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In this special series of in-depth articles, Esports News UK, in collaboration with the betting partner GGBET UK, delves into the stories, moments, and personalities that have left a lasting impression on the past, present, and future of the UK esports scene.
In this article, Molten takes a deep dive into the history of UK StarCraft 2 esports, and explains how its close-knit community is still as passionate as ever today.
StarCraft 2 is an historic esport, sequel to the revolutionary RTS (real time strategy) game, StarCraft, it was key in the development, globalisation, and popularity of esports.
StarCraft’s rich history stems from its passionate dedicated audience and the sheer skill, speed and strategy required at the top level. The UK has seen the rise of several professional players, casters, and personalities, important to both the UK and overseas StarCraft scenes.
The story of StarCraft 2 in the UK is a (perhaps surprisingly) long and exciting one, in this article we take a deep dive into the tournaments, players and personalities that have created unforgettable moments and a close-knit, thriving StarCraft 2 community in the UK.
Our story begins in the early years of StarCraft 2, 2010-2014. The revolutionary RTS game had been released and, with that, the evolution of the LAN tournament in the UK. Early on, StarCraft 2 saw big 100+ player tournaments held at Insomnia Gaming Festival.
These iSeries tournaments included big names in the StarCraft scene, with American-Korean player SeleCT, British caster and RTS expert Demu (formally DeMuslim) and Dutch Protoss player Harstem all picking up iSeries wins.
Insomnia 44 saw the United Kingdom qualifiers for IGN ProLeague, here top players from across the globe gathered to play for a first place prize of £10,000 and qualification to the main tournament. French Zerg Stephano came out on top against a stacked line-up, featuring Korean players Ryung and Tails.
iSeries initially attracted big foreign names, however it also allowed for the development of British StarCraft, providing an opportunity for British players to make their mark in a busy and competitive scene.
British Terrans PuReBall and DeMusliM took home the 2010 editions of Insomnia while BlinG and JonnyREcco rose to dominance in 2012, two names we will see more of in the early years of UK StarCraft.
A huge opportunity arose in the summer of 2012, where the historic BAFTA building in Piccadilly, London, played host to the WCS UK National Championships (pictured, top). Legendary casters Artosis and Tasteless were flown in to cover the action as British players fought for a $15,000 prize pool and three key seeds to the European Finals in Stockholm, Sweden. A series of online qualifiers were held, and the top 16 players descended upon London for the biggest tournament of most of their lives.
A double elimination bracket saw British Zerg Ziktomini cruising through the winner’s bracket, dropping just one map to JonnyREcco in the winner bracket final. This was a crazy result for a relatively unknown player to turn up and not just compete, but dominate the tournament against Britain’s best.
Tournament favourite BlinG crashed out early on, falling to DeMuslim and terran player Simba. Another key story of the upper bracket would be JonnyREcco himself, at just 16 years old the Scottish Zerg took out future Epic.LAN champion Ourk and 2-time IEM top eight DeMuslim, securing his spot at the European Finals.
‘I didn’t think I was going to win [vs DeMuslim]’, he claimed in a post-match interview, before heading off to practice before the next day’s games. DeMuslim did manage to regain his composure and fight through the lower bracket, gaining revenge on JonnyREcco before falling 1-2 to Ziktomini in the grand final. DeMuslim went on to finish top 16 at the European Finals later that year.
Following the UK National Championships, the UK scene saw the birth of the ESET UK Masters. This tournament series ran from late 2012 to mid-2013 and hosted three series of intense StarCraft competition held at Insomnia 47, 48 and 49. A mix of online and offline qualifiers held at Insomnia47 Gaming Festival saw eight players from around Europe qualify for the 2012 edition.
Team Dignitas played a big part in the support of UK StarCraft. Four of these players represented Dignitas at the ESET UK Masters 2012: eventual champion BlinG, third place JonnyREcco, Polish Zerg Tefel and Chinese Protoss DreAm (studying in the UK at the time) formed a very strong Team Dignitas during this period.
Dignitas held ‘Dignitas Gamer Search’ tournaments, where winners would sign for the team, BlinG and Ourk won these in the 2011-2012 period. They had also boasted players such as NaNiwa, SjoW and Apollo between 2010-2012, before picking up Korean Protoss Seed in 2014.
An increased prize pool of £10,000 attracted significantly more attention for the ESET UK Masters 2013 Season 1. Here online qualifiers would bring in names such as HasuObs, NightEnd, CranK, ForGG, Snute, TLO and HeRoMaRinE. The so-called big hitters of the international scene had turned up in the United Kingdom.
