|
The nature of competing in the ProLeague was entirely different from competing in the individual leagues.
Here were the major differences:
1) It was infinitely harder for players to artificially dodge certain players, certain maps, or certain match-ups in the individual leagues, especially more so over a prolonged period of time. By and large, the stage was already set up beforehand, and it was up to the players to adjust to the circumstances that was laid out in front of them.
2) If the individual leagues were about judging a player's ability to breakdown a certain player, sometimes in a series that involved multiple maps, the ProLeague was more about picking a map of your liking, and trying to pick and choose your field of battle. It was especially easier for mirror match-up specialists to do this, since all these players had to do was play on the most broken maps for their race of choice, since the opposing teams would in theory not send their players in disadvantageous maps in terms of balance.
3) Coaching, and team circumstances played much more of a role within the ProLeague. Some teams were able to take into consideration all the strengths and weaknesses of a player, and adjust their ProLeague entries accordingly, while other teams were not able to make full usage of their players.
Today I will look into the careers of Horang2 and fOrGG, two players with relatively similar number of ProLeague appearances, but vastly contrasting circumstances once you look into their tendencies and limitations as players.
Horang2 made a name for himself as a protoss-versus-protoss sniper in the ProLeague, something that was made possible with the help of acute coaching and proper ProLeague entries
Horang2's career record on TLPD
Overall career record: 136-105 (56.43%)
Career record versus terran: 47-38 (55.29%)
Career record versus zerg: 35-37 (48.61%)
Career record versus protoss: 54-30 (64.29%)
Horang2 was one of the more prominent ProLeague protoss players of the final years of professional Brood War. He was especially well versed in his mirror match-up, and boasts the highest career win rate within that match-up out of any protoss player that I know of. Like with most protoss players, Horang2 was somebody who struggled the most in the protoss-versus-zerg match-up, and struggled to keep a 50% win rate.
Theoretically speaking, somebody who wishes to utilize Horang2 to his full capacity within the ProLeague should attempt to maximize his PvP appearances, whilst minimizing his PvZ appearances.
Horang2's ProLeague record
Overall ProLeague record: 68-48 (58.62%)
ProLeague record versus terran: 16-16 (50.00%)
ProLeague record versus zerg: 12-12 (50.00%)
ProLeague record versus prtotoss: 40-20 (66.67%)
Beautiful. This is one of the best ever examples of a player being utilized correctly within the ProLeague realm.
Horang2's preferred match-up: PvP (comprises 51.72% of his overall ProLeague appearances))
Horang2's weakest match-up: PvZ (comprises 20.69% of his overall ProLeague appearances)
Horang2 plays more than double the number of his favourite match-up within the ProLeague, when compared to his least favoured match-up. This kind of ratio of match-ups that work for a certain player's favour can only exist within the ProLeague realm, and this is the kind of player utilization that everybody should look up to.
While Horang2's ProLeague record is one of the best ever out of players who were drafted as professionals after 2008 (only RorO, Stats, and Soulkey won more ProLeague matches), there is a certain element of his ProLeague records being boosted by the virtue of being a well utilized mirror match-up sniper.
![[image loading]](https://t1.daumcdn.net/news/200706/01/fomos/20070601122715.262.0.jpg)
fOrGG was a capable player who was forced by his management to become something he did not want to be
fOrGG's career record on TLPD
Overall career record: 222-166 (57.22%)
Career record versus terran: 71-64 (52.59%)
Career record versus zerg: 77-38 (66.96%)
Career record versus protoss: 74-64 (53.62%)
fOrGG is one of the few terran players to be a KeSPA draftee (basically any professional who made their official debut in 2005 onwards) who managed to win a major individual league title (joining the elite group of Mind, Flash, and FanTaSy). As one can see in the record above, his strengths lie in his potent terran-versus-zerg match-up, while he is somewhat mediocre in the mirror match-up, having the lowest win rate out of the three match-ups available for the terran race.
Theoretically speaking, a coach should strive to send fOrGG in as many terran-versus-zerg matches as possible, and not use him in a manner similiar to sKyHigh, who was a terran-versus-terran sniper that CJ Entus deployed in the ProLeague in line with his strengths as a player.
fOrGG's ProLeague record
Overall ProLeague record: 66-63 (51.16%)
ProLeague record versus terran: 33-38 (46.48%)
ProLeague record versus zerg: 18-10 (64.29%)
ProLeague record versus protoss: 15-15 (50.00%)
Worst. Management. Ever.
This is probably the single worst ProLeague handling of a player I could find thus far. I have yet to find somebody who was deployed in a worse manner in the ProLeague, and as an example of how terribly fOrGG was used by his teams in the ProLeague, he played more games of terran-versus-terran compared to the other two match-ups, than even sKyHigh, who is probably one of the best utilized terran-versus-terran snipers in ProLeague history.
fOrGG's preferred match-up: TvZ (comprises 21.71% of his overall ProLeague appearances)
fOrGG's weakest match-up: TvT (comprises 55.04% of his overall ProLeague appearances)
There is literally nobody in the history of professional Brood War who played more matches of a single match-up relative to his overall appearances, if we look into the top 50 ProLeague players of all-time as arranged by their overall number of victories.
fOrGG, a virtuoso of sorts in the terran-versus-zerg match-up, was sent only one-fifth of the time to play his most proficient match-up within the ProLeague realm. It is like the almost polar opposite of Horang2's ProLeague match-up distribution, where fOrGG's strengths (TvZ) as a player is effectively neutered by his lack of opportunities within the ProLeague realm, while his deficiencies (TvT) are highlighted more so than any notable ProLeague player in history.
Both Horang2 and fOrGG were imperfect, and somewhat flawed players with notable strengths as players. The circumstances need to be just right for these kind of one dimensional, yet potent players to achieve greatness within the individual league realm. The map pool need to be right (Arena MSL was probably one of the most terran favoured individual leagues of all-time), and the stars basically have to align just right for a miracle to happen.
However, when it comes to the ProLeague, these kinds of players need special care from their team, and need to be utilized properly, otherwise, you'll have what happens here, and have somebody who vastly outclasses the other within the individual leagues (even if one pretends Arena MSL never took place in history), yet has less number of ProLeague victories to somebody who accomplished less overall, as well as having a noticeably inferior win rate on top of that.
These two players are probably the extreme ends of the spectrum of players being either empowered or totally hamstringed by the ProLeague entries.
For example, for a more nuanced comparison between more similar players, one could mention BeSt and JangBi. Both players were protoss-verus-terran specialists who played second in command to the alpha protoss players of their respective teams (Bisu for SK Telecom T1, and Stork for Samsung Khan). Both players made their professional debut in 2006, and rose through ranks to become members of the Six Dragons. To make the comparison even more apt, they both have around 200 ProLeague appearances under their name.
BeSt had the luxury of playing his favourite match-up more than any other match-up when competing in the ProLeague. This is his ProLeague record:
120-87 (57.97%)
BeSt functioned well as the third ProLeague ace of SK Telecom T1, and the designated terran sniper of the team
JangBi was less fortunate than BeSt, and played what was by far his worst match-up of protoss-versus-zerg more so than the other two match-ups, and this is what his overall ProLeague happens to be:
109-106 (50.70%)
![[image loading]](http://menu.mt.co.kr/mtasp/dailygame/2011/20111006_bd17fd5124758c3fe4fbb425be43435e.jpg)
JangBi was always at odds with his management, and struggled to realize his full potential as a Samsung Khan player
I rate both BeSt and JangBi as incredibly proficient terran-killers (with different approaches in their method of clobbering the terran race). However, while BeSt did have greater success in the ProLeague, I personally believe that much of it has to do with the fact that BeSt was used correctly by SK Telecom T1 as a terran sniper, while JangBi was being deployed most frequently against zergs, his least presentable match-up.
