. Girls were literally going to eSports events to find boyfriends, that blew my mind. I remember Slayers Boxer, he was like the Korean hero, he was to Koreans what Jesse Owens was to the Black people. He was so successful he even married a famous model/movie actress. Even his own fucking dad was proud of him! As a gamer I was proud of him. I felt like gamers were finally getting some love after all the years of being labeled a nerd or geek 😂
Oh man, you missed a golden opportunity to slip in one of those 2001 era videos of the pro players in the silly cosplay! They were hideous and so over the top in the best possible way.
Can you make a Video about Puma? I thought that was one of the most random Time Where he just had a run with the 1/1/1 all ins. For a shor time nobody could stop it and afterwards he just dipped
I wouldn't say NaNiWa ever ruined his career. He was a headache from the start, but he wasn't the only player that was, arguably Idra was far worse in terms of behaviour. Difference is that was a different time back then, if you had good results, you got away with it and the results just stopped coming, he fell off as the meta continued to evolved and it was really obvious his passion for the game wasn't there anymore.
I don't see a problem with ending an irrelevant game quickly. playing at a top level takes a ton of attention and effort. In chess for instance it's common for players to agree to a draw within a few moves when there's no advantage to playing the match... It's just the smart thing to do and safe resources for later.
It's somewhat true but It was done in such a careless manner. There are many ways to play a quick game in StarCraft 2 and win/lose, but it was just the same as he literally refused to play
That's what I thought at first but then remembered how these organizations make money: entertainment. There is likely a clause in the contract for these tournaments that you agree to play all the games scheduled so the orgs can get the most entertaining matches. Throwing a match hurts the value of the event and might break contract.
@@iQKyyR3K I'm sure its a balance of those aspects, since they are dependent on each other. The orgs need funding to host and put up prize money so bringing in lots of viewership from entertainment and hype helps with that. Ensuring that the matches are fair and skill based prevents negative reactions like we saw, which in turn could hurt viewership and attendance from the players. I think the walk off from NaNiWa was a good example of that balance being flawed. So was the thrown probe rush match, since all the guests as well as the host put up money counting on that match being watchable.
As a viewer back then it was cool to see him and I got his autograph on my copy of Wings of Liberty at Gamescom in like 2013 or so but nowadays I can't say I'd support him again. When he switched teams like a hot potato it wasn't clear as a viewer what exactly went on behind the scenes but after I recently read what happened later with his girlfriend and child I feel like he's just a seriously messed up person as you can also tell by how other players talk about him in those old interviews.
I always remember him as being too cocky, but the scenario of Blizzard, tournament organisers & even the fans constantly giving a break to THEMSELVES and one another in an insular group (yes the vast majority can be considered insular) was what had me leave for Dota 2 & not even participate beyond a peripheral look into their games in future. His persona was off absolutely, but he wasn't a multi-million dollar company that had the resources and ability to swap his appearance out/around. And his behaviour/demeanour was not what it should have been as a whole, he started off pretty petty and that should not have stuck with him. There are a few major regrets I have - on behalf of/about, Starcraft II and its history. One of them is NaNiWa just fading & the other is the general state of the game and how poor it was for so long to play or even watch - two things which I'd argue were fairly intertwined.
I think he admitted in 2013 and 2014 that he grew tired of this game and just didn't want to compete anymore. Probably because of the balance state and Starcraft 2 stagnation at those times
@@EsportsStoryteller Balance is one thing, and it also depends how you're looking at it too. For one - why do so many maps have an "Overlord perch" spot, where they get to have free intel on their opponent's natural? What happened to all the Xel'naga towers and fight for board control? SC2 fell off for me pretty hard. The BL/Infestor era was one big problem, but the constant nerfs to strategies.
Naniwa was an incredible player. Had he been an MMA fighter his attitude would have been outright dismissed. For some reason in the gaming community one must be completely humble and nice all the time, or they might as well not even contend. I think it stems from a sort of jealousy. All these nerds wish they could go pro, and they don't respect the talent of those that can succeed. Viewers act as though it's something pros been given and should therefore act incredibly humble at all times, rather than the reality that it's something they're gifted at and work extremely hard for. Naniwa was a legend of the game. His playstyle included everything. He could perform the most ridiculously ballsy and high risk cheese in one game and then the next play until the last resource on the map had been extracted. You never knew what you'd get from him, and that's why he will always be my favorite foreigner.
Such a "boy who cried wolf" story; public opinion strongly against him because of his past misbehavior, they can't overlook the justifiable problem he was having. Whether the scout was legit or not, a lack of proper soundproofing at a live event is unacceptable. Probably the ONLY good thing about the remote tournaments of the last couple of years (besides people not dying of COVID of course).
i was there Gandalf ...10 Years a go in blizzcon 2013, Naniwa was the only NON-Asian contender... the night before the opening ceremony... in the Hilton Hotel Naniwa was Drunk As fuck at 3AM... Guess how many Korean players were awake and drunk?... spoiler NONE.
Honestly I really can't believe that there was a real soundproofing issue, serious enough to actually make it possible to figure out what your opponent is doing. They've been using these soundproof booths since the early 2000s and you also have your own in-game audio in your own earplugs. Maybe if you're inside the booth with no audio going into your ears and you listen very closely you could hear something from the outside but it can't possibly be enough for it to work while listening to the headphones.
