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There was a funny thread on reddit that counted that only 50% of GSL finalists qualify for the Ro16 next season.
I did some counting of my own and found that if you look at the Ro8 for all the GSL seasons so far (excluding blizzard cups + world cups) then there are 62 players in total for 16 GSL seasons, and 30 players that only get to the Ro8 once. So about 50% of the players.
I did the same for the OSL and MSL tournaments since 2009, which are fifteen tournaments in total. Here there are 47 players in total for 15 Starleagues. 17 of those only showed up in the Ro8 once for this period (this even includes players like Savior and Nada, who obviously had success in the past). So about 25% of the players. Some players, like Jaedong, Zero, Flash, show up over 9 out of 15 times. (Mind you that Brood War would use Bo1s in the Ro16 group stages.)
I think Brood War is the obvious winner here. I won't blame SC2 for being more volatile in its short history, given that 2011 is like ancient history for us whereas it's a short time ago in Brood War terms - the game obviously is less developed, but I do hope it progresses.
 
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one of the greater aspects of bw being an "untouched game" is the ability for players to rise and fall irrespective of the game balance. jangbi is the most recent and probably the best example of this. he was in a major slump prior to his osl wins, but he obviously rebuilt himself in great fashion.
with sc2 its hard to even define the idea of this because of the ever sweeping changes blizzard makes. if there was one player i would name it would be MVP, who has stayed true to his playstyles regardless of the patches and has had his up and downs. i dont know if mvp being an ex-bw pro has anything to do with that.
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eSports is such a microcosm (of actual sporting events) that it's hard to be negative or positive towards the "volatility." In general, parity is seen as a good thing among sports. Every player or team wants to have an equal chance of their performance making a difference, getting the win, acquiring a championship. Dynasties, or dominating performances, while good for stories and certain fans, become stale and affect your league, teams, players, and audience.
Now all that being said, does having parity in your sport mean it's less skill-based? In some senses, I think people could agree with that assessment. Team-based sports have far more variables and factors to affect outcomes where skill isn't at the forefront of the result necessarily. It's also why I maintain that tennis is the most skillful sport. It establishes the criteria for having parity with sudden and gradual turnover, while also maintaining tiers of skill, where certain players are simply more dominant.
eSports, and SC2 in specificity, is in a unique position because of game releases, patches, and a variable player base. Will that change as we move forward? Perhaps.
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Patches, more frequent meta game shifts, and a lowered skill cap means that most of the top 50 or so players, except a few standouts,everybody can beat one everybody on a good day
Or at least that's how I've always seen it
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On January 26 2013 09:52 divito wrote:
eSports is such a microcosm (of actual sporting events) that it's hard to be negative or positive towards the "volatility." In general, parity is seen as a good thing among sports. Every player or team wants to have an equal chance of their performance making a difference, getting the win, acquiring a championship. Dynasties, or dominating performances, while good for stories and certain fans, become stale and affect your league, teams, players, and audience.
Now all that being said, does having parity in your sport mean it's less skill-based? In some senses, I think people could agree with that assessment. Team-based sports have far more variables and factors to affect outcomes where skill isn't at the forefront of the result necessarily. It's also why I maintain that tennis is the most skillful sport. It establishes the criteria for having parity with sudden and gradual turnover, while also maintaining tiers of skill, where certain players are simply more dominant.
eSports, and SC2 in specificity, is in a unique position because of game releases, patches, and a variable player base. Will that change as we move forward? Perhaps.
Dynasties become stale?
No, my man. Dynasties are the stuff of legends!
Without dynasties you have nothing! You have players, but without dominating performances, without legends, none of the great names we have come to love would hold such renown!
What do I love the most about BW (not so much in SCII), besides the game? The dynasties. The legends.
The heroes and villains who have carved a place for themselves through dominating performances.
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The main difference imo, is the number of tournaments everywhere. You had something like 2 OSL and 2 MSL per year in BW, and most of the time, you were qualified in only one of them. Meaning you only had to concentrate for 4-5 months on a single tournament (+ proleague).
With that amount of preparation, it's easy for the better player to be more consistent.
SC2 has a lot of tournaments everywhere in the world, almost every week. Even if you focus on one most of the times (like GSL), it's still more frequent.
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I remember actually becoming a FruitDealer fan. Oh, how naive I was...
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I think what people miss when they say that one player always winning is boring, is that it matters how you achieve dominance. There are some sports like athletics where you can basically just perform a 'trick' and repeat a single performance over and over again for victory. An analogue for RTS would be to have really good mutalisk micro in Brood War and winning games based on doing the same strategy over and over. However, in a lot of games with successful players at the top, such as chess, brood war, tennis, you still have to contend with snipers, with people preparing for you and putting you in very difficult situations. It's then up to the top player to show some level of ingenuity and always find his way out of there. i.e. the fun about having top players is that they are allowed to consistently show brilliant play and therefore they constantly demonstrate they deserve their top position. Personally I'd have no problem with Flash winning every single tournament if I was amazed at his decision making and execution every single game.
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On January 26 2013 09:16 a176 wrote:
one of the greater aspects of bw being an "untouched game" is the ability for players to rise and fall irrespective of the game balance. jangbi is the most recent and probably the best example of this. he was in a major slump prior to his osl wins, but he obviously rebuilt himself in great fashion.
So true. I remember Jangbi being easily one of the active worst progamers in the game both in terms of win % and ELO. And his comeback story was so incredible >_<
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EPT
