iloveoov

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[e][h] iloveoov

Player Information

Name:

최연성(崔然星)

Romanized Name:

Choi Yun Sung

Nationality:

 South Korea

Born:

November 5, 1983 (age 41)

Race:

Terran

Alternate IDs:

Oov

Nickname(s):

Cheater Terran, Monster Terran（怪兽）

Approx. Total Winnings:

$184,022

Links

Achievements

          

History

2003-??-?? — 2003-12-??

Orion

2003-12-?? — 2004-04-??

4 Union

2004-04-?? — 2011-08-02

SK Telecom T1

Overview

Choi "iloveoov" Yun Sung is a retired StarCraft progamer from South Korea who played Terran for SK Telecom T1. He was the head coach for SK Telecom T1 in StarCraft II.
He was inducted into the Korean esports Hall of Fame in 2012.

Biography

Iloveoov arrived onto the progaming scene after being recruited along with other promising talents RainBOw and Sigamari onto BoxeR's new team in 2003. They would be joined by players such as kOs and Kingdom (and later Mumyung and Terato). Legend has it that iloveoov caught BoxeR’s attention by defeating him online with all three races on Lost Temple. As an amateur iloveoov played all the races and had an account over 2000 on Game-i with each race. He was especially noticed for his Zerg play, but his bad manner had prevented previous teams from recruiting him. After gaining his pro license and seeing the need to focus on a single race, however, iloveoov ended up picking Terran as he believed that it was the only race with which he could consistently beat NaDa, who was at that time tearing up the leagues.

Unstoppable: The Streak

Iloveoov rocked the Brood War progaming world as soon as he joined Boxer’s pro team. He entered the 2003 TriGem MSL where YellOw had thought that by dispatching NaDa 2-0 in the winner’s finals he would finally be able to take home a Starleague victory. Instead, iloveoov clawed his way through the loser’s bracket after a first round loss to NaDa himself to overwhelm him 3-1 in the loser’s bracket finals and then the perennial punching bag YellOw 3-0 in the Grand Finals. He followed this initial splash with two more MSL championships much in the same way as Nada before him had conquered 3 KPGA Tour in a row, powering over Nada 3-2 in the finals for 2004 HanaFOS CENGAME MSL (having only dropped one other game the entire tournament) and Kingdom 3-2 in the finals for 2004 SPRIS MSL.

At this point in iloveoov’s career one should look to how game-breaking his play style was in order to reach win percentages unachievable even by Nada. Early in his career iloveoov had a ridiculous 25-0 TvZ streak. It’s important to remember that iloveoov is named bonjwa not just by a magical run through a single tournament but by dominating his opponents thoroughly for a significant period of time and sweeping Starleague caliber players 2-0, 3-1, and 3-0 in sets. Iloveoov’s play could be characterized as devastating macro backed up by some of the best defense in the history of StarCraft. With a distinctively “low” APM of around 250, iloveoov used his superior game sense to outmacro each and every opponent if undisturbed. Earning nicknames of “Cheater Terran” for having impossibly large armies and “Bus Driver” for taking his opponents "on a trip", perhaps the scariest part of iloveoov at the time was that he also seemed uncheeseable. Adversaries who feared iloveoov’s unstoppable macro also failed in early gambits to pierce his ironclad armor.

While cruising through SPRIS MSL in mid 2004, iloveoov landed himself into both the Gillette OSL and the short-lived iTV Ranking League. This was somewhat accidental because the preliminaries for the OSL had proven very difficult to work through and he had instead focused his practice on MSL maps where he found great success. In the Gilette OSL, iloveoov found himself the target of the previous OSL Champion Nal_rA who picked him in his group as the deadliest player he could find. Nal_rA had torn through the previous OSL with high level strategy and perfectly timed builds. For the first game of the Starleague iloveoov faced rA down on Requiem, a virtual TvP nightmare, and showed off his excellent defense anyhow as he first deflected early zealot+cannon cheese followed by dark templar drops and then artfully uses dropships to strike at rA’s main for the GG. Meanwhile iloveoov was performing unspectacularly in the regular iTV tournament (ranking 9th before the final round) only to display his why he was the scariest player in the world at the time and win 9 straight matches (against the players ranked 2 through 8) to advance to the finals against new sensation JulyZerg. JulyZerg would live up to his hype by pounding iloveoov in early July 2004 in the iTV finals to stop him at his first finals and then again a week later in the OSL semifinals which JulyZerg would win, giving it renown as the "Game That Broke the Streak".