When commentators point out someone cheesing/rushing, the crowd goes wild. Always. So if the player being attacked hears the crowd cheering early in a game, he knows that he has to scout and prepare his defenses.
It's not that they heard the other player's game. He's saying his opponent heard the announcer scream "HE'S PROXYING!". Go watch the video at 13:00. He's visibly angry that the casters gave it away long before he had indication of what his opponent was doing..
I lived thrue that time period and let me tell you Idra was always a joke he never performed well and Naniwa was slightly better but no way near korea level. You cant eaven comprehend how mutch was korean ahead. Only time rest of the world catch up was Serral he was eating koreans for breakfest it was great time.
There's a large chunk of history missing here from the streaming & community space of SC2 where he would regularly get into fights on twitter, TL and justin/twitch with the larger community members. His reputation only further soured towards the end of his career due to this. At the very end he was found being extremely abusive to his then-girlfriend and by that point everyone had written him off as a huge piece of shit.
To add to this he abusive relationship with his partner Tigerlily that he had a child with (he was the abuser). Yes, the same Tigerlily that was Destiny's ex girlfriend.
MATCH-FIXING SCANDAL that almost RUINED KOREAN Proscene - th-cam.com/video/DWbaUr8kZaU/w-d-xo.html
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Timecodes:
00:00 What is this video about
00:48 StarCraft 2 scene and brief history
01:30 Korean Dominance in StarCraft 2
03:09 How Koreans conquered StarCraft 2
04:25 The "Foreign" scene and the appeareance of NaNiWa
04:41 Why NaNiWa became so famous
06:07 The rise of NaNiWa
07:24 Bad manners and misbehaviour of NaNiWa
08:56 Alliance hires NaNiWa: biggest achievements
10:56 NaNiWa's IEM Katowice 2014
11:44 The Hiatus, controversy and end of NaNiWa's career
14:40 The Aftermath
Казалось бы, при чем тут НС?
Honestly I totally buy his excuse about the soundproofing thing. You dont need to hear the casters or specifics, you just need to hear/feel the crowd go crazy and the fact that youre getting cheesed becomes incredibly obvious.
But everyone already knew by 2015 that Naniwa is a cheeser. Players also got use to being cheesed. Scouting is very important. But the best cheeser is HAS.
NaniWa was known for cheesing by that point as well, regardless of sound proofing, if you cheese 1/3 of your games or more, people are going to get used to scouting for it
@@AB_n_C This isn't an argument, though. You can't just say "Well who cares if the crowd gave it away, he probably would have figured it out." You can apply that sort of reverse logic to everything to reverse engineer it. "Player X had 200 higher ELO so who cares if he cheated, he probably would have won anyway." Either you play on a fair field or you shouldn't play at all.
@The Advocate they both played on even playing field. Polt had no 'advantage' over Naniwa. Everyone knows there is a crowd. Naniwa is a veteran player who understands the cheese aspect of playing in a tournament. U can use whatever u can within the aspect of the tournament. The tournament staff also agrees w my statement hence why there is no do-over. Naniwa left becuz he lost the game on a emotional level.
That moment is muted in this video, but Polt already sent scout before cheer.
5:45 lol there he is, my boy TLO :D He's probably the most influential one in making me fall in love with SC2
I remember IdrA explained how you can’t actually soundproof booths before SC2 entered beta. Game 1 in Stork’s OSL Finals win over Fantasy was designed around how Fantasy would try to bait out a crowd response with an SCV patrol if Stork was proxying and that was bait for Fantasy to bring more SCVs and get blocked by the 2nd Gateway that walled off the first but was meant to get cancelled for more minerals for, etc. In real-time the Korean commentators were correctly guessing Fantasy’s SimCity would doom him - better building placement and he could have won.
Just discovered you, hope you continue making these. They don't even need to have any 'clickbait controversy', it can just be a in depth look at some of the players journeys on the scene, glory days and inevitable fall offs. There have been so many interesting SC2 players in the last 30 years. Also note: I was hesitant to subscribe since your name implied you cover all e sports, but then saw they were all sc2 vids so i subbed. Hope this input helps.
I actually plan to cover at least 3 esports, but since I have an SC2 background, I'll make sure to post 3-4 videos related only to StarCraft 2 each week. Maybe 1-2 for Dota 2 / CS:GO and the last day is a day-off or something that I personally want to talk about :D
That was a really good/nice comment. Enjoyed it... and pretty much completely agree. Except for the 30 (20 too many) years of SCII. :)
8:00 This is what I also don’t like about specific SC casters. The “Everything is hype” mindset and “Narrate whatever is currently happening”.
To contrast this, you know Artosis would be saying “What is he doing? Is he running 6 probes across the map? When has this ever worked, Tasteless?” and Tasteless would respond “I don’t know Artosis, but Naniwa is the kind of player who could make it work!”
The first non-Korean winner of a premier tournament in Korea was Neeb, not Serral.
True, my bad
@@EsportsStoryteller you should make an effort to correct the video maybe a caption or something, as a storyteller of esports history you should strive for accuracy
@@boyzvird yeah it actually pretty seriously hurts the integrity of the channel since i kind of accept everything else as true in other documentaries without verification.
Yea I was a big fan of Neeb after that. But he never did anything spectacular after that the GSL win. Only showed that Koreans stopped playing Starcraft. They really went downhill as Serral dominated Starcraft.
