TLO Five Years with Team Liquid
April 03 2015
To this day, I still can't believe that the first time we met was 13 years ago at a trade show in Germany. He was still a little kid back then while I was trying to pursue my dream of becoming a professional BW player. Our journeys intersected once again 8 years later when Dario became a part of Team Liquid, and 5 years later our friendship is as strong as ever. This adventure alongside Dario has been an amazing experience. He is a special human being with a good heart, and he is one of the hardest workers I've ever met. I am certain that TLO will continue to impress us with his play well into Legacy of the Void, and those attributes tell me that he will make it far wherever the future will take him. Thanks for all that you've given the fans and myself these past 5 years.
Longevity is a rare thing in Starcraft. Players and teams come and go, alliances are created and dissolved sometimes in the blink of an eye, and players rise only to soon fall.
It is this competitive flux that makes TLO so special. This week, he has been with us for five whole years. Not only is that the longest unbroken tenure on a team of any player in Starcraft II, but it has been defined by Dario's constant drive for continuous improvement.
Since his early successes (as a Random player, no less) in the beta, TLO has been a high-profile player. Not only for his commonly praised creativity, but for his devotion to finding the optimal route to improvement. Where some players lose their footing after rough losses, TLO has always been very vocal about admitting his own flaws and actively looking for ways to improve. Last year, TLO talked about how achieving balance between Starcraft and his other passions in life has directly influenced his ability to perform. Similarly, in a scene where many players suffer from poor health, he handled Carpal Tunnel in the best way possible through rest and exercise, getting past the hurdle that has forced many other players into retirement and returning to professional Starcraft as a stronger player.
In his five years on Team Liquid, TLO has provided us with many memorable games, some of them so out there that his reputation as a "very creative player" is now so will never fade. Older fans will remember his predictive nuke in the very first GSL Open which caught HyperDub completely by surprise. Newer arrivals to the scene might be more familiar with TLO's frequent usage of Nydus Worms than his history in the GSL, but watching TLO play -- whether it be in the Mokdong Studios of Seoul or the ESL Studios of Cologne -- has always meant being treated to either the highly unorthodox or the very refined.
-Victor "Nazgul" Goossens
Longevity is a rare thing in Starcraft. Players and teams come and go, alliances are created and dissolved sometimes in the blink of an eye, and players rise only to soon fall.
It is this competitive flux that makes TLO so special. This week, he has been with us for five whole years. Not only is that the longest unbroken tenure on a team of any player in Starcraft II, but it has been defined by Dario's constant drive for continuous improvement.
Since his early successes (as a Random player, no less) in the beta, TLO has been a high-profile player. Not only for his commonly praised creativity, but for his devotion to finding the optimal route to improvement. Where some players lose their footing after rough losses, TLO has always been very vocal about admitting his own flaws and actively looking for ways to improve. Last year, TLO talked about how achieving balance between Starcraft and his other passions in life has directly influenced his ability to perform. Similarly, in a scene where many players suffer from poor health, he handled Carpal Tunnel in the best way possible through rest and exercise, getting past the hurdle that has forced many other players into retirement and returning to professional Starcraft as a stronger player.
In his five years on Team Liquid, TLO has provided us with many memorable games, some of them so out there that his reputation as a "very creative player" is now so will never fade. Older fans will remember his predictive nuke in the very first GSL Open which caught HyperDub completely by surprise. Newer arrivals to the scene might be more familiar with TLO's frequent usage of Nydus Worms than his history in the GSL, but watching TLO play -- whether it be in the Mokdong Studios of Seoul or the ESL Studios of Cologne -- has always meant being treated to either the highly unorthodox or the very refined.