Players don't always get to play their favourite match-ups. Players don't always get to play only on maps they are fully familiar with. People have to deal with the cards they have been dealt with. However, there does tend to be lines of thinking where people look into the overall ProLeague records as if it was like counting the number of individual league championships, when I personally believe that deciphering ProLeague results requires a more nuanced approach.
Competing within the ProLeague was a team effort, and the role of a single player, no matter how powerful, was often diluted by a whole bunch of factors such as the depth of the team, quality of practice partners, ability of the coaches, surrounding infrastructure, and financial incentives.
Today I looked into the nature of ProLeague entries, and how much of a pivotal role they played in the ProLeague careers of professional players. It is interwoven with team player pool, the competence of the coaching staff, and the overall team dynamic. It was an artform that was difficult to get just right. Mediocre players who benefited from brilliant ProLeague entries could make a name for themselves, while others who were used wrong such as fOrGG were forever mocked for their subpar ProLeague performances.
 
|
On April 11 2018 15:37 Letmelose wrote:
Horang2's ProLeague record
Overall ProLeague record: 68-48 (58.62%)
ProLeague record versus terran: 16-16 (50.00%)
ProLeague record versus zergs: 40-20 (66.67%)
ProLeague record versus protoss: 12-12 (50.00%)
I'm guessing you mixed up Horang2's vs zerg with his vs protoss record?
|
Appearantly he mixed it up with his vs prtotoss record.
Seriously though, great analysis again. Nice tidbits.
|
You have a very insightful way about thinking of the circumstances surrounding StarCraft and the proscene that you don't often see elsewhere on this site, which is often more focused on the actual in-game interactions. This is why it is always enlightening to read your blogs and think about professional StarCraft from outside the box, so to speak.
By the way, another minor correction for your future articles and writing: the expression is "by and large."
|
On April 12 2018 05:31 Jealous wrote:You have a very insightful way about thinking of the circumstances surrounding StarCraft and the proscene that you don't often see elsewhere on this site, which is often more focused on the actual in-game interactions. This is why it is always enlightening to read your blogs and think about professional StarCraft from outside the box, so to speak. By the way, another minor correction for your future articles and writing: the expression is "by and large."
I want to second that. I've watched pretty much everything in PL from like 2006-2009 and on and off before and after that period and I had some insights, but yours are on another level. Always very thought out posts with nice data.
|
One way of figuring out what needs to be done with a certain player ideally speaking, is to look into his second best match-up, and notice which match-up deviates further away from that mid-way point. I will define this anomaly match-up as the priority match-up.
Hypothetical player A
Career win rate versus terran: 70%
Career win rate versus zerg: 50%
Career win rate versus protoss: 55%
The priority match-up here is player A's match-up versus terran. The number one priority surrounding this particular player's ProLeague entry would be to maximize his ProLeague appearances versus the terran race.
Hypothetical player B
Career win rate versus terran: 60%
Career win rate versus zerg: 30%
Career win rate versus protoss: 55%
The priority match-up here is player B's match-up versus zerg, but due to how it deviates away from the other two match-ups in a manner that is not flattering to the player, the central focus should be to minimize this player's abnormally weak match-up by avoiding this match-up appearance within the ProLeague setting if possible.
There will be several tiers of how a player was utilized in the ProLeague:
Tier A: All three match-up appearances within the ProLeague are in the exact same order as the player's overall career win rates in those match-ups.
Tier B: The priority match-up is taken care of (either maximized or minimized depending on the situation) ideally, but the non-priority match-ups are not dealt with in an ideal manner. For example, in the case of player A, this would be the situation where he gets used against terrans the most, but is sent against zergs more than he is sent against protoss, despite his second best match-up being versus the protoss race.
Tier C: The priority match-up sits in the middle in terms of number of overall ProLeague appearances, but the ordering of the other two match-ups are done right. For example, in the case of player A, that would be the player playing the most ProLeague matches versus the protoss race, while his relative weakness versus the zerg race is noted, and his second most played ProLeague match-up is against the terran race.
Tier D: The priority match-up sits in the middle in terms of number of overall ProLeague appearances, and the ordering of the other two match-ups are done right. For example, in the case of player A, that would be the player playing the most ProLeague matches versus the zerg race, which is his weakest match-up, but not by that much, and at least his potent abilities versus the terran race aren't totally wasted, because he gets to play the match-up the second most times.
Tier E: The priority match-up is done totally wrong, but the ordering of the other two match-ups are done right. For example, in th case of player A, that would be the player playing versus the terran race the least amount of times, but his most played match-up is versus the protoss race, preventing total disaster.
Tier F: The worst possible deployment of players within the ProLeague, where a player's match-up success matches up inversely with his actual ProLeague appearances in that match-up.
If we were to name successful ProLeague players (all the players in history with over one hundred ProLeague victories under their belt) for each of the six tiers, with that players being chosen on the merits of having the most number of ProLeague victories overall, we would have something like this:
Tier A: Really
Tier B: Jaedong, Flash, Sea, free, BeSt, and firebathero
Tier C: Light
Tier D: Bisu, and Stork
Tier E: Leta, FanTaSy, Calm, and JangBi
Tier F: Kal, ZerO, HiyA, and Anytime
Being utilized within the ProLeague correctly became much easier if the player was an incredibly strong mirror match-up player, which is why four (Really, Jaedong, Flash, and Sea) out of the seven A ~ B Tier players were at their strongest when playing the mirror match-up. On the other side of the equation, all four players belonging to Tier F was at their weakest when playing the mirror match-up.
Due to the nature of the ProLeague, and the way in which players could pick and choose their field of battle, we ended up with an unnaturally high number of mirror match-ups compared to other competitive platforms. If the teams were able to recognize a strong mirror match-up player with a significant weakness in one of the other match-ups, it was possible to make that player look better than he actually was by hiding his weakness while augmenting his strengths as a player by artificially inserting him in games that would only make him look good.
One of the best examples of that would be Really. He was certainly a good player, but I personally have always felt like he was somewhat overrated for his steady workhorse image within the ProLeague. It is my opinion that he doesn't belong in the above elite list of players (he is the only player on the above list to have never made the quarter-finals or above of a major individual league for even once in his career), most of whom were great players even outside of the context of the ProLeague.
There is a reason why he was the only ProLeague great to benefit from a Tier A ProLeague utilization from the teams he was on.
I'll breakdown Really's career:
Overall career record (on TLPD): 193-184 (51.19%)
Career record versus terran: 68-58 (53.97%)
Career record versus zerg: 55-63 (46.61%) <---------- Need to avoid this match-up if possible
Career record versus protoss: 70-63 (52.63%)
Individual league career:
One round of 16 appearance (ABCMart MSL)
ProLeague career:
Overall ProLeague record: 101-106 (48.79%)
ProLeague record versus terran: 46-48 (48.94%)
ProLeague record versus zerg: 23-21 (52.27%) <---------- Comprises 21.26% of his overall ProLeague appearances
ProLeague record versus protoss: 32-37 (46.38%)
Really is somebody who never did anything of note within the individual leagues. For god's sakes, even MVP managed a single quarter-finals appearance and he had a dysmal 10-28 (26.32%) record within the ProLeague. He was one of the worst A team material terran around in terms of his terran-versus-zerg ability, and was mostly limited to his really sound macro-management based mechanic play.
