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Part 4: JJu
JJu was a zerg player who was probably most well known for being part of the "Byun-Tae-Jun", the three musketeers of the zerg race during the mid-2000s. It was comprised of three legendary players, JJu, GoRush, and July.
"Byun-Tae-Jun" represented the second generation of zerg superstars, replacing the previous trifecta of "Jo-Jin-Rak" (ChoJJa, YellOw, and Junwi), who were themselves once the shining beacon of hope for the swarm during the earlier portion of the decade.
The term was coined after Gillette OGN StarLeague, after long time veterans all failed to qualify for the round of sixteen. Only JJu, GoRush, and July managed to qualify from the entire pool of the zerg race. OGN StarLeague never had such shortage of zerg players, and indeed, would never have another league where zerg players were in such short supply.
However, the legacy of Gillette OGN StarLeague is a fairy-tale meant for another time, for another player. The kind of tournament that was etched into the minds of older fans,
So what should the history books say for JJu, apart from the fact that he was once regarded as one of the many top zerg players eons ago? July has his numerous trophies and the Golden Mouse, GoRush has his electric YATGK MSL triumph, and the record for the most consecutive KeSPA officiated games win streak of all time, and even those two are sometimes cast aside as relics of an irrelevant past.
![[image loading]](http://pds23.egloos.com/pds/201112/26/29/c0127529_4ef862697deaf.jpg)
Even if you don't think much of July, you can't take away his Golden Mouse, something only three other players managed in history
It's a hard case to sell for older generation of players who have nothing but their trophy case to offer to those who don't remember their full exploits in detail. JJu, may have had something to say back when he was a semi-finalist in an era that had zero zerg champions, but with so many zerg players gracing the finals since then, his multiple semi-finals appearances may seem cute in comparison.
What will save JJu from disappearing into obscurity, lost amongst the masses of zerg champions and finalists? Yes he had some cute plays, made it deep into tournaments, defeated some truly great players along the way, but what differentiates him from the rest?
JJu, in my eyes, was the first true zerg superstar in the team-based leagues.
![[image loading]](http://image.ohmynews.com/down/images/1/manmandori_251343_1[366775].jpg)
After his transfer from SouL, JJu carried the burden of being the ace player of Samsung Khan, until Stork was ready to take his place
Ever since the creation of MBC Game Team League, and OGN ProLeauge in early 2003, terrans were the truly dominant forces in these leagues. There was a saying in the scene that no team could be destined for greatness without a terran ace, and that was often the case.
XellOs was GO's (Greatest One, the team that would eventually become CJ Entus) single biggest reason for winning three MBC Game Team Leagues out of the five. The main thrust of 4U/SK Telecom T1's triumphs in the OGN ProLeague, and MBC Game Team Leagues during their greatest years of success was provided by iloveoov, who provided monstrous performances in many of these tournaments.
JJu was originally on SouL, a team comprised mostly of zerg aces. JJu was one of the few superlative performers in MBC Game Team Leagues, especially in the All-Kill format, in fact, JJu, believe it or not, is the all time leader of number of victories earned under an All-Kill format in the context of MBC Game Team Leagues (if you include the preliminary rounds, if you only count the main tournament, XellOs becomes the all-time leader), ahead of other MBC Team League monsters such as XellOs, iloveoov, and NaDa.
+ Show Spoiler +
1. JJu: 24-12 (66.7%)
2. NaDa: 21-9 (70.0%)
3. XellOs: 20-4 (83.3%)
4. iloveoov: 18-5 (78.3%)
![[image loading]](http://file.instiz.net/data/file/20140120/c/1/8/c184df174fce55f194132d9b5593e845.jpg)
In an era filled with monsters like iloveoov, JJu was the only non-terran ace player to hold a candle his terran ace counterparts in the MBC Team Leagues
However, it didn't feel right to pick a tournament that JJu ultimately failed to bring glory to his team, even though JJu managed to All-Kill the enemy teams on three separate occasions, a record that is only matched by XellOs, recognized as perhaps the greatest MBC Team League player of all time due to his massive trophy count, and an insane record to accompany that.
