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Bulgaria750 Posts
On December 04 2017 01:22 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2017 00:59 Shady Sands wrote:On November 22 2017 14:11 Letmelose wrote:On November 22 2017 12:43 kangaroo_in_diaper wrote:On November 21 2017 11:06 Letmelose wrote:On November 21 2017 10:08 kangaroo_in_diaper wrote:
Letmelose have presented very interesting observations, and although I appreciate most of his opinions, I still think he underappreciates Flash in many ways. First, micromanagement is important in the game but at the pro level, I think it does not really matter, as all pro players already have sufficient skills to control their units in the way they want. Of course outstanding micro can sometimes get the audience stunned but in general, it is not smart to spend a large portion of APM to impress the audience. The analogy I can make is basketball. For example, height is very important in basketball, but you don't need to be too tall to play basketball. And after a certain point, height does not really matter. Yao Ming is not as great as Michael Jordan although he is much taller. Similar to height in basketball, after a certain point, I can say that micro skill does not matter at all. In case of Flash, I don't think Flash cannot micro as good as Bisu, just because he is not able to do so. Micromanagement is possible to learn and improve like any other skills by practice (our genes certainly do not know Starcraft). In case of Starcraft, micromanagement consumes APM, and Flash chooses to spend his APM on other actions rather than getting the audience stunned. At the end of the day, what really matters is winning and winning in Starcraft requires a little bit of everything.
Second, the analogy of football is definitely a long shot as there is no race in football. Thus, comparing Jaedong, Bisu and Flash using football are more or less apple vs orange, or perhaps Ronaldo vs Sergio Ramos.
Finally, Flash is perfect and the perfection is indeed boring because there is nothing to expect. Flash always win, there is no surprise, which as a result makes the audience bored. More importantly, Flash is also very stable and not sloppy like any other players. In football there is a saying that "Form is temporary, Class is forever". That is also true in Starcraft.
Brood War is a competitive game, not a performance art. I started off the thread with the stance that nothing outside of competitive results can be considered more significant, whether it is popularity, proficiency at certain aspects of the game, or potential skill cap. I believe I stated that train of thought multiple times throughout this thread. With that being said, what I am not for, is what I perceive to be false narratives based on wishful thinking, or circular logic. What I am saying with the football analogy that being faster, and being more technically proficient with the ball are undeniably positive factors that aid a player to achieve greatness. However, being a superior player overall does not auto-matically make you faster, or haver a finer first touch than a player of lesser overall capacity. Messi was never the single greatest athlete (sprinting, stamina etc) on the planet, and although Messi during his prime was the greatest player we have seen in recent times, that doesn't mean that Messi was thoroughly complete and immaculate in every conceivable manner. It isn't blasphemous to suggest that Messi even during his prime was never the greatest athlete in terms of raw stamina, when it is undeniable that having more stamina is an asset that comes in handy. Flash being superior to other players overall speaks very little about his actual ability to manipulate his units to the very highest degree. Just like Messi was once the greatest by some distance without having a bull-like stamina. It is possible to reach a certain godlike status without being actually perfect. Flash is the closest to perfection a human has gotten at the game of Brood War, but he is far from perfect, and that is the beauty of the game. Even Flash can get better, and the fact that he loses games due getting outplayed from a micro-managament perspective counters your argument that micro-management becomes useless after a certain point. Even though no human will ever reach the theoretical skill-cap of this game, it doesn't necessarily mean we have already seen the absolute possible threshold for human capabilities. Flash is the fore-runner thus far, but you and I have very contrasting opinions of what constitutes a perfect player. If it is circular logic and menial complements for Flash that you seek, I'm sorry I am not in agreement that Flash must be perfect because he seems that way in your eyes. Starcraft is non-deterministic, just like chess. Thus there is no single algorithm or human being that can solve non-deterministic problems global optimally if that is what you mean. Perfection here is the way Flash executes the game strategically. He does exactly the right thing at exactly the right time in terms of decision making, and more importantly he is able to repeat that again and again. I understand your point that Flash can be out-microed sometimes but do you think that Flash or any pro player would be outmicroed most of the time by any other pro player. Statistically speaking, I don't think you can draw a conclusion that micromanagement really matters at pro level just based on several examples. Not really. Brood War is more of a multi-faceted craft than chess. The fact that statically speaking Flash