Stephano - A tale of the career of a high-profile StarCraft II pro-player

Cyber-athletes are specialists in an extremely strange profession. What makes the profession strange is not the fact that it pays to push the buttons, but the fact that a cyber-athlete can be any kind of person, but still receive a solid salary and impressive prize money. No matter how deafeningly stupid and uneducated a pro-player may be, with the proper skill, success is assured. But eSports is not a cesspool. Sometimes the stage is filled with programmers who would be fine even without cybersport. And sometimes it takes genius grandmasters to the virtual battlegrounds... depending on how the map looks like...
...Iles "Stephano" Satori didn't get into funny situations, he created them. At his peak Iles was not only the strongest non-Korean StarCraft II player, but he was also involved in a few scandals, openly cheering...

...Iles "Stephano" Satori was born on March 12, 1993 in France. Since his childhood, Ilies has been interested in video games, trying all new games. But one of them was crucial for Satori: WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne. Streamlined mysteries did not appeal to young Illyes, a guy is still addicted to the spirit of competition. At first, Illyes had not yet thought about a career as a pro-gamer. Especially in 2003 the Internet was still a luxury. The first two years no one knew yet Stephano played WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne purely against the computer for the race of Men.

In 2005, Illyes finally got Internet in his house, and for the first time he tried himself against a live opponent. It took three years of training to win his first LAN PING Arena 12 tournament in the vast French city of Toulouse. It was that victory that got Ilies off the ground. The young talent was spotted by the famous French team Millenium:

Iles "Stephano" Satori had only been with Millenium for two years, during which he showed very mediocre results. It was 2010, and the excitement around WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne was waning. It's fitting that Illyes got a hold of the recently released StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, which has kindled a new spark of enthusiasm in the guy.

Of the Zerg, Protoss, and Terran units Illyes favored the former, because in the cyber-sportsman's opinion the Zerg were the most suitable for his style of play: a quick exit to the second stage, in which the Zerg crushed the opponent with a crowd of weak but cheap units.

Within a couple of months Stephano was in good enough shape to be drafted by Millenium for StarCraft II, but only to the bench. The bench was occupied by Stephano because in 2010 he graduated from high school and had several conflicts with his parents who didn't share his eSportsman aspirations. But everything had already changed in a year.

Throughout 2010 and early 2011 Illyes combined his studies and eSports. Of course there were not enough hours in a day for both, and he chose eSports. In addition his studies took away Stephano's possibility to attend international tournaments, but he didn't let that stop him. He was successful on the local regional scene, earning his first thousand dollars in prize money. The main achievement was winning the French qualifiers for the ESWC - Electronic Sports World Cup StarCraft II.

Even then, the uncut diamond of Ilies "Stephano" Satori's skill began to take its perfect shape. Ilies played a long game with an emphasis on macro control. To prevent his opponent from gaining an advantage, Illyes created obscure motions on the map. These movements forced the opponent to react, expending both in-game resources and human resources. While the opponent was recovering, Stephano was gaining critical mass and heading into the decisive battle. This strategy is far from new in the StarCraft II world, but Iles stood out because he occasionally played in a manner he was not used to. It wasn't enough for Stephano's opponents to look at a couple of demos and rely on the predictability of the French Zerg.

Stephano first shone at ASUS ROG Summer 2011, where he took a respectable third place. In the finals he faced the strongest Russian StarCraft II player, Pavlov "Brat_OK" Kuznetsov. Both players were going 4-0 in their favor and were both guaranteed to make the playoffs of the tournament, but a win was a must against a strong Taiwanese player, Sen. Neither Stephano nor Brat_OK wanted to engage Sen, so both played completely crazy tactics in hopes of losing to each other. In that giveaway game, Brat_OK won, and Stephano had to play against the Taiwanese player.

Ilies defeated his opponent 2-1 in that match and made it to the semifinals where he lost to another legendary player, Dmitry DIMAGA Filipchuk. In the bronze medal match Iles "Stephano" Satori fought again with Pavlov "Brat_OK" Kuznetsov and won, though the victory was not so coveted.

