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Wall of text incoming.
This blog entry will be about the nine greatest players of all time (will add on to the list as time goes by). The players list will be decided by a predetermined criteria upon which these players will be listed in order, so the final list may be different what I already had in mind before I started this blog.
So how do we accurately judge these players whose achievements are sometimes more than a decade apart from one another? How do we objectively assess the various changes the scene had throughout history.
The first thing I shall do is to categorize the different eras according to which tournaments were going on at the time, and how they were regarded at the time.
These are the eras
1) Era of OGN StarLeague and trophy based individual leagues (1999 ~ 2001)
2) Era of OGN StarLeague of KPGA Tour leagues (2002)
3) Era of OGN StarLeague and MSL and multiple team leagues (2003~2004)
4) Era of the ProLeague (2005~2012)
Now the eras are categorized like the following because it would be wrong of me to judge all the great players we had by only counting KeSPA sanctioned leagues we are familiar with as of today. In fact, the only consistent league that can be seen as a "constant" throughout history is the OGN StarLeague, but if I only judge players by their OGN StarLeague performances, I would end up missing out on some of the greatest players of all time such as sAviOr, Bisu, and Nal_rA.
OGN StarLeagues will be the most important league in all of these eras, due to its long history and prestige. The other leagues will be weighted depending on their trophy size, how many players participated in it, and how they were perceived at the time (not how they were perceived later on).
I will make it so that a year's worth of achievements available will be equal in all of the eras, but due to my lack of knowledge about the earlier years where OGN StarLeague had yet to establish itself as the top dog, I will judge the tournaments purely on their cash prizes (data available at YGOSU, a site that has the prize pool of many leagues throughout the era).
Rules of the game.
1) Individual leagues will be ranked so that there are six premiere tournaments available for count each year (with the exception of 2007 where the premiere individual leagues were in shortage). Winning a premiere tournament will count for 32 points, and the points will be halved until a player receives 2 points for getting to the round of 16.
2) I will allocate 32 points to smaller individual leagues and performances in team leagues. There will be no exact science to this rule, but I will try to be as fair as I can. So if a player does amazing at all the non-premiere tournaments, it will roughly be worth the same as winning a premiere individual tournament. This may seem unfair, especially with how the ProLeague increased in importance later on, but I am of the belief that any leagues outside of the premiere leagues such as the OGN StarLeague should not be given too much notice otherwise we might see the likes of Leta or Sea go higher than they should in the rankings.
3) All the eras will have the same amount of total points available, meaning that dominating a single era will not mean more than dominating another era. Sticking to this rule will mean that some leagues will be scored out of context, but I have to this to make it fair for all the different eras.
So here we go.
1999: Even though BoxeR competed and won tournaments in this era, I will not include this era in my rankings due to my lack of knowledge, and incomplete data from this era. Yes this will be detrimental to BoxeR's overall ranking, but I hope by not too much.
2000
Premiere tournaments: 1st KBK Masters, Hanaro OSL, Freechal OSL, 2nd KBK Masters, WCGC2000 Korea, 2000 KIGL King of Kings
Extra tournaments: 2000 PKO King of Kings (1st place worth 16 points), OGN King of Kings 2000 (1st place worth 8 points), Crezio 8 Player Battle (1st place worth 8 points)
2001
Premiere tournaments: Hanbitsoft OSL, 3rd Game-Q Starleague, Coca-Cola OSL, KBK 2001 Jeju Festival, SKY 2001 OSL, WCG 2001
Extra tournaments: 2001 ZZGame Invite (1st place worth 16 points), GGTV StarWars Episode 1 (1st place worth 8 points), GGTV StarWars Episode 2 (1st place worth 8 points)
2002
Premiere tournaments: The three OGN StarLeagues and the three KPGA Tours
Extra tournaments: KT King of Kings (1st place worth 8 points), 2nd GhemTV StarLeague (1st place worth 8 points), WCG 2002 (1st place worth 16 points)
2003
Premiere tournaments: The three OGN StarLeagues and 4th KPGA Tour, and the following two MSLs
Extra tournaments: 2003 KT-KTF Premier League Championship (1st place worth 16 points), 3rd GhemTV StarLeague (1st place worth 8 points), KTF EVERCup Proleague/KeMongSa Team League/LifeZone Team League/pmang Proleague/LG IBM Team League (Yes there were five team leagues going on, and I'll pretend that it's a single year long season of ProLeague, and the player with the highest number of wins from all these leagues will be given 8 points, and any player with less wins will be given points that's proportional, as in if they have half the number of wins they will be rewarded with 4 points)
2004
Premiere tournaments: The three OGN StarLeagues, and the three MSLs
Extra tournaments: SKY2004 Proleague R1/Tucson Team League /SKY2004 Proleague R2/MBCMovies Team League/SKY2004 Proleague R3 (The player with the highest number of wins from all these leagues will be given 32 points due to the increased prestige of the ProLeague, and any player with less wins will be given points that's proportional, as in if they have half the number of wins of the player with the highest number of wins they will be rewarded with 16 points)
2005
Premiere tournaments: 2004 KT-KTF Premier League, the three OGN StarLeagues, and two MSLs that happened this year due to YATGK MSL taking too goddamned long
Extra tournaments: SKY 2005 Proleague R1/SKY 2005 Proleague R2 (The player with the highest number of wins from all these leagues will be given 32 points, and any player with less wins will be given points that's proportional, as in if they have half the number of wins they will be rewarded with 16 points)
2006
Premiere tournaments: The three OGN StarLeagues, and the three MSLs
Extra tournaments: SKY 2006 Proleague R1/SKY 2006 Proleague R2 (The player with the highest number of wins from all these leagues will be given 32 points, and any player with less wins will be given points that's proportional)
2007
Premiere tournaments: The two OGN StarLeagues, and the two MSLs (the shortage of points due to the lack of OGN StarLeagues and MSLs will be filled up by extra tournaments)
Extra tournaments: Shinhan 2007 Proleague R1/Shinhan 2007 Proleague R2 (The player with the highest number of wins from all these leagues will be given 32 points), Shinhan Masters (1st place worth 21 points), Seoul e-Sports Festival (1st place worth 21 points), WCG 2007 (1st place worth 22 points)
2008 Part 1
Premiere tournaments: Arena MSL, and Bacchus OSL/EVER 2008 OSL
Extra tournaments: Shinhan 2008 Proleague (The player with the highest number of wins from all these leagues will be given 16 points, due to the short duration of the league, and any player with less wins will be given points that's proportional)
2008/2009
Premiere tournaments: The three OGN StarLeagues, and the three MSLs
Extra tournaments: Shinhan 2008/2009 Proleague (The player with the highest number of wins from all these leagues will be given 32 points, and any player with less wins will be given points that's proportional)
2009/2010
Premiere tournaments: The three OGN StarLeagues, and the three MSLs
Extra tournaments: Shinhan 2009/2010 Proleague (The player with the highest number of wins from all these leagues will be given 32 points, and any player with less wins will be given points that's proportional)
2010 onwards (Things get a little iffy here)
Premiere tournaments: The three OGN StarLeagues, and the two MSLs (the second time we have to break the rule of the six premiere tournament rule, due to professional Brood War dying out)
Extra tournaments: Shinhan 2010/2011 Proleague (The player with the highest number of wins from all these leagues will be given 32 points), WCG 2010 (1st place worth 16 points)
As you can see, all the eras are weighted more or less equally (which era has 224 points available), except for the first half of 2008, where 112 points are available due to the era being half the duration of the other eras, and in the final moments of the Brood War scene where there were only 208 points available, despite the era lasting roughly two years. I simply couldn't hand out points for the bastardized hybrid ProLeague or any of the joke leagues to fill the gap. Also, any data from 1999 will not be counted (only affecting BoxeR out of the truly great players)
Now we've got all this over and done with let's rate the players. I will add each one over time.
Players under question.
