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We need an unimpresesd Stardust meme.
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On March 12 2012 03:05 FirstProbe wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 01:42 VGhost wrote:
I know this is borderline insane... but is anyone else a little bit tempted to push fantasy up to #1? He's 4-0 since the last PR (to Flash's 4-2). Granted, he's had slightly easier opponents... but he hasn't lost to nobodies (though both admittedly with very good PvT). Also factoring in is fantasy's win - you could almost say comeback win - over Jaehoon, who's also a solid PvT player.
Mostly I'm wondering whether people are starting to figure out Flash's PvT (for now). He could have lost to Stork despite an abusive early game build if Stork hadn't gone all in on carriers AND lost his goons; he beat BeSt with a bunker rush; he's now running an 0-2 streak against Protoss. I'm not suggesting panic, and I don't really think there's sufficient evidence to actually knock him out of the #1 spot yet. But I do think it's something to start keeping an eye on, especially with fantasy just inches behind him in terms of performance and record. I really do think Flash will be saving his most solid play, for the finals. There will be no bunker rushing protoss, in my opinion.
You did watch last season's final, right?  (If not, go do so: the short version is that BeSt's playstyle is - as it always has been - vulnerable to early pressure and outright cheese.)
On March 12 2012 01:56 KTF_CloaK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 01:42 VGhost wrote:
I know this is borderline insane... but is anyone else a little bit tempted to push fantasy up to #1? He's 4-0 since the last PR (to Flash's 4-2). Granted, he's had slightly easier opponents... but he hasn't lost to nobodies (though both admittedly with very good PvT). Also factoring in is fantasy's win - you could almost say comeback win - over Jaehoon, who's also a solid PvT player.
Mostly I'm wondering whether people are starting to figure out Flash's PvT (for now). He could have lost to Stork despite an abusive early game build if Stork hadn't gone all in on carriers AND lost his goons; he beat BeSt with a bunker rush; he's now running an 0-2 streak against Protoss. I'm not suggesting panic, and I don't really think there's sufficient evidence to actually knock him out of the #1 spot yet. But I do think it's something to start keeping an eye on, especially with fantasy just inches behind him in terms of performance and record. And Fantasy? No, I mean Fanatasy is a really good player, but he has had easier opponents than Flash, and FlaSh just has better play, better sense and better mechanics. FlaSh beats his opponents good, and when I say good I mean there is no doubt FlaSh would win a bo3 or o5 against any given player. FlaSh becoming predictable? Maybe a little, his fast third vT build is starting to get hard-countered but he will find a way to do it safely or he will just play any other style of PvT and win because of better macro and gamesense. And his vT and vZ have never looked so impossibly perfect than they do now.
fantasy's TvT is a little worse; but his TvP is arguably better (also by ELO) if only because he's not lost. TvZ? He's beaten ZerO three times and Calm once in resounding fashion. (I'm mostly arguing for the sake of the argument here - like I said before there's not a solid argument at the moment for taking #1 from Flash.)
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On March 12 2012 03:05 FirstProbe wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 01:42 VGhost wrote:
I know this is borderline insane... but is anyone else a little bit tempted to push fantasy up to #1? He's 4-0 since the last PR (to Flash's 4-2). Granted, he's had slightly easier opponents... but he hasn't lost to nobodies (though both admittedly with very good PvT). Also factoring in is fantasy's win - you could almost say comeback win - over Jaehoon, who's also a solid PvT player.
Mostly I'm wondering whether people are starting to figure out Flash's PvT (for now). He could have lost to Stork despite an abusive early game build if Stork hadn't gone all in on carriers AND lost his goons; he beat BeSt with a bunker rush; he's now running an 0-2 streak against Protoss. I'm not suggesting panic, and I don't really think there's sufficient evidence to actually knock him out of the #1 spot yet. But I do think it's something to start keeping an eye on, especially with fantasy just inches behind him in terms of performance and record. I really do think Flash will be saving his most solid play, for the finals. There will be no bunker rushing protoss, in my opinion. Regardless, Flash's mechanics are still superb- the best in my opinion. His tank control is excellent. His losses are due to being overly greedy against an aggressive and prepared opponent, and I doubt he will make that mistake in the finals.
Yeah, but the thing is, this month's power rank isn't about what someone could or would do in the future. It's about what has happened between the last PR and now.
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On March 12 2012 04:18 Nikon wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 03:05 FirstProbe wrote:On March 12 2012 01:42 VGhost wrote:
I know this is borderline insane... but is anyone else a little bit tempted to push fantasy up to #1? He's 4-0 since the last PR (to Flash's 4-2). Granted, he's had slightly easier opponents... but he hasn't lost to nobodies (though both admittedly with very good PvT). Also factoring in is fantasy's win - you could almost say comeback win - over Jaehoon, who's also a solid PvT player.
