Sziky

Szikszai "Sziky" Miklós is a StarCraft player from Hungary, former member of sas and mercenary for LRM Evolutions. He was also a member of SouLGaming. He now plays for StarCastTV Stars.

Biography[edit]

Szikszai "Sziky" Miklós was recognized as highly talented player in the two years before the Wings of Liberty Beta. His participation in the ESL Major Series Season 3 underlined this reputation. For this event the Hungarian Zerg qualified rather easy, but was seeded in the same group as the Ukrainian White-Ra and Mondragon. Despite the fans agreeing that the newcomer would not stand a chance, Sziky managed to beat Mondragon in a Zerg mirror. This was a minor upset, since his German opponent only recently beat the Korean KeSPA professional sAviOr. However, Sziky missed to advance further.

In 2009 the Hungarian joined Mousesports and became one of their regular players in various high profiled clan leagues like BWCL. As part of mousesports the Zerg improved a lot and usually showed good performances against the international elite. In contrast to his team league statistics, Sziky often had a hard time to show his skill in individual tournaments. Sziky's success in the TSL I ladder stage delivers a good example. During the ladder he managed to achieve a high A- ranking, but was knocked out in the following qualifiers.

Because a vast number of the international elite switched to StarCraft II during summer 2010, Sziky became one of the new foreign elite circle. On first glimpse his success in the new tournaments and clan leagues seemed to be caused by the lack of other skilled players. This impression is a false positive, as the Hungarian was able to not only compete with the remaining foreigners, but also showed various good plays against top level Korean amateurs and ex KeSPA professionals.

Since the international competitive scene slowed down during Winter 2010, the only notable games of Sziky happened in clan leagues, such as the ICCup Clan League. After summer 2010 Sziky joined the Hungarian traditional team sas and was soon considered their strongest player. In early 2011 Sziky joined many of the Defiler.ru Tournaments and usually scored very high. In this early era he engaged in duels with the Russian Terran Heme and the Korean/American Scan. The trio was leading the new tournament scene with an iron fist. The rivalry of the trio started with the 6th Defiler Tournament series, peaked during ISL 1's knock out stage and ended around September 2011.

The trio fell apart completely after Scan's ban from many international tournaments, such as the ISL series, and Heme's retirement. However, Scan and Sziky met occasionally in the Russian Defiler tours later on. In the following two years Sziky was widely seen as the best foreigner. The Hungarian won many events, including more golds in the Defiler series, the ISL 2 and ISL 3, as well as several smaller tournaments. In show matches against Koreans Sziky showed impressing mechanical skills. The most famous show match of the Zerg was a best of seven series against Pusan, which he lost with a 2-4^[1].

In January 2013 Sziky was one of four players invited for the TeamLiquid Legacy Starleague 1 (TLS 1). He won the entire tournament relatively easy, especially the final against Michael ended with a very clear 4-0 in favour of the Hungarian. He remained unrivaled in the second edition of the TLS and won the second gold with a 4-2 over Bulgarian TechnicS. Other than that Sziky also won three more gold medals in the Defiler Tournaments, which made him the most successful player of the series, in addition to a gold medal in the SBWI Summer Tournament.

In October 2013 LRM)Game announced^[2] that he recruited the Hungarian star as mercenary for the SBWI Teamleague. However, Sziky remains officially in his old team sas' line up as a player. The transfer caused a minor upset among fans, as unofficial statements of Sziky's old and new clanmates said that the Hungarian was paid $200 for joining LRM Evolutions by Canadian EywaSC, as well as an additional $200 bonus^[3], if LRM Evolutions would be able to win the league. Despite all the negativity^[4], the majority of Sziky's former team members weren't offended, but rather supported the decision instead^[5].

In 2014 Sziky stopped playing for a few months. After that he was on and off until the end of 2015/beginning of 2016. Then he played Starcraft 2 for a couple of months reaching top50 GM at the time as well. But as he couldn't feel the love for SC2 as he did for BW he stopped and then after he also stopped playing BW. He had a longer break from around 2016 to 2020 with minor comebacks (for a few months) in between.

