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Who were the players who had some of the greatest players inside their pockets? I decided to pick the opponents of legendary players had the worst record against, in terms of having the largest negative win-loss differential. In case of a tie, I used the overall win rate of the nemesis to break the tie. If there is still a tie after that, I will take into account the proportion of KeSPA officiated games to break the tie.
So the following list should be an indicator of which players gave each of these legends the hardest time. Players didn't have the opportunity to come across one another too many times will not be listed (even if one would have smashed the other even harder than the nemeses listed here), and players who were relatively even head-to-head (even if one happened to defeat the other in all the important games) will also not be listed.
Nemeses of famous terran players
1. BoxeR's worst nemesis: Nal_rA
Head-to-head record: 6-14 (negative eight game win-loss differential)
2. NaDa's worst nemesis: iloveoov
Head-to-head record: 9-20 (negative eleven game win-loss differential)
3. iloveoov's worst nemesis: sAviOr
Head-to-head record: 3-8 (negative five game win-loss differential)
4. Flash's worst nemesis: UpMaGiC
Head-to-head record: 1-3 (negative two game win-loss differential)
5. FanTaSy worst nemesis: Soulkey
Head-to-head record: 1-6 (negative five game win-loss differential)
Nemesis of famous zerg players
1. YellOw's worst nemesis: GoRush
Head-to-head record: 1-5 (negative four game win-loss differential)
2. ChoJJa's worst nemesis: NaDa
Head-to-head record: 12-22 (negative ten game win-loss differential)
3. July's worst nemesis: NaDa
Head-to-head record: 7-15 (negative eight game win-loss differential)
4. sAviOr's worst nemesis: Bisu
Head-to-head record: 4-13 (negative nine game win-loss differential)
5. Jaedong's worst nemesis: Casy
Head-to-head record: 1-5 (negative four game win-loss differential)
Nemesis of famous protoss players
1. Nal_rA's worst nemesis: sAviOr
Head-to-head record: 8-18 (negative ten game win-loss differential)
2. Reach's worst nemesis: sAviOr
Head-to-head record: 3-14 (negative eleven game win-loss differential)
3. Stork's worst nemesis: Pure
Head-to-head record: 0-5 (negative five game win-loss differential)
4. Bisu's worst nemesis: Flash
Head-to-head record: 11-15 (negative four game win-loss differential)
5. JangBi's worst nemesis: Jaedong
Head-to-head record: 1-11 (negative ten game win-loss differential)
Initital thoughts:
One of the reasons why sAviOr is so highly rated, even to this date, is partly shown here. He may have been the greatest beneficiary of the fallacy in logic in terms of transitive properties. sAviOr was by far the strongest player in an era where numerous legends of the game were still actively reaching the latter stages of tournaments and representing their team in the ProLeague. Over half of the fifteen players on this list had their absolute peak before 2006, when sAviOr had his time at the top. sAviOr gobbled up all these legends when they were actively competing, and still had some prestige left to their names.
It's not that sAviOr actually won at a greater rate than some of the greatest legends against all competition, his overall win rate during his peak was magnificent, but nothing out of the ordinary compared to some of the win rates found from the greatest players playing at their peak.
However, what was noteworthy was that he was probably the best (partly due to his own excellence, and partly due to the circumstances of the time) at bashing the heads of legendary players who were not yet irrelevant as top players, but were not at their peak either. People may have forgotten sAviOr struggling against unremarkable players such as ClouD or Canata, but they certainly remember his iconic games versus Reach, Nal_rA, NaDa and iloveoov, and their legendary status in the past, and his overwhelming domination over these older generation of all-time greats are still etched into the minds of many.
 
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United States1865 Posts
Awesome post, super interesting. Definitely remember sAviOr beating oov so consistently being a pretty huge deal at the time.
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United States1654 Posts
Really great post. I always found it interesting how previous bonjwas would struggle against the new ones (like Savior beating oov and oov beating Nada). I wonder if it was some shift of the metagame that older bonjwas just couldn't adapt to.
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I have some beef to pick with sAviOr.
sAviOr truly was the most dominant MSL player in all of history, but outside of that, he wasn't anything spectacular. If you track his performance from his first game from UZOO MSL, to his last game from GomTV MSL S1, his results are as follows.