Mostly I'm wondering whether people are starting to figure out Flash's PvT (for now). He could have lost to Stork despite an abusive early game build if Stork hadn't gone all in on carriers AND lost his goons; he beat BeSt with a bunker rush; he's now running an 0-2 streak against Protoss. I'm not suggesting panic, and I don't really think there's sufficient evidence to actually knock him out of the #1 spot yet. But I do think it's something to start keeping an eye on, especially with fantasy just inches behind him in terms of performance and record. I really do think Flash will be saving his most solid play, for the finals. There will be no bunker rushing protoss, in my opinion. Regardless, Flash's mechanics are still superb- the best in my opinion. His tank control is excellent. His losses are due to being overly greedy against an aggressive and prepared opponent, and I doubt he will make that mistake in the finals. Yeah, but the thing is, this month's power rank isn't about what someone could or would do in the future. It's about what has happened between the last PR and now.
Flash is the most feared player at this moment. No doubt about it. That´s power.
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Whatever.
I still wouldn't want to put my money on Fantasy if he was facing Flash. And I'm a T1 fan.
Flash is the ultimate weapon.
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Actually, I don't agree that Flash has shown better play and game sense than Fantasy in their most recent games (granted, I'm a massive T1 fan though so I'm probably biased). Majority of Flash's wins this season came from getting a big lead in early game if not outright winning due to BO choices. While choosing the better BOs is obviously a strength in itself, I kind of feel like Flash is prone to getting himself killed due to too much reliance on his BO being 'perfect' and cutting too many corners to get the advantages he feels he needs to be in position to win.
In contrast, Fantasy's games, while more messy and chaotic, were really more about superior tactical decisions and control, as well as amazing timings with his vulture harass, drops etc, rather than BO wins; which in my opinion, is a better indicator of overall skill level. You can get the worse end of a BO or misread what your opponent is doing even against enemies magnitudes weaker than you, and then lose embarrassingly like Flash did recently.
Again, I'm not saying that Flash is somehow bad, not saying that he is downright worse than Fantasy either; just don't feel that his play has been more impressive than Fantasy's at all.
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On March 12 2012 07:38 Sethronu wrote:
Actually, I don't agree that Flash has shown better play and game sense than Fantasy in their most recent games (granted, I'm a massive T1 fan though so I'm probably biased). Majority of Flash's wins this season came from getting a big lead in early game if not outright winning due to BO choices. While choosing the better BOs is obviously a strength in itself, I kind of feel like Flash is prone to getting himself killed due to too much reliance on his BO being 'perfect' and cutting too many corners to get the advantages he feels he needs to be in position to win.
In contrast, Fantasy's games, while more messy and chaotic, were really more about superior tactical decisions and control, as well as amazing timings with his vulture harass, drops etc, rather than BO wins; which in my opinion, is a better indicator of overall skill level. You can get the worse end of a BO or misread what your opponent is doing even against enemies magnitudes weaker than you, and then lose embarrassingly like Flash did recently.
Again, I'm not saying that Flash is somehow bad, not saying that he is downright worse than Fantasy either; just don't feel that his play has been more impressive than Fantasy's at all.
I'd like to adress the two bolded parts.
1) It's true that a lot of Flash's wins can be attributed to what people might call "cheesy" play (although I despise that word). Very many of his games don't even get to the point where he could prove his impeccable mid-late game play.
His "cheesy" play though can also be interpreted as neatly exploiting the metagame state of the respective matchups and allowing Flash to get a somewhat safe advantage early on. It's not risky in the sense that gets attributed to "cheesy" play most of the time; what he does, is calculatedly and impeccably taking advantage of the situation he's put in. I don't agree that this kind of play which assured him so many free wins should go to his disadvantage when considering his spot on the ranking.
2) Same thing goes for the cutting corners aspect. I don't know if Flash feels he "needs [to cut corners] to be in a position to win". He's reading his opponent based on scouting (notably scanning) and reacts appropriately. From the limited information he gets, he's making the perfect choices. The loss to Dear can be attributed to lacking information, not on a lackluster interpretation of what he saw. Same thing goes for his loss to M18M. The proxied gates + robo caused a lack of intel which could be exploited by his opponent.
What I'm saying is: Flash is taking every little advantage he gets to get ahead which is exactly what makes him such a dominant player. He does the best with the intel he gets which makes it safe to say that (almost) anyone he's playing is gonna lose if he doesn't somehow "trick" Flash or if Flash fails at scouting. And that's basically saying Flash is the best player at the moment if you don't catch him off guard. And even in those situations, his crisis management is totally up there.