usally does not get punished for not quite matching the superlative micro-management abilities found in some of his peers does not mean that micro-management abilities become defunct after a certain point. Just like micro-management abilities were not irrelevant during iloveoov's era when he dominated the scene without having crisp micro-management due to his other extra-ordinary abilities. It speaks more about their other fantastic attributes, rather than micro-management abilities not being relevant at the professional level, which is quite frankly speaking a ludicrous thing to suggest. Statistically speaking, Tyson was incredibly successful at his craft despite his lack of reach compared to some of his peers, due to his outstanding qualities elsewhere. That does not mean reach becomes irrrelevant at the highest level. Excellence can be attained without a perfecting a certain attribute, but that doesn't negate that attribute as a quality worth having. Masking a certain attribute by having amazing capabilities elsewhere can be seen in every walk of life. That is not perfection, that is called playing to your strengths to the best of your abilities. People thought macro-management didn't matter all that much when BoxeR could simply micro-manage you to death. People thought build orders didn't matter all that much when NaDa could simply out muscle you from every mechanical perspective. People thought build orders were all that mattered when iloveoov swept the scene with his superior read on the meta-game. What? That's not right lol. People have always thought all aspects of SC are important throughout SCs history, least of all the players themselves. Oo had good micro when he focused on it, eg his marine split, Nada did well with build orders up until Savior era, and Boxer was no slouch in terms of macro either. All these top players are way more balanced than you give them credit for. In retrospect, none of them were perfect, and I have no problems with pointing out what I perceive to be potential weak points in Flash's overall skill-sets as a competitor, even though as of now, they don't seem to be all that relevant due to his overwhelming success.
The problem is that what you think are weak points are actually conscious decisions to focus on one aspect of the game or another. When Flash explains his games on his stream, he will say xyz matters or not and devote an equivalent amount of attention. Flash is amazing because he rarely gives in to the temptation to overmicro his units to the detriment of multitask or base control, and never lets his multitask take him away from his overarching goal in a game. Maybe this is unlikeable to you because Flash plays to win, not entertain you, in which case too bad so sad... go watch some MOBAs instead. seriously ?
Seriously what? Please elaborate. This is one of the most civilized discussions I've seen in a while in ALL OF THE INTERNETS, so please, don't ruin it by dropping a sarcastic comment at whoever and starting a fight with them.
I personally think that discussing whether FlaSh has good enough micro to appease the fans, who have had the opportunity to watch Leta, Hwasin, Fantasy etc, is pretty moot. He obviously has good micro. He probably can be outmicroed and has been, repeatedly, by various players. And appeal is something very personal. I find his defensive play really, really beautiful to watch. People describe it as stale and boring. Well, thank goodness there's more than one player to watch. And Flash DID NOT mop the floor with Hero at ASL4 finals (except game 1 - he instantly lost after trying 3h before pool); Hero played really, really well and put up quite a fight, won a game I thought lost and was no walkover. Please give him credit where credit is due. I really need a great protoss, though; there are several zerg players who can break the status quo.
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On December 04 2017 00:59 Shady Sands wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2017 14:11 Letmelose wrote:On November 22 2017 12:43 kangaroo_in_diaper wrote:On November 21 2017 11:06 Letmelose wrote:On November 21 2017 10:08 kangaroo_in_diaper wrote:
Letmelose have presented very interesting observations, and although I appreciate most of his opinions, I still think he underappreciates Flash in many ways. First, micromanagement is important in the game but at the pro level, I think it does not really matter, as all pro players already have sufficient skills to control their units in the way they want. Of course outstanding micro can sometimes get the audience stunned but in general, it is not smart to spend a large portion of APM to impress the audience. The analogy I can make is basketball. For example, height is very important in basketball, but you don't need to be too tall to play basketball. And after a certain point, height does not really matter. Yao Ming is not as great as Michael Jordan although he is much taller. Similar to height in basketball, after a certain point, I can say that micro skill does not matter at all. In case of Flash, I don't think Flash cannot micro as good as Bisu, just because he is not able to do so. Micromanagement is possible to learn and improve like any other skills by practice (our genes certainly do not know Starcraft). In case of Starcraft, micromanagement consumes APM, and Flash chooses to spend his APM on other actions rather than getting the audience stunned. At the end of the day, what really matters is winning and winning in Starcraft requires a little bit of everything.
