The latest edition of the weekly esports column 'The Cauldron' re-examines 'The Tyrant'

Jaedong's victory over the 'Ultimate Weapon'

Flash, the man destined to become the 5th bonjwa, in the NATE MSL which came against incredible odds and was not given its due by all of the community at the time due to technical problems in the swing game of the series.
Say what you will about Bisu's time in the sun but back in January of 2010 it was Jaedong who was truly the bonjwa who never was. Here was a player so good, so impossibly talented and so adept at winning that despite not being a bonjwa he had not only matched 'The Maestro' sAviOr's individual trophy haul of four titles but none would argue he had exceeded the former's skill level and taken the Zerg race to a higher level. And yet this legendary player found himself with a mountain to climb and many there were who said his time had come to an end and he would make way for the rise of the player destined to be the real bonjwa of his generation.
This was the same Jaedong who with deteroriating eyesight, which would later force him to get lasik surgery, had overcome slumps to become only the second player in history to win back-to-back OSL titles. In doing so becoming only the third to ever receive the prestigious golden mouse for three OSL championships, StarCraft's most coveted award. The same Jaedong who had been to five individual league finals (3 OSL and 2 MSL) already and lost on the biggest stage only once, and in circumstances where many agreed the map pool was amongst the worst for ZvT ever. The same Jaedong who had never lost a fifth set in a Bo5 series in his entire career. The same Jaedong who had been voted KeSPA player of the year in each of the previous two years.
Yet despite all of the aforementioned Jaedong came into the NATE MSL as an underdog, the player who had the deck stacked against him from the word go. What immense behemoth could possibly have blocked out enough of the sun to extinguish Jaedong's radiance in the eyes of the BW world? What impossible momentum could his opponent have possessed to make people overlook the most clutch player of all time?
The full column can be read at
SK Gaming.