SPL 13-14 Power Rank - Page 3

On December 14 2013 10:29 StarStruck wrote:


My comments were before they added Trap and the team is overrated. Then you have guys like Nestea and MVP who are close to being done.

On December 14 2013 11:06 Dodgin wrote:
complete bullshit, IM had a player in the top 4 of the season finals twice, in s1 and s2, and a top 8 in the s3 finals. Byul took 2nd in WCS AM s3 then top 8 in the season 3 finals, First took top 5 in WCS KR S2 then top 4 in the season 2 finals. In season 1 Mvp took 1st in WCS EU then top 4 in the season finals. IM has had a player do well in every WCS season, how is that not consistency?

GSTL isn't small talk unless you're an elitist prick, the season they won was fairly competitive. you originally said MVP is better, better how? MVP lost to IM in GSTL and none of their current players performed well this year at all. Most of their players' best finish was the ro32 of WCS. Dream and DRG took 2nd in WOL tournaments at the beginning of the year and haven't done much of anything since then.

Regarding the actual roster, you can never discount Yonghwa in a team league, Squirtle carried them in GSTL and he might be able to do it again. First is a god. Trap and Hero are obviously great for PL with their experience and past records. Mvp and Yoda won tournaments in HotS so they have potential to do well, and Byul is straight up solid and good. The team will likely be carried by the Protoss side but that works out just fine in the PL format. Also can't forget Ruin who showed potential to be good earlier this year.

tl;dr you're either incredibly biased or don't actually follow this scene closely

On December 14 2013 11:20 Dodgin wrote:
i hate it when people are wrong on the internet

Do you honestly believe Yonghwa, Squirtle and HerO prior to the annoncement of Trap is more favorable than a lot of the other team's Protoss line-ups?

On December 14 2013 11:06 Dodgin wrote:
complete bullshit, IM had a player in the top 4 of the season finals twice, in s1 and s2, and a top 8 in the s3 finals. Byul took 2nd in WCS AM s3 then top 8 in the season 3 finals, First took top 5 in WCS KR S2 then top 4 in the season 2 finals. In season 1 Mvp took 1st in WCS EU then top 4 in the season finals. IM has had a player do well in every WCS season, how is that not consistency?

GSTL isn't small talk unless you're an elitist prick, the season they won was fairly competitive. you originally said MVP is better, better how? MVP lost to IM in GSTL and none of their current players performed well this year at all. Most of their players' best finish was the ro32 of WCS. Dream and DRG took 2nd in WOL tournaments at the beginning of the year and haven't done much of anything since then.

Regarding the actual roster, you can never discount Yonghwa in a team league, Squirtle carried them in GSTL and he might be able to do it again. First is a god. Trap and Hero are obviously great for PL with their experience and past records. Mvp and Yoda won tournaments in HotS so they have potential to do well, and Byul is straight up solid and good. The team will likely be carried by the Protoss side but that works out just fine in the PL format. Also can't forget Ruin who showed potential to be good earlier this year.

tl;dr you're either incredibly biased or don't actually follow this scene closely

On December 14 2013 11:43 Dodgin wrote:
MVP losing to IM makes them incredibly dangerous? this logic hurts my brain, how do they have less to lose than the other teams? If anything considering their poor performance this year the pressure should be on them to do well, where as IM has already done well in 2013. In reality the pressure is on for all of the teams though, considering the top two of the previous season are gone.


Why would you leave their best Protoss out of the list? You clearly don't know jack shit about IM. And yes First, Yonghwa/Squitle/HerO is just as good as other teams' Protoss lineups.

I'm still waiting on you to answer how MVP is possibly ranked higher when none of their players did well in WCS this year AND they didn't do as well as IM in team leagues this year.

On December 14 2013 12:20 jubil wrote:
Looks like CJ is the Woongjin of this season: no super-aces, just a crazy deep bench.

On December 14 2013 11:52 GTPGlitch wrote:


Whoa there, cowboy. I'm not starstruck but i'll address some of this because I feel pretty much the same way he does - IM has a chance to do good, but it's gonna be a bit rough for them.

Having three different players perform well in three different seasons isn't consistency, it's streakiness. MVP has been on a downward slope since his WCS EU win, First is still being dragged down by PvZ. Can't really say anything bad about ByuL except that his ZvP looks a little suspect looking at his recent games, but the only real standout loss is 0-2 to Arthur.

