• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EST 13:38
CET 19:38
KST 03:38
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
RSL Season 3 - Playoffs Preview0RSL Season 3 - RO16 Groups C & D Preview0RSL Season 3 - RO16 Groups A & B Preview2TL.net Map Contest #21: Winners12Intel X Team Liquid Seoul event: Showmatches and Meet the Pros10
Community News
Weekly Cups (Nov 24-30): MaxPax, Clem, herO win2BGE Stara Zagora 2026 announced15[BSL21] Ro.16 Group Stage (C->B->A->D)4Weekly Cups (Nov 17-23): Solar, MaxPax, Clem win3RSL Season 3: RO16 results & RO8 bracket13
StarCraft 2
General
Chinese SC2 server to reopen; live all-star event in Hangzhou Maestros of the Game: Live Finals Preview (RO4) BGE Stara Zagora 2026 announced Weekly Cups (Nov 24-30): MaxPax, Clem, herO win SC2 Proleague Discontinued; SKT, KT, SGK, CJ disband
Tourneys
RSL Offline Finals Info - Dec 13 and 14! Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament StarCraft Evolution League (SC Evo Biweekly) Sea Duckling Open (Global, Bronze-Diamond) $5,000+ WardiTV 2025 Championship
Strategy
Custom Maps
Map Editor closed ?
External Content
Mutation # 502 Negative Reinforcement Mutation # 501 Price of Progress Mutation # 500 Fright night Mutation # 499 Chilling Adaptation
Brood War
General
Data analysis on 70 million replays BW General Discussion Foreign Brood War MBCGame Torrents [ASL20] Ask the mapmakers — Drop your questions
Tourneys
Small VOD Thread 2.0 [Megathread] Daily Proleagues [BSL21] RO16 Group D - Sunday 21:00 CET [BSL21] RO16 Group A - Saturday 21:00 CET
Strategy
Current Meta Game Theory for Starcraft How to stay on top of macro? PvZ map balance
Other Games
General Games
Nintendo Switch Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Path of Exile ZeroSpace Megathread The Perfect Game
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas TL Mafia Community Thread
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine The Big Programming Thread
Fan Clubs
White-Ra Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Anime Discussion Thread [Manga] One Piece Movie Discussion!
Sports
Formula 1 Discussion 2024 - 2026 Football Thread
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
Where to ask questions and add stream? The Automated Ban List
Blogs
I decided to write a webnov…
DjKniteX
Physical Exertion During Gam…
TrAiDoS
James Bond movies ranking - pa…
Topin
Thanks for the RSL
Hildegard
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 1659 users

How to rank a Starcraft player?

Blogs > Ej_
Post a Reply
1 2 Next All
Ej_
Profile Blog Joined January 2013
47656 Posts
August 10 2017 11:40 GMT
#1
Recently, reading one of Letmelose's blogs, I stumbled upon MyStarcraft, it's an old Korean BW team manager, a progaming team sim if you will.
One of the most interesting things about it, one that Letmelose also used and highlighted, was the way it ranked its players:
+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]
source: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-war/145049-guide-mystarcraft

As you can see, it uses 8 separated critera to judge each player's skill. These are:
Sense, Control, Attack, Harassment, Strategy, Macro, Defense, Scouting
It is very interesting for 2 reasons:
-it's an unusually high number of statistics (old radar charts made by OGN for SC2 usually had 6)
-it divides the skills into decision-making-related and strategic abilities instead of mostly mechanical prowess
Now, both of these can be explained simply by ease of using these statistics in a simulator; certain of these stats are map-dependant and some of them have better matches vs other (attack vs defense, etc.) which creates interesting dynamics between players, making it more into a rock<paper<scissor<rock affair instead of just a Gwent-like game where you have distribute your power players properly.

However, I began to think that this actually might be a better method of judging players' skills than simply ranking their macro, micro, strategy and preperation. How do you rate a player's ability to deal with harassment? Is it multitasking? Then why does Nerchio fall apart to drops versus top Korean Terrans and then whacks down Protoss players with 3-pronged attacks? What about micro then? How does it come that ByuN has excellent target firing, but he can't split his marines for shit?