@@AB_n_C Neeb was just not consistent, he’d often have those fairly deep tournament runs and show great play but then have a bad day and make relatively basic mistakes
Calling something "soundproof" when in fact it isn't is itself a problem.
I was there, sitting in the audience. When NaNiWa left his booth me and my friend we started running towards back of a stage to catch him and ask few questions on what happend, why he left etc. When we saw him, he had tears in his eyes and was very moved. When we started talking to him, his girlfriend (I think) only said to us "interview later". We have waited but he never showed up again. I hope he was able to process what have happened and moved on. I wish him all the best.
Nice video BTW. Looking forward to see your channel grow :)
Maybe guy felt genuinely frustrated about the situation and the fact that nobody could understand his point of view
lol what a loser
Doubt it,Google Naniwa and tigerlily for an "interesting" read.
@@DanielWillenthat, or he's a sore loser
I say this as a sore loser myself, which is why I only watch, not play, games like StarCraft 2
Naniwa is not retired, he created a pretty good build last year! I rooted for him a lot throughout the years, but a level of humbleness earlier in his career might have done some good. That being said, thank you for the excitement you brought me upsetting S tier Koreans in WoL/HoTS esports eras
Most of the pros I had the pleasure of working with were genuinely nice people, and even when they were tense or stressed at these events they were still regular people. Naniwa on the other hand was consistently late, rude to staff, and demanded ridiculous stuff. I remember one time he refused to go on stage until someone went to his hotel room and got him a pillow to sit on. Just a real dismissive asshole to people working around him.
I don't know, I hope in life he's grown up and matured.
So Polt ended both Idra and NaniWa careers in a major match. Good to know.
Polt the destroyer of foreign hopes
what happened to polt? Really liked this guy
@@bohneneintopf In short, he retired to do the military service in South Korea. He also has a degree from University of Texas. Sometimes he used to stream, but his last once 2 years ago. I guess he just found a job either in America or in South Korea. I'll make a video about him someday
@@EsportsStoryteller Nice, will await your video!
@@bohneneintopf Polt did his military duty and then went on streaming on SC2 and then Teamfight Tatics. After that, he became T1's marketing manager, he is still doing E-sports, but much more of a back end capacity.
I loved the EU/NA/KR SC2 era.
MLG, TakeTV, GSL, ESL
Loved it
11:23 - I remember watching this game live, in Katowice. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED was silly beyond belief... SC2 and LOL were sharing the same huge stage, and LOL players just scored "first blood" and half of the venue went absolutely bonkers to this degree that I remember floor vibrating. So the super-hype from LOL might have given Polt a hint since the 1st blood timing had been just a few seconds earlier vs the moment you're showing at 11:23. It wasn't like Ace vs Moon during IEM Cologne.
dude I remember how crazy it would get. I competed in the 2008 orlando event for halo, and I had trouble hearing my teammates through full volume and screaming because the SC2 fans were so loud and crazy. Like you said I could feel the vibrations from a whole venue away.
@@kendallmann6131 sc2 in 2008 huh?
@@kendallmann6131 lol sc2 in 2008? your clearly lieing as sc2 didnt exist
He wanted to be the bad boy so bad. I hate when people compare idra and naniwa together, since idra was truly THE bad boy in the scene and performed the role really well to the point no one was not really sure was it just a role or just him naturally, where as with naniwa it was brutally clear for majority that he was most likely just bullied kid in school who chose to try to be the bad boy. His physical maneuvers, stuttering and overall awkward presence gave it away.
I've been a tournament official with both. Idra never was rude to tournament officials and when the cameras weren't there. He never did anything that makes staff life more difficult. Then we had naniwa, who blocked all other competitiors in bnet and forced the officials to organize the match-ups, whined about every single detail about the venue and after losing the last game broke the tournament computer by forcefully pulling all the cables out. I think it was one of the last tournaments in his career. Jackass throughout...
I felt bad for the guy, since he clearly wasn't naturally douche, but he clearly just chose to be one.
Nice video.
As for Naniwa, he was a nightmare toxic person to deal with back in the WC3 days. Actually one of the worst top players in that regard, and that's saying something back then.
Can vouch for this, from first person experience.
Naniwa went by the name Skoth. Notorious for being a thief in the Swedish warcraft 3 scene at around 2005.
I was wondering if this was warcraft3 player I saw on tv in a bar in thailand like 20 years ago seemed to be a random swede in asia having anime hair plaing warcraft 3.
@@bucketpizza5197 That was probably Sase
@@bennagadowski8284 thief?
I don't like Naniwa, but I wish you had mentioned him beating MVP and Nestea at that MLG side tournament, that was a cool moment where he earned a bit of my respect.
Naniwa was in a way of retiring at the time or as he called it taking a rest from the game and was out of practice. Also so it happens that i was watching a lot of Polt streams at the time and he was scouting literaly every game the same way since he is very metodical player, but naniwa didnt take the time to research his opponent and didnt knew about that one. So this video is just kinda twisted. Im convinced that polt just did his regular scouting as he was doing literaly every game on the ladder and tournaments at the time.
regardless of what you think about him, he was 100% in the right for iem 2014. everyone including polt admitted soundproofing was an issue and losing a match because of venue flaws is unacceptable and unprofessional. he gg-ed and forfeited in protest but was very mannered about it.
you can literally say whatever you want, but him getting ouf of that tournament was 100% legit, since his own opponent proved him right about the sound proofing being horrible this day. He didn't immediatly left , he 1st asked to cancel that game and restart the series + asking the crowd to be silent. I would have reacted the same, since if i can hear the crowd, logically my opponent can hear it too. There are also player perspective videos that showed him completly switching face as soon as he heard the crowd being excited of that proxy, way before polt scouting.
