On July 16 2012 12:36 NevaN wrote: @azarkon- Then who do you suggest us to portray the player your opinion is seeing?? You can't demand out from him to produce perfect games man for other players train so much harder than him yet commits more mistake than Stephano. and i assure you, 200% in your game your not that perfect too. Don't litter the thread of your opinion that he is declining for you yourself can simply look at the results.Anyway as someone has said haters gonna hate.
Sorry, but it's dumb as hell to say that I was hating on him.
People have short memories. Before this NASL started, nobody who had a clue thought that Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC.
This is the information we had available:
* Stephano was frustrated with his ZvZ and was losing to players way below his level * He was coming off of two 0-2 losses against Protoss players a tier below the level of HerO and MC PvZ * Stephano had a losing record vs. MC * Stephano had a losing record vs. HerO * MC was preparing his PvZ to face DRG * DRG had said that MC was the best PvZ in the world * HerO was coming off of a 3-1 win against DRG * Stephano said that he hasn't practiced in two weeks, and that his fans 'should not expect much from him'
There was not a single rational supporting argument, going into NASL, for why Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC besides blind faith. He had, at best, 50-50 records against both players in his former prime, and HerO was starting to be the next big thing when it came to PvZ.
Everybody knew this and everybody accepted this. Hell, people started bitching about how unfair it was that Stephano had to play in the hardest bracket in NASL while HuK and Ret had easy paths. Turn the fanclub back 10-20 pages and you're going to see tons of people saying that they're worried about Stephano getting far in NASL. I merely made the additional argument that, in the case that he loses to HerO in the Ro8, he won't have enough time to change his play and form before MLG Summer Arena, which is stacked harder than NASL, and that another loss there = he's starting to fall off the map for favorites to win a tournament, which for Stephano is a slump.
Obviously, this is no longer a problem for Stephano because he just won NASL, and that win is going to last him a while given who his opponents were. It's going to take another 5-6 months before he needs another big win to keep his best NA / EU player tag around. How he performs in MLG Summer is now irrelevant because in the case he bombs out in the group stages, all people need to do is wave at NASL and say that, well, everybody loses.
But saying that people knew Stephano was going to do that well in NASL before yesterday is ridiculous. All the information we had said that he was going to lose, but he managed to pull a miracle.
Azarkon thats wrong Stephano did not had a losing record vs Hero they meet 2 times at lans. First time at blizzard cup and now at NASL.
They met twice in tournaments.
He won 1-0 vs HerO in Blizzard Cup.
He lost 1-2 to HerO in EG Masters.
He lost 0-5 to HerO in practice and has said that he fears HerO's style of PvZ.
That to me tips the scale in HerO's favor, and HerO's win vs. DRG tips it further.
Also the last 2 times MC and Stephano have meet its been 1-1 so hardly a losing record.
Yes, but that's the last two times they met. His overall record vs. MC was negative. I think it's positive now, but I have to check.
And the only reason why he lost to Mana and Sase was becuase of metagame. Stephano had been traveling allmost a month and simply didnt had time to keep up. We saw the exact same build from Hero in game 3 and Stephano just crushed it. Matter infact you wrong allmost in every account. The last 2 months has been some of the best we have ever seen from Stephano. I simply dont understand where you comming from
He hasn't stopped traveling. Two and a half weeks ago he was in Sweden. Last week he was in Paris. After Paris, he went to Canada. Just a week ago he was saying that his lodging situation was very unstable. I don't understand why you think 'Stephano lost because he was traveling and didn't have time to keep up,' given that his wins and losses both happened during periods when he's traveling a lot.
plz for the love of god tell me how he is slumping with that insane record the last 2months??
I didn't say he is slumping with that record. I said that in the case that he loses to HerO, and then loses again in MLG Summer Arena, then that portends a slump. He didn't lose in NASL, so he's not in a slump. But one of the things that has portended slumps in the past for world class players is when they begin to lose badly to NA / EU players. Stephano started doing that - he lost to SaSe, he lost to MaNa, he lost to Cytoplasm, he lost to Ziktomini, and he lost to Slivko all within the span of a month. He had great wins in the last two months, too, but the losses were recent, while the wins were further away.
On July 16 2012 12:56 revel8 wrote: Let's celebrate the moment with spontaneous Dancing! Enjoy before Azarkon criticises choreography and predicts party is over! LOL
Credit to trenog
whats the song playing in the background when they are all dancing?
On July 16 2012 12:36 NevaN wrote: @azarkon- Then who do you suggest us to portray the player your opinion is seeing?? You can't demand out from him to produce perfect games man for other players train so much harder than him yet commits more mistake than Stephano. and i assure you, 200% in your game your not that perfect too. Don't litter the thread of your opinion that he is declining for you yourself can simply look at the results.Anyway as someone has said haters gonna hate.
Sorry, but it's dumb as hell to say that I was hating on him.
People have short memories. Before this NASL started, nobody who had a clue thought that Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC.
This is the information we had available:
* Stephano was frustrated with his ZvZ and was losing to players way below his level * He was coming off of two 0-2 losses against Protoss players a tier below the level of HerO and MC PvZ * Stephano had a losing record vs. MC * Stephano had a losing record vs. HerO * MC was preparing his PvZ to face DRG * DRG had said that MC was the best PvZ in the world * HerO was coming off of a 3-1 win against DRG * Stephano said that he hasn't practiced in two weeks, and that his fans 'should not expect much from him'
There was not a single rational supporting argument, going into NASL, for why Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC besides blind faith. He had, at best, 50-50 records against both players in his former prime, and HerO was starting to be the next big thing when it came to PvZ.
