Great Players With Lopsided Careers

Letmelose

Korea (South)3227 Posts

April 06 2018 14:48 GMT

There were two individual leagues that shaped the landscape of professional Brood War throughout most of its history, and that was the Ongamenet StarLeague, followed by the MBC Game StarLeague.

These two individual leagues had stylistic differences, such as the map pool, seeding, drafting format, tournament format, and that of course that paved way for some types of players to excel in one over the other.

I'll list the top five championship-winning players with the most lopsided preferences for either the Ongament StarLeague, or the MBC Game StarLeague.

I will define career accomplishments of championship-winning players as follows:

1st place: 16 career points
2nd place: 8 career points
Round of 4: 4 career points
Round of 8: 2 career points
Round of 16: 1 career point

After tallying the overall number of points for Ongamenet StarLeague, and MBC Game StarLeague, respectively, I will compare the two numbers in order to determine which players had the most lopsided ratios in favour of a certain individual league.

The inclusion criteria for will be as follows (sorry YellOw):

1) The players in question will require at least one major individual league championship under their belt.

2) Players who won championships in eras when only the Ongament StarLeague existed, and MBC Game StarLeague schedule was completely vacant, will not be included in the list.

3) Any one hit wonders will be excluded, which means that only players who have reached multiple finals will be considered for the list. This is to prevent the list from being dominated by one hit wonders who had one fantastic performance, only to be never seen again. These players didn't have lopsided careers (one hit wonders would be a better description), and they will be excluded from the list.

So without further ado, here are the list of championship-winning players who had the most asymmetrical careers, and I will attempt to explain the reasons for that irregularity.

Top ten great players who had extremely lopsided careers

1. Anytime

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First ever round of 16 appearance: 2005
Reached the finals in: 2005, 2006
Last ever round of 16 appearance: 2008
Overall career points: 26 points
Ongamenet StarLeague points: 25 points (96.15% of his overall career)

Possible reasons for the lopsidedness: Anytime was a player who suffered from severe burn out and lack of drive due to his circumstances. His team was relegations material without any players of note, and Anytime had to dig himself out the gutters with inhuman levels of effort and dedication.

Anytime wasn't a skilled amateur player. PuSan, a former teammate who had a huge influence on Anytime's development as a professional, was someone who naturally talented and was highly regarded even before his professional debut. Anytime's ascension to the top was a fruit of incredibly hard labour, and he was able to endure the harsh training regimen set by his coach (coach Cho lamented the fact that PuSan didn't have the kind of discipline Anytime had).

After winning the most commercially successful Ongamenet StarLeague the scene had ever seen in the most dramatic fashion, his zeal towards the individual leagues dropped significantly, and for such an iconic player, the total number of times he actually even qualified for the round of 16 for any major individual league is a paltry four.

Anytime continued to serve Lecaf Oz extremely well until 2008, when Jaedong usurped him as the clear ProLeague ace of the team. Anytime always went on the record saying that he no longer felt the drive to prove himself within the individual leagues. When tensions between coach Cho, who was notorious for being insanely demanding of his players, and Anytime became too high, Anytime effectively nailed the coffin to his individual league career by joining the Airforce ACE, a team that was a career graveyard for players (because it is next to impossible to retain peak form while also serving the army due to Airforce ACE's lack of infrastructure).

Perhaps if Anytime had his legacy secured in his first ever appearance in the MBC Game StarLeague, and was remembered fondly for it for the rest of his career, I could see an alternate universe where his entire individual league legacy revolves around a couple of memorable MBC Game StarLeague performances.

2. FanTaSy

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First ever round of 16 appearance: 2008
Reached the finals in: 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012
Last ever round of 16 appearance: 2012
Overall career points: 61 points
Ongamenet StarLeague points: 55 points (90.16% of his overall career)

Possible reasons for the lopsidedness: One of the greatest terran players of all time had a really hard time in the MBC Game StarLeague. Most famously, when FanTaSy was arguably at the peak of his powers, he lost four games in a row to Soulkey across two different MBC Game StarLeagues, a zerg-versus-terran specialist who simply had FanTaSy's number.