Breaking down the performance of players from 2005/04/28 ~ 2007/03/03:
Most prize pool earned from both major individual leagues:
1. sAviOr: ₩105,000,000
2. NaDa: ₩67,000,000
3. Casy: ₩46,000,000
4. Anytime: ₩41,000,000
5. July: ₩38,500,000
Most number of wins earned for the team in the ProLeague:
1. NaDa: 30-19
2. Midas: 24-9
3. PuSan: 24-13
4. JJu: 24-17
5. GGPlay: 24-19
6. Anytime: 23-25
7. Stork: 22-22
8. Sea: 20-10
9. sAviOr: 20-11
10. July: 19-17
sAviOr was by far the most successful player in the individual leagues during his reign where he reached five MSL finals in a row, but that was mostly confined to the MSL itself, where he basically a god. However, he chose the wrong tournament to be successful in. There was a total of ₩180,000,000 to be gained from winning all the OGN StarLeagues in this era, while there was a total of ₩140,000,000 to be gained from winning all the MSL that took place in this era.
Further more, his performances in the OGN StarLeagues (sAviOr failed to qualify for five out of the six OGN StarLeagues that took place within this time frame) and the various ProLeague seasons (sAviOr never topped that charts in terms of total number of victories even once) that took place was not as magnificent. It was still good enough for sAviOr to be considered as the best player overall.
However, some people paint sAviOr's reign at the top as some sort of an untouchable thing, when his overall body of work is not that untouchable. People usually go for the argument that he was further ahead of his peers during his time at the top, which I'll look into by looking into Jaedong's peak year of 2009 (notice I'm not even picking Flash in 2010, which will piss all over sAviOr's best year), with some extra seasons added to it to equalize the overall time frame.
This is a sample from five seasons taken from Jaedong's career, from his first game from Arena MSL, and his last game from NATE MSL. This is the roughly the same amount of time frame where sAviOr accomplished everything noteworthy about his competitive career. Of course, Jaedong cannot be defined by five seasons worth of results alone, but even if we do so, this is what results happen to be:
Breaking down the performance of players from 2008/05/01 ~ 2010/01/23:
Most prize pool earned from both major individual leagues:
1. Jaedong: ₩159,000,000 (vestigial prize pool surmounting to less than ₩500,000, such as round of 36 appearances, are not counted)
2. Flash: ₩76,500,000
3. Bisu: ₩68,500,000 (vestigial prize pool surmounting to less than ₩500,000, such as round of 36 appearances, are not counted)
4. Luxury: ₩63,000,000
5. Stork: ₩59,000,000
Jaedong earns more than 200% than the next player on the list during this time frame, compared to how sAviOr earned roughly 150% of the prize pool earned by NaDa during his reign of terror.
Most number of wins earned for the team in the ProLeague:
1. Jaedong: 89-38
2. Flash: 88-31
3. Leta: 76-36
4. Bisu: 75-27
5. Calm: 61-37
Jaedong actually mirrors his placing in the individual leagues by topping the charts in terms of ProLeague results, something sAviOr never did even during his absolute prime.
People claim that sAviOr was miles ahead of his competition, and tend to downplay the dominance of other players by citing weird stuff like Jaedong during his absolute prime being held back by the likes of Flash, or Bisu.
The major difference that swings the public perception of the peak years of sAviOr and Jaedong is the trajectory of the second best players during their primes. NaDa actually had his prime way back in 2002, and his lopsided battle against sAviOr for the title of the best player in the scene in 2006, would be his last ever legitimate challenge for the throne, and slowly faded away into obscurity afterwards. Flash, arguably the second best player during Jaedong's reign, would have his own prime right after Jaedong's absolute peak, and personally thwarted Jaedong from winning the next three finals within the span of a single calendar year.
