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Who were/are the best foreign sc1 players? - Page 11

Forum Index > BW General
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Liquid`Ret
Profile Blog Joined October 2002
Netherlands4511 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-11-14 12:06:31
November 14 2017 11:32 GMT
#201
the level of play now is not higher than it was in the years leading up to SC2. I'm a lot older now and I only played sc1 for a few months after 8 years away from the game. I have found it relatively easy to compete with any of the players that are 'the best' now (and I've played all of them - even if it was just ladder).

Meta and game did evolve and progress a huge amount so people playing now would probably win all tours if they went back in time, but player skills were probably higher during a time that competition was higher and there were a lot more people playing & competing intensely outside of kr.

The only person that stands out as a truely exceptional player & all-time great is sziky in my opinion. For consistency and total domination in the years after sc2 came out.

The other players like bonyth, eon, trutacz, notforu. They are very strong players no doubt. They would most likely be highly competitive and do quite well back in the days. But I don't think they would dominate or make a push for the best of all time. First a player would have to dominate currently, and that is not happening as of yet. Only when someone is head & shoulders above everyone else could an argument be made for the best of all time.
Team Liquid
[sc1f]eonzerg
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Belgium6565 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-11-14 11:54:10
November 14 2017 11:41 GMT
#202
sicklucker
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
Canada16987 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-11-14 12:19:34
November 14 2017 12:15 GMT
#203
koll? koll? maybe he was good for like a month but best all time? not top 50
Qikz
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
United Kingdom12022 Posts
November 14 2017 12:17 GMT
#204
On November 14 2017 20:41 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:


Did you mean to post without any text? o_o
FanTaSy's #1 Fan | STPL Caster/Organiser | SKT BEST KT | https://twitch.tv/stpl
sicklucker
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
Canada16987 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-11-14 12:24:25
November 14 2017 12:18 GMT
#205
On November 14 2017 17:42 CrymeaTerran wrote:
Idra is just bad because of his mindset, good mechanical skills but jesus his mindsetting


I once dt rushed idra first round of a big tourney (offracesort of). It was bo3 he didnt even bother to play the second match. I went on to win it eZ

He was probably at his peak could have easily 2-0ed me but that was idras mindset but we sort of all know that
sicklucker
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
Canada16987 Posts
November 14 2017 12:18 GMT
#206
On November 14 2017 21:17 Qikz wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 14 2017 20:41 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:


Did you mean to post without any text? o_o


im sure he edited out his rage :D
ajmbek
Profile Joined November 2008
Italy460 Posts
November 14 2017 12:25 GMT
#207
On November 14 2017 20:32 Liquid`Ret wrote:
the level of play now is not higher than it was in the years leading up to SC2. I'm a lot older now and I only played sc1 for a few months after 8 years away from the game. I have found it relatively easy to compete with any of the players that are 'the best' now (and I've played all of them - even if it was just ladder).

Meta and game did evolve and progress a huge amount so people playing now would probably win all tours if they went back in time, but player skills were probably higher during a time that competition was higher and there were a lot more people playing & competing intensely outside of kr.

The only person that stands out as a truely exceptional player & all-time great is sziky in my opinion. For consistency and total domination in the years after sc2 came out.

The other players like bonyth, eon, trutacz, notforu. They are very strong players no doubt. They would most likely be highly competitive and do quite well back in the days. But I don't think they would dominate or make a push for the best of all time. First a player would have to dominate currently, and that is not happening as of yet. Only when someone is head & shoulders above everyone else could an argument be made for the best of all time.


I am really happy you said that. I also think that the skill was higher back then in 2008-2011 than now.
Sic iter ad astra
sicklucker
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
Canada16987 Posts
November 14 2017 12:31 GMT
#208
the one thing thats different now tho that ret left out.

Back in the day there was barely any tourneys where the top players played. Tourneys where top players would all play were rare if not existence out of tl ran tourneys. There was no money not even crack change like there is today. Best players would play mostly friends and just weekly clan wars only so no one really knew who the best players were as easily as they do today and as a half decent player back in the day people were alot more wrong about who was good back then since there was small sample sizes of games played.

