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You need to learn how work an ELO system, why it's accurate, and why it's used in so many ranking system.
The purpose off any ranking system, is to.... drum.... drum... RANK.
Why ATP use ranking ? Why poker use GPI ? To RANK people. Usefull no ?
So, actually, yes, Nerchio is the best foreigner.
Maybe you dont remenber every player who one day was ATP rank 1. but surely you can name some player who keep being on top, even if they dont win any major tournement. this is call "consistency". This is relevant.
During the time you say his mechanics droped, he develop a build than on itself change lot of the metagame in ZvP. And refine it to get full pop even faster.
Yes, he didn't win every tournement.
Yes, some of his game where not so good.
Yes, he was overconfident and loose some matches.
maybe he will win something in the next month ?
maybe he never win anything again ?
BTW, what was the point of your post ?
Saying that ELO ranking suck ? i maybe cannont convince you, but you wrong.
Saying that Fan are blind ? is'nt that the definition of a fan ?
Saying that Stephano become famous by winning tournament ? not totally wrong, but he was famous to rollstomp the EU ladder, and to win against korean, before winning IPL.
Saying that fan are dumb ? (inbetween line reading). maybe, it go's with the "fan" definition. but in that case, going into a FanClub to "insult" the people in here, is not the most brilliant strategy.
Saying that Stephano is bored and dont care...well how to inform you... it was like that from the beginning...
btw, i'm not a fan, just someone who really enjoy watching him play.
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Dominican Republic275 Posts
Not sure how it would influence the results but the WCS Nationals are not registred in the TLPD as far as I know.
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On July 13 2012 00:55 Meggiroth wrote:
How can you even mention that ELO bshit? What relevance does it have? is Nerchio the best foreigner if i see him in nr.1 spot right now?I can name you at least 10 other foreigners who would roflstomp him at any moment. Stop mentioning that useless ranking system. It has no purpose what so ever.
I see most of the fans like to keep their rainbow glasses on and avoid looking at the true and hard facts.
Stephano didn't become famous because he used to finish 5th-6th in most major tournaments. He became famous because he used to WIN major tournaments. Supporting his inability to win anything major for half a year now seems dumb in my eyes.
Also I can't understand how most ppl don't notice just how much his mechanics droped in quality due to the extensive lack of practice . Missing injects? Forgetting to spread creep? Bad micro?
To me it seems like he just got bored of everything, he doesn't even care about his play and performances anymore.
In this fanclub, you are critical nerd #2 except although you are even less superficially analytical than Azarkon.
Revel8 has posted Stephano's hit list of late. It speaks for itself. Stephano won two major tounaments back to back last year and since then he's had extremely high placements in just about every major LAN tournament he's entered and he won LSC. His results have been consistent and outstanding, which is why he's held onto the #1 Elo spot for so long. Unless you believe he's the best player in the world by a wide margin, you can't be disappointed with those results. Is that what you believe? That Stephano is way better than everyone else? I can't agree with that, although I do think he's the most talented player out there.
Elo is a system that measures your relative SC2 skill level based on the relative strengths of the players you've beaten and lost to. It is about as objective as it gets. For some Koreans and international players it might not be the best measure of relative skill because they haven't played in enough international events so their Elo might not be indicative of "true skill". But after 100 games or so, and assuming you've played recently, your Elo should provide a reasonably accurate (although certainly imperfect) estimation of how "good" you are and how likely or unlikely you are to beat another player with a particular Elo. Elo ranking, of course, is not the entire story of how good someone is or is not (there are good reasons to discount certain losses and wins -- e.g., injury, map choice, etc.), but certainly Elo is almost always more accurate than what a bunch of critical nerds with very selective memories and staggering biases think about certain players.
Nerchio is #1 now because he just beat MC and yonghwa and everyone else he faced at HSC. He's playing like, at this moment, like the best player in the world. This isn't to say that he is the best player. Whether he is the best is something that can only be determined over a much longer period of the time. In SC2 it usually takes 3 or 4 months of consistently dominating the competition for one to be tagged "best player in the world."
In any event, the fact you think 10 foreigners would "roflstomp" Nerchio "at any moment" puts you in a select and very small group of uninformed critical nerds, who haven't recognized what the rest of the community has known for some time now -- namely, that Nerchio is an extremely talented and scary player. In fact, the fact you think 10 foreigners would roflstomp him, by itself, is enough for me to completely discount almost everything you say from now on.
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I'd argue that Stephano would've kept his place in the ELO if he went to HSC too.
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Russian Federation748 Posts
Saying that Fan are blind ? is'nt that the definition of a fan ?
I'd say the main aspect that defines a fan it that he has to be refreshing.
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On July 12 2012 23:14 The_Darkness wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2012 20:54 Azarkon wrote:On July 12 2012 10:49 The_Darkness wrote:On July 12 2012 06:59 Azarkon wrote:On July 12 2012 05:00 The_Darkness wrote:On July 12 2012 02:54 Azarkon wrote:On July 12 2012 02:41 a3den wrote:On July 12 2012 01:58 Khonsou wrote:
Well, I hope he gets his sh*t together because he didn't look scary at all the last couple of time his games were shown. I agree, for the first time in a long time, I feel like he's gonna get bodied at NASL & MLG Summer. Too much travel takes its toll, and I know he says he doesn't need much practice to be good, but that's too little right now. Fortunately, Korea is around the corner so the timing isn't that bad. Yeah, HerO is a huge challenge for him in great form, and he isn't in great form. I said that one day, the music is going to end for Stephano - is this going to be that day? Are you implying that if Stephano loses to Hero his career is over -- or that he's no longer an elite player? It's idiotic to suggest that a loss to Hero would imply some sort of failing on the part of any Zerg. DRG just got spanked by Hero in the IPL imports tournament so perhaps, if you're suggesting that losing to Hero means you're done, you should alert DRG's fans to the fact that "music has ended" for DRG, if you haven't already. Also, since you're not a fan of Stephano, why do you bother posting in this fanclub? By the sycophantic definition of fandom, I am not a fan of any player, because I refuse to be a sychophant who gives players a pass whenever they lose / make mistakes, and who over hypes them at the cost of objectivity. Yet, I do think I am a fan of Stephano, because I have a special attachment to his play and character and will tune in to events that he attends specifically to watch him play and to root for him - which is the better definition of fandom, in my opinion. But whether you think I'm a fan, it has no bearing on posting in the fanclub because the way TL fanclubs operate, they are discussion threads for individual players, and because what I'm saying is specific to Stephano, it belongs nowhere else. With that out of the way, I am not saying that if Stephano loses to HerO his career is over. Rather, I am musing on whether this is going to be the beginning of a slump for Stephano. His refusal to practice ZvZ - and inability to practice hard towards addressing his weaknesses - was bound to bite him, and I have been observing declines in his play from about 2-3 months prior. Presently speaking, I don't think he's ready for HerO, and failing in the first round of NASL is not going to do well for his confidence. Furthermore, with no time in between NASL finals, IEM quals, and MLG Summer Arena, he won't have an opportunity to regain his form after it. It has all the setup of an incoming slump period, and with it the end of his reputation of being the best NA / EU player. That is what I'm talking about when I say that the music is ending - Stephano gets a pass in a lot of areas because he is the best NA / EU player. He is able to, for example, forfeit tournaments repeatedly without losing his sponsorship, and without tournament organizers banning him from their events. When he streams, he is able to get >9000 viewers. All of this is because he is the best, and that is the reputation he has to maintain for the music and the parties to continue. You're simply pointlessly negative, which is your right, but if you believe you see serious flaws in Stephano's play of late when he has the third best Elo and has performed better, on average, than everyone else in the past two months in international events you're simply uninformed, or alternatively if you're not uninformed, an idiot. It goes without saying that his play is not perfect and that he should practice more but then again if he has serious problems in his play he wouldn't win have a 70%+ win rate in 2012 in the most competitive foreign events. If nothing else SCII has proven that no one rules forever -- not MVP, not MMA, not Nestea, etc. -- everyone eventually slumps, so if you keep saying that about Stephano you're bound to be right. Then you can brag to everyone, when he eventually enters a rough stretch, about how you called it 3 months ago in Stephano's fanclub, when (almost) everyone else was blithely celebrating his achievements, completely and inexecusably unaware of his impending demise. Finally if Idra is any indication, international fans tend to be loyal to players even when they perform poorly for long periods so I wouldn't expect a mass exodus in the event he does "slump" (which many in this fanclub seem to equate with not simply not winning a major tournament, regardless of how well he does in the tournament). I don't think I'm uninformed or an idiot about Stephano's play at all. Seeing flaws in his play is not equivalent to saying that he's bad. He has great ELO, yes, but so does Kas and Titan - and nobody thinks these players are the best in the world. Stephano's Elo was #1 overall (including Koreans) for most of the past two months and is now #3. Kas is #20 nad Titan is ranked slightly below him. I don't think anyone is confusing the #20 player in the world with being the best in the world. Also since you're implicitly trying to undermine the Elo ranking system since it completely undermines all of your preposterous, off-base pessimism about Stephano's play, I'll note that Kas is ranked #20 in the world because he's recently taken series off Hyun, Symbol and Nerchio. Elo is actually a much better measure of how good someone is than most people's subjective impressions are, especially people like you, who generally jump to unsubstantiated conclusions based on extremely unrepresentative data -- I saw so and so at MLG and he lost a series against so and so and is therefore terrible, or so and so got supply blocked three times; he won; but he'll never win against such and such korean; so and so's transition to brood lords in game 4 just shows that so and so does not understand the current metagame, etc. You are what I would term the "critical nerd". Critical nerds equate being relentlessly negative with actual knowledge of SC2 and being better able than other happier go lucky nerds at predicting results.
