|
I was watching Nal_rA's stream with July, when I noticed that July said that he was a constant participant of the televised stages of individual leagues, for a record breaking five years, or 16 seasons of individual leagues. I decided to take this concept, and do the same for every single possible round for the major individual leagues.
A single season of individual leagues usally lasts for around three to four months. During that time frame, there are usually two individual championships, one run by Ongamenet, and one run by MBC Game, although there were times where there was only one. I will list whoever did the best for the most consecutive seasons, and I will not mind if a player alternated from doing well in the OGN StarLeague and MSL, as long as they were doing well in at least one of the major individual leagues. If there is a tie, I will differentiate by whoever had a greater number of high placings within that specific time frame.
Top five consecutive seasons of being a champion
1. iloveoov: four consecutive seasons
2. Flash: three consecutive seasons (reached more finals than NaDa)
3. NaDa: three consecutive seasons (won more finals than sAviOr)
4. sAviOr: three consecutive seasons (reached more finals than Jaedong)
5. Jaedong: three consecutive seasons
Top five consecutive seasons of being a finalist
1. sAviOr: six consecutive seasons
2. NaDa: five consecutive seasons (won more finals than Jaedong)
3. Jaedong: five consecutive seasons
4. iloveoov: four consecutive seasons (won more finals than BoxeR)
5. BoxeR: four consecutive seasons
Top five consecutive seasons of being a semi-finalist
1. YellOw: eight consecutive seasons
2. Jaedong: seven consecutive seasons
3. NaDa: six consecutive seasons (won more finals than sAviOr)
4. sAviOr: six consecutive seasons
5. iloveoov: four consecutive seasons (won more finals than BoxeR)
Top five consecutive seasons of being a quarter-finalist
1. NaDa: nine consecutive seasons (won more finals than BoxeR)
2. BoxeR: nine consecutive seasons (won more finals than YellOw)
3. YellOw: nine consecutive seasons
4. iloveoov: eight consecutive seasons
5. Jaedong: seven consecutive seasons
Top five consecutive seasons of within the round of sixteen
1. Flash: fourteen consecutive seasons (won more finals than Stork)
2. Stork: fourteen consecutive seasons
3. Jaedong: twelve consecutive seasons
4. NaDa: ten consecutive seasons (won more finals than BoxeR)
5. BoxeR: ten consecutive seasons (won more finals than YellOw)
The record that July holds is being the record holder for lasting sixteen consecutive seasons without failing to qualify past at least one of the offline qualifiers. The number of players I need to check for that particular record is too vast, so I'll put the search for the top five players in that category on hold for now.
This isn't a list of the players who won the most, or a list of players who accumulated more higher placings than the other players. This is a list of who performed at the highest level of competition for the longest length of time, and streaky players with polarizing performances from one week to another will struggle to make an appearance on any of these lists, no matter how spectacular their peaks were. This should be a good indicator of people who were relevant at the top level throughout the ages, whatever your particular notion of a top player happens to be.
There is only two players to appear in all five of these lists. That is NaDa, and Jaedong. iloveoov came close, but he wasn't a regular staple in this individual leagues by 2006, meaning that he stopped being relevant as a top player after around three years. Flash is the only player alongside Stork to be in the round of sixteen or above in at least one of the major individual leagues ever since mid-2007, but his relatively more frequent slumps where he would drop out of both individual leagues before the quarter-finals stopped him from being present in all five lists.
I noticed that being a regular presence in the lower rounds such as the semi-finals is rarely appreciated. YellOw was consistently reaching the semi-finals for two years from late-2001 to late-2003, but that kind of sturdy performance is rarely remembered, while more noticeable feats of performance like reaching the most consecutive finals tends to go down in history, which is why players like iloveoov, or sAviOr tend to be remembered more fondly, even if their overall length of stay as a relevant players was shorter than some of the other great legends.
|
A list that NaDa and Jaedong top? I can get behind that.
Super interesting. Thanks
|
Things become very weird for the ProLeague, since a single season of ProLeague can last from anything from approximately two months to around ten months.