Not taking anything away from Fantasy though. He totally deserves #2, until we see a clear flaw in Flash's play, in his game sense or his execution. The gap between #1 and #2 doesn't seem that insurmountable to me.
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On March 12 2012 08:50 Spekulatius wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 07:38 Sethronu wrote:
Actually, I don't agree that Flash has shown better play and game sense than Fantasy in their most recent games (granted, I'm a massive T1 fan though so I'm probably biased). Majority of Flash's wins this season came from getting a big lead in early game if not outright winning due to BO choices. While choosing the better BOs is obviously a strength in itself, I kind of feel like Flash is prone to getting himself killed due to too much reliance on his BO being 'perfect' and cutting too many corners to get the advantages he feels he needs to be in position to win.
In contrast, Fantasy's games, while more messy and chaotic, were really more about superior tactical decisions and control, as well as amazing timings with his vulture harass, drops etc, rather than BO wins; which in my opinion, is a better indicator of overall skill level. You can get the worse end of a BO or misread what your opponent is doing even against enemies magnitudes weaker than you, and then lose embarrassingly like Flash did recently.
Again, I'm not saying that Flash is somehow bad, not saying that he is downright worse than Fantasy either; just don't feel that his play has been more impressive than Fantasy's at all. I'd like to adress the two bolded parts. 1) It's true that a lot of Flash's wins can be attributed to what people might call "cheesy" play (although I despise that word). Very many of his games don't even get to the point where he could prove his impeccable mid-late game play. His "cheesy" play though can also be interpreted as neatly exploiting the metagame state of the respective matchups and allowing Flash to get a somewhat safe advantage early on. It's not risky in the sense that gets attributed to "cheesy" play most of the time; what he does, is calculatedly and impeccably taking advantage of the situation he's put in. I don't agree that this kind of play which assured him so many free wins should go to his disadvantage when considering his spot on the ranking. 2) Same thing goes for the cutting corners aspect. I don't know if Flash feels he "needs [to cut corners] to be in a position to win". He's reading his opponent based on scouting (notably scanning) and reacts appropriately. From the limited information he gets, he's making the perfect choices. The loss to Dear can be attributed to lacking information, not on a lackluster interpretation of what he saw. Same thing goes for his loss to M18M. The proxied gates + robo caused a lack of intel which could be exploited by his opponent. What I'm saying is: Flash is taking every little advantage he gets to get ahead which is exactly what makes him such a dominant player. He does the best with the intel he gets which makes it safe to say that (almost) anyone he's playing is gonna lose if he doesn't somehow "trick" Flash or if Flash fails at scouting. And that's basically saying Flash is the best player at the moment if you don't catch him off guard. And even in those situations, his crisis management is totally up there. Not taking anything away from Fantasy though. He totally deserves #2, until we see a clear flaw in Flash's play, in his game sense or his execution. The gap between #1 and #2 doesn't seem that insurmountable to me.
Its paper thin imo.
Flash reliant on early aggression (note that I refrained from using cheese) to gain a massive lead into the game. Then he ride the momentum by not making stupid decision into victory while Fantasy plays with a much more conventional fashion. But however, just because this is 'God' we are talking about here, I am sure that most of his fanboys would be thinking "wtf is Xiphos saying? Flash number 1!"
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On March 12 2012 09:02 Xiphos wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 08:50 Spekulatius wrote:On March 12 2012 07:38 Sethronu wrote:
Actually, I don't agree that Flash has shown better play and game sense than Fantasy in their most recent games (granted, I'm a massive T1 fan though so I'm probably biased). Majority of Flash's wins this season came from getting a big lead in early game if not outright winning due to BO choices. While choosing the better BOs is obviously a strength in itself, I kind of feel like Flash is prone to getting himself killed due to too much reliance on his BO being 'perfect' and cutting too many corners to get the advantages he feels he needs to be in position to win.
In contrast, Fantasy's games, while more messy and chaotic, were really more about superior tactical decisions and control, as well as amazing timings with his vulture harass, drops etc, rather than BO wins; which in my opinion, is a better indicator of overall skill level. You can get the worse end of a BO or misread what your opponent is doing even against enemies magnitudes weaker than you, and then lose embarrassingly like Flash did recently.
