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For example, using the set of criterion, I can judge a whole bunch of other bracket stages. Take the finals between iloveoov and BoxeR, a historic finals between a master and his most valued apprentice, that went down to the wire. A five-time champion overcoming a three-time champion. A pretty epic finals, but when judged by the criterion I set up, this is how the final tally looks:
Finals of EVER 2004 OGN StarLeague
Individual leagues that will be checked (5): Gillette OGN StarLeague, SPRIS MSL, EVER 2004 OGN StarLeague, YATGK MSL, and IOPS OGN StarLeague
Finalists
iloveoov: 6
BoxeR: -5
Final tally: 1
Contrast that with the finals of EVER 2005 OGN StarLeague:
Finals of EVER 2005 OGN StarLeague
Individual leagues that will be checked (5): YATGK MSL, IOPS OGN StarLeague, EVER 2005 OGN StarLeague, UZOO MSL, and So1 OGN StarLeague
Finalists
July: 4
GoodFriend: 1
Final tally: 5
Although from an overall historical context, EVER 2004 OGN StarLeague may be more fondly remembered, EVER 2005 OGN StarLeague was a stronger finals from a competitive stand-point, because BoxeR's best days were behind him, and BoxeR reaching that finals was more of a stand-out performance, rather than what was expected of him during those times, as evidenced by his poor results elsewhere in a similar frame of time.
Defeating GoodFriend may not carry as much prestige, but he was at his absolute peak form as a gamer in the individual leagues, having qualified for every single championship going on at the time, and reaching the bracket stages in three of them. This does not say anything about BoxeR or GoodFriend as players, but I take no hesitation in saying that GoodFriend in 2005 was performing better in the individual leagues than BoxeR in 2004.
That's essentially what I'm trying to say, I'm taking into account the individual league form of every single player out there. Defeating Flash in 2010 should be more impressive than defeating Flash in 2011. Triumphing over BoxeR in the finals 2001 is an entirely different animal from taking him out in the finals that took place in 2005. In the same vein, having Bisu in your group in 2007 should be different from having him in your group in 2011. Having Jaedong in your group in 2009 should be considered more challenging from a competitive stand-point than having Jaedong in your group in 2011.
I'm not trying to play a game of who's who of famous professional Brood War players here. I'm trying focus entirely on competitive form in the individual leagues. Like I said before, I'm open to suggestions that might improve my overall criterion, but it has to make sense from a logical perspective. I hope I made this point clear enough, because I feel like a broken recorder here.
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Five most stacked finals in history
1. Finals of Hana Daetoo MSL
Individual leagues that will be checked (6): EVER 2009 OGN StarLeague, NATE MSL, Korean Air OGN StarLeague S1, Hana Daetoo MSL, BigFile MSL, and Korean Air OGN StarLeague S2
Finalists
Flash:16
Jaedong: 7
Final tally: 23
2. Finals of NATE MSL
Individual leagues that will be checked (6): Bacchus 2009 OGN StarLeague, Avalon MSL, EVER 2009 OGN StarLeague, NATE MSL, Korean Air OGN StarLeague S1, Hana Daetoo MSL
Finalists
Flash: 8
Jaedong: 7
Final tally: 15
3. Finals of Korean Air OGN StarLeague S2
Individual leagues that will be checked (6): Korean Air OGN StarLeague S1, Hana Daetoo MSL, BigFile MSL, Korean Air OGN StarLeague S2, Bacchus 2010 OGN StarLeague, and PDPop MSL
Finalists
Flash: 8
Jaedong: 4
Final tally: 12
4. Finals of Coca-Cola OGN StarLeague
Individual leagues that will be checked (3): HanbitSoft OGN StarLeague, Coca-Cola OGN StarLeague, SKY 2001 OGN StarLeague
BoxeR: 8
YellOw: 3
Final tally: 11
4. Finals of 4th KPGA Tournament
Individual leagues that will be checked (6): 3rd KPGA Tournament, SKY 2002 OGN StarLeague, 4th KPGA Tournament, Panasonic OGN StarLeague, Olympus OGN StarLeague, and Stout MSL
Finalists
NaDa: 8
ChoJJa: 3
Final tally: 11
Thoughts:
These are the finals that had both members of the finals on a hot streak. Nobody can come close to the competitive intensity of the three consecutive finals created members of the LeeSsang, since Flash in 2010 was the most dominant player in history in terms of sheer results, and Jaedong in 2010 was the most dominant second best player in history in terms of sheer results. The memorable Coca-Cola OGN StarLeague finals that gave birth to Im-Jin-Rok, perhaps the most famous rival match-up in the history of the game, also lives up to the name from a competitive stand-point, with both players on fine form. The finals between NaDa and ChoJJa was also an epic battle between the two young prodigies, who were both arguably at the peak of their careers. Probably one of the most under appreciated rivalries in the game, probably due to the one sided nature of it.