Thankfully, he was used incredibly well by the coaching staff throughout his career, and was mostly used as a teran-versus-terran sniper, and if I remember right, he played eleven ProLeague matches versus Flash, meaning that he played more ProLeague matches versus Flash than any terran-versus-terran sniper in history (unfortunately, Really's success rate left a lot to be desired, since his ProLeague head-to-head record versus Flash is 2-9).
His pronounced weakness versus the zerg race was covered up because he rarely played versus the strong zerg aces of various teams. One of the greatest ProLeague utilizations of a limited player with defined characteristics. If he played around half a dozen ProLeague matches against each of the best zerg-versus-terran players around from each team, his ProLeague record would not have looked pretty at all.
With that being said, Really was a diamond in the rough, and a great ProLeague player despite coming from Estro, the worst team to ever exist in terms of infrastructure if you exclude Air Force ACE. However, his success was entirely restricted to the ProLeague, and on top of that, his ProLeague success was founded upon on smart management and proper player utilization by the coaching staff.
In contrast, HiyA is another terran player with over one hundred ProLeague victories, but he did not no thanks to his management. By far his worst match-up was terran-versus-terran, but since that match-up weakness was harder to cover up within the ProLeague realm (having insanely strong mirror match-up abilities is something that is found in common with most of the ProLeague legends, most heavily emphasized by Jaedong and Flash, both of whom achieved their highest career win rate within their respective mirror match-ups), he was forced by his team to play nearly half his games in his least favourite match-up, despite having far greater success as a player in the other two match-ups over the course of his career.
However, having a relatively weak mirror match-up does not necessarily spell doom for a player, although most of the players who were utilized incorrectly by their team tended to have weak mirror match-ups. free is a great protoss player with a relatively mediocre mirror match-up, but his weakness was covered up pretty well by his team. free's least played ProLeague match-up is the protoss-versus-protoss match-up, which makes sense once you consider his characteristics as a player.
This is only getting into the match-up selection side of the ProLeague, and how various players were affected by it. Things get even more complicated once one factors in other aspects such as varying ACE match obligations, map pool coverage (there is a difference between honing one match-up to perfection in a single map, and practicing for one match-up across multiple maps), and roster predictability of various teams (some teams were easier to predict and snipe against efficiently).
Add the fact that the ProLeague was way more mercurial with its format and schedule changes than either of the major individual leagues, and there is a enormous amount of context that is lost when people attempt to look at overall ProLeague records at face value.
While this blog barely succeeds in explaining in just one of the extraneous circumstances that affected player performance within the ProLeague, I hope it does shed light to the magnitude of the task of trying to properly sort player competence solely by performances within the ProLeague.
|
Adding on to the post above, I think the following three players were perfectly utilized by their teams in accordance to their match-up preferences, and not surprisingly, their individual league results were quite lacking compared to their ProLeague results:
Terran: Really
Zerg: Crazy-Hydra (the player who was famous for using his left hand on the arrow key to optimize purely for incredibly precise micro-management, which is a keyboard set-up that is perfect for zerg-versus-zerg, but is actually a detriment in the other two match-ups that actually require some level of macro-management)
Protoss: Horang2
All these players are identical in that these players are of the very few cases of a player playing approximately half his ProLeague matches playing his strongest match-up, while only playing their weakest match-up around one every five ProLeague appearances.
All three players were mirror match-up specialists, and were quite horrible in one of the non-mirror match-ups, while being generally acceptable to decent in the remaining non-mirror match-up.
For example, due to how well taylored he was for the ProLeague in particular, thanks to his coaching staff who used him in a manner that made was in accordance with his characteristics as a player, Crazy-Hydra had more ProLeague victories, as well as having a higher overall ProLeague win rate than herO, somebody who peaked at the semi-finals of Batoo OGN StarLeague, and reached the round of 16 or above a total of five times during his career. Crazy-Hydra never reached the round of 16, not even once, yet had noticeably better results in the ProLeague, partly due to his own competence, but mostly, in my opinion, due to the excellence of his coaching staff.
As one can see, I have a tendency to look down upon ProLeague-only players who were truly blessed in terms of which match-ups they got to play. Imagine a random protoss player only playing protoss-versus-terran match-ups to climb his way up the ladder. Nobody would think much of that player "cheating" the system to gain a meaningless badge of honour that doesn't correlate directly with his overall skill.
In the same vein, while I do see noteworthy aspects to these players, the fact that they were perfectly aligned in tune with the ProLeague system sheerly due to external team factors, and achieved almost nothing of note outside of that context makes me less appreciative of these kind of players.
Players below are ProLeague greats who attained that status despite having the system somewhat rigged against them if we only look into their match-up preferences. I felt like these guys were more skilled than their overall ProLeague records suggested:
Terran: HiyA
Zerg: ZerO
Protoss: Kal
Lecaf Oz was simply horrible in the way they managed their star terran players, and tried to force two of their greatest terran talents into becoming a terran-versus-terran machine in the mold of sKyHigh. fOrGG was unable to thrive in the ProLeague partly due to his team's horrid implementation of him as a player, but HiyA was successful in gathering over one hundred ProLeague victories despite the circumstances.
ZerO was a zerg-versus-protoss virtuoso (Bisu rated Jaedong and ZerO the highest in terms their ability versus the protoss race back in their professional years) who rarely got to showcase his skill within that match-up under a ProLeague setting, and instead was exposed to a ProLeague scheduling that was eerily close to Jaedong's, except that Jaedong was a zerg-versus-zerg monster, and it was ZerO's least successful match-up over the vast majority of his career.
Kal was a player who was somewhat like free, a deceivingly strong player against the zerg race, but was somewhat lacking in their mirror match-up abilities compared to how well they were regarded as players. Woongjin Stars was more effective in terms of using their protoss ace than STX SouL was, and I personally think it is one of the reasons why free managed to have more victories than Kal in the ProLeague, despite being arguably the greater player of the two.
|
Very interesting.
Now I am wondering what is the distribution of mirror match ups to non-mirror match ups in prologue in general.
Assuming you would highly prefer to send a Protoss on a P-favored map, it should be relatively easy to deploy a PvP specialist optimally. On the other hand, if your team lacks any good TvT players (lecaf oz), you might have to use a mediocre TvT player on T-favored maps even tho he is better in TvZ. If match up skill or map imbalance is more important is another discussion.
Do the players with relatively weak mirror match ups and good use in proleague, had a strong mirror specialist of the same race in the team?
|
On April 12 2018 20:14 Keniji wrote:
Very interesting.
Now I am wondering what is the distribution of mirror match ups to non-mirror match ups in prologue in general.
Assuming you would highly prefer to send a Protoss on a P-favored map, it should be relatively easy to deploy a PvP specialist optimally. On the other hand, if your team lacks any good TvT players (lecaf oz), you might have to use a mediocre TvT player on T-favored maps even tho he is better in TvZ. If match up skill or map imbalance is more important is another discussion.
