Tournaments Won By YellOw

Tournament: GhemTV FindAll Challenger Open Starleague

On August 19 2017 12:33 c3rberUs wrote:

This tournament's title is kind of misleading. I thought it was an open tournament.

Dayum, YellOw and RainBOw kicked ass in the iTV 5th Ranking League. Interestingly, kicked off a string of Zerg 1st place triumphs (ChoJJa over TheMarine, July over iloveoov)

On August 20 2017 01:51 c3rberUs wrote:
It's a shame that even human history is recorded that way too. But in my desire to view history as it was rather than what it is today, I do view certain players with more distinction than most people. If H.O.T-Forever regrets the timing of his prime, I'm sure guys like St.Eagle, SsamJang, ChRh, TheBOy, etc also do. ^_^

The fact that Bisu is not in the same level on the list doesn't detract from his greatness in my opinion. There is no other Protoss player who has achieved the same level of success as him. That fact alone puts him in a special league of his own. I do say this with plenty of Protoss bias.

On August 20 2017 03:49 Waxangel wrote:
Brood War's arbitrary canon of "major" tournaments is such an odd issue. There's definitely an element of the the winner's writing history, as we've seen w/ OGN recently abusing their status as the sole-survivor of the cable TV era. At the same time, a lot of it is just formed through some intangible community consensus. It's similar to how the bonjwas were 'selected' back in 2007-2008—no one actually called an official counsel or held a vote, but the community ended up in a place where nearly everyone agreed that Boxer-Nada-iloveoov-Savior were the four bonjwas.

I feel like the most intriguing thing is how complicit the players themselves have been. Korean pros have generally been very passive in narrative-making, usually just accepting what the fans and media portray without complaint. Yet, I feel like they had the power to legitimize tournaments if they had been vocal about it. For example, the KT-KTF Premier League was every bit as competitive and well-funded as the OSL/MSL at the time, but it doesn't make the "major" cut for whatever reason.

Maybe the tools (social media, etc) just didn't exist back in the day for players to control the narrative of competitive StarCraft. I do feel, in the present, especially with the proliferation of streaming, it could be a chance for 'correction,' or at least a revision, of history. After all, it's the players who have the most incentive to go back and reclaim their own legacies.

On August 20 2017 13:12 c3rberUs wrote:
Curious as to what Sea has stated on his stream. Also is it a sure thing that he said it seriously or just to entertain his viewers?

On August 21 2017 06:03 Waxangel wrote:


I don't find any of this to be unreasonable. In fact, I find it to be very insightful.

It's exactly the kind of perspective we need, so we can get away from only counting tournament wins (which we weight completely arbitrarily, as we laid out before). I don't see how you're questioning their objectivity, insomuch as you are implying that you, me, or any of the fans in the world are more objective than the pros.

On August 21 2017 10:12 Letmelose wrote:


Here's what I think. A person can have a talent for the game. That talent, under the right circumstances, can be transformed into proficiency at the game. Proficiency at the game does not always correlate to success as a competitive gamer.

The only thing a fan of the game can judge is a player's results as a competitive gamer. That's where objectivity comes in. The professional Brood War scene has parallels to one-versus-one games like tennis, where trophy count is indeed a valuable metric of judging a player's success as a competitor. This is not like football where overall trophy count relies a lot on having the right teammates, unless you are specifically focusing on team leagues such as the ProLeague.

Sea doesn't know the simplest things like how many tournaments iloveoov won throughout his career, or his head-to-head match-up against famous rivals such as XellOs. What he does have, are insights into his talent and proficiency at the game that mere spectators of the competitive scene struggle to have. I have absolutely zero qualms about ex-professional players sharing their insight with us.

However, the problem arises when most of these questions were asked within the context of overall performance in the competitive scene, and relative level of skill compared to others.

1) Reach thinks GARIMTO was the best because he looked up to him as a fellow teammate when he was just starting out as a professional. I'm sure it was a combination of talent, skill, and success GARIMTO had at the game that made such an impression on Reach at the time, although he wasn't too specific about the details.