Everybody knew this and everybody accepted this. Hell, people started bitching about how unfair it was that Stephano had to play in the hardest bracket in NASL while HuK and Ret had easy paths. Turn the fanclub back 10-20 pages and you're going to see tons of people saying that they're worried about Stephano getting far in NASL. I merely made the additional argument that, in the case that he loses to HerO in the Ro8, he won't have enough time to change his play and form before MLG Summer Arena, which is stacked harder than NASL, and that another loss there = he's starting to fall off the map for favorites to win a tournament, which for Stephano is a slump.
Obviously, this is no longer a problem for Stephano because he just won NASL, and that win is going to last him a while given who his opponents were. It's going to take another 5-6 months before he needs another big win to keep his best NA / EU player tag around. How he performs in MLG Summer is now irrelevant because in the case he bombs out in the group stages, all people need to do is wave at NASL and say that, well, everybody loses.
But saying that people knew Stephano was going to do that well in NASL before yesterday is ridiculous. All the information we had said that he was going to lose, but he managed to pull a miracle.
Azarkon thats wrong Stephano did not had a losing record vs Hero they meet 2 times at lans. First time at blizzard cup and now at NASL.
They met twice in tournaments.
He won 1-0 vs HerO in Blizzard Cup.
He lost 1-2 to HerO in EG Masters.
He lost 0-5 to HerO in practice and has said that he fears HerO's style of PvZ.
That to me tips the scale in HerO's favor, and HerO's win vs. DRG tips it further.
And the only reason why he lost to Mana and Sase was becuase of metagame. Stephano had been traveling allmost a month and simply didnt had time to keep up. We saw the exact same build from Hero in game 3 and Stephano just crushed it. Matter infact you wrong allmost in every account. The last 2 months has been some of the best we have ever seen from Stephano. I simply dont understand where you comming from
He hasn't stopped traveling. Two and a half weeks ago he was in Sweden. Last week he was in Paris. After Paris, he went to Canada. Just a week ago he was saying that his lodging situation was very unstable. I don't understand why you think 'Stephano lost because he was traveling and didn't have time to keep up,' given that his wins and losses both happened during periods when he's traveling a lot.
plz for the love of god tell me how he is slumping with that insane record the last 2months??
I didn't say he is slumping with that record. I said that in the case that he loses to HerO, and then loses again in MLG Summer Arena, then that portends a slump. He didn't lose in NASL, so he's not in a slump. But one of the things that has portended slumps in the past for world class players is when they begin to lose badly to NA / EU players. Stephano started doing that - he lost to SaSe, he lost to MaNa, he lost to Cytoplasm, he lost to Ziktomini, and he lost to Slivko all within the span of a month. He had great wins in the last two months, too, but the losses were recent, while the wins were further away.
Actually it says more about how competetive the EU scene has become. Funny thing is Stephano record is actually better vs the koreans then it is vs the EU players.
I just think you nitpicking Azarkon when i look at the last 2 month I see one of the most impressive win ratio and tournament results I ever seen from Stephano
On July 16 2012 12:36 NevaN wrote: @azarkon- Then who do you suggest us to portray the player your opinion is seeing?? You can't demand out from him to produce perfect games man for other players train so much harder than him yet commits more mistake than Stephano. and i assure you, 200% in your game your not that perfect too. Don't litter the thread of your opinion that he is declining for you yourself can simply look at the results.Anyway as someone has said haters gonna hate.
Sorry, but it's dumb as hell to say that I was hating on him.
People have short memories. Before this NASL started, nobody who had a clue thought that Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC.
This is the information we had available:
* Stephano was frustrated with his ZvZ and was losing to players way below his level * He was coming off of two 0-2 losses against Protoss players a tier below the level of HerO and MC PvZ * Stephano had a losing record vs. MC * Stephano had a losing record vs. HerO * MC was preparing his PvZ to face DRG * DRG had said that MC was the best PvZ in the world * HerO was coming off of a 3-1 win against DRG * Stephano said that he hasn't practiced in two weeks, and that his fans 'should not expect much from him'
There was not a single rational supporting argument, going into NASL, for why Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC besides blind faith. He had, at best, 50-50 records against both players in his former prime, and HerO was starting to be the next big thing when it came to PvZ.
Everybody knew this and everybody accepted this. Hell, people started bitching about how unfair it was that Stephano had to play in the hardest bracket in NASL while HuK and Ret had easy paths. Turn the fanclub back 10-20 pages and you're going to see tons of people saying that they're worried about Stephano getting far in NASL. I merely made the additional argument that, in the case that he loses to HerO in the Ro8, he won't have enough time to change his play and form before MLG Summer Arena, which is stacked harder than NASL, and that another loss there = he's starting to fall off the map for favorites to win a tournament, which for Stephano is a slump.
Obviously, this is no longer a problem for Stephano because he just won NASL, and that win is going to last him a while given who his opponents were. It's going to take another 5-6 months before he needs another big win to keep his best NA / EU player tag around. How he performs in MLG Summer is now irrelevant because in the case he bombs out in the group stages, all people need to do is wave at NASL and say that, well, everybody loses.
But saying that people knew Stephano was going to do that well in NASL before yesterday is ridiculous. All the information we had said that he was going to lose, but he managed to pull a miracle.
Azarkon thats wrong Stephano did not had a losing record vs Hero they meet 2 times at lans. First time at blizzard cup and now at NASL.
They met twice in tournaments.
He won 1-0 vs HerO in Blizzard Cup.
He lost 1-2 to HerO in EG Masters.
He lost 0-5 to HerO in practice and has said that he fears HerO's style of PvZ.
That to me tips the scale in HerO's favor, and HerO's win vs. DRG tips it further.
