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Soulkey winning 3 championships in a row is amazing. But it doesnt make him a Bonjwa, because the general skill level in the afreeca supported starleague or at least the skill level of the competitors has decreased significantly. I would even argue, that these 3 titles of Soulkey are equivalent to the achievment of Queen winning the 2 titles in a much more competitive era.
People talk about how Soulkey is finally shinning, because there are less ZvZs. But Soulkey has already improved his zvz signifcantly, this should be clear, since he literally won his Asl title in a ZvZ final. I think the real reason is , because his opponents are not able to practise with high level Zergs of similar quality like Soma, Larva, Effort, Prime Queen, prime Action, etc. all of these player either retired, semi retired, or have fallen of significantly, for one reason or an other.
Sure, ZvZ may also have some impact, but i dont see it as coincidence that the gap of the Iron wall to the other races widens immensely, as literally the whole Zerg aristocracy steps down.
Look at people like Action, that used to be Flashs private training partners and having their prime and suddenly getting worse and worse as the goat vanishes into trouble…
Queen playing like a B- teamer, while planning and preparing his future based on the expected family life.
Larva giving up on ASL after full filling his dream, ruining his sight and health and focusing on less stressful means to get the money home. Effort just quitting because of the pain, he fells in his wrist.
It is true playing starcraft on that level, being able to compete on that level, maybe on every level is not healthy. And yet we love the game and what it has given us.
In context of the bigger picture, what we are Witnessing right now is a shift of generations. Marked by a certain phenomen.
Lets not talk around the bush anymore, this season of ASL/SSL, the skill pool has been so bad . Some of the worst games ever, not only this season, but also last season.
Just to remember, we had a guy literally proxy rushing in the wrong base…
We had a Retired Stork and helpless Jd being sold us as contenders, while playing like C-teamers of them selves.
We had a real clown in the round of 16 playing buildorders, that already have been figured out and being discussed in the pre interviews and Action selling games to the highest bider. A league of legends player part starcraft player praised as the best protoss player in the modern era, which already says a lot about the quality of the talent pool of this race, getting humiliated by starcraft Goku and by his own planning just like in the cartoons.
This season has arguable the least high skill games of any season based of the knowledge and skill we have already experienced.
Honestly, some of the players this season would never qualify, even if they practiced a 100 years and had the knowledge of today and were send back to some of those more competitive seasons…
Even established players are performing way worse.
This season has been no highlight in skill celling.
It has been an interesting tournament, a funny one, but it is hard to call it the epitome of broodwar skill.
Even in the highlight of the tournament soulkey vs light.
We saw soulkey literally winning with a build order already discussed in this forum and light acting like a up coming terran player in 15 minutes game or so …
I mean what is going?
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hard disagree on every single point made. Players are not at all worse at Starcraft. The intellectual aspect of the game has surpassed that of old and the mechanics are largely unchanged.
The issue is that MOST play happens at home behind their own computer, in the comfort of their own environment, their own desk, their own chair. On-stage play is now limited to twice maybe four times a year if we include University MIXED tournaments. Players aren't used to on-stage play anymore, they're used to games played online. Online level is crazy good.
Plus the meta has shifted very heavily towards early game for zerg. Zerg has super low winrates during 12-20. Wins and losses happen way more frequently at time specific powerspikes. Players have gotten so good at capitalizing on time specific powerspikes that players can lose a game in the blink of an eye and, to the untrained eye, look "bad".
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I didnt read, but bringing sparkle back might help
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On December 01 2024 08:47 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote:
hard disagree on every single point made. Players are not at all worse at Starcraft. The intellectual aspect of the game has surpassed that of old and the mechanics are largely unchanged.
The issue is that MOST play happens at home behind their own computer, in the comfort of their own environment, their own desk, their own chair. On-stage play is now limited to twice maybe four times a year if we include University MIXED tournaments. Players aren't used to on-stage play anymore, they're used to games played online. Online level is crazy good.
