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On May 12 2018 01:34 Jealous wrote:
I'm glad that skyhigh got a mention somewhere in this thread. Out of all the all-kills, his was probably the most memorable to me. A man possessed by the StarCraft gods for just one night.
I think sKyHigh is a man with a deceptively large pool of claims to fame, especially for a guy who never even managed a single round of 16 appearance for a major individual league.
1. Being the only man to all-kill the enemy team in the finals of the Winner's League.
2. Being the player with the most number of victories on Destination, the most frequently used map in the history of professional Brood War.
3. Even if you don't count his Winner's League finals reverse all-kill, sKyHigh has a ProLeague post-season record of 8-3 (72.73%). If you include his Winner's League post-season games, sKyHigh has a record of seven consecutive post-season victories, a post-season winning streak that is only beaten by HoeJJa (who had eight consecutive post-season victories), and a record that was shared by Jaedong and FanTaSy (who both hit seven consecutive post-season victories alongside sKyHigh).
4. He also was one of the very few players to have an even head-to-head record against Flash after playing more than five professional matches against him. The only players to be ahead or even against Flash after playing more than five professional matches are GGPlay, YellOw[ArnC], sKyHigh, and Much to the best of my knowledge. Considering Flash's best match-up win rate-wise was his mirror match-up, this was quite an accomplishment. This was all possible due to his insane terran-versus-terran abilities, something that allowed him to remain relevant as a ProLeague sniper even if his other match-ups somewhat held him back as a player.
5. Even though his other match-ups weren't that great, they were competent enough to make him one of the scariest players to face within the preliminary rounds. Although there are no definitive lists to speak of regarding offline preliminary records that I could find, sKyHigh would perhaps make the top ten list regardless of the metric due to his excellence within that particular stage of competition.
Basically an A teamer terran who was well rounded enough to stomp B team professionals and low tier A team professionals during his peak, as well as being a virtuoso mirror match-up player, which allowed him to snipe numerous terran aces from the other teams such as Flash, FanTaSy, and Leta.
I personally regard sKyHigh as a modern day version of ArtOfHan, the dude who was famed for his mirror match-up abilities (the dude was defeating iloveoov at the peak of his powers despite being belonging to a much earlier generation of professional gamers). Definitely an interesting player.
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On May 13 2018 00:11 Nemesis wrote:
What about number of times a team was all killed?
Professional teams ranked by their all-kill differential (total number of all-kills completed versus all other teams - total numbers of all-kills completed against the team in question):
1. Hwaseung Oz: 7-2 (+5)
2. HITE Sparkyz: 7-3 (+4) -> Competed in only two seasons
2. SK Telecom T1: 7-3 (+4)
4. KT Rolster: 6-3 (+3)
5. MBC Game HERO: 6-4 (+2)
5. Woongjin Stars: 4-2 (+2)
7. STX SouL: 4-3 (+1)
8. CJ Entus: 2-2 (+0)
9. Estro: 1-2 (-1) -> Competed in only two seasons
10. Samsung Khan: 2-4 (-2)
11. WeMade Fox: 2-7 (-5)
12. Air Force ACE: 0-13 (-13)
The team to be all-killed the least number of times were Hwaseung Oz, Woongjin Stars, CJ Entus, and Estro. Since Estro only competed in two out of the three Winner's League seasons, Hwaseung Oz,Woongjin Stars, and CJ Entus were the most difficult teams to all-kill, averaging less than a single all-kill suffered per season.
As could be expected, Air Force ACE was by far the easiest team to all-kill.
The team to average the most number of all-kills per season was actually HITE Spakryz, who only competed in two out of the three Winner's League seasons, yet had seven all-kills completed by the likes of YellOw[ArnC] (twice), Luxury, go.go, Leta (twice), and PuMa. That's more than three all-kills per season, something no other team can boast.
Of course, being able to deny all-kills, and being able to win the most are two different matters. Hwaseung Oz was amazing at completing all-kills, as well as denying them, but winning the entire Winner's League required more than just that, quite obviously.
I'll just breakdown the 48 all-kills that occured between Shinhan 2009 Winner's League and Shinhan 2011 Winner's League by race as a bonus:
Terran players as a whole: 21 completed all-kills
Zerg players as a whole: 13 completed all-kills
Protoss players as a whole: 14 completed all-kills
This is the list of players who managed to all-kill a specific team multiple times:
Jaedong: All-killed HITE Sparkyz twice (he also holds a 19 consecutive ProLeague win streak versus the team, which started in 2008, and remained unbroken until HITE Sparkyz disbanded after the match-fixing scandal)
Bisu: All-killed WeMade Fox twice (he also holds a 14 consecutive ProLeague win streak versus the team, a record that is only bested by Jaedong's 20 consecutive ProLeague win streak versus the same team)
By.Baby: All-killed Air Force ACE twice
No other players managed to all-kill the same team multiple times.
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Nice stats.