Second, the analogy of football is definitely a long shot as there is no race in football. Thus, comparing Jaedong, Bisu and Flash using football are more or less apple vs orange, or perhaps Ronaldo vs Sergio Ramos.
Finally, Flash is perfect and the perfection is indeed boring because there is nothing to expect. Flash always win, there is no surprise, which as a result makes the audience bored. More importantly, Flash is also very stable and not sloppy like any other players. In football there is a saying that "Form is temporary, Class is forever". That is also true in Starcraft.
Brood War is a competitive game, not a performance art. I started off the thread with the stance that nothing outside of competitive results can be considered more significant, whether it is popularity, proficiency at certain aspects of the game, or potential skill cap. I believe I stated that train of thought multiple times throughout this thread. With that being said, what I am not for, is what I perceive to be false narratives based on wishful thinking, or circular logic. What I am saying with the football analogy that being faster, and being more technically proficient with the ball are undeniably positive factors that aid a player to achieve greatness. However, being a superior player overall does not auto-matically make you faster, or haver a finer first touch than a player of lesser overall capacity. Messi was never the single greatest athlete (sprinting, stamina etc) on the planet, and although Messi during his prime was the greatest player we have seen in recent times, that doesn't mean that Messi was thoroughly complete and immaculate in every conceivable manner. It isn't blasphemous to suggest that Messi even during his prime was never the greatest athlete in terms of raw stamina, when it is undeniable that having more stamina is an asset that comes in handy. Flash being superior to other players overall speaks very little about his actual ability to manipulate his units to the very highest degree. Just like Messi was once the greatest by some distance without having a bull-like stamina. It is possible to reach a certain godlike status without being actually perfect. Flash is the closest to perfection a human has gotten at the game of Brood War, but he is far from perfect, and that is the beauty of the game. Even Flash can get better, and the fact that he loses games due getting outplayed from a micro-managament perspective counters your argument that micro-management becomes useless after a certain point. Even though no human will ever reach the theoretical skill-cap of this game, it doesn't necessarily mean we have already seen the absolute possible threshold for human capabilities. Flash is the fore-runner thus far, but you and I have very contrasting opinions of what constitutes a perfect player. If it is circular logic and menial complements for Flash that you seek, I'm sorry I am not in agreement that Flash must be perfect because he seems that way in your eyes. Starcraft is non-deterministic, just like chess. Thus there is no single algorithm or human being that can solve non-deterministic problems global optimally if that is what you mean. Perfection here is the way Flash executes the game strategically. He does exactly the right thing at exactly the right time in terms of decision making, and more importantly he is able to repeat that again and again. I understand your point that Flash can be out-microed sometimes but do you think that Flash or any pro player would be outmicroed most of the time by any other pro player. Statistically speaking, I don't think you can draw a conclusion that micromanagement really matters at pro level just based on several examples. Not really. Brood War is more of a multi-faceted craft than chess. The fact that statically speaking Flash usally does not get punished for not quite matching the superlative micro-management abilities found in some of his peers does not mean that micro-management abilities become defunct after a certain point. Just like micro-management abilities were not irrelevant during iloveoov's era when he dominated the scene without having crisp micro-management due to his other extra-ordinary abilities. It speaks more about their other fantastic attributes, rather than micro-management abilities not being relevant at the professional level, which is quite frankly speaking a ludicrous thing to suggest. Statistically speaking, Tyson was incredibly successful at his craft despite his lack of reach compared to some of his peers, due to his outstanding qualities elsewhere. That does not mean reach becomes irrrelevant at the highest level. Excellence can be attained without a perfecting a certain attribute, but that doesn't negate that attribute as a quality worth having. Masking a certain attribute by having amazing capabilities elsewhere can be seen in every walk of life. That is not perfection, that is called playing to your strengths to the best of your abilities. People thought macro-management didn't matter all that much when BoxeR could simply micro-manage you to death. People thought build orders didn't matter all that much when NaDa could simply out muscle you from every mechanical perspective. People thought build orders were all that mattered when iloveoov swept the scene with his superior read on the meta-game. What? That's not right lol. People have always thought all aspects of SC are important throughout SCs history, least of all the players themselves. Oo had good micro when he focused on it, eg his marine split, Nada did well with build orders up until Savior era, and Boxer was no slouch in terms of macro either. All these top players are way more balanced than you give them credit for. Show nested quote +In retrospect, none of them were perfect, and I have no problems with pointing out what I perceive to be potential weak points in Flash's overall skill-sets as a competitor, even though as of now, they don't seem to be all that relevant due to his overwhelming success.
