The Greatest ProLeague Players of Each Generation

Letmelose

Korea (South)3227 Posts

January 17 2018 06:19 GMT

Ever since 2005, professional Brood War teams such as SK Telecom T1 were able to strengthen their squad by drafting semi-professional players who had won the Courage Tournament (a tournament for amateur players), as well as having the option to by-pass the system by having a limited number of opportunities to recommend certain players directly into their team as professionals.

Since the ProLeague was the main point of focus for the professional teams, I will look into the all-time ProLeague records of the players who made their professional debut after 2005, and rank them by the total number of ProLeague one-versus-one matches won.

Players who have made their professional debut before the implementation of the drafting system such as Stork will not be included on the list.

Top three ProLeague players who made their professional debut in 2005 Draft Round 1

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1. Sea: 172 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
2. Luxury: 85 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
3. Much: 76 ProLeague one-versus-one victories

Sea was the stand-out pick here, being by far the most successful ProLeague performer out of his contemporary debutants. The thing is, Sea wasn't even the first choice pick for Pirates of Space (precursor to MBC Game HERO), that honour went to Saint.

Luxury was the sole individual league powerhouse from this generation of draftees, having won both WCG 2008 as well as Lost Saga MSL.

Top three ProLeague players who made their professional debut in 2005 Draft Round 2

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1. Bisu: 192 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
2. free: 147 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
3. Calm: 131 ProLeague one-versus-one victories

A more productive draft in terms of the top end players than the round before, this particular draft produced four players who would end up having over one hundred ProLeague one-versus-one victories by the end of their professional careers.

However, the stand-out performer when these players were drafted initially was Justin, who won the Draftee Evaluation Tournament that took place before the drafts. free on the other hand, barely got selected as a professional player for Hanbit Stars (precursor to Woongjin Stars), and was the fifth and last pick for his team of choice. free went on to repay that debt by becoming by far the most successful ProLeague player for the team in terms of sheer number of ProLeague victories.

Top three ProLeague players who made their professional debut in 2006 Draft Round 1

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1. Jaedong: 240 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
2. Light: 154 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
3. Leta: 150 ProLeague one-versus-one victories

Probably the most productive draft round in the history of the scene, this round produced six ProLeague extraordinaires who won over one hundred ProLeague one-versus-one match over the course of their professional careers.

Just like free before him, Leta was the fifth and last pick by his team, and just like free, Leta went on to become the player with the most number of ProLeague victories for Ongamenet Sparkyz.

Top three ProLeague players who made their professional debut in 2006 Draft Round 2

1. BeSt: 120 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
2. Jaehoon: 71 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
3. Pure: 57 ProLeague one-versus-one victories

Shudder was the stand-out player when this draft took place, and was chosen as the first pick for SK Telecom T1 after winning the Draftee Evaluation Tournament. However it was BeSt that would go on to become the greatest ProLeague servant for his team. He is the sole player to have won over one hundred ProLeague one-versus-one matches out of this generation of draftees.

Top three ProLeague players who made their professional debut in 2007 Draft Round 1

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1. Flash: 233 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
2. FanTaSy: 144 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
3. ZerO: 132 ProLeague one-versus-one victories

Another productive drafting phase produced four players who would go on to achieve over one hundred one-versus-one ProLeague victories was held in early 2007. This would be the last generation of players who would be able to contend for the title of a ProLeague legend.

Flash was recommended by KTF MagicNs for his professional liscence, and did not actually partake in the drafting or the Draftee Evaluation Tournament. Although I'm not certain, I believe FanTaSy was the Draftee Evaluation Tournament champion for this round.

Top three ProLeague players who made their professional debut in 2007 Draft Round 2

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1. Movie: 76 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
2. sKyHigh: 71 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
3. hyvaa: 63 ProLeague one-versus-one victories

There is a sudden drop in quality, with zero draftees managing to have fantastic success within the ProLeague realm.

Movie is the only player to have reached the finals of a major individual league, as well as leading the front in terms of total number of ProLeague victories.

Top three ProLeague players who made their professional debut in 2008 Draft Round 1

1. RorO: 95 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
2. Stats: 86 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
3. Horang2: 68 ProLeague one-versus-one victories

Here we see solid ProLeague workhorses, but none that managed to gather over one hundred PoLeague one-versus-one victories. RorO was the true ace of WeMade Fox, but never got much exposure due to his horrid ACE match performances and mediocre placings within the individual leagues.

Hydra was the last ever drafted player to win a major championship, but his ProLeague numbers were slightly lower than Horang2's.

Top three ProLeague players who made their professional debut in 2008 Draft Round 2

1. Soulkey: 69 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
2. SnOw: 54 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
3. BoGus: 52 ProLeague one-versus-one victories

Soulkey and SnOw started off their careers with fantastic performances in the KeSPA Dream League, a lower division of the ProLeague created for B teamers.