The tournament that defined JJu as a player was 2005 KTF BiGi KOREA eSports, the first rendition of a series of tournaments that later became the KeSPA Cup. It was a huge tournament in terms of prize pool and overall player participation.
As a point of reference, SKY 2005 ProLeague Grand Finals gave ₩50,000,000 to the 1st placed team after a year long grueling schedule of hundreds of games. 2005 KTF BiGi KOREA eSports (1st KeSPA Cup) gave ₩40,000,000 to the 1st placed team for a couple of days worth of work.
JJu, as the ace player of Samsung Khan, blazed through the competition undefeated against the likes of XellOs, and YellOw, and won two matches for Samsung Khan in the finals against Hanbit Stars (the team that would later become Woonjin Stars). Samsung Khan won their first ever trophy as a team, and JJu was the only undefeated player, player with the most number of victories, and the most clutch player in the finals, and was rightly named the MVP of the entire tournament.
![[image loading]](http://contents.dt.co.kr/images/200904/2009041302019922601014.jpg)
All I could recall was how January, the head coach of Samsung Khan was crying after her team won their first ever tournament as a team
I tried hard to find footage of some of the games that had JJu's victories, but I'll have to make do with describing the games by memory. But to be quite honest, I can't remember the matches JJu played despite watching them on television.
I was literally worshipping July at the time, and only remember July winning one-versus-one games, two-versus-two games as both zerg and terran (because the team lacked a good terran two-versus-two player), but ultimately failing in the semi-finals versus Hanbit Stars. I was too tilted and enraged to pay any close attention to the games played in the finals. July had been giving up his individual league practice entirely, just to get his team into a winning position so they can catch the eye of the sponsors for quite some time, only to be fruitless in his endeavours.
![[image loading]](http://sports.chosun.com/news/entertainment/200410/20041005/4ae14202.jpg)
Despite his hardest efforts, July was unable to transform his bottom-feeding team into champions for the longest time
We never had a zerg as the hero in a team game setting, whether it was the ProLeague, or the MBC Game Team League. It was always the terran aces with the help of their back-up crew taking all the glory. It was always the likes of XellOs, iloveoov, GoodFriend, or ClouD who got the limelight while their team won. Great players exist, but it is the presence of great terran players that got you the titles, everyone had said.
This tournament was pivotal in changing that perception, proving that you can build a championship winning team (Samsung Khan terran players won a single game in this entire tournament) with great players, even if they are not great terran players. JJu, in my opinion, played a huge role in changing that stereotype, and was the guy who made the entire scene realize that when January bought JJu from SouL, she had a championship-winning ace player in mind, not another strong zerg player ready to play the back-up role.
This is how I'll salute JJu, the player who I often neglected to notice while I was busy sucking July off on internet forums. The master of backdooring, the connoisseur of aggressive lair play, and the man who transformed the rag-tag team of Samsung Khan into a championship winning team after his transer from SouL. Before ZerO became famous for it, before Jaedong's ensnare play against FanTaSy, this was the definitive queen play that was talked about in the communities.
+ Show Spoiler +
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pivitol -> pivotal
Otherwise everything looks great! Really enjoying this series.
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On July 13 2017 05:39 Jealous wrote:
pivitol -> pivotal
Otherwise everything looks great! Really enjoying this series.
Thanks for the correction. I think I was stuck in a rut of picking out players from an era where everything had more or less figured itself out, and was already well documented on sites such as this. I wanted to do a piece about someone from a less well remembered era, but quickly found out I had forgotten most of the details myself, and much of the play-by-play reports, statistics, VODs, factoids, interviews, and well written columns dedicated to older generations players I intended to look into from various Korean sources were lost in time forever. God help me if I ever decide to write something on someone like H.O.T.-Forever, or someone whose records are even more obscure and difficult to locate like St.Eagle.
