EPTThe infamous Lastshadow and Thoorin on the best 4 Brood War players, I found the content pretty interesting and I thought I'd post it here since you guys might enjoy it as well
Esports Mount Rushmore: Thoorin, Lastshadow
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thezanursic
5497 Posts
The infamous Lastshadow and Thoorin on the best 4 Brood War players, I found the content pretty interesting and I thought I'd post it here since you guys might enjoy it as well | ||
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Letmelose
Korea (South)3227 Posts
1) LS comparison of the relationship between NaDa being the "greatest terran" and Flash being the "best terran", while sAviOr being the "greatest zerg" and Jaedong being the "best zerg" seems confusing to me. You see, NaDa has accumulated more overall success than Flash, while Flash has the single greatest peak seen from a terran player in a professional setting. In the same vein (as Thorin defined it, the greatest being in terms of overall career, and the best being their peak level), Jaedong's overall career towers over sAviOr's overall career, but sAviOr's more fondly remembered by a lot of people who was there to witness the sheer visceral domination he had over other players when he was at his best. I'm not sure if LS was just talking about the absolute skill level, which would make sense of his comparison (as in Flash was a better player than NaDa, just like Jaedong was a better player than sAviOr in terms of absolute skill level), but otherwise, it could not be more off. 2) I liked the way LS brought up the points where the "commercial success" of the scene directly or indirectly affected the careers of great players, such as the Legend of the Fall being a main driving point for OGN, or franchise stars such as BoxeR or Bisu being less reliant on their success than less popular players such as NaDa or July. I think it's an issue that is not appreciated enough, I mean, professional teams put much more effort into taking care of players, and developing players that had the "star power", and the organizers knew that players like BoxeR and Bisu raked in huge numbers, so their decisions on some matters, I assume, were somewhat influenced by that reality. It's an entertainment industry, and the ratings mattered, casual fandom could not be ignored, and there were players who battled it against the odds, while some were more fortuitous with their environment. | ||
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arb
Noobville17921 Posts
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Ty2
United States1434 Posts
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Letmelose
Korea (South)3227 Posts
Bisu's evolution as a player was rocketed by his transfer to SK Telecom T1, where he found greater financial stability and a more professional and competitive atmosphere. Beforehand, he was a monster in individual leagues, but failed to lead his team (the reigning ProLeague champions) to further greatness in the ProLeague, which contrasts him from other great players such as July, or Anytime who managed to drag what used to be some of the worst skilled, poorly funded teams to championship material through personal sacrifice and inhuman struggles. He was not a player who thrived being the sole focal point of it all. As SK Telecom T1 developed probably the deepest "ace line-up" of the modern era in Bisu-FanTaSy-BeSt, Bisu started to rake in huge number of wins. Bisu was at his best when he was not under heavy scrutiny, when he was not focused. This is a post I wrote several years ago when discussing Bisu's huge disparity in terms of PvT performance when he compare his 2009/2010 ProLeague Season, and 2010/2011 ProLeague Season, and I think still holds some merit in this particular topic. On August 31 2011 21:00 Letmelose wrote: Here's what some guy months ago on FOMOS mentioned, and I thought was kind of convincing. Do you know what the biggest difference between the 09/10 and 10/11 season was? The entry. After the match-fixing fiasco, 10/11 season of Proleague had the entries unknown until the last minute. Here's what the guy said, and I tend to agree with him. Bisu is a very talented guy, but he has this tendency to only excel under specific circumstances. After his rather unexpected magnificent 08/09 season (after being under the radar previously), many teams took the appropriate precaution to prepare against him, and under such scrutiny he flopped. This season's Proleague change in the entry system made it so that sniping against Bisu to such high intensities would not be seen again. This trend of players doing better against Bisu if given the opportunity to dissect every aspect of his play is seen in individual leagues also. I believe Bisu needs to add depth to his play to achieve greatness in all stages, not just under certain settings. However, it's only fair to mention that Bisu only comes under such heavy scrutiny because he seen as the protoss equivalent of Flash and Jaedong. There's no doubt that no other protoss of recent years came even close to producing the results that Bisu has. I think there's a reason why after Bisu's last ever finals was in 2008, and why he never even played a BO5 after 2009. Bisu is not the type of player to overcome all odds, but rather excel under specific situations where he can show off his amazing skill set. That's why he has been prone to such inconsistency, yet be regarded in such high regards due to his potential. Now, you can argue that his irregularities in performances is due to his race, but I think the existence of Stork disproves that theory to some extent. It's way too simplistic to just say he would have been what Flash was to terran, or what Jaedong was to zerg had protoss been a more rewarding race, considering even within his own realm, he struggled to find a level of overall excellence that Stork managed to find throughout his long career despite being less talented mechanically speaking. | ||
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arb
Noobville17921 Posts
