This Is How Fast Korean Starcraft Players Are

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The key to victory? Over 200 commands given per minute in Starcraft.

Portions of "The Hax Life", a documentary about professional gamers in Asia, show top Korean RTS gamers blazing over keyboards and mousepads. They are literally pressing keys at speeds faster than your average touch typer. RTS Gaming in the Republic of Korea is apparently a science, with top performers measuring their interface manipulation ability through "Actions per Minute", or APMs.

As defined by one gamer, APM is simply "the average rate of how quick[ly] your fingers move". More specifically, it's how many commands you can execute in one minute. A high APM indicates a preternatural ability to micro-manage units and resource gathering. Just how many APMs do you need to be a champion? "At least over [the] 200's and in the lower 300's."

Famous videos like Boxer's famous SCV rush show that speed is essential to victory on the virtual battlefield. The video of gamers tapping quickly on their keyboards and mice illustrate a scary ability to seize opportunities when they present themselves.

Rico Mossesgeld
Rico Mossesgeld
Contributing writer

Rico was a contributing writer at Tom's Guide. Based in the Philippines, Rico was plugged into the latest tech news to cover the latest future-gazing products and industry announcements. Rico no longer actively writes for Tom's Guide, and now works as a systems engineer. During his time at the site, he covered topics such as robotics, home office products and retro video games.

69 Comments Comment from the forums
  • insider3
    Pardon my French but... HOLY SH--!
    Reply
  • AMDnoob
    I'm impressed.. I suppose :\ Yeaahhhhh...
    Reply
  • rcarm
    I call hax.
    Reply
  • ubernoobie
    i've already known this, my friend averages 300apm during starcraft competitively. I get around 60 and we both enjoy it, btw my friend is not asian, hes white and has better apm than my korean friend that plays WoW
    Reply
  • kckrich
    OMG! I literally just use the mouse.... damn!
    Reply
  • eklipz330
    omggg holy crap this is as amazing as those dudes that can full combo TTFAF in guitar hero 3
    Reply
  • tacoslave
    he must have alot of lady friends with fingers like that
    Reply
  • montyp2000
    Yes, but can they play Crysis?
    Reply
  • lauxenburg
    I call them hitting a random combination of keys and then just taking a fast forwarded SC gameplay video on top....just saying.
    Reply
  • Mizoguchi
    Take a look at how fast Sea.Really or Jaedong or Flash play... they blow these guys out of the water.
    Reply