1) NaDa
2002: 101 points
2003: 92 points
2004: 106 points
2005: 42 points
2006: 67 points
2007: 30 points
2008: 11 points
2008/2009: 13 points
2009/2010: 3 points
Total: 465 points
2) Flash
2007: 33 points
2008: 60 points
2008/2009: 44 points
2009/2010: 192 points
2010~: 91 points
Total: 420 points
3) Jaedong
2006: 34 points
2007: 81 points
2008: 30 points
2008/2009: 106 points
2009/2010: 113 points
2010~: 45 points
Total: 409 points
4) BoxeR
2000: 32 points
2001: 144 points
2002: 83 points
2003: 32 points
2004: 36 points
2005: 40 points
2006: 10 points
2007: 10 points
2008: 5 points
2008/2009: 1 point
2009/2010: 1 point
Total: 394 points
5) Stork
2005: 38 points
2006: 15 points
2007: 95 points
2008: 29 points
2008/2009: 68 points
2009/2010: 31 points
2010~: 47 points
Total: 323 points
6) iloveoov
2003: 64 points
2004: 128 points
2005: 74 points
2006: 14 points
2007: 12 points
2008: 0 points
2008/2009: 2 points
Total: 294 points
7) sAviOr
2004: 23 points
2005: 60 points
2006: 142 points
2007: 40 points
2008: 2 points
2008/2009: 13 points
2009/2010: 2 points
Total: 282 points
8) Bisu
2005: 4 points
2006: 43 points
2007: 70 points
2008: 16 points
2008/2009: 81 points
2009/2010: 17 points
2010~: 34 points
Total: 265 points
9) July
2003: 1 point
2004: 72 points
2005: 108 points
2006: 17 points
2007: 13 points
2008: 34 points
2008/2009: 14 points
Total: 259 points
My criteria may have not been perfect, but I do think it does reward players who have been excellent across all stages of the game throughout the years. BoxeR may have not blossomed much during the modern era of the game, but his peak year was one of the most dominant, and he really had a long career to rack up all the points. Flash had quite a short career, but that one insane season he had boosts him up to the number two spot. Stork never had a year where he achieved three digit figures unlike the other eight, but his consistency throughout the years gets him quite high up the list.
Players whose careers I'll try to assess once I get some sleep are as follows:
1) yellOw
2) Nal_rA
3) ChoJJa
 
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For those of you who are interested in ranking players purely by OSLs and MSLs, instead of the weighted system I put in. Here's a post done by a poster on PGR21 sometime in 2011, before the hybrid season kicked in (therefore not including the final three individual leagues (which would alter the list slightly).
http://www.pgrer.net/pb/pb.php?id=free2&no=44007&category=1&sn1=on&divpage=6&sn=on&keyword=信主&select_arrange=hit
This post is more intricate than mine, as it calculates obscure placements like 3rd or 5th (I just calculated 3rd as a round of four, and 5th as a round of 8). According to this poster, the ranking for OSL/MSL is as follows (I've added the results of the last three Brood War individual leagues):
1) NaDa
2) Flash
3) Jaedong
4) BoxeR
5) iloveoov
6) sAviOr
7) July
8) Bisu
9) Stork
10) YellOw
Now. The list slightly differs from mine after the first four (which tells me these four stand out whichever method you use to rank them as long as it's not too out of whack). However, the emphasis on OSL/MSL only drops Stork by quite a lot, while rewarding clutch players like July. My criteria puts much more emphasis on performing well across all platforms, and rewards consistency a little more.
There's a lot of criticism that can be made about my criteria, but keep in mind that it's really hard to balance out the differences from all the different eras into a manageable point system. I don't necessarily believe that the best performing team league player of say, 2004 (NaDa) was as impressive as Bisu's ProLeague performance in 2010/2011, but at the same time, I definitely don't believe that players like Leta who hit nearly 50 wins in a ProLeague year was twice as impressive as the team league beasts of the past (iloveoov, NaDa and Jaedong) who could only hit 20~30 wins due to the massive limitations in games available.
One thing is clear to me though. No matter how you cut it. Most number of wins. Most number of titles. Most number of appearances. NaDa stands above all.
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List looks about right, I'm fine with this. And ignoring the hybrid ProLeague is the right decision.
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watching july FPVODs when he had 500 apm, that guy is crazy good... JD is like a surgeon though... if only we could combine them, zerg would be unstoppable
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As promised.
10) Nal_rA
2003: 85 points
2004: 41 points
2005: 30 points
2006: 42 points
2007: 17 points
2008: 3 points
Total: 218 points
11) YellOw
2001: 29 points
2002: 70 points
2003: 42 points
2004: 18 points
2005: 22 points
2006: 10 points
2007: 2 points
2008: 0 point
2008/2009: 1 point
2009/2010: 5 points
2010~: 1 point
Total: 200 points
12) GoRush
2000: 32 points
2001: 10 points
2002: 0 point
2003: 10 points
2004: 49 points
2005: 46 points
2006: 23 points
2007: 13 points
2008: 1 point
2008/2009: 4 points
2009/2010: 6 points
2010~: 2 points
Total: 196 points
13) Reach
2001: 10 points
2002: 52 points
2003: 18 points
2004: 44 points
2005: 46 points
2006: 10 points
2007: 4 points
2008: 0 point
2008/2009: 7 points
2009/2010: 3 points
2010~: 0 points
Total: 194 points
14) XellOs
2002: 4 points
2003: 52 points
2004: 43 points
2005: 36 points
2006: 25 points
2007: 16 points
2008: 7 points
2008/2009: 1 point
2009/2010: 1 point
2010~: 1 point
Total: 186 points
15) FanTaSy
2007: 2 points
2008: 1 point
2008/2009: 59 points
2009/2010: 38 points
2010~: 84 points
Total: 184 points
16) ChoJJa
2002: 28 points
2003: 42 points
2004: 27 points
2005: 48 points
2006: 33 points
2007: 5 points
Total: 183 points
17) JangBi
2007: 17 points
2008: 25 points
2008/2009: 50 points
2009/2010: 19 points
2010~: 72 points
Total: 183 points
18) Anytime
2004: 9 points
2005: 60 points
2006: 37 points
2007: 34 points
2008: 5 points
2008/2009: 12 points
2009/2010: 6 points
2010~: 3 points
Total: 166 points
19) Sea
2005: 12 points
2006: 28 points
2007: 35 points
2008: 12 points
2008/2009: 22 points
2009/2010: 26 points
2010~: 24 points
Total: 159 points
20) Kal
2006: 2 points
2007: 21 points
2008: 31 points
2008/2009: 32 points
2009/2010: 40 points
2010~: 30 points
Total: 156 points
21) Calm
2006: 8 points
2007: 12 points
2008: 5 points
2008/2009: 56 points
2009/2010: 39 points
2010~: 31 points
Total: 151 points
22) Free
2005: 2 points
2006: 17 points
2007: 36 points
2008: 13 points
2008/2009: 31 points
2009/2010: 32 points
2010~: 14 points
Total: 145 points
23) Midas
2003: 2 points
2004: 14 points
2005: 40 points
2006: 35 points
2007: 17 points
2008: 11 points
2008/2009: 4 points
2009/2010: 14 points
2010~: 7 points
Total: 144 points
I expected YellOw to be higher, but I discovered that his performances to be pretty lackluster in any of the team league stages, considering I'm not rating any 2v2 performances. It was the same for ChoJJa as well, apart from his very early days where he was pretty beast like in MBC Team Leagues, he was pretty mediocre in the ProLeague, which made his overall rating lower than I expected. Nal_rA was very streaky in individual leagues, but his sturdy team league performances allow him to place top ten greatest players of all time according to my criteria. FanTaSy has an incredibly short career but his amazing performances in OGN StarLeagues (I must say I suspect that he benefited slightly from the hybrid era, somewhat like JangBi) allowed him to get more points than ChoJJa, one of the greatest zergs of all time.
For those interested, here are the best team league performers for each era.
2003: iloveoov with 26 wins
2004: NaDa with 21 wins
2005: NaDa/Stork/Midas with 16 wins
2006: Jaedong with 17 wins
2007: Anytime with 33 wins
2008: Flash with 17 wins
2008/2009: Flash/Jaedong with 54 wins
2009/2010: Flash with 57 wins
2010~: Bisu with 66 wins
As you can see, in 2003~2004, the multiple team leagues allowed for greater number of games, especially since MBC Team Leagues had an All Kill format. The number of games got reduced in the 3 day ProLeague era of 2005~2006. Then it roughly doubled in number as it changed into a 5 day format in 2007~2008. The introduction of the Winner's League and the year long format allowed the best players to achieve numbers unreachable in the previous eras.
Of course, there are more players I'd like to rate. However, I'm pretty certain without actually assessing their careers that this is the greatest 14 Brood War players of all time if judged by my criteria. [Edit] I was wrong, I assessed the careers of GoRush and Reach, and found out their accumulative career points ranks them above the likes of XellOs, FanTaSy, and ChoJJa. I then went over the careers of the likes of JangBi, Sea, Calm, Kingdom, Goodfriend, GARIMTO, and Anytime. I also expanded the list to the top 20 greatest players. I keep being wrong about the list being finished as I review more players.
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On January 15 2016 08:20 Endymion wrote:
watching july FPVODs when he had 500 apm, that guy is crazy good... JD is like a surgeon though... if only we could combine them, zerg would be unstoppable
I love July, but he was a micromanagement based player, and Jaedong is basically July on steroids. If I could create the perfect zerg player, I'd combine the following players.