Fresh off his first premier tournament win at Homestory Cup 6, the legendary Team Liquid Zerg Snute continued his domination, dropping just one match in the tournament to Korean Terran ForGG and took home the ESET UK Masters trophy.
Snute crushed recent IEM Singapore Champion Sting 3-0 in the final to secure £4,000. After several top 16 finishes at Dreamhack events, Dutch Protoss Harstem would claim season 2, narrowly defeating BlinG 3-2 in the final, after scraping past JonnyREcco 2-1 in the lower bracket final. It was JonnyREcco who had knocked him down to the lower bracket, once again he fell victim to the lower bracket revenge match, similar to the previous year against DeMuslim. Nevertheless, this result showed that the best British players could go toe-to-toe with high level European professionals.
Epic.LAN and StarCraft 2: A UK esports match made in heaven
Epic.LAN is a UK company which hosts regular esports LAN events in England. Since Epic11, StarCraft 2 has featured 27 times as an offline LAN tournament predominantly for British players.
There were also four online variants ran throughout 2020-2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Epic.LAN offline tournaments have run from 2013 and have created a community of respectful, friendly, and competitive British StarCraft 2 players and spectators. Exploring all 27 tournaments may take a little too long, however there’s been some amazing moments and stories that we must delve into.
Epic11 was held on July 26th to 28th 2013 at Kettering Conference Centre. It featured 20 StarCraft 2 players residing in the United Kingdom and was dominated by the Chinese Protoss and student, DreAm. Dignitas DreAm dropped just one map in the entire tournament, winning the final 4-1 vs British Protoss Rotcod.
This would be the last time a non-British player won an offline Epic.LAN until 2023. Epic 12, 13 and 16 were claimed by Ourk, a grandmaster with both Zerg and Protoss who became the first and only player to win an Epic.LAN title with two races. He dropped just one map in Epic13 while playing his second best race, Protoss.
British Protoss Boombox became the last Protoss player to win an Epic.LAN until 2023, when he took down Epic14, dropping one map to third place finisher Cladorhiza before dispatching Ourk 3-0 in the grand final. Boombox later went on to play Overwatch professionally for Philadelphia Fusion, as mentioned in our previous article, The History of UK Overwatch Esports!
The next five Epic.LANs saw five different Zerg winners: Cladorhiza, Mix, RiSky and Aicy picked up their first Epic.LAN wins, with Ourk achieving his third.
Epic 15 saw one of the biggest upsets in Epic.LAN history, Aicy took out former champions Cladorhiza and Boombox alongside strong Zerg players Spazymazy and Figaro to win the tournament. He defeated Boombox 3-2 in a very close grand final, after losing 2-0 to him in the group stage.
Aicy had been practicing hard before the tournament and playing more than perhaps people knew. Remarkably, Aicy caused a debatably bigger upset 8 years later when he finished second at Epic 40, taking out 14-year-old wonderkid Iba and Figaro on his way to the final. Here, he fell 2-4 to Figaro, who rose up from the lower bracket to earn his first Epic.LAN title.
There are two main success stories that have culminated into a rivalry at Epic.LAN. RiSky and Raza. With his first win coming at Epic19, 2015, RiSky continued to dominate UK StarCraft and racked up nine Epic.LAN titles between 2015 and 2020. The only Epic.LAN in this period RiSky did not win was Epic27. He did not compete at this one.
There was one recurrence throughout Epic23-29, except for Epic27, there was one grand final. RiSky vs RazerBlader (now known as Raza). On just two occasions did Raza come within a map of clinching a title away from his nemesis in this period. The record between these two stood at 21-0 in matches in favour of RiSky between 2017 and halfway through 2020.
RiSky appears to be almost untouchable at Epic.LAN, with 12 titles and just one offline Epic.LAN since Epic21 where he has not come out on top – a third place finish at Epic40 in 2023.
However, with every champion there is a runner-up. Despite now having three Epic.LAN titles to his name, Raza has yet to overcome his nemesis RiSky in an Epic.LAN final. Achieving second place a staggering 10 times, Raza is all too used to falling at that final hurdle vs the British Zerg. Eight of those second places came at the hands of RiSky. Raza emerged champion in 2019 and twice in 2022, defeating Danish Zerg Spazymazy, British Protoss TeebuL and Figaro respectively.