International ELO is not a great indicator of player form because players do not play each other equally. I've been following Stephano's ELO for a year and a lot of his early ELO - which gave him that #1 position - comes from beating NA / EU players in online cups and minor NA / EU tournaments. It was why Taeja was #1 on Korean ELO for ages because of his performance in Korean Weeklies, but when it came to major tournaments, Taeja wasn't remotely a #1 favorite.
What made Stephano special over other NA / EU players was that he managed to keep that ELO up there by beating Koreans in major LANs, instead of losing over and over to them until his ELO went to shit. But look at Naniwa for another example of why ELO isn't that useful for evaluating a player's form - Naniwa is easily the best EU Protoss, has made it to GSL Ro8 multiple times, and barely lost 2-3 to DRG today. But where is he in International ELO?
He's 59th. Below unknowns ie MacSed, and in the same league with BratOk and Bly.
A better way to tell how great a player is, beyond looking at ELO and tournament results, is to observe his play. It's by observing Stephano's play that I'm able to tell that his skill is in decline. Take the ZvZ series against Cytoplasm for example - Stephano's decision making there was terrible, and shows that he STILL doesn't know how to play ZvZ solidly. His repeated loss to that 2 base immortal all in vs. SaSe and then Mana is also worrying, and a lot of his strategies are stagnating in a changing meta-game that other Zergs - ie Nerchio - have been pushing forward. One positive spot in Stephano's play is his ZvT, which has changed to a better style from when he only did ling infestor and roach ling infestor. But ZvT in the present meta-game isn't a huge issue for Zergs - Terrans have been falling off, and the main opponents a Zerg player faces in tournaments these days are Protoss and other Zergs.
With that critical nerd bit, I'm starting to think you don't understand. I'm not critical towards every player. In fact, I am quite positive about HerO's shots vs. Stephano, and was quite positive about DRG's shots vs. Naniwa. But here, I'm talking about Stephano. I'm being rational about his shots vs. HerO and in MLG Summer Arena. His record vs. HerO wasn't great to begin with, and against the top Korean Zergs and Protosses in MLG Summer Arena, he needs a lot better form than he has now to obtain the results he did two months earlier.
But this is all from seeing how he played in the last few tournaments he attended. I'm happy to be shown wrong by Stephano that he's not beginning to slump. His play in recent times says that he is, but hey, Stephano is a better LAN player these days than he is online.
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Azarkon, I think where we disagree is that I think you are not placing not enough emphasis on results or rather concentrating too much on bad results.
You cite that loss against Mana as worrying. Fair enough it was a surprising result, but you have to put it into the context of coming after Stephano had already beaten Huk, Puma, Keen, Morrow and Nerchio and others earlier that tournament. Losing in a semi-final spot of DreamHack is hardly evidence of a slump. I would expect Stephano to beat Mana next time they meet in a LAN. Similarly the loss to Sase at MLG Spring Championship, concentrating on that loss and using it to argue a slump ignores the earlier wins against Alicia, Polt, Ganzi, Rain and JYP, only dropping 2 maps against those 5 Koreans and then losing 2-1 to both MKP and then Sase. I look at that and think it is impressive form. You are seeming to try and argue that it is evidence of poor form, and I cannot agree.
Then you have similarly impressive performances in Red Bull Battlegrounds, MLG Spring Arena 2 (plus stomping through the EU qualifiers for Spring Arena 2), plus Take TV Reloaded with most of the cream of European players and securing Top 8 spot in NASL 3. It all adds up to impressive form over the last couple of months to me. I don't see how losing a Bo3 to CytoPlasm outweighs all the above. CytoPlasm played a very good series, why not give him credit for that rather than bashing Stephano?
I like Nerchio and it is good for him to win some major LANs, but last I checked Stephano also won $6000 just last weekend. So it was a profitable week for both of them. Remember the vast majority of SC2 players have never won that much in one weekend.
The recent results should speak for themselves - 15 Koreans beaten plus Huk, Nerchio, Ret, Socke, BeastyQT, Morrow defeated. After the last couple of months, I don't think people are saying Korean Protoss are going to easily deal with Stephano's play anymore because they simply haven't. Hero and MC got victories but even then those two got very narrow series wins against Stephano.
Stephano has recently had issues with his living arrangements in Paris being somewhat temporary so his circumstances have been less than ideal. However with all the travelling he has done and will do over the next few months (and Korea) it is probably making the best of the situation. But much better to have too many tournaments to earn money than too few.
Stephano has a very tough bracket in NASL3 but he has a fighting chance to go far. Let's just see what happens.
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On July 13 2012 02:38 Azarkon wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2012 23:14 The_Darkness wrote:On July 12 2012 20:54 Azarkon wrote:On July 12 2012 10:49 The_Darkness wrote:On July 12 2012 06:59 Azarkon wrote:On July 12 2012 05:00 The_Darkness wrote:On July 12 2012 02:54 Azarkon wrote:On July 12 2012 02:41 a3den wrote:On July 12 2012 01:58 Khonsou wrote:
Well, I hope he gets his sh*t together because he didn't look scary at all the last couple of time his games were shown. I agree, for the first time in a long time, I feel like he's gonna get bodied at NASL & MLG Summer. Too much travel takes its toll, and I know he says he doesn't need much practice to be good, but that's too little right now. Fortunately, Korea is around the corner so the timing isn't that bad. Yeah, HerO is a huge challenge for him in great form, and he isn't in great form. I said that one day, the music is going to end for Stephano - is this going to be that day? Are you implying that if Stephano loses to Hero his career is over -- or that he's no longer an elite player? It's idiotic to suggest that a loss to Hero would imply some sort of failing on the part of any Zerg. DRG just got spanked by Hero in the IPL imports tournament so perhaps, if you're suggesting that losing to Hero means you're done, you should alert DRG's fans to the fact that "music has ended" for DRG, if you haven't already. Also, since you're not a fan of Stephano, why do you bother posting in this fanclub? By the sycophantic definition of fandom, I am not a fan of any player, because I refuse to be a sychophant who gives players a pass whenever they lose / make mistakes, and who over hypes them at the cost of objectivity. Yet, I do think I am a fan of Stephano, because I have a special attachment to his play and character and will tune in to events that he attends specifically to watch him play and to root for him - which is the better definition of fandom, in my opinion. But whether you think I'm a fan, it has no bearing on posting in the fanclub because the way TL fanclubs operate, they are discussion threads for individual players, and because what I'm saying is specific to Stephano, it belongs nowhere else. With that out of the way, I am not saying that if Stephano loses to HerO his career is over. Rather, I am musing on whether this is going to be the beginning of a slump for Stephano. His refusal to practice ZvZ - and inability to practice hard towards addressing his weaknesses - was bound to bite him, and I have been observing declines in his play from about 2-3 months prior. Presently speaking, I don't think he's ready for HerO, and failing in the first round of NASL is not going to do well for his confidence. Furthermore, with no time in between NASL finals, IEM quals, and MLG Summer Arena, he won't have an opportunity to regain his form after it. It has all the setup of an incoming slump period, and with it the end of his reputation of being the best NA / EU player. That is what I'm talking about when I say that the music is ending - Stephano gets a pass in a lot of areas because he is the best NA / EU player. He is able to, for example, forfeit tournaments repeatedly without losing his sponsorship, and without tournament organizers banning him from their events. When he streams, he is able to get >9000 viewers. All of this is because he is the best, and that is the reputation he has to maintain for the music and the parties to continue. You're simply pointlessly negative, which is your right, but if you believe you see serious flaws in Stephano's play of late when he has the third best Elo and has performed better, on average, than everyone else in the past two months in international events you're simply uninformed, or alternatively if you're not uninformed, an idiot. It goes without saying that his play is not perfect and that he should practice more but then again if he has serious problems in his play he wouldn't win have a 70%+ win rate in 2012 in the most competitive foreign events. If nothing else SCII has proven that no one rules forever -- not MVP, not MMA, not Nestea, etc. -- everyone eventually slumps, so if you keep saying that about Stephano you're bound to be right. Then you can brag to everyone, when he eventually enters a rough stretch, about how