In 2020 (around the time COVID-19 hit the world) Sziky came back for good. He started streaming again and practicing hard. This hard practice started to pay off in 2021, reaching 4th place in BSL12 and BSL13. In 2022 Sziky reached 3rd place playing in Deathfate Pro League/3. Soon after managed to reach 3rd place in BSL14 beating the chinese Zhanhun in a convincing fashion. Around that time fans started talking about Sziky's return to his old form and that he is here to take the crown in the foreign scene yet again.

Style[edit]

Sziky's relied on conventional build orders, which made him a relatively easy-to-anticipate player. However, the Hungarian also combined text book style and an almost impeccable game sense, which allowed him to adapt to almost any situation. With this in mind, his style features several parallels to former German tyrant Mondragon. Both easily destroyed international players whenever they couldn't keep up with their strong mechanical skill, especially when it came to the Zerg vs. Protoss match up. Both were infamous for their Zergling control, in the Hungarian's case often referred to as "Szikylings" due to their effectiveness. In many games Sziky's opponents often lost after a few minutes, after their base was raided by a handful of these cheap and seemingly inferior units. Both player's were considered as almost unbeatable in the Zerg mirror and the aforementioned Zerg vs. Protoss match ups, while they showed - seen in relation - flaws in against Terran. However, while Mondragon's Mutalisk control was seen as rather bad, the Hungarian displayed almost flawless control again. His weakness against Terran usually only showed in the very late stages and only against top tier Terran players.

Rivalry[edit]

In retrospect, the trio of Scan, Heme and Sziky competed in most tournament gold medals in between January 2011 and late Autumn 2011. However, Heme and Scan rarely met, most times Sziky faced on of his two rivals in late stages of tournaments and team leagues. The trio became a duo after Heme went inactive in late 2011.

Heme[edit]

Heme and Sziky met only in the Defiler.ru Tournaments. Since Defiler used a ranking systems both players were seeded in different parts of the grids, which delayed a clash between the two titans to the late stages. Heme was often seen as the strongest foreigner when it came to Terran vs. Zerg, while Sziky's only weakness was exactly the same match up. In most scenarios the outcome of a best of series was based on the daily performance of the two. Consequently the majority of the games were one-sided, in only few exceptions the matches went through all stages of a game. In the long run Heme couldn't keep up with Sziky's improving Zerg vs. Terran and thusly lost in the overall statistics by one single set.

Rivalry: Heme vs. Sziky
Player 1	Score	Player 2	Event
Sziky	2 - 1	Heme	Defiler Tour 6 Overall Final
Sziky	0 - 2	Heme	Defiler Tour 7 WB Semifinal
Sziky	0 - 2	Heme	Defiler Tour 9 WB Round of 16
Sziky	1 - 0	Heme	Defiler Tour 9 LB Round of 8
Sziky	3 - 1	Heme	Defiler Tour 10 Overall Final
Sziky	2 - 1	Heme	Defiler Tour 11 WB Final
Sziky	2 - 1	Heme	Defiler Tour 12 WB Semifinal
Sziky	1 - 2	Heme	Defiler Tour 13 WB Final
Sziky	11 - 10	Heme	Overall Score

Scan[edit]

The direct rivalry between Scan and Sziky was more intense than any other duel in the foreign scene after the beta. Sziky usually never commentated on international forums and rarely participated in discussions, whereas Scan was infamous for trashtalk and relatively often subject of drama filled threads. Furthermore, both players started their rivalry in January 2011 on equal skill level. Especially Scan wanted to win the fans over and hence tried to beat his opponent with his offraces, starting in the 6th Defiler tournament. This attitude eventually cost him the second set of their first match and would in the future become on of the reasons he was seen as the loser of the duel. In addition to Scan's already negative reputation, the young Terran also started to directly insult and ridicule the Hungarian. The rivalry sparked in the Round of 8 of the ISL 1, in which Scan overdid the trash talk, despite winning the best of five by one game.