It is possible that FanTaSy was simply unlucky with the draws, but it is striking how FanTaSy never did anything of note outside of his close semi-finals series against Flash in BigFile MSL. For somebody who never missed a single round of 16 for the Ongamenet StarLeague since 2008, it is rather astounding how heavily FanTaSy struggled to even make it out of the round of 32 within the MBC Game StarLeague.

3. July

First ever round of 16 appearance: 2004
Reached the finals in: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008
Last ever round of 16 appearance: 2009
Overall career points: 83 points
Ongamenet StarLeague points: 74 points (89.16% of his overall career)

Possible reasons for the lopsidedness: One of the greatest Ongamenet StarLeague players of all-time, and the first ever zerg player to get the Goldern Mouse, it is rather odd how July never even managed a single semi-finals appearance within the MBC Game StarLeague. Especially since July at his prime was winning numerous other open tournaments such as the iTV Ranking League, or KT-KTF Premier League.

July himself has said that he didn't particularly try that much harder for certain tournaments, so it may not be as simple as July shifting his focus on tournaments he personally thought were more prestigious. I'm none the wiser on this one.

To provide context on how insanely weak July was within the MBC Game StarLeague compared to his performances under different circumstances, the man is widely regarded as the best zerg-verus-protoss player of all-time (he is undefeated against the protoss race in a best-of-five setting), and boasts a 74.4% win rate against the protoss race within the Ongamenet StarLeague, as well as having a 82.6% win rate within the ProLeague.

Even if you take everything away from the dude, July always knew how to wreack havoc versus the protoss race, but his record versus the protoss race within the MBC Game StarLeague setting drops to a unbelievable 42.9%, which is quite remarkable considering how great he was at the match-up.

4. sAviOr

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First ever round of 16 appearance: 2005
Reached the finals in: 2005, 2006, 2007
Final round of 16 appearance: 2009
Overall career points: 94 points
MBC Game StarLeague points: 73 points (77.66%)

Possible reasons for the lopsidedness: It is extremely difficult to explain why sAviOr took so long to qualify for the Ongament StarLeague. It didn't even matter on the match-up, his performance was just second-rate across all three match-ups and he is the only player in history to have competed in both the individual leagues, and gather up three championships in one, while firing blanks in all his qualification attempts in the other. It truly is one of great mysteries the professional scene ever had.

By the time he started to become more of a regular for the Ongament StarLeague, just after he sealed his legacy as the undisputed bonjwa of the scene after defeating NaDa in the finals of the Shinhan Ongamenet StarLeague Season 3 (his first ever appearance in the Ongamenet StarLeague), he was rapidly on the decline in terms of skill, and after just four appearances, sAviOr was done with being a top competitor and tried his hand in match fixing instead.

5. Stork

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First ever round of 16 appearance: 2005
Reached the finals in: 2007, 2008, 2011
Final round of 16 appearance: 2012
Overall career points: 78 points
Ongamenet StarLeague points: 59 points (75.64%)

Possible reasons for the lopsidedness: Stork holds the record for the most round of 16 appearances within the Ongamenet StarLeague, and has appeared in four finals spanning across nearly four years. Even though he has only won a single championship, few would question his claim as the greatest protoss performer within the Ongamenet StarLeague.

While he was insanely close to winning the MBC Game StarLeague in 2007, he never quite found his mojo when playing from the MBC Game studios. While he was the epitome of consistency within the Ongamenet StarLeague, his MBC Game StarLeague legacy had much to be desired.

While his protoss-versus-terran win rate within the MBC Game StarLeague games is a very respectable 72.4%, his protoss-verus-zerg win rate pales in comparison with a completely lackluster 27.8% win rate, and may have been the root cause of his relatively mediocre showings in the MBC Game StarLeague.

