I'd like to talk about a story that Artosis talked about, but wasn't able to convey exactly as he just didn't have the time.
This is in some ways history being repeated of iloveoov vs Julyzerg.
MVP's Origin
A long time ago, MVP was unquestionably the strongest player in the world in terms of his macro, micro, and build orders. There seemed to be no weakness in his games and this culminated in MVP's famous run and final against TOP. In order to get there he beat MC, Polt, Nestea, Huk, and July. In total that was the 3 other champions, the best foreigner in the world at the time, and a runner-up. This ended with MVp's famous game against TOP where both players were in a stalemate and he did the world's greatest TvT drop where he used pdd's dropped thors and used 4 ghosts to nuke the entire production and he broke through the center. MVP would then go on to the next finals, but would lose to MMA and win the Blizzcon finals. While these were the heights of MVP's prowess and achievements, at that point in his career he had very few fans and he was the ultimate favorite and you couldn't help but root against someone who seemed so strong, so perfect, so inextricably connected to GomTvT.
The Fall
After that tragedy struck as MVP's injuries got worse and worse and other players got better and better. It came to the point that MVP was finally written off as a player that should no longer have relevancy as his injuries had hurt the best aspects of his play. No more macro, no more micro. TvT and TvZ had never been so micro intensive. Protoss were running roughshod over everyone and MVP's greatest weakness was his TvP. "MVP? He's good, but his time is gone. Now there are better players than him like MMA, MKP, Taeja. His era is over."
Don't Call it a Comeback.
In Ro32, he barely got past Puzzle and Ryung to get second. Everyone was mildly impressed and thought, "Well it is MVP, he should at least be ro16." In ro16 he once more scraped through after losing to hero and beating Leenock and July. And everyone was impressed and thought, "Wow MVP really knows how to stick in it. But his TvP is bad and Naniwa is playing the greatest games of his life and he's shown great PvT." All of the pro gamers, the casters, the media, the protosses and terrans all thought MVP was done for. And then MVP won 3-1 perfectly reading Naniwa and using the right builds to attack Naniwa's mentality and game style.
"And then they said Parting would beat me."
If Naniwa was playing the best games of his life, Parting was playing the best PvT in the world. This is the kid that revolutionized the entire match up and brang it back to Protoss favor. He didn't even consider MVP a "worthy" semi-finalist and said, "Well I should win 3-0, but since it's MVP it might be a 3-1." Parting had watched MVP's games, so he didn't understand how anyone was losing to MVP. MVP was a player with great mind games and build orders, but he couldn't use his best plays cause of his injuries. If this was a game of rock-paper-scissors, MVP can only use paper and scissors. So everyone, the fans, the players, the casters, the media, all said Parting is a shoe-in for the finals. So Parting went into the booth with the greatest confidence in the world. And then MVP destroyed him with the first game showing a completely new timing attack that would become standard in TvP for months to come (Though funnily, most players thought it was just a gimmick and would be to impractical to use as a standard all-in). After destroying Parting's mind, he went for his soul and did 1/1/1. Parting got 1 game, but Parting was off his games and once more MVP showed him it took more than playing the best PvT in the world to take out MVP.
"And then they said Squirtle would beat me."
If Naniwa was playing the best games of his life and Parting was playing the best PvT in the world, then Squirtle was the best Protoss in the world. He was different from the other toss. He had way more scouting data than either Parting or Naniwa did. And once again, the fans, the casters, the players, the media, everyone believed Squirtle would probably win this 4-2 or 4-3. Once again MVP was the underdog, despite the fact that he was the most decorated champion in sc2 history. And then the games happened. In the first 3 games, MVP revolutionized early game TvP with new attack timings with marines, hellions and medivacs. He would memorize standard protoss move out timings and realized it was overextension. Then went the complete other way playing 3 long macro games. Game 5 was a masterpiece that showed Terrans the true end game composition of BCs. Squirtle won, but each time it was just barely. It completely threw off Squirtle and the world as MVP had slowly cultivated himself as a cheesy unorthodox TvP player, but then MVP showed that not only could he got late game, but he also knew late game TvP better than just about any other terran. And Then MVP showed his nerves of steel in game 7 and did a proxy 11/11 rax against Squirtle. He was deflected, but calculated the odds and made an ambush. If squirtle moved forward to poke, he would win. If Squirtle stayed back, he would lose. Squirtle moved forward and thus MVP got his next championship.
"And then they said TvZ was unwinnable."
At IEM MVP would show the world that TvZ was actually quite winnable. At that time, everyone was talking about the patchzerg and how nothing you did as Terran could stop zerg. Just as MVP pushed forward the strategies for TvT and TvP, he would reinvent himself in TvZ. He created a completely new mech style that was much more reliant on hellions and banshees that can hold off any zerg aggression and harass the zerg at any time.
At this point in his career, MVP resembles iloveoov in a lot of ways. iloveoov was probably the most most influential Terran player to have ever played Broodwar. His builds, strategy and overall thinking pushed Terran play miles ahead. Similarly, MVP's own builds and strategies have pushed forward the matchups in SC2. Though how they won their games, the period of dominance and how they dealt with failure are different. iloveoov fell to Savior and was never quite able to make a comeback as an underdog player. MVP on the other hand has almost reinvented his identity as the underdog champion. The player that is always completely underestimated and still continues to keep winning.
Life
It almost feels like kismet that Life would eventually join the ST team. Even though July has retired and gone to the military, Life is in a lot of ways like July was back when July first started playing BW. For context, Julyzerg was recruited into a BW team based on his overall apm and mechanics. Life is a young kid that has extremely strong mechanics. Both used a completely new aggressive zerg style. Before the common sense in SC2 TvZ was that hellions would inevitably beat speedlings. Life would then use superior micro and positioning to beat that. His constant attacks that he would macro behind and constant waves of attacks all over the map would resemble a lot of Julyzerg in 2004.
The reason iloveoov vs julyzerg was such a landmark game was because iloveoov was on an unstoppable streak and seemed literally unbeatable in TvZ. With his new style Julyzerg finally stopped iloveoove in the OSL semfinals and beat him 3-2. Similarly Life will be taking his shot at MVP. Though MVP isn't unstoppable in any match up. It's more like MVP's unstoppable streak is winning in GSL against players that on paper should be beating him.
Everyone should tune in as this series, this match could be history repeating itself once more.