Interesting that Hwaseung Oz depends the most on all kills. And poor ACE 
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i feel like flash was misrepresented in previous posts. also, was team8 not inside the time you find relevant or is it globbed onto another team
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On May 16 2018 17:18 Alejandrisha wrote:
i feel like flash was misrepresented in previous posts. also, was team8 not inside the time you find relevant or is it globbed onto another team
The last ever Winner's League took place in early 2011. Team 8 was formed in late 2011.
It would actually be more astonishing if Flash had the best records for every single metric available for professional Brood War, given how intense the competition was back then.
EffOrt was one of the very top players during the time-frame discussed (early 2009 to early 2011), yet he never had a single all-kill performance. It was insanely difficult to actually stand-out across multiple platforms of competition given how different platforms tested different abilities.
The other side of the spectrum would be Bisu, who stands second on this list in terms of how successful he was at completing all-kills out of potential all-kill attempts, but within this very time-frame (early 2009 to early 2011), Bisu couldn't even reach the finals of a major individual league even once.
Being able to complete an all-kill requires stamina to retain focus for four consecutive games, ability to shine without hardcore preparation (since the Winner's League scheduling didn't allow for sufficient practice for each and every potential opponent), and ability to shine on multiple maps regardless of the match-up. It tested these skills, and perhaps Flash wasn't the absolute best at those qualities during the given time-frame. You are welcome to argue otherwise, but I don't really want to discuss your feelings on the matter, to be honest.
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One thing I find kind of odd about this entire issue of specific data gathering is that the complaints are never made to defend those who suffer the most from it.
For example, any discussion involving ProLeague records are always doomed to favour players who hit their strides towards the latter half of professional Brood War. Players with the longest ACE match streaks? Too bad for anyone who hit their prime before 2005, because that was when it was first implemented. Instead of complaining about the data completely missing out on the fine forms of various legendary players before 2005, and how these players could have had tremendous ACE match winning streaks if only they had the opportunity to do so, I get retarded requests about how the data should be artifically selected so that Flash never looks bad.
Completing all-kills, in my opinion, required a different set of skills than excelling in an individual league setting. I'll try to elaborate in case I failed to get my point across.
Once a player hit the bracket stages, both Ongamenet and MBC Game usually allowed a full week in between player match schedule to allow them to fully concentrate on a single opponent. Of course, there could be overlapping schedule from other platforms of competition, but within tournament itself, there was plenty of time to prepare.
Winner's League usually had two match days for a team per week. That's only a couple of days to prepare for all the possible entry variations.
Let's take a look at Light's first two all-kills. He was a player who tended to thrived more if there was less specific preparation from both sides, and was the first ever player to have back-to-back all-kills.
2010/03/03
Light versus BeSt on New Tornado
Light versus FanTaSy on Roadrunner
Light versus Canata on Neo Moon Glaive
Light versus Bisu on Match Point
2010/03/08
Light
Light versus hyvaa on Match Point
Light versus Action on Fighting Spirit
Light versus SangHo on Judgement Day
Light versus Really on New Tornado
That's six maps over the span of a single week, and if teams were mercurial enough with their entries, no reliable way to prepare specific strategies built for a single player, or even single match-up in mind. There are way too many variables and possible entries to conceive the perfect game plan against a known enemy. The sort of meticulous planning that goes to a best-of-five series in the finals of a major individual league can never be replicated in the above kind of performance.
Completing an all-kill demands a different kind of strength than the usual requirements seen from everyday ProLeague, or the individual leagues. Like I already mentioned, it does not correlate with individual league performance, otherwise EffOrt should be the one with multiple all-kills instead of HiyA. However, it is meaningful in its own little way, and is useful in categorizing players into those who flourish without preparation that goes to painstaking detail.
How did Light complete so many all-kills (four) during this time-frame when championship winning players of this era (early 2009 to early 2011) such as EffOrt and hydra never managed to complete a single all-kill? This is the kind of stuff I could talk about, instead of whether this blog makes Flash look good or not.
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Ah, all-kills. Just reminds me STX Masters Cup aka SKT All-kill Cup 
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On May 17 2018 19:06 hitthat wrote:Ah, all-kills. Just reminds me STX Masters Cup aka SKT All-kill Cup
STX Masters was another long standing team league with a winner-stays-on format, with a tight schedule that didn't allow for thorough preparation that was seen in for the latter stages of individual leagues. However, due to its ever changing format, instead of using a more throrough round-robin format that used for the Winner's League, there was a severe disparity in terms of overall games played. A single season of the Winner's League had more games played than the entirety of the STX Masters added together.
