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With the first major victory for a foreigner at a tournament where serious, mid to top-level Koreans are competing, it seems that the gap between foreigners is making real, tangible progress towards closing. Say what you want about HuK's training schedule in Korea, but he's not the only foreigner that did well today.
Just three months ago, people were questioning whether a foreigner would ever win an MLG. Hell, some people were betting against any foreigners making the top 6 for the rest of the year. It's true that Koreans still disproportionally represent the top of the championship bracket, but it really doesn't seem that far out of reach anymore.
If IdrA and HuK can get top 4 at MLG, I have no doubt that Naniwa, Thorzain, and other foreigners at the top level can go to Korea and maybe even make a GSL finals someday.
And lose to whichever IM player decides to win it this time, but that's what Koreans do too.
 
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Smix
United States4549 Posts
slasher = kim carrier of sc2
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who is this slasher guy anyways? never heard of him till today
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On October 17 2011 12:57 Roe wrote:
who is this slasher guy anyways? never heard of him till today
former quake player turned esports advocate who hates being called zlasher.
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slasher is the opposite of the artosis curse.
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I think partially it really might be that they're starting to catch up on practice, but also there was a fair amount of overlap between IEM, the redbull lan for some people, training for IPL, and then immediately going to MLG. Basically, there hasn't been any time for people to "get worse", or slump, from not playing as much...because they've effectively been forced to play a lot against a high amount of competition consistently. I think for any season this will probably end up being true; the later in the season we get, the more we'll see foreigners improve, because they're forced to play closer to a korean schedule just from the tournaments.
At the same time though, I wouldn't say that the gap has decreased at all really. When a decent amount of foreigners can go toe to toe with MKP and Bomber...maybe. But right now it's too much of an achievement to even knock a single game off of them, except for people like HuK and Idra and...idk who else really, and it's just because they're monsters in thier own right and actually DO train crazy hard and are dedicated as hell.
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forget him, he will only make you angry if you look into him
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[Spoilers incoming]
IdrA beating Bomber (especially game one... best TvZ I've ever seen) made me incredibly happy. Stephano, IdrA, HuK, Thorzain, and Naniwa have all kicked ass in the foreigner vs. Korean scene, and I'm confident that these players can continue to do so!
When someone takes down MVP or Nestea though... that will be when the world stops turning 
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On October 17 2011 13:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:[Spoilers incoming] IdrA beating Bomber (especially game one... best TvZ I've ever seen) made me incredibly happy. Stephano, IdrA, HuK, Thorzain, and Naniwa have all kicked ass in the foreigner vs. Korean scene, and I'm confident that these players can continue to do so! When someone takes down MVP or Nestea though... that will be when the world stops turning
MVP and Nestea have the luxury of us only seeing them in 1 tournament (other than when MVP roflstomped MLG real quick). I would love to see MVP and Nestea dominate as hard playing as often and as publicly (including replays being everywhere) as almost any other pro.
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On October 17 2011 13:03 LuckyFool wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2011 12:57 Roe wrote:
who is this slasher guy anyways? never heard of him till today former quake player turned esports advocate who hates being called zlasher.
Best description of Slasher ever
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On October 17 2011 13:19 Mattchew wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2011 13:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:[Spoilers incoming] IdrA beating Bomber (especially game one... best TvZ I've ever seen) made me incredibly happy. Stephano, IdrA, HuK, Thorzain, and Naniwa have all kicked ass in the foreigner vs. Korean scene, and I'm confident that these players can continue to do so! When someone takes down MVP or Nestea though... that will be when the world stops turning MVP and Nestea have the luxury of us only seeing them in 1 tournament (other than when MVP roflstomped MLG real quick). I would love to see MVP and Nestea dominate as hard playing as often and as publicly (including replays being everywhere) as almost any other pro.
I agree. I suppose they're too busy playing that GSL game thingy over there in Korea or something  Tsk tsk.
