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Team Liquid’s HerO wins NASL Season 4 StarCraft 2 championship with miracle comeback against viOLet

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Kim “viOLet” Dong Hwan has had a rough couple of weeks. He wanted the IPL5 championship for his birthday but lost it to Leenock in a heart-breaking extended series. Now he just lost the NASL Season 4 championship to Song “HerO” Hyeon Deok after being up 2-0 in the final, after which HerO went on a four-game tear to claim the $30,000 prize.

HerO had a great run through the bracket to reach the final, once again demolishing his teammate TaeJA in a 3-0 series (just weeks after wiping him out at DreamHack) before beating out Terran challenger Polt 4-2. Violet’s closest call of the weekend came in his 3-2 series against DeMusliM before easily going through SortOf in the semifinal. Polt went on to beat SortOf 4-0 in the third-place match.

In an interview with GameSpot’s Rod “Slasher” Breslau, HerO admitted he was nervous after he was down two games against the deliberate, careful Zerg, but after he began his comeback he was able to look across the stage at viOLet and see his confidence begin to crack. It’s an interesting window into the psychological games that play out over the course of a long series.

HerO has had a great late-season, with two championships under his belt after a disappointing choke at the Battle.net World Championships. Since then he’s played phenomenally, however, and concludes this year as one of the top Protoss players in the world.