The problem is that what you think are weak points are actually conscious decisions to focus on one aspect of the game or another. When Flash explains his games on his stream, he will say xyz matters or not and devote an equivalent amount of attention. Flash is amazing because he rarely gives in to the temptation to overmicro his units to the detriment of multitask or base control, and never lets his multitask take him away from his overarching goal in a game. Maybe this is unlikeable to you because Flash plays to win, not entertain you, in which case too bad so sad... go watch some MOBAs instead.
Though I fear this may be wasted on you, I'll attempt to answer sincerely.
Flash makes a conscious decision to focus on things outside of micro-management outplays because he intends to focus on his strengths. The fact that Flash has found success focusing mainly on his numerous other assets as a player does not negate impeccable micro-management abilities as a useful trait to have. You can always get better, and the fact that you react to Flash not being treated as the end of the road for the evolution of Brood War as some kind of a blasphemy is rather precious.
For example, towards the end of professional Brood War, FanTaSy had a better win rate in the terran-versus-protoss match-up than Flash did, winning more matches than Flash and having less number of defeats overall. FanTaSy made a conscious decision to focus more of his time on micro-managing his vultures because he was able to reap the benefits from paying extra attention to his vultures due to the high innate outplay potential from the unit itself. It does not mean every player out there should spend all their time micro-managing their vultures, but if you have the ability to wreck havoc beyond the point of no return, why not abuse it should the opportunity present itself?
The fact that Flash did not need such moments to thwart his enemies is a statement on his other stellar qualities, but to pretend that FanTaSy was "wasting" his time making game winning micro-management maneuvers with his vultures when the opportunity presented itself, is quite clearly odd, especially since since FanTaSy had superior results to Flash in the terran-versus-protoss match-up since 2011. Every player has their strengths and weaknesses, and the level of success a certain player trait brings does not necessarily mean that particular trait is the correct way to approach the game.
As for the traits of past legends, quite clearly, you are either are drawing conclusions from a couple of games that proves contrary to the overall theme of the majority of their games, or have extremely generous definitions for what constitutes weak points in a player. Either way, here's the thing with BoxeR that you have have overlooked.
BoxeR consciously made a decision to neglect his macro-management by focusing hard on micro-management by using both his keyboards and his mouse to maximize his micro-management abilities. He used the arrow keys of his keyboard which allowed him to click with pinpoint accuracy, resulting in some of the finest micro-management outplays anybody had seen back in those days. That trait allowed BoxeR to become the greatest player in the world at the time, but no terran player has seen any success with that particular keyboard set-up since then.
Have you actually seen Flash in situations where nothing but his micro-management abilities matter? Forget his hilariously mediocre displays of micro-management when playing UMS maps, what about extreme late-game terran-versus-terran situations where all the resources are mined out, and the game gets decided by one pivotal battle between the two players? Flash is decent, but nothing special at that particular aspect, and it is something he can polish up in order to raise his overall win rate, even if it is by the smallest of margins.
Flash himself has admitted that his micro-management abilities are not that extra-ordinary, and quite clearly the discussion began with defining Flash's characteristics as a player, so why are you fixating on this need to represent Flash as a theoretically perfect terran player, where all his micro-management imperfections are somehow a deliberate decision on his part to further his win rate, when in reality it is just Flash playing to his strengths, and his other superlative strengths allowing to compensate for his micro-management abilities, which are quite clearly not godlike, even in situations where he has no option but to pay full attention to it.