Although it's far from perfect, I will say Shinhan 2008/2009 ProLeague, Shinhan 2009/2010 ProLeague, and Shinhan 2010/2011 ProLeague will count as three seasons (since most of them had a similar time frame to roughly the scheduling of three seasons of individual leagues). I will count SKY 2004 ProLeague R1, SKY 2004 ProLeague R2, and SKY 2004 ProLeague R3/Grand Finals as single seasons for the sake of simplicity. All other ProLeague rounds will be counted as one-and-a-half seasons. I will not count the hybrid season of the ProLeague since that ProLeague put more emphasis on Starcraft 2 than Brood War (and the rankings were more influenced by the dynamic of a player's aptitude at both games, rather than their absolute strength at Brood War).
I will rate a player's performance in the ProLeague by the total number of victories from the regular season and the play-off rounds (Grand Finals will be included, but only as an extension of the play-off stages for the last ever ProLeague round of that year for simplicity's sake), and if there is a tie, I will differentiate by their overall win rate.
If there is a tie for the number of consecutive seasons, whoever had the greater percentage of positive difference between himself and the player who was performing the best apart from the player in question will be listed above.
Keep in mind that ProLeague was came about in 2003, so players who had the bulk of their peaks before that will be shafted heavily on this list. Players who helped their teams by mainly focusing on two-versus-two matches will also not be appreciated.
Top five consecutive seasons of being the best ProLeague player
1. NaDa: three seasons (further ahead of JJu than Flash was ahead of Jaedong)
2. Flash: three seasons (further ahead of Jaedong than Jaedong was ahead of Bisu)
3. Jaedong: three seasons (further ahead of Bisu than Bisu was ahead of Flash)
4. Bisu: three seasons
5. ClouD: two seasons
Top five consecutive seasons of being a top two ProLeague player
1. Flash: seven and a half seasons
2. Jaedong: six seasons
3. NaDa: three seasons (further ahead of JJu than Bisu was ahead of Flash)
4. Bisu: three seasons
5. ClouD: two seasons
Top five consecutive seasons of being a top four ProLeague player
1. Flash: twelve seasons
2. Jaedong: nine seasons
3. Leta: four and a half seasons
4. NaDa: three seasons (further ahead of JJu than Bisu was ahead of Flash)
5. Bisu: three seasons
Top five consecutive seasons of being a top eight ProLeague player
1. Flash: twelve seasons
2. Jaedong: ten and a half seasons
3. Leta: seven and a half seasons
4. ZerO: six seasons (closer to Flash than EffOrt was to Flash)
5. EffOrt: six seasons (closer to Flash than EffOrt was to Flash)
Top five consecutive seasons of being a top sixteen ProLeague player
1. Jaedong: eighteen seasons
2. Stork: fifteen seasons
3. Flash: thirteen and a half seasons
4. Bisu: ten and a half seasons (closer to Flash than FanTaSy was to Flash)
5. FanTaSy: ten and a half seasons
It was a little harder to keep track of the ProLeague performances due to the inconsistent nature of the ProLeague, so I am much less sure that these lists are totally accurate.
Flash and Jaedong were the only two players to make an appearance on every single list, while Bisu almost made it as well, but his heavy slump in Shinhan 2009/2010 ProLeague put him behind players who were put forth good performances in consecutive seasons of those year long ProLeague seasons. Stork is the only player in history to be a top sixteen player in both the individual leagues and the ProLeague for the entire duration of the scene ever since the 2007 season began. NaDa was head and shoulders above the rest from mid-2005 to mid-2006 in the ProLeague, but was not able to sustain a level of ProLeague excellence anywhere near the likes of Flash, Jaedong, or Bisu.
By taking into consideration performances in both the individual leagues and the ProLeague, I think I can draw the following conclusions:
1. Stork during his prime circa mid-2007 to mid-2012 was probably the greatest player at sustaining a top sixteen performance across all platforms of competition. The fact that Stork is one of the only two players to represent Korea three times in the World Cyber Games, the only other competition in history that boasts such a long history, also helps this claim.