Do the players with relatively weak mirror match ups and good use in proleague, had a strong mirror specialist of the same race in the team?
According to the database on YGOSU, there were 3,155 mirror match-up ProLeague games (40.30%) in all of history out of a total of 7,828 ProLeague games.
Out of a total of 4,396 Ongamenet StarLeague and MBC Game StarLeague matches (according to the YGOSU database), there were a total of 1,250 mirror match-up games (28.43%).
The following are ProLeauge players with relatively weaker mirror match-ups, who were fortunate enough not to have needed to grind out their weakest match-ups (one player picked for each race):
DArKeLf: 29.03% of his ProLeague matches were TvT matches
Action: 34.53% of his ProLeague matches were ZvZ matches
free: 32.21% of his ProLeague matches were PvP matches
Just because these were some of the absolute best examples when it came to avoiding thei mirror match-up, it did not mean that these players were free from their mirror match-up obligations. These players still had to play their mirrors once every three ProLeague games or so. It was way easier for teams to arrange players to have ProLeague success whilst dodging a weak non-mirror match-up, as showcased below:
Really: 21.26% of his ProLeague matches were TvZ matches
Crazy-Hydra: 22.08% of his ProLeague matches were ZvT matches
Horang2: 20.69% of his ProLeague matches were PvZ matches
If a player had a significant mirror match-up weakness, it was more about damage control, rather than perfect ProLeague optimization for the player. Whereas if you had a significantly weak non-mirror match-up, good ProLeague entries could cover that flaw much more effectively.
About the maps, I'll look into two of the most frequently used maps for the ProLeague specifically, Match Point (264 games) and Fighting Spirit (250 games). Interestingly enough, both these maps were used for the Shinhan 2009/2010 ProLeague, meaning that we don't have to worry about varying player form over the years, since both these maps were used parallel to one another.
Match Point
Total number of ProLeague matches: 264
Most played mirror match-up: PvP (19.32% of all the ProLeague matches)
Least played match-up: ZvZ (9.20% of all the ProLeague matches)
Players with the most number of ProLeague appearances on Match Point:
KT Rolster: Flash (T)
SK Telecom T1: FanTaSy (T)
STX SouL: Kal (P)
WeMade Fox: Pure (P)
MBC Game HERO: Light (T)
CJ Entus: EffOrt (Z)
Woongjin Stars: free (P)
Hwaseung Oz: Killer (Z)
Samsung Khan: JangBi (P)
Estro: Really (T)
HITE Sparkyz: Horang2 (P)
Air Force ACE: Anytime (P)
Because Match Point isn't a broken map such as Geometry, Battle Royal, or Central Plains, there was a somewhat wide variety of entries. Half the teams (6) opted to send a protoss player, a little less decided on a terran ace (4), while two teams decided to send their zerg ace.
Fighting Spirit
Total number of ProLeague matches: 250
Most played mirror match-up: TvT (14.40% of all the ProLeague matches)
Least played mirro match-up: ZvZ (10.00% of all the ProLeague matches)
Players with the most number of ProLeague appearances on Fighting Spirit:
KT Rolster: Flash (T)
SK Telecom T1: Bisu (P)
STX SouL: Kal (P)
WeMade Fox: RorO (Z)
MBC Game HERO: Light (T)
CJ Entus: Movie (P)
Woongjin Stars: ZerO (Z)
Hwaseung Oz: Jaedong (Z)
Samsung Khan: JangBi (P)
Estro: Really (T)
HITE Sparkyz: Horang2 (P)
Air Force ACE: Anytime (P)
Half the teams (6) opted to send a protoss player, while three teams decided to send a terran player, and finally three teams chose a zerg card for this particular map.
For good measure, I'll look into the third and fourth most maps in terms of the number of ProLeague games played on it. These maps was used a year before Match Point and Medusa, for the Shinhan 2008/2009 ProLeague.
Medusa
Total number of ProLeague matches: 239
Most played mirror match-up: PvP (15.06% of all the ProLeague matches)
Least played mirro match-up: TvT (10.04% of all the ProLeague matches)
Players with the most number of ProLeague appearances on Medusa:
SK Telecom T1: Bisu (P)
Hwaseung Oz: Jaedong (Z)
CJ Entus: EffOrt (Z)
Samsung Khan: JangBi (P)
STX SouL: Kal (P)
HITE Sparkyz: YellOw[ArnC] (Z)
KTF MagicNs: Flash (T)
Woongjin Stars: free (P)
MBC Game HERO: Light (T)
Estro: SangHo (P)
WeMade Fox: Shine (Z)
Air Force ACE: Anytime (P)
Half the teams sent their protoss aces, four sent their zerg ace, while only two teams had their terran players as their most represented member on the map.
Destination
Total number of ProLeague matches: 233
Most played mirror match-up: TvT (15.88% of all the ProLeague matches)
Least played mirro match-up: ZvZ (8.15% of all the ProLeague matches)
Players with the most number of ProLeague appearances on Destination:
SK Telecom T1: Bisu (P)
Hwaseung Oz: Jaedong (Z)
CJ Entus: sKyHigh (T)
Samsung Khan: firebathero (T)
STX SouL: Kal (P)
HITE Sparkyz: Leta (T)
KTF MagicNs: Flash (T)
Woongjin Stars: ZerO (Z)
MBC Game HERO: Light (T)
Estro: Really (T)
WeMade Fox: Pure (P)
Air Force ACE: Anytime (P)
Half the teams sent their terran aces, four sent their protoss ace, while only two teams had their zerg players as their most represented member on the map.
I did want to look into maps of a more imbalanced nature, but it was a total pain in the arse due to their lack of overall sample size, and I did not want to split hairs between players who played only a couple of ProLeague games on an obscure map. At least with the above maps, well represented players tended to have ten or more ProLeague matches on those specific maps.
Maybe I'll look into the whole map issue in closer detail when I have the time.
|
man this makes me wish proleague came back for brood war. for even sc2. but there are no teams. is there any hope that proleague comes back?
|
TLADT24920 Posts
Sadly, proleague will never come back imo and the closest thing that we had was ATB, but that was killed off as well >.>
|
Match point actually seems pretty tilted by your metric
|
On April 15 2018 15:53 Shady Sands wrote:
Match point actually seems pretty tilted by your metric
For ProLeague maps, one of the metrics I enjoy using to gauge imbalance by how much of a single mirror match-up there were. For example, some of the most broken maps in history tended to have incredibly high ratios of a single mirror match-up (maps such as Battle Royal, Central Plains, and Geometry come to mind).
These are the maps that had over 200 ProLeague matches played on it ranked by how much of a single match-up there were:
Icarus (208 ProLeague matches): 28.37% of all ProLeague matches were ZvZ
Empire of the Sun (208 ProLeague matches): 21.63% of all ProLeague matches were TvT
Aztec (208 ProLeague matches): 20.67% of all ProLeague matches were ZvZ
Match Point (264 ProLeague matches): 19.32% of all ProLeague matches were PvP
Destination (233 ProLeague matches): 15.88% of all ProLeague matches were TvT
Medusa (239 ProLeague matches): 15.06% of all ProLeague matches were PvP
Circuit Breaker (207 ProLeague matches ): 14.98% of all ProLeague matches were TvT
Fighting Spirit (250 ProLeague matches): 14.40% of all ProLeague matches were TvT
It comes as no surprise that Fighting Spirit and Circuit Breaker, one of the most fondly remembered maps from the professional era, had relatively lower occurrence of a single match-up when used within the ProLeague realm.