I thought about these things and came up with this radar chart:
[image loading]
As you can see, it divides the skills involved in a competitive starcraft game into 8 categories:
-micro - player's mechanical prowess in controlling their units
-macro - player's mechnical prowess when it comes to executing their build order, spending money, etc.
-offence - how much damage a player does relative to how few units he uses, the ability to cause damage and chaos
-defence - how well a player can stop any harassment or timings coming their way, the ability to respond to aggression
-tactics - a player's ability to find way for their offence to go through, be it through smart army positioning, approaching enemy's units on the map or well thought out multipronged attacks
-strategy - how well the player choses their build orders, if he keeps up with the metagame, how well they recognize and respond to the opponent's build order and playstyle
-preparation - how well player can come up with new build orders for important matches, change up their playstyle, surprise their opponent
-game sense - the x factor of this chart, the ability to respond to strategies not seen before, make bold calls, read the game at a level beyond the usual metagame and normal strategies. The broader meaning of star sense.

You probably noticed that I used only SC2 players as examples in this blog. That is because I considered SC2 when designing this chart, as it is the Starcraft I have the most competitive experience watching and the one game where I feel people need to obsessively rank players and argue about.
As a closure, I decided to try and draw radar charts in this system for some of the players in last SC2 power rank (which obviously was very very hard as most of the progamers break 40 out of 50 in at least half of the criteria and it takes an expert to judge them precisely):
+ Show Spoiler +

INNOVATION [image loading]
SOLAR [image loading]
STATS [image loading]
ROGUE [image loading]
HERO [image loading]
BYUN [image loading]

I feel like these above were horribly misjudged by myself, but they were only examples and I believe this system has some merit. I think radar charts are a tad more interesting and a billion times more precise than normal power ranks.


****
"Technically the dictionary has zero authority on the meaning or words" - Rodya
Charoisaur
Profile Joined August 2014
Germany16017 Posts
August 10 2017 11:55 GMT
#2
Inno's micro better than ByuN's?
But ByuN is the greatest micro player of all times of all RTS games how can someone be better than him???
Many of the coolest moments in sc2 happen due to worker harassment
The_Red_Viper
Profile Blog Joined August 2013
19533 Posts
August 10 2017 14:24 GMT
#3
I like the idea but imo you should change the scale of these to make it easier to see differences between players.
IU | Sohyang || There is no God and we are his prophets | For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.” | Ignorance is the parent of fear |
ZigguratOfUr
Profile Blog Joined April 2012
Iraq16955 Posts
August 10 2017 15:09 GMT
#4
I really disagree with Stats's chart. He's struck me as a master of defending early harassment who is good in late game situations, but with only mediocre adaptability in the face of the unexpected. So I guess that would translate into a better defense and worse game sense.

Either way finding any sort of consensus on a radar chart (even in the case of players who aren't unexpectedly hard to represent by it due to a quirk in one match-up) would be amazing. I'm also not sure how these charts capture player quirks. If a player always drops and never pushes does that mean they have bad tactics/strategy or is it just that only dropping is their 'style'?

I do agree with The_Red_Viper that you should just represent a subsection of the radar chart (like the 30-50 range) to make things more visible. Also adding the numbers would be nice.
EndingLife
Profile Blog Joined December 2002
United States1598 Posts
August 10 2017 20:11 GMT
#5
What about multitasking?
Th1rdEye
Profile Blog Joined December 2006
United States1074 Posts
August 11 2017 05:41 GMT
#6
Diet, amount of sleep before big competition, ability to handle pressure, etc Such a hard thing to rank all of em!
from the days of: TheMarine [NC]...YellOw [H.O.T.]-Forever99 OgOgO [_MuMyung_] ChRh PlayGrrrr.... SlayerS_`BoxeR` [Oops]Reach [ReD]NaDa [DF]zergboy..!! Pusan[S.G] Nal_rA GARIMTO SSamJJang ChoJJa JinSu Silent_Control iloveoov H_PauL_WII JulyZerg [DaK]JoYo
ZigguratOfUr
Profile Blog Joined April 2012
Iraq16955 Posts
August 11 2017 06:12 GMT
#7
On August 11 2017 14:41 Th1rdEye wrote:
Diet, amount of sleep before big competition, ability to handle pressure, etc Such a hard thing to rank all of em!