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On October 17 2011 13:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2011 13:19 Mattchew wrote:On October 17 2011 13:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:[Spoilers incoming] IdrA beating Bomber (especially game one... best TvZ I've ever seen) made me incredibly happy. Stephano, IdrA, HuK, Thorzain, and Naniwa have all kicked ass in the foreigner vs. Korean scene, and I'm confident that these players can continue to do so! When someone takes down MVP or Nestea though... that will be when the world stops turning MVP and Nestea have the luxury of us only seeing them in 1 tournament (other than when MVP roflstomped MLG real quick). I would love to see MVP and Nestea dominate as hard playing as often and as publicly (including replays being everywhere) as almost any other pro. I agree. I suppose they're too busy playing that GSL game thingy over there in Korea or something Tsk tsk.
this is not to say they arent the 2 best players in the world because they are. I'm just saying that they play in a tournament where they get to prepare for awhile on 1 matchup and a specific player.
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On October 17 2011 13:03 LuckyFool wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2011 12:57 Roe wrote:
who is this slasher guy anyways? never heard of him till today former quake player turned esports advocate who hates being called zlasher.
He's been on the esports train forevvvvvvvver... him and djwheat are serious esports oldschool.
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On October 17 2011 13:27 Mattchew wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2011 13:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 17 2011 13:19 Mattchew wrote:On October 17 2011 13:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:[Spoilers incoming] IdrA beating Bomber (especially game one... best TvZ I've ever seen) made me incredibly happy. Stephano, IdrA, HuK, Thorzain, and Naniwa have all kicked ass in the foreigner vs. Korean scene, and I'm confident that these players can continue to do so! When someone takes down MVP or Nestea though... that will be when the world stops turning MVP and Nestea have the luxury of us only seeing them in 1 tournament (other than when MVP roflstomped MLG real quick). I would love to see MVP and Nestea dominate as hard playing as often and as publicly (including replays being everywhere) as almost any other pro. I agree. I suppose they're too busy playing that GSL game thingy over there in Korea or something Tsk tsk. this is not to say they arent the 2 best players in the world because they are. I'm just saying that they play in a tournament where they get to prepare for awhile on 1 matchup and a specific player.
Well I do think you're ignoring the group stages where they have to still place well in their brackets (preparing against multiple players and all races Zerg and Terran... lol there are no Protosses), but yes I see your point
The skill level against Korean Terrans is significantly higher than 95% of anyone at MLGs or other foreign tournaments, but they might get caught off guard and it would be cool to see them play foreigners Maybe it's a money issue for them ::shrugs::
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Nothing has really changed. Koreans love terran and love aggression. With the nerfs to rax building time and BFH that takes away many of the things Koreans used to abuse foreigners to death with. With the lone exception of Stephano, I think the skill level overall between the scenes is still the same.
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On October 17 2011 12:53 Smix wrote:
slasher = kim carrier of sc2
looooooooooooool
so true
except Kim Carrier didn't bet body parts.
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On October 17 2011 14:46 Ryusei-R1 wrote:looooooooooooool so true except Kim Carrier didn't bet body parts.
He'd be quadruple amputee by now...
I like where it's at now, the matches are actually interesting and upsets are expected. Look at Gatored at IEM, defeating DRG certainly was surprising, same as destroying TOP 3-0. I still think koreans are better at abusing every single advantage they can get, but that's Blizzard's job to fix.
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At this point I think it remains to be seen whether foreigners in general can compete or if only the top top tier of foreigners who spend/spent an extraordinary amount of time in Korea (such as Huk/Idra/all those you mentioned) will be able to compete.
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On October 17 2011 12:52 lolsixtynine wrote:
With the first major victory for a foreigner at a tournament where serious, mid to top-level Koreans are competing, it seems that the gap between foreigners is making real, tangible progress towards closing. Say what you want about HuK's training schedule in Korea, but he's not the only foreigner that did well today.
Just three months ago, people were questioning whether a foreigner would ever win an MLG. Hell, some people were betting against any foreigners making the top 6 for the rest of the year. It's true that Koreans still disproportionally represent the top of the championship bracket, but it really doesn't seem that far out of reach anymore.