And the only reason why he lost to Mana and Sase was becuase of metagame. Stephano had been traveling allmost a month and simply didnt had time to keep up. We saw the exact same build from Hero in game 3 and Stephano just crushed it. Matter infact you wrong allmost in every account. The last 2 months has been some of the best we have ever seen from Stephano. I simply dont understand where you comming from
He hasn't stopped traveling. Two and a half weeks ago he was in Sweden. Last week he was in Paris. After Paris, he went to Canada. Just a week ago he was saying that his lodging situation was very unstable. I don't understand why you think 'Stephano lost because he was traveling and didn't have time to keep up,' given that his wins and losses both happened during periods when he's traveling a lot.
plz for the love of god tell me how he is slumping with that insane record the last 2months??
I didn't say he is slumping with that record. I said that in the case that he loses to HerO, and then loses again in MLG Summer Arena, then that portends a slump. He didn't lose in NASL, so he's not in a slump. But one of the things that has portended slumps in the past for world class players is when they begin to lose badly to NA / EU players. Stephano started doing that - he lost to SaSe, he lost to MaNa, he lost to Cytoplasm, he lost to Ziktomini, and he lost to Slivko all within the span of a month. He had great wins in the last two months, too, but the losses were recent, while the wins were further away.
Practice means nothing. It's posted results that matter and that you judge by.
SaSe should not be considered an EU player at this point, he does not practice in EU. He practices 99% of the time in KR. Losing to MaNa, the dreamhack champion, is completely justified. He's always been weak in ZvZ due to the volatility of the MU.
I really don't see your points tbh. If you have a 70% winrate overall and lose like 4/5 games on one occasion, that isn't even remotely close enough to say you've slumped or anything of that nature.
On July 16 2012 12:36 NevaN wrote: @azarkon- Then who do you suggest us to portray the player your opinion is seeing?? You can't demand out from him to produce perfect games man for other players train so much harder than him yet commits more mistake than Stephano. and i assure you, 200% in your game your not that perfect too. Don't litter the thread of your opinion that he is declining for you yourself can simply look at the results.Anyway as someone has said haters gonna hate.
Sorry, but it's dumb as hell to say that I was hating on him.
People have short memories. Before this NASL started, nobody who had a clue thought that Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC.
This is the information we had available:
* Stephano was frustrated with his ZvZ and was losing to players way below his level * He was coming off of two 0-2 losses against Protoss players a tier below the level of HerO and MC PvZ * Stephano had a losing record vs. MC * Stephano had a losing record vs. HerO * MC was preparing his PvZ to face DRG * DRG had said that MC was the best PvZ in the world * HerO is coming off of a 3-1 win against DRG * Stephano said that he hasn't practiced in two weeks, and that his fans 'should not expect much from him'
There was not a single rational supporting argument, going into NASL, for why Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC besides blind faith. He had, at best, 50-50 records against both players in his former prime, and HerO was starting to be the next big thing when it came to PvZ.
Everybody knew this and everybody accepted this. Turn the fanclub back 10-20 pages and you're going to see tons of people saying that they're worried about Stephano getting far in NASL. I merely made the additional argument that, in the case that he loses to HerO in the Ro8, he won't have enough time to change his play and form before MLG Summer Arena, which is stacked harder than NASL, and that another loss there = he's starting to fall off the map for favorites to win a tournament, which for Stephano is a slump.
Obviously, this is no longer a problem for Stephano because he just won NASL, and that win is going to last him a while given who his opponents were. It's going to take another 5-6 months before he needs another big win to keep his best NA / EU player tag around. How he performs in MLG Summer is now irrelevant because in the case he bombs out in the group stages, all people need to do is wave at NASL and say that, well, everybody loses.
But saying that people knew Stephano was going to do that well in NASL before yesterday is ridiculous. All the information we had said that he was going to lose, but he managed to pull a miracle.
Actually the information we had was Stephano consistently high placing at ALL his recent LAN tournaments in the past 2 months. IPL 4, MLG Spring Arena 2, DreamHack Summer, MLG Spring Championship, Red Bull Battlegrounds. No exceptions.
Also in that time-frame 16 different Koreans beaten (some more than once) and including Protoss players JYP, Parting, Squirtle, MC. Plus notable Foreign Protoss Socke, Huk, NightEnd defeated.
In that time, Hero narrowly winning an online Bo3 against Stephano thanks to a Mothership suriving with extremely low hitpoints. The Mothership dies and Stephano wins that series due to his huge BL army. Other than that Hero had never beaten Stephano in a LAN game. And Stephano had obviously improved against Protoss since Blizzard Cup, the occasion of their only previous LAN meeting.
In that time, MC narrowly winning a Bo5 3-2 against Stephano and losing a Bo3 2-0 for an aggregate 4-3 Winning record over the space of a week. This suggested the gap to MC had been closed as hinted at by the close 5-3 IPL Fight Club series a few months back.
You also were too focused on the few bad results Stephano had recently obtained and attached too much weight on them compared to his more numerous good results. In contrast, you ignored MC being crushed by Nerchio last weekend at HSCV. No player in the World has won all their matches or tournaments over the past month. Yet you held Stephano's losses against him as evidence of shaky form but did not apply similar standards to other players. You cite Hero's winning over DRG as proof of his potency but seemingly overlook Stephano's recent wins over Parting, Squirtle, JYP, Huk and MC as proof of Stephano's potency. Every player loses games and series. So the gauge of current form or ability in the current meta-game/patch is consistency over a period against quality opposition rather than a single series.
