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Most people argue that the reason for the lack of Bonjwas is because the skill level has just risen so much that it doesn't allow for Bonjwas to appear, and that the top players just have too much competition. Its undeniable that average skill level has been on the rise.
I disagree, as it seems as if the top players wouldn't be bonjwa, even in an earlier era.
Edit: The argument below is not saying that sklil hasn't risen, as it obviously has, it's about the idea that skill rising doesn't mean that bonjwas aren't possible. More so that top gamers are being silly. This isn't saying that ma bonjwa > flash now, but merely that the argument that "bonjwa no longer possible" doesn't hold that much water.
And here are a few points to back it up.
1) sAviOr vs Flash (the Bo7 from a long time ago), demonstrating that bonjwa-like skill can still show up to rape an incredibly talented player of the modern era.
Slumping Savior vs Hwaiting Flash. And yet, sAviOr defeats him, showing some old form, in the first three games pretty handily, despite the fact that Flash is practically the representative of the skill in that era, as Flash is still on his bonjwa quest at the time. Despite the skill going up, Skill reminscent of Ma Bonjwa can still provide some epic rape agaist the rising skill of the newer generation (represented by By.Flash), and thus "higher general skill" cannot fully account for the lack of bonjwas. I know it wasn't an important tournament, but still.
2) Jaedong vs Sunny. This game demonstrates that top players are just making too many mistakes to be bonjwa, as opposed to blaming a rising skill level.
Skill might've gone up, but there is no way in hell Sunny's has (sunny has won a total of one televised game since 2005). And yet, Jaedong won by the skin of his teeth, as it was way too close for a gamer of Jaedong's touted caliber vs one of sunny's caliber. Worse yet, Sunny didn't have an early or mid-game advantage at all at any point in the game, and made many silly errors throughout the game. This isn't entirely an isolated occurance either; in ZvT's that have progressed beyond the midgame, Jaedong's control just hasn't been on the ball, and thus we must acknowledge that the rising skill of the average gamer cannot entirely account for a lack of Bonjwas.
3) Jangbi vs Nal_Keke. This game further shows that the losses aren't entirely due to skill rising, but big name players failing to be consistent. (needs no more explanation)
Nal_Keke now I'm almost sure would lose to a upper-level A gamer of the sAviOr era, and yet Jangbi gets smashed. Isolated occurance? Maybe, but it's happening with alarming frequency.
4) Reach and Anytime are actually doing something in the WL. This implies that skill can't have really risen *that* much.
I'll make a few assumptions.
Reach and Anytime in airforce <<<<<<< reach and anytime in their day, due both to age (reach is 26), ACE forcing less practice, etc.
Reach and anytime now are actually doing pretty damned well in the WL (Reach is 50 percentish and anytime is more than that). This shows that even in their age wayyyy beyond their primes, they're like an average A-class gamer (okay, maybe a little less). Reach is coming back from almost two years of not playing, and can still hang in there with the gamers of the era, meaning that skill ceilings can't have risen that much.
5) The fact that leta is 1 on the February PR. This shows that the top gamers are just being too silly against lower level gamers.
He was one on the PR for playing solidly against lesser players, and also for destroying luxury. This is all fine and dandy, until you realize that this means the other top gamers just haven't been playing solidly consistently for over a course of many months against lesser players, which means that its more the top gamers' silly mistakes that make them not-Bonjwa.
Discuss?
 
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On March 01 2009 13:43 SerpentFlame wrote:
4) Reach and Anytime are actually doing something in the WL. This implies that skill can't have really risen *that* much.
I'll make a few assumptions.
Reach and Anytime in airforce <<<<<<< reach and anytime in their day, due both to age (reach is 26), ACE forcing less practice, etc.
Reach and anytime now are actually doing pretty damned well in the WL (Reach is 50 percentish and anytime is more than that). This shows that even in their age wayyyy beyond their primes, they're like an average A-class gamer (okay, maybe a little less). Reach is coming back from almost two years of not playing, and can still hang in there with the gamers of the era, meaning that skill ceilings can't have risen that much.
I highly doubt this as even sAviOr has said that he's better now than he was back in his "bonjwa days". I'm sure that Reach and Anytime are a lot better now than they were back when they won their OSLs.
Also, who says that Reach stopped playing for two years?