you called it 3 months ago in Stephano's fanclub, when (almost) everyone else was blithely celebrating his achievements, completely and inexecusably unaware of his impending demise. Finally if Idra is any indication, international fans tend to be loyal to players even when they perform poorly for long periods so I wouldn't expect a mass exodus in the event he does "slump" (which many in this fanclub seem to equate with not simply not winning a major tournament, regardless of how well he does in the tournament). I don't think I'm uninformed or an idiot about Stephano's play at all. Seeing flaws in his play is not equivalent to saying that he's bad. He has great ELO, yes, but so does Kas and Titan - and nobody thinks these players are the best in the world. Stephano's Elo was #1 overall (including Koreans) for most of the past two months and is now #3. Kas is #20 nad Titan is ranked slightly below him. I don't think anyone is confusing the #20 player in the world with being the best in the world. Also since you're implicitly trying to undermine the Elo ranking system since it completely undermines all of your preposterous, off-base pessimism about Stephano's play, I'll note that Kas is ranked #20 in the world because he's recently taken series off Hyun, Symbol and Nerchio. Elo is actually a much better measure of how good someone is than most people's subjective impressions are, especially people like you, who generally jump to unsubstantiated conclusions based on extremely unrepresentative data -- I saw so and so at MLG and he lost a series against so and so and is therefore terrible, or so and so got supply blocked three times; he won; but he'll never win against such and such korean; so and so's transition to brood lords in game 4 just shows that so and so does not understand the current metagame, etc. You are what I would term the "critical nerd". Critical nerds equate being relentlessly negative with actual knowledge of SC2 and being better able than other happier go lucky nerds at predicting results. International ELO is not a great indicator of player form because players do not play each other equally. I've been following Stephano's ELO for a year and a lot of his early ELO - which gave him that #1 position - comes from beating NA / EU players in online cups and minor NA / EU tournaments. It was why Taeja was #1 on Korean ELO for ages because of his performance in Korean Weeklies, but when it came to major tournaments, Taeja wasn't remotely a #1 favorite. What made Stephano special over other NA / EU players was that he managed to keep that ELO up there by beating Koreans in major LANs, instead of losing over and over to them until his ELO went to shit. But look at Naniwa for another example of why ELO isn't that useful for evaluating a player's form - Naniwa is easily the best EU Protoss, has made it to GSL Ro8 multiple times, and barely lost 2-3 to DRG today. But where is he in International ELO? He's 59th. Below unknowns ie MacSed, and in the same league with BratOk and Bly. A better way to tell how great a player is, beyond looking at ELO and tournament results, is to observe his play. It's by observing Stephano's play that I'm able to tell that his skill is in decline. Take the ZvZ series against Cytoplasm for example - Stephano's decision making there was terrible, and shows that he STILL doesn't know how to play ZvZ solidly. His repeated loss to that 2 base immortal all in vs. SaSe and then Mana is also worrying, and a lot of his strategies are stagnating in a changing meta-game that other Zergs - ie Nerchio - have been pushing forward. One positive spot in Stephano's play is his ZvT, which has changed to a better style from when he only did ling infestor and roach ling infestor. But ZvT in the present meta-game isn't a huge issue for Zergs - Terrans have been falling off, and the main opponents a Zerg player faces in tournaments these days are Protoss and other Zergs. With that critical nerd bit, I'm starting to think you don't understand. I'm not critical towards every player. In fact, I am quite positive about HerO's shots vs. Stephano, and was quite positive about DRG's shots vs. Naniwa. But here, I'm talking about Stephano. I'm being rational about his shots vs. HerO and in MLG Summer Arena. His record vs. HerO wasn't great to begin with, and against the top Korean Zergs and Protosses in MLG Summer Arena, he needs a lot better form than he has now to obtain the results he did two months earlier. But this is all from seeing how he played in the last few tournaments he attended. I'm happy to be shown wrong by Stephano that he's not beginning to slump. His play in recent times says that he is, but hey, Stephano is a better LAN player these days than he is online.
"A better way to tell how great a player is, beyond looking at ELO and tournament results, is to observe his play." OK, you are an idiot, despite your claims to the contrary. Although I agree you cannot get a complete picture of a player merely by looking at Elo and tournament results, clearly how well they do in tournaments should factor significantly into your view of how good a player is. As has been pointed out 15 times now in the past two days, his tournament results are as good as they get. If you can look at his play and find flaws, congratulations, you are my and everyone else's hero for determining what everyone already knew -- that Stephano's SC2 game, like the game of every other player in the world, is imperfect. If you want to convince anyone of your pessimistic views, and presumably you care about what other people think since you keep posting, then you need to explain why the flaws that you see in his play are more relevant indicators of his "true skill" than his consistently outstanding tournament results against the best players in the world are.
"Stephano's decision making there was terrible, and show that he STILL doesn't know how to play ZvZ solidly". What does that mean? He just beat Nerchio twice and Violet. I know Stephano thinks his zvz is shit, but in fact it's not that bad at all. It's just that there is a lot more variance in his results and it's statistically his worst matchup, which means he has only the 10th best Elo in zvz. Also define "solidly". Does a solid zvz player never lose? Nestea lost to Haypro. Does that mean he wasn't "solid" in the matchup? I think by solidly you mean top 5 in the world. If that's what you mean, then you should say that.
"His repeated loss to that 2 base immortal all in vs. SaSe and then Mana is also worrying, and a lot of his strategies are stagnating in a changing meta-game that other Zergs - ie Nerchio - have been pushing forward." Does a small rain cloud follow you wherever you go? Stephano has a winning record against MC and Squirtle over the past couple months and has won over 80% of his games against P in 2012. He's accomplished these results despite doing the same build virtually every game and being the most studied foreigner (and probably Korean) around. There is no question that he and DRG are the best at the matchup. IMO he does need to scout a bit better in the early game so he can see the dreaded sentry immortal push early enough to beat it. But even so I've seen him crush that same push against a lot of players (he beat Pomi, who was doing that push, 3x in a row on ladder one day). No one in SC2 wins all of the time. Stephano has done more than basically every other zerg to advance the metagame -- he showed the Koreans that mutas are inferior to upgraded ling infestor and then showed them the superiority of the three hatch before gas roach max build. (He hasn't quite convinced everyone that upgraded lings into ultras is how zvz should be played but he may in time.) I'm confident he'll figure shit out, as he has in the past, and adapt, although he does need to practice more to do so.
"With that critical nerd bit, I'm starting to think you don't understand. I'm not critical towards every player. In fact, I am quite positive about HerO's shots vs. Stephano, and was quite positive about DRG's shots vs. Naniwa." You really went out on a limb to predict DRG over Naniwa. In any event, your being critical isn't the probelm; it's your lack of evidence in support of everything you say that I find extraordinarily irritating.
"He's 59th. Below unknowns ie MacSed, and in the same league with BratOk and Bly." That's because recently Naniwa has dropped games to Forsen, Tiger, etc. and dropped series to Dimaga, Huk, Hyun, Slivko, LIvezerg, etc. That is to say, he has not been a world beater on the international scene. Elo isn't a perfect indicator of a player's skill - especially someone like Naniwa who has been in Korea for a while and not that active on the International scene. Nevertheless, as to recent international results, Naniwa's are not impressive, which is why he finds himself so far down the Elo ranking system. (They really should combine the databases.)
"But here, I'm talking about Stephano. I'm being rational about his shots vs. HerO and in MLG Summer Arena. His record vs. HerO wasn't great to begin with." What are you talking about? his record against hero is 2-2 in official matches. If you wanted to make a valid point here, you could have mentioned the time they practiced together and Hero reportedly whooped Stephano. But I doubt you were even aware of that (and if you were please indicate when they practiced together). Hero just whooped DRG and Stephano does not practice. If that's why you think he'll beat Stephano, I agree with you. I would favor Hero 60/40 against Stephano at the moment. There is no shame, for any Zerg, in losing to Hero at the moment.