After years of RiSky and Raza domination, it was the turn of young German Protoss ForJumy, representing K10 esports to try his luck at Epic.LAN. With RiSky forfeiting in the group stage, the scene was set for the first Protoss champion since 2015 and first foreign champion since Epic11, where it all began. The lower bracket final saw Raza defeat his brother Zain 3-0 and setup a final vs ForJumy. Starting with a one-map advantage, ForJumy cruised home to win 4-1 and take the Epic.LAN trophy back to Germany.
A new hope has emerged recently for British StarCraft. Iba became the youngest ever player to reach Grandmaster League at just 11 years and 345 days old (the previous holder of this record, Reynor, has gone on to win IEM Katowice and Gamers8 in the last few years). Furthermore, he reached 6,000 MMR on the EU server at 13 years old, the youngest player to achieve this.
Iba attended his first Epic.LAN at Epic39 in 2023. Here he defeated Raza 3-0 and 4-2 to win the competition on his first attempt. It is incredibly exciting to see just how far Iba will go. A huge talent at such a young age gives the UK scene every hope he will become an international champion one day.
Most recently, RiSky returned to Epic.LAN glory winning Epic41 in February 2024, defeating Figaro in the grand final. The next Epic.LAN tournament, Epic42, commences on July 19th, 2024, with Iba, Figaro, Raza, RiSky, and more battling out to become the next champion.
A new hope has recently emerged for British StarCraft. Iba became the youngest ever player to reach Grandmaster League at just under 12 years old. He reached 6,000 MMR at 13. He won Epic39 on his first attempt. A huge talent at such a young age gives the UK scene every hope he will become an international champion one day.
LAN tournaments have been critical to the growth of the UK StarCraft 2 community. Alongside these tournaments, several online show matches, leagues, and cups have popped up over the years, promoting British StarCraft and hosting fierce competition.
One of these such show matches was the War of the Roses, hosted by the legendary late YouTuber and British StarCraft caster John ‘TotalBiscuit’ Bain. This took the form of a bo9 show match between Dignitas BlinG and Evil Genius DeMuslim in early 2012. Both players battled for a prize pool of £1,000, which was unheard of for a StarCraft 2 showmatch at this time, alongside the unofficial title of ‘Best UK Player’.
BlinG utilised a heavy zealot and psi-storm composition to charge to a 3-0 and then a 4-1 lead. However, DeMuslim fought back to 4-4 setting up a wonderful game 5. BlinG opted for a zealot all-in, DeMuslim unorthodoxly scanned his opponent and saw exactly what is going on. Setting up a defensive position at the top of his natural ramp, the game looked very good for DeMuslim, BlinG force fielded scvs away from repairing bunkers and somehow managed to break through and take the game. All leaving a bewildered TotalBiscuit and Apollo on the commentary team.
A legendary British YouTuber and StarCraft caster, TotalBiscuit promoted and supported StarCraft in the form of fun showmatches, innovative team leagues and quirky gold league ladder videos, alongside his and his wife’s professional team, Team Axiom.
Korean players CranK, Ryung, Heart, Alicia and Impact made up the spine of Team Axiom. Needless to say, the SHOUTcraft Clan Wars and Invitational Tournaments that TotalBiscuit managed and produced throughout 2011-2015, were immensely popular and introduced many people to the game.
Totalbiscuit tragically passed away in May 2018. He left behind a legacy of dedication, passion, and commitment to StarCraft 2, symbolised by his ashes, which lay to rest inside the GSTL Championship Trophy which his team won.
Online competition took a rise in popularity over recent years, especially with lockdown in the United Kingdom. The UK University League, partnered with NSE, held its first season in Autumn 2019 and was won by British Protoss Molten, in a nail-biting 4-3 final vs British Zerg Dalton.
The UKSC2 league was an online tournament ran in 2020, with qualifiers ran on Wardi’s Twitch channel. Donations brought the prize pool to £500, RiSky continued his dominant spree by beating Figaro 4-1 in the grand final.
A series of online cups ran by Belong Gaming Arenas also invited British players to compete weekly, Raza winning on eight of the ten occasions. DeMuslim even returned for one cup in early 2021 and won, giving flashbacks to 10 years prior when DeMuslim was still a top UK StarCraft player. British Protoss TeebuL won the last of these cups in late 2021.
Another key part of the UK StarCraft community is the ‘BarCraft’ meetup. Here players and fans from the community meet up to watch high level StarCraft, these social occasions are always fun, and the community is extremely friendly. Previous BarCrafts have included IEM Katowice, Team Liquid StarLeague and Blizzcons, often held in London.
While tournaments have been aplenty in the United Kingdom, British players have also made for unforgettable moments further afield.