I'll attempt to break down the nature of the imbalances with these maps below (not the degree of the imbalance, but the type of the imbalance), most maps fall under two types of imbalance, one being a typical bias towards a single race, the other being a typical bias against a single race. Of course, as with all rules, there are exceptions:
Icarus
Most played mirror: ZvZ (28.37% of its total ProLeague matches)
Least played mirror: PvP (1.44% of its total ProLeague matches)
Most played non-mirror: TvZ (25.96% of its total ProLeague matches)
Least played non-mirror: PvT (13.94% of its total ProLeague matches)
-> A typical zerg map. The most played mirror involves the zerg race. The least played mirror is the match-up involving the race zerg is strong against. The most played non-mirror involves the race zerg is weak against. The least played non-mirror doesn't include zerg in the match-up.
Empire of the Sun
Most played mirror: TvT (21.36% of its total ProLeague matches)
Least played mirror: ZvZ (3.37% of its total ProLeague matches)
Most played non-mirror: PvT (34.13% of its total ProLeague matches)
Least played non-mirror: ZvP (14.90% of its total ProLeague matches)
-> A typical terran map. The most played mirror involves the terran race. The least played mirror is the match-up involving the race terran is strong against. The most played non-mirror involves the race terran is weak against. The least played non-mirror doesn't include terran in the match-up.
Aztec
Most played mirror: ZvZ (20.67% of its total ProLeague matches)
Least played mirror: TvT (1.92% of its total ProLeague matches)
Most played non-mirror: ZvP (39.90% of its total ProLeague matches)
Least played non-mirror: PvT (9.62% of its total ProLeague matches)
-> A typical anti-terran map. The most played mirror is involves the race that is weak against terran. The least played mirror involves the terran race. The most played non-mirror doesn't involve the terran race. The least played non-mirror involves the terran race, and the race terrans are weak against (because there is no need to snipe terrans).
Match Point
Most played mirror: PvP (19.32% of its total ProLeague matches)
Least played mirror: ZvZ (8.71% of its total ProLeague matches)
Most played non-mirror: PvT (23.48% of its total ProLeague matches)
Least played non-mirror: TvZ (14.39% of its total ProLeague matches)
-> A typical anti-zerg map. The most played mirror is involves the race that is weak against zerg. The least played mirror involves the zerg race. The most played non-mirror doesn't involve the zerg race. The least played non-mirror involves the zerg race, and the race zergs are weak against (because there is no need to snipe zergs).
Destination
Most played mirror: TvT (15.88% of its total ProLeague matches)
Least played mirror: ZvZ (8.15% of its total ProLeague matches)
Most played non-mirror: PvT (27.04% of its total ProLeague matches)
Least played non-mirror: TvZ (15.45% of its total ProLeague matches)
-> A typical anti-zerg map. The most played mirror is involves the race that is weak against zerg. The least played mirror involves the zerg race. The most played non-mirror doesn't involve the zerg race. The least played non-mirror involves the zerg race, and the race zergs are weak against (because there is no need to snipe zergs).
Medusa
Most played mirror: PvP (15.06% of its total ProLeague matches)
Least played mirror: TvT (10.04% of its total ProLeague matches)
Most played non-mirror: ZvP (24.27% of its total ProLeague matches)
Least played non-mirror: PvT (17.99% of its total ProLeague matches)
-> Doesn't fully belong in either category. A protoss map with hints of an anti-terran map. The most played mirror involves the protoss race. The least played mirror is the match-up involving the race protoss is strong against. Most played non-mirror involves the race protoss is weak against. The least played non-mirror involves the terran race, and the race terrans are weak against (because there is no need to snipe terrans).
Circuit Breaker
Most played mirror: TvT (14.98% of its total ProLeague matches)
Least played mirror: ZvZ (5.31% of its total ProLeague matches)
Most played non-mirror: PvT (29.957% of its total ProLeague matches)
Least played non-mirror: ZvP (13.53% of its total ProLeague matches)
-> A typical terran map. The most played mirror involves the terran race. Least played mirror is the match-up involving the race terran is strong against. The most played non-mirror involves the race terran is weak against. The least played non-mirror doesn't include terran in the match-up.
Fighting Spirit
Most played mirror: TvT (14.40% of its total ProLeague matches)
Least played mirror: ZvZ (10.0% of its total ProLeague matches)
Most played non-mirror: ZvP (24.00% of its total ProLeague matches)
Least played non-mirror: TvZ (16.00% of its total ProLeague matches)
-> Doesn't fully belong in either category. An atypical protoss map. The most played mirror doesn't involve the protoss race, although to be fair there is a one game difference between the number of of TvT matches and PvP matches. The least played mirror is the match-up involving the race protoss is strong against. Most played non-mirror involves the race protoss is weak against. The least played non-mirror doesn't include protoss in the match-up.
So this is my take on things, although you're welcome to add your own thoughts.
|
My personal definition of a map being broken is when the characteristics of the map completely overwhelms personal excellence or merit. For example, an anti-terran map that denies a decent ProLeague performance from any terran player would be such a case.
Aztec (included both versions Aztec and Neo Aztec) was an anti-terran map, it was successful in rendering terran players completely useless. FanTaSy was the most successful terran player on this map, but even his ProLeague record of 5-5 (50.00%) was pretty mediocre in the grand scope of things. The second most successful ProLeague terran player, BoGus, had a record of 3-2 (60.00%).
Considering Brave (a player who never reached the round of 16 of a major individual league), who wasn't even a top three protoss ProLeague performer on Aztec, had a ProLeague record of 6-2 (75.00%), it does put things into perspective I hope. This makes Aztec a broken map in my opinion. When literally any random player who couldn't do anything of note puts an entire race to shame on a certain map.
Further more, the player with the most number of ProLeague victories on Aztec was ZerO, who relied off his good zerg-versus-protoss (incidently, the most played match-up on the map by far) performance on the map to achieve this status.
Match Point was an anti-zerg map, but somewhat softer in its harshness compared to Aztec. Jaeong, the most successful zerg player on this map, had a ProLeague record of 6-3 (66.7%). Hyun, the second best performing zerg player, had a record of 5-2 (71.43%).
The fact that Hyun, somebody who never reached the round of 16 of an individual league even once, could have a decent enough performance on the map, tells me it wasn't all doom and gloom on the map. Sure this was a map where a lot of zerg aces struggled to keep a 50% win rate within the ProLeague realm, but there wasn't a case of a random nobody (defined by someone who never reached the round of 16 of a major individual league) outperforming the entire zerg race, as far as I'm aware of.
More importantly, the player with the most number of ProLeague victories on Match Point was FanTaSy with a ProLeague record of 15-5 (75.00%), but unlike ZerO, his record is based off of solid performances in all three match-ups. His race of choice wasn't protoss, and he actually played versus the protoss the fewest number of times, when an overwhelming protoss bias probably would have resulted in FanTaSy playing terran-versus-protoss a lot more frequently.