@@GhostStyle007 If it's really such a game breaking issue, why wouldn't he get the support from all the other participants and jointly boycotted the games? Ultimately you abide by the rules even if they are unfair, because that's respecting the other players, who also share the same rules. The fact that he went out alone in such an arrogant manner is on him.
@@zxbc1 he asked the support the support and they negociated for around 20 minutes, and the game was scored, he then left the scene. And what you say is completly wrong he didnt get boycoted by everyone , half of the players backed him up concerning the isolation problem even polt did. They even had to reconsider this issue for the next tournaments. The reason why he didnt get much of a support is his history , he is well known for being an A**hole, but it wouldnt bias my judgment for this particular drama.
@@zxbc1 It is only respecful of the organization, and perhaps some spectators, but not the players. Eh it's not actively disrespectful either.
But I would consider it an act of respect to the scene to boycott events that don't respect the culture of competition, it's far more insulting to the game than bad sportsmanship.
I see it the same way as if everyone gets unfairly underpaid at a workplace, if you had the opportunity to go on strike or unionize, it wouldn't be the guy who decides to still show up to work saying "don't stir up trouble just respect the rules" who is being respectful of the other employees.
I still use his binds to this day.
If it was any other player telling about the soundproofing thing it probably would have been different, but it was a "The boy who cried wolf" situation. Nobody is going to take you as seriously if you constantly use excuses, and you saying only after you lost combined with his record didn't make it that believable.
@md.hasibulhasan925 The moment he has heard cheers or had other way of confirming it was not sound proof he should have notified the staff, not after losing. If you know that there is something wrong but only report it after you've lost then it's your fault. Also notifying everyone of this problem by flaming the other player in the chat is not the right way. Also I don't know if it wasn't actually soundproof or if that was just an excuse. If it was really a problem the production team is to blame but you're obligated to notify them when you learn of that fact, not after you've lost to a normal scout. With his behavior it just seemed like an excuse, are you surprised he wasn't taken very seriously? This part was his fault only
Doesn't look like he has a "dark side", just an edgy dude with no manners, that ran away crying when he got his ass handed to him (saying he didn't even really want to win either...what's he, 12?). Never going to understand people getting a big head out of playing an esport.
Very unfortunate. It shows how big attitude affects whatever your goal is. In his defense he was still young. Hope he was able to work on it tho.
Nice take on one of the biggest jerks in SC2. Arguably, the soundproofing was an issue, what you can't argue though is that he was very salty and toxic player. So when he left that game in Katowice, he cemented the image he build for himself.
Great video, sc2 is how i discovered Justintv/Twitch , back in the day for years i would watch all sc2 tournaments and play the game a lot
I still remember back in like 2012 or so losing to a 9-10 year old Reynor the Italian pro in a Esl for fun tournament , he was Diamond and i was Platinum league
Then winning against his dad, a few years later losing to his little brother that was in Master league
I haven't watched or played sc2 since like 2017 , but it's good to see that Reynor became one of the best in the world
Just want to point out that I myself was forced to manage a PR nightmare after his probe rush against Nestea, but together and with his help and genuine growth as a person and a player, we took all the steps and made all the statements in a highly professional manner, resulting in Mr. Che of GOM TV/GSL eventually returning Johan his RO8 Code S seed. He was without doubt a difficult person to manage, but I think I learned as much from him as anyone during that time. His brilliance and drive for victory, was the clearest expression of his truth, and I both respected and admired his sheer will and determination. Both he and SaSe were truly outstanding players and people, and I still keep in touch with them both on occasion, even 10+ years later.
Just curious: how is it going now for NaNi? I heard he became a father and also enrolled in a university, is that true?
Naniwa the narcissistic racist homophobe who told a Ukrainian guy he hoped he would die in the Russian invasion? That Naniwa? Interesting...
> He was without doubt a difficult person to manage...
Humans are not cattle, as much as certain control-freaks wants us to be.
@@EsportsStoryteller he recently got banned from twitch for saying slurs so it doesnt seem like hes grown up much
@@Hephera Yeah, there was also a twitter conflict with HellRaiser where NaNiWa wished a bomb to be dropped on his house (HellRaiser is from Ukraine). So I guess he's still quite toxic
I saw this back then on twitch and knew that this was usual scout. Naniwa was just mad his cheese did not work. That being said I like him and watched his streams often after he stopped being a Pro Player
edit: autocorrect
7:19 Legends say he is still holding his hand up waiting for that handshake
I don't know the scene, but I had to relate to that "what are you suppose to say to that", that was the commentators fault for making a bad start to the conversation.
I remember watching most of these matches, such good times. I was a big fan of NaNiWa and always hoped he would overcome his attitude. Same with Idra. I remember when Jinro went deep into the GSL and would wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning to watch the matches live on GomTV in 360p haha. If you haven’t done a video on Jinro that’d be awesome, he got into MMA after SC2 I believe.
great video. I miss watching Starcraft 2 back in 2010. There won't be anything like it ever again.