Labor is not always the key to success

Ilyas "Stephano" Satori was getting stronger every day, but his training was hardly grueling. Sitting behind a monitor for twelve hours, watching demos looking for errors, and cramming a hundred and forty clicks per minute to get better micro-control was not Ilies's thing. The guy only gave the game five hours in a day, and the rest of the time he was partying and enjoying life...

...And Stephano had 5 hours per game to grow his career. In the third season of IGN Pro League he showed decent results. On September 8, 2011 Iles announced that he would dedicate one more year fully to eSports, postponing going to university for one more year.

That same year Stephano discovered a new talent - provoking scandals. After taking the bronze medal at ASUS ROG Summer 2011, Iles "Stephano" Satori announced that he was flooded with offers from European teams. Suddenly everyone was eager to see the French player under their banner. But Stephano refused all the offers, staying loyal to his hometown team Millenium... ...But three days later another anecdote of life came out. Suddenly Stephano announced that he would play with the famous American team Complexity Gaming. Of course Millenium didn't like this joke and the management of the French team said unequivocally that Stephano is still in Millenium, accusing the managers of Complexity Gaming to misinform Stephano. The manager of Millenium offered Stephano to sign a contract with no expiration date while Complexity Gaming was accused of breaking the law. The General Manager of Complexity Gaming was shocked by such statements, because as it turned out later, the negotiations with Stephano had been going on for eighteen days. Everything was already decided, the player signed a contract...

How did Millenium and Stephano work it out? Both the organization and the player started to ignore the Complexity Gaming outrage as if nothing had happened. When the storm calmed down, the truth came out: Illyas and Millenium did not have an employment contract at the time, and the player was seduced by the exorbitant sums in Complexity Gaming's promises. Ilyas hoped that the new team would pay him a reasonable fee, but it turned out to be a war between the teams. Stephano had to pay for it. He paid a hefty compensation to Complexity Gaming, and Iles fell out of favor with Millenium.

Despite the scandal Stephano pulled himself together and managed to show the monster game in IPL 3 tournament. In the rookery, Ilyas had crazy stats: 64 wins vs. 1 loss. At the tournament Stephano played with a 17-5 statistic and won it triumphantly. In the final, Ilyas faced Korean Zerg Lucky and won 4-0.

One victory after another, Stephano got bored and had another scandal. At the final of the tournament Ilies was supposed to meet Michael "Kas" Gaida, but he refused to take part, because... You see, Stephano was too tired.

The Frenchman gave an ultimatum: if the match was not postponed, he would simply give up. Without waiting for an answer, Ilies withdrew. The organizers were shocked by Ilyas's caprice and put him in fourth place. And Stephano himself again apologized for his behavior on social media. But it was not the first and not the last time he refused to participate. In 2012, Illyes outdid himself and went to lunch during a mid-table match, and he took smaller tournament matches as a game for fun. "Arrogant, little asshole," as Stephano was called by Millenium's manager, Ilyas' own team manager. Why did Stephano lose his mind? The reason is as old as the world itself - the big money. In 2011 Ilyas was the richest non-Korean StarCraft II player at the age of 18.

At the beginning of 2012, Ilyas announced that he was extending his eSports career for another year. The GSL in Korea invited Stephano to another tournament, but he refused to play because he believed he would miss other tournaments. And it was true.

Iles "Stephano" Satori took third place at the Red Bull Battlegrounds, MLG Spring Arena. But the spotlight went to the Frenchman again. The incident happened at the DreamHack Summer car-party, where Illyes went on a binge, starting to go nuts right in the bar.

The same night, the violent cyber-sportsman was detained by the police and sent to the detox center.

Iles "Stephano" Satori has been in similar situations many times, but his winning streak hasn't stopped either. Eventually the moral swings wore him down, and he left professional StarCraft II and earned a prestigious college degree. Surprisingly, life has forgiven his favorite. Now Ilyas works as a director in an IT company.