eSF Power Rank May 11th - July 11th

#1 LGIMFirst



In first place, well, First. I'm sure he's caught the attention of all of you due to his recent performances in the OSL, but don't be fooled, First has silently been one of the top players in the world far before the second season of WCS Korea began.

Boasting the highest win ratio by a player playing only in Korean tournaments since May 11th, yes even higher than Innovation, First's record in this time period is 16 wins - 3 losses (84.21%). 5-1 in the GSTL including an all kill, 6-0 in the OSL and 5-2 in the Up/Down Matches for WCS KR S2(tiebreakers were involved). Now, yes the all kill was against the worst team in GSTL, however an all kill is still an all kill. The most impressive thing about his record is his recent 2-0 victory over both Rain (Official Power Rank #4) and FanTaSy (Official Power Rank #7) with a week of preparation time for both matches, an area the top Kespa players shine the most.

Now ignoring all of the actual results for a moment, First's play against both Fantasy and Rain in the OSL showed a mastery of understanding and preparation. Would you believe me if I told you that a Protoss out expanded a Terran 5 bases to 3 in the mid game on Whirlwind? It happened, watch the VOD of Fantasy vs First Game 1. In his matches against Rain he showed unbelievable understanding of PvP, having only scouted a missing pylon in his opponents main on set 2 he built a stargate, produced phoenixes and kept them in his main awaiting the Oracle that would soon come from a proxy stargate, easily deflecting and nullifying it.

For his performance in Korean tournaments in this time period, First is easily first place on this list.

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#2 LGIMMvp



For what will most likely be the most controversial placement, in #2 we have the WCS Europe champion and WCS Season Finals top 4 finisher, Mvp. Before I begin let me preface with this that, yes I know WCS Europe is significantly easier than WCS Korea, no one will argue otherwise.

In the past two months, Mvp's record is 35 wins - 12 losses (74.47%), quite impressive, no? A large number of games and still nearly a 75% win rate, something almost unheard of in competitive Starcraft, be it Brood War, Wings of Liberty or Heart of the Swarm. Now of course this statistic is a bit misleading, as it includes games from a Go4SC2 Cup, where he won against mid tier European players without dropping a map, in the context of a power rank like this these stats are nearly meaningless(although it is impressive to win without dropping a map against " pro gamers " in any form.) we're going to throw them out. This brings his record down to 37 - 20. Anyway, enough about records let's talk about the games and the competitors he faced.

Starting in WCS Europe ro8 we have a 3-0 over TLO, a player very much on the rise lately. TLO was one of three foreign players to participate in the WCS Season 1 Finals, and was the highest placing of all of them(although he defeated a fellow foreigner in Stephano to get there). He has also placed top 8 at three different premier foreign tournaments in the past few months. Next we have a 3-0 over DIMAGA. While Dimaga doesn't have the recent results of TLO, he was the only foreign player to take a map off of a Korean player at the WCS Season Finals(2-1 to Revival). And finally, in the finals we saw Mvp defeat Stephano 4-1. Now, if the road had stopped here and Mvp had not played at the WCS Season Finals he wouldn't be anywhere near #2 on this list, the real story is what came next.

Enter http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2013_WCS_Season_1

In the group stages of the tournament Mvp barely managed to advance in second place, along with Alicia who he had lost to 1-2 in the winner's match. If you've been following Mvp's career you would know that he is much worse at group stages and turns it on in the bracket stage, and that's exactly what happened. First we have a 3-1 victory over ForGG, the man who defeated sOs(Official Power Rank #5) in the same tournament to advance first in his group, as well as boating an impressive TvT record of 30 wins - 8 losses (78.95%) in HotS(84.85% before he played Mvp). Now, had the tournament ended here Mvp still wouldn't be this high on the list, now we get to the real convincing part.

A 2-3 loss to INnoVation, the #1 Official Power Rank player for the past two months, the WCS Korea Runner Up, the WCS Season 1 Champion, the widely accepted best player in the world. Mvp is the only player to have beaten Innovation twice in WCS tournaments since Soulkey reverse swept him in the GSL Finals. Innovation is 20-3 in WCS since the WCS Season 1 Finals and including up to this point in the OSL, his only losses being two to Mvp and one to RorO. Ignoring the results alone, the fashion in which Mvp won game 2(down 9 SCV's to 33, came back to win) is something no other player has been able to do to Innovation, once Innovation is in a lead he doesn't lose games, unless he's playing Mvp.

