EPT
1. IMMvP
This is an easy pick, IMO. There is no doubt that MVP is the best player in the world; people have been saying that this guy is amazing since before GSL season 2. His "weak" matchup seems to be TvP, but, let's be honest, even that isn't weak. He has defeated the best players in the world of all races multiple times, and he only dropped one game to his teammate Nestea during his GSL championship win. He looked flawless in his demolition of Marineking's bio style TvT in the finals, and he performed exceedingly well during the GSTL as well.
2. IMNesTea
The best Zerg in the world, hands down, is Nestea. He has not dropped a ZvZ game in tournament play, EVER, as far as I know. Last GSL he cruised through undefeated until he had to play the Game Genie, his teammate MVP. His macro is phenomenal, and his micro is pretty sick too. He has the best understanding of the game of arguably any pro player currently in the field. His experience as a coach for KT, and his time with
players like Flash and nal_rA has definitely given him an edge in gamesense and decision making in SC2. The only player I would believe is capable of winning a best of 7 against Nestea is MVP.
3. MarinekingPrime.WE
Although I think his TvT style is beatable quite easily in its current state, I think MKP deserves this spot more than other players for several reasons. I will outline some of the reasons in following ranks for the other players for why they aren't here instead, but here I will discuss why MKP deserves this rank.
Marineking is arguably the most stylistic player who currently plays Starcraft, both in BW and in SC2. In some ways, his TvT can draw parallels to Bisu's PvZ. Both players do things that no other player could do to win. Both players rely strongly on mobility and timing, as opposed to turtling or using high-cost high-efficiency hard hitter units. Both players are also pretty boys with their
respective fan girls :p Marineking has shown consistency throughout his matchups since GSL2. He's the only player to have made the finals twice, and he is still one of the scariest Terrans in both TvZ and TvT. His play is so stylistic that it forces others to play differently, and it's clearly downed many good players because of their lack of familiarity with the kind of things MKP does. For now, though, MKP has some work ahead of him to refine his play so that he is not the first SC2 silver surfer.
4. oGsMC Number 4 was a hard choice to make. There are things about MC's play that could merit moving him up to 3, and there are things that could justify moving him to 5. However, I strongly feel that MC is still an incredibly strong Protoss, and quite easily the best Protoss right now. Recently he hasn't done as well as his GSL3 performance, and even his PvT has shown holes as exemplified by TOP's 4-0 of MC during Kaspersky last month. Jinro, likewise, caught MC off guard twice and redeemed himself with mech. Even so, MC still looks incredibly strong. During the GSTL he showed both his brilliance and weakness against IM. His defense of Seed's PvP cheese was very clutch, but his build against MvP was very questionable. It'll be interesting to see how MC performs this month in the GSL: will he be shown to be slumping, or will he prove all his haters wrong and rip apart all of his opponents? We can only wait to see what becomes of the Kratos Protoss.
5. Liquid'Jinro
Jinro captured the hearts and minds of SC2 players around the world by stomping MC not once, but twice with mech last month. He then continued on to defeat Idra 3-1 to make the round of 4 twice in a row, proving for everyone that the Gorilla Terran doesn't need luck; he relies on pure muscle. Yet, Jinro has shown to us that he doesn't just year through his opponents with sheer force alone. His micro shows delicate finesse that isn't even seen among players who have seen better results. His banshee micro in his group game against MKP was the work of an artisan. Unfortunately, Jinro showed that he isn't invulnerable by losing to MKP in the RO4. While this is nothing to be ashamed of, the lack of scouting and the psychological unawareness were the primary reasons MKP was able to beat out Jinro. Jinro should have won that series, in my opinion, but the basic errors he committed force me to place him lower than MC and MKP. Hopefully Jinro can continue to show consistency and strength, and prove to me that this placement is too low.
6.oGsTOP
The Code A winner from last season has performed brilliantly in the past two months. First was his performance during the Kaspersky New Year's invitational, where he defeated his teammates Zenio and MC quite handily. He was also clearly the player to beat during the Code A tournament, with the 4-3 finals against Byun being one of the most entertaining and high level TvTs we've seen yet. We didn't get to see his play much during the GSTL, as IMSeed used a tricky build to catch him off guard, but I hope to see more of his play during this upcoming GSL. He is in a moderately difficult group with Nada, Hongun, and TheBest, but I think he is still the strongest player in that group.