JJu wasn't a micro-management freak of nature like July, who over-powered his opponents with his unmatched proficiency of various zerg units (somewhat like Jaedong later on), or a methodical player like GoRush who planned out games from start to finish and looked somewhat out of place when things didn't go to plan (somewhat like Calm later on), but a player who relied on his cunning, and tried to out-fox the enemy player (somewhat like EffOrt later on).
JJu was someone who didn't have a thoroughly thought-through game plan that allowed him to have a strong late-game like GoRush, nor was he someone who could exert enormous pressure on his opponent through sheer mastery of his units. What he did have, instead, was his wit and guile about the game, which allowed him to win games in exhilarating fashion, but also made him what Korean communities named a "player decided by his bio-rhythm", because out-smarting the enemy on the fly wasn't something you could rely on all the time. However, when it worked, he could have fantastic victories versus even the most difficult opponents, as you can see in the game below.
+ Show Spoiler +
JJu was not only the all-time best zerg player in the MBC Game Team Leagues (early 2003 ~ early 2005), he has the most number of wins in the ProLeague out of any zerg player that competed between KTF EVER 2003 (the first ever ProLeague) and SKY 2005 ProLeague Grand Finals (in summary all the ProLeague seasons from early 2003 ~ early 2006), and on top of that was the best player in 2005 KTF BiGi KOREA eSports (late 2005).
In the mid-2000s JJu was the best zerg player in team-based leagues across all platforms, although players such as SiR@SoNi~, or MuMyung might have performed better in short bursts during this era, but none were truly seen as the ace players of their teams the way JJu was, nor could we find any zerg player who could keep that level of performance across all platforms for multiple seasons like JJu.
JJu was the one that made Samsung Khan contenders for the number one spot. He was the clear ace player of the team, and that makes him, in my opinion, the first zerg superstar of the team-based leagues before Jaedong made his entrance in 2006.
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For those who are looking for other sources of information on JJu that is written in English, I just did a quick search, and found this piece.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-war/475382-article-best-zergs-to-never-win-a-major
I personally wouldn't have the rankings quite like that, but it does mention almost all the points I've made about JJu (that post made by FireBlast! is quite the tribute to JJu considering it was just a casual post in some random thread) in a more succinct manner.
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I know this topic has been beat to death in the past, but I'm curious on your thoughts and the Korean community's reaction when Mind beat Bisu? I think that could be a "career defining tournament" for both of them, in some ways.
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On July 14 2017 13:27 Jealous wrote:
I know this topic has been beat to death in the past, but I'm curious on your thoughts and the Korean community's reaction when Mind beat Bisu? I think that could be a "career defining tournament" for both of them, in some ways.
From my memory, it wasn't that much different from this site, to be honest. sAviOr was probably the most popular player at the time, and Bisu looked to be his natural successor. GomTV MSL Season 3 finals was meant to be the part of Bisu's rise to the throne, to meet his destiny of becoming the next "bonjwa" of the professional Brood War scene.
People like storylines that neatly tie together, and Bisu was the perfect candidate for that. He was the post-BoxeR everybody had been looking for. sAviOr had his own bad-boy image figured out, but Bisu was like Luke Skywalker. He was the way of the light, the saviour of thousands of protoss players who still had flashbacks of whimpering under the reign of terror from the lord of the dark side, sAviOr. This would finally be their time.
Mind defeating Bisu in a mostly one-sided affair was somewhat like Luke Skywalker being killed by a random stormtrooper to those fans. It was an anti-climatic end to a story that they expected to be so much more cathartic and grandiose. People were not ready to accept the fact that this quest for bonjwahood was never meant to be for Bisu, and would latch onto this idea that Bisu was destined for something so much greater than what he actually accomplished for years, until finally the chasm between the expectations set for Bisu and the results he delivered (which is enough for him to be considered one of the greatest of all time), gave birth to the meme of "Corand Pinal", an imaginary tournament especially made for Bisu to battle versus only the greatest players of the era. The link below is the hype for the 2010 Corand Pinal.
