EPTAh well, that's life, there are something like four major leagues of Broodwar for those guys to watch, all in Korean. But for real though, Starcraft II is the biggest eSports market of all time, and we need a real power ranking from someone who knows the game. That's where I come in.
Who am I? I'm a staff writer for ROOT-Gaming.com, and have been since late last year, and a mid-Diamond level Protoss player. Although I spend a lot of my time following ROOT and supporting the leagues that they're in (IGN Proleague fighting!), I also spend a ton of time watching the other NA players play and keeping up on the extremely dynamic scene in Europe, and occasionally write relevant analysis and talk about eSports with the guys. I've been a competitive gamer since the 1990's, starting with Smash Bros. Melee, and continuing onto Smash Bros. Brawl and various fighters and hosting/attending tournaments in the Las Vegas area, and in the meantime I achieved a baller C- rank on ICCup in BW before transitioning to SCII, though I didn't play much at all. I generally watch every match of the NASL and IGN Proleague, catch up on the finals of major lans, and spend a few hours each week hunting up replays and must watch games for the ROOT Weekly, alongside watching ROOT's streams, IdrA's and White-Ra's when they're on, and my other favorites (I'm a closet Stalife fan). I know a lot of you are hardcore stream-watchers and professional critics, but if you watch more Starcraft than me, then you really need to get a life. I also play fairly often and FF Zergs because its imbalanced. This is my Power Rank.
North America:
North America is the scene that I'm far and away most familiar with. ROOT, my team, is exclusive to North America and my teammates interact on the NA ladder daily. As such, I have pretty grave misgivings about the players that I'm leaving out of this Power Rank. A notables are also absent; for instance, LiquidHuk rarely attends North American events, despite being considered the best NA player for all of his stint in Korea. Minigun has been winning like 70% of the stuff he enters, but its against people that are kind of not that good, so I have no metric with which to judge him. For this reason, I've included some honorable mentions, but sufficed to say a lot of people hover around the 8-10 mark; I went with the more established players in this power rank.
1. KiWiKaKi - ROOT Gaming
At MLG Dallas, KiWiKaKi 2-0'd literally half of the contenders for this NA Power rank, and was the only player to take a game off of recently on-fire dignitas.Naniwa. He placed second at that event, and recently rocked a few other big names in great games, such as MorroW in the NASL and Stalife and AxSlav in the IGN Proleague. KiWi literally is the scariest player in the North American scene. KiWi's record is tarnished, however, by an 0-2 to Fenix where he might've pulled out both games, Fenix's play-from-behind Tank-based counters threw KiWi off completely. Am I biased? Did you SEE KiWi blink over his own vortex and snipe MorroW's broodlords? Did you see him roll IdrA and army trade SeleCT half a dozen times and somehow come out on top at Dallas?
2. SeleCT - Dignitas
Holy crap, SeleCT is a beast. Easily my favorite Terran to watch and cheer for. His TvZ is among the best in the world, aggressive and marine-heavy, comparable to IMMvP of olde, and the only thing keeping him from topping this ranking is his losses to a few top Protoss, namely Naniwa and KiWiKaKi at Dallas, but rumor has it that he's working on that as well
I expect for SeleCT not to leave the top three of this power rank for a long, long time.3. IdrA - Evil Geniuses
IdrA is still disgustingly good and what's scary is that he's getting better. He mauled Drewbie in the Proleague with some sick Neural Parasites, almost never loses to his own teammates. IdrA is still the most consistent North-American killer in the international scene, slaying Huk in a fit of unlikely revenge at Dallas, Drewbie in the IGN Proleague, and running things on the North American ladder. To his discredit he doesn't have any record of winning big events aside from MLG way back in last year, and despite rarely losing to the same thing twice he always finds a way to make himself look awful when he does lose.
I'd also like to take a moment to add that the top three here on this power rank are in a class of their own, in that they never miss production cycles and can outrun just about anyone in heavy macro games, have a variety of thoroughly refined openings and flawless transitions, and their compositions and maneuvers are researched and well executed. Any of the above could beat the other two on any given day. They also compete on and above the level of international stars like White-Ra, TLO and MorroW, and while most of North America is right behind them, it seems like NA players are just missing that ability to make the sandwich the a little bit better every time, you know?