"and against the top Korean Zergs and Protosses in MLG Summer Arena, he needs a lot better form than he has now to obtain the results he did two months earlier." What are you talking about? He's 3-1 against Squirtle, 4-3 against MC and 2-0 against JYP over the past couple months. He had a bad run against symbol and violet, but claimed he was hungover (and I believe him). He came back to beat Violet. His zvz is "shakier" in the sense that his win rate is lower and the seeming variability of his play is greater -- e.g., witness his losing to cytoplasm. But then again, he just beat Nerchio the other day, so despite his misgivings about the matchup, his results aren't that bad.
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Some great post by Darkness and revel8. Enjoyed the read. And you guys right I got no idea wtf Azarkon is on about. Everyone loses now and again especially if its a ZvZ. Stephano´s play the last 2 months has beeen absolutly fantastic and I think its abit extreme to start to cry wofl after lossing 1 ZvZ hehe!
Im looking forward to the NASL finals and im confidence he gonna stomp Hero:D But lets see gonna be great to see
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On July 13 2012 03:56 The_Darkness wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2012 02:38 Azarkon wrote:On July 12 2012 23:14 The_Darkness wrote:On July 12 2012 20:54 Azarkon wrote:On July 12 2012 10:49 The_Darkness wrote:On July 12 2012 06:59 Azarkon wrote:On July 12 2012 05:00 The_Darkness wrote:On July 12 2012 02:54 Azarkon wrote:On July 12 2012 02:41 a3den wrote:On July 12 2012 01:58 Khonsou wrote:
Well, I hope he gets his sh*t together because he didn't look scary at all the last couple of time his games were shown. I agree, for the first time in a long time, I feel like he's gonna get bodied at NASL & MLG Summer. Too much travel takes its toll, and I know he says he doesn't need much practice to be good, but that's too little right now. Fortunately, Korea is around the corner so the timing isn't that bad. Yeah, HerO is a huge challenge for him in great form, and he isn't in great form. I said that one day, the music is going to end for Stephano - is this going to be that day? Are you implying that if Stephano loses to Hero his career is over -- or that he's no longer an elite player? It's idiotic to suggest that a loss to Hero would imply some sort of failing on the part of any Zerg. DRG just got spanked by Hero in the IPL imports tournament so perhaps, if you're suggesting that losing to Hero means you're done, you should alert DRG's fans to the fact that "music has ended" for DRG, if you haven't already. Also, since you're not a fan of Stephano, why do you bother posting in this fanclub? By the sycophantic definition of fandom, I am not a fan of any player, because I refuse to be a sychophant who gives players a pass whenever they lose / make mistakes, and who over hypes them at the cost of objectivity. Yet, I do think I am a fan of Stephano, because I have a special attachment to his play and character and will tune in to events that he attends specifically to watch him play and to root for him - which is the better definition of fandom, in my opinion. But whether you think I'm a fan, it has no bearing on posting in the fanclub because the way TL fanclubs operate, they are discussion threads for individual players, and because what I'm saying is specific to Stephano, it belongs nowhere else. With that out of the way, I am not saying that if Stephano loses to HerO his career is over. Rather, I am musing on whether this is going to be the beginning of a slump for Stephano. His refusal to practice ZvZ - and inability to practice hard towards addressing his weaknesses - was bound to bite him, and I have been observing declines in his play from about 2-3 months prior. Presently speaking, I don't think he's ready for HerO, and failing in the first round of NASL is not going to do well for his confidence. Furthermore, with no time in between NASL finals, IEM quals, and MLG Summer Arena, he won't have an opportunity to regain his form after it. It has all the setup of an incoming slump period, and with it the end of his reputation of being the best NA / EU player. That is what I'm talking about when I say that the music is ending - Stephano gets a pass in a lot of areas because he is the best NA / EU player. He is able to, for example, forfeit tournaments repeatedly without losing his sponsorship, and without tournament organizers banning him from their events. When he streams, he is able to get >9000 viewers. All of this is because he is the best, and that is the reputation he has to maintain for the music and the parties to continue. You're simply pointlessly negative, which is your right, but if you believe you see serious flaws in Stephano's play of late when he has the third best Elo and has performed better, on average, than everyone else in the past two months in international events you're simply uninformed, or alternatively if you're not uninformed, an idiot. It goes without saying that his play is not perfect and that he should practice more but then again if he has serious problems in his play he wouldn't win have a 70%+ win rate in 2012 in the most competitive foreign events. If nothing else SCII has proven that no one rules forever -- not MVP, not MMA, not Nestea, etc. -- everyone eventually slumps, so if you keep saying that about Stephano you're bound to be right. Then you can brag to everyone, when he eventually enters a rough stretch, about how you called it 3 months ago in Stephano's fanclub, when (almost) everyone else was blithely celebrating his achievements, completely and inexecusably unaware of his impending demise. Finally if Idra is any indication, international fans tend to be loyal to players even when they perform poorly for long periods so I wouldn't expect a mass exodus in the event he does "slump" (which many in this fanclub seem to equate with not simply not winning a major tournament, regardless of how well he does in the tournament). I don't think I'm uninformed or an idiot about Stephano's play at all. Seeing flaws in his play is not equivalent to saying that he's bad. He has great ELO, yes, but so does Kas and Titan - and nobody thinks these players are the best in the world. Stephano's Elo was #1 overall (including Koreans) for most of the past two months and is now #3. Kas is #20 nad Titan is ranked slightly below him. I don't think anyone is confusing the #20 player in the world with being the best in the world. Also since you're implicitly trying to undermine the Elo ranking system since it completely undermines all of your preposterous, off-base pessimism about Stephano's play, I'll note that Kas is ranked #20 in the world because he's recently taken series off Hyun, Symbol and Nerchio. Elo is actually a much better measure of how good someone is than most people's subjective impressions are, especially people like you, who generally jump to unsubstantiated conclusions based on extremely unrepresentative data -- I saw so and so at MLG and he lost a series against so and so and is therefore terrible, or so and so got supply blocked three times; he won; but he'll never win against such and such korean; so and so's transition to brood lords in game 4 just shows that so and so does not understand the current metagame, etc. You are what I would term the "critical nerd". Critical nerds equate being relentlessly negative with actual knowledge of SC2 and being better able than other happier go lucky nerds at predicting results. International ELO is not a great indicator of player form because players do not play each other equally. I've been following Stephano's ELO for a year and a lot of his early ELO - which gave him that #1 position - comes from beating NA / EU players in online cups and minor NA / EU tournaments. It was why Taeja was #1 on Korean ELO for ages because of his performance in Korean Weeklies, but when it came to major tournaments, Taeja wasn't remotely a #1 favorite. What made Stephano special over other NA / EU players was that he managed to keep that ELO up there by beating Koreans in major LANs, instead of losing over and over to them until his ELO went to shit. But look at Naniwa for another example of why ELO isn't that useful for evaluating a player's form - Naniwa is easily the best EU Protoss, has made it to GSL Ro8 multiple times, and barely lost 2-3 to DRG today. But where is he in International ELO? He's 59th. Below unknowns ie MacSed, and in the same league with BratOk and Bly. A better way to tell how great a player is, beyond looking at ELO and tournament results, is to observe his play. It's by observing Stephano's play that I'm able to tell that his skill is in decline. Take the ZvZ series against Cytoplasm for example - Stephano's decision making there was terrible, and shows that he STILL doesn't know how to play ZvZ solidly. His repeated loss to that 2 base immortal all in vs. SaSe and then Mana is also worrying, and a lot of his strategies are stagnating in a changing meta-game that other Zergs - ie Nerchio - have been pushing forward. One positive spot in Stephano's play is his ZvT, which has changed to a better style from when he only did ling infestor and roach ling infestor. But ZvT in the present meta-game isn't a huge issue for Zergs - Terrans have been falling off, and the main opponents a Zerg player faces in tournaments these days are Protoss and other Zergs. With that critical nerd bit, I'm starting to think you don't understand. I'm not critical towards every player. In fact, I am quite positive about HerO's shots vs. Stephano, and was quite positive about DRG's shots vs. Naniwa. But here, I'm talking about Stephano. I'm being rational about his shots vs. HerO and in MLG Summer Arena. His record vs. HerO wasn't great to begin with, and against the top Korean Zergs and Protosses in MLG Summer Arena, he needs a lot better form than he has now to obtain the results he did two months earlier. But this is all from seeing how he played in the last few tournaments he attended. I'm happy to be shown wrong by Stephano that he's not beginning to slump. His play in recent times says that he is, but hey, Stephano is a better LAN player these days