Just as a side note, Bisu's career is basically Stork's career turned in the other direction (60 points earned within the MBC Game StarLeague out of a career total of 80 points, which makes him have a slightly more balanced career).

Closing Thoughts

Explaining the extreme career asymmetry these players had was a task that was more difficult than I imagined, and certainly requires a deeper inspection then what I've been willing to put in.

I did notice that there is a tendency for great players with lopsided careers to have their focus shifted towards the Ongamenet StarLeague. Even in the most extreme cases of MBC Game StarLeague-only greats, such as sAviOr and Bisu, tended to have a more balanced career distribution than the Ongament StarLeague-only greats.

One explanation would be that MBC Game StarLeague had their own philosophy of MBC Game studios catering heavily towards the established players (examples include less experimental maps, more extensive usage of the seeds, favourable drafting phase for the seeds, and tournament brackets artificially restructured to minimize the chance of a favourite dropping out early).

This probably means that players who were successful within the MBC Game StarLeague were affored the luxury of being able to somewhat go on a cruise-mode what with the slanted system in their favour and MBC Game studio's tendency to go for more standard maps (which means less time needed to adjust to the nuances of the maps), in order to retain their seeding. Perhaps this allowed them the luxury of prepping themselves for success within the Ongamenet StarLeague realm, whereas the reverse would have been more difficult.

Another explanation would be that MBC Game StarLeague champions were just more well-rounded in general, since it has been widely established that the more respected players were rewarded more within the MBC Game StarLeague system. One method would be to see how well individual league success correlates with ProLeague success, and which of the two individual leagues are better indicators of pinpointing the ProLeague monsters. Perhaps a well structured study on this matter might settle the argument.

The final explanation I can think of is that Ongamenet StarLeague darlings may have been prematurely satisfied, leaving them unable to push themselves to the limit due to the adulation and popularity that conquering the Ongamenet StarLeague bestowed upon its champions.

I believe Bisu once said on stream that he got recognized in the streets more for his semi-finals appearance at the Ongamenet StarLeague than he did for winning the MBC Game StarLeague. It is true that unless you were a hardcore follower of the scene, most of the glory went to the champions of the Ongamenet StarLeague.

For now, that's all that I can think of.

Jealous

10179 Posts

April 08 2018 19:20 GMT

Interesting article! As a Bisu fan, every OSL was a rollercoaster of "Bisu will do it this time!" to "Bisu flunked out as always." So heart-breaking.

Also, I would like to point out a minor correction for your future work: the expression is actually to "wreak" havoc, utilizing a very uncommon verb.

Cheers!

Warfie

Norway2846 Posts

April 08 2018 21:06 GMT

another great post! love the trip down memory lane

Letmelose

Korea (South)3227 Posts

April 09 2018 02:32 GMT

On April 09 2018 04:20 Jealous wrote:
Interesting article! As a Bisu fan, every OSL was a rollercoaster of "Bisu will do it this time!" to "Bisu flunked out as always." So heart-breaking.

Also, I would like to point out a minor correction for your future work: the expression is actually to "wreak" havoc, utilizing a very uncommon verb.

Cheers!

I think all legendary protoss players tended to have flawed careers in one aspect or another. I tend to think of this phenomenon as a limitation of the race to some degree, and the reason why Bisu tends to be singled out more than the other protoss greats is not because his career was more lopsided than Stork's, for example, but because people had such high expectations for him based on his incredible performances under more favourable conditions.

The only protoss players to outperform Bisu's career accomplishments within the OGN StarLeague (20 career points within the confines I defined in the original post) in both the individual leagues are Nal_rA (26 points or above in both leagues), JangBi (22 points or above in both leagues), and Reach (21 points or above in both leagues). Once one factors in the lack of superlative track records for both the individual leagues for basically any protoss professional in history, it is not as terrible as one might imagine.