Again, I'm not saying that Flash is somehow bad, not saying that he is downright worse than Fantasy either; just don't feel that his play has been more impressive than Fantasy's at all. I'd like to adress the two bolded parts. 1) It's true that a lot of Flash's wins can be attributed to what people might call "cheesy" play (although I despise that word). Very many of his games don't even get to the point where he could prove his impeccable mid-late game play. His "cheesy" play though can also be interpreted as neatly exploiting the metagame state of the respective matchups and allowing Flash to get a somewhat safe advantage early on. It's not risky in the sense that gets attributed to "cheesy" play most of the time; what he does, is calculatedly and impeccably taking advantage of the situation he's put in. I don't agree that this kind of play which assured him so many free wins should go to his disadvantage when considering his spot on the ranking. 2) Same thing goes for the cutting corners aspect. I don't know if Flash feels he "needs [to cut corners] to be in a position to win". He's reading his opponent based on scouting (notably scanning) and reacts appropriately. From the limited information he gets, he's making the perfect choices. The loss to Dear can be attributed to lacking information, not on a lackluster interpretation of what he saw. Same thing goes for his loss to M18M. The proxied gates + robo caused a lack of intel which could be exploited by his opponent. What I'm saying is: Flash is taking every little advantage he gets to get ahead which is exactly what makes him such a dominant player. He does the best with the intel he gets which makes it safe to say that (almost) anyone he's playing is gonna lose if he doesn't somehow "trick" Flash or if Flash fails at scouting. And that's basically saying Flash is the best player at the moment if you don't catch him off guard. And even in those situations, his crisis management is totally up there. Not taking anything away from Fantasy though. He totally deserves #2, until we see a clear flaw in Flash's play, in his game sense or his execution. The gap between #1 and #2 doesn't seem that insurmountable to me. Its paper thin imo. Flash reliant on early aggression (note that I refrained from using cheese) to gain a massive lead into the game. Then he ride the momentum by not making stupid decision into victory while Fantasy plays with a much more conventional fashion. But however, just because this is 'God' we are talking about here, I am sure that most of his fanboys would be thinking "wtf is Xiphos saying? Flash number 1!"
You're damned if you fast expand, you're damned if you don't.
You have to play boring/standard every single time like fantasy to win or it doesn't count.
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On March 12 2012 10:32 aupstar wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 09:02 Xiphos wrote:On March 12 2012 08:50 Spekulatius wrote:On March 12 2012 07:38 Sethronu wrote:
Actually, I don't agree that Flash has shown better play and game sense than Fantasy in their most recent games (granted, I'm a massive T1 fan though so I'm probably biased). Majority of Flash's wins this season came from getting a big lead in early game if not outright winning due to BO choices. While choosing the better BOs is obviously a strength in itself, I kind of feel like Flash is prone to getting himself killed due to too much reliance on his BO being 'perfect' and cutting too many corners to get the advantages he feels he needs to be in position to win.
In contrast, Fantasy's games, while more messy and chaotic, were really more about superior tactical decisions and control, as well as amazing timings with his vulture harass, drops etc, rather than BO wins; which in my opinion, is a better indicator of overall skill level. You can get the worse end of a BO or misread what your opponent is doing even against enemies magnitudes weaker than you, and then lose embarrassingly like Flash did recently.
Again, I'm not saying that Flash is somehow bad, not saying that he is downright worse than Fantasy either; just don't feel that his play has been more impressive than Fantasy's at all. I'd like to adress the two bolded parts. 1) It's true that a lot of Flash's wins can be attributed to what people might call "cheesy" play (although I despise that word). Very many of his games don't even get to the point where he could prove his impeccable mid-late game play. His "cheesy" play though can also be interpreted as neatly exploiting the metagame state of the respective matchups and allowing Flash to get a somewhat safe advantage early on. It's not risky in the sense that gets attributed to "cheesy" play most of the time; what he does, is calculatedly and impeccably taking advantage of the situation he's put in. I don't agree that this kind of play which assured him so many free wins should go to his disadvantage when considering his spot on the ranking. 2) Same thing goes for the cutting corners aspect. I don't know if Flash feels he "needs [to cut corners] to be in a position to win". He's reading his opponent based on scouting (notably scanning) and reacts appropriately. From the limited information he gets, he's making the perfect choices. The loss to Dear can be attributed to lacking information, not on a lackluster interpretation of what he saw. Same thing goes for his loss to M18M. The proxied gates + robo caused a lack of intel which could be exploited by his opponent. What I'm saying is: Flash is taking every little advantage he gets to get ahead which is exactly what makes him such a dominant player. He does the best with the intel he gets which makes it safe to say that (almost) anyone he's playing is gonna lose if he doesn't somehow "trick" Flash or if Flash fails at scouting. And that's basically saying Flash is the best player at the moment if you don't catch him off guard. And even in those situations, his crisis management is totally up there. Not taking anything away from Fantasy though. He totally deserves #2, until we see a clear flaw in Flash's play, in his game sense or his execution. The gap between #1 and #2 doesn't seem that insurmountable to me. Its paper thin imo. Flash reliant on early aggression (note that I refrained from using cheese) to gain a massive lead into the game. Then he ride the momentum by not making stupid decision into victory while Fantasy plays with a much more conventional fashion. But however, just because this is 'God' we are talking about here, I am sure that most of his fanboys would be thinking "wtf is Xiphos saying? Flash number 1!" You're damned if you fast expand, you're damned if you don't. You have to play boring/standard every single time like fantasy to win or it doesn't count.
