[ASL9] Ro16 Group D - Page 16

On March 27 2020 05:23 warandpeaches wrote:
Quite sad that we lost Soulkey to the ZvZ menace this tournament, and have a good chance of losing Zero to it as well. Most of the creative and intellectually stimulating Zergs are weakest at that matchup.

Also, anyone else feel a bit uneasy when Artosis kept referring to Bisu as "the greatest Protoss ever"? This is certainly not a closed deal; there are fair arguments to be wielded for Stork, JangBi, and Rain (and possibly Nal_rA and Reach as well).

I can understand that Bisu's highly refined, interactive, and proactive style tends to appeal to people more than Stork or Rain's reactive flow charting or JangBi's brute mechanical force, but it's difficult to get around the fact that Bisu's results simply do not make him the clear-cut best Protoss ever in the way that Flash and NaDa tower over the other Terrans, or Jaedong over the other Zergs. There were long stretches in the middle of what should have been his prime where he simply vanished without a trace.

The creativity/meta influence argument that might be in Bisu's favor merits some attention. However, a) Bisu's accomplishments in advancing the Protoss meta are largely limited to one matchup (Artosis' assertion that Bisu is the greatest PvP player ever is so silly even without context that it is not even worth picking apart, and given that Best may be the greatest or second greatest PvP player ever (along with Rain) makes it even more absurd of a statement) and b) they are dwarfed by, say, iloveoov's influence on Terran standard play in all matchups, or Savior's on Zerg standard play in ZvT and ZvP.

I can understand the Bisu love. His play at its best drips with artistry and flair. His FPVODs are works of art on a higher level than anyone else's except possibly Savoir's, and his screen switching is almost certainly the best the game has ever seen. However, it is simply unfounded that he is clearly the most accomplished Protoss ever. Is his skill level the highest in a vacuum? In some respects yes, in some respects JangBi (eAPM and micro) and Best (macro and timings) have him beat. If you value peak performance well above consistency, then yes, he or JangBi might be the greatest. If you value peak and consistency relatively equally, then it's probably Stork. If you weight consistency the highest, then Stork is the only option.

On March 27 2020 05:23 warandpeaches wrote:
Quite sad that we lost Soulkey to the ZvZ menace this tournament, and have a good chance of losing Zero to it as well. Most of the creative and intellectually stimulating Zergs are weakest at that matchup.

Also, anyone else feel a bit uneasy when Artosis kept referring to Bisu as "the greatest Protoss ever"? This is certainly not a closed deal; there are fair arguments to be wielded for Stork, JangBi, and Rain (and possibly Nal_rA and Reach as well).

I can understand that Bisu's highly refined, interactive, and proactive style tends to appeal to people more than Stork or Rain's reactive flow charting or JangBi's brute mechanical force, but it's difficult to get around the fact that Bisu's results simply do not make him the clear-cut best Protoss ever in the way that Flash and NaDa tower over the other Terrans, or Jaedong over the other Zergs. There were long stretches in the middle of what should have been his prime where he simply vanished without a trace.

The creativity/meta influence argument that might be in Bisu's favor merits some attention. However, a) Bisu's accomplishments in advancing the Protoss meta are largely limited to one matchup (Artosis' assertion that Bisu is the greatest PvP player ever is so silly even without context that it is not even worth picking apart, and given that Best may be the greatest or second greatest PvP player ever (along with Rain) makes it even more absurd of a statement) and b) they are dwarfed by, say, iloveoov's influence on Terran standard play in all matchups, or Savior's on Zerg standard play in ZvT and ZvP.

I can understand the Bisu love. His play at its best drips with artistry and flair. His FPVODs are works of art on a higher level than anyone else's except possibly Savoir's, and his screen switching is almost certainly the best the game has ever seen. However, it is simply unfounded that he is clearly the most accomplished Protoss ever. Is his skill level the highest in a vacuum? In some respects yes, in some respects JangBi (eAPM and micro) and Best (macro and timings) have him beat. If you value peak performance well above consistency, then yes, he or JangBi might be the greatest. If you value peak and consistency relatively equally, then it's probably Stork. If you weight consistency the highest, then Stork is the only option.