If NaDa suddenly went on beast mode, and curb stomped everyone in 2007, including sAviOr, would it render sAviOr's domination in 2006 useless? Does the fact that it was Bisu, not NaDa, that ended sAviOr reign actually change anything about the actual level of domination that took place in 2006? I don't personally understand why it is more "impressive" to be beaten down to irrelevancy by people who were a non-factor during your reign. Or why beating past legends who were on their last ever legs, only to be curb stomped by a whole ring of new players like Bisu, Firebathero, and BeSt, is somehow less tainting on your past domination, than it is to be out-performed by a top player that you once had the upper hand over. Surely, the fact that Flash overtook Jaedong from the second place, to first place in 2010, would be less humiliating than sAviOr being overtook by people who were total nobodies in 2006.
sAviOr's peak years (2006) as a gamer is actually closer to Bisu's peak years (2007 in terms of individual leagues) as a gamer, than it is to NaDa's peak years (2002), or Nal_rA's peak years (2003/2004) as a gamer. The fact that he stomped past legends should not be the central argument for his domination, and a more holistic approach should be used to remember his past. I get that sAviOr's "Greatest Hits" were amazing, but sometimes I feel like people are only focusing on that, and pretend that's the end-all-be-all to his glorious past.
sAviOr failed to establish his domination over contemporary players such as Midas, or PuSan under a ProLeague setting, and these players are hardly seen in the same light as more recent ProLeague monsters. I think his legacy as a unstoppable force is somewhat seen from those with rose tinted glasses. And the lopsided results he had versus "high value" names who were still relevant enough to be matched against him multiple times, yet were not at their absolute peaks, which was part of the reason why such ridiculous score lines happened (for example sAviOr stuggled harder against more contemporary rivals such as Midas, and ChoJJa).
Part of this logic coincides with the line of reasoning I laid out in the blog I wrote about the most difficult groups of deaths in history, where I paid less attention to the well known names, and actually focused on the individual league form of the players present in the group.
sAviOr was absolutely fantastic versus older generation of players who were still active enough to compete versus him multiple times, but his actual overall results, shown by his less than stellar records of qualifying for the OGN StarLeague, merely respectable ProLeague records, and failure to represent his nation even once in the WCG during his prime years from mid-2005 to early-2007 (the only non-major individual league that kept running for nearly a decade, which is why it is a fair measure of comparing players from different eras), simply do not match toe-to-toe with his legend.
If sAviOr was anything like NaDa, and actually had the staying power to compete against newer generation of top players like Bisu, Jaedong, and Flash during their respective peaks over thirty times (NaDa played a total of 31 competitive games against sAviOr, not when he was at his prime, but when sAviOr was the shit), he would have been wrecked just as much, if not more so. It's just that he faded away into obscurity before those opportunities could even take place. Instead he was busy getting butt-fucked by a whole ring of players such as Firebathero, BeSt, and ForGG, who all took turns raping him, before his spirit broke and resorted to ruining the scene with his involvement with match-fixing some time in 2009.
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O:
what formula would you use to determine which average-below average progamers gave the best players trouble?
as in - shine consitently being a thorn in bisu's side even if he did not take as many games off bisu as flash did
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On September 21 2017 13:04 CHEONSOYUN wrote:
O:
what formula would you use to determine which average-below average progamers gave the best players trouble?
as in - shine consitently being a thorn in bisu's side even if he did not take as many games off bisu as flash did
I decided to pick the opponents of legendary players had the worst record against, in terms of having the largest negative win-loss differential. In case of a tie, I used the overall win rate of the nemesis to break the tie. If there is still a tie after that, I will take into account the proportion of KeSPA officiated games to break the tie.
In the order decreasing magnitude of importance:
1) Largest win-loss differential
Stork is the player that gave Bisu the highest number of defeats (17), however, there record stands at 19-17 in Bisu's favour. Stork is more an arch-nemesis of Bisu, rather than being a thorn for Bisu.
Flash isn't the player that gave Bisu the most number of losses, but he does boast the best win-loss differential.
During their professional careers, Shine had a career record of 5-5 against Bisu (I did not include his games against Bisu at IEF 2007, when Shine participated in the tournament before he was officially drafted as a professional gamer). Shine was more of a nuisance who knocked Bisu out of two OGN StarLeagues, while Flash was someone who Bisu struggled against across all platforms of competition, whether it was in the individual leagues, or the ProLeague.
