[SPL] STX SouL v Woongjin Stars - Page 52

On December 08 2011 00:56 StarStruck wrote:
The lineups are predetermined before the actual games start. They submit it to the refs, so they cannot change it on the fly. -.-

On December 08 2011 05:05 mustaju wrote:

I guess he says that because he constantly gets beat up by him.

On December 08 2011 03:39 KamMoye wrote:


SK's played 54 matches v Terran.

The Terran's he's faced with a 60% win-rate:

BaBy x1
Sea x1
Light x2
Flash x4
Leta x7

That's 15 of his 54 matches, which isn't anywhere near two-thirds. What the heck? Why are you repeating something ad nauseam without even bothering to check it? That makes it sound like you have an agenda.

He went 2-5 v Leta, 0-4 v Flash, 0-2 v Light, 1-0 v Sea, 0-1 v Baby. Three wins, 12 losses. Dump those results and he's 25-15, giving him a 62.5% winning percentage. That took a whole lot of cherry-picking to get us there, though -- a 13% winning percentage against players who average out to, off my head, about a 63-64% win-rate in the matchup means SK lost significantly more often than you would expect him to. Small sample size, sure, but maybe he's just outclassed versus the best Terrans.

Is Zero?

He's faced those guys 28 times since January 1, 2009. (Arbitrary cut-off point on my point. -shrugs-) He's won 11 times and lost 17 times. That's a poor 39.2% win-rate, which, although far from ideal, is still three times better than Soulkey's win-rate against the same elite Terrans.



I agree, but it's close. Zero has won 200 games, maintaining a win-rate close to 55%. There's a lot to be said for sample size and longevity. Right now Soulkey may be the slightly better Z, but even that's arguable and not "definite." In the last "season" (starting from October 1, 2010, about the beginning of last year's Proleague, 'til now) Zero's played 112 games with a 58% win-rate. SK's played 89 games with a 59.5% percent win-rate. Slight advantage to Zero there.



You're overblowing it. Almost everyone in StarCraft is inconsistent. Bisu was far off his established norms for a year. Then he was far above his established norms for a year. Has ZerO really displayed more inconsistency than that relative to his established norms in the past two seasons? Kal was Protoss of the Year two years ago; he blew chunks last year. That's just the way the game goes.

Neo.G_SoulKey has had five losing streaks of at least three games (longest losing streak: four). ZerO has had three (longest losing streak: four) while playing 23 more games in that span. Your perception is biased. I see little proof to suggest ZerO is significantly more inconsistent than any other top pro.

On December 08 2011 05:57 L_Master wrote:

ZerO's inconsistency doesn't seem to be a slumpy inconsistency. It just all of a sudden he'll have a game where he looks pathetic (Stork v ZerO for instance). Then he follows it up by just rolling Flash nbd. On any given day you don't know if top zerg ZerO or B- iccup ZerO is gonna show up.

It is interesting to me that though the stats don't reflect it both many here on TL, the coaches, and his fellow teammates tend to believe that SK's strongest match-up is ZvT. Perhaps that comes from seeing his insane lategame play and assuming he must be fantastic at the match-up overall.

Your perception is that he's inconsistent. But now he's not "slumpy" inconsistent? Why does it matter how he loses or wins? You weren't a little surprised when the stats showed SK goes on losing streaks more often than Zero? I sure was considering what everyone repeats like a robot: "ZerO's so inconsistent!" It just goes to show you that if something is repeated enough times you are more likely to believe it. But that doesn't make it any more likely to be true.

Again, I see no evidence that he's significant more inconsistent than any other player. People just need to realize their perceptions are colored and if they want to be accurate instead of a talking head they need to go to greater lengths to challenge their perceptions.

On December 08 2011 07:54 VGhost wrote:
The reason people say ZerO is inconsistent is, in my mind, because he displays S-class potential most of the time, but you never know when he's going to mismicro (lost him a playoff game vs. CH, for instance) or otherwise screw up. ZerO, quite literally, beat Bisu and then lost to Jaehoon in back-to-back SPL games last year. Soulkey has given an impression of being not quite as good at his peak, but since he wins as much (or maybe since he plays fewer games), he doesn't get the label.