I'll update the list if there are any notable finals I missed out on, and in the mean time, I'll list some of the honourable mentions in the spoilers below:
+ Show Spoiler +Finals of 3rd KPGA Tournament
Individual leagues that will be checked (6): NATE OGN StarLeague, 2nd KPGA Tournament, 3rd KPGA Tournament, SKY 2002 OGN StarLeague, 4th KPGA Tournament, and Panasonic OGN StarLeague
Finalists
NaDa: 8
Reach: 0
Final tally: 8
Finals of CEN Game MSL
Individual leagues that will be checked (6): MyCube OGN StarLeague, TG Sambo MSL, NHN HanGame OGN StarLeague, CEN Game MSL, Gillette OGN StarLeague, and SPRIS MSL
iloveoov: 6
NaDa: 1
Final tally: 7
Finals of GomTV MSL S2
Individual leagues that will be checked (6): Shinhan OGN StarLeague S3, GomTV MSL S1, GomTV MSL S2, Daum OGN StarLeague, GomTV MSL S3, and EVER 2007 OGN StarLeague
Finalists
Bisu: 7
Stork: 0
Final tally: 7
Finals of IOPS OGN StarLeague
Individual leagues that will be checked (5): EVER 2004 OGN StarLeague, YATGK MSL, IOPS OGN StarLeague, EVER 2005 OGN StarLeague, and UZOO MSL
Finalists
July: 4
NaDa: 3
Final tally: 7
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Japan11285 Posts
On September 16 2017 09:58 intotheheart wrote:
I can't remember, was it the MyCube OSL which had the smallest viewership history in OSLs because of the World Cup?
But yeah, that analysis is unreal!
It was Nate OSL, the one SynC won against H.O.T-Forever. MyCube OSL was the first OSL to be held in a stadium.
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How about the best Starleague run? (opponents you beat to win it all)
Flash's Bacchus 2008 vs JD/Bisu/Stork and ForGG vs Flash/JD come to mind
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On September 16 2017 23:21 SlayerS_BunkiE wrote:
How about the best Starleague run? (opponents you beat to win it all)
Flash's Bacchus 2008 vs JD/Bisu/Stork and ForGG vs Flash/JD come to mind
Ooh I'd love to see this.
There's almost no way fOrGG's Arena MSL run wouldn't make it though... it was pretty insane how hard he peaked during that tournament, only to never perform anywhere near as well ever again. In BW anyway.
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On September 16 2017 23:21 SlayerS_BunkiE wrote:
How about the best Starleague run? (opponents you beat to win it all)
Flash's Bacchus 2008 vs JD/Bisu/Stork and ForGG vs Flash/JD come to mind
I wouldn't know how to arrange that, due to the following issues:
1) Not all champions start from the same spot. Some champions start from the rock bottom, the off-line qualifiers. Some are seeded into the lower stages like the Survivor Tournament. Some start from the round of 32, while others start from the round of 16.