BoGus was the best draftee back when they were selected, and won the Draftee Evaluation Tournament, and was picked first by STX SouL, and repaid their trust in him by eventually becoming the ace player of the team.

Top three ProLeague players who made their professional debut in 2009 Draft Round 1

1. By.Sun: 26 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
2. Classic: 20 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
3. Grape: 16 ProLeague one-versus-one victories

The last ever generation of drafteees to have three players with double-digit ProLeague victories under their resume, By.Sun, or more commonly known by his Starcraft 2 alias, Rain, was the crown jewel of this generation of draftees.

By.Sun was rumoured to be the best Brood War player during practice sessions held within the SK Telecom T1 household, and received the last ever "Rookie of the Year" award (a prestigious award that was awarded to the likes of Stork, Jaedong, Flash, EffOrt, and SnOw) in late 2011.

Top three ProLeague players who made their professional debut in 2009 Draft Round 2

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1. TurN: 25 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
2. Wooki: 14 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
3. Dear: 9 ProLeague one-versus-one victories

yCh, the player who won the Draftee Evaluation Tournament for this draft round, never got to make his ProLeague debut. TurN, the terran player known for his incredibly aggressive playstyle, would turn out to be the stand-out ProLeague player. Wooki, although registered as a professional since 2009, actually did not even make his actual debut until late 2010, because his parents were very adamant on him finishing his education before going into professional gaming. Dear was another rookie whose Brood War highlight would be defeating Flash in a ProLeague game, and winning the ProLeague Rookie of the Season award over sHy for the SK Planet ProLeague S1.

Top three ProLeague players who made their professional debut in 2010 Draft Round 1

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1. sHy: 14 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
2. By.rOo: 10 ProLeague one-versus-one victories
3. Mini: 6 ProLeague one-versus-one victories

Both sHy and Mini were protoss players who were drafted fourth by their respective teams, but were both able to make something out of their careers in both the individual league and the ProLeague, especially considering the short amount of time they were given to grow as professional players.

rOo was stand-out zerg rookie in the Shinhan 2010/2011 ProLeague season, but retired before the hybrid season of the ProLeague even began.

Thoughts

As one can see, there is a dramatic drop-off in terms of overall career achievements by players who made their professional debuts after early 2007, when the likes of Flash, FanTaSy, ZerO, and EffOrt entered the scene.

There either was a significant decrease in the influx of new talent (both in terms of quantity and quality), as other gaming titles started to overtake Brood War in terms of popularity, or there simply wasn't enough time for new players to develop before professional Brood War got replaced entirely in mid-2012.

I personally believe the draftees picked between 2005 and 2007 represents the last ever generation of gamers who picked up the game when it was still one of the very top games in terms of general popularity, and when televised Brood War was still drawing in huge numbers.

The tail-end of the lineage of genius gamers that played Brood War, and the earliest generation of genius gamers who played other titles (most notably CHAOS, a Korean version of DoTA) have something of an overlap.

Year of birth for the youngest multiple championship winning Brood War geniuses: Jaedong (1990), Flash (1992)

Year of birth for famous multiple championship winning geniuses of other gaming titles: Coach (also known as PoohManDu) (1991), MaRin (1991)

Coach is widely regarded as the greatest gaming geniuses to come out of Korea, having dominated competitive CHAOS, and making his mark in League of Legends history as the support player PoohManDu. MaRin is another MOBA legend who was known for his exploits in CHAOS as well as League of Legends.

This is the debut years of Brood War players who reached at least two or more individual league finals, with their year of birth in brackets:

1999: BoxeR (1980), H.O.T-Forever (1981)
2000: GARIMTO (1981), YellOw (1982), Kingdom (1983), ChoJJa (1984), NaDa (1984)
2001: Nal_rA (1982), Reach (1983)
2002: Anyime (1986), July (1986)
2003: iloveoov (1983), sAviOr (1987)
2004: Stork (1988)
2005: Bisu (1989)
2006: JangBi (1989), Jaedong (1990)
2007: FanTaSy (1991), Flash (1992)
2008:
2009:
2010:
2011:
2012:

One single player (Hydra) managed to make the individual league finals out of all the players who made their debut after 2008. Even if we take the several years it usually takes for debutants to truly become terrifying competitors, and the eventual demise of professional Brood War that took place in 2012, it doesn't quite explain the sudden disappearance of super-rookies to full satisfaction.

There was a superlative Brood War talent born in every single year from 1980 to 1992 (except for 1985). This is the generation of Korean young males who lived and breathed Brood War, especially those born in the 1980s. However, Korean males born in the 1990s who had fantastic gaming talents were much more likely to delve into other gaming titles, as shown by the multitude of Korean MOBA geniuses who were born in the 1990s.

