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by Zach Yonzon 
Mar 28th 2009 at 4:00PM
Orange is my master now.
It's fairly common to see professional Arena teams to concede defeat after losing a member in tournaments. It happens all the time. You wouldn't fault them for it, either, considering that if you do the math, 3 will always be more than 2, and 2 will always be more than 1. So it was no surprise that when SK-Gaming Asia went up two players to one in the fourth match of their best of five series against H O N, even the commentator was congratulating them and writing H O N off. Most players would've left the match.
Orangemarmalade, H O N's Mage who was left in a lopsided situation against SK-Gaming's Priest and Mage, showed us all why he's one of the greatest Mages to ever PvP. Korean team H O N won the ESL Global Finals in a most dramatic fashion and will always be remembered as one of the best moments in professional Arena competition. This video from th Electronic Sports League gives us the play-by-play on how Orange pulled off such an improbable win.
Although impressed by Orange's comeback, my first thoughts on the match was that SK-Gaming's Kwana and Hyoga committed too many mistakes. I was wrong. Kwana and Hyoga only made one mistake, and that was overextension which you honestly can't fault them for considering they were two against one, both at 100% health, going in for the kill against a nearly OOM Mage who was at less than 1/3 life. The video breaks down exactly what Orange did, and it blew me away because every single move was calculated, clever, and displayed a complete mastery of his class and the situation.
Did he get lucky with Missile Barrage and Arcane Concentration? Sure. But he orchestrated it so that he would survive long enough to get lucky, setting it up with the use and abuse of Incanter's Absorption and Mana Shield, to Spellstealing the Power Word: Shield, and quickly target switching to cast Slow on Hyoga. Few players can retain that kind of composure with that kind of pressure. The video is something every player can learn from, if not be inspired by.
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Corth Mar 28th 2009 6:07PM
is there any link to his gear/spec during this area tornament
Avan Mar 28th 2009 6:30PM
Imitating Orange in spec/gear won't make you gosu.
Corth Mar 29th 2009 12:51AM
I didn't say I wanted to be good I just simply wanted to know what he is geared and what spec. He is running a unusual arcane spec and I wanna see what it is.
I don't even pvp nor do I like it I'm just curious.
Avan Mar 28th 2009 6:30PM
This is why Koreans are better players. They actually know how to play. Foreigners really need to learn to stop thinking about what's happening now and start thinking about what happens after now.
Luck on AC? Calculated risk. I would bet that Orange wouldn't have continued the match if he wasn't confident that he could pull that off.
Kevin Mar 28th 2009 6:47PM
LOL because you control the RNG. The guys has a TON of skill. The CS, Spell steal, and what not was amazing. But you can't control RNG skills like barrage and arcane concentration.
Calculated risk? Don't make me laugh, you can't count on those to proc.
Avan Mar 28th 2009 10:26PM
You don't know what a calculated risk is, and I'd also go as far as to say that you don't know what "proc" means, either.
slartibart Mar 29th 2009 1:58AM
Seriously, what does nationality have to do with it?
Just shut up.
Avan Mar 29th 2009 3:15AM
@slartibart:
Silly foreigner.
doit Mar 29th 2009 3:37AM
Hahahaha!!! This is a pretty funny micro argument going on here. It's funny that you continue this pretty racist tirade in the face of overwhelming evidence against you Avan. First, are you referring to foreigners as anyone not currently residing in Korea? That's all I can really gather. Koreans have more motivation to play, I mean they have shows about pro players of an 11 year old game for chrissake. Not to mention the inherent racism in believing a players race determines his skill. Now you'll probably try to discredit me by calling me a foreigner without having any clue where I'm from.
Now shout out to rjd2.
Avan Mar 29th 2009 8:59AM
@doit:
In StarCraft, 'foreigner' is a term to describe anyone who isn't Korean. You can be an American living in Korea and still be a foreigner. Don't ask me how it works, because I didn't coin the term.
I didn't say Koreans are innately more skilled because they're Korean. I said they're better because, as the video suggests, they're observant and thinking about how the match will be seconds (at times, minutes) ahead from the present.
Also, overwhelming evidence? No evidence has been shown in any replies to my comment.
I laugh at you for thinking this is a "pretty racist tirade." It's hardly racist, and not even a tirade. Using big words doesn't make you seem smart.
Antistes Mar 29th 2009 12:42PM
@Avan
"I laugh at you for thinking this is a "pretty racist tirade." It's hardly racist, and not even a tirade. Using big words doesn't make you seem smart."
Actually Avan, it is quite racist to generalize on the basis nationality( or race) whether positive or negative.
Saying that Koreans are better players, is racist.
Saying that many Koreans players think about the game in a different way (note the 'many' there) which make them superior players, isn't racist.
Avan Mar 29th 2009 7:31PM
@Antistes
Saying hardly isn't the same as saying not.
Korean progamers often play as teams, and those teams often have coaches. You know the age-old phrase "practice makes perfect?" That's what the coaches are for, they say when their players play and how often. The prescience to know how the game will be ten, fifteen, two hundred seconds from now (which I claim Koreans posess) is made possible by such practice. Now get this: When you practice a sport enough, you can tell what's going to happen based on what you immediately know.
