Top 30 Foreigner Ranking, March 2013

KalWarkov

Germany4126 Posts

March 20 2013 19:09 GMT

About me and the ranking

+ Show Spoiler +

Hi TeamLiquid (and reddit),

I'm DiaBoLuS, a german low gm protoss player in HotS and 6 time GM in WoL. I play sc2 since the release of the beta and I watch a shitton of professional SC2 – basically all major tournaments, many online cups and ladderstreams as well. Also, im obsessed with rankings!
Therefore, i post a foreigner rankings for about a year now, and i plan to keep posting rankings on a monthly basis in the future. When i talk about „Foreigners“, i exclude non-korean asian players (chinese, taiwanese), simply because I dont see enough of those scenes to rank them, and they dont participate in your regular major tournaments too often. So you may call it a „Western Foreigner Ranking“ if you so desire.
How do i make my ranking? Which criteria do i have? Well, here is a little list of what i look at, from important to less imporant:
- Major Tournament results of the month.
- My impression of the play: how did games look [impressive macrogames / lucky&cheesy], consistency, which opponents (bracket luck?) etc.
- Minor Tournemant / Online Tournament results of the month.
- Activity / Inactivity
- Tournament results of the past / Achievements.
- Ladder standing (bad or non existent stats have no negative value).
- Your votes and „TheBB's“ player rankings.

Zerg
Dimaga
LoWeLy
ViBe
XlorD
IdrA
----
LiveZerg

Terran
Strelok
BratOK
Happy
----
BeastyQt
Illusion
qxc
theognis

Protoss
Fraer
monchi
White-Ra
----
Welmu
Bischu
elfi
ToD
NightEnD
Harstem
BlinG

Top 50 sorted by race

Protoss
+ Show Spoiler +

1) Naniwa (2)
2) MaNa (4)
3) SaSe (11)
4) HasuObs (16)
5) HuK (17)
6) Grubby (20)
7) BabyKnight (21)
8) Socke (22)
9) Feast (24)
10) TitaN (27)
11) Minigun (30)
12) Fraer, monchi, White-Ra (Top 40)
13) Welmu, Bischu, elfi, NightEnD, ToD, Harstem, Bling (Top 50)

Zerg
+ Show Spoiler +

1) Stephano (1)
2) Ret (3)
3) Nerchio (6)
4) Scarlett (9)
5) Vortix (10)
6) goswser (12)
7) Bly (13)
8) TLO (14)
9) Snute (15)
10) sLivko (19)
11) KiLLeR (23)
12) mOOnGlaDe (26)
13) Suppy (28)
14) SortOf (29)
15) Dimaga, LoWeLy, ViBe, XlorD, IdrA (Top 40)
16) LiveZerg (Top 50)

Terran
+ Show Spoiler +

1) Lucifron (5)
2) Kas (7)
3) ThorZaiN (8)
4) DeMusliM (18)
5) MajOr (25)
6) Strelok, BratOK, Happy (Top 40)
7) Illusion, BeastyQt, qxc, theognis (Top 50)

TOP 10
+ Show Spoiler +

Poll: Top 10: Most overrated?

Naniwa (9)

24%

Stephano (7)

18%

Scarlett (6)

16%

Ret (5)

13%

Mana (2)

5%

Kas (2)

5%

Thorzain (2)

5%

Vortix (2)

5%

Lucifron (1)

3%

Nerchio (1)

3%

can't tell (1)

3%

38 total votes

Your vote: Top 10: Most overrated?

(Vote): Stephano
(Vote): Naniwa
(Vote): Ret
(Vote): Mana
(Vote): Lucifron
(Vote): Nerchio
(Vote): Kas
(Vote): Thorzain
(Vote): Scarlett
(Vote): Vortix
(Vote): can't tell

Poll: Top 10: Most underrated?

Scarlett (9)

30%

Ret (4)

13%

Lucifron (4)

13%

Vortix (4)

13%

can't tell (4)

13%

Stephano obviously (1)

3%

Naniwa (1)

3%

Mana (1)

3%

Nerchio (1)

3%

Kas (1)

3%

Thorzain (0)

0%

30 total votes

Your vote: Top 10: Most underrated?

