Alicia in the finals of the 2012 MLG Summer Arena.

A week after this first major success, on July 27, TaeJa delivered another decisive performance for his team in the IPL Team Arena Challenge 3 (after his all-kill of team Prime in June). He was called as Liquid's ace as StarTale led 4-1, being one set away from victory, and achieved a 4-kill (defeating Life, Curious, Squirtle and Bomber) in order to overwhelm the South Korean team and send his own into the losers' bracket finals. Four days later, he carried Team Liquid in this latter match as well, achieving another 4-kill against SlayerS (defeating Genius, CoCa, Min and Puzzle) so that Liquid would make it to the grand finals. On August 2, TaeJa entered the Assembly Summer 2012as a favourite, being the reigning MLG champion and on an impressive win streak in team leagues.[10] He swiftly got past the group stages, defeating MaNa (the reigning DreamHack champion at the time) in the process. In quarterfinals, he met his teammate HerO, who had defeated him the two times they previously faced each other in competition, in the DreamHack Summer 2012 and in the 2012 MLG Summer Korean Invite-Only Qualifier. This time however, TaeJa was able to take the upper hand on his teammate, beating him 3-1 and proceeding to the semifinals. There, he bested ForGG on the same mark, and went to challenge MC for the title. The Protoss player, recent runner-up of the 2012 GSL Season 3, was eventually overwhelmed as TaeJa took the series