BoxeR

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[e][h] BoxeR

Player Information

Name:

임요환(林遙煥)

Romanized Name:

Lim Yo Hwan

Nationality:

 South Korea

Born:

September 4, 1980 (age 43)

Race:

Terran

Teams:

SK Telecom T1
Slayers

Alternate IDs:

SlayerS_`BoxeR`, gonia119, Manofoneway, SlayerSBoxeR

Nicknames:

The Emperor, Emperor of Terran(人皇), HE/HIM, Hwangjae Terran, 包哥

Approx. Total Winnings:

$142,542

Links

Achievements

         

History

2001-01-?? — 2002-10-??

Ideal Space

2002-10-?? — 2003-12-??

Orion

2003-12-?? — 2004-04-??

4 Union

2004-04-?? — 2006-12-??

SK Telecom T1

2006-12-?? — 2008-12-??

Air Force ACE

2008-12-?? — 2010-??-??

SK Telecom T1

Overview

Lim "BoxeR" Yo Hwan is a StarCraft progamer from South Korea who played Terran for SK Telecom T1. BoxeR is famous for his micro control and innovation, and is one of the most recognizable progamers in the history of progaming.
He played Terran and was the head coach for SK Telecom T1 in StarCraft II.
He was inducted into the Korean esports Hall of Fame in 2012.

Biography

As the most popular StarCraft player with a fan club of more than 600,000 members and a DVD compilation of his greatest games released in South Korea, he is widely regarded in e-Sports as an iconic figure. Because of his long dominance during the rise of StarCraft’s popularity in South Korea Lim earned the title of The Emperor within the StarCraft community.

Boxer first came to fame by dominating professional StarCraft while choosing to use the Terran race over Protoss at a time when this was seen as a relatively weak choice in comparison to the other two StarCraft races. His first major win was the Hanbitsoft OSL, a great victory for the Terran race and Boxer himself, as there were no Terrans at all the previous OSL. His near-undefeated run through the whole Starleague (with only one loss to Kingdom in the semifinals) would start a new era of progaming.

Lim Yo Hwan is a two time Starleague champion, KPGA Tour champion, two time WCG champion, and also the former captain of SK Telecom T1, a team that was originally built around him with players he hand-picked. After his loss to Reach in the SKY 2002 OSL, his father disputed with the team he was currently in, IS (now Lecaf), and Boxer was forced to make Orion (now SKT T1), initially containing talents such as Sigamari, IntoTheRainbow and the monster Terran, iloveoov. Boxer took iloveoov under his wing and he eventually became a two time OSL and three time MSL champion. His team has consistently been one of the most successful in the team leagues.

BoxeR, along with GARIMTO and YellOw, have been said by many fans as the progamers who revolutionized early progaming strategy, with such strategies as the Tank Drop and the Double Barrack Cheese. During this early time in his career he innovated heavily, making much more effective use of the Terran Dropship unit than had been achieved in the past. BoxeR also gained a reputation for being able to turn around matches against the odds and having excellent Micromanagement skills. In contrast, his weakness is thought to be his macro management, at least when compared to other top-level professional StarCraft players.

Although no longer as strong of a player as during his prime, he ranked 11th in the April 2006 Korea e-Sports Association (KeSPA) rankings, and made it to the final of the EVER OSL 2004, only to lose 2-3 to his team member iloveoov, as well as the final of the So1 OSL 2005, again losing 2-3 to AnyTime. In August 2006 Lim announced at the MSL group draws that he had received his draft letter from the government, and would be entering the Air Force by the end of the year. He later said he would try his best to return after his 2 and a half years of service.

After Lim joined the Air Force he started putting his fame into work, after a month and a half an army progaming team was created, and BoxeR found some retired progamers who joined the army before him, including H.O.T-Forever, Clon, ChRh, fOru, Rage, Qoo)Sunny and MuMyung. Together they formed the first army progaming team ever. After 2 months the team was announced, ACE (Airforce Challenge E-sports) was official, Air Force ACE. ACE’s first team league was the Shinhan Bank Proleague 2007 and has played in every Proleague since.

In December 2008, when his mandatory military service ended, Boxer returned to his team SK Telecom T1 and was on the A-team roster. However, he saw little play time, and in 2010, Boxer did not renew his progaming license. Instead, he began to play StarCraft 2.

Trivia

• Once tried to change his username to [Orion]JungTerran, but made the announcement before registering the name on Battle.Net. The account and similar variations were promptly swept up by Korean netizens.
• Played as Protoss at first, switching due to the lack of Terran players at the time.
• In 2003, OGN released a DVD compilation of BoxeR's best performances up to that point, calling it the 'Lim Yo-Hwan Special Edition.'
• Wrote an autobiography, Crazy As Me, published in 2004.
• After his transition to StarCraft II and during an intermission due to Internet issues at IPL3: Origins in Atlantic City in 2011, played an impromptu series against HuK - who had never before played Brood War at a professional level. The two of them took one game each.
• Does not draw well - a fact that his SKT1 teammates once got a massive laugh out of. During a game of Pictionary during a break, he was asked to draw a hair dryer but inadvertently drew what looked like male genitalia.
• His wife is Korean actress and eSports manager Kim Ga Yeon (Jessica).
• On a 2015 episode of the popular SBS show Running Man, he and YellOw were on opposite teams. As part of the episode, the two of them played a game on Python, which Boxer won.