Bingo, glad to see a KT fan concurring with my assessment.
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On March 12 2012 10:52 Xiphos wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 10:32 aupstar wrote:On March 12 2012 09:02 Xiphos wrote:On March 12 2012 08:50 Spekulatius wrote:On March 12 2012 07:38 Sethronu wrote:
Actually, I don't agree that Flash has shown better play and game sense than Fantasy in their most recent games (granted, I'm a massive T1 fan though so I'm probably biased). Majority of Flash's wins this season came from getting a big lead in early game if not outright winning due to BO choices. While choosing the better BOs is obviously a strength in itself, I kind of feel like Flash is prone to getting himself killed due to too much reliance on his BO being 'perfect' and cutting too many corners to get the advantages he feels he needs to be in position to win.
In contrast, Fantasy's games, while more messy and chaotic, were really more about superior tactical decisions and control, as well as amazing timings with his vulture harass, drops etc, rather than BO wins; which in my opinion, is a better indicator of overall skill level. You can get the worse end of a BO or misread what your opponent is doing even against enemies magnitudes weaker than you, and then lose embarrassingly like Flash did recently.
Again, I'm not saying that Flash is somehow bad, not saying that he is downright worse than Fantasy either; just don't feel that his play has been more impressive than Fantasy's at all. I'd like to adress the two bolded parts. 1) It's true that a lot of Flash's wins can be attributed to what people might call "cheesy" play (although I despise that word). Very many of his games don't even get to the point where he could prove his impeccable mid-late game play. His "cheesy" play though can also be interpreted as neatly exploiting the metagame state of the respective matchups and allowing Flash to get a somewhat safe advantage early on. It's not risky in the sense that gets attributed to "cheesy" play most of the time; what he does, is calculatedly and impeccably taking advantage of the situation he's put in. I don't agree that this kind of play which assured him so many free wins should go to his disadvantage when considering his spot on the ranking. 2) Same thing goes for the cutting corners aspect. I don't know if Flash feels he "needs [to cut corners] to be in a position to win". He's reading his opponent based on scouting (notably scanning) and reacts appropriately. From the limited information he gets, he's making the perfect choices. The loss to Dear can be attributed to lacking information, not on a lackluster interpretation of what he saw. Same thing goes for his loss to M18M. The proxied gates + robo caused a lack of intel which could be exploited by his opponent. What I'm saying is: Flash is taking every little advantage he gets to get ahead which is exactly what makes him such a dominant player. He does the best with the intel he gets which makes it safe to say that (almost) anyone he's playing is gonna lose if he doesn't somehow "trick" Flash or if Flash fails at scouting. And that's basically saying Flash is the best player at the moment if you don't catch him off guard. And even in those situations, his crisis management is totally up there. Not taking anything away from Fantasy though. He totally deserves #2, until we see a clear flaw in Flash's play, in his game sense or his execution. The gap between #1 and #2 doesn't seem that insurmountable to me. Its paper thin imo. Flash reliant on early aggression (note that I refrained from using cheese) to gain a massive lead into the game. Then he ride the momentum by not making stupid decision into victory while Fantasy plays with a much more conventional fashion. But however, just because this is 'God' we are talking about here, I am sure that most of his fanboys would be thinking "wtf is Xiphos saying? Flash number 1!" You're damned if you fast expand, you're damned if you don't. You have to play boring/standard every single time like fantasy to win or it doesn't count. Bingo, glad to see a KT fan concurring with my assessment.
haha..I can agree with logic but I think you have a very simplistic view of what constitutes a better player.
I think flash has more than proven that he can play standard and go toe to toe with anyone.
Furthermore, this is Flash you're talking about, almost every player in proleague has a snipe strategy prepared against him.
This is including Fantasy (from a recent interview).
I don't think Flash can get away with playing standard and become predictable and continue to dominate. He needs to be unpredictable and display a wide array of strategies which I think he has being doing perfectly (almost).
Flash has impeccable game sense also, even though you see him behind in a lot of games he's able to attack/do the perfect move that brings him back into the game (i.e., leta vs flash where flash went in with a rag tag team of vults/marines and decreased letas vulture count in the early game because he knew he was going for a runby of sorts). I mean c'mon, I can't see fantasy pulling impressive things like that off.