Looking at Soulkey's record for the past year, he has one bad loss – to M18M, of all people – in 70 games. When you actually compare him to ZerO, who played a bunch more games with about the same win percentage (record), there's no real difference, and ZerO doesn't have many bad losses (the worst was a WL loss to Frozen) either.

Running through matchup records, though, I found another reason that might explain it: for ZerO, results say his best MUs are T > P > Z in that order. Soulkey's are Z > P > T (though Z & P are basically the same). I think we've been accustomed to seeing Zerg struggle with Terran while most of the really good Zergs the last few years have had a rep. of great ZvZ: Jaedong, EffOrt, Hydra, Calm – great almost ZvZed himself into that discussion with a hot streak – while ZerO's ZvZ is seen as (and results say it is) mediocre. Beat Calm, lose to by.hero.

On December 07 2011 18:30 L_Master wrote:


effOrt was the second best zerg before he retired, and seems to be at full strength. He has looked reasonably solid in his games. Moreover his coach has said he is quite close to his past level, and Flash has mentioned that he is losing more to effOrt in practice games than he used to.

While we don't have significant data to go off there doesn't seem to be much evidence to suggest effort is not at his pre-retirement level. It's a bit of a crapshoot to rank effort but since I have nothing to indicate he is worse than before I still see him as a top, if not #2, zerg.

On December 08 2011 07:34 rotinegg wrote:
wow hyvaa got raped by light...

On December 08 2011 11:55 oldfartz wrote:
no more vods for this?

On December 08 2011 00:56 StarStruck wrote:
The lineups are predetermined before the actual games start. They submit it to the refs, so they cannot change it on the fly. -.-

On December 08 2011 06:40 KamMoye wrote:


Your perception is that he's inconsistent. But now he's not "slumpy" inconsistent? Why does it matter how he loses or wins? You weren't a little surprised when the stats showed SK goes on losing streaks more often than Zero? I sure was considering what everyone repeats like a robot: "ZerO's so inconsistent!" It just goes to show you that if something is repeated enough times you are more likely to believe it. But that doesn't make it any more likely to be true.

Again, I see no evidence that he's significant more inconsistent than any other player. People just need to realize their perceptions are colored and if they want to be accurate instead of a talking head they need to go to greater lengths to challenge their perceptions.

What someone said earlier in this thread is absolutely right. Soulkey may be more entertaining than Zero or other top Zergs, or flashier, but if Hydra or Zero plays Bogus and rolls him, in many fans' minds that's not as impressive as the performance SK just displayed. Soulkey's performance is going to stick out in a way that Zero beating Bogus (this is a hypothetical, LDO) cleanly isn't.



I heavily discount what people on TL say about most players because they are (in my experience) rarely nuanced in their opinions. A couple of times I have challenged the popular narrative, delved into the numbers, and find out that the narrative is at best lazy and at worst complete hogwash.

(One recent example is that thread by Bibbit, giving an ode to Hiya. He mentions the Hiya v Free game, which, while incredibly entertaining, actually wasn't a great display of skill by Hiya. Day9 broke it down much better than I, so I am mostly parroting an authority, but I thought he made good points: Hiya should've made 2 Starports instead of 3 and played a bit too gimmicky for his own good. Free kept his composure, massed units and just rolled over him when the time was right. But the wacky play leads to a narrative that clouds the truth instead of elucidating it. And Hiya is one of my favorite Terrans; I just value accuracy more than a neat story.)

I haven't seen any of his teammates and coaches flat-out say his vT is his best matchup. I've only been following BW for three years so correct me if I'm wrong.

On December 08 2011 16:00 lizzard_warish wrote:
Do you even watch BW? How could you possibly think Zero isnt widly inconsistent? Granted his ZVP/ZVT actually ARE fairly consistent, and thats never been a large criticism of him [though he does tend to spaz out there more than he should given his enormous talent]. The criticism comes from his zvz. He literally goes something like 15-2 against top zvz's, loses a match, and then goes like 2-15 before repeating the cycle all over again. Sometimes in the midst of getting raped by any and all zergs he comes across he equally flails against a protoss or a terran, and thus the impression is born. Zero comes in one day good, and goes out the next playing terribly. In all truth its his zvz thats so inconsistent, the impression simply builds on his off days with his other matchups.