Base statistics: Jaedong (he was as perfect as a zerg could get)
1) Zergling movement (not micromanagement, but how to use them): EffOrt
I loved how EffOrt utilized zergling to keep the opponent afraid, and to keep them guessing. It was kind of sAviOr or YellOw-esque how he mind gamed the enemy. Jaedong had by far the best micromanagement of zerglings, but add the mind play of EffOrt he would have been even more beast-like
2) Queen usage/versus terran mechanic play: SoulKey
As perfect as his versus bionic play was, Jaedong was slightly lacking in his adaptation to terran mechanic play, and in this respect was lacking in comparison to the newer generation of zergs such as SoulKey
3) Air battle capability in zerg versus zerg
As beast-like as Jaedong was in zerg versus zerg (at one point in his career he had an overall win rate of overall 80% circa ~2008), he started to lose air battles versus top notch zergs of his time, and I'd like to replace his air battle capability of someone like Shine or Modesty.
4) Advanced metagame usage of sAviOr
sAviOr wrecked everyone with builds and style of play that was probably a year or two ahead of its time. While Jaedong did have his contributions to the zerg race in terms of builds, he was not as good as sAviOr in this respect. Players like iloveoov, sAviOr all had insane peaks because of how ahead of the curve, not necessarily because they were actually good players under any circumstances.
5) Mind games of Calm
Jaedong did get considerably better at this, had enough guile which he had to use to overcome obstacles during the latter stages of his career, compared to his absolute mechanical peak in circa 2007/2008 where he simply out-muscled even the best players of his era such as Flash/Bisu/Stork even though he got mind played a bunch. Jaedong was always beast-like during practice/without specific preparation, but I'm not sure if he got even better if he was given time to study for a certain opponent. It always felt like that part of his game wasn't as good as his actual skills at the game, although te gap did catch up a lot later on (also because I feel like his skill advantage over other players decreased drastically).
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an expro z friend of mine told me that the top z consider zvz the purest zerg matchup, and that only those who understand zvz truly understand zerg, while zvt and zvp are just extensions of zvz.. with that in mind it's easy to see why JD is such a beast ^^
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On January 15 2016 17:53 Letmelose wrote:
3) Air battle capability in zerg versus zerg
As beast-like as Jaedong was in zerg versus zerg (at one point in his career he had an overall win rate of overall 80% circa ~2008), he started to lose air battles versus top notch zergs of his time, and I'd like to replace his air battle capability of someone like Shine or Modesty.
wut
i wouldn't replace JD with anyone when it comes to muta/scourge dogfight
now his protege Killer maybe but not back then.
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The top 4 out of 5 are Terran players. Just let that sink in. It's not rocket science that there is a large advantage for Terran BW players at the top progamer level (TvT least volatile-mirror, TvZ huge advantage, TvP equality, etc.)
This is why I regard JD as #1 in this list. For what he did against his disadvantaged position deserves a lot of respect. Or other Protoss players who managed to leave a mark on BW history.
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On January 16 2016 05:37 parkufarku wrote:
The top 4 out of 5 are Terran players. Just let that sink in. It's not rocket science that there is a large advantage for Terran BW players at the top progamer level (TvT least volatile-mirror, TvZ huge advantage, TvP equality, etc.)
This is why I regard JD as #1 in this list. For what he did against his disadvantaged position deserves a lot of respect. Or other Protoss players who managed to leave a mark on BW history.
Stork plays Protoss. oov plays Terran, so maybe 4/6 is what you're talking about?
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On January 16 2016 07:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2016 05:37 parkufarku wrote:
The top 4 out of 5 are Terran players. Just let that sink in. It's not rocket science that there is a large advantage for Terran BW players at the top progamer level (TvT least volatile-mirror, TvZ huge advantage, TvP equality, etc.)
This is why I regard JD as #1 in this list. For what he did against his disadvantaged position deserves a lot of respect. Or other Protoss players who managed to leave a mark on BW history. Stork plays Protoss. oov plays Terran, so maybe 4/6 is what you're talking about?
Yup, misread. Still doesn't detract from my point. 4 out of 6 is huge.
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wow, I expected bisu and yellow to be a little higher
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Damn, this is come great information!
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On January 16 2016 09:16 Cricketer12 wrote:
wow, I expected bisu and yellow to be a little higher
Both have a history of being quite mediocre in team league settings for the majority of their career and failed to get easy points. Yellow basically never had an outstanding Team League or ProLeague performance in his entire career to accompany his good body of work in individual leagues. Bisu had mediocre ProLeague performances in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009/2010 (all less than half the number of wins than the ProLeague best performer of that season). Bisu also suffers from being quite a bad OGN StarLeague performer, and his insane MSL performances and two years of ProLeague greatness isn't enough to overtake the likes of Stork (who has quite a similar individual league performance according to my point system to Bisu due to his longevity and consistency), and whose excellent ProLeague performances in 2005, 2007, and decent performances (over half the wins of the best performing player) in 2008, 2008/2009, 2009/2010, 2010/2011 basically made him a "greater" player according to my criteria. Keep in mind that my scoring system rewards excellence over the years more than the few great peaks, which is also why iloveoov is quite low in terms of ranking despite his absolutely awesome performances at his absolute peak.
For those of you who are surprised by the respective placing of Stork and Bisu (I didn't rate Bisu that highly anyways, but Stork coming 5th was something I didn't expect), this is how the scoring breaks down.
Stork
OGN StarLeague: 120 points (For those wondering 32 points for 1st place, 16 points for 2nd place, and it keeps halving until I give 2 points for a round of 16)
MSL: 38 points
ProLeague: 32 + 11 + 31 + 11 + 21 + 17 + 18 = 141 points
Other tournaments: 25 points (For his WCG 2007 win, and round of 8 at Seoul e-Sports Festival, probably a huge beneficiary of the lack of premiere tournaments in 2007, which made me include minor individual leagues to compensate for the 64 point deficit created by the four OGN StarLeague/MSL titles available instead of the usual six)
Bisu
OGN StarLeague: 40 points
MSL: 120 points
ProLeague: 4 + 9 + 10 + 6 + 31 + 13 + 32 = 105 points
Other tournaments: 0 points
Even if you take away the "minor tournament" points I gave out in 2007 season to even out the total number of points available, Stork leads by 299 points to 265 points.
This is due to the following reasons,
1) Bisu was an incredibly streaky player, as in he was capable of winning tournaments, but dropping out really early on, which basically gave away free points you can gather just by being relevant in the scene for a long time. This is showcased by Bisu having only 16 post-round of 16 performances, compared to 24 post-round of 16 performance from Stork (despite having a very mediocre MSL career in general). Bisu was either clutch beast in finals, or just a non-factor in some of the seasons. While that kind of a career is good for creating a strong impression upon the casual viewer, over the long haul, Bisu really failed to get enough freebie points in the individual league for a player of his trophy count.
2) Like I mentioned above, Bisu only had two years' worth of being a relevant ProLeague player in his 7 year stint in the ProLeague era (I'm not counting the hybrid season). Stork was the main driving force behind his team for the vast majority of his career, except for in 2006 when he was playing World of Warcraft, and in 2008 when JangBi replaced him as the ace of the team. While it may be a point of contention that dominating the ProLeague in 2005, or in 2007 like Stork did may not be as impressive as Bisu's best ProLeague seasons, so should be given less points, remember that Stork got the MVP trophies, team trophies, and the prestige of being a cut above the other mediocre ProLeague players. He just happened to play well in an era where you simply couldn't get 50 ProLeague wins no matter how godlike you were. And as ProLeague centric the latter eras of Starcraft was, always keep in mind that the absolute peak of the professional Brood War scene came sometime around 2005 (the insane viewership of So1, the famous crowd of Gwangalli we all came to be familiar with), and Stork was the best ProLeague player of that era despite being a rookie.
In summary, Bisu has very little to offer as a GOAT apart from his MSL trophy count, and two years of ProLeague excellence, and this is pretty similar to iloveoov or sAviOr, whose careers were also very limited apart from their absolute peaks. The difference was, iloveoov and sAviOr absolutely crushed their competition while they were in god-mode, and raked in huge points to make up for what they lacked in consistency. Bisu's peak alone did not manage to "carry" him in terms of points like iloveoov and sAviOr's peaks did.
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im always amazed by the amount of passion and knowledge korean BW fans have of their scene and legends (you are korean right?). i often see similar lengthy posts/lists made by like minded fans on the korean forums like ygosu. awesome!
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On January 16 2016 05:37 parkufarku wrote:
The top 4 out of 5 are Terran players. Just let that sink in. It's not rocket science that there is a large advantage for Terran BW players at the top progamer level (TvT least volatile-mirror, TvZ huge advantage, TvP equality, etc.)