Plus the meta has shifted very heavily towards early game for zerg. Zerg has super low winrates during 12-20. Wins and losses happen way more frequently at time specific powerspikes. Players have gotten so good at capitalizing on time specific powerspikes that players can lose a game in the blink of an eye and, to the untrained eye, look "bad".
Sorry, i dont get why you write that you disagree and dont support the hypothesis “these season games have been questionable skill quality or bad “ and than give points that support exactly that thesis…
You are saying that players are not used to playing on stage or in an offline environment anymore, because now a days they mostly can compete and gain money from the comfort of their home without the need to travel around and stuff.
Makes sense since we already have asl players playing from home on the main stage, when they were ill etc.
Of course the general skill and knowledge has gone up, mechanics aside, but that makes the reality even more dumb. And supports the point, if players played like this in others more competitive seasons, they would get eaten alive.
I agree that online level is really high, but we are talking about the SSl/Asl tournament games and why they seem to have a questionable skill level or like you said “ look like it for an untrained eye”.
It makes sense, that people can capitalize on mistakes and their power spikes, but i would argue that the amount of mistakes have gone up.
Even Soulkey has made a ton of mistakes, that didnt cost him games like donating drones for no reason. Or Light playing single player, Snow cancealing cannons while seeing hydras hatching with his corsair. Rush getting free games gifted several times in the tournament. Action playing starcraft not to win, but to lose games. Rain playing the same strategy again and again. The general quality of players in the round of 16 … Of course mistakes are gone to happen, but dont you find it strange that retired players like Stork or Sea suddenly advance with questionable performance?
“But yeah this season is peak of starcraft, right…”
I mean the proxy rush into no base is certainly a good summarize for this season of SSl.
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Ngl, I thought I was reading something that came out of Artosis' twitch chat.
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cool story, bro
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EDIT: ignore, accidental post
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Yeah? Well, you know, that's just like ehh.. your opinion, man.
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Bisutopia19142 Posts
I'd argue the "skill level being low" is due to the fact that the legends can still qualify over anyone who isn't in premier shape. It's amazing the "old" guys can still dominate over nearly anyone. The problem is anyone past their ceiling tends to dominate them hard. The top 4-6 players in every ASL are just separating themselves even further with a genius level of skill and talent. It will be really interesting to see how Flash performs against the new elite level players.
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On December 04 2024 02:25 BisuDagger wrote:
I'd argue the "skill level being low" is due to the fact that the legends can still qualify over anyone who isn't in premier shape. It's amazing the "old" guys can still dominate over nearly anyone. The problem is anyone past their ceiling tends to dominate them hard. The top 4-6 players in every ASL are just separating themselves even further with a genius level of skill and talent. It will be really interesting to see how Flash performs against the new elite level players.
its because the old elite know it isnt about mechanics. Its about timings, conceptual play, awareness and strategy. They start grinding games a month or so in advance, play more proleagues and spons and ladder to get their execution sharpened up. In addition they study what the few top players/leaders of their respective race are doing and can then qualify. a lot of the up and coming players do not have access to proleagues or to top tier opponents for spon matches. Their mechanics are great but without a consistent access to top tier opponents they wont be exposed to the strategic thinking and play of who they will face in asl/ssl qualifier semifinals and finals.
you can track their activity on eloboard and cwal. OP claimed stork was a retired player but the guy literally plays a lot. Sea also played like 200-250 games on ladder and in sponsor games leading up to both the
ASL and SSL season. and this is excluding offstream pracrice.
Rain for example played 350 ladder games for leading up to and during SSL. also played around 150 registered eloboard games. also posted he took a day or two days off for each play day to purely practice. From what I know most pros play multiple blocks of 8 games with various other pros on such days. This can easily lead up to 24 practice games on a day. claiming they are out of shape or barely play is straight up not true. Do most pros play less after a season? that is definitely true. But going into a season or during a season its a grindfest.
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But Soulkey has already improved his zvz signifcantly, [...] I think the real reason is , because his opponents are not able to practise with high level Zergs
Soulkey was able to improve his vZ significantly, yet at the same time his competitors' vZ got worse because they did not have high level Zergs to practice against? Really makes you think don't it.
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EPT