(Vote): Stephano obviously
(Vote): Naniwa
(Vote): Ret
(Vote): Mana
(Vote): Lucifron
(Vote): Nerchio
(Vote): Kas
(Vote): Thorzain
(Vote): Scarlett
(Vote): Vortix
(Vote): can't tell

RANK 11-20
+ Show Spoiler +

Poll: Top 10: Most overrated?

TLO (6)

32%

goswser (4)

21%

HasuObs (2)

11%

sLivko (2)

11%

Grubby (2)

11%

SaSe (1)

5%

Snute (1)

5%

HuK (1)

5%

Bly (0)

0%

Demuslim (0)

0%

can't tell (0)

0%

19 total votes

Your vote: Top 10: Most overrated?

(Vote): SaSe
(Vote): goswser
(Vote): Bly
(Vote): TLO
(Vote): Snute
(Vote): HasuObs
(Vote): HuK
(Vote): Demuslim
(Vote): sLivko
(Vote): Grubby
(Vote): can't tell

Poll: Top 10: Most underrated?

SaSe (8)

38%

TLO (3)

14%

Grubby (3)

14%

Demuslim (2)

10%

sLivko (2)

10%

goswser (1)

5%

Bly (1)

5%

HuK (1)

5%

Snute (0)

0%

HasuObs (0)

0%

can't tell (0)

0%

21 total votes

Your vote: Top 10: Most underrated?

(Vote): SaSe
(Vote): goswser
(Vote): Bly
(Vote): TLO
(Vote): Snute
(Vote): HasuObs
(Vote): HuK
(Vote): Demuslim
(Vote): sLivko
(Vote): Grubby
(Vote): can't tell

RANK 21-30
+ Show Spoiler +

Poll: Top 30: Most overrated?

Minigun (8)

44%

MajOr (4)

22%

SortOf (2)

11%

KiLLeR (1)

6%

Feast (1)

6%

Suppy (1)

6%

can't tell (1)

6%

BabyKnight (0)

0%

Socke (0)

0%

mOOnGlaDe (0)

0%

TitaN (0)

0%

18 total votes

Your vote: Top 30: Most overrated?

(Vote): BabyKnight
(Vote): Socke
(Vote): KiLLeR
(Vote): Feast
(Vote): MajOr
(Vote): mOOnGlaDe
(Vote): TitaN
(Vote): Suppy
(Vote): SortOf
(Vote): Minigun
(Vote): can't tell

Poll: Top 30: Most underrated?

mOOnGlaDe (6)

32%

MajOr (3)

16%

SortOf (3)

16%

BabyKnight (2)

11%

Socke (2)

11%

KiLLeR (1)

5%

Suppy (1)

5%

Minigun (1)

5%

Feast (0)

0%

TitaN (0)

0%

can't tell (0)

0%

19 total votes

Your vote: Top 30: Most underrated?

(Vote): BabyKnight
(Vote): Socke
(Vote): KiLLeR
(Vote): Feast
(Vote): MajOr
(Vote): mOOnGlaDe
(Vote): TitaN
(Vote): Suppy
(Vote): SortOf
(Vote): Minigun
(Vote): can't tell

RANK 31-40
+ Show Spoiler +

Poll: Top 40: Most overrated?

XlorD (9)

50%

IdrA (4)

22%

White-Ra (2)

11%

ViBe (1)

6%

Fraer (1)

6%

monchi (1)

6%

Dimaga (0)

0%

LoWeLy (0)

0%

Strelok (0)

0%

BratOK (0)

0%

Happy (0)

0%

18 total votes

Your vote: Top 40: Most overrated?

(Vote): Dimaga
(Vote): IdrA
(Vote): ViBe
(Vote): LoWeLy
(Vote): XlorD
(Vote): Strelok
(Vote): BratOK
(Vote): Happy
(Vote): Fraer
(Vote): White-Ra
(Vote): monchi

Poll: Top 40: Most underrated?

IdrA (9)

50%

Dimaga (3)

17%

ViBe (1)

6%

LoWeLy (1)

6%

Strelok (1)

6%

Fraer (1)

6%

White-Ra (1)

6%

monchi (1)

6%

XlorD (0)

0%

BratOK (0)

0%

Happy (0)

0%

18 total votes

Your vote: Top 40: Most underrated?

