another one of my biased power ranks

neptunusfisk

2286 Posts

October 08 2014 16:10 GMT

Since I have to much spare time here is my power rank, now updated for October 2014.

It's really hard to do these kinds of things!

Top contenders on the way out?

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Soulkey

Coming in as a GSL champion and almost Nestea award winner, Soulkey is very similar to Rain, except that he placed second in the Hot6 cup instead of winning. He is never leaving our hearts though, as he's streaming BW and looking happy.

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Rain

Rain is very consistent. He has been in the middle of every power rank since 2012, I think, and with good reason. But then he dropped a lot of "easy games" and left SKT. Worrying, to say the least. Has a nice stream though.

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Life

Once a blazing royal roader and now just a good player, Life seemed to be on his way back to form. He didn't impress last time he played.

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Parting

Parting too has left SKT and the future is uncertain. He didn't really impress at RB:BG either and dropped out in last place in his ro16 group at the GSL.

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The good players:

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9. Maru

When Maru is on fire he can beat anybody through raw micro. At the same time, his macro and gamesense are superb. He has recently crashed a bit under the radar and channeled his playstyle into his teammate Cure.

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8. Solar

Another youngster doing well. Winning DH against fairly gosu opponents not including the silver surfer soOs strange collapse in the finals.

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7. DRG

He is back and better than ever, but the same is true for the scene in general so he isn't a top contender yet.

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6. herO

Very strong player. His only weakness seems to be stress and emotion during tense situations. Plays really well most of the time.

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5. flash

He has really stepped it up with improving gamesense to his stellar macro. Unlike MMA, Jaedong, MC, jjakji and other oldtime champions, he hasn't given up. He was one game away vs soO from the ro8, but soO was destined for silver so flash lost.

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4. Cure

The next terran hope is Marus teammate who went 3-4 vs INnoVation in GSL semis after a blazing run. He plays a mix of Maru and Innovations styles and it is very good. Hopefully he can beat a lot of people in the future.

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3. soO

soO is really scary. He seems to be a bit nonchalant as well, almost to the point of throwing games against weaker players (watch his ro32 GSL group) just because he doesn't care. Similar to Soulkey (but now greatly surpassing him), he plays almost every style in the book flawlessly. Reaching four GSL finals in a row, and then reaching the GSL GC ro4, he is really consistent. Also only losing 3 games in a whole DH (the three required to lose the finals) he is superb at on the fly playing as well as planning. But not yet winning.

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2. Zest

Best is the Zest! Zest is still damn solid. He does mess up sometimes, but when it really matters he is stone cold and more often than not he wins games from disadvantages. His PvZ and PvP are next level and his only weaknesses seems to be PvT or non-finals vs soO. He could easily be no. 1 though. He is probably going up vs Innovation at Blizzcon and then we'll see if his smack talk is real.

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1. Innovation

He knows how to macro better than anybody. Recent foreign adventures (ATC, DH etc) has taught him about how to hold cheese. And now he is back in Code S to pwn everybody. He already won a GSL. Let's go wreck some more tournaments!

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Honorable mentions:

rogue - Showing moments of talent and brilliance but never performing. Perhaps it's the Artosis curse?

bbyong - Yet another player with huge potential that hasn't really had his big breakthrough

dark - He could be the next big zerg, and now with Soulkey, Rain, Parting and even Fantasy gone he can perhaps get more spotlight.

sos - Famously 'casual', he is a very good player, but only seems to win things when he feels like it (when there are 100k USD prizes to be had)

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Honorable 'oldskoolers doing well' mentions:
jjakji, mma, hyun, jaedong, mc, bomber, mvp, stork

The_Templar

your Country52798 Posts

October 09 2014 00:28 GMT

7. DRG

He is back and better than ever, but the same is true for the scene in general so he isn't a top contender yet.

If he's not a top contender why is he 7th?

virpi

Germany3599 Posts

October 09 2014 06:03 GMT

Cure is pretty hard to rank at the moment. Up to his defeat in GSL he played godly, but since then he seemed to have lost his spark of brilliance. I would have put Solar, Bbyong and Ty over DRG. The top 5 are pretty much spot on, but there's also no big controversy. Inno, Zest and soO easily are the best players of their races.