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On December 04 2017 02:53 TaardadAiel wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2017 01:22 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:On December 04 2017 00:59 Shady Sands wrote:On November 22 2017 14:11 Letmelose wrote:On November 22 2017 12:43 kangaroo_in_diaper wrote:On November 21 2017 11:06 Letmelose wrote:On November 21 2017 10:08 kangaroo_in_diaper wrote:
Letmelose have presented very interesting observations, and although I appreciate most of his opinions, I still think he underappreciates Flash in many ways. First, micromanagement is important in the game but at the pro level, I think it does not really matter, as all pro players already have sufficient skills to control their units in the way they want. Of course outstanding micro can sometimes get the audience stunned but in general, it is not smart to spend a large portion of APM to impress the audience. The analogy I can make is basketball. For example, height is very important in basketball, but you don't need to be too tall to play basketball. And after a certain point, height does not really matter. Yao Ming is not as great as Michael Jordan although he is much taller. Similar to height in basketball, after a certain point, I can say that micro skill does not matter at all. In case of Flash, I don't think Flash cannot micro as good as Bisu, just because he is not able to do so. Micromanagement is possible to learn and improve like any other skills by practice (our genes certainly do not know Starcraft). In case of Starcraft, micromanagement consumes APM, and Flash chooses to spend his APM on other actions rather than getting the audience stunned. At the end of the day, what really matters is winning and winning in Starcraft requires a little bit of everything.
Second, the analogy of football is definitely a long shot as there is no race in football. Thus, comparing Jaedong, Bisu and Flash using football are more or less apple vs orange, or perhaps Ronaldo vs Sergio Ramos.
Finally, Flash is perfect and the perfection is indeed boring because there is nothing to expect. Flash always win, there is no surprise, which as a result makes the audience bored. More importantly, Flash is also very stable and not sloppy like any other players. In football there is a saying that "Form is temporary, Class is forever". That is also true in Starcraft.
Brood War is a competitive game, not a performance art. I started off the thread with the stance that nothing outside of competitive results can be considered more significant, whether it is popularity, proficiency at certain aspects of the game, or potential skill cap. I believe I stated that train of thought multiple times throughout this thread. With that being said, what I am not for, is what I perceive to be false narratives based on wishful thinking, or circular logic. What I am saying with the football analogy that being faster, and being more technically proficient with the ball are undeniably positive factors that aid a player to achieve greatness. However, being a superior player overall does not auto-matically make you faster, or haver a finer first touch than a player of lesser overall capacity. Messi was never the single greatest athlete (sprinting, stamina etc) on the planet, and although Messi during his prime was the greatest player we have seen in recent times, that doesn't mean that Messi was thoroughly complete and immaculate in every conceivable manner. It isn't blasphemous to suggest that Messi even during his prime was never the greatest athlete in terms of raw stamina, when it is undeniable that having more stamina is an asset that comes in handy. Flash being superior to other players overall speaks very little about his actual ability to manipulate his units to the very highest degree. Just like Messi was once the greatest by some distance without having a bull-like stamina. It is possible to reach a certain godlike status without being actually perfect. Flash is the closest to perfection a human has gotten at the game of Brood War, but he is far from perfect, and that is the beauty of the game. Even Flash can get better, and the fact that he loses games due getting outplayed from a micro-managament perspective counters your argument that micro-management becomes useless after a certain point. Even though no human will ever reach the theoretical skill-cap of this game, it doesn't necessarily mean we have already seen the absolute possible threshold for human capabilities. Flash is the fore-runner thus far, but you and I have very contrasting opinions of what constitutes a perfect player. If it is circular logic and menial complements for Flash that you seek, I'm sorry I am not in agreement that Flash must be perfect because he seems that way in your eyes. Starcraft is non-deterministic, just like chess. Thus there is no single algorithm or human being that can solve non-deterministic problems