Broken contracts, tournament expulsions and great victories pave their ways: Ilyes ‚Stephano‘ Satouri and Johan ‚NaNiwa‘ Luccesi are two of the greatest foreign players of all time – and two of the most controversial. This week they both celebrate their birthdays: [stephano] turns 21 today while [naniwa] turns 24 on Friday. Happy Birthday!
Credits: ESL Photo/Flickr
Let me first off tell two short stories: A few years ago i was hosting online tournaments of Warcraft 3 on a german website (Fit4Gaming.de, it still exists if you are up for some Wc3). There were weekly cups with a monthly final, just like Zotac cup nowadays. In March 2009 a young frenchman playing for the german team NoWayOut qualified for the final and made it to the round of 4, where he faced [hasuobs]. The German was at that time as well known in Warcraft as he is now in Starcraft. He played Undead, the french played Human and beat him surprisingly 2:1. In the final he was up against [bly], another well-known Undead-player at that time. But the Ukranian had no chance, the 16-year-old French beat him 3:0 using kind of a new strategy in the matchup for which Bly was totally unprepared.
This is how i got to know [stephano].
A few years earlier, Good Friday of 2006, there was one of the weekly tournaments. A well-known german player at that time, Lash, had missed the checkin of the tourney and asked politely if i could put him on one of the free spots in round 1. The tournament had just started so it was no problem. I chose the first free spot at the top of the brackets, setting him up against a young swedish player i had never heard of before. Lash won easily and the Swede got very angry with me in a private chat because i had allowed Lash to play even though he missed the checkin. No explanation would calm him down, in the end he not even declared never to play in any of my tournaments again (of course he did) but even to discredit my project among other players and even get my site hacked. (Sitenote: A few months later the site got hacked eventually, but i doubt there was any connection).
This is how i got to know [naniwa].
The only Foreigner who ever won a Global Tournament – and did it twice
Credits: ESL Photo/Flickr
The stories show the extremes: Stephano and Naniwa are extremely talented players on the one hand but always up for some controversial actions on the other.
When purely seen as players, hardly anyone can deny that they are anything less than genius. [stephano] is the only Non-Korean who won a Global Tournament (with more than $100.000 prize money) – and he did it twice: In October 2011 he beats [violet], [inori], [thestc] and [lucky] on his way to the top of IGN ProLeague Season 3. Next sommer he dominates North American Star League 3, winning against [hero2], [mc] and [alicia]. It’s these triumphs that make him the first and to date only non-korean player on the top of the World Ranking in October 2012 – only three more foreigners even make it into the Top10.
[naniwa] is none of them but he is close: From December 2011 to February 2012 the left-handed player is on #11 of the World Ranking. It’s the time when he is runner-up at 2011 MLG Providence behind [leenock]. No other foreigner ever reaches the final of a tournament as big as this besides him and [stephano]. For Naniwa, the success is the ticket to Korea: He qualifies for Code A, later for Code S and he does brilliant: Twice in a row he qualifies for the quarter-finals of Code S, is among the best 8 players in Korea.
An idiot ready to destroy Naniwa
MCs reaction to Naniwa at Blizzard Cup, Source: Liquipedia
He was successful, but not loved in Korea, because prior to his first Code-S-season he upset the asian community: In a game that was meaningless for the outcome of the tournament, [naniwa] had to play [nestea] in the 2011 GSL Blizzard Cup. Nestea was his big rival since MLG Providence. Naniwa had called him an idiot in an interview and later apologized, Nestea was quoted as to be ready to „destroy Naniwa“. Fans were excited for their match even though both were already eliminated from the tournament. And what did the Swede do? He took his initial six probes and rushed the Korean, who defended easily – Naniwa left the game. The incident spawned a great controversy: Koreans including top-players like [mc] called Naniwa respectless, western viewers defended him calling the game meaningless. But in the end, GSL decided to revoke Naniwas invitation to Code S.
It was not the first time that the now 24-year-old got kicked out of a league: In 2010 he was playing for Meet Your Makers, living in their teamhouse in Leipzig, Germany. This was necessary so [naniwa] and his teammate [cloud] could compete in the german ESL Pro Series. But the former never finished the season. He accumulated so many penalty points that he was kicked out before the end even though he was on third place at that time. The same happened in Intel Extreme Masters V a few months later where ESL kicked him out due to too many penalty points.
Breached contracts and rape jokes
He even got in trouble with his teams: In roughly three and a half years of Starcraft, [naniwa] has been in nine different teams, sometimes only for a few days like when he joined PowerGaming in November 2010 only to leave them four days later for russian Empire Gaming, supposedly breaching a contract he signed with PowerGaming, though Naniwa states he did not.
[stephano] only switched teams once in his career – or twice, some would say, because the French also was suspected to have breached a legal contract: In September 2011, when with french team Millenium, he declared to dedicate a full year to professional gaming. The then 18-year-old had just finished High School and delayed his way to university for the sake of Starcraft. On September 18th, american team Complexity announced Stephano as their new player. One day later, officials of Millenium posted a statement saying there was no legal contract and Stephano had decided to stay with the french team. The following controversy held for two days. In the end both teams agreed that the player stayed in France but would have to pay a fine for breaching his contract with Complexity. He instead signed a contract with Millenium.
On the one hand he made his new and old team proud by increasingly good results in his pro-gaming-year. On the other hand he was always up to embarass Millenium for example by forfeiting matches in online-tournaments, even when organised by Millenium itself like he did in MSI Pro Cup in March 2012 where he went offline during the tournament to have dinner. So in September 2012 bot sides agreed not to renew the contract and Stephano got signed by Evil Geniuses. It only took a month until the next incident: In October 2012 Stephano was suspended by his team because of rape jokes he made on a stream. And just like Naniwa he offended korean Starcraft-culture when he first came to the country in 2013. In a televised match he wrote „gl hf“ (Good Luck, Have Fun) to his opponent [hero] – official rules only allow players to type „gg“ (Good Game) or ask for a pause. After some discussion, Stephano was excused though.
Stephano bids farewell
His career ended without any other incident in August 2013 when he was eliminated in WCS Season 2. He had won $236.180, more than any other Foreigner in Starcraft 2. Though he played HomeStory Cup VIII in last November but will not return to professional gaming and instead studying at the University of Luxembourg. [naniwa] however will spend his 24th birthday on Friday in polish Katowice – he is the only Foreigner qualified for the main bracket of the IEM World Championship so far.