The Last Bonjwa, Part 2 - Page 5

On November 30 2012 16:47 Salazarz wrote:
1. You can't just take PvP and TvT winrate percentages and compare those two directly. As ]343[ himself stated in his 'analysis', Bisu was the best PvP player despite having a much worse PvP record than Flash's TvT record. Is this just because every Protoss player is an idiot, and Bisu happened to be the least dumb of them all? Unlikely. Anyone familiar with BW knows how PvP games are often determined by blind or near-blind build order choices and very quick high risk, high reward moves, whereas TvT is much more likely to progress into a longer game - where a better player will always have an advantage.

2. You can't just compare 2 players with completely different styles and focus side to side like this. Bisu was always the PL superstar of SKT (and BW) in general; whether this is due to his mentality or the choice of SKT's coaches, but he was pretty much the best performing PL player of all time, and it's not like his MSL wins are somehow meaningless either, even though it's true that he was a much better player in PL format rather than individuals. To claim that he had 'no results' is flat out stupid, like, seriously it's mind boggling how could even the biggest Bisu hater say something like that.

3. About Fantasy (and in fact this is also somewhat true of Bisu): he's had a very good vT record, but you can't deny he's done flat out dumb shit every now and then. On a good day, he was untouchable, on a bad day, he looked like a rookie. He's also had nerve issues in important matches, and some of his big losses (remember the bigfile MSL semis vs Flash?) were 100% giving the games to his opponent due to that.

Does that somehow take away from Flash's accomplishments? Not at all, after all it is his consistency that set him apart from any other top player; he didn't just have peaks of brilliance separated by periods of mediocrity, but rather a long streak of being at the top, even though throughout majority of that period he sort of had to share the seat with others.

But there's no need to try to take away from other players' achievements and contribution to the game to try to prove your point, especially by drawing direct comparisons between vastly different races.

On November 30 2012 11:42 BLinD-RawR wrote:


permabanned, came back saying he doesn't care anymore now that the proscene is done, got permabanned again.

I agree that it's more difficult to achieve a 70%+ win-rate in PvP due to the luck involved in build orders, etc.

But the argument here is that Bisu's PvP play is just not as impressive as Flash's TvT play. This is due in part to the randomness inherent in PvP, in part to Bisu's failure to advance far enough in individual leagues to play many PvP series, in part due to the depth of the rest of the SKT team, and in part to the existence of other players (BeSt, Shuttle, Horang2) who were similarly impressive in the matchup for basically all of Bisu's "reign" as best Protoss [alongside Stork]. (To clarify, I mean that it was uncommon that Bisu would be considered the undisputed best PvP player.)

Moreover, isn't ZvZ even more "coin-flippy" than PvP? How does Jaedong's long run of 70%+ ZvZ fit into your argument?

Bisu was not, in fact, always the PL superstar of SKT. In fact, around the time he was the best individual league player (2007), his Proleague performance was quite bad. When he switched to "Proleague beast," his individual league results then fell off. Bisu obviously works very hard, but why did he (and not Flash or Jaedong, who were basically carrying their teams) complain of "not enough practice time"? Perhaps he wasn't (isn't?) as mentally tough (see: SC2 transition) or practice-efficient as F/J?

Also, nowhere did anyone say that Bisu had "no results"....

Maybe I'm misremembering, but I always remember that series as epic because both sides played very well... either way, keep in mind that Fantasy is not actually a dumb player. In fact, Oov and Boxer think he's very smart. The times where Fantasy or any good pro look "dumb" are just mis-predictions that get out of hand; these mis-predictions happen to Flash and to other "consistent" players as well.

On November 30 2012 23:26 Salazarz wrote:


I'm pretty sure the only (or at least the main) reason Bisu's PvP wasn't as impressive as Flash's TvT is because of the inherent differences in the match ups. You almost never see someone claw their way back from a disadvantage in a PvP, or slowly grind their opponent down through superior play - not many PvP wins actually look 'impressive', because most of the time you can easily imagine another player do what the winner did and succeed in the same match, whereas in TvT it's sometimes very hard to picture some other player copy what someone like Flash was capable of doing.