global optimally if that is what you mean. Perfection here is the way Flash executes the game strategically. He does exactly the right thing at exactly the right time in terms of decision making, and more importantly he is able to repeat that again and again. I understand your point that Flash can be out-microed sometimes but do you think that Flash or any pro player would be outmicroed most of the time by any other pro player. Statistically speaking, I don't think you can draw a conclusion that micromanagement really matters at pro level just based on several examples. Not really. Brood War is more of a multi-faceted craft than chess. The fact that statically speaking Flash usally does not get punished for not quite matching the superlative micro-management abilities found in some of his peers does not mean that micro-management abilities become defunct after a certain point. Just like micro-management abilities were not irrelevant during iloveoov's era when he dominated the scene without having crisp micro-management due to his other extra-ordinary abilities. It speaks more about their other fantastic attributes, rather than micro-management abilities not being relevant at the professional level, which is quite frankly speaking a ludicrous thing to suggest. Statistically speaking, Tyson was incredibly successful at his craft despite his lack of reach compared to some of his peers, due to his outstanding qualities elsewhere. That does not mean reach becomes irrrelevant at the highest level. Excellence can be attained without a perfecting a certain attribute, but that doesn't negate that attribute as a quality worth having. Masking a certain attribute by having amazing capabilities elsewhere can be seen in every walk of life. That is not perfection, that is called playing to your strengths to the best of your abilities. People thought macro-management didn't matter all that much when BoxeR could simply micro-manage you to death. People thought build orders didn't matter all that much when NaDa could simply out muscle you from every mechanical perspective. People thought build orders were all that mattered when iloveoov swept the scene with his superior read on the meta-game. What? That's not right lol. People have always thought all aspects of SC are important throughout SCs history, least of all the players themselves. Oo had good micro when he focused on it, eg his marine split, Nada did well with build orders up until Savior era, and Boxer was no slouch in terms of macro either. All these top players are way more balanced than you give them credit for. In retrospect, none of them were perfect, and I have no problems with pointing out what I perceive to be potential weak points in Flash's overall skill-sets as a competitor, even though as of now, they don't seem to be all that relevant due to his overwhelming success.
The problem is that what you think are weak points are actually conscious decisions to focus on one aspect of the game or another. When Flash explains his games on his stream, he will say xyz matters or not and devote an equivalent amount of attention. Flash is amazing because he rarely gives in to the temptation to overmicro his units to the detriment of multitask or base control, and never lets his multitask take him away from his overarching goal in a game. Maybe this is unlikeable to you because Flash plays to win, not entertain you, in which case too bad so sad... go watch some MOBAs instead. seriously ? Seriously what? Please elaborate. This is one of the most civilized discussions I've seen in a while in ALL OF THE INTERNETS, so please, don't ruin it by dropping a sarcastic comment at whoever and starting a fight with them. I personally think that discussing whether FlaSh has good enough micro to appease the fans, who have had the opportunity to watch Leta, Hwasin, Fantasy etc, is pretty moot. He obviously has good micro. He probably can be outmicroed and has been, repeatedly, by various players. And appeal is something very personal. I find his defensive play really, really beautiful to watch. People describe it as stale and boring. Well, thank goodness there's more than one player to watch. And Flash DID NOT mop the floor with Hero at ASL4 finals (except game 1 - he instantly lost after trying 3h before pool); Hero played really, really well and put up quite a fight, won a game I thought lost and was no walkover. Please give him credit where credit is due. I really need a great protoss, though; there are several zerg players who can break the status quo.
A civilised discussion isn't worth much if one side seemingly can't comprehend the points made by the other. Almost everybody who has dropped into this and tried to argue against Letmelose accused him of under-appreciating Flash and only wanting to see some fancy micro. Which wasn't his point _at all_.
Flash vs Hero was very one-sided. Even game 3 was one-sided until Hero "miraculously" managed to turn it around.