Now try and explain how thats racist. Oh, and if you can also explain how the usage of 'foreigner' isn't racist, that would be super, too.
sinthar Mar 30th 2009 4:31AM
ROFLMAO
So all Koreans are better at video games because they can see 5,10,15,200 (3mins 20 secs ahead!!!)etc seconds into the future. God best laugh ive had in a long time.
Reading what is going to happen is something we all try to do (chess players especially read moves a long time before they are played), but i dont know anyone else that claims a whole nationality has the ability to ACTUALLY see it.
If you are trying to say, they look at the lightly outcomes and try to predict the outcome, and believe Koreans are better at it, fair play, national pride ftw. Saying you HAVE the ability, and Korens are superior is racist, and tbh plain stupid. If i can look 200 secs into the future, id be SO rich from gambling. And as Korea doesnt contain the richest gamblers on the earth, youll have to forgive me while i piss myself from reading your ludicrous post once again.
Oh and one last point. Were not talking Starcraft here mate, try again with your browser, you probably missed cos you were looking at the next post after this one in your 'prescience'. But then you knew this post was coming didnt you (well at least 200 secs ago).
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Avan Mar 31st 2009 4:34AM
You're completely right, sinthar. WoW isn't SC. How asinine of me to think that WoW pro-gamers, Korean or not, would practice playing the game. Practice is reserved for Starcraft, and only Starcraft.
You know what was also stupid of me? To think that pro-gamers will subconsciously refer to past experiences to get an idea of what is to come. It is unheard of, and the stuff of science fiction. It's just common sense that player responses are naturally perfect and in no way affected by the outcomes of their previous encounters. Warlock casting fear? As a hunter, my response to this will be to throw a flare out. How could I have known that a warlock would use fear? I couldn't because the nature of the beast is unpredictable. It doesn't matter though, because my flare will both stop me from getting feared and stop the lock from going into stealth if I did get feared. But what will I do when he pops demon form? I'll tackle that obstacle when it happens, instead of being able to refer to any past experience with warlock talent trees that they won't even have metamorphosis. Thought I must say, being able to do a referal like that in the heat of combat would really help if it turns out that warlocks can't even stealth...
And then my thought that practicing, and hence building up a pool of past experiences to refer to, was also stupid because people never recall past experiences when confronted with a problem. Even if you're spectating, you're never going to see a player do something the same way twice. Players will never try and test strategy, they just make it all up as they go along. Seeing a mage polymorph then blink more than twice is just luck; It's not a tried and true means of escape, they're only doing it as a spur-of-the-moment action. As a spectator, you'll never be able to say that one of the players, after using their trinket to break sheep, will then proceed to use their trinket again to break a sheep roughly two minutes later; Just because it happened before does not mean it will happen again. (And who's to say that the player isn't using the trinket with the five minute cooldown?) Should that player get sheeped a second time, they're probably just going to sit there and take it. I can't say for sure though, because all strategies are made up on-the-go.
In a more practical (PvE) scenario, you can always expect a holy priest to go shadowform at some point during a raid; That's how a holy priest might have their talents setup. Now, if we could draw from one or more past experiences, we might remember that holy priests never put talent points into the shadow tree. Alas, that subconscious-past-experience thing doesn't exist, so we can expect a holy priest to spontaenously bust out shadowform. Similarly, we can always assume that holy priests can be awesome tanks and even can do a substantial amount of DPS. Again, past experiences would suggest that holy priests are healers, have zero dps, and go down in three hits, but we don't have those.
TL;DR: I'm entirely wrong, practice doesn't (and cannot) make perfect (unless you're playing Starcraft). Everyone always makes up what they're doing as they go along. Also, Koreans will absolutely never have to practice their pro-game; They're precognitive by nature. Most importantly, I'm racist because I know Koreans are superior gamers because they exploit their natural gift of precognition, and definitely not because I've recognized that, as teams, they often have a regimented practice schedule. Luckily for me and my racist ways, there is absolutely nothing to support any claims that any practice actually does anything. I'm just such a damned retard of a racist for thinking some people can be better players through practice.
End Apr 1st 2009 8:22PM
is foreigner in korea the same as the word chink in america?
Hilus Mar 28th 2009 6:44PM
Amazing, just amazing.
A perfect combination of skills, cold blood, and luck.
In that order.
Tekky Mar 28th 2009 7:45PM
Was this a lot of luck? no doubt!
But what separates this far enough so that luck isn't as much as a factor is others is how he did everything almost in every cooldown. I'm sure that had the proc's not happened, he would have swapped his plan around.
Satn Mar 28th 2009 8:01PM
He was lucky
that he rolled a mage
a class that actually gets so many overpowering pvp tools.
and he clicked on them, gg.
sharikem Mar 28th 2009 10:43PM
wow, just like a whole lot of other classes have. Clickable abilities :O
The most surprising thing is, not only did this particular mage click them, he clicked them in the right order and at the right time. And that is the sign of skill, not luck.
Yeng Mar 30th 2009 10:56AM
I highly doubt he 'clicks' anything.