Chan-hee "sale" Kim is a Korean main tank currently playing for the Chicago Orion. They are widely known for their successes across multiple esports titles.

Biography

Kim first entered esports as “Juke,” a professional Brood Wars player for Mderate in 2008. Though Kim never quite reached the highest echelon of play in the esport, they still won acclaim for their unorthodox use of Valkyrie units against Mutalisk harassment (before such strategy was commonplace) and playful mind games.

In 2010, Kim left MDRT to join WWWinner and compete in Korea’s first open qualifier LAN for League of Legends. With Kim as their ADC, W3 trounced its competition in resounding fashion, leading Kim to be signed to SkyShot Esports’ American LoL roster as a support. SkyShot found great success during this period, making a name for themselves as a top team in NA and a serious competitor for upcoming World Championships. Kim gained notoriety as a scout, often predicting and endorsing many amateurs that would become well-known in the future, including the now-famous Hye-soo “MOYA” Yoon. In July 2014, a mere two months before SSE was set to compete in Worlds, Kim parted ways with the team in order to complete their military service. They have never publicly stated a reason for this early departure.

Early Overwatch

After completing their military service, Kim legally changed their first name to Chan-hee and reemerged in esports as “sale” in mid-2016. Their return was greeted with great excitement from fans and pros alike— sale would surely be a fantastic addition to any roster looking for experienced leadership. Having proved their skill as a strong main tank in early unofficial tournaments and LANs, they were quickly signed by the brand new organization Igni Astra as its captain and founding member. On their recommendation, Igni Astra also signed Hyun-je “goyangi” Lim and Min-ki “kitian” Yang, at the time two unknown and inexperienced talents. Under their leadership, Igni Astra showed promise in early minor tournaments and secured themselves a place as well as a championship in Korea's first premier tournament series, SUMMiT.

Sale’s unpredictable Reinhardt play led Igni Astra to a resounding victory in SUMMiT Split 1 Finals, seeing them and match MVP Sang-min “fleck” Min crowned as the best tank duo in the world. When the retirement of Ki-seok “Laner” Lee forced the team into compositional and role switches, the duo struggled to play the more passive style necessitated by their unorthodox solo support composition. sale found their footing once again in Split 4’s brand-new zen-lucio dive meta, recapturing the flashy high tempo style they had been known for in early Overwatch and netting Igni Astra a remarkable 8 maps out of 11 in the Split’s second group stage as well as a third place finish in playoffs. Along with the majority of Igni Astra, sale signed to the Chicago Orion for FOWL’s inaugural season in 2018.

FOWL

Sale was largely invisible across FOWL’s inaugural season, garnering neither praise nor criticism as the Orion grappled with internal and roster issues. Though their performance had taken a significant dip since SUMMiT, many analysts argued this to be the result of “main tank syndrome”— a truism stating that on unsuccessful teams, main tanks will always look worse than they are due to how heavily the role relies on the rest of the team. It was expected that they would retire during the offseason due to multiple comments they had made onstream. However, the Orion announced that sale would remain as the team’s captain (along with only two other players from the team’s original roster) for the 2019 season.

Trivia

• Sale is a longtime friend and mentor to Dae-oon "DeoS" Choi, dating back to their days in League of Legends in 2012.
• Sale has revealed that they never play on alt accounts in competitive.
• Their favorite color is mint green.
• Though they don't play it often, sale is said to still be able to maintain Challenger ranking in competitive LoL.
• As a result of their time spent in the U.S. on SkyShot, sale speaks fluent English and aims to improve their Chinese in order to connect better with their international fanbase.
• Sale has a restraining order out against Killeen "LuckyCat" Okidate, meaning that the two cannot compete in the same venue. Despite this, sale is quoted as saying that they are "on good terms with LuckyCat" and "[they are] proud to have inspired such a generational talent," but that "[they] do use [their] email for things that matter so she does need to cut that [stuff] out.”

Achievements

References

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