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Oops, sorry, that should say two years of televised 1v1s
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Also sAviOr might be better than he was in the day, (I personally doubt this, but he said so himself) but a lot of people are claiming that Bonjwas are no longer possible in this time and day, which is what the argument above is about.
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United States47024 Posts
On March 01 2009 13:43 SerpentFlame wrote:This is all fine and dandy, until you realize that this means the other top gamers just haven't been playing solidly consistently for over a course of many months against lesser players, which means that its more the top gamers' silly mistakes that make them not-Bonjwa.
You act like previous bonjwas played perfect games all the time, which is NOT the case. Hell, with the exception of a few games by Savior, MOST games by bonjwas-past would be considered sloppy in this day and age. The reason there can't be any more bonjwas is that average progamer skill is so high that anything LESS than perfect play all the time won't hold the level of dominance needed to be considered bonjwa. Past bonjwas like Oov and Nada had their fair share of sloppy games in their time. They just never stood out because their opponents were so much below their level that they could afford those mistakes. Nowadays, even a less-than-stellar player like Sunny or Nal_keke can take advantage of a mistake made by an S-class progamer.
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On March 01 2009 13:52 SerpentFlame wrote:
Also sAviOr might be better than he was in the day, (I personally doubt this, but he said so himself) but a lot of people are claiming that Bonjwas are no longer possible in this time and day, which is what the argument above is about.
What? That's exactly it. If sAviOr is better than he was in the day and yet he's not dominating like a bonjwa should right now then obviously the skill level has risen.
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At the above I'm not trying to say the skill level hasn't risen. It obviously has. I'm trying to argue that the skill level rising doesn't preclude bonjwas from reasonably appearing.
At theYango, there is no way in heck sunny has gotten better since he's 1) in ace 2) he sucks as progamers go 3) he's lost every game he's played pretty much.
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United States47024 Posts
On March 01 2009 14:02 SerpentFlame wrote:
At theYango, there is no way in heck sunny has gotten better since he's 1) in ace 2) he sucks as progamers go 3) he's lost every game he's played pretty much.
That says nothing about whether or not he's improved. If every other progamer he's played has improved (which is not a forgone conclusion), then he could still be losing every game and improving, just not faster than anyone else.
You're picking out a single point from everything I wrote there, not to mention you missed the main point. Bonjwas-past weren't perfect. The difference was they could afford to be. Bonjwas aren't made by how badly they dominate crappy players, but how badly they dominate the next-best. Oov and Savior both dominated the "S-class" players of their time, even though they were the next best. Nowadays, we have Bisu, Jangbi, Flash, Jaedong, and Leta, all playing at an amazing, similar skill level, and none of them dominating the other 4 in especially convincing form. How high would the skill level have to be for a player to differentiate themselves from that bunch? They'd have to play perfect games ALL THE TIME, which, if not impossible, is highly improbable. No player has played perfect games even CLOSE to as often as would be needed to be a bonjwa among those gamers, not even bonjwas-past.
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On March 01 2009 14:08 d(O.o)a wrote:
Bisu.
I hope so
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After reading your post, I get that you're trying to say that the rising skill isn't why there are no bonjwas, but I can't find what you think the reason is. You mentioned top gamers' silly mistakes, but I'm pretty sure that would count against their skill. The old bonjwas certainly made silly mistakes in games as well, yet that didn't stop them, so...
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On March 01 2009 14:08 d(O.o)a wrote:
Bisu.
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TheYango's argument wins my vote. I also think that the increased amount of games make it very hard to dominate for long periods of time (like for months and months which seems to be a criterion for bonjwa status). But definitely the higher level of an average progamer nowadays is what has made it so hard to be considered bonjwa today.
I really could care less if Bisu is considered one, as long as he continues to post consistent results. Maybe they'll come up with a new nickname for his path ^^
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The biggest reason why there isn't a proeminent player that actually dominates every league is because of the game schedule.Players like Jaedong , Flash, Bisu, Stork etc that happen to qualify in individual leagues too have a very tight schedule. And besides the fact they need to prepare for their individual games, their teams rely on them to win. We've seen Flash send it at 0-3 or 1-3 or other big players being sent in the very last moment and everyone expects them to win.
One of the thing I noticed has changed in the interviews is that players have another idea about practive. 1-2 years ago all I heard in interviews was "I'm going to practive hard for the match with X or "I practived very hard". Nowadays I see the famous " To be honest, I didn't have time to practice that much" in a lot of interviews from S-class progamers.
