Inevitable: Clem wins ESL Masters Winter 2023

by Wax

At long last, one of the most inevitable outcomes in competitive StarCraft II has come to fruition. At ESL Masters Winter, the prodigy Terran Clem finally won his first major tournament in a live setting.

A winner of five EPT Europe titles and considered a top Terran player since 2020, Clem had been continually dogged by his relative lack of success in offline tournaments and against top international players. However, with several big wins against world champions Serral and Reynor under his belt, and with weekly displays of his tremendous talent in online play, it was only a matter of time before Clem got over the hump.

It all came together in Atlanta over the course of five series and nineteen maps. Clem cruised through his initial winners’ bracket with two straight wins over GuMiho and Classic. While Clem was definitely favored on paper, these were hardly cursory matches—especially the one against GuMiho. Too often in the past had he suffered an early upset against a Terran he had a theoretical advantage over. Winning these matches without issue was, in a small way, progress.

Clem’s victories in the Winners’ Bracket landed him a direct seed into the RO8 of the playoffs, where he ended up drawing a gauntlet of three Zergs in a row: Solar, Serral, and Dark. This was not the unambiguous stroke of fortune it would have been in 2021, when he was a nearly unstoppable force in TvZ. While it remained Clem’s signature match-up, the top Zergs had caught up to him and dealt him a number of painful losses in 2023, making his final playoff run in Atlanta a challenge (Clem himself said after the finals that he had not been feeling confident in the match-up).

First up was Solar in the quarterfinals (VOD). The ONSYDE Zerg was playing the best StarCraft of his career, having finally won GSL Code S less than two months prior. More concerning for Clem was what happened in their previous offline meetings that year: he had been swept at both Gamers8 (0-2) and HomeStory Cup 23 (0-3). Indeed, Solar proved to be a formidable opponent, with his swarms of Hydra-Ling-Bane overwhelming Clem in two games. However, Clem was able to apply significant early game pressure in the other three games, earning himself a narrow 3-2 victory.

The difficulty level went up to its highest setting in the semifinals, as Clem faced off against Serral (VOD). The Clem vs Serral match-up had gone through two major swings in the 2020’s, with Clem gaining the upper hand in 2021 before Serral brought it back in his favor in 2022 and onward. 2023 had been an especially good year for Serral in the head-to-head, as he had defeated Clem in both seasons of EPT Europe, as well as HomeStory Cup 24. But despite losing in the end, Clem had managed to keep things close in those series, giving more than enough evidence that he could triumph if he was on form.

As it turned out, Clem was in the form of his life on December 17th in Atlanta, as he took a 3-1 victory over his regional rival. While Clem’s victory in itself wasn’t a huge surprise, the manner of his victory was unexpected. It wasn’t at all like his victory against Solar, where he broke his opponent with non-stop pressure starting in the first minute of the game (what one might call a ‘typical’ Clem TvZ). Instead, it was Maru-esque defense that saw him weather Serral’s furious attacks, eventually grinding the Finnish Phenom down in a war of attrition.

The third game on Alcyone stood out in particular, with the two players slugging it out for 36 minutes. It was a rare brawl in the mud for two of the cleanest players of the game, with the sheer intensity of the match forcing the players to make reckless decisions and uncharacteristic mistakes. Not that it detracted from its quality one bit—it should be a clear game of the year candidate for any fan of StarCraft II.

Aptly, the last challenge for Clem was the ‘final boss’ Dark (VOD). Unlike Solar and Serral, Dark didn’t have an edge on Clem in 2023, as the two had tied 1-1 in their previous offline meetings. What Dark did have going his way was his well-earned reputation of being a winner and big match player—a permanent threat to win the championship regardless of his recent play.

It seemed to be a worthy final test of Clem’s nerves and skill, but unfortunately it wasn’t the blockbuster match fans were hoping for. After channeling Maru’s defense against Serral, some GSL finals syndrome had rubbed off as well. Clem took out Dark in a convincing 4-1 series, where his offense, defense, early-game, mid-game, and late-game were all on point. While Dark did manage to take a map with a decisive base trade, there was no questioning who the better player was on the night.

While Clem had already won five EPT Europe titles up to that point, his reaction after the final GG was a familiar one we’ve seen from so many first-time champions: total relief. The unseen burden on his shoulders, to win a major tournament in a live setting, had been lifted.

“That means so much, winning my first offline tournament, in front of this crowd—you guys are amazing, that feels amazing.” said Clem in his post-match interview. “I’ve been practicing for this so much, the past few months I was at home practicing so much and it feels really nice… …seeing it pay off on a stage like this.”

In the end, this first offline championship was, indeed, inevitable for a player of Clem’s caliber. And, going on his performance at DreamHack Atlanta, that might be true of many more to come.

