Jaedong's mental
One of the things I love the most about BW is how much focus we as a community have developed around a good mindset and proper mental.
Out of all pro players, I feel like I connect with Jaedong the most, because it reminds me of how I felt when I came back after my first long break. I started playing WoL in 2010 and played it a lot for about 2 years and I developed a pretty strong mental and this "I can win any game" mindset like Jaedong talks about. But when I came back after my year-long break, it was like the units weren't the same. Obviously there were patches in SC2, but even more than so I was not as good. And that disconnect between "how good I am" in my head and in my hands was basically impossible to overcome for me. It used to be that if I had 20 supply and a good angle, my micro was simply good enough to defeat any opponent, and I'm sure you know the feeling yourself.
I wonder if Jaedong has a similar mental block (but more extreme of course), in that 2008-2011 he was the best, and could defeat anyone in a Bo5, creme of the crop, king of the hill, part of Taekbangleesang, untouchable. And now that he's back to BW, all these years later, he still sort of instinctively remember "my lings simply do more damage than the opponents lings" you know, but his hands can't simply do it anymore. He himself is used to thinking that "if I can sneak in 2 lings into the enemy base, I just win. I just win." or "if I get 1 control group of mutas, I just win. I just stop anything terran can throw at me." And now, while he is still a top 10 player in the world, he's not a top 2 player in the world, and his lings are not simply better than other players lings etc.
It's sort of a curse for those who have been at the very top, and then taken a break, and when they come back, for whatever reason, they just cannot get back to the very top.
These are the sorts of things I think about, and it's part of Brood War imo, and I love it. Obviously I'm a huge Jaedong fan, and I've talked about him as an inspiration to my friends plowing through university and at work and I just talk about him all the time lol.
What do you guys think?