If IdrA and HuK can get top 4 at MLG, I have no doubt that Naniwa, Thorzain, and other foreigners at the top level can go to Korea and maybe even make a GSL finals someday.
And lose to whichever IM player decides to win it this time, but that's what Koreans do too.
Err I agree with you but Huk won dreamhack with a pretty good lineup of koreans
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We can't jump to such conclusions after a couple of tournament titles. Yes, foreigners are doing much better, but when we think about it huk was always good but he only got THIS GOOD when he started training in Korea. Idra as well. Idk, it just seems sometimes like the Korean players are coming to these foreign events and they're just having fun here. Looks to me like they aren't coming for the titles at all. Ofc, winning is always great, but take MKP @ MLG Orlando for example. The reddit community donated money for him to go there and he didn't really play the top level of terran at all, but the way he did play.... he was definitely paying his fans back with those strategies.
I'm saying that the way I see it is that if the skill gap might have narrowed a bit, yes, but it's far from being gone. And it won't be gone until sc2 will be perceived in the west as it is in Korea.
For me personally, this little rivalry of Korea-vs-the-World gives a lot of charm to the scene.
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I think that Huk doing well in tourament is more of a testament to how much the foreigners are behind in terms of practice and the infrastructure. Huk is competing with Koreans because he is practicing as Koreans practice. He had a coach and team living with him to help out with his understanding of the game for about a year or so (of course he left to join EG).
The gap is certainly there and it can only be crossed when you walk the same path that Huk chose to take. You have to go to Korea and practice with a korean team.
I think that the rate of improvement from the Koreans will quickly outpace the rate of improvement of the foreigner scene and it's only natural.
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Since HuK joined EG, has he still been training in Korea or has he come stateside to the EG House?
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I still see only maybe like 5 foreigners who can hang with the koreans while everyone else is ridiculously far behind. People talk about naniwa being good and training in korea, but he just lost 2 ro32s in a row in code A against pretty easy opponents and has shown NO sign of progress in my eyes since then.
If you've watched other korean tournaments you'll realize that even code B players can take series off code A/S players right now pretty convincingly. The player pool is really big, but I'm not surprised that there are some foreigners that can win tournaments by now. Still, foreign terrans are so so so so far behind it's not even funny. At least in terms of protoss or zergs there's only like 5 players that are ahead if that, but when it comes to terrans there's like 20 terrans ahead of thorzain and select.
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On October 17 2011 16:18 mahi29 wrote:
Since HuK joined EG, has he still been training in Korea or has he come stateside to the EG House?
I believe he is still in oGs house for time being. Correct me if I am wrong, though.
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On October 17 2011 16:31 Itsmedudeman wrote:
I still see only maybe like 5 foreigners who can hang with the koreans while everyone else is ridiculously far behind. People talk about naniwa being good and training in korea, but he just lost 2 ro32s in a row in code A against pretty easy opponents and has shown NO sign of progress in my eyes since then.
If you've watched other korean tournaments you'll realize that even code B players can take series off code A/S players right now pretty convincingly. The player pool is really big, but I'm not surprised that there are some foreigners that can win tournaments by now. Still, foreign terrans are so so so so far behind it's not even funny. At least in terms of protoss or zergs there's only like 5 players that are ahead if that, but when it comes to terrans there's like 20 terrans ahead of thorzain and select.
I think there are more then 5 foreigners who can hang with the koreans but I do agree with you that foreigner terrans are very far behind korean terrans I can agree with that one a lot .
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Slasher seems interested in sc2. Does he play casually or anything?
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For one, I really want the word "foreigner" to be abolished. To do that westerners need to start bashing Korean faces in.
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Idra's series against Bomber wasn't spectacular. Idra won because Bomber decided that he felt like being MarineKing and just made nothing but marines for the first thirty minutes of the game.
And then Idra finally decided to make Broodlords and win when he could have done it a long time ago.