The drop-off in terms of quality (due to more and more gaming geniuses play other titles as time progressed), as well as the shortened length of time available for the players who made their debuts later on, explains the phenomenon.

Another argument to be made could be that unlike Bisu, Jaedong, and Flash, who all won a major championship within two years of their professional debut, the players who made their professional debut from 2008 onwards all tended to be late bloomers who needed more than the three to four years they were given as Brood War professionals to truly make their mark.

Although I am not familiar with the professional Starcraft 2 scene, I believe players such as BoGus and By.Sun went on to have successful careers in Starcraft 2 despite never quite doing anything of significance within the professional Brood War realm. Perhaps Starcraft 2 suited their talents more. Perhaps their Starcraft 2 success would have been mirrored in their Brood War careers if the scene wasn't killed off. One never knows.

One thing that is interesting is that a lot of the stand-out ProLeague players of the draftees who made their debuts towards the end of professional Brood War went on to have quite successful Starcraft 2 careers.

RorO, Stats, Soulkey, BoGus (INnoVation), By.Sun (Rain), Classic, Wooki (Zest), Dear, and sHy (sOs) were all championship level players in Starcraft 2 as far as I know.

However, there was a saying in the professional Brood War scene that a true great wins a major championship within two years after making his professional debut. That happened to be the case with almost every single all-time level Brood War great in history. BoxeR was active in late 1999, and two years later he was the undisputed best player on the planet. NaDa started to compete in late 2000, and two years later he had multiple domestic championships under his belt across various broadcasting platforms. iloveoov made his debut in early 2003, and won his first ever MSL championship before the year even finished. Even July and sAviOr, who took a little longer to settle in, needed a little over two years to win their first ever major championship. Bisu had won two MSL titles after being only two years into his professional career, while Jaedong had won one. Flash only needed a year to win his championship.

Even the likes of sHy, who was the latest out of the above list of players to make his professional debut, made his professional debut in 2010, had more than two years to prove himself on the competitive stage. It could be that all of the above players were potential championship level players who needed more time to develop as competitors, but I'm personally of the opinion that it is highly unlikely to have literally hundreds of players who made their debuts after Flash to all be late bloomers who needed much more time than the usual time-frame it took for a brand new professionals to leave their mark in the history books if they happened to be destined for greatness within the confines of professional Brood War.

Flash and FanTaSy were, in my opinion, were the last of the Brood War talents that would cause truly seismic shifts within the scene. Their battle for supremacy would be mostly against the old guards, rather than the up and coming talents who were ready to usurp them as they usurped their predecessors. Even after ten years since his debut, Flash rules supreme today, something that would have been incredibly difficult to replicate if professional Brood War had the kind of turn-over rate back when the Brood War scene was at the height of its powers in terms of popularity.

NoS-Craig

Australia3089 Posts

January 18 2018 18:17 GMT

Shame Brood war couldn't continue its dominance as an E-sports. Guess it was only a matter of time though. I'm guessing most of us Brood War fans are late 20's to mid 30's. By the time the starcraft scene fades out completely, most of us will be too busy/tired to give a fuck about any other E-sport anyway. Starcraft will always live on in my memory though.

Crazy to see the drop off you showed after 2007. To think the biggest E-sport right now has roots in BW Aeon of Strife is crazy to. Starcraft Brood war may fizzle out, but its ghost will live on in E-sports forever.

Awesome read as always mate.

Waxangel

United States33022 Posts

January 18 2018 23:31 GMT

It's kind of amusing how total Proleague wins is a very good barometer to pick out the best-in-class in almost every draft and position. Win-rate not really necessary except in a few cases.

Waxangel

United States33022 Posts

January 18 2018 23:51 GMT

I think the lack of double-finalists after the 2007 draft could be explained reasonably without having to point to talent being siphoned off to other games. I actually think that theory is pretty unlikely, because it wasn't until the advent of pro LoL in 2011~2012 that a game could offer anywhere close to the money of BW/SC2 to an aspiring progamer.

I'll offer up a few other ideas that could have been factors

1) The increasing skill level of the game lengthening the "maturation" period after drafting.
2) The infrequency of individual leagues in the latter years of BW.
3) The outlier rivalry/domination period of Flash and Jaedong that took away opportunities from others.

I think your golden generation might be more related to the sheer popularity of BW at its early 2000's peak, which created a larger pool of progaming talent from which prodigies could emerge. BW didn't so much have its talent taken away by other games as it did simply lose attractiveness on its own (PC bang stats etc bear this out). The pool of talent to draw from (young kids interested enough in progaming) may simply have shrunk to a place where they couldn't discover enough talent to overcome the established generation.

