Chinese StarCraft player Li Peinan scores historic win against all odds

The popular computer game StarCraft has a new world champion, and it’s a player no one could have expected.

IEM Katowice 2023, one of the biggest tournaments on the StarCraft 2 calendar, will forever be remembered for the performance of Lǐ Péinán 李培楠, who plays under the tag “Oliveira.” Li entered the three-day tournament as the 15th-ranked player in the world, having never won a major StarCraft 2 tournament in his life. He left Katowice, Poland as the toast of the esports world.

During the grand finals on Sunday, Li was pitted against Cho Seong, a.k.a. Maru, who is known as one of the greatest StarCraft 2 players of all time, and currently ranked No. 1. Li dropped the first map in the best four-out-of-seven series, but then rallied to win four straight. With each map win, he pumped his fists — an uncharacteristically expressive celebration for most StarCraft pros — with visible excitement and delight.

“This is insane,” Nick “Tasteless” Plott said from the commentator’s seat after Li’s third map win. “This might be the biggest upset finals in StarCraft 2 history.”

After his 4-1 victory, in front of an IEM Expo arena packed with gaming enthusiasts, Li told the crowd while struggling to fight back his tears, “Nothing is impossible. If I can win the world championship, then nothing is impossible.”

Li Peinan, who plays StarCraft 2 under the name Oliveira (nee TIME), just won #iemkatowice, the largest @StarCraft event of the year. This is the first time a Chinese player is world champion in #sc2—a 13-yr-old RTS that is still the finest esport—and it's amazing how he did it: pic.twitter.com/gLtvs3MMuO

— Anthony Tao (@anthonytao) February 15, 2023

Li achieved more than a trophy and $150,000 in prize money. The 22-year-old Chinese player, who was formerly known as “TIME,” just became the first person from the country to win a major international tournament in StarCraft, a hugely successful real-time strategy game franchise owned by Activision Blizzard — a company that just had an ugly falling-out with Chinese game company NetEase.

“Oliveira has been well known in the StarCraft 2 scene for many years,” Dan “Artosis” Stemkoski, a prominent figure in the StarCraft community and a pioneer in esports casting, told The China Project. “He’s been China’s best player since at least 2019, and maybe even a bit before that. That being said, it was a gigantic upset.”

Li’s journey was indeed unlikely. He barely made it out of his group during the Round of 24, and then faced a gauntlet of opponents in the knockout phase of the tournament.

“He’s been considered a mid-tier pro gamer for years. Able to have decent results, but never expected to win a major tournament or even get out of the group stage very often,” Stemkoski said. “The crazy part about his run is who he beat to get there. After barely escaping his group and entering into the round of 12, he had one of, if not the hardest, run in tournament history.”

Before facing Maru, Li beat Gabriel Raffaele “HeRoMaRinE” Segat, the No. 1 European Terran player. He then edged out Riccardo “Reynor” Romiti, the 2021 IEM Katowice champion and one of the best Zergs in the world, in a series that went to a decisive final map. And then in the semifinals, he beat Kim “herO” Joon-ho, the best Protoss player in the world.

In the finals, Li played a mirror matchup against Maru, who is universally regarded as the best Terran in the world. You couldn’t fault Maru for underestimating Oliveira and going with standard builds to try to push each game into the later phases. But Oliveira played aggressively, and consistently won small skirmishes that gave him early-game advantages.

After winning 4-1, cheers of “Oliveira” broke out in the venue. “I just tell myself, it doesn’t matter,” he said in the interview afterwards about facing Maru. “If you’re world champion or maybe not world champion. I just love StarCraft 2. And I enjoy this game.”

“On this run he didn’t just barely beat these players or get lucky, he really outplayed everyone heavily,” Stemkoski said. “This was the biggest underdog run ever in 24 years of StarCraft history.”

The winning moment ~#Oliveira wins #IEM Katowice and is your 2023 @StarCraft World Champion!#IEM #ESLProTour pic.twitter.com/DdWS5lm51Q

— ESL StarCraft 2 (@ESLSC2) February 12, 2023

StarCraft is a military sci-fi real-time strategy (RTS) game franchise. In 1v1 competition, players must manage an in-game economy to build a base and train armies to defeat their opponent. With three races — Terran, Protoss, and Zerg — the game requires players to weigh hundreds of options at any given moment and make strategic choices in a fast-changing environment. The original game, launched in 1998, is often credited with launching the global esports industry. Its long-awaited sequel, StarCraft 2, was released in 2010, quickly attracting millions of players worldwide. It has been called “real-time chess” and has inspired mainstream sports media coverage, novels, academic papers, and artificial intelligence research.

Known as a StarCraft prodigy in China, Li made a name for himself at the age of 14 when he borrowed an adult player’s identity to enter a domestic tournament, where he defeated a professional player. After being scouted by Beijing-based esports club Zenith of Origin (ZOO), Li started competing in high-level Chinese StarCraft tournaments in 2016, and quickly reached the top. In recent years, Li has shifted his focus to international tournaments, spending most of his time training and playing abroad.

Li’s historic win at IEM Katowice is particularly impressive considering that his 2022 was defined by a series of losses. At the beginning of this year, Li changed his game tag to “Oliveira,” paying homage to his favorite Brazilian UFC fighter and world champion Charles Oliveira. In an interview after the win, Li revealed that to adequately prepare for the tournament, he took a hiatus from social media for six months and devoted 12 to 15 hours every day to playing StarCraft 2.

I'm not cry-OK, I'M CRYING! 🥹🥹

What a moment to have witnessed! pic.twitter.com/lWW8xXZXQX

— ESL StarCraft 2 (@ESLSC2) February 12, 2023

His grind paid off. “I never thought I could be a world champion,” Li said. “Even now, I’m afraid that tomorrow when I wake up, it’s like a dream.”

Later, switching to Chinese and through tears, he said, “I’ve waited for this world championship for too long. Last year was incredibly tough. I thought StarCraft 2 was over for me. But I kept telling myself that I can practice more, practice more, and if I ever eventually win a world championship, I can prove my worth to everyone.”

The victory came at an interesting time, with Chinese StarCraft players still grieving over the shutdown of Blizzard servers in the country. In January, seven Blizzard titles — including StarCraft 2 — went offline in China after the U.S. game developer broke up with its longtime Chinese partner. It’s still unclear when the affected games will return to the country.

“The server shutdowns probably don’t and won’t affect Oliveira much,” Stemkoski said. “He’s so much better than anyone else in China, and he mainly practices with the best Korean and European players. All top Chinese pros know how to use VPNs to get connections to wherever they want to play.

“The biggest problem with the servers being down is that any new people who may want to try the game in China have no easy way to do it. StarCraft 2 will potentially miss out on a huge influx of new players.”

On Chinese social media, there was jubilation after Li’s win, especially among fans who stayed up until 5 a.m. to watch live (here is a Chinese stream of the game). “I waited 20 years for this moment,” wrote Huáng Xùdōng 黄旭东, a famous StarCraft commentator in China, on Sina Weibo. “Today I can finally stick up my chin and tell everyone: We have a world champion who plays StarCraft, the most difficult game in the world.”