2) Overall win rate
In case of a tie in terms of win-loss differential, I went with the player with the superior win rate. For example, if Player A has a record of 0-3 versus Player B, and a record of 1-4 versus Player C, both Player B and C have an equal win-loss differential, but Player B has the superior win rate.
Overall win rate did not take priority over win-loss differential because I didn't want the list to be full of one-hit wonders with a career record of 1-0, or 2-0 versus these legendary players. In my opinion, having a 100% record after beating someone once should not take priority over people with proven pedigree of beating someone over and over again with a decent success rate.
3) Proportion of KeSPA officiated games
In case there was a tie even after the first two criterion, I decided to break the tie by taking into consideration the importance of the matches. Obviously winning televised games of regularly scheduled competition would count for more than winning versus someone in one-off special events.
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While it's on my mind, I'll rank the most dominant players in the "major" individual leagues after OGN StarLeague and MSL found at least reasonable parity with one another in terms of prize pool in mid-2003.
To keep things relatively easier to compare, the most dominant individual players will be examined across five seasons (roughly one and a half years span, the period which is exactly the length of time sAviOr was relevant as premier competitor) in terms of prize money earned from OGN StarLeague/MSL compared to the player with the second most prize pool earned.
Like I mentioned above, I will only start counting after the MSL raised their prize to ₩20,000,000 for first place to match the prize pool of OGN StarLeague. Of course, there will be times when OGN StarLeague gives out more, and times when the MSL gives out more prize pool, but the disparity between the two won't be as drastic if we keep the time frame to what happened after mid-2003. Unfortunately, this will exclude the peaks of more old school players such as BoxeR, or NaDa:
1. Flash: 220% of the prize money earned by Jaedong
Time frame: NATE MSL/EVER 2009 OGN StarLeague ~ ABCMart MSL
Prize money earned by Flash: ₩272,500,000
Prize money earned by Jaedong: ₩125,000,000
2. Jaedong: 212% of the prize money earned by Bisu
Time frame: GomTV MSL S4/Bacchus 2008 OGN StarLeague ~ Bacchus 2009 OGN StarLeague/Avalon MSL
Prize money earned by Jaedong: ₩159,000,000
Prize money earned by Bisu: ₩75,000,000
3. iloveoov: 192% of the prize money earned by NaDa
Time frame: MyCube OGN StarLeauge/TG Sambo MSL ~ YATGK MSL/IOPS OGN StarLeague
Prize money earned by iloveoov: ₩99,000,000
Prize money earned by NaDa: ₩51,500,000
4. sAviOr: 156% of the prize money earned by NaDa
Time frame: EVER 2005 OGN StarLeague/UZOO MSL ~ Shinhan 2007 OGN StarLeague S3/GomTV MSL S1
Prize money earned by sAviOr: ₩105,000,000
Prize money earned by NaDa: ₩67,000,000
5. Bisu: 125% of the prize money earned by Jaedong
Time frame: GomTV MSL S2/Daum OGN StarLeague ~ Incruit OGN StarLeague/Clubday MSL
Prize money earned by Bisu: ₩144,000,000
Prize money earned by Jaedong: ₩115,000,000
So these are the most dominant individual league players in terms of prize money gathered from major individual leagues. sAviOr's level of domination, in this particular respect, is more in sync with Bisu than the some of his fellow "bonjwas". I altered the time frame slightly for Jaedong (one season shift into the past) because he fared better when Bisu was the second ranked player instead of Flash.
Of course, the circumstances of all these players, while not as drastically different from one another like it is for the really old players like BoxeR, and NaDa, still has huge disparity from one another in terms of overall circumstances:
1) When iloveoov was dominant, MSL was making a hard push to match OGN StarLeague in terms of prestige, and actually awarded slightly more prize pool for the first place, by opting for a more top heavy distribution of prize pool.
2) When sAviOr was dominant, OGN StarLeague pulled ahead in terms of prize pool once again, both in terms of financial reward for first place, and in terms of overall prize pool.
3) When Bisu/Jadeong/Flash was dominant, MSL again opted for a top heavy distribution of prize pool, and awarded more prize for the first place.
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So the triplet of Bisu/Jaedong/Flash collectively dominated the individual leagues in terms of overall prize pool gathered from mid-2007 to mid-2011, with Jaedong playing the supporting cast for the other two during their respective primes.