After 2011 Scan was banned from most foreign tournaments and participated less and less in the Russian Defiler series. Only in late 2012 Sziky and Scan met each other in the Russian tournaments occasionally. By then Scan's training within the Chinese scene and on the Korean Fish Server paid off: now he was able to beat his opponent more regularly.

At the conclusion of 2014, Sziky beat Scan in the finale of the Defiler Super Tournament, taking the series 4-2, taking the gold and winning the prize pool of $200.

Rivalry: Scan vs. Sziky
Player 1	Score	Player 2	Event
Sziky	2 - 1	Scan	Defiler Tour WB Semifinal
Sziky	0 - 2	Scan	Defiler Tour 8 WB Final
Sziky	2 - 0	Scan	Defiler Tour 8 Overall Final
Sziky	0 - 2	Scan	Defiler Tour 11 Overall Final
Sziky	0 - 2	Scan	Defiler Tour 16 WB Semi Final
Sziky	2 - 3	Scan	ISL 1 Round of 8
Sziky	2 - 0	Scan	Defiler Tour 16 Overall Final
Sziky	0 - 1	Scan	Gambit Cup Winner's League
Sziky	1 - 2	Scan	Defiler Tour 25 WB Final
Sziky	2 - 0	Scan	Defiler Tour 25 Overall Final
Sziky	2 - 1	Scan	Defiler Tour 37 WB Final
Sziky	2 - 2	Scan	Defiler Tour 37 Overall Final
Sziky	1 - 2	Scan	MMM Tour 2 Round of 16
Sziky	0 - 2	Scan	Defiler Tour 43 WB Semis
Sziky	0 - 2	Scan	Defiler Tour 43 Overall Final
Sziky	0 - 1	Scan	Open Heat Tournament Group
Sziky	1 - 3	Scan	Open Heat Tournament Finals
Sziky	0 - 2	Scan	Defiler Tour 67 WB Final
Sziky	2 - 1	Scan	Defiler Super Tournament WB Semis
Sziky	4 - 2	Scan	Defiler Super Tournament Overall Final
Sziky	24 - 30	Scan	Overall Score

Overall Finals in Defiler Tours: the winner started with a 1-0 advantage, one win was always subtracted!

Trivia[edit]

The only foreigner to take a game off the Korean team [GsP] at BBulsori Super Clan League Season 2 where he took down Doctor.K
First player to win more than 10 gold medals in the Defiler.ru Tournaments

Matchup Statistics[edit]

Matchup	Games	Wins	Losses	Winrate
vs P	777	431	346	55.5 %
vs T	489	317	172	64.8 %
vs Z	477	358	119	75.1 %
All	1791	1140	651	63.7 %

Achievements[edit]

Date	Place	Tier		Team	Result		Prize
2024-02-25	2nd	Major	Odd Oddsen & Oystein Invitational		3 : 4	Bonyth	$441.10
2023-08-20	1st	Major	BSL 2v2 ProLeague Season 2	Bonyth Sziky	3 : 1	izu Wave	$400
2022-11-06	2nd	Major	Deathfate Pro League 4		1 : 4	Dewalt	$480
2022-09-25	1st	Major	BSL 2v2 ProLeague #1	Sziky Bonyth	3 : 0	TT1 KenZy	$400
2022-04-10	3rd	Major	Bombastic StarLeague 14		3 : 0	Zhanhun	$650
2021-03-21	1st	Major	Shinhan Tank Proleague Season 4			TBD	$1,074.15
2013-07-21	1st	Minor	TeamLiquid Legacy Starleague 2		4 : 2	TechnicS	$300
2013-03-30	1st	Minor	TeamLiquid Legacy Starleague 1		4 : 0	Michael	$300
2012-06-09	1st	Major	Altitude's International StarLeague	(sas)	5 : 4	dOTY	$1,000
2011-10-08	1st	Major	Kaal's International StarLeague	(sas)	4 : 0	Ace	$750
Extended list of results