What if Reach made his debut in another era? What if Reach was in a different team? Does he know the exact talent, and skill level of everybody who was not in his team during the time frame he was refering to? This is subjective analysis of somebody from personal experience.

2) It was obvious that Leta made a strong impression on By.Baby, as he cited his unmatched mastery of wraiths, and great performances in the ProLeague as his reasons for picking Leta as one of the top five greatest terran players of all time (excluding BoxeR, who he said could not be assessed). It is also a subjective view on a fellow contemporary player, that could have changed if By.Baby was more active during the earlier eras.

3) Sea is a fan of illoveoov. What upcoming terran during that era wouldn't have been? iloveoov made the game so much easier for the following generations of terran players, while dominating the scene when you could display dominance in both individual and team leagues. That's a given. The fact that Sea cited multiple incorrect facts about iloveoov's competitive career makes me think that his choice was more influenced by his initial impressions rather than a thoughtful analysis into illoveoov's results compared to NaDa's.

4) ClouD's greatest success as a gamer came in 2004, when he was killing it the ProLeague. Conveniently enough, he goes on to say that what July achieved, and did during that particular time frame was more impressive than any other zergs in history. Do you think he would have said the same if July did something just as impressive in 1999, or 2011?

5) GoRush said iloveoov was a greater player than NaDa in terms of achievements and relative level of skill compared to others. He then cited his own head-to-head experiences versus them as the reason why. Nobody was asking him about who was more difficult to play against on a personal level. A quick search on TLPD would answer that question, and GoRush added his insight for the reasons.

I believe the insight ex-professionals give in terms of their impressions on a player's talent, or proficiency at the game in invaluable. I also tend to notice that ex-professionals don't always differentiate a player's gift for the game, or impact on the scene, and the actual results they had as competitive gamers.

Results are hard to weigh objectively. Every era has different set of circumstances. However, they are not totally arbitary if you actually put the effort in to try and make sense of the results of these ex-professionals. We don't need to rely on the words of ex-professionals who don't even know the trophy count of their favourite heroes properly, for this kind of task. Results may not be the net worth of the legacy ex-professionals left behind, but we can try to be as objective as possible when we try to look into their results, and I believe that is something ex-professionals rarely do, so I don't think I need their help in this particular department.

Results are not only judged by trophy count. I always try to judge a player's achievements as professional gamers by various methods, but I never pretend that a single metric such as overall trophy count, overall win percentage, or overall victory count can answer how these players did as competitors. Ex-professionals have amazing insight into more intangible measurements such as the talent, or gaming ability that a particular gamer had, and I am thankful that so many streamers are sharing their interesting anecdotes, but it does not always help me in finding out the context of the achievements these players had because their experiences are so subjective.

On August 22 2017 02:35 IntoTheWow wrote:



This is so spot on.

When all I ate and drank was BW, I woke up daily and first thing I did was download BW replays off yGclan or whatever site was popular at the time. I remember being so hype if I found a new big batch of unreleased replays somewhere.

Of course some of these replays were tagged, and some were not. Many random koreans I didn't know, but would eventually see on TV. I pretty much got lured into the same fallacies that you mentioned. I got so much respect over several months for practice partners (Jy for CJ for example) or one match-up wonders... and other people did too. I remember many gotcrazy for In_Dove at the time for his permanently high APM and his particularly clean SK Terran. Pretty obvious now none of them got close to achieving anything.

I remember also having several arguments on IRC about who's better than who at the time, when we already had TLPD to track results, but even then people fall into the same traps... Like: proleague wins counting, when someone is an ace, someone isn't. Someone didn't get air time, certain players having the best whatever race partners to get better training, etc. There's of course a luck factor cause some players had the best training conditions, best coaches... But even then there's people beding every rule to make a breakthrough (Anytime?).

Just remember the heated arguments over TL's power ranking and you will see it's just impossible to make a clear case for who is the best