I assembled a list of some unique achievements in progaming which could be called 'Wonders'. Maybe I forgot something, maybe some of them should not be called 'Wonders', but I think that such a list can be interesting for fans.
To find out which of these 'Wonders' are more wonderful I decided to list them in the following poll.
Poll: Which of these 'Wonders of Progaming' is more wonderful? (Vote): The only protoss to win 2 OSLs (Garimto) (Vote): 3 consequent OSL finals with two consequent victories (Boxer) (Vote): The only foreigner to win a Korean individual league (Grrrr...) (Vote): Longest streak at the 1st place in KeSPA Rankings (17 monthes, Boxer) (Vote): Longest streak in TOP 30 of KeSPA Rankings (87 monthes, NaDa) (Vote): 27-0 streak in TvZ (iloveoov) (Vote): 16-0 winning streak in TV games (GoRush) (Vote): 17-0 streak in PvP (Best) (Vote): The youngest age of TV win (13 years, 2 monthes and 17 days, Baby) (Vote): The youngest OSL champion (15 years, 8 monthes and 10 days, Flash) (Vote): One player dominance (92,19% over 3rd place in KeSPA Rankings, Savior) (Vote): Absolute ZvZ dominance (82-24, 77.36%, Jaedong)
Upd: When you think about Savior's dominance, please, think about it as '5 straight MSL finals, 3 victories (savior)'. It would better reflect his wonder
It was simply unthinkable to pull something like that off at the time.
Giyom's isn't THAT impressive, because it was during at time where foreigners were pretty much equivalent skill level to Koreans. If he won today though, it would be a completely different story.
27-0 is pretty impressive but I think the long-term absolute stranglehold Jaedong has over ZvZ is more amazing. It's one thing to be fucking amazing but it's another to be fucking amazing in over 100 games
It was simply unthinkable to pull something like that off at the time.
Giyom's isn't THAT impressive, because it was during at time where foreigners were pretty much equivalent skill level to Koreans. If he won today though, it would be a completely different story.
This pretty much sums it all up. Grrr... won when it was a fairly level playing field, before kids were growing up with the game. If you figure a kid was 7 when SC came out, he was 10-12 when it first hit popularity, and his life could legitimately revolve around aspiring to become a pro, just like American football. Figure they are now 18-20 (Read: Jaedong's age). Now winning an OSL/MSL even GOM would be fucking impressive.
oov went on a 27 game winstreak in a matchup, something that will never happen again.
NaDa is a true champion in SC and in RL if you have read the story about his father dieing in a car accident and what a fighter NaDa is...and um have you seen his biceps lately? I want to see him armwrestle Daniel Lee lol ^___^
His peak is well over 80% which he had just few week ago.
Z=Z, T>Z especially pre muta abuse ~90 games sample vs 27 games sample ZvZ = is still thought to be a rock-paper-scissors mu with bo wins all the time.
JD's ZvZ is easily the most impressive thing other than the career achievement of Nada.
oovs streak is totally amazing, but that is winstreak, that's just one period of dominance. I'm not saying it's not impressive, because it deffinetly is, but winstreaks also have some luck factor in them. imho nada with 87 months is no.1 wonder here. That's more than 7 years in top of progaming. I'm just so impressed how did he manage to keep his willpower and concentration for so long. 1.nada 2.oov 3.jaedong imho
voted nada. Close seconds would be oov and savior. I don't think the earlier accomplishments (Boxer, Grr) were that impressive because the general skill level was lower at the time.
In fact, the idea of 'Wonders of Progaming' is not only 'which wonder is more wonderful'. The idea is to collect trully unique achievements of SC Progaming and make some sort of 'Seven Wonders of the Starcraft Progaming'. Now we are very close to the moment of SCii releasing and, therefore, to the termination of SC progaming, and so such a list of Wonders can become a great monument to this 11 years era.
voted nada. oov's streak is impressive, but it was over a relatively short period of time, and before the matchup was completely figured out. on the other hand, nada's streak spans over entire generations of progamers
I couldn't choose, but eventually I felt like the best guess was:
1) JvZ. 2) Nada 3) iloveoov TvZ. I really want to put this higher, but it's only one MU. 4) sAviOr's domination.
I think if we hadn't just seen Jaedong dominate his closest competition (yet again) then that would probably slip down to three or four, but I can't get it out of my head right now.