Following this, the next season of WCS EU started with Mvp playing the ro32 online from Korea with lag, he passed his group 2-0(4-1) in first place to secure his spot in the offline ro16. He doesn't get any bonus points for the comeback against Tefel but he does get style points.

I hope this was convincing enough to avoid some of the flames that I will inevitably receive for placing a non WCS KR player this high.

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#3 StarTale_Bomber



In third place we have the fan favorite Bomber, who loves to skydive, break your heart and seeker missile his own Medivac and use it as a weapon against his opponent.

Bomber's record during this period is anything but impressive, sitting at Record: 16 wins - 13 losses (55.17%) it was hard to justify his placement at first, let's take a closer look. 7 of his losses come from the time period of May 11th - May 22nd, if we remove them his record looks a lot better at 16-6 (71.43%). Bomber's recent accomplishments include

All in all, Bomber has had a solid past 1.5 months, I'm willing to forgive his chain of losses in mid May due to his recent wins.

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#4 Axiom_Ryung



Coming in at #4 we have the not-really-eSF star player of foreign-but-really-Korean team Axiom and crusher of my FGSTL Ryung.

Ryung's record in the past two months is 23 wins - 12 losses (65.71%). Now, in this specific case the record is not as important as the effect the games have had on his team. Ryung is a team league superstar, being the owner of the GSTL regular season most wins award at 12-5 as well as the leader for Axiom in the ATC. Ryung has half of the wins for Ax-Acer in the GSTL, with his team at 23 and himself at 12, without him they would be lost. He also recently all-killed Startale including Life and Bomber

Outside of team leagues, Ryung made it to the top 4 in WCS America Season 1, losing narrowly to the champion HerO 2-3. After that he went on to play at the WCS Season Finals where he was eliminated from the tournament 1-2 by both KangHo and Mvp.

The upcoming GSTL playoffs will greatly influence Ryung's future rank, as well as his ability to repeat a top 4 in WCS America(which is significantly stronger in Season 2).

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#5 MaruPrime



In 5th place, we have the only member of Prime that hasn't become irrelevant in HotS, the 16 year old Maru.

Record for this time period 13 wins - 6 losses (68.42%)

A year ago I would have laughed at the thought of placing Maru above Creator and Life in a power rank, as the other two players had just recently finished top 2 in the Team Liquid StarLeague 4 and Maru seemed to be in a long slump since reaching Code S Ro16 in the second GSL season of 2012. Today, Creator hasn't done anything in HotS, Life did win MLG days after release but since then he hasn't looked himself. The Terran member of the three young eSF stars is shining the brighest.

Maru has just defeated SuperNova 2-1, securing his advancement to the OSL Ro8 and his highest finish in a Korean premier tournament of all time. In the GSTL Maru is 4-2 with losses to First and Super, Super is 8-0 in GSTL with a 100% win rate and First is First, very forgivable losses.

Unfortunately, the qualify of his ro16 OSL opponents and the fact that Maru defeated them 2-1 and not 2-0 prevents him from having a higher placement on the power rank.

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#6 MVP_KeeN



At #6 we have the former master of ceremonies Keen, who has sadly been a lot less fun in the past year and a half.

Like Ryung, Keen has been a significant factor in the success of his team in the GSTL. Second place in overall wins at 10-4 and an all kill of NSHoseo puts him as the pillar of Team MVP and the biggest factor in their success in GSTL, which allowed them to take first place in the regular season and are now sitting pretty awaiting a challenger in the finals.

Outside of GSTL, Keen went 5-1 in the Up and Down matches(tiebreakers involved), in the ro32 of the OSL he was eliminated in third place with losses to Rain and Bomber. These are very much forgivable losses(best of 1) and don't impact his placement much.

Keen's record during this time period is 13 wins - 6 losses (68.42%).

