In esports, the oldest titles are often the most stratified. The echelons of competition are arranged like tectonic plates, moving only glacially and shifting everything when they do. So it goes for StarCraft, where the upper crust is defined by legends of the game.
So, when a new face breaks through it means a lot. And for Team Liquid, an organization built on StarCraft, it means even more.
Through both his victory in ESL Masters Winter 2023 and his incredible performance in the World Team League, Clément "Clem" Desplanches has earned that rare, coveted breakthrough. That’s why we wanted to go beyond the usual social media celebration and commemorate Clem’s win with some love letters — not just from his teammates, but from Team Liquid staff as well.
But before we do, I’d like to highlight both how much Clem’s skill has skyrocketed in the last two months and how hard he has worked to reach this new peak.
Reading through all the letters, it’s clear that everyone in Liquid could see how talented Clem was from the beginning. As one of the fastest and most mechanically gifted players in StarCraft, his talent was clear to most people. Clem made a name for himself early on by playing an electrifying Terran vs. Zerg style that relied on micro-heavy, cross-map aggression. He would set a blistering pace with frequent trades and skirmishes, establishing a mechanical bar for his opponent to clear before the match could be considered competitive.
That talent was only a baseline, though. In these old, mechanically intense games, the upstarts are always playing a game of catch-up with the veterans, and to win that game they have to practice hard. Clem’s effort in 2023 was legendary.
Across 2023, Clem entered roughly 120 events. Put into perspective, that’s about 1/3rd of the calendar year. The French prodigy routinely entered both ESL weekly cups for EU and the Americas, meaning he often played two tournaments in a day. This is all before taking time spent practicing or researching into account.
For a while, Clem had been caught on a plateau: He had won big LANs in Europe, but couldn’t quite do it internationally. Over the past two months, however, that mix of hard work and talent pushed him to a new peak, where he not only won an international premier LAN, ESL Masters Winter, but powered Liquid through a brutal World Team League gauntlet and to a second place finish. Across the World Team League run, Clem went 23-5 in maps and beat top names like Reynor, Serral, ByuN, herO, Maru, and Dark.
Clem’s sudden rise to that peak was shocking for some, but not for his peers, opponents, or keen observers in the scene. TL.net Editor-In-Chief Waxangel wrote of the ascent as inevitable, and when you consider the mixture of talent and practice, it’s easy to see why.
Surprising or not, for Liquid, Clem’s rise has been a unique joy. We’ve worked with Clem for nearly 4 years now, with many of our staff seeing him not only grow as a player but as a person. We’ve long believed in his potential to reach the highest echelon of StarCraft. Heading into 2024, and into one of the biggest events in StarCraft (IEM Katowice), the player to watch is Clément "Clem" Desplanches — and we couldn’t be more proud.
In esports, the oldest titles are often the most stratified. The echelons of competition are arranged like tectonic plates, moving only glacially and shifting everything when they do. So it goes for StarCraft, where the upper crust is defined by legends of the game.
So, when a new face breaks through it means a lot. And for Team Liquid, an organization built on StarCraft, it means even more.
Through both his victory in ESL Masters Winter 2023 and his incredible performance in the World Team League, Clément "Clem" Desplanches has earned that rare, coveted breakthrough. That’s why we wanted to go beyond the usual social media celebration and commemorate Clem’s win with some love letters — not just from his teammates, but from Team Liquid staff as well.
But before we do, I’d like to highlight both how much Clem’s skill has skyrocketed in the last two months and how hard he has worked to reach this new peak.
Reading through all the letters, it’s clear that everyone in Liquid could see how talented Clem was from the beginning. As one of the fastest and most mechanically gifted players in StarCraft, his talent was clear to most people. Clem made a name for himself early on by playing an electrifying Terran vs. Zerg style that relied on micro-heavy, cross-map aggression. He would set a blistering pace with frequent trades and skirmishes, establishing a mechanical bar for his opponent to clear before the match could be considered competitive.
That talent was only a baseline, though. In these old, mechanically intense games, the upstarts are always playing a game of catch-up with the veterans, and to win that game they have to practice hard. Clem’s effort in 2023 was legendary.
Across 2023, Clem entered roughly 120 events. Put into perspective, that’s about 1/3rd of the calendar year. The French prodigy routinely entered both ESL weekly cups for EU and the Americas, meaning he often played two tournaments in a day. This is all before taking time spent practicing or researching into account.
For a while, Clem had been caught on a plateau: He had won big LANs in Europe, but couldn’t quite do it internationally. Over the past two months, however, that mix of hard work and talent pushed him to a new peak, where he not only won an international premier LAN, ESL Masters Winter, but powered Liquid through a brutal World Team League gauntlet and to a second place finish. Across the World Team League run, Clem went 23-5 in maps and beat top names like Reynor, Serral, ByuN, herO, Maru, and Dark.
Clem’s sudden rise to that peak was shocking for some, but not for his peers, opponents, or keen observers in the scene. TL.net Editor-In-Chief Waxangel wrote of the ascent as inevitable, and when you consider the mixture of talent and practice, it’s easy to see why.
Surprising or not, for Liquid, Clem’s rise has been a unique joy. We’ve worked with Clem for nearly 4 years now, with many of our staff seeing him not only grow as a player but as a person. We’ve long believed in his potential to reach the highest echelon of StarCraft. Heading into 2024, and into one of the biggest events in StarCraft (IEM Katowice), the player to watch is Clément "Clem" Desplanches — and we couldn’t be more proud.