ZvZ isn't really more coin-flippy than PvP because mechanical ability plays a more significant part in it than PvP, and overall ZvZ is pretty much THE match up of Jaedong because it was the match up where his greatest strengths were the key to winning. A player with superior control and attention could trump build order deficits in ZvZ a lot of the time, and would win every game where they go past early game on even terms; Jaedong had the mechanical ability to demolish anyone in ling/muta wars, and the low eco, high aggression play had always been JD's forte in general.

Also, players like Shine, Effort, ChoJJa, even Soulkey boasted much higher ZvZ winrates than anyone other than Bisu and maybe Stats ever had in PvP. I don't think anyone ever considered Soulkey to be much of a ZvZ specialist, and he was still more consistent in that match up than someone like Horang2 whom everyone considered to be 'the' PvP expert. Go figure.




You're right, at the start of his career with SKT Bisu wasn't as impressive in PL; the thing about not enough practice time... I'd imagine some of it could be due to the players' different approach to the game - after all, all four of TBLS are massively different players with very different styles. And secondly, Jaedong couldn't touch Bisu's results in PL; Flash was literally the only player who was somewhat close to Bisu in PL results (with the exception of 09-10 slumps Bisu had where pretty much everyone was better than him anyway l0l). Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Bisu is 'the best playarrr evarrr' or something - but he is undeniably the best Protoss player, and the Protoss player who had the most impact on Protoss strategies in Broodwar.

It was Shady Sands who said Bisu had no results, few posts above yours. The whole argument started over Shady claiming Bisu wasn't 'inventive' enough, and then following it up by basically saying he flat out sucks, which is frankly dumb.



Of course Fantasy is smart - if anything, he is too smart for his own good and that's why he had these stupid losses - he tries cute stuff that's just too cute and dies to something very simple. :p and yes, these series were overall very good, but if you go rewatch vods now, I guarantee you, you'll see what I meant about Fantasy throwing it away. Anyway, again I'm not saying this because I want to argue that Flash isn't good or something - I just really don't think it's fair to compare two players and two races that are so different; and it's really not cool to write something that's basically "derp Bisu is bad xD" in an article about Flash. It's not really relevant at all.

On November 30 2012 10:55 Shady Sands wrote:


I'll give you this. Forgot that he invented speedzeal/sair too, although the original point about the metagame thing was that Bisu pretty much invented one sole way to play PvZ--harassment and disruption--and never deviated from that path. When he tried playing other styles (his 5gate goon hanbang against some random Zerg or his 2base into double expansion vs hyvaa) he was pretty inconsistent.

More than anyone, Bisu rarely had to face tough PvP opponents. Did he have to play Horang2 in Bo3 and Bo5 series on the same day, or play him first in set matches and then in ace? Flash did the former with Fantasy, and did the latter with Skyhigh. Bisu's ELO is pretty badly inflated by the fact that he never had to face tough opponents in the out-rounds of individual leagues--instead, he got to face opponents cherry-picked by the SKT1 coaching staff and whose practice time was diluted by having to prep against Fantasy and Best.

Again, refer to the Proleague vs Indiv League point: Bisu is distinct from Jaedong or even Stork in that he never made it deep into an individual league after early 2009. His PvT belies this point because when he played PvT in proleague, the SKT1 coaches made sure he was playing on massively P>T maps (Medusa, Aztec, Neo Chain Reaction.) You can't really use that as proof that Bisu's solid macro games mean he wasn't playing PvT badly.

But I will admit that Bisu never became the torchbearer there. And that's just as bad, because Stork had way too much self-doubt to actually be one of the guys that takes unnecessary risks just to expand the range of his race's metagame possibilities. I firmly believe Bisu had that sort of mental strength, but for whatever reason--maybe the conservative SKT1 practice culture? Although Oov was the original inventor of metagame oriented play so I doubt it--Bisu never felt comfortable being an innovator there.