Jaedong did do better in the ProLeague, and Flash was better in the individual leagues during this time frame, but Stork arguably was better at being relevant as a top sixteen player across all platforms of competition.
2. Jaedong during his prime circa mid-2008 to mid-2011 was probably the greatest player at sustaining a top eight/four/two performance across all platforms of competition. The fact that Jaedong is one of the only two players to represent Korea three times in the World Cyber Games, the only other competition in history that boasts such a long history, also helps this claim.
Old school players such as YellOw, or sAviOr might have had more impressive performances in the individual leagues in terms of being able to reach the round of four, or the finals, respectively, but once you take into account the ProLeague results, Jaedong stands above them both in terms of being excellent across the board for a sustained period.
However, to be fair to YellOw, his peak took place in mid-2001 to mid-2003, and he didn't have the privilege of competing in the ProLeague for most of that time frame, and when he did, it was mostly as a two-versus-two player, due to his excellent two-versus-two prowess.
I believe one could argue that YellOw during his prime was the greatest at sustaining a top four player status, especially once you take into account his plethora of tournament wins during his peak (eight including an open tournament with an offline qualifying stage in 5th iTV Ranking League).
3. Flash during his prime circa mid-2009 to mid-2010 was probably the greatest player at making sure nobody else came close to the title of the best player in the scene, whatever the competition happened to be. The fact that Flash reached all six finals of the individual leagues, won the Winners League as the finals MVP, won the ProLeague as the regular season MVP and the finals MVP, as well as becoming the WCG gold medalist proves this point.
NaDa in his prime could make a good case as well (although his peak also came before the creation of the ProLeague), because he won just as many "major" individual leagues in the same time frame, as well as winning other open tournaments with an offline qualifying stage like the 3rd and 4th iTV Ranking League, and GhemTV StarLeague, which meant that out of a possible twelve open tournaments, eleven of which he competed in (he forfeited SKY 2002 OGN StarLeague due to conflicting schedules), NaDa won six.
NaDa conquered tournaments hosted by all four broadcasting stations Ongamenet, Gembc (before it changed to MBC Game), GhemTV, and iTV, which should make up for the lack of ProLeague results. However, the fact that he failed to qualify for WCG 2002, makes his prime slightly less impressive than Flash's in my eyes, especially since World Cyber Games had much more prestige back then (largest prize money for first place out of any competition, as well as awarding the most points in the KeSPA rankings at the time).
Finally, I should point out this is characterizing the peaks of players, not an overall assessment of their careers. I am discussing the most impressive consecutive seasons of performance by various metrics after all. So players who had multiple peaks spread over various points of their careers are bound to be less appreciated (such as NaDa, who had three distinct career upswings during his lengthy career).
|
Thanks for this! Very intersting stuff. All i see is Jaedong, Jaedong, Jaedong...
|
On August 29 2017 05:17 Elroi wrote:
Thanks for this! Very intersting stuff. All i see is Jaedong, Jaedong, Jaedong...
I think this can be best explained by tracing the KeSPA ranking points of Jaedong, Flash, and Bisu for the entire duration of Shinhan 2008/2009 ProLeague, and Shinhan 2009/2010 ProLeague. Even if the vestigial points from previous seasons may give these players different starting points, the dramatic raise in the number of available points from the ProLeague should give a good indication of the level of performance of these players.
These are the only seasons in history where we had full scheduling of both the individual leagues, and the ProLeague. Other seasons may have had similar individual league scheduling, or other seasons may have had similar ProLeague scheduling, but these two years or so of competition had almost identical set of circumstances (meaning the points depended much more on the performance of these players rather than the overall number of points available in the first place, which is more than what can be said for the other eras).
So except for the vestigial points from late-2007 and early-2008, the KeSPA ranking points objectively ranks the results of these players under almost exactly the same situations, which should mean that the KeSPA points from different points in time can be contrasted against one another without having to think about the overall set of circumstances too much.