(Vote): Dimaga
(Vote): IdrA
(Vote): ViBe
(Vote): LoWeLy
(Vote): XlorD
(Vote): Strelok
(Vote): BratOK
(Vote): Happy
(Vote): Fraer
(Vote): White-Ra
(Vote): monchi

RANK 41-50+
+ Show Spoiler +

Poll: Top 50: Most overrated?

qxc (5)

45%

can't tell (2)

18%

LiveZerg (1)

9%

theognis (1)

9%

elfi (1)

9%

ToD (1)

9%

BeastyQt (0)

0%

Illusion (0)

0%

Harstem (0)

0%

BlinG (0)

0%

Welmu (0)

0%

NightEnD (0)

0%

Bischu (0)

0%

11 total votes

Your vote: Top 50: Most overrated?

(Vote): LiveZerg
(Vote): qxc
(Vote): BeastyQt
(Vote): Illusion
(Vote): theognis
(Vote): Harstem
(Vote): BlinG
(Vote): Welmu
(Vote): elfi
(Vote): NightEnD
(Vote): Bischu
(Vote): ToD
(Vote): can't tell

Poll: Top 50: Most underrated?

elfi (3)

25%

Welmu (3)

25%

theognis (2)

17%

Illusion (1)

8%

Harstem (1)

8%

Bischu (1)

8%

can't tell (1)

8%

LiveZerg (0)

0%

qxc (0)

0%

BeastyQt (0)

0%

BlinG (0)

0%

NightEnD (0)

0%

ToD (0)

0%

12 total votes

Your vote: Top 50: Most underrated?

(Vote): LiveZerg
(Vote): qxc
(Vote): BeastyQt
(Vote): Illusion
(Vote): theognis
(Vote): Harstem
(Vote): BlinG
(Vote): Welmu
(Vote): elfi
(Vote): NightEnD
(Vote): Bischu
(Vote): ToD
(Vote): can't tell

March 2012
April 2012
May 2012
June 2012
July 2012
August 2012
September 2012
October 2012
November 2012
December 2012 (1)
December 2012 (2)
January 2013

[image loading]

Please note that this months ranking was even harder to do and i don't mind u having a negative opinion on it - a lot of it is specualtion at this point, since there was only 2 big touranments in HotS overall and some qualifiers / minor tournemants - everything else is Ladder and watching player streams. WoL results still play a bit of a role as well, since they have to be an indicator of how good someone might be at HotS. Some of the players in the ranking have no official HotS match, even, and dropped some ranks therefore.

Please tell ur friends, state ur opinion in this thread, rate the blog and go on reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/1aoio4/top_30_foreigner_ranking_march_2013/

Thanks, I hope u had a nice read!

NokaH

Norway46 Posts

March 20 2013 19:30 GMT

You are breaking the rules of reddit by saying "upvote on reddit". You should edit that.

Meadowlark

United States349 Posts

March 20 2013 19:35 GMT

On March 21 2013 04:30 NokaH wrote:
You are breaking the rules of reddit by saying "upvote on reddit". You should edit that.

I think the exact same thing happened last month

Hier

2391 Posts

March 20 2013 19:57 GMT

I don't really get it. How did Naniwa, Thorzain, Sase, and Demuslim all go up? Why did Socke plummet by so much? Why didn't Kas's and TLO's positions not change when they played a decent amount of games recently?

Targe

United Kingdom14103 Posts

March 20 2013 19:57 GMT

Guys, I'm not sure how you can call Nani overrated, pretty sure him HuK and Jinro are the best foreigners there have been!

Bagration

United States18282 Posts

March 20 2013 20:06 GMT

On March 21 2013 04:57 Targe wrote:
Guys, I'm not sure how you can call Nani overrated, pretty sure him HuK and Jinro are the best foreigners there have been!

It depends whether or not we are talking about how good a player is right now, as opposed to lifetime achievements. Naniwa is way up there as a foreigner in terms of lifetime achievements, but he hasn't played a lot of tournament games recently, so we don't know how he's doing right now.

It's the same thing with Idra. Idra was one of the most successful WoL foreigners, but his play since 2012 has been laughable. But if we were to look back on the most successful foreigners in WoL, Idra is certainly top 5, if not top 3.