Full Results from EPT Winter (Atlanta)

Playoff Bracket
+ Show Spoiler [Click to show] +

Knockout Bracket
+ Show Spoiler [Click to show] +

Open Bracket Results:
+ Show Spoiler [Click to show] +

Open Stage bracket #1

Open Stage bracket #2

Open Stage bracket #3

Open Stage bracket #4

Winners’ Stage Results:
+ Show Spoiler [Click to show] +

Winners Stage bracket #1

Winners Stage bracket #2

Inevitability was the theme of Clem’s first major offline title. How did the StarCraft II scene come to believe so deeply in the 21-year-old French Terran?

Clem made his WCS (World Championship Series) debut in the spring of 2018, when he became age-eligible for official Blizzard competitions at 16 years of age. His involvement in the competitive StarCraft II scene actually went at least as far back as 2013, when he played in French LAN tournaments as an 11-year-old. Thus, even before the ‘official ‘start to his progaming career, Clem had gained a reputation as a skilled up-and-comer.

For the first year and a half of Clem’s WCS career, he remained a curio—a player known more for his blazingly fast hands than his results. In his first six outings in WCS main events during 2018-2019, Clem finished in the RO16 or lower each time. In contrast, fellow prodigy Reynor debuted just a few months after Clem in 2018, and reached the finals of a WCS main event in just his second attempt (he barely lost to Serral in the finals).

In 2020, events outside of StarCraft drastically changed the course of Clem’s career. First, Clem graduated from high school and was able to focus entirely on professional gaming. Similar to Serral in 2018, this shift to full-time status paid off big and paid off fast. In Clem’s first tournament of the year, IEM Katowice 2020, he had to endure a hugely disappointing result as he was eliminated in the round-of-76. But just nine months later, Clem won his first major championship in the online tournament of EPT Europe, beating both Serral and Reynor on his way to the title (technically, it was branded DreamHack Masters Europe at the time, but I’ll merge EPT and DHM for convenience here).

That brings us to Clem’s second major career event of 2020—the COVID-19 pandemic. The fully-online EPT Europe tournament being converted from a glorified qualifier to true “major” status was largely a result of the pandemic, as the entire StarCraft II tournament system was restructured to facilitate online play. This was absolutely crucial to Clem, as essentially all of his early success would come in these EPT Europe events. Over 2021-22, Clem would go on to win four additional EPT Europe championships, completing his own “E5L” as a counterpart to Maru’s G5L.

Due to the peculiar nature of Clem’s rise, it came with inevitable caveats. Sure, you could look past the fact that all of his championships were won online, since everyone outside of Korea was playing under the same conditions. However, what couldn’t be excused was his lack of success in online international play. Despite his dominance in Europe, Clem fell short time and time again when it was time to play against the best players from other continents—namely those from Korea. ‘Clem is weak against Terran’ became the conventional wisdom, and broadly speaking that was correct. However, he was also vulnerable against the top GSL players regardless of faction, with Zest, Dark, Trap, Stats, and PartinG all eliminating Clem in events where he was presumed to be among the championship contenders.

Whether it was the EPT Season Finals or third party events such as TeamLiquid Starleague, Clem couldn’t reproduce his stellar results from domestic competition. During the pandemic period, top four was the best he achieved in global competitions. In a handful of events, he was even eliminated in the group stages.

Within these shortcomings lay the most unusual part of Clem’s rise. In spite of his hyper-regionalized success, in spite of his repeated failures to perform in international play, fans never stopped believing in him as a true championship contender.

He was the ultimate example of trusting the eye-test over results. In terms of mechanics and raw speed, Clem was perhaps the most gifted Terran we had ever seen—young Maru was the only comparison. How could such a player not eventually win a championship? There was a purely stylistic element as well. Few things in StarCraft II are as inspiring as elite level TvZ bio play, and Clem may have been the most elite of them all. As such, not believing in Clem was akin to disavowing what was fundamentally good about competitive StarCraft.

And, even though I said results could be overlooked, Clem actually did have the results that mattered most: championships won over Serral and Reynor. Alongside Maru, the two European Zergs were the most dominant players during Clem’s career, and they framed the entire big picture story for StarCraft II. From 2018 to 2023, nearly every major championship had to go through one of these three players. By taking out Serral in Reynor in multiple EPT Europe events (even if they were online), Clem was essentially going in reverse order. It was as if he had already finished his final exam, and we were just waiting for him to finally sign his damn name on the paper.

I went back through some of my old TL.net Power Rank articles, just to make sure I wasn’t retroactively revising my opinions. June 2021: 3rd place. June 2022:: 3rd place. November 2022: 4th place. February 2023: 7th place (okay my belief started to slip a little here).

Here’s a particularly appropriate bit from the November 2022 Power Rank:

Okay, so I did leave out the last part where I said I didn’t think he would win DreamHack Atlanta ’22, but you get the point.

For players of a certain quality, it’s always just a matter of time.

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• Source: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/619416-inevitable-clem-wins-esl-masters-winter-2023