This is why I regard JD as #1 in this list. For what he did against his disadvantaged position deserves a lot of respect. Or other Protoss players who managed to leave a mark on BW history.
This blog is about the objective status of the greatest careers available for assessment in Brood War history. It has nothing to do with how I rate these players in terms of "potential" or if I think they are the best or not. So despite terrans being the most blessed race in the game, and protoss being the least blessed, I'm not here to talk to talk about the ifs and buts. There are so many outside factors that have influenced these players careers, and we all have in our minds biases that lets us notice one factor that was "unfair" to a player, while turning a blind eye to the unfair factors that may have blessed the players who we are more fond of. I mean, forget about the racial imbalance issue, what if we take into account the following factors?
1) Teams. Should we give extra points to players who had to play on a bad team with lackluster teammates? July was basically giving up individual league practice in his absolute prime, and sharing his prize money to sustain his non-sponsored team with really bad practice partners, playing 2 versus 2, playing off-race to maximize his game appearance in the ProLeague, and was targeted heavily by the opponents in terms of specific match-up specialists and builds because every team knew that July was the main threat in the team. What if the likes of July, or Anytime didn't burn out turning their bottom feeder team into a championship material team? What if Bisu was forced to keep playing on MBC Game where they didn't give any incentives to win in the ProLeague like SK Telecom T1 did? What if Sea didn't get jaded by the "don't let the team do too well in the ProLeague otherwise we might be forced to pay the players more" policy that MBC Game had, and kept up his monstrous ProLeague performances deep into his career?
2) Outside factors. What if sAviOr wasn't so into pussy and kept practicing the game? What if BoxeR didn't spend so much time being an ambassador for the professional gaming scene and focused purely on maximizing his trophy count? What if the professional Brood War didn't get ended prematurely by the force feeding of Starcraft 2 in the twilight years of the scene? Would Flash overtake NaDa as the greatest? Was FanTaSy that great, or was the hybrid-league letting him get ground on Flash who may have been more focused on Stacraft 2? What if all the bracket stage trickery OGN (expanding the OGN StarLeague to 24 players conveniently as BoxeR failed to make the final 16) pulled to milk the star power BoxeR as much as possible didn't happen? What if Bisu had the looks of EffOrt, and didn't get picked up by POS like EffOrt got dropped by them because he wasn't good looking enough, and delayed his debut to the scene? What if zerg-versus-zerg wasn't such a catastrophe in terms of viewership that both broadcasting stations wanted to avoid it at all costs? What if NaDa wasn't influenced negatively by the huge fandom of BoxeR who didn't like him overtaking BoxeR as the best player in the scene, and actually got praised for his skills allowing him to blossom even more as a player? What if July wasn't so fat and had more fan-girls and became the next franchise star of the OGN broadcast with his exciting style of play and high skill and got a similar "special" treatment like BoxeR?
There are so many factors influencing the careers of these players both in and out of game that even the most stupid things like how tall you are, how good-looking you are, which sponsors you had, which style of play you have, and which players you were friendly with, all influenced these players just as much as, if not more so than the inherent racial imbalance (which I always argued was there). This is why we all have different ideas about who the best player was.
However, this is not the blog to discuss such issues. If we are to abandon the objective basis I attempted to create in order to rank these players' careers and start throwing in out own personal views on what could and should have been, we might as well be discussing the midichlorian count of Jaedong at that point (by the way, even on those vague imaginary terms, I still regard NaDa to be the best of them all)
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On January 17 2016 01:28 Probemicro wrote:
im always amazed by the amount of passion and knowledge korean BW fans have of their scene and legends (you are korean right?). i often see similar lengthy posts/lists made by like minded fans on the korean forums like ygosu. awesome!
Yes, I'm Korean, and there were so many insightful posts that have molded and shaped my views on the players on defunct sites like FOMOS. I spent my time trying to convey some of those ideas during my time on Team Liquid, but I never could get a "read" like some really great posters on PGR21/FOMOS/DCinside.
While the posters on Team Liquid had much less understanding about the overall ecosystem of the scene, this site did have a good read on which players were good (as in pure gaming skills, not as a professional gamer), because the posters on this site in general watched more replays, which is why this site was quicker to jump on the sAviOr bus back when he was IPXZerg, whereas as a FighterForum user (a stronghold for July fans back then), I was sure that July was the superior player. So I just tried to input my ideas about the various contexts of the professional Brood War scene which I felt was somewhat lacking on the site.
YGOSU has the best of both worlds as in it has insightful posters about the professional scene, and much replay analysis and pure strategical discussion of the game, but I've always been more of a follower of the professional scene, and was into breaking down the context and reasoning behind why the professional scene ticked the way it did, rather than having good pure strategical gaming theory you need to be a productive YGOSU poster. I wouldn't compare myself to an analytical YGOSU poster, as my gaming theory really is deficient, but what I lack in theory, I make up for in passion for the game, and spending many hours over hypothetical topics.
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On January 17 2016 05:22 Bill Murray wrote:
Bisu = way too low
I personally believe that NaDa, Flash, Jaedong, BoxeR, iloveoov are sAviOr are a cut above Bisu in terms of their careers no matter which way you cut it. The only way you can argue that Bisu had a career that was more productive some of the older legends is if you believe that achievements in the modern era to be "worth" more than the previous eras, in which case this topic should be ended right then and there. Whoever has the best performance towards the most recent era of Starcraft becomes the best, in which case it's Flash, Jaedong, then Bisu.
If the above is not true, I guess it leaves us with Stork, in which case it's just one guy placed above Bisu. I've already explained why Stork had more points according to my system, and the only way we can swing the balance in favour of Bisu without rewarding being good in one era more than another, is by rewarding more points for getting 1st place. We all have different philosophies when it comes to deciding exactly how much a 1st place finish is worth compared to 2nd place, round of four, or a round of sixteen finish. I decided to double the points as each round passed by so that consistency would be rewarded adequately so that players like GARIMTO, a player whose career outside of his two OGN StarLeague victories is almost next to non-existent wouldn't be ranked above players whose overall body of work was superior in my eyes.
So which one is it? Do you believe that some eras should be allocated more points? Or do you believe that the point system for the individual leagues should be more top heavy? Is it both? How would you suggest we change the system according to your philosophy?
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Japan11285 Posts
On January 15 2016 20:01 Scarecrow wrote:
6) The balls of Kwanro.
I laughed at this way too much.
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i have your posts carefully and i do think they hold a great deal of understanding about the development of the korean scene. My own understanding of it is limited, especially when we talk about the earlier years ( up to 2005) but a question remains for me:
Why didn't you include the GOMTV Classic Seasons 1-3 into the calculation? My understanding might be flawed, but it seems to me it the tours were notable and should be included? I would assign perhaps 12-16 points to it.
I imagine it is due to the fact, that KeSpa was not in full support of the tour and that the absence of notable players would leave a doubt on the value of the tour? Thanks for answering when you do!
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On January 17 2016 05:22 Bill Murray wrote:
Bisu = way too low
that's because protoss is for noobs and this is a list of good players XD
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On January 18 2016 00:07 Cele wrote:
i have your posts carefully and i do think they hold a great deal of understanding about the development of the korean scene. My own understanding of it is limited, especially when we talk about the earlier years ( up to 2005) but a question remains for me:
Why didn't you include the GOMTV Classic Seasons 1-3 into the calculation? My understanding might be flawed, but it seems to me it the tours were notable and should be included? I would assign perhaps 12-16 points to it.
I imagine it is due to the fact, that KeSpa was not in full support of the tour and that the absence of notable players would leave a doubt on the value of the tour? Thanks for answering when you do!
The entire point allocation system is basically based on what made a modern day season (2008/2009 season onwards). Which consists of the following,
1) 3 OGN StarLeagues (96 points available if you win them all)
2) 3 MSLs (96 points available if you win them all)
3) A year long ProLeague schedule (32 points if you have the most number of wins)
So I've theoretically there's 224 points to be won in a year long season, and basically what I've done is if any of the above tournaments were not in an era, I substituted various individual leagues/team leagues I've felt were the most important in that specific era (based on prestige, prize money, number of players competing etc) in eras where any of the above tournaments were "missing". Unfortunately for GomTV tournaments, they took place in an era where all the slots were "taken" with more important tournaments.
I don't particularly find GomTV tournaments to be of great importance in the grand scope of things. These were basically non-KeSPA sanctioned tournaments that came in era where KeSPA tournaments ruled the scene with an iron fist. Due to the politics of the time, GomTV leagues didn't get much respect from the players (players have been quoted for not taking this tournament seriously enough to practice for it), the teams (some teams just chose not to participate), and the fans of the time. It didn't penetrate the Korean market that well due to not having its own television broadcasting channel.