Stephano was coming off a flawless tournament win in France WCS which would have boosted his confidence. In 2 recent TSL4 qualifiers he was unbeaten in the first one including a win against Bly and then he lost to Cytoplasm in the second one. You ignored his recent LAN wins against Ret and Nerchio and Violet instead focussed on his defeats to Cytoplasm, Ziktomini and Symbol and Slivko. His ZvZ is his weakest matchup but he has demonstrated he can still win at it. Plus the only other Zerg at NASL was Ret, a player he could only ever meet in the Final and who he had beaten in their previous LAN meeting.
MC and Hero are fearsome Protoss, especially against Zerg, but Stephano is the Protoss Killer, the Scourge of Aiur. He was someone they would be concerned with too.
Stephano had winning records in tournaments against everyone in the other side of the NASL bracket - Alicia, Huk and Puzzle (not sure about Ret but he beat him most recently 2-0). He had winning record against Puma. He had a career record against Hero of 1-0 at LAN.
MC was the only player at NASL who had a winning career record against Stephano and as stated above the gap between them had narrrowed to the point where Stephano had gone 4-3 against MC over the last 2 months. All previous meetings between them were on different patches, so become slightly outdated in terms of predicting results on current patch.
So there were definitely reasons to be positive about Stephano's chances at NASL. I did say wait and see what happens.
You had the misfortune of making a bad prediction. That happens to everyone. It is just very funny that you did it in the week when Stephano wins back to back LANs in 2 consecutive weekends and adds $36,000 to his winnings while winning 21 maps and losing 3. It also makes Meggiroth's comment about Stephano wasting time at NASL instead of training to win lots of money at tournaments very amusing. It was comical timing.
I hope you don't mind me poking fun at you. We all have facepalm moments. It is best to just LOL and move on.
On July 16 2012 12:36 NevaN wrote: @azarkon- Then who do you suggest us to portray the player your opinion is seeing?? You can't demand out from him to produce perfect games man for other players train so much harder than him yet commits more mistake than Stephano. and i assure you, 200% in your game your not that perfect too. Don't litter the thread of your opinion that he is declining for you yourself can simply look at the results.Anyway as someone has said haters gonna hate.
Sorry, but it's dumb as hell to say that I was hating on him.
People have short memories. Before this NASL started, nobody who had a clue thought that Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC.
This is the information we had available:
* Stephano was frustrated with his ZvZ and was losing to players way below his level * He was coming off of two 0-2 losses against Protoss players a tier below the level of HerO and MC PvZ * Stephano had a losing record vs. MC * Stephano had a losing record vs. HerO * MC was preparing his PvZ to face DRG * DRG had said that MC was the best PvZ in the world * HerO was coming off of a 3-1 win against DRG * Stephano said that he hasn't practiced in two weeks, and that his fans 'should not expect much from him'
There was not a single rational supporting argument, going into NASL, for why Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC besides blind faith. He had, at best, 50-50 records against both players in his former prime, and HerO was starting to be the next big thing when it came to PvZ.
Everybody knew this and everybody accepted this. Hell, people started bitching about how unfair it was that Stephano had to play in the hardest bracket in NASL while HuK and Ret had easy paths. Turn the fanclub back 10-20 pages and you're going to see tons of people saying that they're worried about Stephano getting far in NASL. I merely made the additional argument that, in the case that he loses to HerO in the Ro8, he won't have enough time to change his play and form before MLG Summer Arena, which is stacked harder than NASL, and that another loss there = he's starting to fall off the map for favorites to win a tournament, which for Stephano is a slump.
Obviously, this is no longer a problem for Stephano because he just won NASL, and that win is going to last him a while given who his opponents were. It's going to take another 5-6 months before he needs another big win to keep his best NA / EU player tag around. How he performs in MLG Summer is now irrelevant because in the case he bombs out in the group stages, all people need to do is wave at NASL and say that, well, everybody loses.
But saying that people knew Stephano was going to do that well in NASL before yesterday is ridiculous. All the information we had said that he was going to lose, but he managed to pull a miracle.
Azarkon thats wrong Stephano did not had a losing record vs Hero they meet 2 times at lans. First time at blizzard cup and now at NASL.
They met twice in tournaments.
He won 1-0 vs HerO in Blizzard Cup.
He lost 1-2 to HerO in EG Masters.
He lost 0-5 to HerO in practice and has said that he fears HerO's style of PvZ.
That to me tips the scale in HerO's favor, and HerO's win vs. DRG tips it further.
Also the last 2 times MC and Stephano have meet its been 1-1 so hardly a losing record.
Yes, but that's the last two times they met. His overall record vs. MC was negative. I think it's positive now, but I have to check.
And the only reason why he lost to Mana and Sase was becuase of metagame. Stephano had been traveling allmost a month and simply didnt had time to keep up. We saw the exact same build from Hero in game 3 and Stephano just crushed it. Matter infact you wrong allmost in every account. The last 2 months has been some of the best we have ever seen from Stephano. I simply dont understand where you comming from
He hasn't stopped traveling. Two and a half weeks ago he was in Sweden. Last week he was in Paris. After Paris, he went to Canada. Just a week ago he was saying that his lodging situation was very unstable. I don't understand why you think 'Stephano lost because he was traveling and didn't have time to keep up,' given that his wins and losses both happened during periods when he's traveling a lot.
plz for the love of god tell me how he is slumping with that insane record the last 2months??
I didn't say he is slumping with that record. I said that in the case that he loses to HerO, and then loses again in MLG Summer Arena, then that portends a slump. He didn't lose in NASL, so he's not in a slump. But one of the things that has portended slumps in the past for world class players is when they begin to lose badly to NA / EU players. Stephano started doing that - he lost to SaSe, he lost to MaNa, he lost to Cytoplasm, he lost to Ziktomini, and he lost to Slivko all within the span of a month. He had great wins in the last two months, too, but the losses were recent, while the wins were further away.