Ideally speaking, a balanced map should have player merit overpower the map characteristics. For example, Circuit Breaker was not a zerg favoured map judging from its ProLeague records. However Jaedong was the best performing player on the map with a ProLeague record of 13-3 (81.25%). However, these kind of situations aren't that common.
The player with the most number of ProLeague victories on Fighting Spirit was Bisu, and Fighting Spirit had aspects of being a protoss map. The player with the most number of ProLeague victories on Medusa was Bisu, and Medusa had aspects of being a protoss map. The player with the most number of ProLeague victories on Destination was sKyHigh, and Destination was a terran map. It is hard to buck the tendencies set by the map.
However, any map that provides some space for player merit to shine through isn't a broken map in my opinion. Aztec was a broken map during its use. Match Point was not. If Match Point was a broken map, so was Destination. Destination was harsher on the zerg race than Match Point because it had less representation from the zerg race either from a mirror match-up perspective, or a non-mirror match-up perspective. While it may have been less of a terran map than Match Point was a protoss map, Destination was more of a zerg graveyard than Match Point was.
|
Damn I miss Proleague 
Great writeup + analysis though
|
On April 16 2018 00:25 Letmelose wrote:
My personal definition of a map being broken is when the characteristics of the map completely overwhelms personal excellence or merit. For example, an anti-terran map that denies a decent ProLeague performance from any terran player would be such a case.
Aztec (included both versions Aztec and Neo Aztec) was an anti-terran map, it was successful in rendering terran players completely useless. FanTaSy was the most successful terran player on this map, but even his ProLeague record of 5-5 (50.00%) was pretty mediocre in the grand scope of things. The second most successful ProLeague terran player, BoGus, had a record of 3-2 (60.00%).
Considering Brave (a player who never reached the round of 16 of a major individual league), who wasn't even a top three protoss ProLeague performer on Aztec, had a ProLeague record of 6-2 (75.00%), it does put things into perspective I hope. This makes Aztec a broken map in my opinion. When literally any random player who couldn't do anything of note puts an entire race to shame on a certain map.
Further more, the player with the most number of ProLeague victories on Aztec was ZerO, who relied off his good zerg-versus-protoss (incidently, the most played match-up on the map by far) performance on the map to achieve this status.
Match Point was an anti-zerg map, but somewhat softer in its harshness compared to Aztec. Jaeong, the most successful zerg player on this map, had a ProLeague record of 6-3 (66.7%). Hyun, the second best performing zerg player, had a record of 5-2 (71.43%).
The fact that Hyun, somebody who never reached the round of 16 of an individual league even once, could have a decent enough performance on the map, tells me it wasn't all doom and gloom on the map. Sure this was a map where a lot of zerg aces struggled to keep a 50% win rate within the ProLeague realm, but there wasn't a case of a random nobody (defined by someone who never reached the round of 16 of a major individual league) outperforming the entire zerg race, as far as I'm aware of.
More importantly, the player with the most number of ProLeague victories on Match Point was FanTaSy with a ProLeague record of 15-5 (75.00%), but unlike ZerO, his record is based off of solid performances in all three match-ups. His race of choice wasn't protoss, and he actually played versus the protoss the fewest number of times, when an overwhelming protoss bias probably would have resulted in FanTaSy playing terran-versus-protoss a lot more frequently.
Ideally speaking, a balanced map should have player merit overpower the map characteristics. For example, Circuit Breaker was not a zerg favoured map judging from its ProLeague records. However Jaedong was the best performing player on the map with a ProLeague record of 13-3 (81.25%). However, these kind of situations aren't that common.
The player with the most number of ProLeague victories on Fighting Spirit was Bisu, and Fighting Spirit had aspects of being a protoss map. The player with the most number of ProLeague victories on Medusa was Bisu, and Medusa had aspects of being a protoss map. The player with the most number of ProLeague victories on Destination was sKyHigh, and Destination was a terran map. It is hard to buck the tendencies set by the map.
However, any map that provides some space for player merit to shine through isn't a broken map in my opinion. Aztec was a broken map during its use. Match Point was not. If Match Point was a broken map, so was Destination. Destination was harsher on the zerg race than Match Point because it had less representation from the zerg race either from a mirror match-up perspective, or a non-mirror match-up perspective. While it may have been less of a terran map than Match Point was a protoss map, Destination was more of a zerg graveyard than Match Point was.
Could you do the above player analysis for the "truly broken" maps? Which Proleague players relied the most on maps to win? Which Proleague players won against all odds?
|
On April 17 2018 09:56 Shady Sands wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2018 00:25 Letmelose wrote:
My personal definition of a map being broken is when the characteristics of the map completely overwhelms personal excellence or merit. For example, an anti-terran map that denies a decent ProLeague performance from any terran player would be such a case.
Aztec (included both versions Aztec and Neo Aztec) was an anti-terran map, it was successful in rendering terran players completely useless. FanTaSy was the most successful terran player on this map, but even his ProLeague record of 5-5 (50.00%) was pretty mediocre in the grand scope of things. The second most successful ProLeague terran player, BoGus, had a record of 3-2 (60.00%).
Considering Brave (a player who never reached the round of 16 of a major individual league), who wasn't even a top three protoss ProLeague performer on Aztec, had a ProLeague record of 6-2 (75.00%), it does put things into perspective I hope. This makes Aztec a broken map in my opinion. When literally any random player who couldn't do anything of note puts an entire race to shame on a certain map.
Further more, the player with the most number of ProLeague victories on Aztec was ZerO, who relied off his good zerg-versus-protoss (incidently, the most played match-up on the map by far) performance on the map to achieve this status.
Match Point was an anti-zerg map, but somewhat softer in its harshness compared to Aztec. Jaeong, the most successful zerg player on this map, had a ProLeague record of 6-3 (66.7%). Hyun, the second best performing zerg player, had a record of 5-2 (71.43%).
The fact that Hyun, somebody who never reached the round of 16 of an individual league even once, could have a decent enough performance on the map, tells me it wasn't all doom and gloom on the map. Sure this was a map where a lot of zerg aces struggled to keep a 50% win rate within the ProLeague realm, but there wasn't a case of a random nobody (defined by someone who never reached the round of 16 of a major individual league) outperforming the entire zerg race, as far as I'm aware of.
More importantly, the player with the most number of ProLeague victories on Match Point was FanTaSy with a ProLeague record of 15-5 (75.00%), but unlike ZerO, his record is based off of solid performances in all three match-ups. His race of choice wasn't protoss, and he actually played versus the protoss the fewest number of times, when an overwhelming protoss bias probably would have resulted in FanTaSy playing terran-versus-protoss a lot more frequently.
Ideally speaking, a balanced map should have player merit overpower the map characteristics. For example, Circuit Breaker was not a zerg favoured map judging from its ProLeague records. However Jaedong was the best performing player on the map with a ProLeague record of 13-3 (81.25%). However, these kind of situations aren't that common.
The player with the most number of ProLeague victories on Fighting Spirit was Bisu, and Fighting Spirit had aspects of being a protoss map. The player with the most number of ProLeague victories on Medusa was Bisu, and Medusa had aspects of being a protoss map. The player with the most number of ProLeague victories on Destination was sKyHigh, and Destination was a terran map. It is hard to buck the tendencies set by the map.
