Working collectively and collaboratively is the difference between mediocrity by yourself...or success as a team.- Michael Bloomberg When you think of a team, you think of its stars. You think Jaedong for Hwaseung, Zero for Woongjin, Flash for KT, and Bisu for SK. That element of a team, their ace, their star, their giant, is their most obvious aspect. He's the man who brings home Starleagues, barely scraped a win for his teammates in the 5th set, the man who brings fans from the team and makes haters cry when he crushes their most beloved progamer.
This round, we've seen the death of the one man team. Hwaseung OZ in particular has been in a lot of trouble for their lack of depth. They've been able to occasionally take things to ace, where Jaedong can take a win, but against stronger and deep teams, 3-1 losses are almost inevitable.
That's why what Coach Cho is doing is so smart. He's building a foundation. Playing Killer and Perfectman in hopes of creating a team capable of supporting their star player. Forget about the FA business, in the long run it's going to help Hwaseung more than it hurts them. If they have to toss a season, so be it.
Experience matters. A player who dominates in practice doesn't immediately transfer that over to TV games. Flash was tearing things up in practice as early as his days on Pantech & Curel, well before he had done anything substantial as a televised gamer.
JangBi was well known as "Samsung's best player" before he had showed any evidence of that. As he gained experience in televised matches, he soon began to show his excellent play in the practice house on the e-sports stage.
A nurturing mother
Samsung is in an unfortunate position. Stork is the only player performing well. They went from one of the strongest rosters in the league (Think Jangbi/Stork/firebathero/great isn't imba? Think again) to one of the weakest. However, January is smarter than she may seem. She continues to play firebathero and Jangbi, she knows whatever funk they're in will subside. Great continues to put up moderate results and with a new and improved Stork, they at least have a protoss/zerg one-two punch to take it to ace.
Jangbi and firebathero need to become comfortable with playing on television once more and restore their confidence. Samsung has a broken foundation but it's being repaired. Hwaseung doesn't have a foundation. Coach Cho is desperately trying to build one (losing Anytime hurt) from their youngest players. 1-2 seasons from now, his work will show. People will look back and say "Oh. He was smart to play Killer in the ace match all those times."
Just look at the difference between KT now and before. Sure, Flash and Luxury were always capable of pulling off wins. However, with the depth of Violet, Stats, and an improved 815, KT are just dominating their opponents. Firefist and Tempest are even winning their matches.
Depth is important because you can't always predict whats going to happen. You can expect Jaedong to muscle his way through most players but what happens when someone prepares a genius snipe for him (see sKyHigh versus Jaedong on Destination) or he falls into a slump?
Even without Flash, KT can pull out the win. Violet has great PvT/PvP, Luxury is still doing some amazing things in Proleague, 815 looks fantastic in ZvZ, Stats is a capable player. If Flash is sniped, it's not all over. Violet won his ace match against Mind after being thrust into an unfavorable position. SKT1 (the so-called masters of the universe) failed against Rolster, even with Flash losing his set.
Deceivingly cute
Woongjin began posting good results as soon as Free and Kwanro started playing back in form. Even with a proleague monster like ZerO, they lacked the critical foundation that a good proleague team needs.
In fact, look at all of the top teams. WeMade have an incredible roster despite not having a single player who is very dominant. Mind/Midas/BaBy are a scary terran trio. BaBy is inconsistent but is improving fast. Mind and Midas are proven terrans who can consistently pull their weight in Proleague. Shine and RorO head up a pretty good zerg line, able to take games off even big names like Bisu. LuCifer/Pure aren't a Protoss line to laugh at. Pure qualified for the OSL this season and has shown some very very convincing PvT play. LuCifer won his first game of the season and is starting to find himself placed on the roster more and more. If you have a player, WeMade has a solid response. While they probably dont have a player who can beat Jaedong, Flash, or Stork, guess what happens in the other 3 matches?
That's why you need a foundation. That's why Hwaseung needs to build one. That's why KT is dominating. It takes a lot to support a star.
Agreed with Avidkeystamper, alot of your article really belong in Broodwar. Nice banner, I love all the articles you've written recently, and you're so verbose lately, its really great.
WeMade have an incredible roster despite having a single player who is very dominant
despite not having imo
nehhhhh I mean this article addresses the correct points but I think the examples you used don't really check out.
Take Hwaseung for example: of course they're not playing well, not only because they don't have a foundation, but also because they just don't really have anybody other than Jaedong. If they had 1-2 other S-class players and yet were still faltering, then yes I would say they were losing because they don't have a foundation. Also, using Samsung as an example of a team that's going to rebound is something I have to disagree with. Firebathero is way over the hill imo, Stork is 22, Jangbi might have 1-2 resurgences left in him, great can pull his weight, and that's it for their team.
I think the best example (which I didn't see here) would be STX. They have stars for each race, but they also have plenty of mid-level players that could be more defined as 'foundation'
Right now KT is the perfect mixture of having a nice selection of mid-level players (Firefist, Tempest, 815, Stats), a couple A-class players who can take games off the best (Violet and Luxury), and an unstoppable ace. This is the strongest they've been since the days of Nal_rA/Reach/YellOw.
Very nice write up. The problem that faces the coaches of teams in the proleague is the same as the one that most high school and college coaches face. They want give experience to promising youngsters while still maintaining a winning record, which is hard to do.