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Bulgaria750 Posts
On December 04 2017 03:21 Miragee wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2017 02:53 TaardadAiel wrote:On December 04 2017 01:22 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:On December 04 2017 00:59 Shady Sands wrote:On November 22 2017 14:11 Letmelose wrote:On November 22 2017 12:43 kangaroo_in_diaper wrote:On November 21 2017 11:06 Letmelose wrote:On November 21 2017 10:08 kangaroo_in_diaper wrote:
Letmelose have presented very interesting observations, and although I appreciate most of his opinions, I still think he underappreciates Flash in many ways. First, micromanagement is important in the game but at the pro level, I think it does not really matter, as all pro players already have sufficient skills to control their units in the way they want. Of course outstanding micro can sometimes get the audience stunned but in general, it is not smart to spend a large portion of APM to impress the audience. The analogy I can make is basketball. For example, height is very important in basketball, but you don't need to be too tall to play basketball. And after a certain point, height does not really matter. Yao Ming is not as great as Michael Jordan although he is much taller. Similar to height in basketball, after a certain point, I can say that micro skill does not matter at all. In case of Flash, I don't think Flash cannot micro as good as Bisu, just because he is not able to do so. Micromanagement is possible to learn and improve like any other skills by practice (our genes certainly do not know Starcraft). In case of Starcraft, micromanagement consumes APM, and Flash chooses to spend his APM on other actions rather than getting the audience stunned. At the end of the day, what really matters is winning and winning in Starcraft requires a little bit of everything.
Second, the analogy of football is definitely a long shot as there is no race in football. Thus, comparing Jaedong, Bisu and Flash using football are more or less apple vs orange, or perhaps Ronaldo vs Sergio Ramos.
Finally, Flash is perfect and the perfection is indeed boring because there is nothing to expect. Flash always win, there is no surprise, which as a result makes the audience bored. More importantly, Flash is also very stable and not sloppy like any other players. In football there is a saying that "Form is temporary, Class is forever". That is also true in Starcraft.
Brood War is a competitive game, not a performance art. I started off the thread with the stance that nothing outside of competitive results can be considered more significant, whether it is popularity, proficiency at certain aspects of the game, or potential skill cap. I believe I stated that train of thought multiple times throughout this thread. With that being said, what I am not for, is what I perceive to be false narratives based on wishful thinking, or circular logic. What I am saying with the football analogy that being faster, and being more technically proficient with the ball are undeniably positive factors that aid a player to achieve greatness. However, being a superior player overall does not auto-matically make you faster, or haver a finer first touch than a player of lesser overall capacity. Messi was never the single greatest athlete (sprinting, stamina etc) on the planet, and although Messi during his prime was the greatest player we have seen in recent times, that doesn't mean that Messi was thoroughly complete and immaculate in every conceivable manner. It isn't blasphemous to suggest that Messi even during his prime was never the greatest athlete in terms of raw stamina, when it is undeniable that having more stamina is an asset that comes in handy. Flash being superior to other players overall speaks very little about his actual ability to manipulate his units to the very highest degree. Just like Messi was once the greatest by some distance without having a bull-like stamina. It is possible to reach a certain godlike status without being actually perfect. Flash is the closest to perfection a human has gotten at the game of Brood War, but he is far from perfect, and that is the beauty of the game. Even Flash can get better, and the fact that he loses games due getting outplayed from a micro-managament perspective counters your argument that micro-management becomes useless after a certain point. Even though no human will ever reach the theoretical skill-cap of this game, it doesn't necessarily mean we have already seen the absolute possible threshold for human capabilities. Flash is the fore-runner thus far, but you and I have very contrasting opinions of what constitutes a perfect player. If it is circular logic and menial complements for Flash that you seek, I'm sorry I am not in agreement that Flash must be perfect because he seems that way in your eyes. Starcraft is non-deterministic, just like chess. Thus there is no single algorithm or human being that can solve non-deterministic problems global optimally if that is what you mean. Perfection here is the way Flash executes the game strategically. He does exactly the right thing at exactly the right time in terms of decision making, and more importantly he is able to repeat that again and again. I understand your point that Flash can be out-microed sometimes but do you think that Flash or any pro player would be outmicroed most of the time by any other pro player. Statistically speaking, I don't think you can draw a conclusion that micromanagement really matters at pro level just based on several examples. Not really. Brood War is more of a multi-faceted craft than chess. The fact that statically speaking Flash usally does not get punished