And of course, we have the skill level. The game is constantly evolving, that's what makes it beautifull. If you check a game VOD 2 years old and a recent one you will notice huge differences. If in oov's age, his macro was monstrous, most progamers now can keep up that macro in our days. Most can even display the multitasking that made Nada famous and the sence of timing that made savior stay at the top for so long.
As the game evolves and everyone DOES get better, it gets harder and harder to inovate, surprise and be a step ahead of everyone. If we're talking about improving their mechanics, they're already practicing 10+ hours a day like robots.
And of course top players make mistakes,but I'm inclined to say it's because of their schedule. You can't expect them to be playing in a perfect manner everytime.
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Well, SC has a strong physical sport-like aspect to it, and in every sport that's being played competitively there are things happening which aren't expected, e.g.:
- The better player having a good day, the worse one a bad day => skill level even for this game, or maybe even the worse one being in a better position
- Attention mistakes. Huge deal in SC where seconds, or even fractions of a second matter. You can't play perfectly, and you can't be everywhere at the same time - so you will miss some things, or react too late to others, and that can really fuck you up. Even though pros miss almost nothing and have near-perfect reaction, it's never perfect and can never be.
- The skill level has risen so high that build gambles also matter much. Every player is EITHER rushing or going all-in, which is almost always a gamble of course, OR if he wants to play straight-up macro then he will be trying to maximize his economy, often leading to strange choices like not getting enough cannons vs. a hydra break or something like this - basically, trying to cut corners all the time in order to gain the maximum mid and late game economic advantage - this can often lead to early game losses (we see many games which last only around 8-10th minutes - anyone ever asked himself why this even happens? All players should be way too skilled to lose so early on!).
Example recent game UpMagic vs. Savior where Savior won with a 5pool (or was it 9pool? In any case it was pool before hatch) - there was no way in hell UpMagic's build was able to deal with a pool before hatch build. It was a total gamble, and UpMagic is a fucking progamer. He would have lost against any TL member going 5pool in that game with that build order. I'm dead serious. He was gambling for getting a great eco build, and if Savior hadn't gone for his rush then we spectators probably wouldn't even have realized that UpMagic's build was really stupid because he would have had great economy. But that's just the problem - pros gamble way too much. They are afraid of losing, they are desperately trying to gain an advantage, which can lead to *really* stupid losses in early game.
- Training matters a lot, because pros need to get their hands warm. Just observe the many all-kills several players do currently in the Proleague. Even bad players manage to get all-kills. Why are they able to do that? Well, I'd argue that, apart from the points above which could always be a reason, the fact that they have played a lot just minutes ago makes them a little bit stronger (more warmed-up) for the next game, while the opponent is a new one who hasn't been playing right before and is thus not warmed up yet.
So basically if there's a match up ahead which features good player vs. bad player, and the good player is being arrogant or busy and can't play a lot before, and the bad one does, then the bad one will be in a better position than he should theoretically be (leading to an upset of course).
Hmm yea there's probably more, but these are definite possibilities of why good players can't win every game. It's always a question of probability... everyone would love to see their favorite player or "bonjwa" rape the shit out of every lesser player, but that can't happen... I'd say even bonjwa level players only have a 70% winning chance, max. 80% against a much worse player, and max. 60% against a "bonjwa competitor". Sure the numbers are made up but I'm just trying to get my point across - that it is impossible to win all games, even vs. much worse players. Stupid losses just happen, in any sport.
edit: I should add that I mean in any OVERPLAYED sport, i.e. a sport that's been played for so long with so many skilled players competing against each other, with players trying as hard as they possibly can, where there's almost no room anymore for a "bonjwa" to distinguish himself from the next best.
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Valhalla18444 Posts
You are correct OP, there is no bonjwa
Top players are fighting against each other constantly, and they are all so good that preparation against another top player must take precedence. This results in losing more games than "should" be lost against lower-tier players. At the end of the day, there's a reason why 65% is a savage win percentage. A bonjwa must be a head and shoulders above everyone else, and right now it just isn't so.
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Valhalla18444 Posts
I must say, though, that you misread the jaedong/sunny game pretty harshly and that reach/anytime are playing MUCH better than they were two years ago.
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I think today's starcraft is unhealthy.
It should be forbidden to make underage teenagers sit for years playing 16 hours a week.
Was different before. Think about it, "bonjwas" are prolly the most gifted, but surely they're the ones that practiced the more.
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EPT