However, any map that provides some space for player merit to shine through isn't a broken map in my opinion. Aztec was a broken map during its use. Match Point was not. If Match Point was a broken map, so was Destination. Destination was harsher on the zerg race than Match Point because it had less representation from the zerg race either from a mirror match-up perspective, or a non-mirror match-up perspective. While it may have been less of a terran map than Match Point was a protoss map, Destination was more of a zerg graveyard than Match Point was. Could you do the above player analysis for the "truly broken" maps? Which Proleague players relied the most on maps to win? Which Proleague players won against all odds?
That would be a Herculean task. Every player had map preferences, and the exact degree to which numerous players throughout the years dealt with the idiosyncrasies of every ProLeague map they played would require more research than the broad strokes method I'm taking.
The following distribution of match-ups would happen if each of the opposing ProLeague teams sent two players at random with no specific match-up in mind:
TvZ: 22.22% (2 in 9 chance)
ZvP: 22.22% (2 in 9 chance)
PvT: 22.22% (2 in 9 chance)
TvT: 11.11% (1 in 9 chance)
ZvZ: 11.11% (1 in 9 chance)
PvP: 11.11% (1 in 9 chance)
I'll look into the most frequently used ProLeague maps (all versions of it, otherwise the sample size becomes too small), and see if it had any match-ups that deviated a bit too far from what I considered to be acceptable:
Mirror match-up distribution within reason: 7.41% ~ 14.81%
Non-mirror match-up distribution within reason: 14.81% ~ 29.63%
Since almost every single player who succeeded on these maps within the ProLeague realm had a reason to do so (match-up specific, or race specific reasons), I'll try focusing on the players who managed to buck the trend, if there were any noteworthy cases.
1. Match Point: 264 ProLeague matches
TvZ: 14.39% -> Problematic
ZvP: 22.73%
PvT: 23.48%
TvT: 11.36%
ZvZ: 8.71%
PvP: 19.32% -> Problematic
A map with some imbalance issues.
Players who would benefit the most from the above conditions may be:
1) PvP specialists
2) Terran players who only suck at TvZ
Players who would suffer from the most from the above conditions may be:
1) TvZ specialists
Here's what actually happened in the ProLeague:
1) Horang2, a PvP specialist, had a record of 6-3.
2) Really, a notoriously bad TvZ player who was good otherwise, had a record of 13-2, without having played a single ProLeague match of TvZ.
3) Light, a TvZ specialist, had a record of 7-7.
Results vary depending on player tendencies like with all maps.
2. Fighting Spirit: 250 ProLeague matches
TvZ: 16.00%
ZvP: 22.73%
PvT: 21.60%
TvT: 14.40%
ZvZ: 10.00%
PvP: 14.00%
A good map with no severely really off putting match-up distributions. Although there are minor imbalances, I think results on this map can be pretty much taken for face value.
3. Medusa: 239 ProLeague matches
TvZ: 18.83%
ZvP: 24.27%
PvT: 17.99%
TvT: 10.04%
ZvZ: 13.81%
PvP: 15.06%
A good map with no severely really off putting match-up distributions. Although there are minor imbalances, I think results on this map can be pretty much taken for face value.
4. Destination: 233 ProLeague matches
TvZ: 15.45%
ZvP: 22.73%
PvT: 27.03%
TvT: 15.88% -> Problematic
ZvZ: 8.15%
PvP: 13.30%
A map with some imbalance issues.
Players who would benefit the most from the above conditions may be:
1) TvT specialists
Here's what actually happened in the ProLeague:
1) sKyHigh, a TvT specialist, had a ProLeague record of 11-3, gaining the most number of ProLeague victories out of any players around.
Results vary depending on player tendencies like with all maps.
5. Aztec: 208 ProLeague matches
TvZ: 13.94% -> Problematic
ZvP: 39.90% -> Problematic
PvT: 9.62% -> Problematic
TvT: 1.92% -> Problematic
ZvZ: 8.15%
PvP: 13.94%
A bad map.
All the match-ups involving the terran race are criminally under-represented due to how bad the map is against the terran race.
Players who would benefit the most from the above conditions may be:
1) ZvP specialists
2) PvZ specialists
3) Protoss players who only suck at PvT
4) Zerg players who only suck at ZvT
Players who would suffer from the most from the above conditions may be:
1) Any terran player
Here's what actually happened in the ProLeague:
1) ZerO was a ZvP specialist who ended up with the most number of ProLeague victories out of any player.
2) Bisu was a PvZ specialist who ended up with the highest win rate out of any players with over ten victories.
3) No player outside of FanTaSy managed to have five or more ProLeague victories.
Results on this map cannot be taken for face value.
6. Empire of the Sun: 208 ProLeague matches
TvZ: 17.79%
ZvP: 14.90%
PvT: 39.90% -> Problematic
TvT: 21.63% -> Problematic
ZvZ: 3.37% -> Problematic
PvP: 14.90%
A bad map, albeit to a lesser degree than Aztec, towards the zerg race.
Players who would benefit the most from the above conditions may be:
1) TvT specialists
2) PvT specialists
3) TvP specialists
Players who would suffer from the most from the above conditions may be:
1) Any zerg player who is not a TvZ specialist
Here's what actually happened in the ProLeague:
1) Stats managed to gain the most number of ProLeague victories on this map.
2) No zerg player managed to have over five ProLeague victories.
Results vary depending on player tendencies like with all maps.
7. Icarus: 208 ProLeague matches
TvZ: 25.96%
ZvP: 18.75%
PvT: 13.94% -> Problematic
TvT: 11.54%
ZvZ: 28.36% -> Problematic
PvP: 1.44% -> Problematic
A bad map, albeit to a lesser degree than Aztec, towards the protoss race.
Players who would benefit the most from the above conditions may be:
1) ZvZ specialists
2) TvZ specialists
3) ZvT specialists
4) Terran players who suck at TvP
Players who would suffer from the most from the above conditions may be:
1) Any protoss player who is not a PvZ specialist
Here's what actually happened in the ProLeague:
1) Killer ended up with the most number of ProLeague victories on the map, while Jaedong was the player with the highest win rate out of players with over five ProLeague victories. Both had ZvZ as their most played match-up.
2) Flash was the best ProLeague performer on this map, and his most played match-up was TvZ a match-up he was good at.
3) ZerO, a good ZvT player managed to have the third most number of victories out of any player, and his most played match-up was ZvT.
4) Bisu was the best performing protoss player on the map, with a ProLeague record of 7-3, but there were a several of zerg or terran players (Killer, Jaedong, ZerO, and Flash), who were able to gather more ProLeague victories. Bisu did have sick win rate, but Jaedong had him beaten both in terms of overall number of ProLeague victories, and ProLeague win rate with a record of 8-3. He was always known as a PvZ specialist.
Results vary depending on player tendencies like with all maps.
8. Circuit Breaker: 207 ProLeague matches
TvZ: 27.54%
ZvP: 13.53% -> Problematic
PvT: 29.95% -> Problematic
TvT: 14.98% -> Problematic
ZvZ: 5.31% -> Problematic
PvP: 8.80%
A bad map, albeit to a lesser degree than Aztec, towards the zerg race.
Players who would benefit the most from the above conditions may be:
1) PvT specialists
2) TvP specialists
3) TvT specialists
Players who would suffer from the most from the above conditions may be:
1) Any zerg player who is not a TvZ specialist
Here's what actually happened in the ProLeague:
1) For some reason, there weren't many players who succeeded on this map due to their PvT or TvP prowess.