Not even talking about the "hand shake" incident. This video doesn't show how disrespectful NaNiWa is.
Yeah there were some other cases with his behaviour as well
Please do the rise and dominance of Serral at some point!
I think I'll cover it a bit later - he's still the best foreign player and has a lot of attention anyways :)
@@EsportsStoryteller Also the Year of Neeb, when he won the Kespa Cup on South KR and all events, i think was 2016.
@@vacaconsapo that shit was crazy
@@EsportsStoryteller You dont say "best foreign player" when he is the best player period.
@Tomas recart it was GSL
EDIT: Google saids Kespa. I thought it was GSL code S.
Naniwa was also tweeting things before the event such as "Played LoL in the past month, didn't touch SC2". He was already sure to lose in his head.
I loved that era when Naniwa and Scarlett were our only hope.
Just found this channel, great work!
Thanks!
That intro sound made me think my sc2 had started in the background XD
I know this is off topic but One thing I love about South Korea being huge with sc2 is a story I read about the world cup how the south Korea footballers, actually had the top South Korea starcraft 2 team come in to "Cheer them up" because in SK at the time they was the Heroes of a generation to me thats wild
I was there, Polt's SCV didn't change the scouting route, so NaNiwa blaming discovery of his proxy on soundproofing is just BS. We counted on him, as he was the only foreigner on that IEM and him leaving the booth after first game deserved all the booing.
Huh? Watch the replay at 13:00. The caster screams "HE'S PROXYING" within the first minute of the game. You can see Naniwa is visibly annoyed immediately after the caster said that. This was well before his opponent sent his scouting SCV out.
Nice vid! Very interesting. Looking forward for more content
Thanks! The next will be about Idra
Another good example of someone ruining their career was Life, the guy was an absolute legend in matches. If he wasn't matchfixing could only imagine how far he would of went. Would of loved seeing serral vs life for zerg dominance.
this guy hasn't gotten much better. recently he said (on a barcode) that he wished the war in Ukraine had killed hellraiser when hellraiser beat him in a game. disgusting act.
Lame move in my book.
:(
Man i must say your content is pure nostalgia.
Yeah that's a lot of it on the channel! :)
@@EsportsStoryteller do some warcraft 3 too. or is it just sc2?
@@marjimanrts I'll add age of empires, wc3 and sc1 broodwar next week for regular schedule
To be fair, naniwa saying that his victory is the only thing motivating him, not the fans or anything else, is probably the bravest and most honest answer out there. And the statement holds true for most athletes (family aside). He's still an ass though.
It's every pro players goal, they play the game to be the best, not for every thing else.
Now they do say thx to the viewers and support but we all know deep down it's only for themselves, to be the number 1
Someone did a poll of Olympic athletes. They asked them, if they could be given a pill that would never be detected but would 100% win them a gold medal at the next Olympics - the catch being they would only live for 8 more years after taking the pill - over 70% of them said they would do it. For some, glory and recognition trump everything else. Their skill and workrate comes from nothing but ego, rather than competition and fun.
Yeah, some shit you just dont say out loud. There are a lot of celebs in different markets that really do value their fans, but the ones that don't are still smart enough to pay lip service to the fans. Without fans you better be the best by a large margin, and he was not.
@@TheVanillatech Right. At the highest levels of any sport you have to have the ego and unrelenting drive it takes to sacrifice everything but your goal. They want to be the best, and it's not for anyone but them. That's why you will see the "good guys/gals" hang it up early for their family or something. For those kinds of people, they must have a change of heart or a plan to get in, get their goal, and get out. If I was the highest skilled athlete in the world, but the only sport I could play was American Football, and I'd make obscene amounts of money per year on a contract. I would get rich and get the fuck out. BC playing in the NFL is guaranteed brain damage that accumulates over time. It would be a matter of how much of me do I want to let die to guarantee financial security for my family. And the answer is "as little as possible".
Man, IdrA. He's still my favorite personality in professional SC2. He was the Phil Hellmuth of esports. "No wonder you people play this way. It's so much easier than being good."
"the Phil Hellmuth of esports" lmaooooo so accurate.
@@cho4d That wasn't intended as a compliment was it? That dude is one of the saltiest whiners I've ever seen in competition. He talks so much weak shit and is a flabby fat turd then cries when he loses or gets shit talked. He's pathetic.
@@cho4d Not really. Phil won the most titles. Indra can't.
Can you consider doing a video about SaSe ? He was also Swedish and I used to root for him back in WoL and Heart of the Swarm , I think he retired in 2013, the man with the stylish hat !
Yes, I think I'll do him one day, there's a lot of interesting stuff about him to cover
SaSe was such a big-brain player!
NE king without APM. He did win by just his brains.
Sounds like "the boy who cried wolf". Something for the rest of us to learn from! Don't blame everything else for your own performance because when it finally is an external reason no-one will believe you.
interesting story. i think if a player does such a thing (just quitting the a series bc of soundproofing problems) he is pretty burnt out anyway and he would quit one way or the other from the game soon possibly.