Cementing His Legacy

Denied his Royal Road trip and reeling from double losses to JulyZerg with people questioning whether iloveoov’s reign had ended, iloveoov came back with a vengeance in the EVER 2004 OSL. EVER 2004 was one of the more memorable OSLs as the final 8 included six previous OSL champions, YellOw, and iloveoov. On his route to the finals against his mentor BoxeR, iloveoov took down the fiercest opponents at the time including GoRush, NaDa, and Reach (to whom he lost a macro war for the first time only to come back and stop 3 cheeses). A nail-biter of a series, iloveoov was 2-2 with BoxeR ahead in the final game only to get away with an un-scouted expo and rise to victory, made bittersweet by beating his mentor. At 2004 You Are the Golf King MSL iloveoov would drop his nemesis JulyZerg 2-0 only to lose both in the Winner’s and Loser’s bracket to another opponent who seemingly countered him, XellOs.

iloveoov celebrating his 2nd OSL win.

As sAviOr’s reign started in the MSL, iloveoov meandered around the following OSLs, succumbing to the OSL winner’s curse in IOPS (losing again to JulyZerg), being taken out in EVER 2005 OSL by XellOs, and falling to the eventual So1 OSL Champion Anytime 1-3. Winter of 2005 arrived and iloveoov could taste blood, placing 3 relative no-namers in his OSL group and then demolishing Boxer 2-1, Casy 3-2, and even JulyZerg 3-0 (who was on his quest for the Golden Mouse) in the finals of the ShinHan2005 OSL to join the elite group of players with multiple OSLs. Throughout 2005 and 2006 iloveoov displayed his versatility as a core part of the SK Telecom T1 2005 Proleague team that won three finals and dominated the regular seasons. In 2008, he retired to a player coach position in SKT1 due to an injury to his wrist and lack of motivation which had plagued him throughout 2007.

Strategic Influence

Iloveoov is easily the most influential player in StarCraft strategy and through his strategies has significantly affected the balance between races, setting the standard many times for modern Terran play in 2003, 2006 and 2008-9 as a coach. Oov has invented a number of new builds for his pupil, Fantasy. The Fantasy Build revolutionized the Terran vs Zerg match-up and brought forth Mech TvZ and half a year of Terran domination over Zerg. The iloveoov build is a TvP build crafted by iloveoov to combat Protoss builds that counter the Double Armory build. The iloveoov Fake Mech was conceived in response to the Zerg adaptation against the Fantasy build and allows a Terran to choose from a traditional Bionic TvZ or a Mech TvZ.

Statistics

The table shows iloveoov's overall record as of January 3, 2008:

Overall Statistics
Matchup	Games	Win	Loss	Ratio
vs.	184	112	72	60.9%
vs.	178	124	54	69.7%
vs.	160	102	58	63.7%
Total	522	338	184	64.8%

Facts

• Won 2 Starleagues (2004 EVER 1, Shinhan 2005)
• Won 3 MSLs/Golden Badge (2003 TriGem, 2004 HanaFOS CENGAME, 2004 Spris) — 3 straight MSLs against 3 different races.
• Oov won all 5 major finals he has been to.
• Won both WCG Korea Finals and WCG Grand Final in 2006
• Has the longest TvZ winning streak: 25 wins from 2003.11.8 to 2004.7.1 (ygosu.com)
• Has the 5th highest Elo rating peak at 2355 (behind Flash, Jaedong, Bisu and Fantasy).
• Had a stretch from 2003.10.23 to 2004.02.03, in which he went 33–3 (according to TLPD). This is the best streak by a player of all time.

Trivia

• Iloveoov was nicknamed "Bus Driver" in Korea. The Korean word for rape is "gang gan", but because the use of such a word is frowned upon in a professional setting, 'gang gan' was transformed into the word 'gwan gwang' which means 'tour' or 'to go on a trip'. The one who takes someone on a 'tour' is the 'bus driver'. This idea came right out after the match between iloveoov and Goodfriend on nostalgia, where iloveoov took Goodfriend 'on a trip' with pure wraiths while goodfriend was defending with goliath and turrets. [1]
• One interesting myth associated with iloveoov was the “iloveoov curse”: after oov smashes an opponent they spiral into a slump from the brutality. Players possibly affected include YellOw, NaDa, Nal_rA, BoxeR, and Reach.
• At 191 cm (6'3") iloveoov is the tallest progamer ever, contributing to one of his nicknames, Gorilla Terran.

Statistics

Year	Team	Wins	Losses	%Win	vs.	vs.	vs.	Best Finish
2003	Orion, 4U	34	8	81.0%	15-6	13-0	6-2	Trigem MSL
2004	SKT	85	47	64.4%	32-25	27-13	26-9	CENGame MSL, SPRIS MSL, & EVER 2004 OSL
2005	SKT	45	28	61.6%	10-5	18-6	17-17	Shinhan Bank 2005 OSL
2006	SKT	32	27	54.2%	14-11	12-7	6-9	Ro8, Pringles S1 MSL
2007	SKT	27	28	49.1%	10-13	7-9	10-6	Ro8, GOMTV S2 MSL
2008	SKT	1	3	25.0%	0-1	1-2	0-0	---
2009	SKT	4	2	66.7%	1-1	1-0	2-1	---