Targe

United Kingdom14103 Posts

March 20 2013 20:10 GMT

On March 21 2013 05:06 Bagration wrote:

Show nested quote +

Yup, totally agree, lots of people however instantly disregard players like IdrA, Nani, HuK etc. without realising how hard things like going deep in back to back Code S's are. If we go by their current standards I hate to say it but the best foreigner may be Stephano. :/

WalkinDead

88 Posts

March 20 2013 20:11 GMT

lol did I just count 14 zergs in the top 30 foreigner ranking? 14 out of 30?

HardlyNever

United States1258 Posts

March 20 2013 20:19 GMT

Can't be right, Cloud isn't #1.

bduddy

United States1326 Posts

March 20 2013 20:23 GMT

#10

...Sen?

StarVe

Germany13591 Posts

March 20 2013 20:25 GMT

#11

Oh Jebus. I agreed with a lot of the earlier posts almost completely, now this ranking looks like random names you've seen in HotS tournaments put together and random names you haven't seen in tournaments mixed in for good measure.

I really can't see what would justify most of the changes you made in ranks.

KalWarkov

Germany4126 Posts

March 20 2013 20:32 GMT

#12

On March 21 2013 05:25 StarVe wrote:
Oh Jebus. I agreed with a lot of the earlier posts almost completely, now this ranking looks like random names you've seen in HotS tournaments put together and random names you haven't seen in tournaments mixed in for good measure.

well, i have to start with HotS rankings at some point.

Many players have no official HotS matches
Some have only played 1 or 2 but underperformed heavily from what u know they should be able to do.

On March 21 2013 05:25 StarVe wrote:
I really can't see what would justify most of the changes you made in ranks.

Which one specifically?

Expect future rankings to be a lot more accurate

Rostam

United States2552 Posts

March 20 2013 20:37 GMT

#13

On March 21 2013 05:23 bduddy wrote:
...Sen?

Didn't read the OP?

StarVe

Germany13591 Posts

March 20 2013 20:53 GMT

#14

On March 21 2013 05:32 KalWarkov wrote:

Show nested quote +

well, i have to start with HotS rankings at some point.

Many players have no official HotS matches
Some have only played 1 or 2 but underperformed heavily from what u know they should be able to do.

Show nested quote +

Which one specifically?

Expect future rankings to be a lot more accurate

Demuslim four spots up - why? He played not a single recorded game in March, last thing he did in February was beating Glon and Hellokitty and losing to qxc and Goswser. He may be good but I don't see how you can know that for sure apart from maybe your own playing experience.

Naniwa moves up a spot while he practiced mainly WoL, got stomped in WoL tournaments by Bly, Lowely and others and didn't play one HotS tournament game.

LoWely on the other hand beat Naniwa, Oz and Bly in RSL this month, yes, it was WoL, but still, that's a pretty damn good result and he completely drops out of the ranking instead while players who didn't do anything go up.

Thorzain moves up after a pretty dreadful performance at MLG with no other games recorded. Other players like Socke get dropped down quite a bit although he looked quite decent in some of his matches at IEM, the PvZs were pretty well played mostly.

Lucifron moves up three spots although he got last in his IEM group and lost in the first round of the HotS launch tournament.
You say the ranking is also based on "my impression of the play: how did games look [impressive macrogames / lucky&cheesy], consistency, which opponents (bracket luck?) etc.".
LucifroN looked almost lost in HotS, it wasn't solid, it wasn't good, it was certainly not good enough to justify moving him up three spots.

I might even agree with moving him up based on his WoL results in the last couple of weeks, but it makes no sense as you seem to completely ignore WoL results in other cases.

VortiX is dropped six spots while not performing much worse than Lucifron - how could he be worse, Lucifron pretty much lost every game he played, same as Naniwa, and VortiX even won the aAa Pro Challenge in WoL in Bo7 wins over Lucifron and Snute and beat aLive, fraer and Scarlett in Bo5s in RSL.

Or Snute. Snute is dropped 9 spots for his IEM performance but look at his record after that: http://aligulac.com/players/111-Snute/

He's 20-4 in maps in the last week with pretty decent opponents he played.

TLO got last in his group at IEM and stays where he was before. Grubby finished one place above TLO and won the HotS launch event over Stephano and White-Ra, he drops down 8 spots. Why?