On March 27 2020 07:56 GorillaPimp wrote:


I think if Stork was a legit top 5-8 player in the post-KeSPA era he would have a stronger case. He's more like t15-20.

Bisu is a weaker "best P ever" than Jaedong or Flash. I didn't get to see Nal_Ra or Reach, but he's definitely better than Jangbi (don't forget Jangbi was a ~50% win rate player for a two year stretch, a flat-out mediocre player; take away his win over Flash and you can't say he's better than Kal imo), Best (who as we all know is an inveterate choker), and Rain (waaay too short a "reign").

Bisu v Stork has merit. Off my head, doesn't Bisu have more championships, though? And Stork hasn't had post-Kespa Finals runs like Bisu has, right?

On March 26 2020 20:30 MisterBoba wrote:
Seem like Bisu vs Flash finals... I do not see Bisu lose to Soma or stork/light. HYPE

I think if Stork was a legit top 5-8 player in the post-KeSPA era he would have a stronger case. He's more like t15-20.

Bisu is a weaker "best P ever" than Jaedong or Flash. I didn't get to see Nal_Ra or Reach, but he's definitely better than Jangbi (don't forget Jangbi was a ~50% win rate player for a two year stretch, a flat-out mediocre player; take away his win over Flash and you can't say he's better than Kal imo), Best (who as we all know is an inveterate choker), and Rain (waaay too short a "reign").

Bisu v Stork has merit. Off my head, doesn't Bisu have more championships, though? And Stork hasn't had post-Kespa Finals runs like Bisu has, right?

I was actually thinking a lot about Bisu and his style the other night after watching Brain play an eerily similar style. I think what sets Bisu apart from every other Protoss I've ever seen is his extreme focus on harassment and army movement to just secure tons of free bases. And he does it at a higher APM than any other Protoss (with the exception of JangBi). It's fascinating because Bisu is incredibly unique among Protosses, and certainly one of the most valuable gems in terms of innovation and games to study.

Is he the "greatest Protoss ever"? I dunno, despite some of his flashes of brilliance, his slumps were really really really low. As a whole, Protoss is a difficult race to gauge the GOAT. There were so many of incredible Protoss players, but only a few were able to keep up their consistency, and like you said, no one stood and shoulders above the rest. But I would argue that Bisu is the most valuable player.

I do want to make an argument on Bisu's contribution to PvT in 2016-2017 though. At the time, he was the only person consistently opening reaver in PvT as a purely macro opening. Snow did some reaver shenanigans, but Bisu would literally just fly a reaver around his opponent's base while taking a free 3rd, and he did it almost every game I watched. It eventually caused a weird meta shift where Terrans would go fast port for wraiths, and then Protosses began doing gas steals, etc. But he definitely deserves credit for that.

On March 27 2020 14:56 warandpeaches wrote:


Certainly true that it is difficult to gauge the best Protoss. That is the most relevant point to glean from this discussion and the one that I was trying to highlight. Best without doubt slots below Bisu overall, but I would not hesitate to place Best's PvP specifically (especially in a team setting) above Bisu's.

Bisu is probably above JangBi overall, but JangBi's peak is probably even higher than Bisu's, given the former's two OSLs and the 2008 Proleague for which he was Khan's undisputed ace (he probably deserved MVP over Flash, in all honesty). His trough was without doubt more severe, but it was also a discrete event in his timeline, rather than Bisu's inconsistency issues which continuously resurfaced.

I'll also go out on a limb and say that it's likely we have not seen the best from Stork post-KeSPA yet. He has already netted a Ro4 finish at KSL 3 (granted, Protoss was exceptionally strong that tournament) and is a legitimate threat to reach the finals of this ASL. But, then again, there is little use speculating unduly until the results have settled. Bisu's post-KeSPA results are definitely superior to Stork's. But it's difficult to compare within this data set, because of the two years that Bisu spent in the army and the time that Stork spent starting a family and not taking Brood War as seriously as he did before or now.

KeSPA-era Stork gets knocked for losing finals...but he made the finals in the first place. Bisu gets knocked less for missing the later stages of tournaments altogether. This does not make sense to me. Of all the Brood War greats, Bisu's Proleague situation was also among the least stressful. SKT always had rosters that were both deep in talent (Fantasy and Best; earlier, Midas and oov; later, Snow and soO) and racially balanced. Khan's roster management lacked considerable refinement in comparison seeing as it basically consisted of getting turtly Protosses together and trying to homogenize them.