Then again, maybe you were already implying all of that in different words.

chiasmus

United States134 Posts

January 19 2018 00:11 GMT

This is really interesting, thanks for the writeup! FYI, some years ago I tried to reconstruct the complete history of the KeSPA draft for Liquipedia: (Wiki)

KeSPA Rookie Draft

Letmelose

Korea (South)3227 Posts

January 19 2018 02:59 GMT

On January 19 2018 08:51 Waxangel wrote:
I think the lack of double-finalists after the 2007 draft could be explained reasonably without having to point to talent being siphoned off to other games. I actually think that theory is pretty unlikely, because it wasn't until the advent of pro LoL in 2011~2012 that a game could offer anywhere close to the money of BW/SC2 to an aspiring progamer.

I'll offer up a few other ideas that could have been factors

1) The increasing skill level of the game lengthening the "maturation" period after drafting.
2) The infrequency of individual leagues in the latter years of BW.
3) The outlier rivalry/domination period of Flash and Jaedong that took away opportunities from others.

I think your golden generation might be more related to the sheer popularity of BW at its early 2000's peak, which created a larger pool of progaming talent from which prodigies could emerge. BW didn't so much have its talent taken away by other games as it did simply lose attractiveness on its own (PC bang stats etc bear this out). The pool of talent to draw from (young kids interested enough in progaming) may simply have shrunk to a place where they couldn't discover enough talent to overcome the established generation.

Then again, maybe you were already implying all of that in different words.

I want to differentiate between infrastructure and overall game popularity. I would totally agree that from an infrastructure perspective, professional Brood War was actually on the way up, at least until the match-fixing fiasco and legal lawsuits at the hands of Blizzard chased away a lot of potential sponsors.

Teams all had major sponsorships, which definitely was not the case before (Hanbit Stars competed without the sponsorship from Woongjin as recent as 2006). Individual leagues had huge prize pools, which was also not the case before 2007 (when GomTV MSL Season 2 more or less matched the Ongamenet StarLeague in terms of overall prize pools). Salaries in general were non-existent, or minimalistic in nature except for a few cases compared to salaries that were handed out after the arrival of major sponsorships.

However, if money is all that matters, talent recruitment for professional Brood War would be blown out of the water by the financial draws of professional Starcraft 2. Quite clearly, from a sheer domestic perspective, Starcraft 2 did not have the extensive reach to the Korean gaming population despite having arguably superior financial incentives.

What I was talking about was game popularity. What the young Koreans at the time were watching. What they were talking about. What they were playing. Starcraft was once a cultural phenomenon in South Korea that transcended being merely a popular game, the professional scene was a by product of that once in a life-time phenomenon, and the investment that followed was actually years behind in terms of the actual cultural trend.

BoxeR had more online following than the top celebrities of his era, and the same cannot be said for any modern day legends such as Jaedong, whatever the social media platform may be. The top five most viewed Brood War games of all time took place between 2003 and 2005. The largest crowds ever were all there to watch to ProLeague finals that took place in between 2004 and 2005. The investment started to come not because of the forward thinking businessmen who were interested in the new social activity, but because the raw numbers created were simply too large to miss.

Unless I'm mistaken, Brood War had the kind of market share games like PUBG and League of Legends sees now within PC cafes up until 2004 (21.3% market share was quoted for January 2004). It still had double digit market share until 2006, but after 2007 (with much more popular games like Sudden Attack coming out), Brood War, as far as I know of, has never managed to reach that figure since. Talented gaming minds of Korea were no longer dedicated to Brood War as they once were, that's an undisputable fact. I would argue that talented gamers look into financial options after they realize their potential for success at a certain game, not reverse engineering aptitude for the game after wanting financial success from the existing infrastructure. The fact that other more popular gaming titles lacked the infrastructure that Brood War was in possession of doesn't negate my original point.

As for the other theories:

1) A sound theory. As the overall understanding of the game increased, it would take more time for brand new players to fully master the game at the highest level.

2) Individual leagues were running as scheduled until early 2011, which doesn't explain the sudden drop-off of talent after early 2007, unless it takes more than three years for someone from late 2007/early 2008 to blossom as a player. There's literally nobody in history with over three individual league championships who took that long to win their first ever major championship. Further more, it's not as if there were major changes in the hierarchy at the top end of the ProLeague until Starcraft 2 was factored in, even if we look outside of the scope of individual league success.

3) That wouldn't affect the rate at which new players were qualifying for the individual leagues. Let's see list the players who made it into the final 16 (the cut-off point for numerous individual leagues) the most number of times out of the players who made their debut after the likes of Flash and FanTaSy.

Hydra: 7 times
Shine: 5 times
Movie: 3 times
hyvaa: 3 times
Soulkey: 3 times

That's five players with three or more round of 16 appearances. I don't care how dominant Flash and Jaedong were during their primes, they couldn't stop everyone from qualifying from joining the round of 16. Not counting the individual leagues that started in 2007, there was a total of twenty individual leagues to qualify for.

