EPTI’ve decided to rank the top ten players by their number of victories in three of the most important competitions today. The lists are interesting, but I acknowledge that it does not measure a player’s “greatness” accurately (no method of “measuring” can fully capture a player’s greatness in my opinion).
Ongamenet Starleague
1. Boxer: 83 wins 49 losses 62.9%
2. Yellow: 77 wins 57 losses 57.5%
3. July: 73 wins 56 losses 56.6%
4. Nada: 66 wins 48 losses 57.9%
5. Reach: 56 wins 50 losses 52.8%
6. Oov: 49 wins 36 losses 57.7%
7. Iris: 46 wins 36 losses 56.1
8. Stork: 44 wins 36 losses 55.0%
9. Xellos: 43 wins 34 losses 55.8%
10. Goodfriend: 38 wins 36 losses 51.4%
The OSL represents the overall performance of a certain player over the years better than any other competition because of its longevity. I’ve decided to not include any tournaments without offline qualifiers such as the Kings of Kings or the Shinhan Masters (which I regard as invitational tournaments). I only counted leagues that were open to all progamers. I’m not sure exactly how the earliest OGN leagues were run, but it matters little since no gamer who played in those leagues managed to get in the list.
Although the OGN leagues tended to stay more or less the same over years, there have been multiple factors that changed the numbers such as some leagues being extended to the round of 24, or round of 36, the inclusion of wildcard play-offs, the inclusion of seed deciding matches after elimination from the tournament and rematches in the round of 16. Perhaps I should have gotten rid of seed deciding matches after elimination and count games involving the final 16 only for consistency’s sake, but it would have taken way too much time to do that.
From the list, we can assume where the idea for the original “Four Kings” (Boxer, Yellow, Nada and Reach) came from. July, Oov and Goodfriend, - the so called “Gillette generation” - have done an incredible job of catching up, especially July.
Iris and Xellos, the terrans that have no “tags” attatched to them, have done well in OGN leagues, although Iris’ numbers were inflated slightly by his seed deciding matches in Shinhan OSL S2 and his round of 36 matches in Incruit OSL.
Stork is the only member of the “TaekBengLeeSsang” (Bisu, Stork, Flash and Jaedong) that is in the top 10. It makes sense because his debut in the OGN leagues was the So1 OSL (late 2005), compared to Shinhan OSL S2 (late 2006) for Bisu, Daum OSL (early 2007) for Flash, and Ever OSL (late 2007) for Jaedong.
KPGA + MBC Game Starleague
1. Nada: 94 wins 67 losses 58.4%
2. Savior: 74 wins 41 losses 64.3%
3. Nal Ra: 69 wins 45 losses 60.5%
4. Chojja: 68 wins 52 losses 56.7%
5. Oov: 63 wins 41 losses 60.6%
6. Bisu: 50 wins 23 losses 68.5%
7. Xellos: 49 wins 48 losses 50.5%
8. Boxer: 45 wins 37 losses 54.9%
9. Go Rush: 34 wins 22 losses 60.7%
10. Reach: 34 wins 32 losses 51.5%
MBC Game leagues have changed so much over the years in terms of format and prestige as a “major” competition, I was tempted to include the MSL leagues only, but since it would have been a total pain to arrange the numbers by myself, I’ve included the first four KPGA leagues.
I must mention though, that the first KPGA league was an invitational tournament, that the earlier leagues had overlapping schedule with OGN leagues, that the format for most leagues were double elimination instead of the single elimination we see today, that Stout MSL finals only had two games because of winner’s brackets’ advantage while YATGK MSL finals was a BO7, and of course, like OGN we have some leagues that include 16 members, and some leagues that have 32 like today. It’s just impossible to make the statistics in anyway consistent with the MBC Game leagues.
Again, I’ve decided to not include KTEC Winner’s KPGA since it’s an invitational (although why MBC Game decides to count the 1st KPGA as an official MBC league while ignoring Winner’s KPGA is beyond me), and the multitude of monthly leagues that took place before the incarnation of the 1st KPGA league.
So this list, in my opinion, is a slightly off list of how players have done since the 2002 season, the season that saw the end of Boxer’s domination and the rise of Nada. As expected, Nada (who performed better in MBC Game leagues anyhow) really shows his domination. Savior, the best player in MBC Game leagues since the creation of MSL have done a pretty good job of catching up, but still has quite some way to go, especially since Nada is still in the running for this season’s MSL. Nal Ra and Oov, who ended Nada’s one man party in MBC Game leagues, proudly gets in the top 5. Chojja, who had to play the supporting cast all the way back from Nada’s best days to Savior’s (his one MSL triumph “ruining” Savior’s domination), have quietly accumulated massive number of victories, and plays the part of Yellow of the MBC Game leagues.
Bisu, the most successful man in MBC Game leagues since Savior, sits at number 6 amongst a whole list of gamers whose careers stretch back way more than his. In fact, Bisu is the only gamer on the two lists (OGN or MBC Game leagues) that made his debut after 2005.
Xellos quietly makes the spot, and as the only terran who makes it to both lists apart from the holy triumvirate of Boxer, Nada and Oov, one can see why some Xellos fans tried to make the tag “three great terrans” into the “four great terrans”.
The second generation of the “Four Kings” tended to do better in MBC Game leagues, and Go Rush is no exception (July is however).
Boxer and Reach make it to save face for the original “Four Kings”, while Yellow narrowly misses out.