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On March 12 2012 11:18 aupstar wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 10:52 Xiphos wrote:On March 12 2012 10:32 aupstar wrote:On March 12 2012 09:02 Xiphos wrote:On March 12 2012 08:50 Spekulatius wrote:On March 12 2012 07:38 Sethronu wrote:
Actually, I don't agree that Flash has shown better play and game sense than Fantasy in their most recent games (granted, I'm a massive T1 fan though so I'm probably biased). Majority of Flash's wins this season came from getting a big lead in early game if not outright winning due to BO choices. While choosing the better BOs is obviously a strength in itself, I kind of feel like Flash is prone to getting himself killed due to too much reliance on his BO being 'perfect' and cutting too many corners to get the advantages he feels he needs to be in position to win.
In contrast, Fantasy's games, while more messy and chaotic, were really more about superior tactical decisions and control, as well as amazing timings with his vulture harass, drops etc, rather than BO wins; which in my opinion, is a better indicator of overall skill level. You can get the worse end of a BO or misread what your opponent is doing even against enemies magnitudes weaker than you, and then lose embarrassingly like Flash did recently.
Again, I'm not saying that Flash is somehow bad, not saying that he is downright worse than Fantasy either; just don't feel that his play has been more impressive than Fantasy's at all. I'd like to adress the two bolded parts. 1) It's true that a lot of Flash's wins can be attributed to what people might call "cheesy" play (although I despise that word). Very many of his games don't even get to the point where he could prove his impeccable mid-late game play. His "cheesy" play though can also be interpreted as neatly exploiting the metagame state of the respective matchups and allowing Flash to get a somewhat safe advantage early on. It's not risky in the sense that gets attributed to "cheesy" play most of the time; what he does, is calculatedly and impeccably taking advantage of the situation he's put in. I don't agree that this kind of play which assured him so many free wins should go to his disadvantage when considering his spot on the ranking. 2) Same thing goes for the cutting corners aspect. I don't know if Flash feels he "needs [to cut corners] to be in a position to win". He's reading his opponent based on scouting (notably scanning) and reacts appropriately. From the limited information he gets, he's making the perfect choices. The loss to Dear can be attributed to lacking information, not on a lackluster interpretation of what he saw. Same thing goes for his loss to M18M. The proxied gates + robo caused a lack of intel which could be exploited by his opponent. What I'm saying is: Flash is taking every little advantage he gets to get ahead which is exactly what makes him such a dominant player. He does the best with the intel he gets which makes it safe to say that (almost) anyone he's playing is gonna lose if he doesn't somehow "trick" Flash or if Flash fails at scouting. And that's basically saying Flash is the best player at the moment if you don't catch him off guard. And even in those situations, his crisis management is totally up there. Not taking anything away from Fantasy though. He totally deserves #2, until we see a clear flaw in Flash's play, in his game sense or his execution. The gap between #1 and #2 doesn't seem that insurmountable to me. Its paper thin imo. Flash reliant on early aggression (note that I refrained from using cheese) to gain a massive lead into the game. Then he ride the momentum by not making stupid decision into victory while Fantasy plays with a much more conventional fashion. But however, just because this is 'God' we are talking about here, I am sure that most of his fanboys would be thinking "wtf is Xiphos saying? Flash number 1!" You're damned if you fast expand, you're damned if you don't. You have to play boring/standard every single time like fantasy to win or it doesn't count. Bingo, glad to see a KT fan concurring with my assessment. haha..I can agree with logic but I think you have a very simplistic view of what constitutes a better player. I think flash has more than proven that he can play standard and go toe to toe with anyone. Furthermore, this is Flash you're talking about, almost every player in proleague has a snipe strategy prepared against him. This is including Fantasy (from a recent interview). I don't think Flash can get away with playing standard and become predictable and continue to dominate. He needs to be unpredictable and display a wide array of strategies which I think he has being doing perfectly (almost). Flash has impeccable game sense also, even though you see him behind in a lot of games he's able to attack/do the perfect move that brings him back into the game (i.e., leta vs flash where flash went in with a rag tag team of vults/marines and decreased letas vulture count in the early game because he knew he was going for a runby of sorts). I mean c'mon, I can't see fantasy pulling impressive things like that off.
Yeah, I can't imagine Fantasy going 3 base while being on one Fact and cancelling Turrets unnecessarily either.
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Although I'd like to see Fantasy FINALLY take #1 on the PR, it would feel wrong for him to get it like this. The reality is that the gap between Flash and everyone else had been SO HIGH coming into R3 that pretty much the only way for Fantasy to topple Flash from #1 would be a head-to-head win.
PR isn't "clean slate at the start of the month." That's not POWER. That's just netizens being silly. Results are analyzed in the context of history and I see no reason to start doubting Flash right now.