Hydra is by far the biggest outlier out of the five years worth of drafting talent, and even he wasn't a superlative genius who took everyone by storm, as seen by his number of victories earned within the ProLeague platform, which lagged behind the likes of RorO, Stats, and Horang2.

The only stiff competition the older generation of players (the last of that generation being players like Flash, FanTaSy, ZerO, and EffOrt) was between themselves until the demise of the professional Brood War scene in 2012. The only multiple semi-finalist to come after that was Hydra, a solid player within the ProLeague setting, but nothing mind-blowing. The only ProLeague player to challenge the existing elite, by having multiple top four ProLeague performances was Stats, a player who was a dud in the individual league setting.

That is a piss poor crop of rookie talent regardless of the circumstances involved. The worst ever attempt at the throne by the new blood out of any period of Brood War history. Taek-Beng-LeeSsang were truly great players, but the threat of the next generation of players fulfilling the roles of their usurpers were next to non-existent.

Imagine if BoxeR competed versus nobody but players before his generation and his peers for years on end. People such as SSamJang, SKELTON, and whoever the fuck else was competing back in 1999. Maybe mix in capable, but no mind-blowing talents such as TheMarine and JJu as the top tier players of the next wave of would-be-usurpers.

Sure there was enough influx of new professionals to sustain the scene, and I think you have a solid point in that the game might have needed more time to master towards the latter half of professional Brood War, but I don't think that those two points alone can explain the thorough lack of staggeringly astonishing talents that changed the way the game was played at a fundamental level. Every year people thought the game was more or less solved, at least at a human level, but a new player came along almost every year to smash that perception. That was no longer the case after 2007.

Letmelose

Korea (South)3227 Posts

January 19 2018 03:51 GMT

On January 19 2018 09:11 chiasmus wrote:
This is really interesting, thanks for the writeup! FYI, some years ago I tried to reconstruct the complete history of the KeSPA draft for Liquipedia: http://liquipedia.net/starcraft/KeSPA_Rookie_Draft

A really good source of reference as always. I actually looked into that particular Liquipedia entry when writing this blog.

Cricketer12

United States13949 Posts

January 20 2018 21:32 GMT

Shy bogus sun stats soulkey etc

All of them were top draftees but were distinctly worse than flash jd bisu etc then go to sc2 and become legends. Really interesting.

I wonder if flash started in 2010 and rain in 2005 the roles would be reversed

digmouse

China6325 Posts

January 22 2018 07:04 GMT

Huh? Didn't BW remain as the pinnacle esports in Korea till like 2009? There were other competitions for sure like Special Forces (CS clone) and Kart Rider but none of these were ever big enough to cause a massive talent exodus.

Lucumo

6850 Posts

January 22 2018 07:54 GMT

#10

On January 22 2018 16:04 digmouse wrote:
Huh? Didn't BW remain as the pinnacle esports in Korea till like 2009? There were other competitions for sure like Special Forces (CS clone) and Kart Rider but none of these were ever big enough to cause a massive talent exodus.

2009? I'm pretty sure BW was at the top of e-sports until the abomination that was the hybrid league started, or maybe a year prior, until 2011? Eventually, LoL took over. And I'm fairly certain that Sudden Attack was more popular than Special Forces.

When did MMOs really started to boom in Korea? Wouldn't it be likely that a non-insignificant amount of players also went to that genre instead of RTS games?

Letmelose

Korea (South)3227 Posts

January 22 2018 08:18 GMT

#11

Sure it was, that doesn't mean the talent pool was bigger than ever before. Like I said before, I believe you are confusing infrastructure with overall talent pool and interest from the general public.

By 2009, viewership for Brood War was on the decline, despite still being by far the most watched e-Sport in Korea. More importantly, player base for Brood War was on the decline, and had been no longer the most played game in Korea for quite some time.

That perfect cross-over of the general public living and breathing Brood War both in terms of actually playing the game, and watching its competitive form, as well as having enough corporate interest to provide some infrastructure happened sometime between 2004~2005. The famous crowd shots from Gwangalli Beach are all from this era.

[image loading]

This was when literally all the Korean kids and young adult males were discussing and playing Brood War. When the viewership reached its highest ever point. When Korean Starcraft communities such as SGAEL reached the height of its powers, and actually dominated the Korean internet culture, creating more memes, catchphrases and fan content than one could ever imagine. Brood War once dominated Korean culture, not just as a competitive gaming platform.

Every school back in the days had its Brood War hero, the kid who would reign supreme over all the other students. Kids would duel one another for the sake of Brood War superiority back when it meant something. Every festival had included a Brood War showdown, and anybody with even a trace of gaming talent would try their luck at Brood War, even if they had no intentions of actually going professional.

That was no longer the case by 2009. Other games such as Sudden Attack and CHAOS started have quite a large following even if these games did not have such a stable infrastructure within the e-Sports realm.

