Flash | |
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Lee Young-ho |
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Hangul | 이영호 |
Hanja | 李泳浩 |
Revised Romanization | I Yeong-ho |
McCune–Reischauer | Yi Yŏng-ho |
Lee Young-ho at 2012 Korea e-Sports Awards, on March 2, 2013
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|
Status | Active |
Born | 5 July 1992 |
Hometown | Daejeon, South Korea |
Nationality | South Korean |
Role | Terran |
League | Starleague, MSL, Proleague, GSL, MLG |
Nickname(s) | Flash, By.FlaSh, Final Boss |
2007 - 2015 | KT Rolster |
Lee Young-ho
Lee Young-ho (born 5 July 1992 이영호) is a South Korean retired StarCraft: Brood War and StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty player who played under the alias By.FlaSh or simply Flash. For his entire career, Lee Young-ho played for the Korean pro-gaming team KT Rolster. He retired in December 2015. He subsequently returned playing Starcraft: Brood War, and started his personal broadcast in February 2016 on the AfreecaTV personal broadcasting platform).
Lee joined KT Rolster in 2007 at the age of 14. He quickly established himself as a top player, carrying KT in the Proleague team competition and achieving fourth place in the 2007 Daum OnGameNet Starleague. The following year, he won the Bacchus OnGameNet Starleague, becoming the youngest player to win a premier Korean tournament - a record still unbroken. His career arose to new heights in the 2009-10 season, when he reached the finals of seven premier tournaments - every one held that season - and won five. Three of those victories were against Lee Jae-dong, a famous rival of Lee Young-ho and the second-best player of the time. These achievements have cemented him as one of the greatest players of all time.
When he first emerged as a professional gamer, Lee received criticism for his use of gimmicky "rush" strategies. However, he soon developed a versatile and well-rounded play style which revolved around strong mechanics, defensive play, and exemplary late-game army control. Choi Yeon-sung has praised Lee's strategic depth, saying that "there aren't many players who set strategic moves, and in the case of [Lee], I think he's looking about 10 games ahead." Lee is famous for coming back in games where he was at seemingly insurmountable disadvantages by playing defensive and exploiting small mistakes in his opponents' play to regain the advantage.
Lee Young-ho set numerous records in StarCraft: Brood War professional competition. He has both the highest career win-lose ratio and highest peak ELO of any player, at 71.74% and 2443 respectively. He has won six OnGameNet Starleague (OSL) and MBCGame StarCraft League (MSL) tournaments (a record shared by only one other player), and won four of those in twelve months (a record unmatched). He has also won the most number of games in the Proleague competition and has done so with the highest win-lose ratio of any player.