Of course, I know for a fact that GomTV leagues had a far reaching audience globally due to its English casting, but I'm not going to give a sentimental privilege just because these leagues happened recently and is fondly remembered on this site. I didn't do it for tournaments I consider of similar relevance such as GameQ StarLeagues, GhemTV StarLeagues, and iTV Ranking League. I wouldn't get too teared up over it, at most it creates a deviation of maybe ten to twenty points for the players in question, and creates a turbulence in the overall point system that I don't find worth making just in order to acknowledge its existence.
To be honest, if I were to create a minor point system for every tournament that existed, older legends NaDa would extend their leads even further. While some people may believe that GomTV league were more important, remember that some of the tournaments NaDa won had their own broadcasting channels, but were forgotten over time due to being out-muscled by the likes of OGN and MBC Game as the scene grew. As an example iTV Ranking tournaments were active in 2000~2004, and had seven tournaments during that era. I didn't include any of these tournaments because of more important tournaments like OGN, and KT-KTF Premiere League. GomTV was an internet based company that ran tournaments from 2008~2009, and ran four tournaments.
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On January 18 2016 02:00 Letmelose wrote:Show nested quote +On January 18 2016 00:07 Cele wrote:
i have your posts carefully and i do think they hold a great deal of understanding about the development of the korean scene. My own understanding of it is limited, especially when we talk about the earlier years ( up to 2005) but a question remains for me:
Why didn't you include the GOMTV Classic Seasons 1-3 into the calculation? My understanding might be flawed, but it seems to me it the tours were notable and should be included? I would assign perhaps 12-16 points to it.
I imagine it is due to the fact, that KeSpa was not in full support of the tour and that the absence of notable players would leave a doubt on the value of the tour? Thanks for answering when you do! The entire point allocation system is basically based on what made a modern day season (2008/2009 season onwards). Which consists of the following, 1) 3 OGN StarLeagues (96 points available if you win them all) 2) 3 MSLs (96 points available if you win them all) 3) A year long ProLeague schedule (32 points if you have the most number of wins) So I've theoretically there's 224 points to be won in a year long season, and basically what I've done is if any of the above tournaments were not in an era, I substituted various individual leagues/team leagues I've felt were the most important in that specific era (based on prestige, prize money, number of players competing etc) in eras where any of the above tournaments were "missing". Unfortunately for GomTV tournaments, they took place in an era where all the slots were "taken" with more important tournaments. I don't particularly find GomTV tournaments to be of great importance in the grand scope of things. These were basically non-KeSPA sanctioned tournaments that came in era where KeSPA tournaments ruled the scene with an iron fist. Due to the politics of the time, GomTV leagues didn't get much respect from the players (players have been quoted for not taking this tournament seriously enough to practice for it), the teams (some teams just chose not to participate), and the fans of the time. It didn't penetrate the Korean market that well due to not having its own television broadcasting channel. Of course, I know for a fact that GomTV leagues had a far reaching audience globally due to its English casting, but I'm not going to give a sentimental privilege just because these leagues happened recently and is fondly remembered on this site. I didn't do it for tournaments I consider of similar relevance such as GameQ StarLeagues, GhemTV StarLeagues, and iTV Ranking League. I wouldn't get too teared up over it, at most it creates a deviation of maybe ten to twenty points for the players in question, and creates a turbulence in the overall point system that I don't find worth making just in order to acknowledge its existence. To be honest, if I were to create a minor point system for every tournament that existed, older legends NaDa would extend their leads even further. While some people may believe that GomTV league were more important, remember that some of the tournaments NaDa won had their own broadcasting channels, but were forgotten over time due to being out-muscled by the likes of OGN and MBC Game as the scene grew. As an example iTV Ranking tournaments were active in 2000~2004, and had seven tournaments during that era. I didn't include any of these tournaments because of more important tournaments like OGN, and KT-KTF Premiere League. GomTV was an internet based company that ran tournaments from 2008~2009, and ran four tournaments.
thanks for your elaborate post, i feel i understand better now about the postion the Gom TV Seasons hold in the grand scheme of things. Of course i suspected that we (the english community) overvalue the GomTV Seasons due to the fact that is was english casted and that it actually wasn't that important in the korean scenes and for the players for the facts you mentioned. But having it explained expanded my knowledge in this regard.
On an unrelated note: do you think that something similar to what you did here would make sense to do for the post Starcraft 2 korean scene? I do imagine, that it would be very hard to justify, from which point should be taken as a starting point and which tournamnets should be included. But i but think of Starting with the Sonic Starleague either 7 or 8 as the first Major Tournament, because we saw a significant increase in player quality participating in comparison to SSL 6. Which also might be due to the fact that the hybrid Starleague, Tving OSL had just ended. It would make sense to count SSL's and KSL's as Major events i think. But i disgress, do you think it would make sense?
Another question if you will allow: it has been discussed on Teamliquid with no clear result, should the SSL 11 be counted as an OSL as such by fans? What is your opnion, what do korean netizens think?
Sorry if i disgress, it's the curiosity speaking out of me.
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In case you wanted to know how much certain players stood above the other members of his race (due to the arguments about racial imbalance), this is a pure examination of how well they did as the best performer of their race. Don't confuse this list with the original list, as the point system is much less thoroughly thought through, and it's not meant to be a list of the greatest players if racial imbalance didn't exist. It's just a fun list of how ahead of the same member of his race certain players were. For example, Reach was the shining hope for protoss, and even though Nal_rA achieved more than him by capitalizing on fortuitous periods for the protoss race more than Reach could, one could argue that Reach carried the protoss torch more than Nal_rA did.
Each round they were left as the sole member of his race will be rewarded with points, so that if you are the only member of your race in a round of eight, for example, you are given a point. Each stage your progress afterwards until you become champion will be rewarded also. Theoretically, the player who starts off as the only member of his race in the round of 16, and goes on to become the champion will be rewarded the most with five points (the only time this came close to happening in history was when Jaedong got 2nd in Arena MSL).
I will also compare a year's worth of team league games to the best performing players of the player in question's race. I will then turn that number into a percentage, which I will add up as a total (2008 season will be halved due to its half-year duration). Further more, I won't be negating points from the 2003 team league season like I did for the original list. This is mostly because I can't be bothered, and partly because I've not counted some of individual leagues like KT-KTF Premiere League, so I'll buff up the points for the 2003 team leagues for this time round. 100% will be deemed equal to a single point, as in, having exactly the same number of team league wins as the best performing player of your race will be seen as a performance equal to having been the sole survivor of your race for one round in an individual league. I could reward more points for the team league games, but I think the list will be dominated by modern era players by too much if I do so.