BlinG qualified for the World Cyber Games in 2011 and 2013. WCG 2011 was held in Busan, South Korea. Here, BlinG almost caused the upset of a lifetime as he made the ro8 and took a map off eventual champion and StarCraft 2 legend Mvp.
DeMuslim achieved multiple impressive finishes at international events, including a top eight at IEM Cologne 2010, falling 3-2 to DIMAGA. He also claimed a third place finish at the IEM Season V European Finals 2011, narrowly falling 3-2 to Ukrainian legend White-Ra in the semifinal. He also finished top eight at IEM Sao Paulo 2012, narrowly falling 3-2 to Korean Zerg and eventual champion viOLet in the quarterfinal. Plenty of close series for Demu! One wonders what could have been had some of those series gone his way.
The United Kingdom Nation Wars team participated in Nation Wars 2019. A team event where countries would nominate their best players to represent them on the big stage. The UK team consisted of RiSky, Raza and Zain and were drafted into a group against the USA and Brazil. This was a tough draw for the British team and after losing 4-1 to USA (including a surprise map win for Zain vs NA pro MCanning!) a win against Brazil was needed to progress to the ro16.
RiSky managed to put up a brilliant fight in this match and got the UK into a 3-2 lead. He then fell twice to the Brazil star player Kelazhur, resulting in a 4-3 loss. These matches happened during an Epic.LAN and the UK community was gathered to cheer on their heroes.
RiSky has managed some international success making use of his dual citizenship with New Zealand. He has won the Oceania region title twice, qualifying him for large international events, such as the Dreamhack SC2 Masters summer main event in 2020. British Pakistani Protoss TeebuL has also obtained an Oceania region victory, in the 2021 winter season.
Elsewhere, Jonathon ‘Wardi’ Ward is a British StarCraft 2 streamer, caster and tournament organiser. Starting out with $5 tournaments for Diamond league players in 2011, Wardi would continue to host larger and larger events before rebranding his SC2 Improve Team League to the WardiTV Team League.
Wardi saw significant stream growth as a result of his tournaments, which consistently featured many of the best players from across the globe.
Since 2014 he has casted over 100 tournaments, both offline and online with notable appearances at IEM Katowice 2020-2024 and Gamers8 2023.
The WardiTV stream (Wardiii on Twitch) continues to broadcast high level StarCraft 2 across the globe from the World Team League to various WardiTV invitationals to an audience of thousands of dedicated viewers.
Benjamin ‘Demu’ Baker almost needs no introduction, already featuring heavily in the early years of UK StarCraft. Originally a Warcraft 3 pro, he eagerly switched to StarCraft 2 at the start of the beta and later joined infamous team Evil Geniuses.
After achieving solid results as a professional, Demu transitioned to a caster and streamer and has covered several notable events including IEM Katowice and Gamers8.
Signing for Team Liquid, Demu has enjoyed success in Age of Empires 4 esports in the last few years, winning a SteelSeries Prime Cup for $5,000 against former SC2 pro VortiX.
Looking at other personalities, Shaun ‘Apollo’ Clark, from Staffordshire, currently works for ESL in Counter-Strike, but he was once a popular StarCraft 2 caster and manager.
Before StarCraft 2, he was a successful Command and Conquer player, winning the Command and Conquer 3 event at the 2007 World Cyber Games. He covered several big events in the early years of StarCraft 2, including IEM, Dreamhack and ASUS ROG and instantly became popular due to his fun and insightful casting which partnered extremely well with TotalBiscuit.
Other names include James ‘Kaelaris’ Carrol, a British caster and desk host for ESL.
He has worked on several notable StarCraft 2 events as host, including the WCS Global Finals, IEM Katowice and Gamers8.
Kaelaris is well known for his expressive and engaging personality and keeping any broadcast light-hearted and jovial, his interactions with other desk panellists often makes for unique and entertaining content.
In this article we have covered much of the history of UK StarCraft 2, from offline tournaments to community meetups to key personalities in the scene. However, what does the future of UK StarCraft look like?
From an esports perspective, wonderkid Iba is an exciting prospect who could make it to the top if his current rate of progress continues. Epic.LAN continues to run three times a year, with the next event coming up shortly in mid-July 2024.
As is often the case, one wonders what the lifetime of StarCraft 2 will be and if a transition to a different RTS game will ever occur. Stormgate, Zerospace and David Kim’s Battle Aces have potential to unseat the King of RTS. However, as these games show time and time again. StarCraft 2 is truly the best RTS game ever created.
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