than he is online. "A better way to tell how great a player is, beyond looking at ELO and tournament results, is to observe his play." OK, you are an idiot, despite your claims to the contrary. Although I agree you cannot get a complete picture of a player merely by looking at Elo and tournament results, clearly how well they do in tournaments should factor significantly into your view of how good a player is. As has been pointed out 15 times now in the past two days, his tournament results are as good as they get. If you can look at his play and find flaws, congratulations, you are my and everyone else's hero for determining what everyone already knew -- that Stephano's SC2 game, like the game of every other player in the world, is imperfect. If you want to convince anyone of your pessimistic views, and presumably you care about what other people think since you keep posting, then you need to explain why the flaws that you see in his play are more relevant indicators of his "true skill" than his consistently outstanding tournament results against the best players in the world are. "Stephano's decision making there was terrible, and show that he STILL doesn't know how to play ZvZ solidly". What does that mean? He just beat Nerchio twice and Violet. I know Stephano thinks his zvz is shit, but in fact it's not that bad at all. It's just that there is a lot more variance in his results and it's statistically his worst matchup, which means he has only the 10th best Elo in zvz. Also define "solidly". Does a solid zvz player never lose? Nestea lost to Haypro. Does that mean he wasn't "solid" in the matchup? I think by solidly you mean top 5 in the world. If that's what you mean, then you should say that. "His repeated loss to that 2 base immortal all in vs. SaSe and then Mana is also worrying, and a lot of his strategies are stagnating in a changing meta-game that other Zergs - ie Nerchio - have been pushing forward." Does a small rain cloud follow you wherever you go? Stephano has a winning record against MC and Squirtle over the past couple months and has won over 80% of his games against P in 2012. He's accomplished these results despite doing the same build virtually every game and being the most studied foreigner (and probably Korean) around. There is no question that he and DRG are the best at the matchup. IMO he does need to scout a bit better in the early game so he can see the dreaded sentry immortal push early enough to beat it. But even so I've seen him crush that same push against a lot of players (he beat Pomi, who was doing that push, 3x in a row on ladder one day). No one in SC2 wins all of the time. Stephano has done more than basically every other zerg to advance the metagame -- he showed the Koreans that mutas are inferior to upgraded ling infestor and then showed them the superiority of the three hatch before gas roach max build. (He hasn't quite convinced everyone that upgraded lings into ultras is how zvz should be played but he may in time.) I'm confident he'll figure shit out, as he has in the past, and adapt, although he does need to practice more to do so. "With that critical nerd bit, I'm starting to think you don't understand. I'm not critical towards every player. In fact, I am quite positive about HerO's shots vs. Stephano, and was quite positive about DRG's shots vs. Naniwa." You really went out on a limb to predict DRG over Naniwa. In any event, your being critical isn't the probelm; it's your lack of evidence in support of everything you say that I find extraordinarily irritating. "He's 59th. Below unknowns ie MacSed, and in the same league with BratOk and Bly." That's because recently Naniwa has dropped games to Forsen, Tiger, etc. and dropped series to Dimaga, Huk, Hyun, Slivko, LIvezerg, etc. That is to say, he has not been a world beater on the international scene. Elo isn't a perfect indicator of a player's skill - especially someone like Naniwa who has been in Korea for a while and not that active on the International scene. Nevertheless, as to recent international results, Naniwa's are not impressive, which is why he finds himself so far down the Elo ranking system. (They really should combine the databases.) "But here, I'm talking about Stephano. I'm being rational about his shots vs. HerO and in MLG Summer Arena. His record vs. HerO wasn't great to begin with." What are you talking about? his record against hero is 2-2 in official matches. If you wanted to make a valid point here, you could have mentioned the time they practiced together and Hero reportedly whooped Stephano. But I doubt you were even aware of that (and if you were please indicate when they practiced together). Hero just whooped DRG and Stephano does not practice. If that's why you think he'll beat Stephano, I agree with you. I would favor Hero 60/40 against Stephano at the moment. There is no shame, for any Zerg, in losing to Hero at the moment. "and against the top Korean Zergs and Protosses in MLG Summer Arena, he needs a lot better form than he has now to obtain the results he did two months earlier." What are you talking about? He's 3-1 against Squirtle, 4-3 against MC and 2-0 against JYP over the past couple months. He had a bad run against symbol and violet, but claimed he was hungover (and I believe him). He came back to beat Violet. His zvz is "shakier" in the sense that his win rate is lower and the seeming variability of his play is greater -- e.g., witness his losing to cytoplasm. But then again, he just beat Nerchio the other day, so despite his misgivings about the matchup, his results aren't that bad.
The_Darkness, you are way too much of a fanboy for me to argue with you on logical grounds. You effectively took the same recent losses and put a spin on it based on entirely on how Stephano was performing months prior, when the effects of him ceasing to practice were not yet in full motion. I don' t understand why you fail to understand that Stephano showed the best play immediately after his return from Korea, back when he was still a ladder monster and streamed hours every day. From that height to now, Stephano's play has suffered a decline, and it's obvious from looking at his play.
Since you have persisted in calling me an idiot, I shall have to return the favor by saying that you are incapable of seeing a player's skill from his play. I know how Stephano plays when he's at his best, and what he's been showing these last few weeks is not his best. His losses to Mana and SaSe were not just hiccups - they were losses due to strategic stagnancy. He used to LEAD the meta-game, and that's what made him invincible vs. EU Protoss players. But you do not lead the meta-game when you don't understand how to counter immortal 2 base all ins and failed to do so 4x in a row. He refused to integrate additional queens into his strategy despite the huge amount of benefits it brings to Zerg after the patch, refused to use drops in ZvP though it flat out counters immortal pushes and makes three hatch roach potent beyond its normal capacity, and refused to practice his ZvZ knowing that it's unstable.
Worst of all, he's refused to polish his mechanics. When you see DRG play, he makes very few mechanical mistakes. Stephano's mechanics were excellent, and are still great, but they have never been at DRG's level. He misses injects, he supply blocks himself, and fails to spread creep at the speed that other top Zergs do. That he is able to win despite this is a testament of Stephano's genius engagements and game reads, but genius engagements and reads are only able to get you so far. Stephano has had these mechanical weaknesses for a year now, and he still hasn't worked them out.
It's not a matter of well Stephano doesn't win every game whoopedo he's still a top player. It's Stephano has failed to address his weaknesses.
The rest of the world is improving by leaps and bounds, and Stephano is not, because he refuses to practice. That's his failing in the capacity of a player. That's what's going to bite him in the days to come. Make all the excuses you want, but you do not get away from practicing in this game.
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On July 13 2012 03:53 revel8 wrote:
Azarkon, I think where we disagree is that I think you are not placing not enough emphasis on results or rather concentrating too much on bad results.
You cite that loss against Mana as worrying. Fair enough it was a surprising result, but you have to put it into the context of coming after Stephano had already beaten Huk, Puma, Keen, Morrow and Nerchio and others earlier that tournament. Losing in a semi-final spot of DreamHack is hardly evidence of a slump. I would expect Stephano to beat Mana next time they meet in a LAN. Similarly the loss to Sase at MLG Spring Championship, concentrating on that loss and using it to argue a slump ignores the earlier wins against Alicia, Polt, Ganzi, Rain and JYP, only dropping 2 maps against those 5 Koreans and then losing 2-1 to both MKP and then Sase. I look at that and think it is impressive form. You are seeming to try and argue that it is evidence of poor form, and I cannot agree.
Then you have similarly impressive performances in Red Bull Battlegrounds, MLG Spring Arena 2 (plus stomping through the EU qualifiers for Spring Arena 2), plus Take TV Reloaded with most of the cream of European players and securing Top 8 spot in NASL 3. It all adds up to impressive form over the last couple of months to me. I don't see how losing a Bo3 to CytoPlasm outweighs all the above. CytoPlasm played a very good series, why not give him credit for that rather than bashing Stephano?
I like Nerchio and it is good for him to win some major LANs, but last I checked Stephano also won $6000 just last weekend. So it was a profitable week for both of them. Remember the vast majority of SC2 players have never won that much in one weekend.
The recent results should speak for themselves - 15 Koreans beaten plus Huk, Nerchio, Ret, Socke, BeastyQT, Morrow defeated. After the last couple of months, I don't think people are saying Korean Protoss are going to easily deal with Stephano's play anymore because they simply haven't. Hero and MC got victories but even then those two got very narrow series wins against Stephano.
