Lee Jae-dong

Lee Jae-dong
Hangul	이제동
Revised Romanization	I Je-dong
McCune–Reischauer	Yi Che-tong
Date of birth	(1990-01-09) 9 January 1990
Games	Starcraft: Brood War Starcraft II
Career prize money	>$500,000
Professional career
2006-2011	Hwaseung OZ
2014	Evil Geniuses

Lee Jae-dong (born 9 January 1990), alias Jaedong, nicknamed The Tyrant and The Legend Killer, is a South Korean professional StarCraft: Brood War and StarCraft 2 player for the American team Evil Geniuses. Using the Zerg race in both games, Lee is one of the most successful StarCraft players of all time, winning five OnGameNet Starleague (OSL) and MBCGame StarCraft League (MSL) tournaments, and earning over $500,000 in tournament prize money along through his career.^[1]

Brood War

Jaedong made his debut in 2006 as a member of the Korean team Hwaseung OZ and quickly proved himself as a talented player. In less than two years he won his first premier tournament, the Seoul International eSports Festival, and shortly after both the OSL and the MSL tournament.^[2] Since then he dominated the StarCraft competitive scene, revolutionizing Zerg strategy and establishing a famous rivalry with the Terran player Lee Young-Ho.

Over his 6-year career as a StarCraft: Brood War player, Lee set several records. He has the second-highest ELO peak of any player at 2378,^[3] and the second highest career win rate at 67.45%.^[4] He is one of four players to win the Golden Mouse, which is awarded to players for winning 3 OSL tournaments.

Free Agency in 2009

After KESPA revised the rules regulating Free Agency, Hwaseung OZ made Lee an offer of 140,000,000 won (112,420 USD) a year to renew his contract.^[5][6] During the bid period, Lee expressed interest in remaining within Hwaseung Oz because of the friendships he had forged over the past three years on the team.^[7]

Although his father publicly stated in interviews that retirement was a possibility,^[8] Lee renegotiated his contract with Hwaseung Oz and has confirmed that he will play for the team in the upcoming Proleague season.^[9]

Hwaseung Oz Disbands

In August 2011, Hwaseung decided to stop sponsoring Oz to shift their priorities over to physical sports. This left Lee, and several other notable progamers without a team as FOX and Hero also closed down. However in the first days of November it was revealed the governing body of esports in Korea, KeSPA, had decided to form a team. It was announced Lee along with several other progamers from the closed down teams, would move to the new team. Notable gamers to also join the new team included Yum Bo Sung (Sea), Jun Tae Yang (BaBy) and Park Joon Oh (Killer). In December 2012, Lee Jae-dong joined the American team Evil Geniuses.

StarCraft II

In 2012, Lee retired from StarCraft: Brood War and began to play StarCraft 2 competitively, joining the team Evil Geniuses a few months after.^[10] Throughout 2013, he was one of the most consistent players, earning several silver medals in premier tournaments, most notably the 2013 StarCraft World Championship. After 5 second place finishes in premier tournaments, Jaedong finally emerged victorious at ASUS ROG NorthCon 2013.

Jaedong was chosen as one of the KeSPA players to be seeded in Code S for the 2012 GSL Season 4 ^[11] because of his performance in the 2011-2012 Proleague Season 2 in the KeSPA. He made his GSL debut on Wednesday, September 5. He would go 0-2 in his group, thus dropping to Code A. In Code A Jaedong would go 0-2 again, ending his GSL debut. Jaedong was picked up by the successful North American team Evil Geniuses on the 5th of December 2012.^[12] On Evil Geniuses Jaedong would go to compete in several international Starcraft tournaments as well as compete in KeSPA's Proleague.

Major achievements

Tournament finishes

• 2007 OnGameNet Star Challenge Season 1 (1st)
• 2007 EVER OnGameNet Starleague (1st)
• 2008 GomTV MBCGame StarCraft League Season 4 (1st)
• 2008 Arena MBCGame StarCraft League (2nd)
• 2008 Averatec-Intel Classic Season 1 (1st)
• 2009 Batoo OnGameNet Starleague (1st)
• 2009 Bacchus OnGameNet Starleague (1st)
• 2009 World Cyber Games Grand Final (1st)
• 2009 NATE MBCGame StarCraft League (1st)
• 2010 Hana Daetoo MBCGame StarCraft League (2nd)
• 2010 Bigfile MBCGame StarCraft League (2nd)
• 2010 Korean Air 2 OnGameNet Starleague (2nd)
• 2010 World Cyber Games Grand Final (3rd)
• 2013 Dreamhack Open :Stockholm (3rd)
• 2013 Dreamhack Open :Summer (2nd)
• 2013 Dreamhack Open :Valencia (2nd)
• 2013 World Championship Series America Season 2 (2nd)
• 2013 World Championship Series Grand Final Season 2 (2nd)
• 2013 World Championship Series America Season 2 (3rd)
• 2013 World Championship Series Global Grand Final (2nd)
• 2013 ASUS ROG: NorthCon (1st)

KeSPA awards

• 2007 Player of the Year
• 2009 Player of The Year^[13]
• 2012 Most Valuable Player of the 2011-2012 Proleague Season 2's regular-season^[14]

OSL/MSL/WCG career statistics

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lee Jae-dong.

• Jaedong on e-Sports Earnings
• Liquipedia page on Jaedong
• TeamLiquid statistics