On November 14 2016 13:27 Letmelose wrote: Now the limitations of Bisu is a topic that I've always been a strong interest in, as he is one of the most hyped and exciting individuals to ever grace the scene, because we never had a great player who was so specific in his need to perform great, yet was not confined to a particular era. Bisu's evolution as a player was rocketed by his transfer to SK Telecom T1, where he found greater financial stability and a more professional and competitive atmosphere. Beforehand, he was a monster in individual leagues, but failed to lead his team (the reigning ProLeague champions) to further greatness in the ProLeague, which contrasts him from other great players such as July, or Anytime who managed to drag what used to be some of the worst skilled, poorly funded teams to championship material through personal sacrifice and inhuman struggles. He was not a player who thrived being the sole focal point of it all. As SK Telecom T1 developed probably the deepest "ace line-up" of the modern era in Bisu-FanTaSy-BeSt, Bisu started to rake in huge number of wins. Bisu was at his best when he was not under heavy scrutiny, when he was not focused. This is a post I wrote several years ago when discussing Bisu's huge disparity in terms of PvT performance when he compare his 2009/2010 ProLeague Season, and 2010/2011 ProLeague Season, and I think still holds some merit in this particular topic. I think there's a reason why after Bisu's last ever finals was in 2008, and why he never even played a BO5 after 2009. Bisu is not the type of player to overcome all odds, but rather excel under specific situations where he can show off his amazing skill set. That's why he has been prone to such inconsistency, yet be regarded in such high regards due to his potential. Now, you can argue that his irregularities in performances is due to his race, but I think the existence of Stork disproves that theory to some extent. It's way too simplistic to just say he would have been what Flash was to terran, or what Jaedong was to zerg had protoss been a more rewarding race, considering even within his own realm, he struggled to find a level of overall excellence that Stork managed to find throughout his long career despite being less talented mechanically speaking. I think despite Stork and Bisu being top of the Protoss ladder, they both displayed completely different styles of play i think thats what really sets them apart | ||
GTR
51507 Posts
On November 14 2016 11:54 Letmelose wrote: It's an entertainment industry, and the ratings mattered, casual fandom could not be ignored, and there were players who battled it against the odds, while some were more fortuitous with their environment. myself, along with waxangel to an extent have a theory that if july had the looks of someone of say, a shark or ruby (average players with large fanbases due to their looks), july would be much more respected/appreciated. | ||
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XenOsky
Chile2298 Posts
just watched it, the argument about protoss being the fucked race is so true it makes me want to play zerg. | ||
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Letmelose
Korea (South)3227 Posts
On November 14 2016 14:37 GTR wrote: myself, along with waxangel to an extent have a theory that if july had the looks of someone of say, a shark or ruby (average players with large fanbases due to their looks), july would be much more respected/appreciated. Imagine a good looking 17 year old zerg player coming out of nowhere, playing a race that had never produced a OGN StarLeague champion before, overcomes legends like BoxeR, Zeus, XellOs, iloveoov, and Reach for the ultimate Cinderella "Royal Road" story. With an aggressive style that is super crisp and just full of highlight reel worthy micromanegement, and from a team that basically had zero good players and was always on the brink of bankruptcy. Bam. He immediately gets the Bisu treatment, and gets shifted off to a corporation sponsored team like SK Telecom T1 or KTF Magic N's, gets the adulation of the fans as the next superstar of the scene, instead of being polarized for "taking away" YellOw's rightful opportunity as player who would finally overcome the "tragedy of the zerg race". He immediately becomes the point of focus for the huge team, where they attempt to mold him into a franchise star who would lead the team in the years to come. This is where he either becomes too big for his own boots like sAviOr, or becomes a player who gets to fulfill his full potential as a legend. Let's pretend he doesn't become a full diva like sAviOr. Tournament organizers start noticing a huge rise in the ratings whenever he does well, and starts allocating the appropriate maps, instead of trying to shut him down with maps like Neo Forte. His team starts giving him a huge pay rise whenever he does well, giving him never ending incentives to become a greater player, giving him the necessary guidance to pace himself to accomplish more than what he thought himself to be capable of. Instead we have what actually happened to him, where his team leech off his tournament prize money (July refused to move to other teams because he wanted his team to succeed out of his sense of loyalty), his team making him play up to four matches in a day (regular 1v1, off-race 1v1 to cheat the system, 2v2, and an ACE match) in what was the saddest one man effort in the history of the ProLeague, which leads him go to individual leagues with next to zero practice for tournament organizers who get the ratings of their life time after July finally falls in the round of eight as the sole representative of his race, so we get to see popular players like BoxeR go far in the tournament in his place. July still persists and finally takes down iloveoov to take the ProLeague title away from SK Telecom T1, all the while being the face of the zerg race for much of 2004 and 2005. While teams like CJ Entus repay XellOs for sacrificing for his team in the past, July's team actively tells the players to stop doing so well in the ProLeague (because MBC Game HERO was a team made for political reasons, not to actually fund a competitively viable team), and cuts July's salary in half now that he has been superseded by sAviOr as the number one zerg. You literally have someone who toiled his way to the top despite the fans not liking him for taking away the "storyline" from YellOw, the tournament organizers giving preferential treatment to more popular players, his team being utter garbage and providing an environment that makes Jaedong's situation at Hwaseung Oz look like a sweet luxury, and even his return to glory years after his prime was quickly cast aside as a "fluke victory" by the masses, all the while we had the same people chiming "is he a bonjwa yet?" every time pretty boy Bisu made a deep run, but July just took it in the chin and struggled on and got success despite the universe telling him he was not "the champion" people wanted. He is my favourite player of all time. What he achieved is amazing, but the more you look at the circumstances, the more astounding his career becomes. There's no one quite like him. | ||
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Endymion
United States3701 Posts
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Vuk_91
Serbia1690 Posts
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arb
Noobville17921 Posts
On November 14 2016 20:46 Endymion wrote: where's julyzerg??? nada above july??? cmonnnnn... i might be biased as a zerg, but july is too good to pass up in a list like this... Nada destroyed July in almost every game they play if i remember correctly http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/details.php?section=korean&type=players&id=147&part=games&league=standard&vs=Z#tblt-461-1-default-0-July Still debateable but i dunno. July was a lot more even against Iloveoov, but against the style of game Nada played July couldnt win hardly at all While July was good putting him above Nada or even Savior/Jaedong is uhh iffy | ||
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