Babyknight loses decisively to Leenock, a top 5 Korean Zerg, at MLG = -3
Thorzain loses decisively to KiLLeR, a top 10 foreigner Zerg, at MLG = +3

I could go on for a while, maybe asking if you honestly think Minigun is better than fraer/Welmu/Happy, etc. but that should be enough for now.

jalstar

United States8198 Posts

March 20 2013 21:16 GMT

#15

Naniwa and Lucifron should not be top 5, Lucifron's results have almost all been online, which should not get you into the top 5, and Naniwa hasn't done very much since his 2012 GSL runs.

Bly and Snute should be at least top 10, Bly for beating Naniwa in RSL, Mana in MLG qualifiers, and putting up a great performance against Flash at MLG. Snute should be up there too for being the most consistent foreigner in late 2012, sure he hasn't done anything in HotS, but you said yourself this is also a WoL ranking.

I think this ranking is a little too weighted in favor of online tournaments and especially RSL, my ranking from watching IEM/MLG would be something like: Stephano, Nerchio, Ret, Mana, Bly.

Burrfoot

United States1176 Posts

March 20 2013 23:09 GMT

#16

There should just be a top non-genetically-korean list!

Superiorwolf

United States5509 Posts

March 20 2013 23:25 GMT

#17

On March 21 2013 08:09 Burrfoot wrote:
There should just be a top non-genetically-korean list!

Just on a brief glance, no one on this list except for Illusion is Korean by ethnicity :o

FatNikE

United Kingdom52 Posts

March 20 2013 23:27 GMT

#18

How do i make my ranking? Which criteria do i have? Well, here is a little list of what i look at, from important to less imporant:
- Major Tournament results of the month.
- My impression of the play: how did games look [impressive macrogames / lucky&cheesy]

This is not good. A foreigner ranking should be based fundamentally on their wins - their likelihood to win in the future, not whether you prefer to play long or short games on ladder.

Superiorwolf

United States5509 Posts

March 20 2013 23:31 GMT

#19

Just wanna say keep it up KalWarkov, always interesting to read even though this month for sure was definitely hard. In the future maybe you should provide justifications / reasons for why people moved, it will be more work but will be a really awesome read

StarVe

Germany13591 Posts

March 20 2013 23:58 GMT

#20

On March 21 2013 08:27 FatNikE wrote:

Show nested quote +

This is not good. A foreigner ranking should be based fundamentally on their wins - their likelihood to win in the future, not whether you prefer to play long or short games on ladder.

Someone who can go head-to-head with anyone in a macro game is more likely to win in the future than someone who exclusively relies on catching his opponent off-guard because that's easier to prepare for.

Shellshock

United States97276 Posts

March 21 2013 00:07 GMT

#21

Hmm... These are interesting blogs and I could definitely see how the HoTS transition could make things weird. I think StarVe and jalstar bring up interesting points on weird rankings and movements. I also agree with what Suppy said about maybe putting justifications for each of the moves if it isn't too much work for you. Hopefully the rankings kind of normalize as more games are played and the foreign tournament circuit gets going again for 2013. Is the next one April 2013? I guess you can go back to 1 month span since it's just purely HoTS now?

I am glad that goswser is starting to get some credit at least.

ROOTheognis

United States4482 Posts

March 21 2013 02:40 GMT

#22

damn sick! I haven't done anything and I'm on the list! Go eSports! <3 :D

Emzeeshady

Canada4203 Posts

March 21 2013 03:12 GMT

#23

--- Nuked ---

ROOTheognis

United States4482 Posts

March 21 2013 03:36 GMT

#24

On March 21 2013 12:12 Emzeeshady wrote:

Show nested quote +

cool! Where though, I can't find you :p?

Rank 30-50 :D

Luolis

Finland7112 Posts

March 21 2013 13:58 GMT

#25

How is it possible that Welmu is not on this list O_O

RPR_Tempest

Australia7798 Posts

March 21 2013 14:58 GMT

#26

mOOnGLaDe finally in Top 30. Good.

plasemeious

United States244 Posts

March 21 2013 17:10 GMT

#27

On March 21 2013 08:27 FatNikE wrote:

Show nested quote +

This is not good. A foreigner ranking should be based fundamentally on their wins - their likelihood to win in the future, not whether you prefer to play long or short games on ladder.