The duo of iloveoov/sAviOr collectively dominated the individual leagues in terms of overall prize pool gathered from 2003 to 2006, with NaDa playing the supporting cast for the two during their respective primes.
iloveoov may have smashed everyone during his absolute prime. However, his genius was short lived, and was on his last ever leg as a top level professional when he faced off against sAviOr in late-2005, and would never make another semi-finals, let alone the finals, after that individual league season was finished. It was all the same for Reach, Nal_rA, and NaDa, all famous names who played the supporting cast for sAviOr's glory years. Literally everyone were on the verge of slipping away into irrelevancy by the time they met sAviOr.
After the reign of terror that iloveoov brought was somewhat neutralized after people had caught up to his antics, past legends who struggled the most heavily versus him, such as NaDa and Nal_rA made their final push in 2006 in an attempt to bring glory back to their names. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. sAviOr was yet another genius ahead of his time, and made mincemeat out of these past legends who thought the worst was over after iloveoov had been somewhat nullified as a championship material player.
sAviOr was basically a zerg version of iloveoov, but in my eyes, a lesser version of him. Jaedong was like NaDa, but a lesser version of him. NaDa had his own prime when he was head-and-shoulders above everybody else, and slowly diluted the notion of his past domination by playing second fiddle to the likes of iloveoov, and sAviOr. The fall from grace for these two players was as fast as their meteoric rise to power, and while people do remember epic moments where iloveoov was crushed by sAviOr, and the moment sAviOr was crushed by Bisu, people often don't remember the immediate mediocrity that followed, where these players got butt fucked by a whole bunch of various random, more forgettable players, rather than getting repeatedly thwarted in their valiant effort to retain their throne.
When people remember NaDa, all those moments where NaDa was thwarted in his attempt to retain, or regain his throne at the top often becomes blurred with his own reign of terror where he seemed unstoppable too. It was somewhat similar with Jaedong, with all his moments battling Bisu, or Flash for the title of the best player in the scene becoming a blur with the times he actually was head and shoulders above them in terms of achievements.
In a sad way, public perception often rewards inconsistency and lack of staying power. Where the stark contrast between the highs and lows somehow become a central basis for judgement. For some, it may better to fizzle out, right after you had all your glory, instead of slowly chipping away your past glory by fighting a long, arduous, and often humiliating, losing battle to stay at the top. However, I personally believe that's just an error in human perception, and we're prone to making errors when we try to force easier-to-follow narratives. Stuff like NaDa, and Jaedong were consistent, but not dominant. iloveoov and sAviOr were dominant, but not consistent. When the fact of the matter is, all data seems to point against that theory. Yes, NaDa and Jaedong were consistent, and lasted longer as potential challengers to the throne than either iloveoov, or sAviOr, but that is its own separate thing, and has no correlation to their actual level of domination during their peak years. What the viewers felt at the time can be warped by the flaws in human perception.
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Total number of seasons/ Starting with the season that had MyCube OGN StarLeague and TG Sambo MSL, when both broadcasting companies didn't have so much disparity over the overall prize pool. The leagues will be listed in a StarLeague/MSL format:
1. MyCube/TG Sambo
2. NHN HanGame/CEN Game
3. Gillette/SPRIS
4. EVER 2004/
5. IOPS/YATGK
6. EVER 2005/UZOO
7. So1/
8. Shinhan 2005/CYON
9. Shinhan S1/Pringles S1
10. Shinhan S2/Pringles S2
11. Shinhan S3/GomTV S1
12. Daum/GomTV S2
13. EVER 2007/GomTV S3
14. Bacchus 2008/GomTV S4
15. EVER 2008/Arena
16. Incruit/Clubday
17. Batoo/Lost Saga
18. Bacchus 2009/Avalon
19. EVER 2009/NATE
20. Korean Air S1/Hana Daetoo
21. Korean Air S2/Big File
22. Bacchus 2010/PDPop
23. /ABCMart
24. Jin Air
25. Tving
I will select these seasons in groups of three (not groups of five like I did in the post above), which equals a time frame of roughly a year. Then I will name the two players that earned the most prize pool from three seasons worth of individual leagues (past season, season in question, and season after that). The percentage of the player with the highest overall prize pool at that point compared to the player with the second highest prize pool will be noted also.