4. iNControL - Evil Geniuses
EG.iNControL has been a name for quite some time, and has some of the best training buddies in the world on his team. But what really surprised me is that recently, he's taken out a lot of big names, and before you say proxy pylon 4 gate my arsehole, he won his extended series against TLO 4-2 at Dallas; that's four wins against TLO before TLO could reciprocate three of his own, and that doesn't happen often. He also took the lead against ROOTSLush. Then again... TLO has been playing great but he's not on the crazy level that he used to be, SLush is a ZvZ machine, and oGsEnsnare and coLCruncher aren't the proudest 2-1's anyone has ever had, though he did show his skill, builds and control in both series. He was also eliminated by his teammate AxSlav and by skilled player Spades in the IGN Proleague, and hasn't really participated or laddered outside of that notably due to the time commitments of the NASL. No major blunders; I'd say that iNControL (in typical EG style) is a consistent executor of good builds and micro but is often outplayed or finds himself taking a risk with not enough chips to cover his bases. His performance this month, and by that I mean he's beaten a lot of good dudes and placed really good at MLG, gives him the nod for the number 4 spot.
5. SLush - ROOT Gaming
There's quite a few people that would say that Drewbie is the go-to #2 of ROOT Gaming. I'm inclined to agree sometimes, but this month in particular, aside from his amazing, amazing series against Boxer in the NASL (go watch nao) Drew hasn't performed up to his name; more on that later. SLush, however, sits 2-0 in the NASL and did great at MLG Dallas, losing a close series against Moonan in the championship losers bracket but avenging himself in the NASL against Moonglade and Haypro. Its rather unfortunate that he doesn't play more tournaments because he's crazy good. He sits coolly around rank 20 in Grandmasters and I think we'd all like to see him attend more events, but recently he's just been tearing it up on the ladder and in the NASL with creative and aggressive play, great drone and expansion timing and usually just a lot of roaches and lings. I'd take him as the favorite against anyone below him on this list, pretty handily against some like Sheth, Fenix and CatZ.
6. Cruncher - Complexity
Ok, so it had to happen. Cruncher has to appear on this power ranking, because he's taken so many heads and done so well in the TSL, is pulling in great numbers on the ladder, and is holding his own in the NASL. Sure, he's the most boring and corny Protoss we've ever seen, but if the world can't wrap their heads around his style, then the world doesn't get to push Cruncher off the power ranking, simple as that. And honestly, he's underestimated; he doesn't make mistakes often, he was apparently quite good at Warcraft III, and now he's quite good at Starcraft II. He's just not flashy and he's riding the Protoss wave in ways that players like LiquidTyler are not, and getting the wins that other great players should be getting. 2-1 against IdrA and 3-1 against MonDragon: not a fluke. He also beat KiWiKaKi on the way in to the TSL with some grade A cheese. That might've been a fluke, but his PvZ and PvP are really no joke and he sports high winrates in both categories against high level international players.
7. Sheth - FXOpen
Ok, so I'm not really sure what's going on here. Sheth, after playing for ROOT and switching to rapidly improving international team FXO and doing great, dropped off the radar and is now back and playing... boring as fuck. But he was rocking an absurd winrate in Grandmaster league and is now 3-0 in the NASL. But he dies first round of the IGN Proleague. No doubt this guy is really good, if a bit standoffish, but so far he's only taken out only the weakest members of his group: Artosis, Rainbow and Grubby. Well, Grubby isn't bad by any means, Sheth just managed to sneak some lings in there, but we're all waiting to see how he handles KiWiKaKi, Fenix and Moon in that dangerous group. Plus, if Artosis would learn to attack move when he has a giant army lead instead of trying to "get more ahead," Sheth would be the only player I know in recent memory to have lost a game to Artosis. But then again, that's probably why nobody I know has lost a game in recent memory to Artosis.
8. TT1 - FnaticMSI
TT1 grabs the number 8 spot, previously sitting at number four after ripping off heads in the GSL World Championship. Then he literally sat there, bouncing back and fourth between tank rounds in the NASL. Pretty sure he just forgot to get charge and didn't have a good read on his position, but those games against SjoW were quite painful to watch. Especially considering Fenix is your practice partner! All that fool do is tanks! Still his mechanics are on the top level of NA players and despite his mistakes, I think we'll see Payam topple Cruncher and Sheth and take the throne as most improved next month. I hope.