Where's Savior's 5 straight MSL finals, 3 victories *in the worst map pool for zergs ever? I'd pick that over Oov's 27-0 win streak. Yeah... that's probably under "Savior's domination".
I don't there's any question about Nada being number one, 87 months is unbelievable. The sheer longevity of his run, being able to keep it up for that long is out of the realm of talent and into the one of conscious human will. Genius is one part talent, and ten parts will.
I am curious to see how two through last gets ordered.
Oovs 27-0 should be his entire era of dominance instead, because that was even more impressive than just the TvZ run (that alone is worthy a #1 spot imo)
People are talking about how its "only" a win streak, but during this streak Oov destroyed everyone in all matchups in his path winning 3 MSLs in a row and an OSL and dominated the scene for a year harder than anyone else ever did, even savior.
edit : + hes the definition of clutch winning every Starleague final he ever entered, and he made the biggest impact of how the game was played and still is played today.
On August 03 2009 04:16 Oystein wrote: Oovs 27-0 should be his entire era of dominance instead, because that was even more impressive than just the TvZ run (that alone is worthy a #1 spot imo)
People are talking about how its "only" a win streak, but during this streak Oov destroyed everyone in all matchups in his path winning 3 MSLs in a row and an OSL and dominated the scene for a year harder than anyone else ever did, even savior.
edit : + hes the definition of clutch winning every Starleague final he ever entered, and he made the biggest impact of how the game was played and still is played today.
this is a really good point. oov's macro style showed how you didn't need exceptional micro if you had 1.5 times the amount of units of your opponents, and could constantly reinforce battles.
On August 03 2009 03:40 Megalisk wrote: Obviously perfectman.
Hahah yes, I'll support that but since he's fairly new.... I'll go NaDa!!!! You just can't hate this guy, and man, he was a beast and still is (his arm muscles!)!!! What a wonder! ^_^
Definitely either Nada or Oov. Nada's continued high-level of play will never cease to amaze me. It seems as if he's finally winding down, but damn, he proved that you can hang in there for long haul.
Oov's 27-0 is absolutely insane though, especially how out of control it was to do such a thing at the time.
On August 03 2009 02:04 heyoka wrote: I voted Garimto because no one is giving him any love. I can't be the only one who thinks being the only person of his race to get 2 osls is insane.
Very nice list!
what about a Bisu option? He's the only Protoss to have acheived what he's done.. like 3 MSL's, 2 GOM's I think.. Highest ELO rating of Protoss users.. and he even had his hand at 'dethroning' one of the "wonders" of SC in Savior @ the end of his reign. I <3'd GARIMTO too when I seen him, watched the finals of him and boxer back in like 2001, but c'mon.. Bisu is hands down the most accomplished Protoss..
shoulda been a Bisu option ^ ^
A lot of those options are really magnificent though: Oovs 27-0 TvZ Nadas 83 month streak in top 30.. Saviors dominance.. Boxers dominance.. Best coming out of nowhere to win 17-0 PvP's.. in a time of Stork, Jangbi, Bisu and Kal..
The 2 age records for Flash and baby aren't that impressive.. its standard knowledge that younger players have more potential, and stamina to succeed and are powered towards stardom.. so naturally they try a bit harder and prolly have more time to practice.. cept for other actual progamers that's been in the field for some time and been practicing like 14 hours a day O_o
On August 03 2009 05:32 Liquid`NonY wrote: best's pvp streak is better than iloveoov's tvz streak
but nada's ranking streak blows both of them away
i'll throw down a few reasons for my first statement: --the era of best's streak was harder and more competitive than the era of oov's streak --tvz favors terran. it did before oov came along, while oov was there, and it still does even after the eras of july, savior and jaedong. pvp is balanced --oov had boxer helping him. bisu's pvp tutelage doesn't match boxer's tvz tutelage
oov's success had to do with his new style and general strategy. it was a one-time genius that he played out for as long as he could. it's better to think of his streak in terms of how long it took opposing players to figure out how to win. if july didnt exist, the streak would probably be even longer, but oov's act is still the same. he would just be lucky enough to live in a world where his act got him even further.