So for example, if I were to select the season that had NHN HanGame/CEN Game, I will list two players who earned the most money from the following seasons:
1. MyCube/TG Sambo
2. NHN HanGame/CEN Game
3. Gillette/SPRIS
Without further ado, here is the list, starting with NHN HanGame/CEN Game, and ending with the season that had Jin Air.
1. NHN HanGame/CEN Game
iloveoov: ₩76,000,000 (208% of the prize money earned by Nal_rA)
Nal_rA: ₩36,500,000
2. Gillette/SPRIS
iloveoov: ₩76,000,000 (287% of the prize money earned by Nal_rA)
Nal_rA: ₩26,500,000
3. EVER 2004/
iloveoov: ₩54,000,000 (152% of the prize money earned by NaDa)
NaDa: ₩35,500,000
4. IOPS/YATGK
GoRush: ₩38,000,000 (109% of the prize money earned by July/NaDa)
July: ₩35,000,000
NaDa: ₩35,000,000
5. EVER 2005/UZOO
GoRush: ₩36,500,000 (104% of the prize money earned by July)
July: ₩35,000,000
6. So1/
iloveoov: ₩34,500,000 (103% of the prize money earned by July)
July: ₩33,500,000
7. Shinhan 2005/CYON
ChoJJa: ₩50,500,000 (115% of the prize money earned by Casy)
Casy: ₩44,000,000
8. Shinhan S1/Pringles S1
sAviOr: ₩70,000,000 (140% of the prize money earned by ChoJJa)
ChoJJa: ₩50,000,000
9. Shinhan S2/Pringles S2
sAviOr: ₩110,000,000 (179% of the prize money earned by NaDa)
NaDa: ₩61,500,000
10. Shinhan S3/GomTV S1
sAviOr: ₩86,000,000 (101% of the prize money earned by Bisu)
Bisu: ₩85,000,000
11. Daum/GomTV S2
Bisu: ₩111,000,000 (173% of the prize money earned by sAviOr)
sAviOr:₩64,000,000
12. EVER 2007/GomTV S3
Jaedong: ₩93,000,000 (105% of the prize money earned by Bisu)
Bisu: ₩88,500,000
13. Bacchus 2008/GomTV S4
Jaedong: ₩113,000,000 (192% of the prize money earned by Mind)
Mind: ₩59,000,000
14. EVER 2008/Arena (119% of the prize money earned by Bisu)
Jaedong: ₩75,000,000
Bisu: ₩63,000,000
15. Incruit/Clubday
Bisu: ₩63,000,000 (101% of the prize money earned by Jaedong)
Jaedong: ₩62,500,000
16. Batoo/Lost Saga
Jaedong: ₩87,500,000 (138% of the prize money earned by Bisu)
Bisu: ₩63,500,000
17. Bacchus 2009/Avalon
Jaedong: ₩138,500,000 (204% of the prize money earned by Flash)
Flash: ₩68,000,000
18. EVER 2009/NATE
Flash: ₩134,000,000 (114% of the prize money earned by Jaedong)
Jaedong: ₩118,000,000
19. Korean Air S1/Hana Daetoo
Flash: ₩220,000,000 (195% of the prize money earned by Jaedong)
Jaedong: ₩113,000,000
20. Korean Air S2/Big File
Flash: ₩162,500,000 (243% of the prize money earned by Jaedong)
Jaedong: ₩67,000,000
21. Bacchus 2010/PDPop
Flash: ₩142,500,000 (234% of the prize money earned by hydra)
hydra: ₩61,000,000
22. /ABCMart
hydra: ₩65,000,000 (107% of the prize money earned by FanTaSy)
FanTaSy: ₩61,000,000
23. Jin Air
JangBi: ₩80,000,000 (133% of the prize money earned by Flash)
Flash: ₩60,000,000
Things worth noting (considering stuff that happened between 2003 and 2011):
1) iloveoov was furthest ahead with 287% of the prize money earned by the second best player on the scene during the Gillette/SPRIS season.