Of course, the gap between Flash and Fantasy is not very large right now, but there's still the feeling with Fantasy that he may look unexpectedly weak whereas with Flash the feeling when you watch him lose is that his opponent deduced some kind of fluky timing attack that has no bearing on Flash's actual ability and that come next month the "problems" will already be erased. Basically, Fantasy at his best feels like an even rival for Flash, but Fantasy has a serious trollface.
The rest of the ranking.. .I'm thinking something like:
3. Stork, 4/5. Leta/Soulkey, 6. Jaedong, 7. Crazy-Hydra, 8. Best
9/10/CBNC is a bit murky. I think that's where the real arguing should take place.
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On a metagame note...
I think some people are underestimating what is happening here. Flash was the dominant player for almost 2 years - and in fact can (probably should) still be considered the best player in BroodWar, whatever challenges fantasy or (potentially) Stork, Bisu, Jaedong, or Soulkey might be putting up - not just because he managed to achieve essentially perfect micro & (especially) macro, but because of an attitude of essential ruthlessness. I think the succession here is clearly Nada -> sAviOr -> Flash. Boxer was a magician; oov (though this is a vast oversimplification) a technician; but these three played the complete game not in its developing stages, but in its (progressively richer) maturity.
I don't think anyone currently on the scene matches Flash's attitude towards the game, and for that reason it's almost certain that Flash will remain at or near the top for as long as he wants (barring any huge unforseen developments in strategy which somehow reduce him to being a "limited" player, as happened to Boxer). But what we are seeing - made most emphatically clear by Dear's comments - is that Flash's work ethic is forcing those who want to compete with him to look at details of the game. Flash has pushed the precision required by the game beyond even ideas like "+2 attack timing"; in order to beat him (for example) Dear was studying scanning patterns. Think about that for a moment. Probably this season's most successful PvT player was not content with his own prowess, but felt compelled to go to the extreme of looking at where in an opponent's base Flash scans. (Or maybe it's even that he's done so well in PvT because he put in the work to study everything Flash does.) This is a significant upping of the ante. We've seen flashes (er, ha) of this kind of detail work for a while, mostly from SKT - oov/fantasy's build vs Jaedong in the '09 Final superace, fantasy's whole series vs. Jaedong in that OSL, Bisu's build vs. Flash in the WL Final last season, the Pathfinder build Jangbi somehow beat - and also in ZvZ. Then looking back on Flash's interviews, it's clear he has put this kind of thought into the game for several years now. But I think we are finally hitting a critical mass: for now, maybe, people are only doing this to beat Flash himself... but it can't be that long (assuming the game survives) until a bunch of somebody elses starts putting that kind of work in on a regular basis.
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Now the real question this PR is not if Flash #1/Fantasy #2, it's whether Bisu deserves to stay on the PR and whether Jaedong should be allowed back on.
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On March 12 2012 14:11 aupstar wrote:
Now the real question this PR is not if Flash #1/Fantasy #2, it's whether Bisu deserves to stay on the PR and whether Jaedong should be allowed back on.
Bisu's record has been bad. His game vs FirebatHero wasn't clean at all (looked shaky despite the massive lead he took after the opening). Unlike many, i actually liked his games vs Jangbi. Long tense games drain player's mental stamina massively and i didn't think as poorly of some of Bisu's (silly) mistakes as the others did. Long story short though, for the most part, he (Bisu) shouldn't make the PR. Unless competition has been especially weak and i haven't been paying attention.
I would put Jaedong on again as well. He's looked strong (though not throughly tested in all MUs, but being Jaedong he can be given the benefit of the doubt).
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On March 12 2012 08:50 Spekulatius wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 07:38 Sethronu wrote:
Actually, I don't agree that Flash has shown better play and game sense than Fantasy in their most recent games (granted, I'm a massive T1 fan though so I'm probably biased). Majority of Flash's wins this season came from getting a big lead in early game if not outright winning due to BO choices. While choosing the better BOs is obviously a strength in itself, I kind of feel like Flash is prone to getting himself killed due to too much reliance on his BO being 'perfect' and cutting too many corners to get the advantages he feels he needs to be in position to win.
In contrast, Fantasy's games, while more messy and chaotic, were really more about superior tactical decisions and control, as well as amazing timings with his vulture harass, drops etc, rather than BO wins; which in my opinion, is a better indicator of overall skill level. You can get the worse end of a BO or misread what your opponent is doing even against enemies magnitudes weaker than you, and then lose embarrassingly like Flash did recently.