Actually it says more about how competetive the EU scene has become. Funny thing is Stephano record is actually better vs the koreans then it is vs the EU players.
I just think you nitpicking Azarkon when i look at the last 2 month I see one of the most impressive win ratio and tournament results I ever seen from Stephano
Funny thing is, I'm starting to see that for tournaments outside of Korea. DH was won by an EU player, HSC was won by an EU player, and NASL was won by an EU player. MLG Summer is still going to be hard, because it's stacked with top Koreans, but the gap is narrowing. The EU scene hasn't had successes of this magnitude for over a year.
But with regard to your second comment, I think we're looking at different time periods. It's in the recent month and a half that I started feeling worried about Stephano's play. It started in GD Studio Arena when he lost to Bomber, and carried over to MLG Spring Championship when he lost to SaSe, and then DH when he lost against MaNa, and then to his rather terrible online performances in SC2SL and TSL 4 Quals. I know I had nothing but praise during Red Bull LAN, where he lost narrowly to MC and stomped Squirtle and Parting. That was a high mark of his career, exceeded only by this win in NASL.
On July 16 2012 12:36 NevaN wrote: @azarkon- Then who do you suggest us to portray the player your opinion is seeing?? You can't demand out from him to produce perfect games man for other players train so much harder than him yet commits more mistake than Stephano. and i assure you, 200% in your game your not that perfect too. Don't litter the thread of your opinion that he is declining for you yourself can simply look at the results.Anyway as someone has said haters gonna hate.
Sorry, but it's dumb as hell to say that I was hating on him.
People have short memories. Before this NASL started, nobody who had a clue thought that Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC.
This is the information we had available:
* Stephano was frustrated with his ZvZ and was losing to players way below his level * He was coming off of two 0-2 losses against Protoss players a tier below the level of HerO and MC PvZ * Stephano had a losing record vs. MC * Stephano had a losing record vs. HerO * MC was preparing his PvZ to face DRG * DRG had said that MC was the best PvZ in the world * HerO is coming off of a 3-1 win against DRG * Stephano said that he hasn't practiced in two weeks, and that his fans 'should not expect much from him'
There was not a single rational supporting argument, going into NASL, for why Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC besides blind faith. He had, at best, 50-50 records against both players in his former prime, and HerO was starting to be the next big thing when it came to PvZ.
Everybody knew this and everybody accepted this. Turn the fanclub back 10-20 pages and you're going to see tons of people saying that they're worried about Stephano getting far in NASL. I merely made the additional argument that, in the case that he loses to HerO in the Ro8, he won't have enough time to change his play and form before MLG Summer Arena, which is stacked harder than NASL, and that another loss there = he's starting to fall off the map for favorites to win a tournament, which for Stephano is a slump.
Obviously, this is no longer a problem for Stephano because he just won NASL, and that win is going to last him a while given who his opponents were. It's going to take another 5-6 months before he needs another big win to keep his best NA / EU player tag around. How he performs in MLG Summer is now irrelevant because in the case he bombs out in the group stages, all people need to do is wave at NASL and say that, well, everybody loses.
But saying that people knew Stephano was going to do that well in NASL before yesterday is ridiculous. All the information we had said that he was going to lose, but he managed to pull a miracle.
Actually the information we had was Stephano consistently high placing at ALL his recent LAN tournaments in the past 2 months. IPL 4, MLG Spring Arena 2, DreamHack Summer, MLG Spring Championship, Red Bull Battlegrounds. No exceptions.
Tbh it's funny that people harp on the fact that he hadn't won a major tournament in ages, because IMO consistently placing really highly in all these tournaments is a really great achievement in a volatile game like sc2, and something not many other people can do.
On July 16 2012 12:36 NevaN wrote: @azarkon- Then who do you suggest us to portray the player your opinion is seeing?? You can't demand out from him to produce perfect games man for other players train so much harder than him yet commits more mistake than Stephano. and i assure you, 200% in your game your not that perfect too. Don't litter the thread of your opinion that he is declining for you yourself can simply look at the results.Anyway as someone has said haters gonna hate.
Sorry, but it's dumb as hell to say that I was hating on him.
People have short memories. Before this NASL started, nobody who had a clue thought that Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC.
This is the information we had available:
* Stephano was frustrated with his ZvZ and was losing to players way below his level * He was coming off of two 0-2 losses against Protoss players a tier below the level of HerO and MC PvZ * Stephano had a losing record vs. MC * Stephano had a losing record vs. HerO * MC was preparing his PvZ to face DRG * DRG had said that MC was the best PvZ in the world * HerO is coming off of a 3-1 win against DRG * Stephano said that he hasn't practiced in two weeks, and that his fans 'should not expect much from him'
There was not a single rational supporting argument, going into NASL, for why Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC besides blind faith. He had, at best, 50-50 records against both players in his former prime, and HerO was starting to be the next big thing when it came to PvZ.
Everybody knew this and everybody accepted this. Turn the fanclub back 10-20 pages and you're going to see tons of people saying that they're worried about Stephano getting far in NASL. I merely made the additional argument that, in the case that he loses to HerO in the Ro8, he won't have enough time to change his play and form before MLG Summer Arena, which is stacked harder than NASL, and that another loss there = he's starting to fall off the map for favorites to win a tournament, which for Stephano is a slump.
Obviously, this is no longer a problem for Stephano because he just won NASL, and that win is going to last him a while given who his opponents were. It's going to take another 5-6 months before he needs another big win to keep his best NA / EU player tag around. How he performs in MLG Summer is now irrelevant because in the case he bombs out in the group stages, all people need to do is wave at NASL and say that, well, everybody loses.