9. Fenix - FnaticMSI
Ok so Fenix is a perennial powerhouse, he blooms and then he fades. He's out of the IPL, put up a great showing at MLG but then lost to Pokebunny of all people, lost to teammate and international badass Sen 0-2, and then goes on to convincingly 2-0 KiWiKaKi in the NASL, and then 2-1 against Grubby and 2-0 again against ViBE (who failed pretty hard). What? Compound that with his being kind of off the radar since like last December and all I'm sure of is that Fenix has the endurance to play a ton of high level games against really good players and occasionally pull out some crazy tank shit and lay on the hurt.
10. CatZ - ROOT Gaming
CatZ has taken this month off of managing his team and semi-trolling the ladder to get good at trying hard. He still has his arsenal of CatZ builds, as he proxy hatch'd Agh in the IPL, and is holding up in the NASL as well. His macro has been improving considerably, his control was always amazing, he's pretty cheese-proof, and he received a huge personal buff with the improvement to infestors, which he was going to use anyway. His ZvZ is gross now and has scaled with SLush's, his ZvT has scaled greatly from Drewbie and Fenix practice and he absolutely killed Spades in the IPL, his ZvP has always been kind of a weakpoint but recently very consistent, and on his "ROOTWeWin" account, his new account for ladder games, sits at almost a 70% winrate, rivaling the top GM players in the world. He's still not on IdrA's level of mechanics, and this placing is probably going to come back to bite me in the ass for being a ROOT fanboy, but no, CatZ has gotten really, really good in this tournament season, with his only notable loss in the NASL coming from zerg-slayer dignitas.SeleCT. He's also proving he can put up numbers against people that aren't NA players, beating ESCGoody 2-0, who will, if you remember, defeated Nestea quite recently and is no slouch TvZ.
Honorable Mentions
AxSlav - Evil Geniuses
AxSlav is beyond good. He plays at a medium, steady pace, with great control and timings and thought-out builds. Unfortunately, he is cursed by the bracket gods and the PvP dice roll gods to forever have to play against amazing players. In the IPL he swept Sheth and put up a good fight against KiWiKaKi before crushing teammate iNControL in losers. But somehow, he didn't qualify for NASL, which I think is a bit of a crime considering the show that a few players have been putting up. However, in the meantime, he's won half a dozen showmatches against top players from ROOT Gaming, almost took out SjoW in a showmatch, took second at a recent tournament to SixJax standout DDE. In fact, looking around, AxSlav has been literally beasting everything that's not super-mainstream SCII and doesn't involve the other people on this power rank. Fearsome for sure and not to be underestimated, I hope he can find more time to beast more stuff this coming month, as he's one of my favorite Protoss to watch. When writing this ranking, I asked myself if he could beat CatZ, and I think the answer is no, or maybe in a Bo3 with a little luck, but I think CatZ is the stronger candidate, and Drewbie is left out besides.
Tyler - Team Liquid
I think the only really good victory Tyler has in recent memory is his NASL win vs. Drewbie. Other than that it's all losses all the time for this former favorite, and on the whole I just don't see his name much as far as entering events. He's still really really good though; where did you go, NonY?
Drewbie - ROOT Gaming
Drewbie is still ridiculously good, but it seems that well, er... everyone else got good too. He put up the best TvT I've ever seen that lost when he played Boxer. He put up a good fight against NonY but got DT'd, and lost to IdrA and teammate Minigun in the IPL. He steamrolled his group sans Naniwa at MLG to lose the first game on the next day and not make the money. Drops are becoming less cost effective and with infestors on the field, aggressive TvZ is no longer a free win. Still, Drewbie takes out the trash relentlessly, and doesn't lose to people outside of his top-25 calibur of play, and is feared on an international level moreso than CatZ, TT1 or Fenix. But this month we haven't seen it from him like we usually do. It feels like people have a read on him, or he's slipping on banana peels and then his opponents are there to capitalize with large clubs and duct tape.
DDE and Terran - SixJax
I haven't seen much of either of these two Terran players, but apparently they're both really super good. For up-and-comers. Terran won something big pretty recently but is surrounded by a bee's nest of drama and is not invited to the major leagues, which is a bit rude. DDE is putting up a great fight from an underdog position in the NASL. Both are doing great on ladder, and both players will be competitors for spots that open up in the power rank if they continue to perform, but for now I'm sticking to the tried and true names.
EU Power Rank coming some time this week. Who's #1? I won't say, but I will say Special Tactics are involved. Take that, suspense!