I'm firmly of the belief that you cannot cherrypick results; you have to take them all into consideration and situate them all into context if you're seriously trying to evaluate performance. This holds true universally, not merely for Brood War.



Agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of Bisu's playstyle. He almost plays Protoss like a (normal, non-Larva/Zero style turtly) Zerg, where he is extremely dependent on accumulating a series of early game advantages structured around disrupting his opponent's game flow, and parlaying them into a truncated midgame. I can't think of any other Protoss who uses this style to Bisu's extent, save perhaps Mini, but Mini prioritizes individual unit/control group micro and playmaking more (a la JangBi), rather than Bisu's stress on multitasking, misdirection, and disruption.

This explains why Bisu has always struggled with midgame pushes, especially against a Terran or Protoss who was able to stabilize early game and get a third base at a reasonable time. It also explains why he is perhaps the best player ever on three-player maps, which are inherently asymmetrical compared to two-or-four-player maps and thus reward someone with this sort of disruptive mentality, rather than someone with, say, Rain's mentality, where you almost feel like he is playing against the game rather than the other person at times. Doesn't stop Rain from inting his armies into his opponent's natural at times at the 110-140 supply mark, just like Bisu...

Ah yes, that's a pretty fair point w/r/t Bisu's reavers in PvT. I hadn't given it adequate credit. Although 1-1-1, the appropriate Terran response, kind of proved to be a dead end ultimately (despite the fact that it was extremely interesting to contemplate on paper and highly technical to witness in practice), so I would need to think about this in more depth/rewatch VODs from this era to situate this point fully.

As far as Bisu's PvZ goes, Artosis (among others, I'm sure; not trying to single you out, Arty, we love you <3) credits Bisu for single-handedly saving the matchup and, by proxy, competitive Brood War in general. This seems hyperbolic to me, even absurdly silly.

Brood War was able to gain traction in the first place (pre-2001) when people thought Terran was unplayable at a competitive level, before Boxer started the myth of Tesagi; Brood War was also able to attain its competitive peak (2003-05) at a time when people though ZvT was unwinnable for Zerg, before Savior proved definitively otherwise. I would need to study data and results and compile relevant statistics in depth for these periods to arrive at definitive conclusions, for which I unfortunately do not have the time at the present. But I am fairly confident in asserting that, no, Bisu did not save Brood War by himself. And if he did, Boxer and Savior did so already, at much more critical points in the game's competitive history than Bisu's.

All the same, you're probably still correct to dub Bisu the most valuable Protoss ever regardless of whether his results merit the title of greatest. There are two kinds of genius: one that unfolds something so hidden or unusual as to have required singular insight (e.g. Einstein, Hegel, Bach, Senna, Federer), and one that reveals something that seems universally obvious in hindsight (e.g. Newton, Marx, Mozart, Schumacher, Djokovic). Bisu's solution to PvZ without doubt falls into the latter category (as do oov's build order revolutions). Savior's innovations, perhaps alone among Brood War geniuses, fall into the former category.

On March 27 2020 06:25 MisterBoba wrote:

Against Soma/Light or Flash? I think Bisu beat soma easy and maybe Light give trouble but yes if Flash vs Bisu, Flash win all. I think.

Nothing to do with balance just predict )

On March 27 2020 14:56 warandpeaches wrote:


Certainly true that it is difficult to gauge the best Protoss. That is the most relevant point to glean from this discussion and the one that I was trying to highlight. Best without doubt slots below Bisu overall, but I would not hesitate to place Best's PvP specifically (especially in a team setting) above Bisu's.

Bisu is probably above JangBi overall, but JangBi's peak is probably even higher than Bisu's, given the former's two OSLs and the 2008 Proleague for which he was Khan's undisputed ace (he probably deserved MVP over Flash, in all honesty). His trough was without doubt more severe, but it was also a discrete event in his timeline, rather than Bisu's inconsistency issues which continuously resurfaced.