Accomplishments

Date	Place	Tier	Tournament		Team	Result		Prize
2006-10-22	1st	Premier		WCG 2006		2 : 1	July	$25,000
2006-09-29	2nd	Premier		IEF 2006		1 : 2	NaDa	$5,000
2006-08-06	1st	Major		WCG Korea 2006		2 : 1	Midas	$5,183.84
2006-03-04	1st	Premier		2005 Shinhan OSL		3 : 0	July	$20,895.06
2005-08-22	1st	Premier		CKCG 2005		1 : 2	NaDa	$11,975
2004-11-20	1st	Premier		2004 EVER OSL		3 : 2	BoxeR	$18,979.62
2004-08-29	1st	Premier		2004 SPRIS MSL		3 : 2	Kingdom	$21,720.27
2004-04-18	1st	Premier		2004 HanaFOS CENGAME MSL		3 : 2	NaDa	$21,538.54
2004-02-28	1st	Premier		LG IBM MBC Team League	(4U)	4 : 2		$12,792.49
2003-11-30	1st	Premier		2003 TriGem MSL		3 : 0	YellOw	$16,638.23
Extended list of results

Place	Year	Event/League
2nd	2004	iTV Ranking 7th League
1st	2003	iTV Newcomers' League

WCG Champion
WCG 2005 Preceded By:   fOru	WCG 2006 22nd October 2006 - 3th October 2007   Iloveoov	WCG 2007 Succeeded By:   Stork

OSL Champion
Gillette OSL Preceded By:   July	EVER2004 OSL 20th November 2004-5th March 2005   iloveoov	IOPS OSL Succeeded By:   NaDa

So1 OSL Preceded By:   AnyTime

Shinhan2005 OSL 4th March 2006-23rd June 2006   iloveoov

Shinhan2006-1 OSL Succeeded By:   Casy

MSL Champion
Stout MSL Preceded By:   Nal_rA	TriGem MSL 6th November 2003-Continued   iloveoov	HanaFOS CENGAME MSL Succeeded By:   iloveoov

TriGem MSL Preceded By:   iloveoov

HanaFOS CENGAME MSL Continued-Continued   iloveoov

SPRIS MSL Succeeded By:   iloveoov

HanaFOS CENGAME MSL Preceded By:   iloveoov

SPRIS MSL Continued-6th February 2005   iloveoov

You are the Golf King MSL Succeeded By:   Gorush

WCG Korea Champion
WCG Korea 2005 Preceded By:   XellOs	WCGC Korea 2006   iloveoov	WCG Korea 2007 Succeeded By:   Hwasin

Awards

Date	Tier	Tournament		Award	Team	Prize
2006
2006-01-21	Premier		2005 SKY Proleague Round 2	Finals MVP		-
2005
2005-01-23	Premier		2004 KT KTF Premier League	Bonus		$2,120.24
2003
2003-08-30	Premier		2003 KTF EVER Cup Proleague	Most Wins		-
2003-08-30	Premier		2003 KTF EVER Cup Proleague	Rookie Award		-

Rivalries

• BoxeR
• NaDa
• sAviOr
• July

Notable Games

TvT

• vs Boxer, Ride of Valkyries, Shinhan2005 OSL, 2006
• vs DarkElf, Monty Hall, 2007 Shinhan Bank Proleague Round 2, 07-11-05 - In a game that defies all logic, Oov comes back from some severe disadvantages to defeat DarkElf on Monty Hall. One of the greatest comebacks in history.
• vs Goodfriend, Nostalgia, 2004 Gillete OSL Ro16 Goodfriend rides the tour bus

TvP

• vs Reach, Mercury, Ever2004 OSL, Game 1
• vs Reach, Mercury, Ever2004 OSL, Game 5

TvZ

• vs Yellow, U-Boat, 2003 TriGem MSL Finals, Game 3 Iloveoov proving just how tenacious he was in this island map during his MSL clean sweep over YellOw
• vs July, Into the Darkness, SPRIS MSL, 2004 The first televised meeting of iloveoov and July. From the onset, the rivalry looked to be a great one. First Person View
• vs July, Requiem, Gillette OSL, 2004 Down 2-0 in a best of 5 series in the Round of 4, iloveoov survives elimination to force a fourth set.
• vs sAviOr, Ride of Valkyries, Cyon MSL, 2006 Another famous showdown against another great Zerg player.
• vs July, Pioneer Period, 2006, Shinhan2005 OSL Finals, Game 1
• vs July, Ride of Valkyries, 2006, Shinhan2005 OSL Finals, Game 2
• vs Zero, Sin Chupung-Ryeong, Shinhan Bank Winners League 2009
  • Watch oov take down Woongjins upcoming zerg star Zero where he shows the ingenious fake mech build that has become increasingly popular. Oov was able to defeat Zero despite recently coming back out of retirement, just like sports greats Brett Favre and Michael Jordan.

Gallery

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External Links

• Wikipedia