Proleague (1v1 matches only)
1. Jaedong: 88 wins 39 losses 69.3%
2. Stork: 76 wins 50 losses 60.3%
3. Nada: 75 wins 59 losses 56.0%
4. Free: 71 wins 51 losses 58.2%
5. Anytime: 70 wins 54 losses 56.5%
6. Sea: 68 wins 35 losses 66.0%
7. Flash: 67 wins 28 losses 70.5%
8. Luxury: 63 wins 37 losses 63.0%
9. Midas: 57 wins 35 losses 62.6%
10. Iris: 55 wins 35 losses 61.1%
Proleague + Post Season (1v1 matches only)
1. Jaedong: 91 wins 40 losses 69.5%
2. Stork: 81 wins 53 losses 60.4%
3. Nada: 77 wins 60 losses 56.2%
4. Sea: 76 wins 37 losses 67.3%
5. Anytime: 73 wins 57 losses 56.2%
6. Free: 72 wins 52 losses 58.1%
7. Flash: 67 wins 28 losses 70.5%
8. Luxury: 65 wins 38 losses 63.1%
9. Midas: 63 wins 36 losses 63.6%
10. Pusan: 59 wins 39 losses 60.2%
If the rankings of the individual leagues are a hall of fame for the past greats, the Proleague is the one competition where current players can kick the “older” players’ ass. It’s not just what you see on television, the newer generation of players outperforming older players really can be showcased on paper as well.
The Proleague is the least consistent, not to mention having the shortest history out of the three “major” competitions that fill up the schedule. If I’m not mistaken, the first Proleagues were run solely by OGN, while MBC Games had their now extinct Team Leagues. What with the consistently changing number of rounds, the inclusion and the exclusion of 2v2 matches, the current 5 day schedule versus the 3 day schedule and a whole lot of constantly changing formats, it’s next to impossible to accurately judge a player’s overall career by toying with Proleague statistics.
The one thing we can be clear about, is which players have done the best since the increase in emphasis of team based matches (we all know from progamers’ interviews that most of their practice time nowadays is spent in preparation for the Proleague), both in terms of increase in the number of games, and the importance of the games in general. If the individual leagues goes to show you the overall performance of different players over the years, the Proleague will do the same for the period after season 2003, the season that began with Nada’s domination which later got ended by the hands of Nal Ra and Oov, except that it is skewed very heavily for the post-Savior generation.
Jaedong, Stork and Sea represent the Proleague monsters the best. Nada is there because he can’t be excluded from any list that involves statistics because he has been performing well in all stages of competitions for so long now. I believe if the 5 day schedule was introduced earlier, Nada would be at the top of the list since he was the ace player of his team for such a long time. It’s a shame to see him do poorly (relatively speaking of course) in the Proleague after it became so important in the progaming scene.
Anytime and Free also have very high number of wins within a short period of time, suggesting a protoss friendly environment the Proleague has created (compared to the individual leagues over the years).
Flash is the only player on the list to have his games purely composed of the “5 days a week” Proleague games, which is amazing since he only needed about 2 years of participating in the Proleague to catch up to the past greats. It certainly would have been impossible had the number of Proleague games not increase so drastically in recent years though.
The list also shows why many consider Luxury to be the second zerg in command after Jaedong. While Midas sticks in there mainly by his awesome Proleague performances back in the days when SKT1 creamed everyone else, his numbers certainly would have raised had he played that good more recently.
Pusan, perhaps the most underrated protoss of all time, gets in the list if we include the post season matches, showing us that Sea isn’t the only reason why MBC Game have been a powerhouse (though sadly it’s not the case anymore) in the Proleague over the years.
Summary:
Nada is in the top four in all four lists. He is the greatest player statically no matter which way you cut it (though Oov does wow you more if we take short segments of time). Stork is probably the protoss version of a slightly nerfed Nada (except that he is likes silver): a consistent player in all stages of the game. Although I take caution in saying that since Stork has only flourished since the incarnation of the 5 day Proleague hence, while Nada is the one who truly did great in all competitions (Kespa officiated or otherwise) and just happen to have done well overall in these three competitions that have stood the test of time.
We can see how OGN leagues standing will probably be less changed than any other rankings we see since you really can’t “mass” games within a few seasons even if you include games from the round of 36, and perhaps why some people hesitate in saying that Nada is the greatest one of them all (though I personally think so) because no surviving competition apart from the OGN leagues were played back in the days when Boxer ruled supreme. So in way, OGN is the only competition that can be used to “judge” a player’s overall greatness as a progamer, unless you want to start using WCG (which only has longevity on its side).
The MBC Game league standings are dominated by older players also, but they tend to be more recent in comparison with OGN league standings. The MBC Game leagues being formed later than the OGN probably plays quite a role here.
If the OGN leagues are dominated by the original “Four Kings”, the MBC Game leagues standings is a better showcase for the second generation of the “Four Kings”. Of course you will have certain players sticking out since they perform particularly well in one league or some that just do well in all competitions regardless of the situation.
Then we have the Proleague standings that are dominated by the current quartet of “TaekBengLeeSsang”. The interesting point to see here is that Bisu, perhaps the most noticeable player out of the four, couldn’t break into the top 10 (he was joint 18th). This makes me wonder if Bisu isn’t particularly suited to the current format the progaming scene has. Is Bisu more at home back in the days when he was battling with Savior and Nal Ra in the MSL, rather than having to compete in the current system with “LeeSsang” racking up their victories day after the next in endless streams of Proleague matches?
I think Bisu would have been “bonjwa” had the progaming scene not focus so heavily on the Proleague. His multitude of trophies and BO5 mastery are so in contrast to his Proleague performances where he seems so… mortal. I mean, even when he got to his third MSL final in row, the best protoss for his team was Pusan, not himself.
Then we have Flash and Jaedong, though simply monstrous in the Proleague, haven’t had the same level of consistent excellence Bisu showed in individual leagues. It’s quite funny how Flash would have broken into top 10 for the OGN leagues if he did great this season, but crashed out, and how Jaedong would have broken into the top 10 for the MBC Game leagues if he did great, but crashed out also.