+ Show Spoiler +http://www.ygosu.com/community/real_article/st/211588/?page=0&frombest=Y
Bisu's failures are always followed by the five stages of grief in community threads (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance). To be honest, it was the case for any player with a significant following, but Bisu and Jaedong in particular, had the most insufferable fans during the most recent era of professional Brood War due to their popularity. It didn't really vary all that much in content whether it was in Korean, or in English. If you are really curious, you can read the emotional wreck that was the live report thread.
+ Show Spoiler +http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/bw-tournaments/62607-gomtv3-msl-finals-bisu-vs-mind-17-november-2007
This was one of the many threads created after Bisu's defeat on PGR21, one of the most conserved Brood War sites around at the time. This thread is titled somewhat to the effect of "Doesn't matter, Bisu is still a bonjwa".
+ Show Spoiler +http://ppt21.com/pb/pb.php?id=free2&no=32892&page=1065&desc=desc
I personally believe that GomTV MSL Season 1 is Bisu's career defining tournament, but Bisu's career is so much more than that. He has gone on to achieve what no protoss has done before or since. Despite his fantatstic career achievements, I also personally don't think Bisu was bonjwa-material to begin with, so reviewing GomTV MSL Season 3 from the perspective of how tournament was significant in terms of how Bisu was this close to becoming the next bonjwa would go against what I have been writing about for years on this site.
As for Mind, I think everybody already knows how GomTV MSL Season 3 was his career defining tournament without me rehashing that same narrative. It's the same reason why I probably won't do the series about ForGG, because we all would know in advance what that tournament will be about. I don't think I have the ability to bring out a fresh new angle to approach those kinds of storylines.
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While I'm on the topic of obnoxious fandoms, there are four groups who I perceive to the most deluded, toxic, and hateful supporters of various players over the years.
1) BoxeR fans who couldn't accept the fact that NaDa had overtaken BoxeR as the best player in the scene, and tried to belittle NaDa in any way possible. Probably the most horrendous groups imaginable in terms of the amount of shade thrown at a specific player. If I was a greater fan of NaDa, I'll probably point to this group as the worst.
2) sAviOr fans who couldn't accept the fact that their hero was a sell-out who had his fixteen minutes of fame, and tried to glorify his anti-hero image, and belittled the achievements of other great zerg players with their endless rhetoric of, "but did he make me cum quite as hard like sAviOr did when he beat NaDa?"
3) Bisu fans who couldn't accept the fact that Bisu was never meant for the title of bonjwa, and spent their useless time hating on players like Shine instead of coming to grips with the fact that every single championship title wasn't Bisu's birthright. Bisu, despite not doing anything wrong, faced a lot of backlash (such as the famous Korean memer, 320 of DCInside, who spent a lot of his time hating on Bisu) due to his fan-base being the most obnoxious when the professional scene was still alive during the late 2000s.
4) Jaedong fans who couldn't accept the fact that Flash had overtaken Jaedong as the greatest player of modern times, and started overly-fixating on the imbalance between the terran and zerg race. While I still think it wasn't that obnoxious (probably because I was personally involved in it), I think it's fair to say that, right now, at least in the Korean communities, Jaedong fans are the worst bunch of whining twats.
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Thank you for your insight and elaboration  Very much appreciated. I do notice that the Jaedong fans have gotten pretty bad, even coming from posters who don't have much of a history/presence outside of whining about TvZ/Jaedong. The more ardent Bisu fans at least take the form of veterans, it seems (BisuDagger). Maybe it's a small sample bias but it certainly seems that tesagi from Jaedong-loving Zergs is definitely the worst group at the moment.
