If the overall progression of the game results in rookies taking longer to win their first championship, it is kind of odd that people like Bisu and Jaedong took the least amount of time to gain their first ever major championship after trying their luck in the offline preliminaries for the first time out of all the players of their race except for the players who were competing around 1999 (when the concept of a professional debut becomes very blurred). Surely the game was more advanced, and more difficult to master for those two players, yet they required to least amount of developmental period as professionals.
Overall number of days it took for a zerg prodigy/all-timer to win a major championship after taking part in their first ever offline preliminaries:
July: 677 days
sAviOr: 752 days
Jaedong: 636 days
Overall number of days it took a protoss prodigy/all-timer to win a major championship after taking part in their first ever offline preliminaries:
Reach: 495 days
Nal_rA: 491 days
Bisu: 464 days
Overall number of days it took for a terran prodigy/all-timer to win a major championship after taking part in their first ever offline preliminaries:
NaDa: 383 days
iloveoov: 288 days
Flash: 367 days
As you can see, regardless of their era, almost all prodigies/all-time talent have extremely similar time-frame needed to blossom into a championship material player. It differs from race to race (with terran players needing the least amount of time, to zerg players needing more time for growth in general), but the thing that remains constant is that all-time level talent for each of the races mirror one another extremely well in terms of initial growth patterns, and it is more of a racial disparity that categorizes these players, rather than their year of debut.
The pattern breaks after the Taek-Beng-LeeSsang era. Yet the accumulation of knowledge wasn't much of a hinderance for Taek-Beng-LeeSsang when they made their impressions on the big stage as rookies. Either these players are the biggest outliers who required similar or less experience as professionals to succeed despite needing much more time to master the game in theory, or they simply followed the expected timeline for an all-time great as seen by previous generations of all-time greats. I tend to believe in the latter.
The moment after the first draft of 2007 ends, it becomes quite hard to find players who would break into the round of 16 (nevermind winning the championship) given the same number of days it took for players to win the championship after making their professional debut. Before early 2007, it really didn't take that long for the next wave of superstars to come along. From late 2007 to 2012, there's almost a five year drought in terms of superlative levels of prodigies, and considering how periodic the turnover rate of bonjwas used to be, and how short it took for these kind of players to come along for such a long time, it is really odd to explain it purely from a game advancement perspective.
To discover an all-time level geniuses at the game, I personally believe there is a minimal talent pool required, unless you are looking for extreme outliers. There used to be so many gaming geniuses at the game, and I believe 2007 marks the end of that rapid turn-over rate of geniuses, and the start of a more incestuous era where the talent who made their debut around early 2007 or even years before that (Flash, Jaedong, Bisu, Stork, and FanTaSy) battled it out amongst themselves, instead of battling out between themselves as well as future generations of unspeakable Brood War geniuses (as was the case before).
Competitive Brood War as of today has seen more development purely within the game itself, as could be expected of any craft that has been worked on for nearly two decades. However, the incestuous nature of the competition is more pronounced than ever before, and the turn-over rate for the very top end of the players is basically slowed down to a snail's pace. I wanted to pin point the era where that trend started, and I think there is a strong case that such a trend started right after the likes of Flash, FanTaSy, and EffOrt made their debuts.
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Good job disproving my point. I certainly do agree with what you have to say, great job looking up all those statistics! I really love your blog posts, please keep'em coming!
Though there is something that I am quiet unsure about: From what I believe to know, 2007 is also a bit of a turning point in Brood War. You still have old legends like oov, savior and nada competing, but it's when TBLS were on the rise and took over as the top players of the game. From what I understand, a lot of older players fell off, because they struggled to adapt to the ever changing meta game. Part of what makes Nada and July impressive is that they were able to keep up with the meta for so long. Whether it's the meta or fatigue, it is a fact that pros tend to fall off sooner or later.