Letmelose

Korea (South)3227 Posts

January 22 2018 08:44 GMT

#12

On January 22 2018 16:54 Lucumo wrote:

Show nested quote +

I am not that well versed in the history of MOBA titles in Korea. I only liked professional Brood War and was made aware of the professional League of Legends scenes once it took over the vacant prime time of televised Brood War.

The uneducated version of the timeline you are seeking would be something like this:

CHAOS (Korean version of DoTA) gains enough following by the masses, and the hosts of the most prestigious CHAOS tournaments (of which there were seventeen of) start their internet broadcasting sometime around 2007. The internet broadcasting company, called NicegameTV are probably more well known for their involvement with the Korean League of Legends scene outside of Korea.

Big File, the same company that sponsored one of the MBC Game StarLeague, were also sponsoring CHAOS tournaments hosted by NicegameTV, and the biggest superstar to come out of the scene was probably Coach, also known as PoohManDu from his League of Legends legacy with SK Telecom T1. This guy is widely regarded as one of the greatest gaming geniuses to come out of Korea for any genre, and he was born in 1991, marking an important point in history when kids en masse started to seriously test out their gaming talents with titles other than Brood War.

I can confidently say that there was a time when Korean kids were all playing Brood War and all other gaming titles were considered as extremely niche options, and by 2009 that was certainly not the case.

BigFan

TLADT24920 Posts

January 23 2018 20:37 GMT

#13

Interesting, thanks for sharing! Pretty sad to read about BW history in the above posts.

ArvickHero

10387 Posts

January 23 2018 23:19 GMT

#14

out curiosity, what was it that made PoohManDu one of the "greatest gaming geniuses" to have ever come out of Korea? Asking as someone who has only a cursory knowledge of LoL and other e-sports scenes unrelated to BW.

digmouse

China6325 Posts

January 24 2018 11:09 GMT

#15

On January 22 2018 16:54 Lucumo wrote:

Show nested quote +

Huh the MMO argument makes a lot of sense, considering World of Warcraft was massive in Korea.

Letmelose

Korea (South)3227 Posts

January 24 2018 11:27 GMT

#16

On January 24 2018 08:19 ArvickHero wrote:
out curiosity, what was it that made PoohManDu one of the "greatest gaming geniuses" to have ever come out of Korea? Asking as someone who has only a cursory knowledge of LoL and other e-sports scenes unrelated to BW.

There is an argument to be made that Coach/PoohManDu is the greatest MOBA genius to ever come out of Korea in terms of raw talent.

He just had a knack for finding out stuff that was secretly broken before everybody else, and while other players such as MaRin could be said to have been just as immaculate from a sheer mechanical stand point (or perhaps even more impressive from that particular perspective), Coach was a savant of unmatched levels if the rumours I've heard are true. His ability to think outside of the box and break the game to suit his needs caused the tournament organizers to patch the game non-stop just to keep Coach in check.

After finishing his military service, Coach started from scratch with League of Legends. Despite joining the fray later than most, it didn't take him long to make a lasting impression with his debut appearance with GSG, winning the NLB with arguably the most outrageous strategic play in League of Legends history. He was able to join SK Telecom T1 after that, and served SK Telecom T1 well with his ability to recognize powerful, yet unorthodox ways of playing the game.

All that was achieved despite the fact that Coach/PoohManDu never possessed the greatest work ethic. He wasn't an arduous student of these games. He just plays games, and discovers innovative ways to abuse and break the received wisdom without much difficulty. The rest of the world had never seen him at his absolute peak before his military service, but to those who did, he is often dubbed as the Faker of the Korean CHAOS scene.

I don't think it can be stressed enough that what the rest of the world remembers PoohManDu for happened after he finished his military service. Especially since he was part of the active service, which basically means zero free time, unlike full-time reserve service (like MaRin), or special exceptions like Air Force ACE (like RuBy), where playing games for lengthy periods of time are a possibility. I believe PoohManDu is the only Korean in history to have been around the top of the hierarchy of his game of choosing before and after serving full-time active military service.

Imagine if Michael Jordan dominated the NBA, went on a two year break where he did next to zero athletic activity, and then returned from that break to have a successful career within the MLB. Coach/PoohManDu's singular ingenuity cannot be overlooked even if his surrounding circumstances and his own lack of discipline prevented him from reaching the kind of recognition that he could have gained. There is that one in a million kind of talent, regardless of genre, and I believe Coach/PoohManDu was one of those talents. Is he one of the greatest gamers ever? Tough call to make, but probably not. Greatest gaming geniuses to come out of Korea in recent memory? I would personally say so.

LocoBolon

Argentina243 Posts

January 26 2018 02:21 GMT

#17

On January 22 2018 17:44 Letmelose wrote:

Show nested quote +

Great reading Letmelose, I really enjoyed going through the lines, thanks for the good job.