Really interesting point about BoxeR vs. NaDa - that was before my interest really grew in competitive Brood War, unfortunately, and it is somewhat sad but not outside my understanding that people have been shitty fans for a while now. I just find it hard to hate on NaDa - he's so likeable! I can understand hating on Mind, or Flash, but NaDa? I guess it was the dominance, the high-APM Tornado Terran in TvP vs. the cute tricks of a 1-basing Boxer. It might have felt like the end of an era, an era that people were not willing to part with.* Kind of like savior's era ending, or the death of the dream for Bisu.
* Until Reach vs. oov on Mercury, I guess, as many I have heard say that this was the official "there is no going back now," math for the macro era? Do Korean fans see it the same way?
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Bisutopia19207 Posts
On July 14 2017 22:26 Jealous wrote:Thank you for your insight and elaboration Very much appreciated. I do notice that the Jaedong fans have gotten pretty bad, even coming from posters who don't have much of a history/presence outside of whining about TvZ/Jaedong. The more ardent Bisu fans at least take the form of veterans, it seems (BisuDagger). Maybe it's a small sample bias but it certainly seems that tesagi from Jaedong-loving Zergs is definitely the worst group at the moment. Really interesting point about BoxeR vs. NaDa - that was before my interest really grew in competitive Brood War, unfortunately, and it is somewhat sad but not outside my understanding that people have been shitty fans for a while now. I just find it hard to hate on NaDa - he's so likeable! I can understand hating on Mind, or Flash, but NaDa? I guess it was the dominance, the high-APM Tornado Terran in TvP vs. the cute tricks of a 1-basing Boxer. It might have felt like the end of an era, an era that people were not willing to part with.* Kind of like savior's era ending, or the death of the dream for Bisu. * Until Reach vs. oov on Mercury, I guess, as many I have heard say that this was the official "there is no going back now," math for the macro era? Do Korean fans see it the same way?
I've done my best to put Bisu fans in a good light. TBH, it doesn't seem like any more hardcore Bisu fans exist. JD, Flash, and even Stork still have hardcore fans though.
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On July 14 2017 13:27 Jealous wrote:
I know this topic has been beat to death in the past, but I'm curious on your thoughts and the Korean community's reaction when Mind beat Bisu? I think that could be a "career defining tournament" for both of them, in some ways.
The first post was from a narrative point of view, and now I'll try answering from a statistical point of view.
Bisu's defeat to Mind in the finals of GomTV MSL Season 3 was his first ever best-of-five defeat against a terran player. Before this defeat, this was Bisu's career record versus terrans:
61-34 (64.2%)
+ Show Spoiler +Disparity between Bisu's win rate against terrans and Mind's win rate against protoss: 10.4%
A very respectable win rate, but there were more unstoppable forces who were stopped throughout history. I'll try listing the top ten surprising best-of-five upsets, in order of the career win percentage the player in question had against the race of the player who caused the upset. I will require a minimum of twenty victories, which will exclude players such as Flash who had excellent records before his first best-of-five defeats. All victories against non-Korean players during WCG games (even players who competed in Korea such as Lx) are excluded from record.