best, on the other hand, was playing against some great protoss players and he was beating them without any advantage other than on-the-spot decisions and composure. his macro superiority doesnt kick in until each player has 3+ bases. and even then, he might not be superior, since the protoss players of his streak's era were all capable of great macro. and the most amazing thing about it is that coaches and players were choosing to do percentage builds against best while best was usually just doing a very safe build so that he could survive for 8 minutes and work the mid game. he kept his streak alive by winning games from a disadvantaged position because he would not leave his games to chance. he just simply outplayed people in an era when that is nearly impossible to do for very long and in a matchup when outplaying someone often isnt enough.
players rise and fall, the proscene sees several short eras of terran, zerg, or protoss dominance, but the only person to remain strong and consistent for 7+ years deserves recognition
Most of those accomplishments are very amazing, but the one that sticks out as a 'wonder' the most is Nada's Kespa top 30 streak. It's the one that really makes you think, "How the hell did he do that? How does he remain dedicated for so long, even after slumping?"
I dislike too much Savior fanboyism but his dominance was most noticable here and I recognize it more than Oovs or Nada's. Oov was more of a revolutionist and Nada was rather stable winner than dominator while Savior was a doom for his opponents. So my vote went for savior. Grr and Garimto should be rather "honorable mentions" as they had solid iccup C skills during D+ ages of brood war.
On August 03 2009 05:32 Liquid`NonY wrote: best's pvp streak is better than iloveoov's tvz streak
but nada's ranking streak blows both of them away
i'll throw down a few reasons for my first statement: --the era of best's streak was harder and more competitive than the era of oov's streak --tvz favors terran. it did before oov came along, while oov was there, and it still does even after the eras of july, savior and jaedong. pvp is balanced --oov had boxer helping him. bisu's pvp tutelage doesn't match boxer's tvz tutelage
oov's success had to do with his new style and general strategy. it was a one-time genius that he played out for as long as he could. it's better to think of his streak in terms of how long it took opposing players to figure out how to win. if july didnt exist, the streak would probably be even longer, but oov's act is still the same. he would just be lucky enough to live in a world where his act got him even further.
best, on the other hand, was playing against some great protoss players and he was beating them without any advantage other than on-the-spot decisions and composure. his macro superiority doesnt kick in until each player has 3+ bases. and even then, he might not be superior, since the protoss players of his streak's era were all capable of great macro. and the most amazing thing about it is that coaches and players were choosing to do percentage builds against best while best was usually just doing a very safe build so that he could survive for 8 minutes and work the mid game. he kept his streak alive by winning games from a disadvantaged position because he would not leave his games to chance. he just simply outplayed people in an era when that is nearly impossible to do for very long and in a matchup when outplaying someone often isnt enough.
While I agree that Best streak was sick there is one thing that makes Oovs streak better imo, and that is the fact that he played 4 BO3s and 1BO5 during the streak compared to Best`s 2 BO3 vs Much and that noname toss from Khan. And its obvious that its way harder to keep win streaks when playing BO series than just single games a day in proleague and oov emerged without losses from all of them. And if you want to compare the skill level of their opponents, the skill level of oovs opponents was also high, he beat all the best Zergs of the day including Chojja, Yellow, Gorush and July several times before he finally lost vs him.
Also Best was "lucky" in several of the games where his opponents more or less threw away the games. (vs Jangbi on BS for example or vs Kal on chupung where he was getting badly outplayed until he caught Kals army out of position) AND he did dual proxygate Stork in the center of Andromeda, not exactly what I would call a safe way of outplaying his opponents
No. I was wrong. The second is XellOs with 67 months.
Others: BoxeR has streak of 61 months. YellOw has streak of 64 months. iloveoov has streak of 52 months. Reach has streak of 50 months. July has streak of 43 months. Kingdom has streak of 38 months. Nal_rA has two streaks: 31 months and then 26 months. Goodfriend has streak of 42 months. Anytime has streak of 36 months. Midas has streak of 38 months. sAviOr has streak of 41 months. Hwasin has streak of 33 months. Stork has streaks of 16 months and 28 months. Bisu has streak of 35 months. Jaedong has streak of 33 months. Grrrr... has streak of 28 months. Sea[Shield] has streak of 38 months. YellOw[ArnC] has streak of 38 months. free has streak of 32 months. Flash has streak of 26 months.
On August 05 2009 22:22 SilverSkyLark wrote: Was boxer in 3 straight osl finals? didn't he lose against shinhwa in the group stages after his osl final against garimto?
His final against garimto was his third final. He won first and second final and then lost in third to Garimto.
EPT
) amazing. 
