EPTPop quiz - who are the two strongest progamers right now?
![[image loading]](http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu142/Crunchums/both.jpg)
Flash and 
Jaedong, duh. Go look up any measure of Brood War prowess bet it Teamliquid's Power Ranking, Kespa Ranking, Elo rating, etc. and you'll find Flash and Jaedong at the top. The two of them are the two most dominant players of the modern era (post 
Bisu > sAviOr).+ Show Spoiler +
But while at times Jaedong has dominated, recently Flash has DOMINATED at a level previously unheard of in professional Starcraft. How is such dominance possible and why did Jaedong never achieve it? A quick answer would be that Flash is simply better than his opponents to a degree that Jaedong never was, but though there’s truth in that statement (Elo certainly bears it out) it’s also not the whole story. Let's take a look at the players themselves:
Flash
Simply put, Flash is really fucking good at Starcraft. He has the best Terran macro, micro, and multitasking in the world as well as a deep understanding of the game that lets him create and execute smart strategies. These strong fundamentals give Flash the extremely high base level of play that is the key to winning so consistently.
But although Flash's frequently hectic schedule prevents him from relying too much on preparation to outplay his opponents, when he is given time to prepare for a match there isn’t a noticeable improvement in his play. Aside from the occasional cheese, he tends to just play like he always plays:
Q: Was there a specific strategy you prepared.
Flash: There was no one, specific strategy. I came with the mindset of playing freestyle. Once I saw my opponent’s build, I planned on adjusting to that with proper timing. There’s no build that I had prepared but never got to use. I just went with my instincts from moment to moment.
- 2009 EVER OSL Finals Interviews
Flash: There was no one, specific strategy. I came with the mindset of playing freestyle. Once I saw my opponent’s build, I planned on adjusting to that with proper timing. There’s no build that I had prepared but never got to use. I just went with my instincts from moment to moment.
- 2009 EVER OSL Finals Interviews
Flash is good enough to get away with "freestyling" like this, but he has a tendency to just use his default build even when the map is ill-suited for it:
Q: How did you prepare for your match against Flash?
Midas: I don't worry that much about TvT and just do what I have to do. I think I started off very well and felt that Flash didn't prepare much for the map. When I saw that he started off with tanks instead of vultures, I felt he didn't understand the map that well. He like a style where he makes a lot of tanks and establishes territory but I think this map didn't really suit that kind of play. Because of all his tournaments, I think he didn't have much time to prepare.
- Hana Daetoo MSL Group B Winner’s Interview
Midas: I don't worry that much about TvT and just do what I have to do. I think I started off very well and felt that Flash didn't prepare much for the map. When I saw that he started off with tanks instead of vultures, I felt he didn't understand the map that well. He like a style where he makes a lot of tanks and establishes territory but I think this map didn't really suit that kind of play. Because of all his tournaments, I think he didn't have much time to prepare.- Hana Daetoo MSL Group B Winner’s Interview
Even when Flash has time to prepare for a series he still sometimes doesn't alter his play to fit the map. Because he's usually better than his opponent his best bet would be to try and make it to the midgame without a significant disadvantage, which makes it all the more frustrating for his fans when his cheeses fail or he gets punished for his greedy builds. Such builds often work for him, but with his skill level he really doesn't need them to win. At a minimum, it would behoove him to be less predictable and to do a better job of fitting his strategy to the map.
Jaedong
A typical description of Jaedong's playstyle centers on his aggressiveness. Jaedong certainly plays an aggressive style made all the more effective by his exceptional micro and mechanics, but what separates his style from that of other aggressive Zergs such as
Kwanro is how he smartly he employs his aggression.Jaedong doesn’t so much constantly attack as he constantly pokes for holes in which it would be advantageous to attack. The advantages of using this style are threefold:
1. Jaedong is extremely adept at finding weaknesses in his opponent’s defenses. No player gets more easy wins by punishing weak points in his opponents play.
2. When Jaedong pokes in with his units he's very good at quickly judging whether he has an opening and acting accordingly. It is rare to see Jaedong throw away units in a futile attack.
3. By forcing his opponents to focus so much on their defenses he impairs their own attacking capabilities - especially beneficial for a race that plays the role of the defender in both of its non-mirror matchups. Jaedong's management play is more than serviceable, but he rarely even needs it to win.+ Show Spoiler +
Here are two of my favorite examples of how smart Jaedong's aggression is:
http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/games/11721_fantasy_vs_Jaedong
Instead of trying to immediately break his opponent, Jaedong slowly wearsfantasy down with harassment and only engages when it favors him to do so.
http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/games/11572_Iris_vs_Jaedong
5 bases no sunkens? No problem if you're opponent can't leave his base.
http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/games/11721_fantasy_vs_Jaedong
Instead of trying to immediately break his opponent, Jaedong slowly wears
fantasy down with harassment and only engages when it favors him to do so.http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/games/11572_Iris_vs_Jaedong
5 bases no sunkens? No problem if you're opponent can't leave his base.
