In a Finals match that turned brothers in arms against one another,  Song “HerO” Hyeon Deok and  Yoon “Taeja” Young Suh, both from Team Liquid, faced off for first place at DreamHack Winter 2012 in StarCraft II. HerO left with the Gold after a 4-0 crushing victory, each game quick and painless… at least for HerO.

This win was the second time in a row HerO won the DreamHack Winter open, having placed the same last year. He was also semifinalist in the GSL Season 2 Code S, losing only to (KO) Park Squirtle” Hyun Woo.

“Team Liquid fighting good luck” HerO began the series by saying in chat, returned with “me too glhf~” by Taeja. The chat was written in English, despite both players being Korean, showing that the encouragement was just as much for the international audience as it was for one another.

Round one and two were both easy wins for HerO, who won the game with early aggression. In game one, HerO hit Taeja’s natural expansion with two range-upgraded Colossi at 11 minutes, using near-perfect rows of Force Fields to keep Taeja’s Marines and Marauders at bay while he burned them alive with the Colossi’s Thermal Lances. The loss was too great to bear, and Taeja conceded game one.

Game two had both players playing fairly standard, but ended unusually. Taeja brought Marines, Marauders and Siege Tanks to HerO’s base at 9:30, but HerO used Force Fields on the ramp to his natural expansion to delay the attack. In the meantime, Taeja scanned HerO’s army and finished researching Combat Shield tech, which gave his Marines a total of 55 life each, up from 45. But seconds later, HerO finished warping in a Dark Shrine followed by three Dark Templars. The Force Fields broke and Taeja charged in and used his Marines’ Stim Packs, granting them increased attack speed but bringing them back down to 45 life.

Unbeknownst to Taeja, this would ruin him as HerO’s three new Dark Templar hit for 45 damage per swing, meaning they were now able to one-hit all of Taeja’s Marines. With his Orbital Command’s energy spent on the scan right before the battle, he had no way of revealing the permanently cloaked Dark Templars and watched helplessly as they were torn to shreds. Taeja’s three siege tanks weren’t enough to hold back the rest of HerO’s forces alone, leading their commander to GG.

In game three, HerO played standard but Taeja opened with 1-1-1, a style of builds that allows easy early access to air units and vehicles at the cost of infantry. After some mildly successful Banshee harassment, both sides remained somewhat passive as they brought their armies close to being maxed. But then Taeja brought most of his army up the ramp to HerO’s expansion, where it got hit by multiple Psyonic Storms and Colossi standing at their maximum range of 9. The army was quickly thinned out, and Taeja left with a ㅎㅎ. (ㅎand G sit on the same key on a Korean keyboard.)

The fourth and final game can be summed up in two words: Blink Stalkers. While Taeja spawned a Marine army with three Barracks, HerO played a build optimized to get out Stalkers and research their Blink ability as fast as possible. He Chronoboosted his Twilight Council four times while it researched the ability and he built a Robotics Facility only to build a sole Observer, which he used to gain vision of Taeja’s main base. With this vision, he Blinked in and out at will, picking off small buildings and units and reinforcing with his nearby proxy Pylon. The harassment was successful, denying Taeja’s expansion, shrinking his army and causing him to concede the championship.  

Besides the games against his esteemed teammate, HerO did well throughout the tournament. After placing at the top of his initial group, he bypassed the first bracket in the playoffs. He 3-0’d his first opponent, Zerg player  Jens “Snute” Aasgaard. He gave one game to his next opponent, the Protoss  Philipp “monchi” Simon before snatching the other three and moving up to the Grand Finals to face Taeja.

HerO pocketed $37,726 (€29,268) from the results, while his teammate still left with $15,090 (€11,707).