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What makes a great match

Blogs > shostakovich
Post a Reply
shostakovich
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
Brazil1429 Posts
February 10 2013 01:42 GMT
#1
I'ev been absent from the TeamLiquid's Dota 2 coverage because I'm getting a new job - I'll be teaching philosophy in a law school - and moving to a new city. While I get everything ready to start this new life and return to the Dota 2 coverage, I wanted to write about something that had me thinking for a few days.

What makes a match a great match?

Be it soccer, tennis, Starcraft or Dota 2, why some matches have this power of rendering us mesmerized in front of the monitors, controlling our heartbeats and making us cry of happiness or scream in pain? From where comes this power of irresistibly drawing our gaze towards them and keep hold of it so long that we forget time?

People usually measure the quality of a match by taking the teams participating and the production value into consideration. Our particular expectations also usually play a big role when determining which matches we want to watch and which we don't. I'm going to suggest that, while production value and our expectations plays a central role, the sensation of watching a great match doesn't come from outside of the match and the tension isn't produced by the expectation of a shocking event or a decisive turn in the history of what's happening. A classic tragedy like Antigona is interesting for spectators and compells them to watch, even though they know exactly how the play will end. The tension is created not by the questions of what is going to happen next, but by a balanced buildup.

The tension of a great match is determined more by the structures of the match itself than by the perspectives of what is going to happen next. That means the present and the presence are more important than the future in the buildup of a decisive match. The more equal the competitors are, the more stringent and rigorous are the rules to which the players must adhere. A common and trivialized thing like a mistake becomes a tragedy that makes the fans run the distance between Heaven and Hell in a second. The more equal the teams are, the more the forces keep each other in equilibrium, making a surprise result unlikely. A great match has the power of tying the spectator to the present. We live in a world that's obsessed with the past and the future: we're always trying to fix the past, always thinking on the future, and rarely we can stay only on the present.

The tension of a great match consists in the repose of the decision, the absence of the decision.

When we're captured by a great match, we stop thinking about ourselves. We think about something that's too large to place in words and to think in detail. Our thoughts stand still in wonder of something we can't fully understand. At the same time, a great match bring us close to things like omnipresence, eternal returning, recovery of balance, irreplaceability, concreteness, all together and at the same time. A great match carries endless symbolism.

Finally, a great match has the power of bringing people together. Suddenly, because of a great match, you have thousands of new brothers and sisters in a packed stadium, everyone singing with one voice. A great match always remind people of some words written in book 8 of the Nicomachean Ethics: "Friendship is most necessary with a view to living. For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods."

It's worth to notice how easy is to destroy the tension and no longer be part of a great match. It's really easy to dismiss all the story and the happening. Take The Play as an example: the match wasn't even finished and people were already dismissing it's story as a mistake by iG. Nelson Rodrigues, a great brazillian playwright, journalist and novelist call these people "Idiots of the objectivity," as they're incapable of taking part of the moment and are always trying to measure everything with alien notions.

So, in your opinion, what makes a match a great match?

Heyoka
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
Katowice25012 Posts
February 10 2013 02:06 GMT
#2
On February 10 2013 10:42 shostakovich wrote:
When we're captured by a great match, we stop thinking about ourselves. We think about something that's too large to place in words and to think in detail. Our thoughts stand still in wonder of something we can't fully understand. At the same time, a great match bring us close to things like omnipresence, eternal returning, recovery of balance, irreplaceability, concreteness, all together and at the same time. A great match carries endless symbolism.


this is the property I think is most amazing. A good match has the ability to transcend what it is you're actually watching, you're engaging in observing a human struggle with people who have seemingly super human abilities. That is the meat of the message you are receiving, it's far beyond whatever arena it is in, what makes it captivating is the aspect of humans reaching peaks of ability that are beyond what is normally seen.

This is why I think, in esports in particular, the specific game itself is far less important than the dynamic between those competing. The wonder happens in seeing people elevate themselves to a point that is otherwise unreachable, which only happens when people are incredibly evenly matched.
@RealHeyoka | ESL / DreamHack StarCraft Lead
mierin
Profile Joined August 2010
United States4943 Posts
February 10 2013 02:22 GMT
#3
^That's exactly how I felt watching the Flash vs. JD game on Tau cross at a WCG the first time..forget which exact one it was but I kind of just stared at my screen with my mouth open and legitimate Artosis "nerd tears" in my eyes.
JD, Stork, Calm, Hyuk Fighting!
jrkirby
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States1510 Posts
February 10 2013 04:32 GMT
#4
To be honest, I think it has more to do with the people watching than the people playing.
iTzSnypah
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
United States1738 Posts
February 10 2013 11:57 GMT
#5
The evenness of competing parties is what makes a great match regardless of game/sport. Youtube stars have a serious problem with only uploading one-sided stomps and they get very stale very quick. I think this is why RTC (road to commander) in COD is pretty popular, because people crave close games.
Team Liquid needs more Terrans.
LaLuSh
Profile Blog Joined April 2003
Sweden2358 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-02-10 16:22:35
February 10 2013 16:19 GMT
#6
On February 10 2013 11:22 mierin wrote:
^That's exactly how I felt watching the Flash vs. JD game on Tau cross at a WCG the first time..forget which exact one it was but I kind of just stared at my screen with my mouth open and legitimate Artosis "nerd tears" in my eyes.


Funny you should bring up that game as I also hold it to be one of the best games of Brood War ever played. I remember being so wholly and utterly amazed by the quality of the game. Also completely swallowed in by d'apollos casting as you could almost sense his reverence and respect of what was unfolding before him.

What made it funnier was that two of our Rakaka editors had been sent to that event, and I TRULY envied them for having the chance to witness this in person. At the same time I was wondering whether they had the knowledge and insight to really appreciate and understand what was happening in front of them -- and I think they did (certainly after I personally made sure to let them know they'd borne witness to one of the best games of Brood War ever played).

[image loading]
Iceman from rakaka and Nicke with Flash @ WCG Seattle.


They also broke some huge and funny stories by getting JD and Flash to make public statements about SC2 and the future for the first time. The flood of traffic from TL to Rakaka was enormous that week.

The game in question:




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