1) Flash
Bacchus 2008 OGN StarLeague: 3 rounds as the sole representative of his race
EVER 2008 OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
EVER 2009 OGN StarLeague: 4 rounds as the sole representative of his race
NATE MSL: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Korean Air OGN StarLeague S2: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Hana Daetoo MSL: 3 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Big File MSL: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Korean Air OGN StarLeague S2: 3 rounds as the sole representative of his race
ABC Mart MSL: 3 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Career total: 23 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Individual league points: 23 points
2007 team leagues: 57% of wins of Sea (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2008 team leagues: 121% of wins of Leta (the terran player with the next highest number of wins)
2008/2009 team leagues: 110% of wins of Leta (the terran player with the next highest number of wins)
2009/2010 team leagues: 130% of wins of Light (the terran player with the next highest number of wins)
2010~ team leagues: 143% of wins of Sea (the terran player with the next highest number of wins)
Career accumulative percentage: 501%
Team league points: 5.01 points
Total career points: 28.01 points
2) Jaedong
EVER 2007 OGN StarLeague: 3 rounds as the sole representative of his race
GomTV MSL S4: 4 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Arena MSL: 4 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Batoo OGN StarLeague: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Bacchus 2009 OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
NATE MSL: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Hana Daetoo MSL: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Big File MSL: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Korean Air OGN StarLeague S2: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Career total: 21 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Individual league points: 21 points
2006 team leagues: 106% of wins of sAviOr (the zerg player with the next highest number of wins)
2007 team leagues: 143% of wins of Luxury (the zerg player with the next highest number of wins)
2008 team leagues: 100% of wins of Luxury (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2008/2009 team leagues: 135% of wins of Calm (the zerg player with the next highest number of wins)
2009/2010 team leagues: 130% of wins of ZerO (the zerg player with the next highest number of wins)
2010~ team leagues: 116% of wins of ZerO (the zerg player with the next highest number of wins)
Career accumulative percentage: 680%
Team league points: 6.8 points
Total career points: 27.3 points
3) NaDa
2nd KPGA Tournament: 3 rounds as the sole representative of his race
3rd KPGA Tournament: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
4th KPGA Tournament: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Panasonic OGN StarLeague: 3 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Stout MSL: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
YATGK MSL: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
IOPS OGN StarLeague: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Shinhan OGN StarLeague S2: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Shinhan OGN StarLeague S3: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Career total: 18 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Individual league points: 18 points
2003 team leagues: 54% of wins of iloveoov (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2004 team leagues: 111% of wins of ClouD (the terran player with the next highest number of wins)
2005 team leagues: 100% of wins of Midas (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2006 team leagues: 100% of wins of Sea (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2007 team leagues: 60% of wins of Sea (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2008 team leagues: 41% of wins of Flash (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2008/2009 team leagues: 15% of wins of Flash (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2009/2010 team leagues: 9% of wins of Flash (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
Career accumulative percentage: 470%
Team league points: 4.7 points
Total career points: 22.7 points
4) Reach
SKY 2002 OGN StarLeague: 4 rounds as the sole representative of his race
3rd KPGA Tournament: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Gillette OGN StarLeague: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
EVER 2004 OGN StarLeague: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
IOPS OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
EVER 2005 OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
UZOO MSL: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Career total: 14 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Individual league points: 14 points
2003 team leagues: 54% of wins of fOru (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2004 team leagues: 86% of wins of Nal_rA (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2005 team leagues: 44% of wins of Stork (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2006 team leagues: 36% of the wins of Anytime (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2007 team leagues: 0% of the wins of Stork (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2008 team leagues: 0% of the wins of Stork (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2008/2009 team leagues: 23% of the wins of Bisu (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2009/2010 team leagues: 17% of the wins of Kal (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2010~ team leagues: 2% of the wins of Bisu (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
Career accumulative percentage: 262%
Team league points: 2.62 points
Total career points: 16.62 points
5) July
SPRIS MSL: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Gillette OGN StarLeague: 4 rounds as the sole representative of his race
IOPS OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
EVER 2005 OGN StarLeague: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
So1 OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Shinhan 2005 OGN StarLeague: 3 rounds as the sole representative of his race
EVER 2008 OGN StarLeague: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Career total: 14 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Individual league points: 14 points
2003 team leagues: 14% of wins of ChoJJa (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2004 team leagues: 38% of wins of JJu (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2005 team leagues: 73% of wins of JJu (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2006 team leagues: 41% of wins of Jaedong (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2007 team leagues: 7% of wins of Jaedong (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2008 team leagues: 0% of wins of Jaedong (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2008/2009 team leagues: 31% of wins of Jaedong (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
Career accumulative percentage: 204%
Team league points: 2.04 points
Total career points: 16.04 points
6) sAviOr
UZOO MSL: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Pringles MSL S1: 3 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Pringles MSL S2: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Shinhan OGN StarLeague S3: 3 rounds as the sole representative of his race
GomTV MSL S1: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
GomTV MSL S3: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Career total: 12 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Individual league points: 12 points
2004 team leagues: 57% of wins of JJu (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2005 team leagues: 40% of wins of JJu (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2006 team leagues: 94% of wins of Jaedong (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2007 team leagues: 30% of wins of Jaedong (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2008 team leagues: 0% of wins of Jaedong (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2008/2009 team leagues: 28% of wins of Jaedong (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2009/2010 team leagues: 8% of wins Jaedong (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
Career accumulative percentage: 257%
Team league points: 2.57 points
Total career points: 14.57 points
7) Stork
Daum OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
EVER 2007 StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Bacchus 2008 OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Incruit OGN StarLeague: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Korean Air OGN StarLeague S1: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Bacchus 2010 OGN StarLeague: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Career total: 8 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Individual league points: 8 points
2005 team leagues: 123% of wins of Pusan (the protoss player with the next highest number of wins)
2006 team leagues: 55% of the wins of Anytime (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2007 team leagues: 103% of the wins of Free (the protoss player with the next highest number of wins)
2008 team leagues: 86% of the wins of JangBi (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2008/2009 team leagues: 57% of the wins of Bisu (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2009/2010 team leagues: 86% of the wins of Kal (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2010~ team leagues: 65% of the wins of Bisu (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
Career accumulative percentage: 532%
Team league points: 5.32 points
Total career points: 13.62 points
8) Yellow
Coca Cola OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
SKY 2001 OGN StarLeague: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
1st KPGA Tournament: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
2nd KPGA Tournament: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
3rd KPGA Tournament: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
SKY 202 OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Olympus OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
TG Sambo MSL: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
EVER OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Career total: 12 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Individual league points: 12 points
2003 team leagues: 86% of wins of ChoJJa (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2004 team leagues: 5% of wins of JJu (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2005 team leagues: 27% of wins of JJu (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2006 team leagues: 6% of wins of Jaedong (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2007 team leagues: 7% of wins of Jaedong (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2008 team leagues: 0% of wins of Jaedong (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2008/2009 team leagues: 4% of wins of Jaedong (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2009/2010 team leagues: 17% of wins of Jaedong (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
2010~ team leagues: 4% of wins of Jaedong (the zerg player with the highest number of wins)
Career accumulative percentage: 156%
Team league points: 1.56 points
Total career points: 13.56 points
8) iloveoov
TG Sambo MSL: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Cen Game MSL: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
SPRIS MSL: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
UZOO MSL: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Shinhan 2005 OGN StarLeague: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
CYON MSL: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Career total: 10 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Individual league points: 10 points
2003 team leagues: 130% of wins of XellOs (the terran player with the next highest number of wins)
2004 team leagues: 57% of wins of NaDa (the terran player with the next highest number of wins)
2005 team leagues: 44% of wins of NaDa (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2006 team leagues: 36% of wins of Sea (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2007 team leagues: 30% of wins of Sea (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2008 team leagues: 0% of wins of Flash (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2008/2009 team leagues: 7% of wins of Flash (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
Career accumulative percentage: 304%
Team league points: 3.04 points
Total career points: 13.04 points
10) FanTaSy
Incruit OGN StarLeague: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Batoo OGN StarLeague: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Bacchus 2009 OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Bacchus 2010 OGN StarLeague: 3 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Jin Air OGN StarLeague: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Tving OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Career total: 11 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Individual league points: 11 points
2007 team leagues: 7% of wins of Sea (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2008 team leagues: 6% of wins of Flash (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2008/2009 team leagues: 54% of wins of Flash (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2009/2010 team leagues: 70% of wins of Flash (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2010~ team leagues: 70% of wins of Flash (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
Career accumulative percentage: 204%
Team league points: 2.04 points
Total career points: 13.04 points
11) Bisu
GomTV MSL S1: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
GomTV MSL S2: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
GomTV MSL S3: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Clubday MSL: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Batoo OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Avalon MSL: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Career total: 8 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Individual league points: 8 points
2005 team leagues: 13% of wins of Stork (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2006 team leagues: 45% of the wins of Anytime (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2007 team leagues: 30% of the wins of Stork (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2008 team leagues: 43% of the wins of JangBi (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2008/2009 team leagues: 151% of the wins of Free (the protoss player with the next highest number of wins)
2009/2010 team leagues: 64% of the wins of Kal (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2010~ team leagues: 138% of the wins of Stats (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
Career accumulative percentage: 463%
Team league points: 4.63 points
Total career points: 12.63 points
12) BoxeR
Hanbitsoft OGN StarLeague: 3 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Coca Cola OGN StarLeague: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
SKY 2001 OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
1st KPGA Tournament: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
SKY 2002 OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
So1 OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Career total: 10 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Individual league points: 10 points
2003 team leagues: 31% of wins of iloveoov (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2004 team leagues: 57% of wins of NaDa (the terran player with the next highest number of wins)
2005 team leagues: 44% of wins of NaDa (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2006 team leagues: 21% of wins of Sea (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2007 team leagues: 57% of wins of Sea (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2008 team leagues: 29% of wins of Flash (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2008/2009 team leagues: 4% of wins of Flash (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
2009/2010 team leagues: 2% of wins of Flash (the terran player with the highest number of wins)
Career accumulative percentage: 231%
Team league points: 2.31 points
Total career points: 12.31 points
13) Nal_rA
Stout MSL: 2 rounds as the sole representative of his race
NHN Hangame OGN StarLeague: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Cen Game MSL: 3 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Pringles MSL S1: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Pringles MSL S2: 1 round as the sole representative of his race
Career total: 8 rounds as the sole representative of his race
Individual league points: 8 points
2003 team leagues: 62% of wins of fOru (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2004 team leagues: 117% of wins of Reach (the protoss player with the next highest number of wins)
2005 team leagues: 75% of wins of Stork (the protoss player with the next highest number of wins)
2006 team leagues: 36% of the wins of Anytime (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
2007 team leagues: 33% of the wins of Free (the protoss player with the next highest number of wins)
2008 team leagues: 21% of the wins of JangBi (the protoss player with the highest number of wins)
Career accumulative percentage: 334%
Team league points: 3.34 points
Total career points: 11.34 points
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On January 15 2016 06:29 Letmelose wrote:
2) Flash
Total: 420 points
He's not number one? Well, that's still pretty high...