But saying that people knew Stephano was going to do that well in NASL before yesterday is ridiculous. All the information we had said that he was going to lose, but he managed to pull a miracle.
Actually the information we had was Stephano consistently high placing at ALL his recent LAN tournaments in the past 2 months. IPL 4, MLG Spring Arena 2, DreamHack Summer, MLG Spring Championship, Red Bull Battlegrounds. No exceptions.
Tbh it's funny that people harp on the fact that he hadn't won a major tournament in ages, because IMO consistently placing really highly in all these tournaments is a really great achievement in a volatile game like sc2, and something not many other people can do.
The reason why MKP is rated an impressive GSL player is because he has a record of numerous high placings. He has never won it despite many attempts. The consistency is the impressive part. Squirtle also had a period of consistent impressive placings without actually winning anything. A really great protoss but not many major Trophies won.
On July 16 2012 12:36 NevaN wrote: @azarkon- Then who do you suggest us to portray the player your opinion is seeing?? You can't demand out from him to produce perfect games man for other players train so much harder than him yet commits more mistake than Stephano. and i assure you, 200% in your game your not that perfect too. Don't litter the thread of your opinion that he is declining for you yourself can simply look at the results.Anyway as someone has said haters gonna hate.
Sorry, but it's dumb as hell to say that I was hating on him.
People have short memories. Before this NASL started, nobody who had a clue thought that Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC.
This is the information we had available:
* Stephano was frustrated with his ZvZ and was losing to players way below his level * He was coming off of two 0-2 losses against Protoss players a tier below the level of HerO and MC PvZ * Stephano had a losing record vs. MC * Stephano had a losing record vs. HerO * MC was preparing his PvZ to face DRG * DRG had said that MC was the best PvZ in the world * HerO is coming off of a 3-1 win against DRG * Stephano said that he hasn't practiced in two weeks, and that his fans 'should not expect much from him'
There was not a single rational supporting argument, going into NASL, for why Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC besides blind faith. He had, at best, 50-50 records against both players in his former prime, and HerO was starting to be the next big thing when it came to PvZ.
Everybody knew this and everybody accepted this. Turn the fanclub back 10-20 pages and you're going to see tons of people saying that they're worried about Stephano getting far in NASL. I merely made the additional argument that, in the case that he loses to HerO in the Ro8, he won't have enough time to change his play and form before MLG Summer Arena, which is stacked harder than NASL, and that another loss there = he's starting to fall off the map for favorites to win a tournament, which for Stephano is a slump.
Obviously, this is no longer a problem for Stephano because he just won NASL, and that win is going to last him a while given who his opponents were. It's going to take another 5-6 months before he needs another big win to keep his best NA / EU player tag around. How he performs in MLG Summer is now irrelevant because in the case he bombs out in the group stages, all people need to do is wave at NASL and say that, well, everybody loses.
But saying that people knew Stephano was going to do that well in NASL before yesterday is ridiculous. All the information we had said that he was going to lose, but he managed to pull a miracle.
Actually the information we had was Stephano consistently high placing at ALL his recent LAN tournaments in the past 2 months. IPL 4, MLG Spring Arena 2, DreamHack Summer, MLG Spring Championship, Red Bull Battlegrounds. No exceptions.
Also in that time-frame 16 different Koreans beaten (some more than once) and including Protoss players JYP, Parting, Squirtle, MC. Plus notable Foreign Protoss Socke, Huk, NightEnd defeated.
In that time, Hero narrowly winning an online Bo3 against Stephano thanks to a Mothership suriving with extremely low hitpoints. The Mothership dies and Stephano wins that series due to his huge BL army. Other than that Hero had never beaten Stephano in a LAN game. And Stephano had obviously improved against Protoss since Blizzard Cup, the occasion of their only previous LAN meeting.
In that time, MC narrowly winning a Bo5 3-2 against Stephano and losing a Bo3 2-0 for an aggregate 4-3 Winning record over the space of a week. This suggested the gap to MC had been closed as hinted at by the close 5-3 IPL Fight Club series a few months back.
You also were too focused on the few bad results Stephano had recently obtained and attached too much weight on them compared to his more numerous good results. In contrast, you ignored MC being crushed by Nerchio last weekend at HSCV. No player in the World has won all their matches or tournaments over the past month. Yet you held Stephano's losses against him as evidence of shaky form but did not apply similar standards to other players. You cite Hero's winning over DRG as proof of his potency but seemingly overlook Stephano's recent wins over Parting, Squirtle, JYP, Huk and MC as proof of Stephano's potency. Every player loses games and series. So the gauge of current form or ability in the current meta-game/patch is consistency over a period against quality opposition rather than a single series.
Stephano was coming off a flawless tournament win in France WCS which would have boosted his confidence. In 2 recent TSL4 qualifiers he was unbeaten in the first one including a win against Bly and then he lost to Cytoplasm in the second one. You ignored his recent LAN wins against Ret and Nerchio and Violet instead focussed on his defeats to Cytoplasm, Ziktomini and Symbol and Slivko. His ZvZ is his weakest matchup but he has demonstrated he can still win at it. Plus the only other Zerg at NASL was Ret, a player he could only ever meet in the Final and who he had beaten in their previous LAN meeting.
MC and Hero are fearsome Protoss, especially against Zerg, but Stephano is the Protoss Killer, the Scourge of Aiur. He was someone they would be concerned with too.
Stephano had winning records in tournaments against everyone in the other side of the NASL bracket - Alicia, Huk and Puzzle (not sure about Ret but he beat him most recently 2-0). He had winning record against Puma. He had a career record against Hero of 1-0 at LAN.