1) iloveoov best-of-five defeat versus July
+ Show Spoiler +iloveoov's career record versus zerg before his first best-of-five defeat versus zerg: 43-5 (89.6%)
+ Show Spoiler +Disparity between iloveoov's win rate and July's win rate: 30%
2) Jaedong's best-of-five defeat versus Calm
+ Show Spoiler +Jaedong's career record versus zerg before his first best-of-five defeat versus zerg: 97-29 (77.0%)
+ Show Spoiler +Disparity between Jaedong's win rate and Calm's win rate: 23.1%
3) Nal_rA's best-of-five defeat versus Kingdom
+ Show Spoiler +Nal_rA's career record versus protoss before his first best-of-five defeat versus protoss: 29-10 (73.0%)
+ Show Spoiler +Disparity between Jaedong's win rate and Calm's win rate: 20.6%
4) sAviOr's best-of-five defeat versus Bisu
+ Show Spoiler +sAviOr's career record versus protoss before his first best-of-five defeat versus protoss: 67-25 (72.8%)
+ Show Spoiler +Disparity between sAviOr's win rate and Bisu's win rate: 7.1%
5) ChoJJa's best-of-five defeat versus Reach
+ Show Spoiler +ChoJJa's career record versus protoss before his first best-of-five defeat versus protoss: 60-23 (72.3%)
+ Show Spoiler +Disparity between ChoJJa's win rate and Reach's win rate: 15.3%
6) BoxeR's best-of-five defeat versus ChoJJa
+ Show Spoiler +BoxeR's career record versus zerg before his first best-of-five defeat versus zerg: 144-58 (71.3%)
+ Show Spoiler +Disparity between BoxeR's win rate and ChoJJa's win rate: 29.0%
7) Junwi's best-of-five defeat versus Kingdom
+ Show Spoiler +Junwi's career record versus protoss before his first best-of-five defeat versus protoss: 37-15 (71.2%)
+ Show Spoiler +Disparity between Junwi's win rate and Kingdom's win rate: 17.1%
8) NaDa's best-of-five defeat versus iloveoov
+ Show Spoiler +NaDa's career record versus terran before his first best-of-five defeat versus terran: 87-36 (70.7%%)
+ Show Spoiler +Disparity between NaDa's win rate and iloveoov's win rate: 4.7%
9) EffOrt's best-of-five defeat versus Iris
+ Show Spoiler +EffOrt's career record versus terran before his first best-of-five defeat versus terran: 52-22 (70.3%)
+ Show Spoiler +Disparity between EffOrt's win rate and Iris' win rate: 11.9%
10) NaDa's best-of-five defeat versus YellOw
+ Show Spoiler +NaDa's career record versus zerg before his first best-of-five defeat versus zerg: 125-53 (70.2%)
+ Show Spoiler +Disparity between NaDa's win rate and YellOw' win rate: 5.4%
After going through the first best-of-five defeats of players I thought were notable (so this list is by no means fully accurate or all encompassing) I could find ten players who had a career record that went above 70% percent, and found so many players who had a win rate that was above Bisu's protoss-versus-terran win rate before he lost to Mind, that I know for a fact that Bisu can't crack the top twenty list of the players with the highest win rate versus a certain race before going down to a player of that race in a best-of-five.
In the context that Mind was a totally unproven player, and Bisu was a two time champion with one series away from winning his third, yes, this was one of the most shocking upsets in the history of the game. However, considering that there were instances of failure in a best-of-five setting from a plethora of players who had tremendous success against certain races (at a rate that was clearly a level above Bisu's protoss-versus-terran prowess at the time), perhaps suggests that it wasn't to be that unexpected from a pure statistical point of view.
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Thank you for that additional perspective, Letmelose! Really cool way of thinking about it
On July 14 2017 22:33 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2017 22:26 Jealous wrote:Thank you for your insight and elaboration Very much appreciated. I do notice that the Jaedong fans have gotten pretty bad, even coming from posters who don't have much of a history/presence outside of whining about TvZ/Jaedong. The more ardent Bisu fans at least take the form of veterans, it seems (BisuDagger). Maybe it's a small sample bias but it certainly seems that tesagi from Jaedong-loving Zergs is definitely the worst group at the moment. Really interesting point about BoxeR vs. NaDa - that was before my interest really grew in competitive Brood War, unfortunately, and it is somewhat sad but not outside my understanding that people have been shitty fans for a while now. I just find it hard to hate on NaDa - he's so likeable! I can understand hating on Mind, or Flash, but NaDa? I guess it was the dominance, the high-APM Tornado Terran in TvP vs. the cute tricks of a 1-basing Boxer. It might have felt like the end of an era, an era that people were not willing to part with.* Kind of like savior's era ending, or the death of the dream for Bisu. * Until Reach vs. oov on Mercury, I guess, as many I have heard say that this was the official "there is no going back now," math for the macro era? Do Korean fans see it the same way? I've done my best to put Bisu fans in a good light. TBH, it doesn't seem like any more hardcore Bisu fans exist. JD, Flash, and even Stork still have hardcore fans though.