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Tbh, if I had to make a list it would be
1. Nada
2. Flash
3. Jaedong
4. Boxer
5. Savior
6. Iloveoov
7. Stork
8. Bisu
9. July
10. Yellow
11. Nal_ra
12. Gorush
13. Reach
14. Xellos
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On February 08 2018 09:24 Yodo2015 wrote:
Tbh, if I had to make a list it would be
1. Nada
2. Flash
3. Jaedong
4. Boxer
5. Savior
6. Iloveoov
7. Stork
8. Bisu
9. July
10. Yellow
11. Nal_ra
12. Gorush
13. Reach
14. Xellos
Looking back, I'm noticing some major flaws in the actual set up of the point system, but it isn't such a terrible system of rating the overall body of work as a professional. If I had to do another list given the identical topic, I'd probably redefine some of the metrics involved, but it is too much of a hassle to be honest.
NaDa is by far the most impressive player in all of history in terms of his longetivity at the professional level, but Stork has him beat in one singular category, which is more than what can be said for anyone else.
Longetivity at the round of sixteen level
Stork's longetivity at the round of sixteen level (Stork's first professional match at the round of sixteen ~ Stork's last ever appearance at the round of sixteen): 2602 days apart
NaDa's longetivity at the round of sixteen level (NaDa's first professional match at the round of sixteen ~ Stork's last ever appearance at the round of sixteen): 2565 days apart
Stork has taken part in 17 OGN StarLeagues, which is an all-time record ahead of the likes of BoxeR and NaDa who both participated in 14 if I remember correctly. He was a near constant fixture for the OGN StarLeagues from 2005 to 2012, which means that Stork was always there for a mind blowing seven years or so, a number only NaDa can compare to.
Stork was the key one-versus-one player for Samsung Khan ever since SKY 2005 ProLeague R1 (most number of one-versus-one victories out of Samsung Khan players for that particular ProLeague season), and was the protoss player with the most number of victories in SK Planet 2011/2012 ProLeague S1 (the last ever proper Brood War ProLeague).
While he often fell short of making a strong lasting impression, Stork was always one of the best performing protoss players in both the ProLeague and the individual leagues since 2005 all the way up to 2012. Sure he had some dips in form (especially so in 2006), but he was always in the conversation for the title of the best protoss around. Not only was he the part of the Six Dragons (Bisu, Stork, JangBi, Kal, free, and BeSt), he was also part of the Neo Protoss Triumvirate (Anytime, PuSan, and Stork). While Stork never had much luck with having great nicknames, he was represented in numerous group nicknames than almost any other player due to his longetivity.
It explains why Stork has more top ten ProLeague season performances (especially before the introduction of the year-long seasons) than any other protoss players in history (although Bisu had way higher highs, he also had his fair share of really terrible seasons). It also explains why Stork has appeared in more finals, semi-finals. quarter-finals, and round of sixteens than any protoss players in history. It explains why Stork represented Korea more than any other player in history at the World Cyber Games (2007, 2008, and 2009) save Jaedong, when a lot of all time greats struggled to make multiple appearances due to the relative scarcity of the tournament compared to its longetivity.
NaDa, Jaedong, and Stork are the top players of all time in terms of overall number of televised victories for their respective races. It becomes rather easy to rate NaDa and Jaedong because they also have the accolades to complement their long lasting legacies.
With Stork, during his absolute peak as a player, in mid-2007 to early-2008, he was, as far as I'm concerned, the greatest player of that era. He reached three consecutive finals (GomTV MSL S2, EVER 2007 OGN StarLeague, Bacchus 2008 OGN StarLeague), won the ProLeague for Samsung Khan as the regular season and finals MVP, and won the WCG gold medal for Korea when sAviOr fell flat on his face and got knocked out by PJ.
Despite his lack of major individual league titles, there is nobody who can come even close to him during this particular time-frame in terms of overall body of work across both individual leagues and the ProLeague. Not a bad peak for some, being the greatest player of the era on a technicality rather than convincing his doubters on the big stage. However, Stork's greatest peak was severely lacking for somebody who could represent the greatest protoss professional in terms of overall body of work. That is why I think people tend to shy away from the idea of him being potentially the greatest protoss player of all time. The greatest protoss player of all time at the height of his powers handing away three consecutive championships to rivals who each had more memorable peaks as professionals, it just doesn't sound right.
With Stork and Bisu, their competitive results can be weighed differently depending on how one weighs peaks and longetivity. This particular blog put quite heavy emphasis on being great across different eras, and while having 50 ProLeague victories in a single season is more memorable, it didn't necessarily give greater points than winning 50 ProLeague matches across multiple seasons, which is why players who were truly fantastic in short burts tended to be rated lower here.
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Basically it all depends on the idea of "bonjwa", and how much of a necessity it is for someone to be considered to be in possession of a truly great career.
I personally don't put too much emphasis on how close someone was to being considered a bonjwa. Stork was never in the discussion of being considered as a bonjwa despite his extensive career at the top. Bonjwa is more about being memorable at the right moments, and making sure to create a strong enough impression, and it is why players like iloveoov, and sAviOr are so fondly remembered even to this date regardless of their overall body of work.
One could argue that sAviOr at his absolute peak was more of a bonjwa than Jaedong ever was (although that too is not as clear cut as people make it out to be once you throw away the folklorish nature of his legacy and actually get down to the actual achievements and results), but it is undeniable that Jaedong puts sAviOr's career to shame once you compare their overall achievements side by side.
YellOw is another all-time great whose legacy is hard to properly gauge due to his extensive body of work being in such terrible sync with his major individual league trophy case. Common sense might lead us to think that second place finishes or quarter-final appearances would be superior to be knocked out in the preliminary stages, but the way in which Stork is perceived as being somewhat weak for losing to the top players of each era across multiple seasons makes me think otherwise. sAviOr losing quietly in the offline qualifiers to no-name players like Bubble created less mockery towards the player than Stork did for losing to high calibre players in all those quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals.
Since I'm not factoring in other elements such as meta-game influences, in-game level of skill, and overall popularity, and just sheer results earned as professionals, I think depending on how one weighs the results, it isn't that strange to argue that Stork achieved more as a professional than any other protoss in history. His career was simply too outstanding in terms of longetivity, and it is something that is tremendously hard to achieve. There are two players who qualified/seeded-in for literally every single Ongamenet StarLeague from 2007 to 2012, and that happens to be Stork and Flash. If there was an award for perfect attendance, Stork would be up there with some of the greatest, and that sturdy reliability to put forth respectable results deligently regardless of form, the map pool, and motivation is something that people severely underestimate in Stork.
It certainly isn't sexy, but it is something that people often overlook, and this blog offers, I hope, the other side of the narrative. Sea ended up being 19th on this list despite having never reached even the round of four during his entire career. His ability to consistently qualify for the lower stages of the individual leagues, and do his part for his team in the ProLeague for numerous seasons simply accumulated over time to dwarf potentially more exciting players such as fOrGG, who looked like a monster by defeating Flash and Jaedong back-to-back under a best-of-five setting, but was basically a one hit wonder outside of that.
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The narratives driven by sexy and memorable players versus boring reliable players were seen multiple times in history:
EffOrt versus ZerO: EffOrt had that unforgettable reverse-sweep versus Flash, and there is that what-if factor to him due to his year-long break from gaming in the middle of his career. However, in terms of overall results, I don't think it is unfair to say that ZerO had a more productive professional career than EffOrt.
JangBi versus Kal: JangBi was the more explosive player out of the two, and reached multiple finals when he was in form. Kal was a player who was good enough to be the ace player of his team, and was more successful in terms of keeping his form at an acceptable level even if he struggled really hard versus the likes of Flash and Jaedong. While I do believe JangBi was the greater player out of the two, I think Kal is one of the most underrated players of all-time. Not only that, I think JangBi's legacy as a professional is highly overblown due to his memorable end to his professional Brood War career. JangBi was an incredible talent at the game that failed to convert his ability at the game into professional results for the vast majority of his career whether it was due to nerves, motivational issues, or emotional instability. There is a reason for why JangBi has such a shallow body of work in terms of the number of leagues he qualified for, or why his results in the ProLeague were so mediocre compared to his talent.
This blog wrecks sexy players whose careers are largely dependent on being able to capture the imagination of the average spectator with incredible moments of human will power or ability. This blog is about weighing the overall body of work as a professional that is fair to players of all eras. I don't agree with the method it was done in (there are some obvious flaws and mistakes), but the philosophy that underlies this effort is something I can still stand-by.