MC was the only player at NASL who had a winning career record against Stephano and as stated above the gap between them had narrrowed to the point where Stephano had gone 4-3 against MC over the last 2 months. All previous meetings between them were on different patches, so become slightly outdated in terms of predicting results on current patch.
So there were definitely reasons to be positive about Stephano's chances at NASL. I did say wait and see what happens.
You had the misfortune of making a bad prediction. That happens to everyone. It is just very funny that you did it in the week when Stephano wins back to back LANs in 2 consecutive weekends and adds $36,000 to his winnings while winning 21 maps and losing 3. It also makes Meggiroth's comment about Stephano wasting time at NASL instead of training to win lots of money at tournaments very amusing. It was comical timing.
I hope you don't mind me poking fun at you. We all have facepalm moments. It is best to just LOL and move on.
One thing I'm going to agree with in retrospect is that I overestimated the relative level of the very top Korean players. To me, MC, HerO, DRG, MKP, and Symbol were head and shoulders above EU players, and at a level which Stephano is able to match only when he is in top form. Nerchio showed, however, that MC is beatable by EU Zergs other than Stephano, and Stephano showed that just because HerO is able to 3-1 DRG doesn't -> he's going to rock EU Zergs.
I'm starting to think that the level of these players have to be readjusted. When DRG went 3-2 vs. Naniwa I had the inkling that DRG wasn't that awesome, but ignored it because I figured Naniwa did well because he was practicing very hard in Korea and is basically a Korean Protoss training wise. Now that HerO's won against DRG and lost spectacularly to Stephano, I have to say that DRG isn't at the pedestal that I thought he was.
You're correct that I placed too little weight on Nerchio's win vs. MC, which I chocked up to Nerchio pulling a fast one on MC at the time, but which is now an argument for MC being weaker vs. EU Zergs than we thought. All of these players have shown vulnerabilities while playing overseas. The field is no longer what it was a year ago, and while a lot of these players have still won a higher amount of tournaments than NA / EU players by a long shot, the momentum is starting to swing.
On July 16 2012 12:36 NevaN wrote: @azarkon- Then who do you suggest us to portray the player your opinion is seeing?? You can't demand out from him to produce perfect games man for other players train so much harder than him yet commits more mistake than Stephano. and i assure you, 200% in your game your not that perfect too. Don't litter the thread of your opinion that he is declining for you yourself can simply look at the results.Anyway as someone has said haters gonna hate.
Sorry, but it's dumb as hell to say that I was hating on him.
People have short memories. Before this NASL started, nobody who had a clue thought that Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC.
This is the information we had available:
* Stephano was frustrated with his ZvZ and was losing to players way below his level * He was coming off of two 0-2 losses against Protoss players a tier below the level of HerO and MC PvZ * Stephano had a losing record vs. MC * Stephano had a losing record vs. HerO * MC was preparing his PvZ to face DRG * DRG had said that MC was the best PvZ in the world * HerO was coming off of a 3-1 win against DRG * Stephano said that he hasn't practiced in two weeks, and that his fans 'should not expect much from him'
There was not a single rational supporting argument, going into NASL, for why Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC besides blind faith. He had, at best, 50-50 records against both players in his former prime, and HerO was starting to be the next big thing when it came to PvZ.
Everybody knew this and everybody accepted this. Hell, people started bitching about how unfair it was that Stephano had to play in the hardest bracket in NASL while HuK and Ret had easy paths. Turn the fanclub back 10-20 pages and you're going to see tons of people saying that they're worried about Stephano getting far in NASL. I merely made the additional argument that, in the case that he loses to HerO in the Ro8, he won't have enough time to change his play and form before MLG Summer Arena, which is stacked harder than NASL, and that another loss there = he's starting to fall off the map for favorites to win a tournament, which for Stephano is a slump.
Obviously, this is no longer a problem for Stephano because he just won NASL, and that win is going to last him a while given who his opponents were. It's going to take another 5-6 months before he needs another big win to keep his best NA / EU player tag around. How he performs in MLG Summer is now irrelevant because in the case he bombs out in the group stages, all people need to do is wave at NASL and say that, well, everybody loses.
But saying that people knew Stephano was going to do that well in NASL before yesterday is ridiculous. All the information we had said that he was going to lose, but he managed to pull a miracle.
Azarkon thats wrong Stephano did not had a losing record vs Hero they meet 2 times at lans. First time at blizzard cup and now at NASL.
They met twice in tournaments.
He won 1-0 vs HerO in Blizzard Cup.
He lost 1-2 to HerO in EG Masters.
He lost 0-5 to HerO in practice and has said that he fears HerO's style of PvZ.
That to me tips the scale in HerO's favor, and HerO's win vs. DRG tips it further.
Also the last 2 times MC and Stephano have meet its been 1-1 so hardly a losing record.
Yes, but that's the last two times they met. His overall record vs. MC was negative. I think it's positive now, but I have to check.
And the only reason why he lost to Mana and Sase was becuase of metagame. Stephano had been traveling allmost a month and simply didnt had time to keep up. We saw the exact same build from Hero in game 3 and Stephano just crushed it. Matter infact you wrong allmost in every account. The last 2 months has been some of the best we have ever seen from Stephano. I simply dont understand where you comming from
He hasn't stopped traveling. Two and a half weeks ago he was in Sweden. Last week he was in Paris. After Paris, he went to Canada. Just a week ago he was saying that his lodging situation was very unstable. I don't understand why you think 'Stephano lost because he was traveling and didn't have time to keep up,' given that his wins and losses both happened during periods when he's traveling a lot.
plz for the love of god tell me how he is slumping with that insane record the last 2months??
