[MSL] Grand Final - Page 7

What we all know is that Hydra is the next big zerg (team ace, ELO are good enough indicators for me). But what we also know is that this is Great's only shot at winning anything significant for himself. He's never going back to a final, he's KHAN's best zerg but probably 4th best player overall, and he's pretty inconsistent over his career, or is he just consistently inconsistent... which is technically consistent...?

Anyway, all of you making comparisons to other 1-league winners/finalists, allow me to put in my 2 cents, because Great is not to be compared to the likes of Calm or ForGG, but maybe of Movie and Casy.

Calm, much unloved, won Avalon MSL. After this, he hit his ELO peak, and has since reached four more starleague semifinals. Calm in my mind is not a 1-league wonder because he always comes back next season, in spite of his proleague struggles.

ForGG, 1-leaguer though he was, deserves mass props for his Arena MSL run. He beat one of the Dragons in the year of the Dragons in one of the best PvT series you'll ever see. How does he follow that up? Oh, by beating the best Terran in the game, Flash, and then proceeds to DESTROY his teammate and defending MSL champion Jaedong. In his career, ForGG reached an impressive ELO peak of 2263. His dominance was brief but it was indeed dominant.

Luxury, aka tells-Hwasin-he's-going-12-hatch zerg, didn't have a particularly golden run in Lost Saga, but he did beat the everyone's favorite prodigy Leta, and beat 2-time MSL finalist Jangbi back when Jangbi was good (Yes, such a time did exist!). But, but, good sirs, let's not forget that Luxury had made 2 OSL semifinals in 2008. Luxury wasn't the "#2 zerg" beyond Jaedong without merit. Luxury was relevant and a force before such and such, match throwing, slump, and uh, yeah that stuff that uh... happened...

What about GGplay? Once known as the Ro16 zerg for his inability to advance deep in the OSL and yet was always back next season. In the Daum OSL, GGplay managed to draw three terrans, which hey, good for him, as he was known for his ZvT. His hive play was comparable to Savior's during his peak. But in Brood War, how can you not be impressed when any zerg battles through the three best terrans in the game at that time (Flash [emerging, unloved, but even back then brilliant], Iris, Hwasin)? I mean, if a zerg runs through the best three protoss, no one gives a shit, but the three best terrans, hell yeah! Plus have you seen those games? Fucking amazing. GGplay was not much of a force afterwards, save for his semifinal in Incruit OSL, but his accomplishments in Daum are to be respected. Title earned, end of story.

So what is great? I'll tell you what Great is... fortuitous. Like the following candidates.

Casy... Good God, the champion of the most infuriating OSL format. I don't what the fuck kind of OSL was ShinHan S1, but what a joke. In that OSL, Casy lost 5 of his 8 first games and still wasn't elimated, including 2 losses to ZergMan and losing 2 of 3 to Iris. The cat with 9 lives drew Yellow in the semifinal. Hmm, Yellow in a meaningful series vs a terran. Wonder what will happen. Oh yeah, Casy won. Casy then draws Chojja, the unloved zerg with a lot of silver and bronze medals (but still one gold), and crushes him with his famous TvZ moves. Casy could only play TvZ and was lucky enough to draw 2 starleague chokers that were also zergs. Casy, an OSL champion. Casy, who has the worst TvP in the history of brood war, was never a force again. But even he managed to peak above 2200 ELO, so overall, he was still a "good" player at some point...

How about Movie? Remember Movie? Did you know he made a starleague final once? Yes, he did! EVER 2009, it was. For about, say, 34 days, Movie had really good PvZ. He was slightly more aggressive and attempted to punish greedy zergs with awkward timings, without much economic risk, and utilized reaver-based pushed quite well; and it payed off, as the likes of hero (who aside from beating Bisu a few times, is incredibly average at ZvP), Zero (who will forever go down as the cutest starleague choker in the history of Brood War), and Shine (who could rock Bisu and Stork but couldn't handle the once-quirky Movie) fell by the wayside. After losing to Flash, how has Movie's career been? Hmm, not so great. He was eliminated by Pure in the following OSL and has been quite irrelevant in starleagues and certainly has been no real asset for CJ or Hite Entus for quite some time. So Movie has a weak starleague run AND weak proleague results to his name. According to TLPD, his ELO peak was/is a whopping 2080/2081. Not a great player, but was fortuitous, and was a protoss that for a brief time did not roll over and die to ever zerg that came along.

So where does this leave Great? Great's current ELO is 2047... ouch. His peak was 2071, even lower than Movie's! He's never been even a whimper in any OSL. Did you know he's only qualified for 2 OSLs ever, and has never even made the Ro16? How the MSL? Well, he's qualified for... 3. He even made the Ro8 once! So, that's 5 starleague qualifications and 1 trip past the Ro16 in any of them (technically only one trip to the Ro16 as well). How did Great manage to get to the finals? Well, he beat Canata twice in the MST. Remember Canata? ELO 2020? A terran so bad now (and then) that he even lost to Juni has hasn't been played by SKT in almost 2 months? Fortuitous. In the Ro32, Great gets his 2 needed wins versus 2 super-slumpers known as Leta and Soulkey. Fortuitous. Next, he defeats Action. Impressive right? Ask any KT fan how wonderful Action's ZvZ is, and see if the can help themselves from crying. Fortuitous! But wait, wait, wait! Great then defeats Kal! Hey, Kal's a good player! Props to Great, right? NO. Kal has the most overrated PvZ of all time. How so? Because he is incapable of beating any zerg in a meaningful series! Nevermind his thrashings at the hands of Jaedong. Remember that 0-3 performance vs Effort in KAS1? And how about losing to teammate Modesty last season? Modesty? He has 38% win rate in ZvP for God's sake! In fact look at Kal's MSL and OSL history in TLPD. You'll see in all but 3 or 4 of the many leagues he's qualified for, he always gets fleeced by zergs. If Modesty can beat Kal, hell, so can the coin-flip ZvP of Great. Choking in starleagues is something Kal shares in common with Zero. And guess who Great played next? You guessed it! The Prince of Queens, Cute-choker himself. Zero's weakest MU shows up once again and he is bounced without much strain on Great. Fortuitous!

Hey, what can you say, Great won his games while other favorites didn't take care of their business. I hope Great wins and sucks face with that trophy. I hope he realizes the magnitude of this opportunity. I hope he rubs it in Jangbi's face every day. I hope he walks up to Stork and says, "Hey, I'm technically as accomplished as you now! Hee hee!" I hope he call me up and tells me that my analysis means nothing to him because he won and that's all that matters. I hope he has a beer with Casy. The problem is that hydra is approaching S-class status, and has the best ZvZ in the game right now, and is 4th in ELO overall. If Great beats Hydra, we should all be impressed, and no one can say he doesn't "deserve" this championship. Beating Hydra will mean something, because hey, looks like not a lot of people can do it these days! I will applaud great, send him fan-mail, and create a new account on TL called iLoveGreatHesSoGreat. Go Great!