Several of Starcraft: Brood War’s greatest-ever players will be competing in the third season of the Afreeca Star League, including Lee “Flash” Young-Ho, Kim “Bisu” Taek Yong, Lee “Jaedong” Jae Dong, and Song “Stork” Byung Goo.
Those four players are widely considered to be the best to ever compete in the game. (TaekBangLeeSsang, an amalgamation of the four players’ names, is a fan-made name for the era when they dominated the scene.)
But aside from these four players, several other legendary names have decided to enter the fray—most notably Lim “BoxeR” Yong Hwan, who is easily the most popular Brood War player of all time.
The spike in interest shown in the Afreeca Star League’s third season is probably linked to the recent announcement of Starcraft: Remastered, which is a complete HD remaster of the original game and the Brood War expansion from 1998. Blizzard is also patching Brood War for the first time in 16 years, fixing a series of bugs and making the game more compatible to modern day computers. The patch will also also allow for support for 4K resolution screens.
Brood War has been experiencing a massive competitive revival in the past years, a sharp contrast to the game’s sequel Starcraft 2, which struggled to gain a strong foothold in South Korea. Starting with small online events in 2010, Brood War once again returned to the airwaves in 2014, marking its return as an esport in South Korea.
Nineteen years after its release, it’s safe to say that Brood War is still very much alive.