I will add the first couple of months of Shinhan 2010/2011 ProLeague also, because the overall ProLeague scheduling was not drastically different, and there was yet to be a drop in the overall number of individual leagues due to the difficulty in finding sponsors. The scheduling for the Winners League was doubled in 2011, so I decided not to include results from March 2011 onwards because the whole dynamic changes, what with the Ongamenet struggling to host an individual league (which is why Jin Air OGN StarLeague started so late) and the Winners League taking a much more important part. I cannot compare points from different eras if the points are not awarded from roughly the same set of circumstances.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/LqJVjlT.png)
Starting from April 2009, Jaedong always had over 2600 points until he hit 2567.3 points in January 2011. That's twenty-one consecutive months. Flash, with almost identical overall number of points available from the individual leagues and the ProLeague, had over 2600 points starting in February 2010 until he hit 2568.3 points in April 2011. Flash lasted fourteen months because his decaying points from the past, and his great ProLeague results wasn't enough to compensate for the fact that he dropped out of both the individual leagues at the starting rounds in late 2010/early 2011.
Flash and Jaedong have won similar enough number of titles (six compared to five), reached similar number of finals (eight compared to nine), and reached similar number of semi-finals (eleven compared to twelve). Flash was noticeably better at reaching the round of sixteen. Their overall ProLeague record isn't too far off from one another due to Jaedong's earlier debut, although Flash does trump Jaedong if you just compare their ProLeague results starting from Flash's debut.
The difference here is that Jaedong's results were spread more evenly across two years, which meant that it used to be a Jaedong-Bisu dynamic at the top, with Jaedong having the edge, which later was replaced by a Flash-Jaedong dynamic at the top, with Flash having the edge.
This can be somewhat related to YellOw's legacy, where it used to be a BoxeR-YellOw dynamic at the top, with BoxeR having the edge, which later was replaced by a NaDa-YellOw dynamic at the top. YellOw, in my opinion, was a better challenger to NaDa than BoxeR, but history only remembers BoxeR getting the better of YellOw, and NaDa getting the better of YellOw. Nobody remembers YellOw defeating BoxeR to face NaDa in the finals, they only remember the fact that it was YellOw being beaten in the finals.
In a the same vein, history only remembers Jaedong being butt-fucked multiple times by Flash in 2010, while nobody remembers Flash being butt-fucked by the likes of Jaedong, Leta, and Kwanro in the round of sixteen in 2009. There are those who had very concentrated peaks like BoxeR, iloveoov, sAviOr, Bisu and Flash. The rivals of those players like YellOw, NaDa, Stork, and Jaedong tended to perform at a higher level for a longer period of time (perhaps it was the thirst that kept them going), but while the glorious peaks are often remembered, sustaining a top level performance tends to be less celebrated, especially if it ultimately didn't end in glory. It sometimes seems to me, that some people think you might as well get knocked out in the earliest stages by a random nobody if you are not able to defeat everyone on your way to victory.
I do try to counter-balance the over-glorification of players who tend to rely heavily on short burst of glory, not because I don't appreciate the awe that comes with witnessing someone totally in their element, but because that's all people remember sometimes. Everybody already knows who was clutch, who was dominant, and who was the most memorable. It's mostly what people talk about, and the legend of those tales often tend to become larger than life. I want learn about, then convey the overall scope of competitive Brood War, not string together a bunch of sexy storylines.
|
While the topic of Jaedong is on my mind.