Stephano has recently had issues with his living arrangements in Paris being somewhat temporary so his circumstances have been less than ideal. However with all the travelling he has done and will do over the next few months (and Korea) it is probably making the best of the situation. But much better to have too many tournaments to earn money than too few.
Stephano has a very tough bracket in NASL3 but he has a fighting chance to go far. Let's just see what happens.
Revel8, I'm not saying that his past results are building to a slump. I'm saying that his recent play is. Around RBB and MLG SA 2, he was still at the top of his game and you won't see me saying that Stephano was going to enter into a slump from there. The results that worry me are the losses to Mana and SaSe, the losses to Cytoplasm in the SCLC and TSL 4, the losses to Slivko and Ziktomini during DH groups, and his ~60% win rate on EU ladder when he does get a couple of warm up games before a tournament. This is not the Stephano we're used to, who barely ever lost to NA / EU players.
But beyond results, his failure to improve upon these losses is what tells me that there are issues beyond flukes going on. Stephano's game is not perfect. He knows this, I know this, you know this. But what not being perfect gives you is an opportunity to improve - by practicing harder, by changing it up with new styles, by polishing your mechanics. Had Stephano's play been getting better and better every game I see him play, the results matter little. But that's not what's happening. I see stagnation and decline in his play - not a lot, but it's there, and that's what makes him think that he's going to have a harder time from now on.
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On July 13 2012 04:32 Azarkon wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2012 03:56 The_Darkness wrote:On July 13 2012 02:38 Azarkon wrote:On July 12 2012 23:14 The_Darkness wrote:On July 12 2012 20:54 Azarkon wrote:On July 12 2012 10:49 The_Darkness wrote:On July 12 2012 06:59 Azarkon wrote:On July 12 2012 05:00 The_Darkness wrote:On July 12 2012 02:54 Azarkon wrote:On July 12 2012 02:41 a3den wrote:
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I agree, for the first time in a long time, I feel like he's gonna get bodied at NASL & MLG Summer. Too much travel takes its toll, and I know he says he doesn't need much practice to be good, but that's too little right now.
Fortunately, Korea is around the corner so the timing isn't that bad. Yeah, HerO is a huge challenge for him in great form, and he isn't in great form. I said that one day, the music is going to end for Stephano - is this going to be that day? Are you implying that if Stephano loses to Hero his career is over -- or that he's no longer an elite player? It's idiotic to suggest that a loss to Hero would imply some sort of failing on the part of any Zerg. DRG just got spanked by Hero in the IPL imports tournament so perhaps, if you're suggesting that losing to Hero means you're done, you should alert DRG's fans to the fact that "music has ended" for DRG, if you haven't already. Also, since you're not a fan of Stephano, why do you bother posting in this fanclub? By the sycophantic definition of fandom, I am not a fan of any player, because I refuse to be a sychophant who gives players a pass whenever they lose / make mistakes, and who over hypes them at the cost of objectivity. Yet, I do think I am a fan of Stephano, because I have a special attachment to his play and character and will tune in to events that he attends specifically to watch him play and to root for him - which is the better definition of fandom, in my opinion. But whether you think I'm a fan, it has no bearing on posting in the fanclub because the way TL fanclubs operate, they are discussion threads for individual players, and because what I'm saying is specific to Stephano, it belongs nowhere else. With that out of the way, I am not saying that if Stephano loses to HerO his career is over. Rather, I am musing on whether this is going to be the beginning of a slump for Stephano. His refusal to practice ZvZ - and inability to practice hard towards addressing his weaknesses - was bound to bite him, and I have been observing declines in his play from about 2-3 months prior. Presently speaking, I don't think he's ready for HerO, and failing in the first round of NASL is not going to do well for his confidence. Furthermore, with no time in between NASL finals, IEM quals, and MLG Summer Arena, he won't have an opportunity to regain his form after it. It has all the setup of an incoming slump period, and with it the end of his reputation of being the best NA / EU player. That is what I'm talking about when I say that the music is ending - Stephano gets a pass in a lot of areas because he is the best NA / EU player. He is able to, for example, forfeit tournaments repeatedly without losing his sponsorship, and without tournament organizers banning him from their events. When he streams, he is able to get >9000 viewers. All of this is because he is the best, and that is the reputation he has to maintain for the music and the parties to continue. You're simply pointlessly negative, which is your right, but if you believe you see serious flaws in Stephano's play of late when he has the third best Elo and has performed better, on average, than everyone else in the past two months in international events you're simply uninformed, or alternatively if you're not uninformed, an idiot. It goes without saying that his play is not perfect and that he should practice more but then again if he has serious problems in his play he wouldn't win have a 70%+ win rate in 2012 in the most competitive foreign events. If nothing else SCII has proven that no one rules forever -- not MVP, not MMA, not Nestea, etc. -- everyone eventually slumps, so if you keep saying that about Stephano you're bound to be right. Then you can brag to everyone, when he eventually enters a rough stretch, about how you called it 3 months ago in Stephano's fanclub, when (almost) everyone else was blithely celebrating his achievements, completely and inexecusably unaware of his impending demise. Finally if Idra is any indication, international fans tend to be loyal to players even when they perform poorly for long periods so I wouldn't expect a mass exodus in the event he does "slump" (which many in this fanclub seem to equate with not simply not winning a major tournament, regardless of how well he does in the tournament). I don't think I'm uninformed or an idiot about Stephano's play at all. Seeing flaws in his play is not equivalent to saying that he's bad. He has great ELO, yes, but so does Kas and Titan - and nobody thinks these players are the best in the world. Stephano's Elo was #1 overall (including Koreans) for most of the past two months and is now #3. Kas is #20 nad Titan is ranked slightly below him. I don't think anyone is confusing the #20 player in the world with being the best in the world. Also since you're implicitly trying to undermine the Elo ranking system since it completely undermines all of your preposterous, off-base pessimism about Stephano's play, I'll note that Kas is ranked #20 in the world because he's recently taken series off Hyun, Symbol and Nerchio. Elo is actually a much better measure of how good someone is than most people's subjective impressions are, especially people like you, who generally jump to unsubstantiated conclusions based on extremely unrepresentative data -- I saw so and so at MLG and he lost a series against so and so and is therefore terrible, or so and so got supply blocked three times; he won; but he'll never win against such and such korean; so and so's transition to brood lords in game 4 just shows that so and so does not understand the current metagame, etc. You are what I would term the "critical nerd". Critical nerds equate being relentlessly negative with actual knowledge of SC2 and being better able than other happier go lucky nerds at predicting results. International ELO is not a great indicator of player form because players do not play each other equally. I've been following Stephano's ELO for a year and a lot of his early ELO - which gave him that #1 position - comes from beating NA / EU players in online cups and minor NA / EU tournaments. It was why Taeja was #1 on Korean ELO for ages because of his performance in Korean Weeklies, but when it came to major tournaments, Taeja wasn't remotely a #1 favorite. What made Stephano special over other NA / EU players was that he managed to keep that ELO up there by beating Koreans in major LANs, instead of losing over and over to them until his ELO went to shit. But look at Naniwa for another example of why ELO isn't that useful for evaluating a player's form - Naniwa is easily the best EU Protoss, has made it to GSL Ro8 multiple times, and barely lost 2-3 to DRG today. But where is he in International ELO? He's 59th. Below unknowns ie MacSed, and in the same league with BratOk and Bly. A better way to tell how great a player is, beyond looking at ELO and tournament results, is to observe his play. It's by observing Stephano's play that I'm able to tell that his skill is in decline. Take the ZvZ series against Cytoplasm for example - Stephano's decision making there was terrible, and shows that he STILL doesn't know how to play ZvZ solidly. His repeated loss to that 2 base immortal all in vs. SaSe and then Mana is also worrying, and a lot of his strategies are stagnating in a changing meta-game that other Zergs - ie Nerchio - have been pushing forward. One positive spot in Stephano's play is his ZvT, which has changed to a better style from when he only did ling infestor and roach ling infestor. But ZvT in the present meta-game isn't a huge issue for Zergs - Terrans have been falling off, and the main opponents a Zerg player faces in tournaments these days are Protoss and other Zergs. With that critical nerd bit, I'm starting to think you don't understand. I'm not critical towards every player. In fact, I am quite positive about HerO's shots vs. Stephano, and was quite positive about DRG's shots vs. Naniwa. But here, I'm talking about Stephano. I'm being rational about