WeMade have an incredible roster despite having a single player who is very dominant
despite not having imo
nehhhhh I mean this article addresses the correct points but I think the examples you used don't really check out.
Take Hwaseung for example: of course they're not playing well, not only because they don't have a foundation, but also because they just don't really have anybody other than Jaedong. If they had 1-2 other S-class players and yet were still faltering, then yes I would say they were losing because they don't have a foundation. Also, using Samsung as an example of a team that's going to rebound is something I have to disagree with. Firebathero is way over the hill imo, Stork is 22, Jangbi might have 1-2 resurgences left in him, great can pull his weight, and that's it for their team.
I think the best example (which I didn't see here) would be STX. They have stars for each race, but they also have plenty of mid-level players that could be more defined as 'foundation'
having 3 s-class players is more than a foundation
I think the big complaint with Hwasung is that they should wait till the perspective ace can win non-ace games before sending them out into ace matchs. Estro tried, Hwasung's current strategy, with Puma and look where that got him.
If you don't know who Puma is you got my point exactly.
i dont see how playing killer and perfectman for ace would "improve" them in any way. maybe it'll give them ACE match experience, but it could also hurt their confidence because they let their team down when it mattered most, and they're still relatively inexperienced, so they might not shake it off so easily.
I see where hwaseung is going with their attempts, but wswordsmen is totally right. There's no point in sending out your non-ace players in ace matches to give them experience if they can't even win their regular matches (which is usually why the series needed to play out the ace match in the first place).
I think that sending them out for ace and having them fail there is even worse, because your team was counting on you and you let them down. It's more mentally damaging than a regular loss for sure.
Furthermore, this strategy has been employed before by some of the best coaches in the business. Particularly, Coach Ha of MBC (then Pirates of Space) in 2005. POS where one game away from making the playoffs, literally, and instead of playing Pusan or July who would have pretty much guaranteed victory for the team, the played Sea in the Ace match. This isn't Sea the beast we know and love, but rather Sea the inexperienced 15 year old gamer - and he was put out in the most important game of the entire season for POS. What happened? Sea lost. And POS did not make the playoffs.
Why would Coach Ha voluntarily sacrifice an entire season for this stunt? Well firstly, whats the point of going to the post season if your team doesn't have the depth to be competitive? Back then Pusan and July were all that was holding the team together, with no support from other games, there was no way they could win a best of seven. And secondly, it developed character in Sea and gave him invaluable experience. Indeed, a year later in the 2006 Proleague Grand Finals between MBC and SKT, the score was tied 3-3. Who did MBC turn to? They turned to Sea, and he defeated GoRush - winning MBC the title. The excellent foresight of Coach Ha to play Sea a year earlier resulted in MBC winning the big prize a year later. Hwaseung is employing the same strategy now. So despite the frustration it brings to the fans, this is a necessary move to make for Hwaseung's success.- Backseat BW Vol.3
It's really nice to see that KT is one of the teams that's really worked on its depth. Violet, for the longest while, seemed like a nothing playing who did nothing but disappoint (despite obvious potential), and now he's become a viable ace player for the team. 815's been a solid go to guy for a few wins for quite some time. Luxury's purchase is finally paying off and Stats and Firefist seemed to start playing well out of nowhere.
All KT needs is for Forgg to find a bit of inspiration and they could easily be the force they were in the heydays.
I love the point your making of teams not constantly playing only their best. I was thinking of doing a write up w/ something along those lines, you've done an awesome job!
Doctor, I agree with the general concept, but I disagree with the Hwaseung part - the way to build a deeper lineup is not to repeatedly send a player (Killer) into a situation he's clearly not ready for (Ace matches against S-class gamers). All you're doing there is breaking him down, not building him up. If we were talking about CJ sending Movie out when Iris or EffOrt or sKyHigh would otherwise be a better choice, I could see it - not only is MovieCJ's best Protoss, he's clearly ready for that experience. Ditto for SKT using Hyuk instead of Bisu or BeSt or fantasy or Canata - they need to work on their zerg lineup, and Hyuk is ready for it.
Hell, I'd even understand if we were talking about OZ sending out PerfectMan or HiyA to ACE instead of Jaedong. Both of them need experience, and Hwaseung needs them to have experience - screw BackHo, he sucks - but Killer? Seriously? Unless they know for a fact that Jaedong will leave soon, this strikes me as completely moronic. Even then, I think trading for, say, 815 or Orion or some other zerg who's at least mediocre would be better than sending Killer out over and over again. He's not even just inexperienced, he's just plain bad, and throwing an entire round of proleague won't change that.
And seriously, even if they did have a competent, non-Jaedong zerg, they'd be right to send out Jaedong in nearly every ace match. He is their best player, and the team needs him. If he needs a less busy schedule, fine, send BackHo (even though I hate him) or HiyA to give him a rest in one or two matches, but dear god, don't send Killer. His ELO has dropped to the point that he's barely ahead of n.Die_soO, and I don't think we'll be seeing him in ace matches any time soon...
Experience in the spotlight maybe have been what brought back Midas. Although the normal player is able to show only 70-85% of skill on stage, Midas might be able to reveal the crucial last 10-15% because of his previous SKT1 experience.
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