However, I'd argue that those who rose to the top in 07 continued to be on top till the end. Jaedong had a fantastic 2010, and I'd argue that Oz being disbanded was the major reason behind his slump at the very end of professional brood war. Flash was still a god at the very end, being a monster in PL and reaching the round of 4 of the final OSL. Bisu inspite of slacking in individual leagues ever since his transfer to SKT, was still the ace player in the final Proleague game of all time. Fantasy made it to what, the last 3 OSL finals? Jangbi, the final OSL champion, also started of in 06 and did have some initial success as one of the dragons. I guess stork is a bit of an enigma, but he still had an impressive ~70% winrate in the final proleague season. What I'm trying to say is this: What if the 06/07 generation of rookies was simply better at keeping up with the meta and staying on top? So while in 07, these guys could take down some washed out pro to reach the ro8 of the OSL, maybe there weren't as many washed out pros during the very end of Brood War for rookies to take down.
So how do you feel about that sort of argument? I mean I guess all of that could also be attributed to the quality of rookies going down, making it harder for the established pros to get upset.
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It certainly is a possibility, but here's another way to look at it.
Just from the major championships of the two most famous Brood War television broadcasting companies (Ongamenet and MBC Game), here are the years listed with the first semi-final appearance of a player who managed to reach multiple semi-finals.
Since there has never been a league where all four members of Taek-Beng-LeeSsang made the semi-finals simultaneously, the ability to reach multiple semi-finals would surely be within the reach of an all-time level new talent even if Taek-Beng-LeeSsang somehow had a miraculous ability to stay on top regardless of which talent was being added to the mix.
Each year of professional Brood War and the first ever semi-final appearance of a multiple semi-finalist
2000: GARIMTO, Grrrr..., H.O.T-Forever, ChRh (4)
2001: BoxeR, Kingdom, YellOw, JinNam, TheMarine (5)
2002: NaDa, Reach, ChoJJa (3)
2003: iloveoov, Nal_rA. XellOs, GoodFriend, ZeuS, Junwi (6)
2004: July, JJu, Silent_Control (3)
2005: sAviOr, Anytime, GoRush, PuSan (4)
2006: Casy, Midas (2)
2007: Flash, Jaedong, Bisu, Stork, GGPlay, Mind, Iris (7)
2008: FanTaSy, JangBi, Luxury, Kal, free, BeSt (6)
2009: Calm, ZerO, Kwanro (3)
2010:
2011: Hydra (1)
2012:
From 2010 onward, there's basically zero new talent (excluding Hydra), and that's because people who made their debuts alongside Taek-Beng-LeeSsang such as FanTaSy (2007), JangBi (2006), Calm (2005), and Luxury (2005) were late bloomers, rather than being superlative new talents who were ready to overthrow the existing order.
In fact, out of five years' worth of drafting (late 2007 to early 2012), we saw the rise of one multiple semi-finalist.
That basically means that after the natural rise and fall of various legends, the scene was stuck in a rut of incestuous competition starting from 2010, when literally every single finalist aside from Hydra was a product of the talent pool created before early 2007.
Imagine if after NaDa overthrew BoxeR as the greatest player in the scene circa 2002, he would go on to compete versus only his predecessors and peers such as GARIMTO, ChoJJa, TheMarine, and YellOw for the rest of time. No iloveoov, no July, no Anytime, no sAviOr, all of whom were opponents NaDa would face in the finals. Instead, imagine if he only faced the likes of Reach and Kingdom for all those finals, and subpar rookies who would struggle to even reach the semi-finals after years of attempting to do so.
There's no question that Taek-Beng-LeeSsang had superlative staying power. But that was in the face of decreasing influx of godlike talent, and incestuous competition between themselves and their peers (for the most part). That was always my feelings on the matter anyhow. There's multiple sides to a story, and I believe this particular narrative has rarely been told.
I think it is very telling that the player that ended Flash's reign at the top was the likes of FanTaSy and JangBi, instead of a new face that redefined professional Brood War as we know it. The incestuous nature of competitive Brood War is more pronounced than ever before, and it is a factor that played into the longevity of players who made their name towards the end of professional Brood War, in my opinion.
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EPT