his shots vs. HerO and in MLG Summer Arena. His record vs. HerO wasn't great to begin with, and against the top Korean Zergs and Protosses in MLG Summer Arena, he needs a lot better form than he has now to obtain the results he did two months earlier. But this is all from seeing how he played in the last few tournaments he attended. I'm happy to be shown wrong by Stephano that he's not beginning to slump. His play in recent times says that he is, but hey, Stephano is a better LAN player these days than he is online. "A better way to tell how great a player is, beyond looking at ELO and tournament results, is to observe his play." OK, you are an idiot, despite your claims to the contrary. Although I agree you cannot get a complete picture of a player merely by looking at Elo and tournament results, clearly how well they do in tournaments should factor significantly into your view of how good a player is. As has been pointed out 15 times now in the past two days, his tournament results are as good as they get. If you can look at his play and find flaws, congratulations, you are my and everyone else's hero for determining what everyone already knew -- that Stephano's SC2 game, like the game of every other player in the world, is imperfect. If you want to convince anyone of your pessimistic views, and presumably you care about what other people think since you keep posting, then you need to explain why the flaws that you see in his play are more relevant indicators of his "true skill" than his consistently outstanding tournament results against the best players in the world are. "Stephano's decision making there was terrible, and show that he STILL doesn't know how to play ZvZ solidly". What does that mean? He just beat Nerchio twice and Violet. I know Stephano thinks his zvz is shit, but in fact it's not that bad at all. It's just that there is a lot more variance in his results and it's statistically his worst matchup, which means he has only the 10th best Elo in zvz. Also define "solidly". Does a solid zvz player never lose? Nestea lost to Haypro. Does that mean he wasn't "solid" in the matchup? I think by solidly you mean top 5 in the world. If that's what you mean, then you should say that. "His repeated loss to that 2 base immortal all in vs. SaSe and then Mana is also worrying, and a lot of his strategies are stagnating in a changing meta-game that other Zergs - ie Nerchio - have been pushing forward." Does a small rain cloud follow you wherever you go? Stephano has a winning record against MC and Squirtle over the past couple months and has won over 80% of his games against P in 2012. He's accomplished these results despite doing the same build virtually every game and being the most studied foreigner (and probably Korean) around. There is no question that he and DRG are the best at the matchup. IMO he does need to scout a bit better in the early game so he can see the dreaded sentry immortal push early enough to beat it. But even so I've seen him crush that same push against a lot of players (he beat Pomi, who was doing that push, 3x in a row on ladder one day). No one in SC2 wins all of the time. Stephano has done more than basically every other zerg to advance the metagame -- he showed the Koreans that mutas are inferior to upgraded ling infestor and then showed them the superiority of the three hatch before gas roach max build. (He hasn't quite convinced everyone that upgraded lings into ultras is how zvz should be played but he may in time.) I'm confident he'll figure shit out, as he has in the past, and adapt, although he does need to practice more to do so. "With that critical nerd bit, I'm starting to think you don't understand. I'm not critical towards every player. In fact, I am quite positive about HerO's shots vs. Stephano, and was quite positive about DRG's shots vs. Naniwa." You really went out on a limb to predict DRG over Naniwa. In any event, your being critical isn't the probelm; it's your lack of evidence in support of everything you say that I find extraordinarily irritating. "He's 59th. Below unknowns ie MacSed, and in the same league with BratOk and Bly." That's because recently Naniwa has dropped games to Forsen, Tiger, etc. and dropped series to Dimaga, Huk, Hyun, Slivko, LIvezerg, etc. That is to say, he has not been a world beater on the international scene. Elo isn't a perfect indicator of a player's skill - especially someone like Naniwa who has been in Korea for a while and not that active on the International scene. Nevertheless, as to recent international results, Naniwa's are not impressive, which is why he finds himself so far down the Elo ranking system. (They really should combine the databases.) "But here, I'm talking about Stephano. I'm being rational about his shots vs. HerO and in MLG Summer Arena. His record vs. HerO wasn't great to begin with." What are you talking about? his record against hero is 2-2 in official matches. If you wanted to make a valid point here, you could have mentioned the time they practiced together and Hero reportedly whooped Stephano. But I doubt you were even aware of that (and if you were please indicate when they practiced together). Hero just whooped DRG and Stephano does not practice. If that's why you think he'll beat Stephano, I agree with you. I would favor Hero 60/40 against Stephano at the moment. There is no shame, for any Zerg, in losing to Hero at the moment. "and against the top Korean Zergs and Protosses in MLG Summer Arena, he needs a lot better form than he has now to obtain the results he did two months earlier." What are you talking about? He's 3-1 against Squirtle, 4-3 against MC and 2-0 against JYP over the past couple months. He had a bad run against symbol and violet, but claimed he was hungover (and I believe him). He came back to beat Violet. His zvz is "shakier" in the sense that his win rate is lower and the seeming variability of his play is greater -- e.g., witness his losing to cytoplasm. But then again, he just beat Nerchio the other day, so despite his misgivings about the matchup, his results aren't that bad. The_Darkness, you are way too much of a fanboy for me to argue with you on logical grounds. You effectively took the same recent losses and put a spin on it based on entirely on how Stephano was performing months prior, when the effects of him ceasing to practice were not yet in full motion. I don' t understand why you fail to understand that Stephano showed the best play immediately after his return from Korea, back when he was still a ladder monster and streamed hours every day. From that height to now, Stephano's play has suffered a decline, and it's obvious from looking at his play. Since you have persisted in calling me an idiot, I shall have to return the favor by saying that you are incapable of seeing a player's skill from his play. I know how Stephano plays when he's at his best, and what he's been showing these last few weeks is not his best. His losses to Mana and SaSe were not just hiccups - they were losses due to strategic stagnancy. He used to LEAD the meta-game, and that's what made him invincible vs. EU Protoss players. But you do not lead the meta-game when you don't understand how to counter immortal 2 base all ins and failed to do so 4x in a row. He refused to integrate additional queens into his strategy despite the huge amount of benefits it brings to Zerg after the patch, refused to use drops in ZvP though it flat out counters immortal pushes and makes three hatch roach potent beyond its normal capacity, and refused to practice his ZvZ knowing that it's unstable. Worst of all, he's refused to polish his mechanics. When you see DRG play, he makes very few mechanical mistakes. Stephano's mechanics were excellent, and are still great, but they have never been at DRG's level. He misses injects, he supply blocks himself, and fails to spread creep at the speed that other top Zergs do. That he is able to win despite this is a testament of Stephano's genius engagements and game reads, but genius engagements and reads are only able to get you so far. Stephano has had these mechanical weaknesses for a year now, and he still hasn't worked them out. It's not a matter of well Stephano doesn't win every game whoopedo he's still a top player. It's Stephano has failed to address his weaknesses. The rest of the world is improving by leaps and bounds, and Stephano is not, because he refuses to practice. That's his failing in the capacity of a player. That's what's going to bite him in the days to come. Make all the excuses you want, but you do not get away from practicing in this game.
I apologize for calling you an idiot.
You are effectively a textbook example of a massive confirmation bias fallacy. You're focusing on one set of data (Stephano's mistakes and losses) almost entirely to the exclusion of another set of data (his victories and generally high level of play) as revel8 points out. You would undoubtedly argue in reply that I'm doing just the opposite -- I'm just a pollyanna fanboy wearing rose colored glasses who's been blinded to the general erosion in core aspects of Stephano's game by Stephano's victories and flashes of brilliance. The end is near! To advance this debate, I'm going to break down your posts into a few simplified assertions:
1. Stephano's mechanics are slipping as evidenced by his missing injects, having bad engagements, etc.: I agree that this is the case. If you don't practice you will get worse. What's shocking to me is how little Stephano seems to have lost in the overall quality of his play even though he is effectively not practicing at all. Although some will disagree, any comparison of Stephano and DRG is not favorable to DRG given that the latter actually practices quite a bit with a professional team and the former isn't even practicing and never practiced against or with the caliber of players DRG does on a regular basis, outside a brief stint in Korea. That Stephano's mechanics are what they are is a testament to his genius. DRG is undoubtedly very talented and a better player at the moment than Stephano, but Stephano just seems way more "special" than DRG, which is probably why Jaedong was looking to Stephano for inspiration rather than DRG.