The fact is that the gap between Koreans and foreigners is still massive, and will continue to get larger because naturally the Korean practice routine is infinitely better than whatever foreigners can churn out. The fact that the two best foreigners in the tournament, Huk and Idra were both trained in Korea at one point for this, proves it.
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On October 17 2011 21:43 Zergneedsfood wrote:
Idra's series against Bomber wasn't spectacular. Idra won because Bomber decided that he felt like being MarineKing and just made nothing but marines for the first thirty minutes of the game.
And then Idra finally decided to make Broodlords and win when he could have done it a long time ago.
The fact is that the gap between Koreans and foreigners is still massive, and will continue to get larger because naturally the Korean practice routine is infinitely better than whatever foreigners can churn out. The fact that the two best foreigners in the tournament, Huk and Idra were both trained in Korea at one point for this, proves it.
You really have no clue about how this game works ? You cant magicly get tech. There was a very good reason why both of them did their build how they did it.
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On October 17 2011 22:12 Marradron wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2011 21:43 Zergneedsfood wrote:
Idra's series against Bomber wasn't spectacular. Idra won because Bomber decided that he felt like being MarineKing and just made nothing but marines for the first thirty minutes of the game.
And then Idra finally decided to make Broodlords and win when he could have done it a long time ago.
The fact is that the gap between Koreans and foreigners is still massive, and will continue to get larger because naturally the Korean practice routine is infinitely better than whatever foreigners can churn out. The fact that the two best foreigners in the tournament, Huk and Idra were both trained in Korea at one point for this, proves it. You really have no clue about how this game works ? You cant magicly get tech. There was a very good reason why both of them did their build how they did it.
Magically tech? Of course they could. Bomber threw a bunch of marines and failed his first attack and decided to continue it despite knowing Idra had banelings. Oh, and Bomber floated 2k gas. It is REALLY easy to cut four marines (he was making what? 16 marines?) to make one factory and start teching. It's not that hard.
Idra could have easily slow teched to hive rather than risking losses if Bomber played better rather than staying on aggressive lair tech for so long. He was clearly easily holding Bomber's marine shenanigans. Despite whatever the commentator's said, Idra was fine.
Both players didn't play well, with Bomber just playing plain silly.
And if you have a good reason, go ahead and say it. I'll listen, but until then I'm still in the camp that says that if Bomber had merely pulled a few SCVs in his first attack, no one would be talking about Idra in the round of 4.
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The Idra vs Bomber games indeed looked pretty silly.
Earlyer BL's or/and Infestors would have ended this earlyer?
As would have Bomber not wasting millions of untis by just running against banelings time and time again...
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Anyone who thinks the IdrA series was significant/impressive you can write off as not knowing what they are talking about frankly. The first game was decided by a single engagement (where IdrA didn't even need to flank he just moved straight into Bomber's army), then still almost let him back into the game despite a huge supply difference; and the second game he beat a marine only build which pretty much had to do something early or fail, and it failed. Saying there was much more going on than that would be misleading.
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I'm not taking away any credit from HuK as its a very good performance and deserved win, but one major tournament win by a foreign player doesn't mean we can put them even or close to the Koreans.
HuK got a 4 Protoss, 1 Zerg group with Julyzerg not being amazing in ZvP. Huk always had really good PvP and could take #1 in his group due to that. IdrA's run even though he 'only' placed 4th was in my opinion more promising or extraordinary as he beat Bomber and showed good games nearly the whole tournament long.
Once again its great success for foreign players and very well deserved but I think in a different bracket things could have gone very different. MarineKing got his worst (TvP) matchup and dropped out. JulyZerg dropped out vs HongUn, because he's not vey good vs Protoss.. but against Terran he would have had a very good shot etc.
Not saying all foreigners got lucky, as Stephano, SaSe etc all where in the same bracket, but all I'm saying is: don't judge based on 1 tournament. Everyone knows the Koreans are not WORLDS above the foreigners like in broodwar - but they are still ahead.
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EPT