I'll also go out on a limb and say that it's likely we have not seen the best from Stork post-KeSPA yet. He has already netted a Ro4 finish at KSL 3 (granted, Protoss was exceptionally strong that tournament) and is a legitimate threat to reach the finals of this ASL. But, then again, there is little use speculating unduly until the results have settled. Bisu's post-KeSPA results are definitely superior to Stork's. But it's difficult to compare within this data set, because of the two years that Bisu spent in the army and the time that Stork spent starting a family and not taking Brood War as seriously as he did before or now.

KeSPA-era Stork gets knocked for losing finals...but he made the finals in the first place. Bisu gets knocked less for missing the later stages of tournaments altogether. This does not make sense to me. Of all the Brood War greats, Bisu's Proleague situation was also among the least stressful. SKT always had rosters that were both deep in talent (Fantasy and Best; earlier, Midas and oov; later, Snow and soO) and racially balanced. Khan's roster management lacked considerable refinement in comparison seeing as it basically consisted of getting turtly Protosses together and trying to homogenize them.

I'm firmly of the belief that you cannot cherrypick results; you have to take them all into consideration and situate them all into context if you're seriously trying to evaluate performance. This holds true universally, not merely for Brood War.



Agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of Bisu's playstyle. He almost plays Protoss like a (normal, non-Larva/Zero style turtly) Zerg, where he is extremely dependent on accumulating a series of early game advantages structured around disrupting his opponent's game flow, and parlaying them into a truncated midgame. I can't think of any other Protoss who uses this style to Bisu's extent, save perhaps Mini, but Mini prioritizes individual unit/control group micro and playmaking more (a la JangBi), rather than Bisu's stress on multitasking, misdirection, and disruption.

This explains why Bisu has always struggled with midgame pushes, especially against a Terran or Protoss who was able to stabilize early game and get a third base at a reasonable time. It also explains why he is perhaps the best player ever on three-player maps, which are inherently asymmetrical compared to two-or-four-player maps and thus reward someone with this sort of disruptive mentality, rather than someone with, say, Rain's mentality, where you almost feel like he is playing against the game rather than the other person at times. Doesn't stop Rain from inting his armies into his opponent's natural at times at the 110-140 supply mark, just like Bisu...

Ah yes, that's a pretty fair point w/r/t Bisu's reavers in PvT. I hadn't given it adequate credit. Although 1-1-1, the appropriate Terran response, kind of proved to be a dead end ultimately (despite the fact that it was extremely interesting to contemplate on paper and highly technical to witness in practice), so I would need to think about this in more depth/rewatch VODs from this era to situate this point fully.

As far as Bisu's PvZ goes, Artosis (among others, I'm sure; not trying to single you out, Arty, we love you <3) credits Bisu for single-handedly saving the matchup and, by proxy, competitive Brood War in general. This seems hyperbolic to me, even absurdly silly.

Brood War was able to gain traction in the first place (pre-2001) when people thought Terran was unplayable at a competitive level, before Boxer started the myth of Tesagi; Brood War was also able to attain its competitive peak (2003-05) at a time when people though ZvT was unwinnable for Zerg, before Savior proved definitively otherwise. I would need to study data and results and compile relevant statistics in depth for these periods to arrive at definitive conclusions, for which I unfortunately do not have the time at the present. But I am fairly confident in asserting that, no, Bisu did not save Brood War by himself. And if he did, Boxer and Savior did so already, at much more critical points in the game's competitive history than Bisu's.

All the same, you're probably still correct to dub Bisu the most valuable Protoss ever regardless of whether his results merit the title of greatest. There are two kinds of genius: one that unfolds something so hidden or unusual as to have required singular insight (e.g. Einstein, Hegel, Bach, Senna, Federer), and one that reveals something that seems universally obvious in hindsight (e.g. Newton, Marx, Mozart, Schumacher, Djokovic). Bisu's solution to PvZ without doubt falls into the latter category (as do oov's build order revolutions). Savior's innovations, perhaps alone among Brood War geniuses, fall into the former category.

On March 28 2020 03:49 BisuDagger wrote:

It definitely is worth another thread. I'll add one later, purely cause I really want to understand a much more confusing argument. Why people consider Effort > Jaedong despites stats being on Jaedong's side. Maybe it's the same way you put Rain, in the list with Bisu/Stork/Jangbi.