2) Not all tournaments have the same format. OGN StarLeague have a round-robin stage in the round of 16, some of the older versions of the MSL implemented a double elimination format, which ensured a greater number of opponents if you went through the lower bracket stages, instead of going straight into the finals. There's so much variance that even if I were to start from the round of 16, some champions would only play four opponents on their way to the title, whereas some played as many ten.
3) How do I weigh each encounter? If a champion beat a great player like Flash in a single game in the round of sixteen, should I reward it equally as somebody beating him in a best-of-three? What about overcoming him in a best-of-five? If I were to weigh each encounter differently, should I be okay with the fact that tournaments that saved best-of-five series for important stages like the finals will be totally misrepresented? For example, Nal_rA ended up winning his title without playing a single fully functional best-of-five when he won Stout MSL. Does his lack of best-of-five triumphs automatically place him at the bottom of the totem pole?
4) How should I deal with scores? Do I give equal points for beating an opponent by a score of 3-0, and barely beating him by a score of 3-2? Is it more impressive to go totally undefeated versus less than stellar players? Or is it more impressive to barely trudge onward versus a tougher field of opponents? Is there an exact formula that solves this issue?
5) Do I take into racial imbalance? Should I reward players if there are less players of their race of choice competing in the individual league of interest? What about if everybody apart from the player in question gets knocked out early on, and he becomes the sole representative of his race? Should I take a look at the map pool and try to factor in the scores for that too?
I don't want to list a bunch of tournament runs that left an impression on me, and try to back it up with statistics to justify my choices. I want to come up with a half-decent criteria to start-off with, and I don't think I'm capable of creating one that'll do justice to all the note-worthy individual league runs in history.
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While I can't come up with a definitive list, I can try to assess some of the more impressive tournament runs in history.
For example Flash run on his way to his first ever triumph in the Bacchus 2008 OGN StarLeague was indeed impressive.
However, Flash was:
1) One game away from being eliminated in the group stages. He had a negative record overall, having lost against Stork and TheRock. TheRock fumbled his chances to progress in place of Flash by losing to Rumble in his final game, and Flash eventually got through after a tie-breaker series.
2) One game away from being eliminated in the quarter-finals. His third game victory against Jaedong was one of the most surprising comebacks in that tournament.
Considering there's are other tournament runs where the eventual champions were literally never in danger of being eliminated from the tournament, Flash having two instances of being this close to being knocked out doesn't seem that impressive to me. His overall win rate during this tournament is nothing to boast about either, when looking at it from an all-time perspective.
If I were to look into the more impressive characteristics about this particular tournament run:
1) The level of Flash's opponents in the bracket-stages. The three players that he defeated were, in my opinion, the three strongest possible opponents available in that particular time frame. However, I'm not sure if people were amazed by the fact that Flash beat three of the strongest possible opponents of that specific time frame, or the fact that it was those famous names.
After all, Bisu in early-2008 actually one of the worst time frames to select for Bisu, with his individual league performances starting to falter heavily, not to mention his abysmal ProLeague numbers. Stork was starting to do terribly in the MSL, which is a stark contrast to his 2007 performance when he was regular guest in both individual leagues. Only Jaedong could be truly recognized as being in great form, and even he found better individual form further down the road. Early 2008 in general wasn't a great time for finding all-time calibre level of opponents, in my personal opinion.