Statistics

Year	Team	Wins	Losses	Ratio	vs.	vs.	vs.	Best Finish
2000	IS	23	19	54.8%	8-5	8-8	7-6	---
2001	IS	84	30	73.7%	16-11	40-6	28-13	Hanbitsoft OSL, Coca-Cola OSL, WCG 2001
2002	Orion	55	41	57.3%	17-11	28-22	10-8	KPGA 1st Tour, WCG 2002
2003	Orion	51	45	53.1%	14-11	24-19	13-15	---
2004	SKT	47	42	52.8%	19-18	21-12	7-12	EVER 2004 OSL
2005	SKT	38	28	57.6%	9-3	11-6	18-19	So1 OSL
2006	SKT	21	19	52.5%	4-9	13-4	4-6	---
2007	ACE	19	26	42.2%	9-10	5-5	5-11	---
2008	ACE	10	18	35.7%	3-6	5-7	2-5	---
2009	SKT	1	3	25.0%	0-1	1-1	0-1	---

Matchup Statistics

Matchup	Games	Wins	Losses	Winrate
vs P	190	99	91	52.1 %
vs T	162	87	75	53.7 %
vs Z	235	142	93	60.4 %
All	589	329	260	55.9 %

Achievements

Date	Place	Tier	Tournament		Team	Result		Prize
2005-11-05	2nd	Premier		2005 So1 OSL		2 : 3	Anytime	$8,050
2004-11-20	2nd	Premier		2004 EVER OSL		2 : 3	iloveoov	$8,050
2004-02-28	1st	Premier		LG IBM MBC Team League	(4U)	4 : 2		$12,792.49
2004-01-13	2nd	Premier		2003 KT KTF Premier League	(4U)	1 : 3	NaDa	$13,600
2003-01-29	1st	Showm. (Prem.)		The 1st KTF Big StarCraft Four Great Kings Battle		2 : 1	NaDa	$8,506.31
2002-11-03	1st	Premier		WCG 2002		2 : 0	YellOw	$20,000
2002-10-12	2nd	Premier		2002 SKY OSL		1 : 3	Reach	$8,050
2001-12-09	1st	Premier		WCG 2001	(IS)	2 : 0	ElkY	$20,000
2001-09-08	1st	Premier		2001 Coca-Cola OSL	(IS)	3 : 2	YellOw	$7,782.11
2001-05-05	1st	Premier		2001 Hanbitsoft OSL	(IS)	3 : 0	JinNam	$7,739.93
Extended list of results

Earnings Breakdown

Notable Events/Leagues

Place	Year	Event/League
1st	2004	G-Voice OnGameNet Challenge League
1st	2003	Toona Big4 Special
2nd	2003	Ting KBC Super Game Show Tournament
1st	2003	KTF Bigi Four Kings Battle
2nd	2002-2003	KTEC KPGA Winners Championship
1st	2002	iTV Adieu 2001! Super Gosu Match
1st	2001	GGTV Star Wars Episode 2
2nd	2001-2002	iTV Ranking 3rd League
1st	2001	WCG Korea Finals
2nd	2001	iTV All-Star 8 Exhibition
1st	2001	OnGameNet Last 1.07 Special Match
1st	2001	ZZGame.com 32 Progamer Invitational
1st	2000	Samsung Digital KIGL King of Kings Tournament
3rd	2000-2001	iTV 2nd Ranking League
1st	2000	Korea.cnet Game Tournament
2nd	2000	Fall Samsung Digital Korea Internet Game League

Succession

WCG Champion
WCGC 2000 Preceded By:   GoRush	WCG 2001 9th December 2001 - Continued   BoxeR	WCG 2002 Succeeded By:   BoxeR

WCG 2001 Preceded By:   BoxeR

WCG 2002 Continued - 15th October 2003   BoxeR

WCG 2003 Succeeded By:   Ogogo

OSL Champion
Freechal OSL Preceded By:   GARIMTO	Hanbitsoft OSL 5th May 2001-Reigning Champion   BoxeR	Coca-Cola OSL Succeeded By:   BoxeR

Hanbitsoft OSL Preceded By:   Boxer

Coca-Cola OSL Reigning Champion-28th December 2001   BoxeR

SKY2001 OSL Succeeded By:   GARIMTO

MSL Champion
Preceded By: None	KPGA 1st Tour 14th April 2002-22nd June 2002   BoxeR	Reebok KPGA 2nd Tour Succeeded By:   NaDa

WCG Korea Champion
WCGC Korea 2000 Preceded By:   GoRush	WCG Korea 2001   BoxeR	WCG Korea 2002 Succeeded By:   YellOw

Other Achievements

• First player to achieve 100 wins in OnGameNet Starleagues (OSL)
• First player to win more than one OSL (2001 Hanbitsoft OSL, 2001 Coca Cola OSL)
• First player to win two consecutive OSLs
• Longest time 1st ranked in the KeSPA Ranking with 17 consecutive months (ranking formula was changed afterwards)
• Ranked in the KeSPA Top 30 for 61 consecutive months
• Only player to win two WCG Grand Finals.