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Cool blog, thanks for updating it.
I think people's adulation for sexy players ties in to the fact that BW is first and foremost entertainment. "Entertain me or I don't care". This is true for pretty much any sport; people love spectacular flashes of genius and don't care if someone immediately ragequits the sport and turns antisemite after becoming world champion (Bobby Fischer).
If a major film studio were to make a feature length biopic of any BW player they wanted, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they picked sAviOr.
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sAviOr is certainly in possession of one of the most fascinating career narratives. However, he was the polar opposite of Stork, a player who was regularly a top sixteen player in all three realms of professional Brood War that became the long lasting key platforms of competition ever since 2003.
An example of a top sixteen performance in all three platforms of competition:
Stork in mid-2007
Daum OGN StarLeague: 3rd place
GomTV MSL S2: 2nd place
Shinhan 2007 ProLeague R1: 3rd best record
Players (exclusive to those who peaked after 2003 and before 2012) who had five or more occasions of being in the top sixteen in all three platforms of competition (Ongament StarLeague, MBC Game StarLeague, and the ProLeague)
Eras where all three forms of competitions were not running simulatenously (such as when ABCMart MSL took place) will not be counted, this is purely the number of separate occasions where a player was within the top sixteen of every single KeSPA legislated competition that was on television at the time.
1. NaDa: 7
2. Flash: 6
2. Jaedong: 6
4. Stork: 5
If we single out Stork here (because let's face it, he is the odd man out from the above four), and break down all four of those occasions:
1. Mid-2007
Daum OGN StarLeague: 3rd place
GomTV MSL S2: 2nd place
Shinhan 2007 ProLeague R1: 3rd best record
2. Late-2007
EVER 2007 OGN StarLeague: 2nd place
GomTV MSL S3: Round of 16
Shinhan 2007 ProLeague R2: 2nd best record
3. Late-2008
Incruit OGN StarLeague: 1st place
Clubday MSL: Round of 8
Shinhan 2008/2009 ProLeague: 16th best record
4. Early 2010
Bacchus 2010 OGN StarLeague: 2nd place
PDPop MSL: Round of 8
Shinhan 2010/2011 ProLeague: 6th best record
Contrast that to sAviOr, who unlike the likes of BoxeR, and NaDa, had all of his prime included in the period where all three platforms of competition were running pretty much full-time.
1. Early 2007
Shinhan OGN StarLeague S3: 1st place
GomTV MSL S1: 2nd place
SKY 2006 ProLeague R2: 2nd best record
That's it. Apart from that sole magical occasion when sAviOr was a top two player in every single KeSPA sanctioned competition he particpated, he was not a reliable top performer across all realms, but more of a master of his own domain, which happend to be the MBC Game StarLeague. Take away his MBC Game StarLeague performances, and sAviOr basically was a dud when competing in Ongamenet StarLeagues and the ProLeague for the vast majority of his career.
There is no denying that sAviOr in late 2006 to early 2007 was almost unstoppable (for those several months, his peak was comparable to almost anyone from any era), and his legacy in the MBC Game StarLeagues is well documented, all of which went a long way into cementing some very strong impressions. Plus all the folklorish nature of his ascension, the genius of his playstyle, his badboy image, and his catastrophic fall from grace all adds to his mystique.
However, from a pure result oriented perspective, his actual accomplishments and overall body of work is not that impressive compared to his legend. If one were to just consider the peak form and title count, yes sAviOr is head and shoulders above the likes of Stork, but if we were to consider longetivity and overall body of work, Stork shits all over sAviOr. I don't think it is as clear cut as some make it out to be.
Yes, sAviOr is probably the greatest MBC Game StarLeague player after NaDa, but what is he outside of that?
Four OGN StarLeague appearances and one year of good ProLeague performance. That's barely a year's worth of schedule if we were to run those tournaments non-stop simultaneously.
Stork is one of the greatest OGN StarLeague and ProLeague performers of all-time mostly due to his superlative longetivity at the highest level. Even his MBC Game StarLeague credentials are way more impressive as a whole compared to the one-hit wonder nature of sAviOr's career outside of the context of the MBC Game StarLeague.
sAviOr qualified for less OGN StarLeagues than friggin' MuMyung in his entire career, and won less ProLeague matches than zerg players such as HyuN and hyvaa. Let that sink in for a moment. The dude is the last ever bonjwa before the rise of Taek-Beng-LeeSsang (meaning that he should have had way more spring in his step when combating the next wave of challengers than the likes of NaDa who was around since 2000), and it is rather astounding how far people are willing to forget his embarassing moments.
It is as if his career was indeed a movie, and people are only remembering the edited version of his professional career where he overcame all obstacles to obtain the title of bonjwa in early 2007, and forgetting his really embarassing preliminary stage defeats he suffered at the hands of numerous no-name opponents, and his mediocre ProLeague performance (outside of the 2006 season) even before he tried his hand in match-fixing. Sure, once we only look into his greatest hits, sAviOr's career was electrifying and spectacular. The nature of his ascension, and his fall from grace, are all incredible narratives worthy of a feature length film, but we're not discussing how mesmerizing certain players were. This blog was purposefully modelled to cut all that fluff out for sheer professional results, and from that perspective alone, sAviOr is one of the most overrated players of all-time.
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I apologize for posting that late, but i am kind of new to this forum and stepped into this thread just today.
I would like to ask how would you evaluate post Kespa tournaments results from 2016 to 2018; obviously they aren't comparable to Golden age Starleagues but i think they should have a weight.
In particular, would Flash spectacular 2017 ASL run make an argument of him being the best of all time over NaDa?
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On November 05 2018 04:06 Xain0n wrote:
I apologize for posting that late, but i am kind of new to this forum and stepped into this thread just today.
I would like to ask how would you evaluate post Kespa tournaments results from 2016 to 2018; obviously they aren't comparable to Golden age Starleagues but i think they should have a weight.
In particular, would Flash spectacular 2017 ASL run make an argument of him being the best of all time over NaDa?
I will always separate judging competitive results from players into two eras (professional era, and the current non-professional era), for the following reasons:
1) It is way too difficult to equalize for the changes in circumstance that happened, whereas I can rationalize artificially weighing the results in a manner that equalizes a fantastic performance in 2001, to a similarly impressive performance in 2009, from a pointing system perspective.
This ranking, as flawed and full of mistakes as it is (I would probably tweak a lot of the criterion, and clean up on some of the errors like messing up on the details of some tournaments), giving different results if I repeated the same process, I still somewhat stand by the essence of its nature.
I tried to weigh each era equally, and not penalize the eras for its lack of prize pools, or differences in the nature of the tournaments. If BoxeR competed in an era where the OGN StarLeague, Game-Q StarLeague, and WCG had more prestige than the team leagues of that era, I wouldn't penalize him for the ProLeague not existing yet, and tried to give more points to tournaments that mattered at the time, even if they later died out, or got replaced by other tournaments.
So instead of judging all players with a modern eye (OGN StarLeague, MBC Game StarLeague, and the ProLeague), I tried to make it so that players who played before the creation of the MBC Game StarLeague, and the ProLeague weren't penalized for dominating other tournaments that happened in place of those non-existent tournaments.
However, such an attempt becomes much harder now, due to multitudes of circumstances, with some players not participating, tournaments being held erratically, and the general hierarchy and structure of competitive Brood War not being as concrete as before.
2) Despite the ever changing nature of the past professional scene in general, there were two things that remained true:
- Professional players were obligated to always give their all, and if they didn't it was a character flaw within themselves, not a problem in the system. A player who consistenly failed in the offline qualifiers, and struggled to make a name for himself in the ProLeague, was a player who failed to adapt to the professional scene, and thus could be judged harshly due to his lack of results.
Right now, I don't even know I should blame players for concentrating more on their stream compared to their competitive merit, considering how lucrative their actual streaming career is. Even championship winning players like Rain has said that it is better to focus on making his stream better, than trying to get better as a player. Players drop out of tournaments if they feel too stressed. These are their personal choices, and I can't blame them as I did for the professional era because their financial success is not as correlated to their competitive success. Sure, even back in the professional years, financial success wasn't directly correlated to their competitive merit, but it was much more correlated than it is now.
- Influx of new talent was always a thing, although it varied across different eras. It meant that holders of the throne had to protect his crown versus endless waves of new and hungry challengers, and all of them inevitably collapsed, it was all a matter of when.
As of now, the influx of new talent has been next to non-existent for years on end, and it is just the same old people butting their heads against each other non-stop.
With all of that being said, if I were to give the title of the greatest Brood War player, not professional player, disregarding all of what I said above, I would end up giving that title to Flash most likely.
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I see, that's perfectly reasonable. Thank you 
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EPT