Now you have like 4 50-100$ tourneys a week that all the best players pretty much always play and its the same guys always in the top 6 even if no ones dominating.

So were pretty sure those players are the best now but are we really sure a player like koll was really the best over a really small sample size where he won one tourney? (poor koll hes just my example)
sicklucker
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
Canada16987 Posts
November 14 2017 12:35 GMT
#209
the majority of players are way better mechanically now tho. The avg apm has almost doubled. you can thank tools like justin tv and twitch for that. Everyone sees eonzerg spamming 500 apm daily and try to emulate you didnt have that way back I remember 200 apm was considered alot or decent.

I actually think players are way better now
[sc1f]eonzerg
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Belgium6565 Posts
November 14 2017 12:43 GMT
#210
On November 14 2017 21:35 sicklucker wrote:
the majority of players are way better mechanically now tho. The avg apm has almost doubled. you can thank tools like justin tv and twitch for that. Everyone sees eonzerg spamming 500 apm daily and try to emulate you didnt have that way back I remember 200 apm was considered alot or decent.

I actually think players are way better now

common dude i copied it from effort,always eonzergs fault
+ Show Spoiler +
fLyiNgDroNe
Profile Joined September 2005
Belgium4001 Posts
November 14 2017 13:56 GMT
#211
On November 14 2017 21:17 Qikz wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 14 2017 20:41 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:


Did you mean to post without any text? o_o


yep, eon just directly answered the question. Not that i agree though
Drone is a way of living
Piste
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
6175 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-11-14 15:56:46
November 14 2017 15:54 GMT
#212
On November 14 2017 17:34 sc19980331 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 14 2017 15:50 Piste wrote:
Sziky for sure when he was in his peak. At this moment the best outside Korea and China is propably Bonyth.

Just checked https://starlog.gg/en/leaderboard
Non-kr player mmr ranking:
U.S. West SouL)T(Dandy 3025 Terran 275 193
U.S. West Bonyth. 3000 Protoss 97 34
Asia houshifumemeda 2908 Terran 505 436 (Mihu)
Asia SC.jaystar 2879 Protoss 109 46
Europe Sziky1 2831 Zerg 285 226
Europe rM]Dewalt 2795 Protoss 82 37
Asia ToSs.. 2767 Protoss 351 300 (LX)
Asia xiximeimei 2698 Zerg 116 74 (Fengzi)
Europe Nal_Draco 2672 Protoss 175 118
U.S. West Dandy. 2659 Terran 198 147
Europe Spidey 2654 Zerg 1082 988 (Eonzerg)
Europe OpenAI 2613 Terran 191 141 (Koget)
Europe Trutacz 2593 Zerg 457 385
Europe ourplay 2591 Terran 626 573 (Gargoyle)
U.S. West bethegreatest 2514 Zerg 194 142
Europe g0rynich 2503 Zerg 288 232 (Notforu)

And ELO ranking http://prorm.webd.pl/rekin5/
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/StarCraft_Remastered_Ladder

Althought Dandy has higher elo than Bonyth, I wouldnt say he is better. Their points are pretty close to each other but Bonyth has way less games
Nice to see Sziky on the list as well, I hope he practises to gain his former skills back!
Edit: Dewalts stats are quite impressive as well
Me_ToKa
Profile Joined September 2009
Bulgaria309 Posts
November 14 2017 19:45 GMT
#213
P - Draco
Z - Mondragon
T - Idra
Liquid`Drone
Profile Joined September 2002
Norway28649 Posts
November 14 2017 20:11 GMT
#214
On November 14 2017 20:32 Liquid`Ret wrote:
the level of play now is not higher than it was in the years leading up to SC2. I'm a lot older now and I only played sc1 for a few months after 8 years away from the game. I have found it relatively easy to compete with any of the players that are 'the best' now (and I've played all of them - even if it was just ladder).

Meta and game did evolve and progress a huge amount so people playing now would probably win all tours if they went back in time, but player skills were probably higher during a time that competition was higher and there were a lot more people playing & competing intensely outside of kr.