A perfect radar chart would have a single axis: "jet-lag resistance".
TelecoM
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
United States10686 Posts
August 11 2017 06:31 GMT
#8
Pretty interesting way to go about it, I like it. Multitasking should also be a trait as well I agree.
AKA: TelecoM[WHITE] Protoss fighting
Piste
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
6180 Posts
August 11 2017 06:34 GMT
#9
On August 11 2017 05:11 EndingLife wrote:
What about multitasking?

One could estimate the multitasking abilities from the combination of macro and micro in the chart, if they're both at good level I would assume that the players multitasking abilities would be on good level as well.
FFW_Rude
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
France10201 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-08-11 06:43:33
August 11 2017 06:42 GMT
#10
#1 KT Rolster fanboy. KT BEST KT ! Hail to KT playoffs Zergs ! Unofficial french translator for SlayerS_`Boxer` biography "Crazy as me".
Ej_
Profile Blog Joined January 2013
47656 Posts
August 11 2017 07:31 GMT
#11
I explained the thought process behind cutting multitasking as an inefficient metric and replacing it with defence and offence
"Technically the dictionary has zero authority on the meaning or words" - Rodya
CrymeaTerran
Profile Joined May 2017
149 Posts
August 11 2017 14:03 GMT
#12
This is so nice, we need something like this for televised matches
Sziky = Love
evilEye_
Profile Joined October 2014
United States91 Posts
August 11 2017 19:14 GMT
#13
On August 11 2017 05:11 EndingLife wrote:
What about multitasking?



Huh...? It's sc2 bro..
Real Eyes Realize Real Lies.
evilEye_
Profile Joined October 2014
United States91 Posts
August 11 2017 19:16 GMT
#14
On August 10 2017 20:55 Charoisaur wrote:
Inno's micro better than ByuN's?
But ByuN is the greatest micro player of all times of all RTS games how can someone be better than him???



Greatest of all-time would be a BW player obviously....i.e. Flash.

So to correct your statement:

But FlaSh is the greatest micro player of all times of all RTS games how can someone be better than him???

You're welcome.
Real Eyes Realize Real Lies.
The_Red_Viper
Profile Blog Joined August 2013
19533 Posts
August 11 2017 20:04 GMT
#15
On August 12 2017 04:16 evilEye_ wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 10 2017 20:55 Charoisaur wrote:
Inno's micro better than ByuN's?
But ByuN is the greatest micro player of all times of all RTS games how can someone be better than him???



Greatest of all-time would be a BW player obviously....i.e. Flash.

So to correct your statement:

But FlaSh is the greatest micro player of all times of all RTS games how can someone be better than him???

You're welcome.

Flash isn't even the greatest micro player in bw
IU | Sohyang || There is no God and we are his prophets | For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.” | Ignorance is the parent of fear |
EndingLife
Profile Blog Joined December 2002
United States1598 Posts
August 11 2017 20:14 GMT
#16
On August 12 2017 04:14 evilEye_ wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 11 2017 05:11 EndingLife wrote:
What about multitasking?



Huh...? It's sc2 bro..

I'm blind. I thought the title said Starcraft, not SC2. Hehehehe
Poly_Optimize
Profile Joined March 2016
Canada156 Posts
August 11 2017 23:47 GMT
#17
This is a very fun way to rank pro gamers. How do you put a score on each category? Do you use external statistics to analyze the criteria or you simply put a score with your common sense?

Did you used advanced analyzing replay tools/softwares to support your index score?
Charoisaur
Profile Joined August 2014
Germany16017 Posts
August 12 2017 11:17 GMT
#18
On August 12 2017 04:16 evilEye_ wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 10 2017 20:55 Charoisaur wrote:
Inno's micro better than ByuN's?
But ByuN is the greatest micro player of all times of all RTS games how can someone be better than him???



Greatest of all-time would be a BW player obviously....i.e. Flash.

So to correct your statement:

But FlaSh is the greatest micro player of all times of all RTS games how can someone be better than him???

You're welcome.