Top protoss players with the highest career points within the OGN StarLeague:

1. Stork: 59 points
2. Reach: 43 points
3. GARIMTO: 35 points
4. JangBi: 34 points
5. Kingdom: 26 points
5. Nal_rA: 26 points
7. Anytime: 25 points
8. Grrrr...: 23 points
9. Bisu: 20 points
10. BeSt: 14 points

Top protoss players with the highest career points within the MBC Game StarLeague:

1. Bisu: 60 points
2. Nal_rA: 46 points
3. JangBi: 22 points
3. Kal: 22 points
5. Reach: 21 points
6. Stork: 19 points
7. Kingdom: 15 points
8. free: 14 points
9. ZeuS: 9 points
10. Much (along with some others such as IntoTheRain): 5 points

There is literally zero protoss players who manages to have over 30 career points in both these individual leagues, something that was seen in four terran players (BoxeR, NaDa, iloveoov, and Flash), and two zerg players (YellOw, and Jaedong).

Once you raise the bar, and make the cut-off point to 40 career points to both individual leagues, you end up with three terran players (NaDa, iloveoov, and Flash), and a single zerg player (Jaedong). iloveoov drops out if you raise the bar to 50 points.

Only three players in history managed to gain 60 or more points for both the individual leagues (NaDa, Flash, and Jaedong), and there is nobody in the history of professional Brood War who managed over 70 points in both (although NaDa came pretty close, and perhaps we would have seen such cases had professional Brood War continued)

So if we were to create a tier list by the total career points gathered by numerous legendary players in their least favoured individual league, we would have something like this:

Tier list of players judged by their less favoured individual league

-----------------70 points or above in both the individual leagues

NaDa (68 points or above)
Flash (64 points or above)
Jaedong (62 points or above)

-----------------60 points or above in both the individual leagues

-----------------50 points or above in both the individual leagues

iloveoov (45 points)

-----------------40 points or above in both the individual leagues

BoxeR (32 points)
YellOw (30 points)

-----------------30 points or above in both the individual leagues

Meanwhile, if we were to create a tier list by the total career points gathered by numerous legendary players in their most favoured individual league, we would have something like this:

Tier list of players judged by their more favoured individual league

-----------------90 points or above in one of the individual leagues

NaDa (86 points)

-----------------80 points or above in one of the individual leagues

BoxeR (78 points)
Flash (75 points)
July (74 points)
sAviOr (73 points)
Jaedong (70 points)

-----------------70 points or above in one of the individual leagues

iloveoov (62 points)
Bisu (60 points)

-----------------60 points or above in one of the individual leagues

Players such as July, sAviOr, and Bisu are peculiar because by this method, they join the other all-time greats of Brood War with more evenly distributed careers. You can explain BoxeR's career irregularity once you take into account that his absolute career peak (2001) precedes the creation of the MBC Game StarLeague (for example, once you take out the 2010 season from Flash's MBC Game StarLeague career, he ends up with only 24 points, which is basically what happens with BoxeR having his 2001 season ignored apart from his OGN track record, despite having won five out of six of the biggest tournaments he entered in 2001).

However, there is little to no excuse for the likes of July, sAviOr, and Bisu. It just happens to be the nature of their career, because it wasn't the circumstances (like it was for the likes of GARIMTO, or BoxeR who could only compete in the OGN StarLeague during their primes), or the lack of opportunities that prevented these players from enjoying the kind of success that they enjoyed in their preferred individual leagues. For these players, there must have been a certain element of player tendency that I must be overlooking.

Shady Sands

United States4021 Posts

April 09 2018 10:43 GMT

This song is very appropriate for the thread:

[credits: Justin Bieber]
Oh woooah, oh woooooah, oh wooooah, oh.