For a while, I thought Kal could be the one to bear the PvT torch, but he seemed to play himself into a corner all the time whenever he faced S-class TvP (Flash, and later Fantasy.)

One of my deepest regrets about BW ending so soon is that Protosses in the PvT matchup never got to tap into their race's full potential. Other than Pusan popularizing Arbiters in 2005 and Stork's perfection of reaver-->carrier, no Toss ever really innovated enough to truly shift the matchup metagame in P's favor, which is too bad, really.

On November 30 2012 18:21 Vasoline73 wrote:
The biggest thing with Bisu was the lack of individual league runs later in his career. He was a beast in PL and even I, a mild Bisu antifan, always hoped he'd make another deep run into a MSL or OSL (just because I wanted to see more Bisu v Flash Bo5s.)

With SC2 and HOTS changing everything, it makes me sad that I was ever an antifan of anyone . I wish I could go back and watch BW PL, OSL, MSL for the rest of my life .

On December 01 2012 05:27 ArvickHero wrote:

5 Gate Goon is not a style, it's an allin. That's like saying "omg why doesn't Flash 8fact TvP often", because it's a shaky all-in build. And 2base into double expansion is also not a style, it's a strategic error (much like how it would be in TvP). In PvZ there are two styles: Corsair-centered play, and Ground Army-centered (not necessarily skipping sairs) play. Guess which of the two has stuck around? But anyways, Bisu has done both to success, and he's done every subset of the Corsair-centered style of play (all-in to management plays). But again, he's even stated in an interview that he doesn't center his gameplay around harassment. Rather, he focused it around scouting (via sairs, and good sense) and superior timings (in relation to building order and expansion timing). With that S+ class sense in PvZ, he dominated the matchup 80%+

Bisu's had to play a shitload of PvP during the era of the 6 Dragons (2009), and came out on top of them all, when the rest of the 5 dragons looked just as good. What Flash did though was incomparable and touchable only by other bonjwas .. Anyways, everything you say can apply to Flash as well. Flash's record was inflated by "weak" TvT players! In PL his opponent's practice time were diluted by having to prepare for Stats and Action! All of the above true, but doesn't take away from Flash's record, like it doesn't for Bisu's. And like I said, PvP is the match-up most affected by luck, while TvT is least affected by luck. If Flash had to play PvP, I can guarantee that his win-rate would be at least 10% lower, because builds are just incredibly hard-counter. Simply having a 60%+ winrate in that matchup is pretty amazing.

There's also FS, Circuit Breaker, Jade, La Mancha, Icarus, Empire of the Sun, Benzene, Outsider, Destination, etc etc .. why cherry pick? (also, Neo Medusa has TvP in the winning record)

Protosses had the upper hand against Terrans in general near the end (10-12) BW. There were many, many more "good PvT players" than "good TvP players". Protosses were also considered to be the best race to be played in PL for quite some time. In fact, when Flash dominated, not many other Terrans were doing that well. So maybe Bisu wasn't the dominant figurehead like Flash was, but it sure seemed to me that the Protoss race as a whole was doing better than the Terran race.

I think Bisu played VERY VERY well.

I think Iris played VERY well.

The game was fucking amazing... however. Watch it closely; Bisu was in total control... Iris is basically down to one mining base and is holding on by the skin of his teeth. Iris drops on 7 + 8 and Bisu clear as fucking day goes "Meh, fuck it, I'm just going to steam roll him" and presses into the base... Iris plays VERY well and soaks the attack all the way into his factory line.. this was a fucking killer hold.. no doubt... but Bisu lost his ENTIRE economy for that. That is POOR decision making... no matter how good the hold was from Iris you wont convince me that it was his killer play that won that game rather than Bisu's ONE MASSIVE mistake in ignoring that drop that undid ALL of his fucking great play until that point...

Credit where credit is due.. no doubt... Lesser Terrans would have melted under the pressure... but Bisu was in control and tossed it away in arrogance.