The only person that stands out as a truely exceptional player & all-time great is sziky in my opinion. For consistency and total domination in the years after sc2 came out.

The other players like bonyth, eon, trutacz, notforu. They are very strong players no doubt. They would most likely be highly competitive and do quite well back in the days. But I don't think they would dominate or make a push for the best of all time. First a player would have to dominate currently, and that is not happening as of yet. Only when someone is head & shoulders above everyone else could an argument be made for the best of all time.


I can agree with the differentiation between 'skill' and 'strategical evolution', and that while top players from today could go back and dominate against the 2008-2009 meta, this is because of strategical evolution more so than because of increase in skill. I do think that in particular you and idra from 2008-2009 are on the same level that anybody has really attained since then - with Sziky 2011-14 or whatever as the most likely exception.

But Bonyth really does stand out imo, and not from a strategical meta-evolution point of view, but from a skill point of view. If anything he loses more than he has to because he plays such a risky style of play - which I think is related to his race of choice. An equally skilled terran player would imo be likely to dominate about as hard as Idra did pre sc2. He, like you and Idra used to be, is a player that I can identify based on watching him play for two minutes without actually knowing who is playing, because his micro stands out as better than that of anybody else. Bonyth and Dandy hitting 3k mmr and Dandy hitting A on fish, those are seriously impressive feats too.
Moderator
BWCL
Profile Blog Joined September 2017
47 Posts
November 14 2017 22:48 GMT
#215
On November 14 2017 21:31 sicklucker wrote:
the one thing thats different now tho that ret left out.

Back in the day there was barely any tourneys where the top players played. Tourneys where top players would all play were rare if not existence out of tl ran tourneys. There was no money not even crack change like there is today. Best players would play mostly friends and just weekly clan wars only so no one really knew who the best players were as easily as they do today and as a half decent player back in the day people were alot more wrong about who was good back then since there was small sample sizes of games played.

Now you have like 4 50-100$ tourneys a week that all the best players pretty much always play and its the same guys always in the top 6 even if no ones dominating.

So were pretty sure those players are the best now but are we really sure a player like koll was really the best over a really small sample size where he won one tourney? (poor koll hes just my example)


Yeah, I'm not quite sure where you get the information from that there were rarely any tours with prize money, or incentives that would make the elite play. Germany alone had a very healthy scene long before the SCII-Beta was announced with prize pools up to 2000€ (e.g. GIGA, ESL), then there were things like the ECG and WCG Panama (obviously also national WCG qualifiers), additionally a couple of LANs with prizes (ASUS LANs for instance, but also those in the Czech Republic), not to mention smaller scaled events with prize pools, going back from smaller cups ran by Starcraftgamers/GG.net or BW4Ever/Broodwar.de (I'm sure there were things at netwars.pl and reps.ru as well) with the same amount of the weekly cups. Not to mention that even the nation war scene was healthy enough to actually always feature the top tier of each nation. For nations like Germany, Poland and Russia you would have really stacked and deep line ups.

So yes, there always was a way to spot the best talents and best players.

However, this whole debate is a bit of a skewed issue, because it's hard to put numbers on anything, as most of the results haven't been recorded. Then there's the problem of comparing the ever changing environment of the competitive scene from back of the golden days - the rotation of popular maps (aside from LT->Luna->Python->FS) also did a lot to feature different forms of skill and limit the mechanical ceilling. Today's best players might shine in different aspects and, to some extent, feel mechanically better than any of their 'ancestors' in their prime, simply because the training ground was always the same. I have no clue how good a Mondragon would have been if the same map was used in every tournament. The same goes in the different direction, I believe some players would have been 'more dominating' after SCII if the competitive maps were anything but FS and FS-clones.