You're so damn sexy, with your corsairs.
Just say whenever, you've got great hair.
Your DTs I love, your play is art.
and we will never ever ever be apart.
Have you made it? girl quit playing,
Can't get past prelims, what are you saying.
Said it was a zerg, looked right in my eyes,
The girltoss broke my heart for the Nth time.
And I was like…
[Chorus]
bisu, bisu, bisu oooooh,
like bisu, bisu, bisu noooooooo,
like bisu, bisu, bisu, ooooh.
Thought this might be the time (repeat)
[Justin Beiber]
Flash's good, I wasn't all that mad,
But losing to hyvaa is just plain sad
and I wanna play it cool,
the thought of watching you (in PL)
I will do anything, even get a ban on me,
and I'm in pieces,
bisu fix me
and win v z til’ you make it into ODT.
I’m going down down down down
and I just can't believe this OSL you ain't around.
And I’m like…
[Chorus]
bisu, bisu, bisu oooooh,
like bisu, bisu, bisu noooooooo,
like bisu, bisu, bisu, ooooh.
Thought this might be the time (repeat)
[Ludacris]
Luda, When I was 13 I had my first love,
there was nobody that compared to Yongtaek
and nobody came between us, no-one could ever come above
She had me going crazy, oh I was star-struck,
She woke me up daily, don’t need no Starbucks.
She made my heart pound, I skip a beat when I see her in a game and
schooling noobs on the proleague but I really wanna see her in a SL.
She knows he got me dazing cause she was so amazing
and now my heart is breaking but I just keep on saying….
[Chorus]
bisu, bisu, bisu oooooh,
like bisu, bisu, bisu noooooooo,
like bisu, bisu, bisu, ooooh.
Thought this might be the time (repeat)
Now I’m gone,
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
now I’m all gone.
Gone, gone, gone, gone, I’m gone.

TelecoM

United States10675 Posts

April 10 2018 00:46 GMT

Anytime was always my favorite protoss back in the day for sure, almost forgot about him thanks for this article, it was a great read

Letmelose

Korea (South)3227 Posts

April 10 2018 05:15 GMT

On April 10 2018 09:46 GGzerG wrote:
Anytime was always my favorite protoss back in the day for sure, almost forgot about him thanks for this article, it was a great read

Since they started handing out regular season MVP awards in 2005, Anytime is one of four protoss players (Nal_rA, Anytime, Stork, and Bisu) to have basically conquered both the individual league realm (Ongamenet StarLeague or the MBC Game StarLeague), and the ProLeague realm. Definitely an unforgettable player with exceptional highs.

However, for a man in possession of such an impressive career resume, his overall body of work and longetivity had much to be desired. For his notable career achievements, Anytime was included in the KeSPA e-Sports Hall of Fame in 2012, and out of those twenty remarkable players, Anytime is the only player on that list to have less than 30 career points (by the point system I mentioned in my original post) from major individual leagues apart from Grrrr..., who in my opinion was included for being more of a Brood War legend, rather than being an all-time great Brood War professional.

Unlike Grrrr... and GARIMTO, who basically had their peaks in totally different eras, there really isn't a lot of reasons for Anytime not having really high career points, since he had access to both those individual leagues when he was considered a top player.

Kal, who is in my opinion the greatest protoss player to have never won a major individual league title, has 30 career points from both the individual leagues (which is a figure higher than Anytime's 26), and although greatly helped by the huge ProLeague schedule inflation, is a top ten all-time ProLeague player in terms of overall number of victories.

In terms of memorability and his ability to defeat the top players of his time during his peak, Anytime shits all over Kal, who was constantly mocked in Korea for being an S-level player indicator (Kal had notoriously bad records versus superlative players such as Jaedong or Flash), so while I understand how Anytime can be seen in a higher regard, I do believe that Kal's results as a professional are downplayed due to his career narrative, while Anytime's results as a professional tend to be remembered with rose-tinted glasses due to its dramatic nature.

Being able to put bad players in their place may not be a skill that brings you as much glory as being able to topple truly great players when thinks are clicking just right, but it is a required skill-set in order compete successfully (because being knocked out early in an upset fashion is not a fluke occurence if it happens over and over again). It is something Anytime seriously lacked during his career, and the nature of his career seems to be an extreme example of a condition that was pretty common amongst numerous protoss legends.

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