Regarding issue of the reason for the lack of new super talents appearences in the scene after 2007 I think both, decrease in popularity and increase of skill lvl and so the time required to achieve that level (and thus win a major tournament) happen to be the cause as both are imo proven to be a fact and both have (again, imo) a direct impact on the metter.

Decrese of bw popularity is a fact, I think none can argue it happened, and this should have caused a decrease of new talent arrival, I think that's hard to deny too.

But the point I'm most interested in is the other one, the SUSTANCIAL increse of skill level BW professional scene experienced is quite notorious: as the gameplay kept refining itself through the years, the appearances of even more extravagatly talented kids was a requirement for those kids to be top tier level players of his era. And in this case the sky is not the limit, there is a human and mechanical limit to how good someone can be at BW and I may be wrong but I think Flash and Jaedong were much closer to that limit during their prime than iloveoov, Boxer, Nada, or even Savior during their's. I think the fist two are fundamentally better at the game, or as I said it above, even more extravaganty gifted at BW than the later four. A prove of that to me is also the fact that today when the more modern supertalents (sea, bisu, best, zero effort) are faced against the old ones, the later ones don't stand a chance.
To the 2008,2009, 2010 meta and understandment of BW, the set of skills to be a master player was wider and crazier than it was the years before, and at fullfilling those insane skills (most of them related to mechanics, and cleverness, but mostly mechanics) I think Effort is way superior to Nada for example. Eventhough one could argue that Nada is more of a Genius and has more innovative thinking and thus was way more significant to the scene and at developing BW meta than Effort, given the modern meta and style of play and the insane mechanical skills they demand and also exploit, Effort seems to be better at the game. I'm not saying that if Effort or Fantasy would have played in 2003 they would have been kings of the scene, I'm not so sure of that as maybe they would have needed the meta game and style of play to be mechanicly more demanding to differenciate themsenves from the rest of players and maybe they lacked the innovative mind to bring the game to the next level by themselves , but I'm almost certain that Nada and Nal_ra would have struggled A LOT if they would have had their prime in 2008,2009, 2010 and had to face The Tyrant and God as the final test.
I do think players got better and better, I do think it was humanly harder to be the best in 2010 than in 2004 and so the amount of time required to come a new "best of all" or a new "supergood" would have to be increased more and more over time. Eventhough I'm a JD fan and for me he is "the best of all" I do think Flash is the ultimate player, the culmination of a certain discipline exposed over the years to the possibility of "someone even better may come along"... the more times a better guy comes along and takes place, the higher the bar and the harder for a new one to come, or even exists.

Letmelose

Korea (South)3227 Posts

January 26 2018 05:06 GMT

#18

I have zero doubt that Last from today would have a 90% or above win rate versus sAviOr at the height of his powers. Last was nowhere to be found in the final four of the last three ASL seasons, yet he would wipe the floor with nearly every single legend out there in history (if not all) if he were to time travel back in time to their era.

The mastery of the game increases over time, like with almost any craft. By your definition, it is infinitely way more impressive for Last to reach his current proficiency at the game than literally any past legend you can think of. Fundamentally speaking, even Jaedong and Flash at the peak of their powers would struggle versus Last due to the meta-game advancements that happened over past several years. Flash has gone on to say that his understanding of the game as of now is way superior to what he understood in 2010. The skill level of the players has increased (mostly speaking), but the problem is that it is those same players improving at the game.

The fact that the overall skill level has risen over the years has little to do with the actual quality and quantity of the influx of new talent. Competitive Brood War scene is more stagnant and on the decline than in any period in history, yet the overall proficiency at the game is higher than ever.

It's like if BoxeR, SKELTON, and SSamJang were all competing in 1999. Then the next wave of talents such as NaDa, Reach, and YellOw came along. Of course the more recent generation would usurp them. It's the natural way of things. However, imagine instead of NaDa and YellOw being replaced too by the likes of iloveoov, and sAviOr, it would be those same people playing over and over again until 2018. Sure Reach is still better than SKELTON in 2018 as well as in 2002 back when Reach hit his prime, but that speaks nothing about the actual influx of talent that took place. The fact that every single iteration of Reach from 2002 onwards would wipe the floor with SKELTON from any era doesn't necessarily mean that Reach had to fight against the uprising of new godly talent.

There is a reason why the legacy of Taek-Beng-LeeSsang lasted so long. Once those four usurped the previous gods of Brood War, there were no more gods in the waiting. It was the same battle between themselves. It was as if NaDa only had to fight older generations of players such as SSamJang and BoxeR over and over again for years on end. Imagine if Jaedong had to only fight versus godly talent out of those who made their debut in 2006 or prior to that. Just the same old pool of players like Stork, Sea, and Bisu. No Flash, no FanTaSy.

If we're talking about the actual proficiency at the game itself, Last is superior to every single player from the professional era. Just like every single top level 100 metre sprinter of today has records superior to Jesse Owens. Just like even a no-name university lecturer on physics has superior understanding of science than Isaac Newton.