The fact that Jaedong plays statistically better in best of fives illustrates Jaedong’s second biggest strength: his ability to step up his game through preparation. When Jaedong prepares extensively for a series what he comes up with frequently has a lasting impact on Zerg strategy. But when it comes to dominance, Jaedong's genius preparation is a double edged sword - while it makes him the player with the best shot at defeating Flash in a best of five, it also makes him more vulnerable to being sniped in situations where his opponent has him vastly out-prepared.
Race and Dominance
Zerg, as a race, is just not as well equipped to dominate the professional scene compared to Terran. To be more precise: if it were somehow possible to create a player exactly as skilled with Zerg as Flash is with Terran, that player would win a lower percentage of his games than Flash. Similarly a Terran version of Jaedong would win a higher percentage of his games than Jaedong.
One basic reason for this is the luck based nature of the Zerg mirror. ZvZ is, in the words of Day[9], the hardest matchup in the game to win consistently; i.e. if two players with skill levels constant across all matchups play each other, ZvZ is the matchup in which the gap in wins will be the smallest. The end result is that it is easier to maintain a high winrate in TvT than in ZvZ. + Show Spoiler +
As an aside, ZvZ is my favorite matchup to play and its luck based nature makes Jaedong's at one point 80% winrate (currently 75%) all the more impressive. The biggest reason for his drop in dominance that matchup is probably due to other Zergs learning the matchup from watching him. Also people tend to exaggerate just how luck based ZvZ is; it’s not that extreme.
Secondly, although in general T > Z > P > T on the order of 55/45, in practice these slight imbalances favor Terran because quality Protoss players and Protoss players in general are the scarcest of the three races in the professional scene. + Show Spoiler +
I don't have any dramatic data to back this up (the Statisfaction section of this article provides a bit) but I'm sure that in their heart of hearts most Starcraft fans know it to be true. Even if it's not true across the board Flash and Jaedong’s match statistics bear it out - in Jaedong's last 40 games he has played against Protoss a mere three times, while Flash in the same 40 game window has faced Zerg 8 times. The recent removal of the race requirement in proleague will probably make this effect even more prominent over time.
More tellingly, in individual leagues Jaedong has played 36% of his games against Protoss and 42% against Terran while Flash has played 43% of his games against Zerg and 36% against Protoss.
More tellingly, in individual leagues Jaedong has played 36% of his games against Protoss and 42% against Terran while Flash has played 43% of his games against Zerg and 36% against Protoss.
Finally, cheese aside, TvP is a matchup more suited to being dominated than ZvT. In a standard ZvT, Zerg is constantly on the defensive but often relies on extremely thin margins. This dynamic makes Zerg exceedingly fragile as even the slightest slip in a Zerg’s defenses can mean the loss of an expansion or the game. Meanwhile, the Terran has nearly complete control over what kind of game they're going to play - Terran can choose mech, bio, valkonic, bachanic, etc. often transitioning between them in a blink, while Zerg must respond appropriately or lose. When it comes to bio ZvT, a single mistake in your defense is often fatal. I don't think I can put it better than Ver did (emphasis mine):
The general dynamic revolves around the Terran pressuring and attacking, while the Zerg strives to block these thrusts. Only in two points of the game, during the intial mutalisk phase and the lategame ultra/ling stage, does the Zerg have any reasonable kind of initiative. Even then, the Terran can still win control of the game with just one effective attack. That's simply the nature of bio TvZ.
On the other hand, the dynamics of TvP are completely reversed; TvP is simply a more stable matchup than ZvT. Terran can comfortably turtle until he decides to push out, and safety is mostly a matter of detection and tanks, a unit you want to build anyway, and your army composition is largely the same every game. When Flash plays his trademark turtle-style TvP he controls of the flow of the game to a degree Zerg players can only dream of in ZvT. This is not to say that the matchup is easy; knowing when to push in TvP is quite difficult. What it does mean is that if you are extremely skilled at TvP like Flash is then that skill translates into a win more frequently than if you were equally skilled in ZvT.
Conclusion
Together, all of these factors enable Flash to translate his skill into dominance more easily than Jaedong. Additionally, Flash’s higher base skill makes him better suited to dominating proleague and multiple starleagues simultaneously. At the end of the day it's silly to contextualize the achievements of these titans of Brood War - the results speak for themselves. I don't know if we'll ever know for sure which of the two of them is the better player but one thing is for sure; when it comes to the question of who is the current best player in the world, Flash and Jaedong the only two players in the conversation.
