On a purely non-game level, Savior fucked the scene over with his match-fixing shenanigans. I sincerely believe that had a player of his caliber not gotten involved (e.g. had it just been confined to B-teamers, Lux, and Hwasin) BW would not have died as quickly as it did. But that isn't what this article is about.
Past a certain point (namely, NaDa's final title in 2006) most progamers, I would say, had decent enough micro, macro, and APM that these stopped setting players apart. Yet some players kept winning while others didn't.
Savior was the first progamer to fully apply the three most important modern differentiating concepts of high-level Brood War (and SC2)--what I like to call "build order/passive tactics", "metagame/intuition", and "army positioning/harass/active tactics".
While later players would refine those three concepts into perfection, Savior marks the point at which being good at Brood War stopped being about building new tools to set oneself apart, and instead became about using that existing toolkit better and better.
The toolkit can also be analogized along the lines of three much older games:
1. Build order/passive tactics is most like Go, where the objective is to manage the risk and reward of a "build pattern" to "get bigger and stay bigger" (secure a large economic, tech, or army size advantage) at some point or throughout a particular game. 2. Metagame/intuition is most like Poker, where the objective is to cleverly utilize the fog of war to force the opponent to guess wrong while maximizing your chances of guessing right 3. Army positioning/harass/active tactics is most like Chess, where you are establishing positions with the army you have to inflict disproportionate damage or force a mate.
Certain players post BW epitomized each of these traits or combinations of them, but never all three at once... except for what we now know to be The Last Bonjwa of Broodwar.
Flash's Cyworld Banner, circa 2010.
Flash, primus inter pares of the post-Savior era, started in 2007 as a cheeser and pretty mediocre macrobot, but by 2008, he had pretty much solidified his status as the best "Go" player of Starcraft.
Flash's 2008-11 builds are literally works of art. The first and foremost reason I became a Flash fan is because I like players with good rhythm, and Flash's builds are like listening to a good Nujabes piece--so many different complex, subtle timings stacked on top of each other, always keeping the opponent off balance until the final, devastating, blow. And since they're builds, not battles, and hence, not necessarily even interactive with what the other guy is doing, oftentimes there was no way for the opponent to stop Flash once he got started. Flash winning became inevitable; as soon as an opponent let Flash grasp some small build or timing advantage, he'd use that to force the windows open wider and wider until he was 70 supply ahead of a Protoss or doing 10 (that's right, ten) base Terran mech vs a 4 base Zerg
Flash said he did this strategy in revenge, since Free humiliated his teammate ForGG in game 2 with scouts, the most useless BW Protoss unit. Only Flash can BM like this.
On the flip side, Flash became the best player at dissecting other builds, often on the fly, and prepping his own counter-timings when his opponents had not even seen them in hours of practice.
That was why I fell in love with Flash. Flash brought a sense of harmony to the chaos of Starcraft; he made Brood War make sense for me--it was no longer a game about clicking fast or sexy micro (which never appealed to me), but about making the best calculations on the information available... about making the right choices... and Flash was always right. He was the perfect paragon of logical harmony, and him winning meant all was right and orderly.
Nice write up. Mvp kinda play this style too and he happened to be the most dominant and successful in SC2. I still remember his final against Life where he lost but he made a perfect mech build to fight against Life and almost beated him if not for derp attack in the end while Flash himself said that you can't beat Life with mech. I am waiting for real Flash to show up in SC2.
I personally believe that, unfortunately, SC2 design + current maps + SC2 being purposely incomplete crops out quite a lot of what differentiates a good player from a godly player.
I also think that Flash play style was the most boring of the top players. Watching Bisu and Jaedong playing was 100x more exciting.
On November 26 2012 22:57 fabiano wrote: I also think that Flash play style was the most boring of the top players. Watching Bisu and Jaedong playing was 100x more exciting.
I think many people found him boring because he won too much.
On November 26 2012 23:46 Caladbolg wrote: Flash isn't the primus inter pares post-Savior. He was the greatest of his generation, a different level entirely.
In 2008 and early 2009, he was probably one of the lesser among equals. When "he learned poker," as Shady put it, things changed.
Also, @Shady: I'm eager to see how you talk about the "chess" aspect, since Flash was not really the best at micro or tactics... maybe I'm wrong
On November 26 2012 22:57 fabiano wrote: I also think that Flash play style was the most boring of the top players. Watching Bisu and Jaedong playing was 100x more exciting.
I think many people found him boring because he won too much.
That's my thoughts, anyways. One of the reasons I became such a big Shuttle fan was that the kid was like...Brood War Schitzo, sometimes he would show up and be like CHOO CHOO MOTHERFUCKERS ALL ABOARD THE PAIN TRAIN and other days he would show up and look like he picked up Brood War two weeks ago.
I love the inconsistency, it makes the highs higher and the lows lower. Flash was just so stale to watch, it got boring watching him shove people aside and win. The only exciting (okay not only, but 90%) Flash games are ones where he loses because someone had to do some ridiculous shit to try and beat him, and even then it was never an easy win.
Wait, so Flash never learned Chess ? His perfect turret placement against mutas, the tanks positioning that allowed him to take super fast thirds in TvP, his m&m micro were all trademarks.
Anyway, I am glad that you decide to use your great writing skills to write a piece of Brood War history
EPT
sAviOr was a watershed for Brood War.
NaDa's final title in 2006) most progamers, I would say, had decent enough micro, macro, and APM that these stopped setting players apart. Yet some players kept winning while others didn't.![[image loading]](http://a.imageshack.us/img245/9449/lastemperor.png)