Rivalries

YellOw

Notable Games

TvT

• vs. Hiya on Blue Storm, 2007 Shinhan Bank Proleague Round 2, 2007-12-16
• vs. iloveoov on Rush Hour III, 2006 Pringles MSL Season 1, 2006-05-18
  • In this game Boxer shows how deep his understanding of Brood War is. Boxer chooses a rush strategy and finds out where oov's starting position is, simply by hearing the building sounds of his opponent's SCVs (Boxer's Ultimate Proxy, Pimpest Plays 2006)
• vs. iloveoov on Requiem, 2004 EVER OnGameNet StarLeague Final, Game 4, 2004-11-20
• vs. Frozean on Blue Storm, 2007 Shinhan Bank Proleague Round 2, 2007-12-08
  • Boxer counters Frozean's cheese with a crazy cheese of his own on Blue Storm.
• vs. Flash on Python, 2007 Shinhan Bank Proleague Round 1, 2007-06-10
  • The Emperor battles a young KTF Terran named Flash in a battle for the ages on Python.
• vs. Sheis on Neo Arkanoid, 2007-01-27
  • In a genius move, Boxer fakes his spawning position and built to overwhelm Ever)T(Sheis

TvZ

• vs. YellOw on Sin Gaema Gowon, 2003 KTF EVER Cup
  • Known as the "Immortal Marines" - Boxer uses Marines and Medics to take out three Lurkers guarding the ramp to Yellow's main and then wreaks havoc.
• vs. ChoJJa on 815 III, 2006 Pringles MSL Season 1, 2006-05-04
  • Boxer manages to destroy Chojja within two minutes by attacking him in three spots on the map at the same time (Boxer's Triple Drop, Pimpest Play 2006)
• vs. Aqua on Arcadia II, 2006 SKY Proleague Round 2, 2006-09-25
• vs. July on Sin 815, ShinHan2005 OSL, 2005-12-29
• vs. YellOw on Wishbone, KPGA 1st Tour, 2002-04-14
• vs. YellOw on Symmetry of Psy, KPGA 1st Tour, 2002-04-14
• vs. YellOw on River of Flames KPGA 1st Tour, 2002-04-14
• vs. Cool on Geometry, 2007 Shinhan Bank Proleague Round 1, 2007-04-30
  • Boxer's first official win after joining the Air Force. This ingenious build shows up later on Medusa in the last game of the Shinhan Bank 2008-2009 season.
• vs. Yellow(ArnC) on Roadrunner, 2009-2010 Proleague Pre-Match Map Test, 2009-09-14
  • Boxer defeats Yellow[ArnC] with superb mechanic play on a map that is 1:15 in favor of Zerg in test games.

TvP

• vs. JoyO on Paradoxxx, 2003 MyCube OnGameNet Starleague, 2003-08-15
  • An amazing comeback game and one of Boxer's most famous victories.
• vs. Anytime on Neo Forte, 2005 So1 OnGameNet StarLeague Final, Game 4, 2005-11-05
  • Boxer sneaks out three vultures a few minutes into the game and lays mines between the two main bases and starts to chase Anytime's dragoon into the perfectly placed trap.
• vs Pusan on Ride of Valkyries, 2005 So1 OnGameNet Starleague Semifinal, Game 3, 2005-10-21
  • The game starts out and the emperor is almost losing the game. From there Boxer is slowly clawing himself back into the game (Boxer's Comeback, Pimpest Plays)
• vs. Pusan on 815, 2005 So1 OnGameNet StarLeague Semifinal, Game 5, 2005-10-21
• vs. Free on Othello, 2008 Shinhan Bank Proleague, 2008-07-06

Gallery

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Further reading

• The autobiography of Yohwan Lim, Crazy As Me (October 25, 2004). Translation by marencielo. (The entire translation can be read directly on the page.)
• "Examining the leadership of Lim Yohwan as an individual", by Seiji of Pgr21.com, written in May 29, 2005, translated by Marencielo
• Der Spiegel (German Magazine) about Boxer / English Translation
• Gamer is royalty in South Korea - 2007-03-21 - by Bruce Weller (Los Angeles Times) - covers BoxeR's drafting and enlistment, his joining Air Force ACE, and his comeback match against Cool(fOu)