I disagree, if you aspire to have a pristine competitive environment and you are constantly denied it then that is the game burning you out. I don't think this is the same as him wanting to quit. Besides it wasn't like SC2 was hurting for money, they could have easily addressed the issuers because of the revenue being pulled in. The same could be said about any job, if you are understaffed and underequipped it makes the position unenjoyable or unsafe. You leave out of self preservation, not so much frustration.
Real life example of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf."
crazy, i didnt know that he was so big in SC2. i basically only know him from WC3.
The "no handshake"
You allways see certain player rise to fame and then disappear as quickly as they became relevant
Looking forward to this channels growth
Thanks!
Same here, hope you make more cool videos like this!
NaNiWa always shows up when Protos is OP and he quits when Protos no longer is OP.
Like he said, he only cares about winning and thats less difficult when your race is OP at the time.
There is a reason SC2 players always complain about balance issues, thats a great way to blame losing on something outside your realm of influence.
Not much else to do when you don't have teammates to blame like you do in League🤣
NaNiwa returned to competitive play by 2020, but probably not as seriously as before either. 15:15 Neeb won the KeSPA Cup in 2016 and 3 WCS events in 2017. Serral was the first foreigner to win the WCS Global Finals, but other WCS events are Premier events as well.
I might of believed Naniwa.... if it had been anyone else then Captian Polt.
Polt was the most clinical player of his era. you could not cheese that man he always had a scout.
Good story, well told. Good work.
I remember that single 3hp stalker game blowing my mind back then. Shame the story ends how it does for this guy.
These are some awesome videos here! Are you going to include stories of players through Brood War as well?
Yeah, why not, I might do some later
@@EsportsStoryteller That's gonna be awesome! I look forward to your future content!
I, for one, would love to see a runthrough of boxer's career
Thanks for the content! Please do Startale Life.
I'll do him this month
@@EsportsStoryteller Saucy...
One thing that wasn't mentioned was NaNiWa's work ethic. He was one of the few non Koreans who trained over 8-10 hours per day in order to get to the level he was.
True, he was really diligent
working a lot is not an achievement. if anything it means you're not efficient in what you do
@@FlamencoDeniz well that's just blatantly wrong. Because there is a pretty big correlation between the fact he put in the amount of time he did and the fact he was the only non korean at the WCS Global finals. Mind you the other Koreans played just as much if not more. I'm not sure what your SC2 experience is, but this isn't the type of game you play for 2-3 hours per day and end up at the biggest event for the year.
@@axesata I don't know whether the Koreans played more hours or less. I think you don't know either. And I also didn't make any assumption on sc2. What am I supposed to do with your response when none of the points tangent the original statement?
@@FlamencoDeniz I know how many hours the Koreans played because they gave interviews. Also your initial statement didn't make any sense especially in relation to SC2 WHICH THIS VIDEO IS ABOUT. In order to perfect your play in this game you have to put in hours upon so that you can perfect timings and builds. You aren't being inefficient by playing 8+ hours, everyone you are competing with at that level does that. I see you play guitar, do you think people like Santana or Hendrix got to the level they did by playing guitar 2 hours per day? They put in the amount of hours into their craft, SC2 players put in theirs. Do you think an orchestral musician practices for an hour a day and says "meh that's good enough, more than that is not efficient"
Maybe he was right, maybe he was not. But I think walking out would have irreparablly damaged his career even if he did not have that reputation.
I play a lot of Mortal Kombat. I play Mortal Kombat at a pretty high level. It may be two separate genres but when I take an L in MK I don't blame the opponent or the game. I blame myself. Like the guy with the glasses said "He makes excuses." And when you do that you make enemies because when such a player wins it's because they are so good. But if they lose it was the game's imbalance or the opponent was cheating. Such a player will never say "I lost because I didn't play well and I need to improve." And because they are like that their behavior disrespects every opponent they play against.
Typical Naniwa, his worst enemy was himself.
Interesting! Entertaining! God Bless you :)
Thank you!
Naniwa ended up being such a disgrace for SC2 esports. Doing that Probe pull on GSL to throw the game or leaving the tournament vs Polt .. it has NEVER happened before or after him. He's such a very immature / disturbed kid who got to play an RTS game. Shame because he was obviously good and as a Protoss player myself I was interested in his matches back in 2012 / 2013 where Koreans were just dominating every tournament like you said.
when I saw the title "how to ruin a career in esports" I honestly thought this would be a 10 second film that just says "get a real job and a girlfriend". That will crush anyone's esports dream with the terrible consequences of having a real life.
What's interesting, he got a GF later and a baby with her some time after. They eventually broke up and If I'm correct, he got the rights for the baby because the child was born in Sweden while his spouse was American and didn't have a Swedish citizenship. It was a big drama but now he's a happy father as fas as I know.
No mention of that code s semifinal vs mvp? That was spectacular run. And didn't stephani win iem, what do you mean serial was the first to win a premier sc2 tournament?
Yeah, my bad, this was my first video on this channel so... Perhaps I'll need to do an extended version :)
There was definitely a lot more instances of Naniwa being a piece of shit like him telling Hellraiser (a Ukrainian) that he hoped he died during the invasion of Ukraine during a ladder game. Also I laughed at the "some Finnish guy."