for not quite matching the superlative micro-management abilities found in some of his peers does not mean that micro-management abilities become defunct after a certain point. Just like micro-management abilities were not irrelevant during iloveoov's era when he dominated the scene without having crisp micro-management due to his other extra-ordinary abilities. It speaks more about their other fantastic attributes, rather than micro-management abilities not being relevant at the professional level, which is quite frankly speaking a ludicrous thing to suggest. Statistically speaking, Tyson was incredibly successful at his craft despite his lack of reach compared to some of his peers, due to his outstanding qualities elsewhere. That does not mean reach becomes irrrelevant at the highest level. Excellence can be attained without a perfecting a certain attribute, but that doesn't negate that attribute as a quality worth having. Masking a certain attribute by having amazing capabilities elsewhere can be seen in every walk of life. That is not perfection, that is called playing to your strengths to the best of your abilities. People thought macro-management didn't matter all that much when BoxeR could simply micro-manage you to death. People thought build orders didn't matter all that much when NaDa could simply out muscle you from every mechanical perspective. People thought build orders were all that mattered when iloveoov swept the scene with his superior read on the meta-game. What? That's not right lol. People have always thought all aspects of SC are important throughout SCs history, least of all the players themselves. Oo had good micro when he focused on it, eg his marine split, Nada did well with build orders up until Savior era, and Boxer was no slouch in terms of macro either. All these top players are way more balanced than you give them credit for. In retrospect, none of them were perfect, and I have no problems with pointing out what I perceive to be potential weak points in Flash's overall skill-sets as a competitor, even though as of now, they don't seem to be all that relevant due to his overwhelming success.
The problem is that what you think are weak points are actually conscious decisions to focus on one aspect of the game or another. When Flash explains his games on his stream, he will say xyz matters or not and devote an equivalent amount of attention. Flash is amazing because he rarely gives in to the temptation to overmicro his units to the detriment of multitask or base control, and never lets his multitask take him away from his overarching goal in a game. Maybe this is unlikeable to you because Flash plays to win, not entertain you, in which case too bad so sad... go watch some MOBAs instead. seriously ? Seriously what? Please elaborate. This is one of the most civilized discussions I've seen in a while in ALL OF THE INTERNETS, so please, don't ruin it by dropping a sarcastic comment at whoever and starting a fight with them. I personally think that discussing whether FlaSh has good enough micro to appease the fans, who have had the opportunity to watch Leta, Hwasin, Fantasy etc, is pretty moot. He obviously has good micro. He probably can be outmicroed and has been, repeatedly, by various players. And appeal is something very personal. I find his defensive play really, really beautiful to watch. People describe it as stale and boring. Well, thank goodness there's more than one player to watch. And Flash DID NOT mop the floor with Hero at ASL4 finals (except game 1 - he instantly lost after trying 3h before pool); Hero played really, really well and put up quite a fight, won a game I thought lost and was no walkover. Please give him credit where credit is due. I really need a great protoss, though; there are several zerg players who can break the status quo. A civilised discussion isn't worth much if one side seemingly can't comprehend the points made by the other. Almost everybody who has dropped into this and tried to argue against Letmelose accused him of under-appreciating Flash and only wanting to see some fancy micro. Which wasn't his point _at all_. Flash vs Hero was very one-sided. Even game 3 was one-sided until Hero "miraculously" managed to turn it around.
Well, probably I have just moved on the topic of what is more appealing to the audience. Letmelose got his message across, or at least I think he did. There is some lingering because it's hard to comprehend that these people have weaknesses. I don't want to scroll through the entire thread, but I don't think Letmelose said Flash had BAD micro, because that would trigger quite the outrage. it's just an aftereffect of daring to criticize the greatest. I suppose there is the Bisu fanbase, who would react accordingly if one of us said Bisu had poorer macro than Best.
And I don't think the series was one-sided, to be honest. The main engagement at the ~11 o'clock in G2 was really, really narrow. Flash held on by a thread. And how could a game with a big turnaround be one-sided? Yeah, hero was pressured really hard and then just killed Flash with two drops in a quick succession. Game 4, yeah, maybe it was a bit one-sided by virtue of Flash being a damn master of movement and mindgames. One misread by Hero and the game was lost. I still don't think he "mopped the floor" with him. ASL3 Finals vs Shine was considerably more one-sided.
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Sorry the bump, but is there any news about 2018 asl(s)?
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Last thing I read was that the prelimes for ASL5 are supposed to start in February according to the Afreeca CEO.
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EPT