If I'm to tally Flash's opponents by the criterion I laid out in my first post, the scores would be as follows:
Jaedong: 4
Bisu: -1
Stork: -2
Final tally: 1
Impressive, but this is the individual league forms of EffOrt's opponents:
Flash: 16
Kal: -4
ZerO: -5
Final tally: 7
Or in a similar vein, when July when he beat iloveoov at his absolute peak:
iloveoov: 8
Reach: -3
XellOs: -1
Final tally: 4
Even Flash's own run in EVER 2009 OGN StarLeague bracket stage arguably had a more impressive line-up once you factor in the recent individual league form of these players:
Jaedong: 7
Calm: 0
Movie: -5
Final tally: 2
One thing that is noteworthy about all these runs with a high final tally, is that the eventual champion defeated an all-time great at the absolute peak of his game. Flash may have defeated three all-time greats in succession, but it came at a time-frame when none had hit their prime. It's just like that "Group of Death" that had all-time greats in Bisu, Flash, NaDa, and iloveoov. I remember everybody on PGR21 (a respectable Korean site) creaming themselves after this group had been created, but let's face it, nobody except Bisu was in fine form at the time. The same thing, to a much lesser degree, can be said for Flash's bracket-stage run during Bacchus 2008 OGN StarLeague.
2) Flash was the only terran player remaining in the round of eight, which makes his run even more legendary. However, we've seen runs like that before. Out of the ones already mentioned, July was the only remaining zerg player in the round of eight in his Gillette OGN StarLeague run. Flash had a much cleaner overall performance in EVER 2009 OGN StarLeague, with almost zero slip-ups throughout the entire tournament, as well as being the only terran player remaining in the round of eight.
Conclusion: In my personal opinion, Flash's path to victory while competing in Bacchus 2008 OGN StarLeague, while remarkable, does not qualify as the clear number one most impressive tournament of all-time.
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ForGG's Arena MSL run:
1) Impressive overall win rate of 13-3 (81.25%)
Not as good as near-perfect tournament runs such as BoxeR's HanbitSoft OGN StarLeague run, or Jaedong's NATE MSL run, but pretty damn good, with only one instance of coming close to elimination, when he won 3-2 versus Kal in the quarter-finals. Pretty respectable.
2) Level of opponents (the final three opponents he faced on his way to victory)
Flash: 2
Jaedong: 0
Kal: -3
Final tally: -1
ForGG's claim to fame would be that he defeated both members of LeeSsang on his way to victory. However, defeating these two players was something a lot of players were capable of doing. Even if we disregard best-of-one defeats as flukes, Flash was defeated by Luxury, GGPlay, and even lost to Much in WCG Korea 2008 which happened within this time frame. Jaedong was knocked out by Tyson, of all people, in the off-line qualifiers for Incruit OGN StarLeague, as well as being defeated by free in the round of 16 of Clubday MSL. These two players were not yet the gods they would eventually evolve into. Their evolution was not yet complete.
3) Map imbalance was off-the-charts here. Terran was the most numerous race by some distance, having ten players in the round of 16, four players in the round of eight, and two players in the round of four. A win is a win, but I don't think this particular run was all that impressive once you factor in how this tournament was basically rigged for terran players. The fact that the most played match-up in this particular tournament was terran-versus-terran should be telling you something. Even Clubday MSL, one of the most blatant rigged individual leagues for the protoss race, didn't have protoss-versus-protoss as its most played match-up. Hell, even the never-ending zerg-versus-zerg fest that was PDPop MSL didn't have zerg-versus-zerg as its most played match-up. This tournament was fucked-up in terms of racial imbalance.
Conclusion: There's no way I'm going to give ForGG the lofty title of having the most impressive tournament run when he needed broken maps like Tiamat and Othello to defeat the likes of Jaedong, none of whom were even that unstoppable in the first place.
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I agree that the facts make it seem less outstanding than it felt, which is why I'm actually glad that you brought them up.
I won't speak for anyone else, but in my opinion I had always thought of fOrGG as a solid player and nothing more, certainly not a championship contender. And though it's true that FlaSh and Jaedong at that particular moment in time weren't at their peak (or rather they were in valleys in between their peaks), what was very impressive to me was that a guy who wasn't supposed to be a championship contender ended up beating them in Bo5 series.