This being said, there's only ranking lists left you base on your feelings. For me some players still stand out, e.g. Mondragon for holding his long lasting records in the German and international scene, Draco, ret, SEn and Androide - without any concrete logic behind it. After SCII it's probably Sziky, closely followed by tacz and TechnicS, with the random glimpse of Terran talent such as Marwin and Heme.
sicklucker
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
Canada16987 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-11-15 05:14:21
November 15 2017 05:13 GMT
#216
everything you just listed was European and at like 9am my time =/ and there was certainly little to no prizes.

No one in canada or the states wanted to get up that early on there day off. im also talking alot further back
ProMeTheus112
Profile Joined December 2009
France2027 Posts
November 15 2017 06:26 GMT
#217
Draco would be my pick but I won't pretend I really know how good everybody is or was
I do feel like at that time there was more skill on the top players, I agree. It's true nowadays more people are really fast, but that's a secondary thing really, the decision making thing beats it unless you are actually too slow which they were not too slow..
Why more skill back then, because more competition? yeah sure, and also I think possibly there are players who stuck around for such a long time since the game started, and they have experience and knowledge of so many things which aren't necessarily common but still quite strong. If somebody starts playing years later they might not get to discover or understand some things for a while, as it comes up less often.
JollYRoGeR
Profile Blog Joined December 2002
Sweden342 Posts
November 15 2017 17:17 GMT
#218
Wow, awesome list. They only one i miss there is TreK I guess. That was a real nostalgia trip, I don't agree with everything but man it's well done!

Thanks!
On December 17 2010 13:31 Guybrush wrote:
*Best = Regarded one of the best nonkoreans those years

My list for Top30 Alltime nonkoreans
1.[image loading] [image loading] Grrrr(P,R) - OSL(Hanaro), Blizzard world championship, WCG03 3rd, Best 99,00,01,02,03
2.[image loading] [image loading] Elky(T) - OSL(Sky2002) 4th, WCG01 2nd, ECG04, Best 01,02,03,04
3.[image loading] [image loading] Slayer(R) - KBK00, Best 99,00,01,02
4.[image loading] [image loading] Sven(T,R) - Best 99,00,01,02
5.[image loading] [image loading] Maynard(T,R) - Best 98,99,00, Nickname "God" among the best players
6.[image loading] [image loading] SaFT(P,R) - WGT season2(old french WGT), Best 01,02
7.[image loading] [image loading] Blackman(Z) - WCG02 3rd, Best 02,03,04,05
8.[image loading] [image loading] PJ(P,R) - WCG07 2nd, MYM tour, Best 03,04,05,06,07,08,09, Chinese tournaments
9.[image loading] [image loading] Androide(T) - WCG05 2nd, Best 03,04,05,06,07
10.[image loading] [image loading] Mondragon(Z) - WCG07 3rd, WGT season9, ECG05, GGL2, EuroCup, TLT1 2nd, TSL2 2nd, Best 03,04,05,06,07,08,09
11.[image loading] [image loading] Lx(P) - PGL08, Best 05,06,07,08,09
12.[image loading] [image loading] Draco(P) - PGL07, TANL3, Best 03,04,05,06,07,08
13.[image loading] [image loading] Sen(Z) - Best 05,06,07,09, ToT Tour
14.[image loading] [image loading] Advokate(T) - TLT2, SomE tour, Best 04,05,06,07,08,09
15.[image loading] [image loading] ret(Z,T) - TANL1, WGT season3, Best 03,05,08,09
16.[image loading] [image loading] Fisheye(P) - WCG03 2nd, Best 02,03,04,05,06
17.[image loading] [image loading] Smuft(P) - TLT1, Best 01,02,03
18.[image loading] [image loading] Yosh(T) - Best 01,02,05,07,09
19.[image loading] [image loading] Asmodey(R,P) - PGC2, OSL participant(Sky2001), Best 00,01,02
20.[image loading] [image loading] Testie(R) - Best(hacked before 03) 03,04,05,06, PlayIT, Ace
21.[image loading] [image loading] Super(T) - Best 05,06,08,09, Chinese tournaments
22.[image loading] [image loading] F91(Z) - Best 05,06,07,08,09, Chinese tournaments
23.[image loading] [image loading] Iefnaij(P) - Stamina, TSL1, Best 07,08,09
24.[image loading] [image loading] Nazgul(P) - PGC3 , OCL participant, Best 01,02,03
25.[image loading] [image loading] Legionnaire(P) - PL-Allkill, Courage, WCG05 3rd, Best 03,04,05
26.[image loading] [image loading] White-ra(P) - Best 06,07,08,09
27.[image loading] [image loading] Froz(T) - Best 01,02,03,04
28.[image loading] [image loading] Assem(T) - GGL1, Best 03,04,05
29.[image loading] [image loading] NTT(T) - WCG00 3rd Best 99,00,01
30.[image loading] [image loading] NonY(P) - Spirit, TSL2 Best 07,08,09
31.[image loading] [image loading] IdrA(T) - Valor, ESWC Best 09