Again, I'm not saying that Flash is somehow bad, not saying that he is downright worse than Fantasy either; just don't feel that his play has been more impressive than Fantasy's at all. I'd like to adress the two bolded parts. 1) It's true that a lot of Flash's wins can be attributed to what people might call "cheesy" play (although I despise that word). Very many of his games don't even get to the point where he could prove his impeccable mid-late game play. His "cheesy" play though can also be interpreted as neatly exploiting the metagame state of the respective matchups and allowing Flash to get a somewhat safe advantage early on. It's not risky in the sense that gets attributed to "cheesy" play most of the time; what he does, is calculatedly and impeccably taking advantage of the situation he's put in. I don't agree that this kind of play which assured him so many free wins should go to his disadvantage when considering his spot on the ranking. 2) Same thing goes for the cutting corners aspect. I don't know if Flash feels he "needs [to cut corners] to be in a position to win". He's reading his opponent based on scouting (notably scanning) and reacts appropriately. From the limited information he gets, he's making the perfect choices. The loss to Dear can be attributed to lacking information, not on a lackluster interpretation of what he saw. Same thing goes for his loss to M18M. The proxied gates + robo caused a lack of intel which could be exploited by his opponent. What I'm saying is: Flash is taking every little advantage he gets to get ahead which is exactly what makes him such a dominant player. He does the best with the intel he gets which makes it safe to say that (almost) anyone he's playing is gonna lose if he doesn't somehow "trick" Flash or if Flash fails at scouting. And that's basically saying Flash is the best player at the moment if you don't catch him off guard. And even in those situations, his crisis management is totally up there. Not taking anything away from Fantasy though. He totally deserves #2, until we see a clear flaw in Flash's play, in his game sense or his execution. The gap between #1 and #2 doesn't seem that insurmountable to me.
Agreed! Flash is the best because he makes the best deductions.
This is why I hate these kind of threads when there aren't enough games. People will judge based on expectations and not actual performance or results, well known psych affect.
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On March 12 2012 03:05 FirstProbe wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 01:42 VGhost wrote:
I know this is borderline insane... but is anyone else a little bit tempted to push fantasy up to #1? He's 4-0 since the last PR (to Flash's 4-2). Granted, he's had slightly easier opponents... but he hasn't lost to nobodies (though both admittedly with very good PvT). Also factoring in is fantasy's win - you could almost say comeback win - over Jaehoon, who's also a solid PvT player.
Mostly I'm wondering whether people are starting to figure out Flash's PvT (for now). He could have lost to Stork despite an abusive early game build if Stork hadn't gone all in on carriers AND lost his goons; he beat BeSt with a bunker rush; he's now running an 0-2 streak against Protoss. I'm not suggesting panic, and I don't really think there's sufficient evidence to actually knock him out of the #1 spot yet. But I do think it's something to start keeping an eye on, especially with fantasy just inches behind him in terms of performance and record. I really do think Flash will be saving his most solid play, for the finals. There will be no bunker rushing protoss, in my opinion. Regardless, Flash's mechanics are still superb- the best in my opinion. His tank control is excellent. His losses are due to being overly greedy against an aggressive and prepared opponent, and I doubt he will make that mistake in the finals.
I didn't feel like the center gates from M18M was a prepared build, rather a reaction to Flash's proxy into fast third. I feel like it was just a relatively hard screwup by Flash rather than some kind of brilliance by M18M.
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On March 12 2012 22:40 gen.Sun wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 03:05 FirstProbe wrote:On March 12 2012 01:42 VGhost wrote:
I know this is borderline insane... but is anyone else a little bit tempted to push fantasy up to #1? He's 4-0 since the last PR (to Flash's 4-2). Granted, he's had slightly easier opponents... but he hasn't lost to nobodies (though both admittedly with very good PvT). Also factoring in is fantasy's win - you could almost say comeback win - over Jaehoon, who's also a solid PvT player.
Mostly I'm wondering whether people are starting to figure out Flash's PvT (for now). He could have lost to Stork despite an abusive early game build if Stork hadn't gone all in on carriers AND lost his goons; he beat BeSt with a bunker rush; he's now running an 0-2 streak against Protoss. I'm not suggesting panic, and I don't really think there's sufficient evidence to actually knock him out of the #1 spot yet. But I do think it's something to start keeping an eye on, especially with fantasy just inches behind him in terms of performance and record. I really do think Flash will be saving his most solid play, for the finals. There will be no bunker rushing protoss, in my opinion. Regardless, Flash's mechanics are still superb- the best in my opinion. His tank control is excellent. His losses are due to being overly greedy against an aggressive and prepared opponent, and I doubt he will make that mistake in the finals. I didn't feel like the center gates from M18M was a prepared build, rather a reaction to Flash's proxy into fast third. I feel like it was just a relatively hard screwup by Flash rather than some kind of brilliance by M18M.
Read the interview, he said it was a prepared strategy
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On March 12 2012 10:32 aupstar wrote:
You have to play boring/standard every single time like fantasy to win or it doesn't count.
LOL whats wrong with the times we are living?
Fantasy as an example of standard play...
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EPT