FlaSh already had high-stakes experience from his first career highlight run in the 2007 Daum OSL, and had also just won the 2008 Bacchus OSL mentioned in this thread. Jaedong had won both the 2007 EVER OSL and the 2008 GOMTV MSL. Neither of them lacked the experience of playing in high-pressure semis and finals. And yet this guy who was not supposed to be good enough to beat them ended up taking both the semis and the finals.
Add to that also beating Sea and KaL just before, not to mention that super memorable game in the group stages on Tiamat where fOrGG played Deep Six against KaL and it was just all-out aggression across the map for like 10-15 minutes straight until he finally broke the Protoss' back... I think it's these storylines that make it so memorable for a lot of people, myself included.
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9933 Posts
thanks for these posts, letmelose. always love reading them
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Magic Woods9326 Posts
yeah your posts are great, thanks a lot for the effort!
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One of the reasons why I don't think that highly of terran players who did well in Arena MSL is due to the abnormally high percentage of terran-versus-terran match-ups making up a large portion of the schedule. Win rates for the other match-ups such as terran-versus-zerg can be partly explained by the excellence of a select few players skewing the overall smaller game sample. However, almost nothing can explain the fact that terran-versus-terran was the most played match-up out of the six possible match-ups, apart from the fact that this particular individual league was dominated by the terran race. No single outliers, or extra-ordinary individual excellence can lead to this result. The entire race as a whole needs to be abnormally well for this result to come through.
So this is the individual leagues with abnormally high percentage of mirror match-ups. Highlighted individual leagues had expected results as in the dominant race coming out on top:
1. CEN Game MSL: 40% of the games were terran-versus-terran
2. Freechal OGN StarLeague: 37.76% of the games were zerg-versus-zerg
3. TG Sambo MSL: 34.09% of the games were terran-versus-terran
4. 2nd KPGA Tournament: 33.33% of the games were zerg-versus-zerg
5. PDPop MSL: 30.59% of the games were zerg-versus-zerg
6. Shinhan OGN StarLeague S3: 28.87% of the games were terran-versus-terran
7. Arena MSL: 28.74% of the games were terran-versus-terran
8. Jin Air OGN StarLeague: 28.57% of the games were zerg-versus-zerg
9. Tving OGN StarLeague: 27.87% of the games were zerg-versus-zerg
10. Clubday MSL: 26.74% of the games were protoss-versus-protoss
+ Show Spoiler +
11. GomTV MSL S4: 22.73% of the games were terran-versus-terran
12. GomTV MSL S3: 26.67% of the games were terran-versus-terran
13. Shinhan 2005 OGN StarLeague: 26.42% of the games were terran-versus-terran
14. EVER 2004 OGN StarLeague: 25% of the games were terran-versus-terran
15. CYON MSL: 23.53% of the games were zerg-versus-zerg
16. Olympus OGN StarLeague: 23.53% of the games were zerg-versus-zerg
17. Shinan OGN StarLeague: 22.55% of the games were zerg-versus-zerg
18. Daum OGN StarLeague: 21.88% of the games were terran-versus-terran
19. YATGK: 21.43% of the games were terran-versus-terran
20. Pringles MSL S2: 21.15% of the games were zerg-versus-zerg
21. 1st KPGA Tournament: 21.43% of the games were terran-versus-terran
22. EVER 2007 OGN StarLeague: 20.97% of the games were terran-versus-terran
23. Panasonic OGN StarLeague: 20.69% of the games were zerg-versus-zerg
24. MyCube OGN StarLeague: 20.63% of the games were protoss-versus-protoss
Arena MSL was one of the worst ever individual leagues of a single race having an unfair advantage over the other races. There was twenty-five terran-versus-terran games, compared to the measly one zerg-versus-zerg game in the entire tournament. Even Shinhan OGN StarLeague S3, one of the more notoriously balanced leagues for the zerg race, had eight zerg-versus-zerg games. A zerg player simply wasn't meant to win this tournament.
There's another way to look at it also.