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#7 AZUBU_SuperNova



I had a lot of trouble placing #4 through #7 on this list, all of the players are Terran and all with somewhat similar results. Anyhow, here at #7 we have Supernova who is currently fighting for a Ro8 spot in the OSL and will be attempting to bring AZUBU to the GSTL finals.

Record during this time period 17 wins - 11 losses (60.71%) .

What I learned going through Supernova's match history, first of all he loves Russia and the RSL, as he nearly has more games played in the RSL than everywhere else combined. Secondly, somehow he has managed to barely play any TvT's in the past 2 months. He sits at a 3-2 record in the Hellbat wars match up.

In the Ro32 of the OSL, he went 2-0 to advance in first place with wins over Squirtle and PartinG, names everyone should be familiar with as top Protoss players. In his first match of the Ro16 he crushed KangHo 2-0, in his next Ro16 match he lost to Maru 1-2. In the GSTL he has a fairly average record of 4-3.

Supernova stands out to me as a very solid player with consistent performances, but lacks the spark that is needed to make it deep into the GSL/OSL, perhaps he will prove me wrong as he still has a very real chance of advancing to the Ro8 in OSL.

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#8 AZUBU_Symbol



Oh hey, It's Symbol! The most consistent player in GSL, I wonder why he's not higher up on the list?

Record during this time period 18 wins - 20 losses (47.37%)

Oh.

Now you might be asking, is this really the record of Symbol, the WCS Korea Season 1 Semi Finalist? Well yes, yes it is. This time period covers the Ro8 and onward in WCS KR S1, it includes a 3-1 victory over Bomber, then a 2-4 loss to INnoVation. Next, Symbol would go 0-2(0-4) in the WCS Season Finals group stage, destroying all the hype and momentum he had built up.

Having been seeded into the next season of WCS KR for his previous top 4 performance, Symbol played in the OSL. He advanced from the Ro32 2-1, defeating Curious and Shine in ZvZ, before falling 0-2 to Soulkey in his first Ro16 match. Just last night he managed to stay alive by 2-1ing the slumping(at least vZ) PartinG.

Now, Symbol is technically still alive in OSL, so why do I place him this low you ask? The answer is his team league performance for AZUBU has been abysmal, the man who was supposed to carry them to victory, the man who was the highest placing eSF player in the previous GSL season is sitting at a wimpy 6-5 record.

Compared to Symbol's somewhat recent peak, he's not performing at the level we expect him to. If he can defeat soO in the OSL he will have a chance to show us why he's still great in the next round. He also has the chance to be a key player for AZUBU in the upcoming GSTL playoffs.

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#9 MVP_Super



In 9th place, we have a player who is at 100% win rate in the GSTL with 8-0, not known for much otherwise.

Record during this time period 6 wins - 2 losses (75.00%)

Alright so,
- Really small sample size
- Mostly GSTL
- Didn't make it into OSL


So what does Super have going for him that makes him deserve a spot on this list? Well I have a lot of trouble coming up with a good reason myself, this is mostly a faith pick. Super, formerly known as Vampire has never been particularly amazing at any point in his career. He's only been in Code S(or Code S equivalent) one time before, he played in a Dreamhack once in 2012 and was eliminated early. On the plus side, he was eliminated in the Up and Down matches by head to head tiebreaker, having tied with EffOrt and ParalyzE at 2-2. With a bit more luck he could have been in OSL this season and showed us why he's 8-0 in GSTL. Next time we'll have more information.

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#10 StarTale_Life



What can I say about Life that hasn't already been said? He's in a slump, he lost to SjoW, he lost to TLO, he got 0-2'd out of the OSL. On a positive note he defeated Kop 2-0 to avoid the depths of Code B.

Record during this time period 25 wins - 9 losses (73.53%)

Wait, the slumping life has a 73.5% winrate in games? Yes he does. Most of those come from stomping low tier foreigners in the group stages of Dreamhack, but all is certainly not lost. After all he just defeated SuperNova 2-1 in the RSL.

I'll put it simply, the rumors of Life's demise have been greatly exaggerated. However, he's still doing poorly and cannot command a higher rank at this time. Life will need to bounce back through Code A and deliver a strong performance elsewhere, be it GSTL, RSL or a foreigner tournament to climb back up the ranks.