I've followed the scene pretty much from the start and this is more or less the 31 of the best players in their respective primes. I've included some of their achievements that I remember. I didnt really think about taking Idra since his reign was so short, but he was very dominant in the end.

Top 5 are oldschool players who were among the best in the world in their prime - not just the best foreigners. With the exception of Elky they also excelled with every race and were randoming in several tournaments. Grrrr and Elkys achievements in progaming speak for themselves(1st and 4th in OSLs respectively). Slayers KBK victory also stands out, but Maynard and Sven do not have the same accomplishments and because of this I'll enlighten you abit about these great players.

Maynard was considered the best player before Grrrr started dominating and went by the nickname "God" among the best players on the Kali server (the alternative to playing on B.net back then with better latency). In terms of achievements Maynard didnt do too much but he introduced a gameplay with strong focus on economy and overwhelming the opponent with sheer numbers rather than trying to outcontrol him.

For example the term "Maynarding" is still used today as a synonym for worker transfer. The textbook example of this was done in the battlereport (there werent replays back then) between Maynard and Grrrr in the USA vs Canada tournament back in summer 1999 covered by gamegurus.net. Maynard(6) was playing zerg against Grrrrs(9) protoss on Lost Temple. Maynard opened conservatively with a 12 hatch in his main (zealot rushes were extremely popular back then) and teched to 2 hatch hydra, harassing Grrrrs expand constantly with hydradancing using only small guerilla groups rather than his whole army to negate storm-efficiency. While he was doing this Maynard consumed the map with a low saturation of workers on every expand, continously transfering most of them to new expands as soon as he expanded to them. He did this because the efficiency of the workers are higher the lower saturation you have. Of course this means you need more expands than you would normally have to get the same income, but your army would be bigger because you would need less workers (than with a normal high worker saturation) to maintain an equal economy. He won the game after about 25-30 minutes with pure hydras, and because his saturation was so low I remember his 3rd expand going dry before his natural. He strongly influenced Grrrr and Grrrr himself has in several interviews said that he considered Maynard better than him even after going to Korea. Maynard was also living as a progamer in Korea for a short time.

Slayer and Sven are considered some of the most talented players to ever play the game and were practicing with many of the best progamers in their era - H.O.T, Yellow, V-Gundam, Oddysay, KimWanChul, IntoTheRain, Love30.D.O.M, TheMarine, Foru, and so forth. They were also practice partners with Garimto when he was preparing for his match against Boxer in the Sky2002 OSL (Garimto was a also a part of the GG# team). Sven was even telling him which strategy he should use, and indeed Garimto went ahead and used it. There are parallels to draw from the Maynard-Grrrr combo to Sven-Slayer. Like Maynard, Sven had warcraft2 experience and was a dominating player in the early stages of Starcraft. Furthermore, as Maynard influenced Grrrr, Sven formed Slayer from very early stages; sensing his potential, recruiting him to the aBs team (which consisted of the best norwegian players) and practicing with him in person exchanging thoughts and strategies - though Sven was most often the creative one. Like Grrrr won OSL - Slayer won KBK which is an incredible achievement. I'd actually consider KBK a bigger achievement because absolutely any player in the world could play in it and you would be flown to Korea to play in the playoffs - a 256 player single elimination tournament (BO3s in the semi and final). Just as Maynard, Sven didnt have any major achievements and also had short stints were he wasnt playing competitvely, but when he became strongly active again in 2001/2002 he was one of few players (and most likely the only terran) capable of beating SaFT in a BO5 (in the final of the scandinavian allstartour in 2002) and dominated several known korean progamers in online tournaments and practice games. Known for his deadly micro in BW he transitioned his skills into the newly released warcraft3 and played competitively on the highest level before losing interest after a few months.