I am a hardcore Bisu fan, but he has made it tough on us recently. As far as BIsu fandom and conduct, I've cooled off a lot in the past 10 years simply because I got older. I think that's probably true for many other obnoxious fanboys out there
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I think the level of all the irrational, jealous, spiteful, and delusional energy that comes from a certain fandom has a direct correlation to the total number of fans the player in question has. Basically, the bigger the fandom, the bigger the number of vocal cunts there are. Add in some cause for frustration (upsets, map imbalance, losing to cheese, or being upstaged by another player), these people can truly become nightmares for community members who do not share their level of adulation for these players. When I was an obsessed, active Brood War community member, Bisu had the perfect recipe for creating some of the most obnoxious idiots out there. I think my unhealthy levels of criticism for Bisu stems from that era. If I was more active when BoxeR fans were creating havoc, I might be making blogs about how BoxeR sucks balls non-stop.
As for the fandom size, BoxeR's fans were the worst (in my opinion) because they were by far the largest fandom that ever existed in professional Brood War. sAviOr, Jaedong, and Bisu fans were, in my eyes, the biggest fandoms in the more recent eras. You rarely saw complaints about irrational, toxic Flash fans, for example, because both Bisu and Jaedong had more popularity than Flash. As of today, I may be wrong, but I believe that Jaedong has the largest viewership and following, which invariably leads to some of them being totally insufferable whenever Jaedong loses, which is sadly quite often these days.
Backlash due to the toxicity is part of the spiral of hate as well. Bisu had to face a lot of unnecessary ridicule from people like me, and literally thousands of memers (320 was one of the most popular posters on SGAEL, a Brood War community site, when it was by far the biggest internet community in Korea, and his sole focus was to make funny content bashing Bisu) who were ready to make the existence of a Bisu fan hell on earth, just to spite the Bisu fans who they perceived as the worst community members.
I think Bisu got a lot of unwarranted hate, and some undeserved praise, throughout his career, and considering I am one of the few who still struggle to say outright that Bisu is clearly the greatest protoss player of all time, I often wonder how much of my opinion are influenced by reading so much negative aspects of Bisu as a player. If I had that much knowledge about the flaws and inadequacies of any player except for maybe Flash (because the bastard had such a flawless career relative to any player), I could probably undermine their results in such a way that they longer seem that good.
So that's the biases I have as a poster, and despite my efforts to reduce bias through various statistics, numbers, if used in the wrong way, can be used to confirm a wrong assumption. There's no correct way to analyze statistics, so I try to approach things statistically from as many angles as I can think of, but I am a common fan, not a statistician.
As for the birth of the macro-era, I think it is more accurate to say that iloveoov gave birth to the build-optimization era. NaDa already showed us the power of the sheer number of units, which gave birth to the phrase "NaDa with his natural expansion running is impossible to beat". However, I am by no means an expert on the career of iloveoov. I would assume he used his build optimization to great success (against the zerg race in particular) while he was building up his insane win rate in 2003, but I cannot for the life of me pin point the game that was first shown on television which would change the course of history, and it's really hard find all the VODs which prevents me from checking out the games out one by one. If anyone has a good recollection of KTF EVER 2003 ProLeague (iloveoov's first competition where he made a big impression), I'd be really grateful if you could point out some of the fresh approach iloveoov had in his game, if he had any.
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Japan11285 Posts
You rarely saw complaints about irrational, toxic Flash fans, for example
I want to give some perspective on this though. You almost never get these cause he's pretty much always winning anyway. His fans don't need to throw shade on some player who overtook him simply because that player doesn't exist. It could have been FanTaSy or JangBi. Or maybe someone like SoulKey or BoGus or Last down the road but the KeSPA era ended and now in this era we still have FlaSh shitting on everyone. There are guys like M18M, Tyson and Dear who could take him down but that's not even close to say NaDa overtaking BoxeR.