Exactly it should be about winning not whether they cheesed or not because you like a certain type of game

KalWarkov

Germany4126 Posts

March 21 2013 22:51 GMT

#28

On March 21 2013 11:40 ROOTheognis wrote:
damn sick! I haven't done anything and I'm on the list! Go eSports! <3 :D

well, u did more than many others, at least u laddered quite a bit with good results ~~
Also, its more about others showing bad results and falling off compared to WoL, u sometimes dont have to do anything to move up - or u can move down even though u did slightly better than last month - but others simply surpassed you.

i will try to make justifications for each and every player for next month - also, the next list should be a lot more "solid" to some extend, since i will simply have more to work with.

most of the movements are hard to justify, but i felt like it was time to put out a ranking anyway, even though its not as accurate and im not as satisfied with it as my last rankings.

thanks for the feedback anyway, expect better things in april

FatNikE

United Kingdom52 Posts

March 22 2013 01:18 GMT

#29

On March 21 2013 08:58 StarVe wrote:

Show nested quote +

Tell that to IdrA and MC

MaestroSC

United States2073 Posts

March 22 2013 23:14 GMT

#30

TLO on the board at all? Has this not been updated since the beta? Thorzain behind so many...how?

list makes no sense...at all should just be "on how i feel about them at the moment"

StarVe

Germany13591 Posts

March 22 2013 23:44 GMT

#31

On March 22 2013 10:18 FatNikE wrote:

Show nested quote +

Tell that to IdrA and MC

MC doesn't get lucky. He has impeccable timings. That's very different than, say, if TLO beat Leenock with a 10pool baneling all-in vs blind hatch first.

yokohama

United States1116 Posts

March 23 2013 00:09 GMT

#32

As big of a Naniwa fan as I am, I don't really agree with him being the number 2 foreigner at the moment. I think Suppy should be a lot higher than 28th as well, aside from MLG he has been doing really well lately. Perhaps Scarlett should be a little higher too.

FatNikE

United Kingdom52 Posts

March 27 2013 17:11 GMT

#33

On March 23 2013 08:44 StarVe wrote:

Show nested quote +

MC doesn't get lucky. He has impeccable timings. That's very different than, say, if TLO beat Leenock with a 10pool baneling all-in vs blind hatch first.

That would be evidence for TLO being a better player when it comes to knowledge/preperation/tournament strategy. For this, he should go up in ranking.

Xoronius

Germany6362 Posts

March 29 2013 13:03 GMT

#34

I know, that this ranking was probably the hardest one to do yet, so again thanks but there are a few things I would critisize:
- SortOf dropping so low; he is in korea atm, so you don´t see much of him, but afaik he has´nt lost smth. either so the -13 seems a bit harsh

- What StarVe already mentioned: Minigun in over Lowely, Fraer, Happy or Welmu. I see no reason to do that.

- Lowely: His RSL run included victories over Naniwa (nr. 2), Oz (korean), Bly (nr.13) and Vortix (nr. 10). In the RSL before that he already made 3rd place (over Gumiho), now he is gonna get top-4 again. I know it´s WoL, but if you rank entirely based on HotS, the durans would be quite a bit lower as well.

-And last but not least: Theognis > GoOdy? Why? I know I may be a bit biased in this one, but Goody has shown decent results in the last EPS-Cups (winning over monchi, Hasu) and defeated Dimaga 5-2 a week or so ago in a showmatch. I did´nt see that much form Theognis lately, maybe I am overlooking smth.

Edit: - Heromarine. I assume this blog was written before ESET and One.de HotS-cup, otherwise he should be in there as well.

Bunn

Estonia934 Posts

March 29 2013 15:07 GMT

#35

Snute, heromarine, ret should be higher, stephano and thorzain lower.

KalWarkov

Germany4126 Posts

April 21 2013 22:37 GMT

#36

new and (hopefully) better ranking tomorrow.

Added new ranking system:
roughly
75% = my own rank /// 25% = aligulac.com rank.
both ranks will be shown in the players pictures, comulating in one rank.

Also, only the Top30 players will be shown, not the 20-25 players following. There will possibly be a small list of the 5 players coming the closest to Top30.

So when criticizing the ranking, please talk specifically about my rank, not the comulated rank, since the aligulac rank isnt influenced by me

cya tomorrow in my new blog!

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