2) Flash was the best performing terran player on the map, and his most played match-up was TvT.
3) Jaedong was the best performing player on the map, with a ProLeague record of 13-3, something he achieved mostly off the back of sniping terran players.
Results vary depending on player tendencies like with all maps.
Conclusions
Out of these eight maps with over 200 ProLeague matches played on it, no player truly managed to trascend the characteristics of the maps to overcome everything. The closest example would Jaedong being the player with the most number of ProLeague victories on Circuit Breaker despite his strongest career match-ups (ZvZ and ZvP) being neutered by the map.
Basically everybody who had the most number of victories (because win rates is a weird metric, I don't think Jaedong for example was successful on Empire of the Sun because he maintained a 100% win rate for his two ProLeague appaearances on the map) for the above eight maps had good reasons for succeeding on those maps:
Match Point: FanTaSy was thriving on a protoss-friendly map without an extensive TvZ schedule, seems to fit his career narrative to me.
Fighting Spirit: Although it is well balanced, Fighting Spirit did have hints of being a protoss-friendly map with favourable conditions for players with strong PvZ abilities, which is why Bisu having the most number of ProLeague victories on it is not that surprising.
Destination: sKyHigh, a TvT one trick pony ends up thriving in a map was catered towards TvT matches, seems to fit his career narrative to me.
Medusa: Although it is well balanced, Medusa did have hints of being a protoss-friendly map with favourable conditions for players with strong PvZ abilities, which is why Bisu having the most number of ProLeague victories on it is not that surprising.
Aztec: ZerO was thriving on a zerg-friendly map with an extensive ZvP schedule (his best match-up by far), seems to fit his career narrative to me,
Empire of the Sun: Stats thrived on a map that lacked zerg presence, which happened to be his main weakness, seems to fit his career narrative to me.
Icarus: Killer thrived on a map that mostly tested his decent ZvZ abilities, seems to fit his career narrative to me.
Circuit Breaker: Jaedong, arguably the best ZvT player of all-time, thrives on a map that had plenty of ZvT scheduling. Although ZvT was his weakest match-up result-wise, but the map didn't shut down room for personal merit the way maps like Aztec did.
Basically, a player having the most number of ProLeague victories on maps that had the fewest number of mirror match-up involving the race of his choice is extremely rare. Out of maps with over two hundred ProLeague matches played on it, Jaedong on Circuit Breaker is the only example of such a case out of eight possible maps.
Out of maps with over a hundred ProLeague matches played on it (there's way too many maps to check for sure), the only case I can think of right now is Flash on Andromeda. Maybe there's more, but definitely not that many. Since you're a Flash fan, I think this was the case you were interested in perhaps, so I'll break it down in further detail:
Andromeda: 198 ProLeague matches
TvZ: 20.20%
ZvP: 27.78%
PvT: 22.73%
TvT: 5.05% -> Problematic
ZvZ: 18.18% -> Problematic
PvP: 6.06% -> Problematic
Players who would benefit the most from the above conditions may be:
1) ZvZ specialist
Players who would suffer from the most from the above conditions may be:
1) TvT specialist
2) PvP specialist
Despite having arguably his strongest match-up (TvT) neutered, Flash was the most successful ProLeague player on this map with a record of 12-1.
Long story short, no player was completely free from the limitations set by the maps within the ProLeague realm, especially if it became too suffocating as seen in the case with Aztec, or Empire of the Sun. As far as I know, there's no case of a player appearing on a ProLeague map in a match-up when literally nobody else thought it was a good idea (like appearing ten times for multiple TvP ProLeague sessions on Aztec for example), and succeeding against all odds. Even the rare cases of Jaedong and Flash having tremendous success on maps that was traditionally thought to be not that great for their respective races were not that surprising, since those maps were not beyond reason.
Of course, there are cases of great players overcoming map imbalance within an individual league setting, but within the ProLeague realm, when there were designated players from each teams spending most of their time perfecting their craft for a particular map, instead of preparing for playing on multiple maps for a single day (which was how individual leagues worked), it became quite a bit harder to overcome the map imbalance.
Since the question of which players were the best at overcoming all odds to conquer all was somewhat answered (the answer being nobody, or at least, nobody with any consistency). The question of who relied on maps to suit their tendencies and limitations as players is something that could be answered once we delete every favourable maps from the records of every player in history, and see how they fared under unfavourable circumstances.
However, how do we judge what constitutes an unfavourable map? Do we look at the performance of the race as a whole (and what metrics should we use for that, their win rates, their overall number of appearance, should ACE matches be weighted more than regular games)? Do we take into account certain player tendencies like their preference for maps with short rush distances, or preference for four player maps instead of two? Sure maybe a player can overcome typical racial imbalance on maps of his liking, but should we take his idiosyncracies into account when filtering map records from his ProLeague records? There's just too much bias involved, and since every player out there has some affiliation for a certain kind of map, you can literally make anyone look like shit if you are specific enough with your parameters.
I don't have a way to accurately measure player depency on maps for ProLeague success. However, I'd assume that players who were consistently excellent throughout multiple seasons, across multiple platforms would be the kind of players to not rely on specific circumstances such as the map pool to have success. Out of the latter half of professional Brood War, Flash and Jaedong would be the obvious candidates, but if it is a showdown of the two you desire, there's way too much data for me to handle.
Since Flash made his ProLeague debut in 22nd May 2007, there were 6,442 Brood War ProLeague matches with the following distribution of matches:
TvZ: 1,259 matches (19.54%)
ZvP: 1,266 matches (19.65%)
PvT: 1,317 matches (20.44%)
TvT: 966 matches (15.00%) -> Problematic
ZvZ: 878 matches (13.63%)
PvP: 756 matches (11.74%)
So keep in mind that the modern rendition of ProLeague (starting with when Flash made his debut) had hints of being slightly terran-friendly, and especially more favourable towards the TvT specialists. As a result, it may be feasible to venture that that Flash, and numerous other terrans aces were encountering less hostile maps than the aces of the other two races, although we'll need to go over every single map that was ever played on to make sure of that.
Okay I'm fried. I don't want to look at any more ProLeague numbers. Maybe I'll come back to it later on.
|
Amazing work as always. Your passion is unrivaled.
One note, I believe you used the word broken before, but then what do we call maps like Tears of the Protoss, Demon's Forest, etc.? Haha
|
Very insightful, thanks! 5 stars. While most people focus on the top tier players, they tend to forget that players like you mentioned made the backbone of every Proleague team.
|
Japan11285 Posts
On April 18 2018 06:22 valaki wrote:
Very insightful, thanks! 5 stars. While most people focus on the top tier players, they tend to forget that players like you mentioned made the backbone of every Proleague team.
For every FlaSh there was a Stats
For every Jaedong there was an OzSucksBallsWithoutMe
Seriously though, I didn't think much about this angle of 'measuring' performance. I mean, yes the management of proleague entries and matchups are important in all matches but I never put thought into this. That said, unless stats are heavily skewed, I think credit should be given credit and it shouldn't diminish a player's reputation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT![[image loading]](http://nimage.dailygame.co.kr/phpwas/restmb_idxmake.php?idx=3&simg=200906171743070011952_2.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://nimage.dailygame.co.kr/phpwas/restmb_idxmake.php?idx=3&simg=201207091840450063106_1.jpg)