Back to the rest of the top 10:
In terms of absolute skill Id put PJ, Lx, Sen, Draco, ret, Idra and Nony high, and in terms of longevity theres little doubt that PJ wins that. Mondragon, Advokate, Draco and Fisheye are also notable ones. In particular Yosh and also ret could have probably been close to them if they didnt take long breaks from playing.

Some of the rest of my choices for top 10 are certainly arguable and I will give some reasoning for picking SaFT, Blackman and Androide. PJ and Mondragon are there mostly for their longevity and I wont write about them - they're understandably quite known by everyone due to their recent activity.

My reason for having SaFT so high was that in his prime he would beat Boxer several times who was the best player in the world at that time. He also dominated the WGTour ladder with like 90-8 in stats. Dont believe me ? Check this link http://web.archive.org/web/20020405173616/sc.wgtour.com/ladder/profile_player.php?id=4904 (it takes a while before it loads). He was extremely consistent and quite possibly the best PvTer in the world in 2001/2002 including progamers. His PvP wasnt lagging far behind and his PvZ had 40 minute slugfests against the best zerg in korea then - ChoJJa.

Blackman is so high because his heavy macro oriented style pioneered Zerg in his prime. He was also one of few zerg players being fast enough to manage Zerg on island maps - where most other zergs would complain about imbalance. You would have tons of players copying him in 2003, and the wgtour ladder was flooded with zerg players after his 3rd place at WCG in 2002. Tomson (a quite famous polish player) switched from playing terran, copied Blackmans 1hatch,2hatch,3hatch8patrol9patrol0patrol hotkey system and became very successful in later years, reaching the final in the scandalous WDTour which progamer Oversky won with maphack. Blackman didnt qualify for the WCG again before in 2005 (Poland had an incredible amount of good players 2003-2005, only Sweden in 2001 is comparable) and still managed to show good play albeit not as dominant as before because his early game was average.

Androide is so high because his 2nd place at WCG in 2005 came at a point where progamers were rapidly surpassing foreigners skillwise, and when he knocked out Silent_Control in a dominanting style right after Control had beaten Xellos in a BO3 it looked very much like a foreigner could win WCG. Foru was very lucky to win that tournament losing to Slash and Blackman (who utterly crushed him) in the groups, and then barely squeezing out 2-1 vs Sen and then 2-1 vs Storm (chinese zerg). Unfortunatly his best matchup was PvT and he ended up beating Androide fairly easy in the final. Since that PJ was the only foreigner entering the final in WCG but very few had faith in him as he was up against Stork in Stork in what was Storks ace MU. Androide thus represented the last realistic hope that a foreigner could win WCG.

PJ and LX have killed most korean progamers in tournaments in modern times(post 2005, covered in my blog) but they've also played in more tournaments containing progamers.

Damn. Didnt intend for this post to become this big. Anyways that's my thoughts on this subject.

GeckoXp
Profile Blog Joined June 2013
Germany2016 Posts
November 15 2017 17:51 GMT
#219
On November 15 2017 14:13 sicklucker wrote:
everything you just listed was European and at like 9am my time =/ and there was certainly little to no prizes.

No one in canada or the states wanted to get up that early on there day off. im also talking alot further back


How is that an argument to bend facts? Please first know what you're talking about, before you list things that are just not correct.
EvilSky
Profile Joined March 2006
Czech Republic548 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-11-15 17:56:34
November 15 2017 17:55 GMT
#220
Im still butthurt that Androide lost that WCG finals to Foru, he was the last foreigner hope
That awful build on Estrella mannn
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