That's horrible :(
@Xenogroth here it ts twitter.com/hellraisersc2/status/1532471442608119816?s=20&t=7MorirdLNEqZxmUcm8cZhQ
@Xenogroth Well yeah, you can check it on sc2revealed, but it's something he would say. I didn't include in the video since there's no 100% proof
@Xenogroth Yeah well, I post only public stuff or something that is allowed for me by the person :D
how tf did naniwa mock someone about the invasion of ukraine 10+ years before it happened? #makessense
So Polt is who we owe for ending both Idra's and Naniwa's SC careers? What a good guy. TLO was an inspiration to a lot of us, and he doesn't like Naniwa either. Seem like he's an overall very unlikable guy.
Polt is such a great man, i met him once personally. He is very kind and he never wished bad for his enemies
I think it’s kind of funny that earlier in the video you can see a game being played by NaNiwa and Serral and the score being 1 - 0 to Serral, kind of predicting the future
Naniwa was one of the very few foreigner that could compete with TOP koreans. I have great memories watching his games.
While the best korean players were still playing BW. And some of the BW pros switched to LoL. SC2 WoL was very badly balanced game. And the only time Naniwa was able to win some games was at international events in USA/Europe. Protoss was very strong cheese and that's what naniwa relied on. Zerg was quite weak and Terran was IMBA.
@@ac0rpbg Not true. Naniwa was also successful in HOTS, actually more in HOTS than in WoL. And he wasn't any more cheesy than any other protoss. You make it sound as if what Naniwa did was easy, but he was basically the only foreigner (except for Stephano) who could challenge top koreans for a time. If it's only protoss being strong, why weren't other foreing protosses as successful as Naniwa? Also not all BW pros were that great at SC2. Many who switched from BW to SC2 weren't that great, because they are very different games and not everyone could adapt well. For instance Flash and JulyZerg were never that great at SC2, but others like TY and Stats were more successful.
So much nostalgia!
If you type in naniwa into an iPhone it autocorrects to babies, did they do that on purpose? Imo naniwa is amazin
7:18 back then the peak of esports was in hotel ballrooms with a few hundred sweaty nerds. Now its held in arena/stadiums with thousands of audience and broadcast on TV. How times have changed.
Thats not completely true, if we are speaking about US/EU sure.. But in South Korea they had HUGE matches already in 2005.. There was this one final on a beach.. with like 100 000 people (that number might be wrong.. but a lot..) was several very big events around then, but it for sure died down for a while after..
@@vir042 oh yea that's right. Korea is on a whole another level than the rest of the world. They literally dominated every major eSports so hard, that the words Gosu and kek and gg became a popular meme word back then. It's so interesting because gamers in Korea gets mad pussy. Girls were literally going to eSports events to find boyfriends, that blew my mind. I remember Slayers Boxer, he was like the Korean hero, he was to Koreans what Jesse Owens was to the Black people. He was so successful he even married a famous model/movie actress. Even his own fucking dad was proud of him! As a gamer I was proud of him. I felt like gamers were finally getting some love after all the years of being labeled a nerd or geek 😂
3:26 LMAO them amphetamine pupils.
Oh man, you missed a golden opportunity to slip in one of those 2001 era videos of the pro players in the silly cosplay! They were hideous and so over the top in the best possible way.
Can you make a Video about Puma? I thought that was one of the most random Time Where he just had a run with the 1/1/1 all ins. For a shor time nobody could stop it and afterwards he just dipped
Yeah I'll certainly make one
I wouldn't say NaNiWa ever ruined his career. He was a headache from the start, but he wasn't the only player that was, arguably Idra was far worse in terms of behaviour. Difference is that was a different time back then, if you had good results, you got away with it and the results just stopped coming, he fell off as the meta continued to evolved and it was really obvious his passion for the game wasn't there anymore.
I don't see a problem with ending an irrelevant game quickly.
playing at a top level takes a ton of attention and effort.
In chess for instance it's common for players to agree to a draw within a few moves when there's no advantage to playing the match...
It's just the smart thing to do and safe resources for later.
It's somewhat true but It was done in such a careless manner. There are many ways to play a quick game in StarCraft 2 and win/lose, but it was just the same as he literally refused to play
thanks for sharing this totally irrelevant information
That's what I thought at first but then remembered how these organizations make money: entertainment. There is likely a clause in the contract for these tournaments that you agree to play all the games scheduled so the orgs can get the most entertaining matches. Throwing a match hurts the value of the event and might break contract.
@@svengalt9546 Interesting point,
essentially boils down to whether tournaments should be entertainment or comparisons of skill.
@@iQKyyR3K I'm sure its a balance of those aspects, since they are dependent on each other. The orgs need funding to host and put up prize money so bringing in lots of viewership from entertainment and hype helps with that. Ensuring that the matches are fair and skill based prevents negative reactions like we saw, which in turn could hurt viewership and attendance from the players. I think the walk off from NaNiWa was a good example of that balance being flawed. So was the thrown probe rush match, since all the guests as well as the host put up money counting on that match being watchable.
As a viewer back then it was cool to see him and I got his autograph on my copy of Wings of Liberty at Gamescom in like 2013 or so but nowadays I can't say I'd support him again. When he switched teams like a hot potato it wasn't clear as a viewer what exactly went on behind the scenes but after I recently read what happened later with his girlfriend and child I feel like he's just a seriously messed up person as you can also tell by how other players talk about him in those old interviews.
what happened later with his girlfriend and child? i can't find the story on TL or reddit
They divorced, as for the child, he kept the rights, as far as I remember, but can't confirm now
If I am not wrong he was also called "the dragon slayer" cause at the time was the only one able to defeat the koreans
"He managed to switch 7 teams, which was probably a record..." Special / MaJor / Windy / Kitty / Britney calls that a Sunday.