2) Flash had the longest reign at the top with four consecutive seasons at the top.
3) Jaedong had the longest reign at the top two position with nine conseutive seasons as either the number one or number two player.
4) There were only five instances of the number one players breaking the 200% thresh-hold: twice by iloveoov once, once by Jaedong, and twice by Flash.
5) Due to his horrible performance in the OGN StarLeague, at a period when the disparity between OGN StarLeague and MSL was quite significant in terms of prize pool, sAviOr actually never had a single season where he earned more than 200% of the prize pool earned by the second best player in the scene.
So there you have it. It can be argued from a result stand-point that sAviOr's peak actually doesn't rank that highly whether you decide to select the time frame as three seasons (a period of about a year), or or five seasons (a period of about a year and a half).
Further more, this is only looking at the performance in OGN StarLeague, and the MSL. Once you factor in other forms of competition that lasted throughout the years, such as the ProLeague, or the WCG national qualifiers, sAviOr's legacy takes even more of a hit.
So while sAviOr was indeed awesome at styling on past legends, and making a name for himself, the actual legend of his level of domination is over-blown partly due to the dramatic nature of his rise to power, where he beat up famous past legends who were not yet irrelevant, but were on their last legs as top class oppositions.
In case people were wondering, it's really hard to find information on the exact distribution for really old individual leagues, so I couldn't come up with an accurate list for those eras. BoxeR in mid-2001 earned around 250% more than GARIMTO when he was at his peak, and NaDa in early-2003 earned roughly 210% more than BoxeR when he was at his peak, but I'm really not sure whether these numbers are accurate, especially for NaDa.
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On September 21 2017 17:59 Letmelose wrote:
In a sad way, public perception often rewards inconsistency and lack of staying power. Where the stark contrast between the highs and lows somehow become a central basis for judgement. For some, it may better to fizzle out, right after you had all your glory, instead of slowly chipping away your past glory by fighting a long, arduous, and often humiliating, losing battle to stay at the top. However, I personally believe that's just an error in human perception, and we're prone to making errors when we try to force easier-to-follow narratives.
This is very well said. Thank you for the infos and insight yet again Letmelose. Really impressive.
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On September 23 2017 05:54 tanngard wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2017 17:59 Letmelose wrote:
In a sad way, public perception often rewards inconsistency and lack of staying power. Where the stark contrast between the highs and lows somehow become a central basis for judgement. For some, it may better to fizzle out, right after you had all your glory, instead of slowly chipping away your past glory by fighting a long, arduous, and often humiliating, losing battle to stay at the top. However, I personally believe that's just an error in human perception, and we're prone to making errors when we try to force easier-to-follow narratives. This is very well said. Thank you for the infos and insight yet again Letmelose. Really impressive.
Although I tunnel-visioned hard on sAviOr, the same can be said for a lot of other cases.
For example, Reach is often remembered as a perennial dud versus the zerg race partly due to his staying power. However, that's not true in my opinion:
1) Reach actually won more competitive matches versus the zerg race than any other protoss players in history (190 wins recorded on TLPD, a much higher number compared to the next highest players, Stork and Bisu, who have 156 wins and 155 wins versus the zerg race respectively).
2) When Reach was at his absolute prime (the only protoss in history to reach both individual league finals within the same season) in 2002, he had a career win rate versus zerg that was above 60%.
3) Reach had enough staying power battle sAviOr during his prime, mid-2005 to early-2007, having a terrible record of 3-14 versus sAviOr. He also had a record of 17-23 versus non-sAviOr zergs during that period of time. This period is not indicative of what happened throughout Reach's career, but while almost nobody praises Reach for having enough staying power to amass more competitive victories versus the zerg race than any other player, they are often willing to judge him harshly for having sub-optimal results versus newer generation of players instead of being totally irrelevant, and being completely invisible from the limelight, or retiring right away.
4) Reach was one of the finest protoss players against the zerg race, but by the time he retired, he had his fair share of humiliating moments versus the zerg race. Basing judgement mostly on strong impressions out of an incomplete viewing experience, to paint a picture on a player who has played more televised protoss-versus-zerg matches than any player in history seems flawed to me.
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EPT