Besides that, IM is suffering from the same problem that EGTL had, except worse IMO. They are hugely limited in the players that they can/will actually field. Hero, ByuL, Trap, First, Squirtle, Yonghwa, Yoda, and maybe MVP are play-worthy at this point in time. That problem is compounded by the fact that of those eight, five are protoss. While PvProleague will be a solid environment for First at least, it makes it almost ridiculously easy to tell your lineup to practice exclusively vP, since odds are there will be enough protoss played to either win or take it to ace in IM's standard lineup.

Also, I'm curious how you think IM's GSTL win really means much of anything when you compare it to proleague. They came up short against MVP, AxA, and Startale in the group stage and barely beat a supernova-less Azubu, while beating NSHoseo, FXO (who has done great since the HoTS switch /s), and Prime before Maru was a god. They got A-K's from Yoda and Yonghwa to advance to the finals against MVP, who you call out as having a pretty bad year and then beat, and assume that means they'll do godly in PL.... IM is a team that has a number of players that go on hotstreaks and then cool down, and said hotstreaks never seem to coordinate very well. This is not a very good way to ensure you'll win proleague (shocker)

On December 14 2013 12:24 StarStruck wrote:


Waiting on what? I just told you. When the expectations are incredibly low there is no where to go but up and that is why MVP is dangerous. As for IM (and try to remain unbiased because everyone knows you are a big IM fanboy). Would you agree or disagree that 2013 has been one of their worst individual years. Yes, they had their Koreans competing in every single WCS qualifier they could get their hands on unlike a lot of other Korean teams, so surely a few would get by right? This is not the dominant IM we've known when eSF teams were introduced and yes I did fail to mention First but I'm sort of multitasking atm. I'm playing two pcs in vindictus raids while writing so my bad. (Taking a second from raiding to make sure I discuss what I want this time).

Now going back to the idea of expectations.

Which team had the highest expectations last season w/o seeing a day in PL? EG, easy money right? Which two teams had relatively low expectations and cleaned up in the regular season and met in the finals last time? STX and Stars. Oh my. How many people saw that coming? Not very many. I wouldn't consider myself a big fan of any of the players on MVP, but I can some diamonds in the rough. I don't see how I can be biased. I'm going on a hunch here and if I were a betting man, which I am. Out of the eSF teams I think MVP have everything to gain this season because they have nothing to lose.

On December 14 2013 12:32 Dodgin wrote:


" one of the worst " individual years? There's really only 3 years to compare, so one of the worst is only worse than 2011 which no team will ever live up to again. I think they did better than they did in 2012 as a whole. Even though Mvp's performance wasn't as good as it was in 2012 the rest of the team stepped up to fill those shoes.

On December 14 2013 12:32 Dodgin wrote:


" one of the worst " individual years? There's really only 3 years to compare, so one of the worst is only worse than 2011 which no team will ever live up to again. I think they did better than they did in 2012 as a whole. Even though Mvp's performance wasn't as good as it was in 2012 the rest of the team stepped up to fill those shoes.

Luckily there's a great Liquipedia article that is quite useful for this debate

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Premier_Tournaments_Medalists/TeamYearly

2013 - 1st 3, 2nd 1, 3rd 1, Semi Final 4, total 9

2012 - 1st 3, 2nd 3, 3rd 2, Semi Final 1, total 9

It's about equal, then consider that IM won the HotS pre season and first GSTL season, so I would say 2013 has been slightly more successful for them than 2012.

On December 14 2013 12:31 Dodgin wrote:


I'm not going to waste my time replying to this entire post, but you really don't think having 8 players that are good enough to send it enough for a bo5 format? come on now. There are tons of PL teams that could never field a solid 5 player team where you didn't look at one player and thought they were a weak link.

On December 14 2013 13:00 GTPGlitch wrote:


Uh, you mean the Bo6+ace format? Where IM will have to max out on protoss players or end up with a weaker-than-possible lineup? c'mon, someone might think you're incredibly biased or don't pay enough attention to the scene.

Besides that my point is that it's really just 8 players that are even playable in PL, six who have put up strong recent results and two (MVP, Yoda), who are looking a little bit sketchy.