Despite being more of a long lasting tournament (2007 to 2011), STX Masters only provided nine successful all-kills in its entire history, compared to the 48 instances of successful all-kills completed within the Winner's League. Since it is such a short list, I can name them all:
1. Flying versus MBC Game HERO in STX Masters 2009
2. FireFist versus CJ Entus in STX Masters 2009
3. Hyuk versus STX SouL in STX Masters 2009
4. Stork versus eSTRO in STX Masters 2010
5. ZerO versus Hwaseung Oz in STX Masters 2010
6. Soulkey versus WeMade Fox in STX Masters 2010
7. FanTaSy versus STX SouL in STX Masters 2010
8. hyvaa versus Samsung Khan in STX Masters 2011
9. By.Sun versus Hwaseung Oz in STX Masters 2011
What is noteworthy is that none of the players listed on my list managed to achieve a single all-kill. However, it is much harder to draw conclusions from this tournament due to its smaller overall game pool due to multiple factors such as some of the teams not participating, and its format.
For example, Flash one of the greatest players within the winner-stays-on format, whatever the metric that happens to be used. I don't think any sane person will dispute that fact. However, if you limit the sample size to just STX Masters games, Flash has a 0% win rate with a record of 0-2. There simply isn't enough sample size to judge players sometimes, as I have shown with the case with Flash.
Due to its smaller overall sample size, and the more erratic nature of the tournament (constantly varying participation rate from various teams, refusing to use the round-robin format probably due to scheduling constraints), I decided not to include the games from this tournament.
If it is just the total of number of all-kills completed within a best-of-seven series between two teams that you are interested in, this is how the list would go to the best of my knowledge (including the games from MBC Game Team League, KeSPA Cup, Winner's League, and STX Masters). If there is a tie, I will sort by whoever completed their number first:
1. Bisu: 5 (5 from the Winner's League)
2. Jaedong: 5 (5 from the Winner's League)
3. Light: 4 (4 from the Winner's League)
4. YellOw[ArnC]: (1 from KeSPA Cup, and 2 from the Winner's League)
5. Flash: 3 (3 from Winner's League)
6. FanTaSy: 3 (2 from Winner's League, and 1 from the STX Masters)
7. Stats: 3 (3 from the Winner's League)
The only tournament to give players an ample number of opportunities to all players active between 2009 to 2011, was the Winner's League, although STX Masters provides another window to judge players on their ability to complete all-kills, the data simply is too sparse and erratic for me to make any sense of it.
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10387 Posts
I thought one of the interesting things about the SC2 scene was the rise of the "marathon tournament", where you'd have these huge tournaments like MLG slammed out over 2-3 days. I would say the closest thing to this BW ever had were those grueling preliminaries for OSL and MSL. But it would have been interesting if that type of tournament was a thing in KeSPA-era BW.
It'd be fair to hypothesize that those who did better in situations like Winner's League, like Light, would have more tournament accolades if the marathon tournament was a thing, no? Or maybe it'd just be Jaedong/Flash/Bisu hogging more trophies, who knows.
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On May 24 2018 02:01 ArvickHero wrote:
I thought one of the interesting things about the SC2 scene was the rise of the "marathon tournament", where you'd have these huge tournaments like MLG slammed out over 2-3 days. I would say the closest thing to this BW ever had were those grueling preliminaries for OSL and MSL. But it would have been interesting if that type of tournament was a thing in KeSPA-era BW.
It'd be fair to hypothesize that those who did better in situations like Winner's League, like Light, would have more tournament accolades if the marathon tournament was a thing, no? Or maybe it'd just be Jaedong/Flash/Bisu hogging more trophies, who knows.
It certainly is an interesting food for thought.
There was one such tournament of those exact specifications (a marathon tournament completed within days) that I remember:
http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/korean/leagues/191_Seoul_e-Sports_Festival/main
This was a round of 258 tournament that was played out over the space of three days. Although some were seeded into the round of 128, it had almost everybody starting off on an even footing, with no safety nets, just battling it out against one another within a best-of-three single elimination cut-throat format.
Since the landscape and skill hierarchy of the professional scene back in summer 2007 was widely different from early 2009 to 2011, when the Winner's League became the go-to tournament to test players on their ability to perform without hardcore specific preparation, it is difficult to draw any solid conclusions.
HiyA stands out as a player who performed above expectations in both 2007 Seoul e-Sports Festival, and the three seasons of the Winner's League. He was known for his carefree attitude, crisp FPVODs, and insanely high eAPM numbers. In terms of raw execution, as displayed by his clean as fuck SK Terran abilities, HiyA was one of the most talented terran players of his generation in my opinion.
Both Flash and Jaedong had such a wide spectrum of great results and performances regardless of the nature of the competition (after they matured as competitors), that I have very little doubt that they would have excelled whatever the circumstances may have been, and I think Bisu, especially after his move to SK Telecom T1, benefited more from a lack of specific preparation, which kind of explains the lackluster results he had for the individual leagues towards the latter half of his professional career.
I don't know whether Light would have been one of the greats, if the professional Brood War scene consisted entirely of three day LAN tournaments, but I do have the suspicion that he might have done better than the likes of FanTaSy, who I believe did better with given an ample time to prepare for specific opponents in mind.
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EPT