On the context of JJu's career though. I'm glad that finally, someone with knowledge about the time when JJu was a beast posted about his greatness (in a certain context to at least.) I'll need to read this fully after I get some shut eye though. Thanks once again!
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On July 22 2017 00:11 c3rberUs wrote:I want to give some perspective on this though. You almost never get these cause he's pretty much always winning anyway. His fans don't need to throw shade on some player who overtook him simply because that player doesn't exist. It could have been FanTaSy or JangBi. Or maybe someone like SoulKey or BoGus or Last down the road but the KeSPA era ended and now in this era we still have FlaSh shitting on everyone. There are guys like M18M, Tyson and Dear who could take him down but that's not even close to say NaDa overtaking BoxeR. On the context of JJu's career though. I'm glad that finally, someone with knowledge about the time when JJu was a beast posted about his greatness (in a certain context to at least.) I'll need to read this fully after I get some shut eye though. Thanks once again!
That's true to an extent, but Flash fans in general have less occasions of spazzing out when he is knocked out of a tournament by players who are not considered "admirable" enough such as Kwanro. The level of vitriol when Bisu is knocked out, whether it is directed at map imbalance, imaginary curses and jinxes, or the player who was responsible for the upset, was way more out of control than for almost any other player in recent history.
SGAEL, the largest community for Brood War that ever existed during its prime, was the stronghold for the most zealous Bisu fans, and also home for the most arduous Bisu anti-fans, who were basically a collection of the fandom of all other players who were sick of the antics Bisu fans were displaying for years unchecked. The level of idiocy continued even when Bisu tried out his luck in Starcraft 2, when Bisu was voted in instead of Rain in SGAEL All Stars 2013, despite all other players being voted in due to their level of play and results (notice the likes of Jaedong, or Stork were not voted in). I don't think I need to go into detail the level of delusion that went on when Bisu was actually a top-tier player in professional Brood War.
Perhaps on Team Liquid, the dynamic wasn't quite as extreme, but even on this site, Bisu was responsible for some of the saltiest, deluded fan-boys out there. When Flash was knocked-off his perch (FanTaSy eventually became the top rated player in the KeSPA rankings, earned more than Flash in terms of prize money in 2011~2012, started to have a higher win rate, and defeated Flash mano-a-mano in the ProLeague play-offs and in a best-of-five setting) by FanTaSy during the final moments of professional Brood War, of course there were vocal degenerates who tried their hardest to undermine FanTaSy by fixating on the circumstances of the mixed-schedule of Brood War and Starcraft 2, but the level of salt wasn't actually that unbearable in my memory, and you could have a reasonable back-and-forth with people who supported Flash even when the subject at hand wasn't that favourable for Flash. When Bisu's popularity was at its peak, that was basically impossible on some of the communities.
Right now, that particular mantle belongs to Jaedong's fandom. Perhaps it's not just the size of the fandom, but the player in question providing sources of frustration (some people supporting Jaedong in Korean communities like YGOSU get triggered to no ends whenever the topic of whether Jaedong remains the best zerg in terms of skill comes up, the reasonable answer to which is, no, not right now, and perhaps never again). Flash has been very kind towards his fans, by not running through the full course of his professional career in the eyes of the viewers (the end years for any truly great player has never been too easy on the eyes), and more importantly, by becoming the best player in the scene once again in the streaming era.
However, while nobody questions Flash in that particular regard, the question of whether Flash actually accomplished more than NaDa, or was more influential in terms of advancing the terran race as a whole than iloveoov, or was more iconic than BoxeR has been posted many times in numerous communities. The response, in general, tend to be not too out of control, because perhaps they don't need to fight over such trivial matters in their eyes.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://image-proxy.namuwikiusercontent.com/r/http%3A%2F%2Ffile.gamedonga.co.kr%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2Fnews_images_u%2Fuzoo20060601_02.jpg)