This is the total number of victories earned by the disadvantaged race that somehow made it to the finals (so I won't count the leagues where every single member got destroyed early on, such as the protoss race in IOPS OGN StarLeague) divided by the total number of games, excluding the records of the best performing member of the race who had to fight against all odds. Highlighted performances are miraculous cases of a player overcoming all-odds to become the champion despite the universe telling him not to.
1. SKY 2002 OGN StarLeague: 0% of the games ended in non-Reach protoss victory
1. Jin Air OGN StarLeague: 0% of the games ended in non-JangBi protoss victory
3. Gillette OGN StarLeague: 5% of the games ended in non-July zerg victory
4. Arena MSL: 6.94% of the games ended in non-Jaedong zerg victory
5. Shinhan 2005 OGN StarLeague: 7.14% of the games ended in non-July zerg victory
6. 2nd KPGA Tournament: 11.11% of the games ended in non-NaDa terran victory
7. Daum OGN StarLeague: 11.43% of the games ended in non-GGPlay zerg victory
8. Bacchus OGN StarLeague: 13.16% of the games ended in non-Flash terran victory
9. Tving OGN StarLeague: 13.33% of the games ended in non-JangBi protoss victory
10. EVER 2007 OGN StarLeague: 14.29% of the games ended in non-Stork protoss victory
+ Show Spoiler +11. HanbitSoft OGN StarLeague: 14.71% of the games ended in non-BoxeR terran victory
12. Stout MSL: 15.38% of the games ended in non-Nal_rA protoss victory
13. 1st KPGA Tournament: 15.63% of the games ended in non-YellOw zerg victory
14. Shinhan OGN StarLeague S2: 15.85% of the games ended in non-Anytime protoss victory
15. Pringles MSL S1: 16.67% of the games ended in non-sAviOr zerg victory
16. GomTV MSL S4: 16.67% of the games ended in non-Jaedong zerg victory
17. EVER 2007 OGN StarLeague 18.37% of the games ended in non-Jaedong zerg victory
18. EVER 2009 OGN StarLeague: 19.35% of the games ended in non-Flash terran victory
So let's combine the two lists, where the hero of an overwhelmingly unfavoured race had to come up against a top level member of an overwhelmingly favoured race in the finals of an individual league. There's only four occasions of it happening simultaneously (where the individual league in question ranks in the top ten for both lists):
1. 2nd KPGA Tournament
2. Arena MSL
3. Jin Air OGN StarLeague
4. Tving OGN StarLeague
I tend not to be impressed by poorly balanced leagues, if the outcome turned out as expected. Of course, this is only looking into the racial equilibrium of various leagues, and I'm not suggesting that ForGG's play during Arena MSL was not gorgeous in almost every single way. His timing attacks were otherworldly, and are still etched onto my memory. However, the bad balancing of the maps and the shift in power towards the terran race cheapens his triumph somewhat in my eyes.
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totally forgot about hydra !! he was looking so good !!
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On September 18 2017 05:28 CUTtheCBC wrote:
totally forgot about hydra !! he was looking so good !!
The only player in professional Brood War history to be drafted in 2008 or afterwards to have won a major individual league. He was said to be head-and-shoulders everybody else on his team during practice, including EffOrt, who admittedly had taken a long hiatus from competitive play to pursue his academics and never was quite the same afterwards, towards the very end of professional Brood War. He was also one of the very few select players in history (twelve if I remember right) to earn over 40 ProLeague victories for his team in a single season. He was also doing quite well in 2011, reaching the semi-finals or above multiple times, and was probably the best performing zerg in the last ever Brood War-only calendar year, as evidenced by his KeSPA ranking placements.
I think people tend to remember Soulkey more because of his extremely potent zerg-versus-terran prowess, but hydra was a much more rounded player in my opinion, even if his zerg-versus-terran was somewhat lacking for a player of his calibre.
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EPT