Yeah xD
I always remember him as being too cocky, but the scenario of Blizzard, tournament organisers & even the fans constantly giving a break to THEMSELVES and one another in an insular group (yes the vast majority can be considered insular) was what had me leave for Dota 2 & not even participate beyond a peripheral look into their games in future.
His persona was off absolutely, but he wasn't a multi-million dollar company that had the resources and ability to swap his appearance out/around. And his behaviour/demeanour was not what it should have been as a whole, he started off pretty petty and that should not have stuck with him.
There are a few major regrets I have - on behalf of/about, Starcraft II and its history. One of them is NaNiWa just fading & the other is the general state of the game and how poor it was for so long to play or even watch - two things which I'd argue were fairly intertwined.
I think he admitted in 2013 and 2014 that he grew tired of this game and just didn't want to compete anymore. Probably because of the balance state and Starcraft 2 stagnation at those times
@@EsportsStoryteller Balance is one thing, and it also depends how you're looking at it too. For one - why do so many maps have an "Overlord perch" spot, where they get to have free intel on their opponent's natural? What happened to all the Xel'naga towers and fight for board control? SC2 fell off for me pretty hard. The BL/Infestor era was one big problem, but the constant nerfs to strategies.
5:30.the guy in the background was really...into the game
He's truly passionate about esports
Naniwa was an incredible player. Had he been an MMA fighter his attitude would have been outright dismissed. For some reason in the gaming community one must be completely humble and nice all the time, or they might as well not even contend. I think it stems from a sort of jealousy. All these nerds wish they could go pro, and they don't respect the talent of those that can succeed. Viewers act as though it's something pros been given and should therefore act incredibly humble at all times, rather than the reality that it's something they're gifted at and work extremely hard for. Naniwa was a legend of the game. His playstyle included everything. He could perform the most ridiculously ballsy and high risk cheese in one game and then the next play until the last resource on the map had been extracted. You never knew what you'd get from him, and that's why he will always be my favorite foreigner.
Such a "boy who cried wolf" story; public opinion strongly against him because of his past misbehavior, they can't overlook the justifiable problem he was having. Whether the scout was legit or not, a lack of proper soundproofing at a live event is unacceptable. Probably the ONLY good thing about the remote tournaments of the last couple of years (besides people not dying of COVID of course).
He's still top 50 GM, so i hope to see him again!
Yeah he streams occasionally
Why, he's a miserable person
@@TheJerbol i prefer skill and personality to media training, but that might just be me.
@@TheJerbol he was skillful though
i was there Gandalf ...10 Years a go in blizzcon 2013, Naniwa was the only NON-Asian contender... the night before the opening ceremony... in the Hilton Hotel Naniwa was Drunk As fuck at 3AM... Guess how many Korean players were awake and drunk?... spoiler NONE.
Honestly I really can't believe that there was a real soundproofing issue, serious enough to actually make it possible to figure out what your opponent is doing. They've been using these soundproof booths since the early 2000s and you also have your own in-game audio in your own earplugs. Maybe if you're inside the booth with no audio going into your ears and you listen very closely you could hear something from the outside but it can't possibly be enough for it to work while listening to the headphones.
It’s the bass that penetrates. Quite credible that you would get a faint sense of the crowd’s emotion given they’re only a few metres away.
When commentators point out someone cheesing/rushing, the crowd goes wild. Always. So if the player being attacked hears the crowd cheering early in a game, he knows that he has to scout and prepare his defenses.
It's not that they heard the other player's game. He's saying his opponent heard the announcer scream "HE'S PROXYING!".
Go watch the video at 13:00. He's visibly angry that the casters gave it away long before he had indication of what his opponent was doing..
Like in regular sport, players need to be a good example for youngsters. If they are not, they should be removed. Crazy they allowed him for so long.
You just know he is a player from early 2000s by the look on his hair style 🙂
His face resembles his character, or vice versa maybe.
I lived thrue that time period and let me tell you Idra was always a joke he never performed well and Naniwa was slightly better but no way near korea level. You cant eaven comprehend how mutch was korean ahead. Only time rest of the world catch up was Serral he was eating koreans for breakfest it was great time.
He was indeed incredibly skilled, but he was difficult to deal with on many levels. Idra was a tough guy too but he came across much more likeable
My guy referring to the greatest of all time as "a Finnish guy named Serral", like bro you know who he is
Yeah I'm a big fan of him :D
Amazing content
Thanks!
Naniwa still stream SC2 from time to time on Twitch.
This stuff didn't ruin his career at all. He could've kept playing if he wanted to, but he just kinda gave up on the game.
There's a large chunk of history missing here from the streaming & community space of SC2 where he would regularly get into fights on twitter, TL and justin/twitch with the larger community members. His reputation only further soured towards the end of his career due to this. At the very end he was found being extremely abusive to his then-girlfriend and by that point everyone had written him off as a huge piece of shit.
To add to this he abusive relationship with his partner Tigerlily that he had a child with (he was the abuser). Yes, the same Tigerlily that was Destiny's ex girlfriend.
Неплохой английский, Бассет :)