2. Stephano's game is stagnating and he doesn't understand the metagame: Stephano's tvz has been refined an incredible amount and he is now almost unbeatble in the match up, excluding the occasional losses to MKP. Stephano tvp is pretty much the same as ever, so you're right that it is stagnant -- because it isn't in fact changing. Nevertheless, you should never change your game simply because some new style comes into vogue but rather because your opponents force you to. Since May 2, He is 32 and 8 in his last 40 games against Protoss and his opponents list is a who's who among P players. He has lost a few times to the sentry immortal push. That push is the only thing he needs to figure out. If a match goes to the late game, only the very best Ps in the world can make it a match. Given that Stephano basically solved Protoss at one point, my money is on him figuring out the best way to counter sentry immortal. Because I've watched nearly all of his games on stream I can confirm (to no one's surprise) that he's aware that ling-infestor effectively murders that build. I can also confirm that he generally can beat that build with just ling roach assuming he gets his hatch down early enough. Also DRG looks very human at times against Protoss and Symbol did not look good against Seed, so I'm fairly confident that if Stephano resumes practicing regularly he will continue to have the best Elo against P. Stephano has used roach drops before, so you can rest assured that he is aware that you can put units in overlords and drop them on your opponent.
It's ridiculous to say that Stephano doesn't understand the metagame when he is one of the two best players in tvp and without a doubt top 5 in tvz (sans the current emphasis on queens). If everyone is doing something and the metagame shifts and Stephano doesn't shift with the metagame but still keeps winning then he made the right choice. People thought Stephano was gimmicky for going with ling heavy strategies and now he's defined the metagame in tvz. If he starts losing and doesn't shift then you have a point, but it's idiotic to change what you're doing when it's working.
3. The_Darkness is incapable of seeing a player's skill from his play: This is flat out wrong. When I first saw Stephano play in the IPL3 qualifier against MKP I posted under the video in YouTube that he was a genius and will soon be considered the best foreigner. I didn't consult the Elo database. It was clear from his micro, map awareness, decision making, etc. that he was something special. When I first saw Life play I had a similar reaction and now he's third in the Korean Elo and will soon be kicking ass in Code S. I also felt similarly, although not to the same degree, when I saw Symbol play although I think Symbol is now very good but perhaps a bit overrated (in the sense that people are saying he's the best or he's basically as good as DRG). He just doesn't have Stephano's, Life's or DRG's multitasking or map awareness, which are probably the hardest skills to train, although he is intelligent and without a doubt a top 5 zerg at the moment.
4. The rest of the world will catch Stephano if he doesn't practice: This is true. He'll be top 10 at best in a couple months if he continues not practicing.
Let me pose this question to you: What results would Stephano need to post to convince you that you're focusing on the wrong things in assessing his play? You have advanced a theory that Stephano's play, in spite of his results, is not that good. What would it take to disprove your theory? Any good theory or assertion is capable of being disproven -- so let's hear it.
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TLPD doesnt say much oO
more tournaments for top players --> more points. weekly cups are overrated in that ranking as well.
you better watch my ranking, its more accurate 
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On July 13 2012 07:43 The_Darkness wrote:
Let me pose this question to you: What results would Stephano need to post to convince you that you're focusing on the wrong things in assessing his play? You have advanced a theory that Stephano's play, in spite of his results, is not that good. What would it take to disprove your theory? Any good theory or assertion is capable of being disproven -- so let's hear it.
You've brought several arguments to the table, but because this is the gist of what you're asking about, I'm going to respond to this chunk while answering the others through it.
At this moment, my biggest problem with Stephano's play is ZvZ followed by PvZ. In TvZ, I agree that he has no need to change it up because very few Terrans are capable of beating him, and the current meta-game doesn't favor Terran to begin with. While I do still think that he needs to make use of additional queens because of the buff, he holds Terrans just fine early game with roaches and wins the game outright with the roach baneling timing in a third of the games he plays. Because top Korean Terrans are meta-gaming top Korean Zergs not using roaches by getting a lot of hellions, he is playing a style that is a counter meta-game to them and that's not a bad position to be in.
In ZvZ, Stephano's problems are obvious - he's not stable. He is able to beat great ZvZers but is also able to lose to above average ZvZers. I won't belabor the details, but the trouble is that he isn't solid enough with his timings and builds in this match up. This is the result of him not practicing enough, because to understand the timings and builds in ZvZ you need to play it a lot - this is not a match up with a few builds and timings, it's a match up with a lot of builds and timings. For me to believe that I'm wrong about him in ZvZ - which I don't think I am - he needs to show that he understands how to play safe and get to the mid game in ZvZ without a huge disadvantage / losing outright instead of playing on the razor's edge, which is what he does in ZvZ every time I see him play it. Top ZvZers are able to do this when they choose to play a macro game - Stephano is a macro player, he needs to show the same.
In PvZ, my problem with Stephano is that he is using an outdated style that has been figured out by top Protoss players. The basic three hatch roach build fell out of popularity not because of a better build coming into vogue, but because Protoss started hard countering it with immortal timings and became better at defending a third against it when they don't do immortal timings. Stephano is better at executing three hatch roach than other Zergs, but there are basic weaknesses in the build that a Protoss who knows the timings is able to exploit - which is what SaSe and Mana did against him with a combination of probe harass and early aggression followed by two base all-ins.
There are simple adjustments to the build - ie getting drop, having better creep spread with additional queens - that upgrade its potency and make it less vulnerable to meta-gaming. It still doesn't make three hatch roach the optimal build, but it makes it competitive enough. For me to be wrong about Stephano's ZvP, one of two things has to happen:
The first is beating HerO in the NASL Bo5. I don't care what strategy he uses, because I know HerO is solid in this match up and keeps up with the meta-game, and thus that whatever Stephano uses to beat him is a great strategy. I'm willing to change my opinion about the basic three hatch roach build given that he wins HerO with it. My ideas about Stephano's ZvP rest on three hatch roach being an outdated style and so Stephano winning HerO with it in a Bo5 says that the strategy isn't.
The second, provided that he doesn't beat HerO, is for him to show variations in his play. My criticism of Stephano in ZvP is that he isn't keeping up with the meta-game because he isn't practicing enough to keep up with it, and isn't practicing enough to experiment and be solid at new builds. For me to be wrong, all he has to do is to show that he understands where the meta-game is going and is making intelligent and solid adjustments to his play. This isn't limited to copying what others do, obviously. I'm satisfied for him to show 1-2 new for him styles of ZvP that he doesn't play poorly because he's playing it for the third time ever.
My final criticism of Stephano's form is that his mechanics are declining. I don't think there is disagreement here, so I'm not going to bother coming up with a criteria for saying that I'm wrong. His mechanics are declining, albeit not at the speed that it ought to given the lack of practice. But I'm going to say what I hope to see out of Stephano - I hope to see him improve his mechanics and the rawness still around the edges - don't miss injects late game, don't float 1000s of minerals with no gas mid game, and spread creep faster. One thing he did start doing that he didn't before is to expand rapidly across the map late game, and that I think has helped him a lot.
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Azarkon for president.
The fix to most of Stephano's problems would be to actualy get to korea and train there for at least a month.
When he was in top shape the foreign scene skill cap felt like the only thing holding him back because he practiced most of the time with people lower skilled than him except once a month when he played against a few top koreans in a major tournament.
I think some training in korea might bring up a spark and motivation to his play.
It saddens me that he prefers to jump on the globe every week to every tournament to chip on some "easy" cash from 5th place prizes instead of taking a break to practice hard in an enviroment like korean team houses just so he can come back stronger than ever before to win major tournaments and also make more $ than before.
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This is by far the worst fan club thread of all. At this point I would not even call it a fan club.
It is just a bunch of know-it-alls telling Stephano what he should and should not do and whining if their pet doesnt behave as they tell him to.
Well at least we can be quite sure that Stephano will never read all that crap.
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On July 13 2012 17:17 Redox wrote:
This is by far the worst fan club thread of all. At this point I would not even call it a fan club.
It is just a bunch of know-it-alls telling Stephano what he should and should not do and whining if their pet doesnt behave as they tell him to.
Well at least we can be quite sure that Stephano will never read all that crap.
xD well said he's not reading it for sure
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On July 13 2012 18:40 SolidMustard wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2012 17:17 Redox wrote:
This is by far the worst fan club thread of all. At this point I would not even call it a fan club.
It is just a bunch of know-it-alls telling Stephano what he should and should not do and whining if their pet doesnt behave as they tell him to.
Well at least we can be quite sure that Stephano will never read all that crap. xD well said he's not reading it for sure
completely agree xD
Go stephano I have faith in you!
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What has this fanclub come to ?
Seriously guys, we all know Stephano doesn't have the time to practice as much as he did in early 2012. So his play is declining. That's the direct consequence of him being invited or qualified to almost every major tournaments. He hasn't had the stability he needs to train and that's a problem but he should go to Korea after NASL and MLG Arena which should be a good training moment for him.
Until then, could you please just support him instead of fighting with each other.
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Do you know much much fucks Stephano gives about all that bullshit in this "Fanclub"? -> 0
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EPT