Lorch

Germany3666 Posts

January 30 2018 16:39 GMT

#19

While I do agree that general popularity of BW is probably the main reason of why players drafted post 07 weren't as successful as those before them, I think there is another factor that contributes to it:

When Boxer was coming up, he could get away with focusing solely on his micro. He didn't have to deal with late game Zerg or even with stacked mutalisk. Similarly, Yellow didn't have to learn to micro stacked mutalisk early on in his career. So imo they had to learn less about bw to reach the current skill pinnacle at their time. And I'd argue that someone who started off when TBLS had made their major contributions to the game had to practice the most in the history of professional Brood War to reach the top level. So I'd say rather than everyone being late bloomers (which I agree is highly unlikely) the issue at the end was that it just took more than 2 years to master all aspects of a race enough to win championships. Most top draftees from 2008 onwards did become very successful sc2 players. Of course that could just be SC2 being more to their liking, but that seems about as likely as everyone being late bloomers.
I honestly do believe that Soulkey/Rain/Bogus would have went on to be the next top players of their respective races had BW gone on. But we'll never know, I do really love these blog posts though!

Letmelose

Korea (South)3227 Posts

January 31 2018 01:32 GMT

#20

There are a multitude of factors at play for sure.

However, the skill ceiling was being raised at astronomical rates even before the establishment of Taek-Beng-LeeSsang as the gods of Brood War. Notice how rudimentary the games were in 1999, contrasted to the games in 2006, for example. The difference in overall game advancement from 2003 to 2007 is way more vast than the game advancement that took place from 2007 to 2008. Yet there is a clear distinction from that very point (before and after early 2007) that cannot be explained just by the in-game advancements. The approximate amount of time needed for a all-timer material rookie to reach the apex of the food chain remained similar throughout the entire history of professional Brood War until early 2007.

Soulkey was great, but Hydra was probably the overall superior player excluding zerg-versus-terran match-up. Soulkey did manage several round of 16 appearances, but never quite made it into the final eight. He was well respected zerg especially in his best match-up, being rumoured to being one of the few zergs on the planet to have the capacity to go toe-to-toe against Flash during practice towards the end of professional Brood War.

By.Sun (Rain) was rumoured to be the best player during practice in SK Telecom T1, but he never even made it past the qualifying stages during his professional career that lasted for more than three years.

BoGus was also rumoured to be a dominant force during practice sessions at STX SouL, but the round of 16 was his limit.

However none of the above three even made it into the quarter-finals of any individual leagues despite having at least three years (approaching four years for the likes of Soulkey and BoGus) as a professional player. Surely a three year limit for reaching the quarter-finals once is not a huge reach for players who wish to be considered as an all-time material alongside the likes of NaDa and Flash.

EffOrt made his debut about a year earlier than the likes of Soulkey and BoGus, and won his first championship between his third and fourth year as a professional. Hydra made his debut alongside Soulkey and BoGus, and won his first championship just before his third year as a professional came to an end. Soulkey had more impressive performances within the ProLeague than Hydra, while Hydra was much more successful within the individual league format. An imaginary player with the combined talents of both Soulkey and Hydra could have been that next rookie player to change the landscape of professional Brood War. I don't think it is that much of a stretch to propose that an all-time material rookie player would have kept true to the theory that it takes approximately two years (definitely less than three years) for someone to truly prove their worth, even in the more recent era of professional Brood War.

I too believe that players such as Soulkey and BoGus were some of the best talents the professional Brood War scene had to offer towards its dying years. I too believe that they would have gone on to become some of the best players for their respective races. However, I personally don't buy into the narrative that these players were some bonjwa-level talents (of which the Brood War scene previously had a non-stop supply of) whose potential were cut early by the death of the professional Brood War scene. A lot of those players did go on to thrive within the Starcraft 2 scene, but that particular scene had even less influx of talent from a domestic perspective (resulting in even more radically incestuous talent pool with a few exceptions like Life), with the vast majority of the gaming talent of Korea having moved on to League of Legends.

There was once a time where the best Brood War player in Korea could say with a straight face that he was honestly the best gamer in Korea. Literally every single young male Korean had tried out their luck in Brood War in one capacity or another, and players with astonishing levels of talent for the game were more likely to delve into the competitive side of Brood War. I personally believe that early 2007 marks the time that stopped being the case. There still continuous influx of talent, but the best gamer in Korea wasn't necessarily dying to prove his worth in Brood War.

The vast majority of gamers are late bloomers. It takes extraordinary levels of talent for someone to mark their name in the history books within two years of their debut. Sometimes, players like Mind don't develop into a truly great player despite displaying supreme talent early on. However, it is rather odd that after early 2007, there was a sudden shift where literally nobody got a championship within their first two years as a professional.

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