Jaedong's reign as a top level zerg in the individual leagues (starting from the time he became a familiar face in the round of 16):
EVER 2007 OGN StarLeague ~ Jin Air OGN StarLeague (circa late-2007 ~ mid-2011)
Championships: 5
Finals: 9
Semi-finals: 12
Quarter-finals: 14
Round of sixteen: 18
Calm
Championships: 1 (20% of Jaedong)
Finals: 1 (11.11% of Jaedong)
Semi-finals: 4 (33.33% of Jaedong)
Quarter-finals: 7 (50% of Jaedong)
Round of sixteen: 9 (50% of Jaedong)
ZerO (other zerg champions had a severe shortage of quarter-finals and round of sixteen appearances, as well as mediocre ProLeague records, which happen to be ZerO's strongsuits, the accomplishments of other zerg champions would have been poor versions of Calm's career had I chosen them instead)
Championships: 0 (0% of Jaedong)
Finals: 1 (11.11% of Jaedong)
Semi-finals: 3 (25% of Jaedong)
Quarter-finals: 8 (57.14% of Jaedong)
Round of sixteen: 9 (50% of Jaedong)
Jaedong's reign as a top level zerg in the ProLeague (starting from the time he became a familiar face in the top sixteen leading player of the ProLeague):
SKY 2006 ProLeague R1 ~ SK Planet 2011/2012 ProLeague (circa mid-2006 ~ mid-2012)
Jaedong: 236-103 (69.6%)
Calm: 130-102 (56.0%) (55.08% of Jaedong's number of wins)
ZerO: 129-117 (52.4%) (54.66% of Jaedong's number of wins)
Flash's reign as a top level terran in the individual leagues (starting from the time he became a familiar face in the round of 16):
Daum OGN StarLeague ~ TVing OGN StarLeague (mid-2007 ~ mid-2012)
Championships: 6
Finals: 8
Semi-finals: 11
Quarter-finals: 16
Round of sixteen: 21
FanTaSy
Championships: 1 (16.67% of Flash)
Finals: 5 (62.5% of Flash)
Semi-finals: 7 (63.64% of Flash)
Quarter-finals: 7 (43.75% of Flash)
Round of sixteen: 12 (57.14% of Flash)
Leta (listed because his ProLeague results during Flash's peak was extra-ordinary, and other one time terran champions had poor ProLeague results which would mean their achievements were just bad versions of FanTaSy career)
Championships: 0 (16.67% of Flash)
Finals: 0 (0% of Flash)
Semi-finals: 0 (0% of Flash)
Quarter-finals: 4 (25% of Flash)
Round of sixteen: 5 (23.81% of Flash)
Flash's reign as a top level terran in the ProLeague (starting from the time he became a familiar face in the top sixteen leading player of the ProLeague):
Shinhan 2007 ProLeague R2 ~ SK Planet 2011/2012 ProLeague (circa late-2007 ~ mid-2012)
Flash: 221-77 (74.2%)
Leta: 147-87 (62.8%) (66.52% of the number of Flash's wins)
FanTaSy: 138-87 (61.3%) (62.44% of the number of Flash's wins)
Other top contemporary zergs fail to surpass 60% of the achievements accomplished by Jaedong during his reign. It doesn't matter if it the metric is the overall number of ProLeague victories, number of round of sixteen appearances, or number of finals.
Flash's peak performance in individual leagues lasts around half a year longer than Jaedong's peak performance in individual leagues, while Flash's peak performance in the ProLeague lasts around a year shorter than Jaedong's peak performance in the ProLeague, but their peaks have a significant overlap.
Flash is significantly ahead of his contemporary peers in terms of number of individual league won, number of quarter finals appearances, and the number of round of sixteen appearances. However, FanTaSy has similar numbers of (over 60%) the number of finals reached, and the numbers of semi-finals appearances. Leta, FanTaSy, and Light all had over 60% of the number of wins Flash had in the ProLeague.
Jaedong and Flash were both significantly ahead of their peers after they became relevant as top players. If you consider the multiple finalist in FanTaSy as an outlier, and compare Flash's results to other great terrans of the time excluding FanTaSy, such as Light or Leta, he was arguably more ahead of his terran peers than Jaedong was ahead of his in the individual leagues.
Jaedong never dropped his position as the best performing zerg for even a single season since late-2006, and was more ahead of his zerg peers than Flash was ahead of his, although the relative lack of ProLeague scheduling back in Jaedong's earlier years, renders his impressive initial ProLeague performance just a small drop in the huge ocean of ProLeague scheduling that would come later on.
|
Really interesting reading. Thanks for putting all this together.
|
Australia4514 Posts
Wow. Fantastic work and analysis, i thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
|
Man, came back to read the rest. Such good days t.t
Thank u
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