7. EGIdra
The Gracken performed really well in GSL last season, reaching the round of 8 with Jinro despite having to play such names as CheckPrime.WE, TSL_Clide, NSPGenius, and oGsNada. He 3-0ed his RO16 group and quite easily demonstrated that he is a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, who knows) Idra is returning to the U.S. and we will not see a rematch between him and Clide next season.
Hopefully Idra will still be able to deliver here in North America (NASL anyone?) and will someday return to Korea to own up his opponents.
8. ST.Squirtle
Holy shit. If you haven't seen ST vs IM, go and grab your favorite snack and go watch that. In a best of 9 series, Squirtle was called forth to do away with MVP, and boy did he deliver. In what was the best PvT in SC2 I've ever seen, Squirtle and MVP took turns in trading blows over and over for an incredible amount of time. When the dust settled, Squirtle was the winner. This guy has shown that he can compete with the best of the best right now. He has displayed innovation, solid mechanical play, excellent macro, micro, decision making, and everything else under the sun. I nearly cried tears of joy when he chose to use a hallucinated Phoenix to warp in DTs on the high ground. Squirtle is one of the rising players in Korea right now, and hopefully we'll see his true potential in the Code A tournament this month.
9. White-Ra
While it's nearly impossible to make a comparison between White-Ra and the players who compete in the GSL, credit is due to this man.
White-Ra has been on fire recently, earning tons of cash and defeating big names on the European server in the process. He's defeated the likes of Naniwa and Morrow, and clearly he is one of the strongest players in SC2 right now, at least in terms of results. Hopefully we'll see White-Ra in Korea soon, where he may be able to display how good he truly is.
10. Liquid'HuK
Number 10 was honestly the hardest to choose among all of the excellent players on the scene right now. I narrowed down my choice to ST.Ace and HuK, and ultimately chose HuK because of his long-term ladder success, praise among teammates, and his overall level of pimp. HuK is the Pimp Protoss. He bitch slaps his opponents with his superb micro, and he has shown to us that he is capable of hanging with the likes of Nestea and Idra on the ladder. Unfortunately right now it looks like HuK is struggling with PvP, but I feel that his true potential will be seen in the Code A tournament later this month. I will be highly shocked if he doesn't make it to at least the round of 8, if not the finals. His ladder success and the games he streams suggest that he can definitely make it very far.
Close, but no cigar:
ST.Ace
Ace played really well during the GSTL recently, but we need to see more of him to know how he stacks up against the rest of these guys. Ace holds a special place in my heart, as I am an avid poker fan. On a different day, maybe tomorrow, I would have perhaps placed Ace at 10. However, something tells me HuK is more deserving of that position.
ST.Bomber
Bomber is the guy who is most recently known for the ST player who almost killed MVP. By all means, he should've lost to Losira, who paid full price for being too cocky, and he should've won vs MvP, but threw the game. A lot of talk has been going around about Bomber for a couple of months now, but his two games in the GSTL showed why he is an underachiever in terms of results: he plays well, but I don't know if there's really any significant justification or evidence for him being placed among the players on the list.
LeenockfOu
WTF Leenock? Y u no play in GSTL? Something has to be up with this guy. I wasn't convinced by his play in GSL4, and this young guy clearly has some stuff to learn. His performances in GSL2 and 3 were commendable, but that was too long ago to consider seriously now. There has to be a reason why the fOu coach decided not to pick Leenock against ST, and I have a feeling it's because Leenock hasn't been doing so well lately. Better luck next time.
The entirety of TSL
damn it Tester, stop throwing games away, and you'd be among the best Protoss. Instead you constantly underachieve because your decisionmaking, like your teammate, Fruitdealer, has been garbage as of late. Fruitdealer, why all the all-ins? Cut it out! Clide...cliiiiiide...I realize you're highly esteemed by Tastosis, but you gotta show some results. Sangho, you too.
Shoutouts
All the EU players
This includes Morrow, Naniwa, Sjow, Ret, TLO, etc. Unfortunately it's so hard to compare you to the Koreans that I only took liberty in including White-Ra cause he's been winning so much lately.
Incontrol
this is mostly just because you're an announcement whore and you've been doing a lot of good awesome coaching. Yay.
That's all for now. What do you all think? How would you place players? Who's going to move up and who's going to go down?
Feel free to call me a noob if you strongly disagree with anything I've put up here.