I like how you're so focused on bashing sc2 that you didn't even get the sarcasm
Many of the coolest moments in sc2 happen due to worker harassment
Poopi
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
France12906 Posts
August 12 2017 18:50 GMT
#19
How can ByuN micro be so low?
He basically won GSL and Blizzcon off of his micro.
WriterMaru
Bastinian
Profile Joined October 2014
Serbia177 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-08-12 22:13:53
August 12 2017 22:12 GMT
#20
How big difference is between strategy and tactics? Also you could make opposite things on chart on cross sides from each other, like offense being on west side of chart and defense being on east side of chart for example.
Tryhard, road to pro-gamer! :) | twitter.com/bastiniansc2 | twitch.tv/bastinian |
1 2 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
IPSL
17:00
Ro8 Set 1
Dewalt vs ZZZero
Liquipedia
PSISTORM Gaming Misc
16:55
FSL TeamLeague: ASH vs IC
Freeedom37
Liquipedia
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
IndyStarCraft 290
Rex 97
BRAT_OK 79
trigger 72
Livibee 62
MindelVK 26
StarCraft: Brood War
Calm 3649
EffOrt 693
firebathero 260
Bonyth 165
Rush 124
Larva 115
Rock 36
Dota 2
Gorgc5534
qojqva4540
Fuzer 406
420jenkins380
Counter-Strike
fl0m5187
zeus1244
chrisJcsgo31
Super Smash Bros
Mew2King119
Heroes of the Storm
Khaldor427
Liquid`Hasu344
Other Games
Grubby4181
Mlord705
DeMusliM221
RotterdaM174
Hui .157
KnowMe84
Sick76
Trikslyr65
Organizations
Other Games
EGCTV1478
StarCraft 2
WardiTV1193
ComeBackTV 574
Other Games
gamesdonequick414
StarCraft 2
TaKeTV 239
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 20 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• printf 26
• LUISG 14
• Hinosc 7
• Dystopia_ 1
• IndyKCrew
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• sooper7s
• intothetv
• Kozan
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
StarCraft: Brood War
• Michael_bg 8
• Pr0nogo 1
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
• BSLYoutube
Dota 2
• C_a_k_e 3224
Other Games
• imaqtpie849
• Shiphtur164
• tFFMrPink 14
Upcoming Events
BSL 21
1h 22m
Sziky vs OyAji
Gypsy vs eOnzErG
OSC
3h 22m
Solar vs Creator
ByuN vs Gerald
Percival vs Babymarine
Moja vs Krystianer
EnDerr vs ForJumy
sebesdes vs Nicoract
Sparkling Tuna Cup
15h 22m
WardiTV 2025
17h 22m
OSC
20h 22m
IPSL
22h 22m
Bonyth vs KameZerg
BSL 21
1d 1h
Bonyth vs StRyKeR
Tarson vs Dandy
Replay Cast
1d 14h
Wardi Open
1d 17h
StarCraft2.fi
1d 21h
[ Show More ]
Monday Night Weeklies
1d 22h
Replay Cast
2 days
WardiTV 2025
2 days
StarCraft2.fi
2 days
PiGosaur Monday
3 days
StarCraft2.fi
3 days
Tenacious Turtle Tussle
4 days
The PondCast
4 days
WardiTV 2025
4 days
StarCraft2.fi
4 days
WardiTV 2025
5 days
StarCraft2.fi
6 days
RSL Revival
6 days
IPSL
6 days
Sziky vs JDConan
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2025-12-04
RSL Revival: Season 3
Eternal Conflict S1

Ongoing

C-Race Season 1
IPSL Winter 2025-26
KCM Race Survival 2025 Season 4
YSL S2
BSL Season 21
CSCL: Masked Kings S3
Slon Tour Season 2
Acropolis #4 - TS3
WardiTV 2025
META Madness #9
Light HT
SL Budapest Major 2025
ESL Impact League Season 8
BLAST Rivals Fall 2025
IEM Chengdu 2025
PGL Masters Bucharest 2025
Thunderpick World Champ.
CS Asia Championships 2025
ESL Pro League S22

Upcoming

BSL 21 Non-Korean Championship
Acropolis #4
IPSL Spring 2026
Bellum Gens Elite Stara Zagora 2026
HSC XXVIII
Big Gabe Cup #3
RSL Offline Finals
Kuram Kup
PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026
IEM Kraków 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter Qual
eXTREMESLAND 2025
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.