I didn't say he is slumping with that record. I said that in the case that he loses to HerO, and then loses again in MLG Summer Arena, then that portends a slump. He didn't lose in NASL, so he's not in a slump. But one of the things that has portended slumps in the past for world class players is when they begin to lose badly to NA / EU players. Stephano started doing that - he lost to SaSe, he lost to MaNa, he lost to Cytoplasm, he lost to Ziktomini, and he lost to Slivko all within the span of a month. He had great wins in the last two months, too, but the losses were recent, while the wins were further away.
Actually it says more about how competetive the EU scene has become. Funny thing is Stephano record is actually better vs the koreans then it is vs the EU players.
I just think you nitpicking Azarkon when i look at the last 2 month I see one of the most impressive win ratio and tournament results I ever seen from Stephano
Funny thing is, I'm starting to agree with that for tournaments outside of Korea. DH was won by an EU player, HSC was won by an EU player, and NASL was won by an EU player. MLG Summer is still going to be hard, because it's stacked with top Koreans, but the gap is narrowing. The EU scene hasn't had successes of this magnitude for over a year.
But with regard to your second comment, I think we're looking at different time periods. It's in the recent month and a half that I started feeling worried about Stephano's play. It started in GD Studio Arena when he lost to Bomber, and carried over to MLG Spring Championship when he lost to SaSe, and then DH when he lost against MaNa, and then to his rather terrible online performances in SC2SL and TSL 4 Quals. I know I had nothing but praise during Red Bull LAN, where he lost narrowly to MC and stomped Squirtle and Parting. That was a high mark of his career, exceeded only by this win in NASL.
How are you saying he looked weak at all at MLG? Dropping at the near end of the tournament vs SaSe, a foreigner that doesn't even reside in EU, but KR? Really? That's like saying MVP is slumping if he gets 4th place in a tournament.
You're placing ridiculous weight on individual series, which is utterly ridiculous in my eyes. You're making these conclusions from players who met at one time. Really, that is an utterly terrible indicator...
On July 16 2012 12:36 NevaN wrote: @azarkon- Then who do you suggest us to portray the player your opinion is seeing?? You can't demand out from him to produce perfect games man for other players train so much harder than him yet commits more mistake than Stephano. and i assure you, 200% in your game your not that perfect too. Don't litter the thread of your opinion that he is declining for you yourself can simply look at the results.Anyway as someone has said haters gonna hate.
Sorry, but it's dumb as hell to say that I was hating on him.
People have short memories. Before this NASL started, nobody who had a clue thought that Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC.
This is the information we had available:
* Stephano was frustrated with his ZvZ and was losing to players way below his level * He was coming off of two 0-2 losses against Protoss players a tier below the level of HerO and MC PvZ * Stephano had a losing record vs. MC * Stephano had a losing record vs. HerO * MC was preparing his PvZ to face DRG * DRG had said that MC was the best PvZ in the world * HerO was coming off of a 3-1 win against DRG * Stephano said that he hasn't practiced in two weeks, and that his fans 'should not expect much from him'
There was not a single rational supporting argument, going into NASL, for why Stephano was going to stomp HerO and MC besides blind faith. He had, at best, 50-50 records against both players in his former prime, and HerO was starting to be the next big thing when it came to PvZ.
Everybody knew this and everybody accepted this. Hell, people started bitching about how unfair it was that Stephano had to play in the hardest bracket in NASL while HuK and Ret had easy paths. Turn the fanclub back 10-20 pages and you're going to see tons of people saying that they're worried about Stephano getting far in NASL. I merely made the additional argument that, in the case that he loses to HerO in the Ro8, he won't have enough time to change his play and form before MLG Summer Arena, which is stacked harder than NASL, and that another loss there = he's starting to fall off the map for favorites to win a tournament, which for Stephano is a slump.
Obviously, this is no longer a problem for Stephano because he just won NASL, and that win is going to last him a while given who his opponents were. It's going to take another 5-6 months before he needs another big win to keep his best NA / EU player tag around. How he performs in MLG Summer is now irrelevant because in the case he bombs out in the group stages, all people need to do is wave at NASL and say that, well, everybody loses.
But saying that people knew Stephano was going to do that well in NASL before yesterday is ridiculous. All the information we had said that he was going to lose, but he managed to pull a miracle.
Azarkon thats wrong Stephano did not had a losing record vs Hero they meet 2 times at lans. First time at blizzard cup and now at NASL.
They met twice in tournaments.
He won 1-0 vs HerO in Blizzard Cup.
He lost 1-2 to HerO in EG Masters.
He lost 0-5 to HerO in practice and has said that he fears HerO's style of PvZ.
That to me tips the scale in HerO's favor, and HerO's win vs. DRG tips it further.
Also the last 2 times MC and Stephano have meet its been 1-1 so hardly a losing record.
Yes, but that's the last two times they met. His overall record vs. MC was negative. I think it's positive now, but I have to check.
And the only reason why he lost to Mana and Sase was becuase of metagame. Stephano had been traveling allmost a month and simply didnt had time to keep up. We saw the exact same build from Hero in game 3 and Stephano just crushed it. Matter infact you wrong allmost in every account. The last 2 months has been some of the best we have ever seen from Stephano. I simply dont understand where you comming from
He hasn't stopped traveling. Two and a half weeks ago he was in Sweden. Last week he was in Paris. After Paris, he went to Canada. Just a week ago he was saying that his lodging situation was very unstable. I don't understand why you think 'Stephano lost because he was traveling and didn't have time to keep up,' given that his wins and losses both happened during periods when he's traveling a lot.
plz for the love of god tell me how he is slumping with that insane record the last 2months??
I didn't say he is slumping with that record. I said that in the case that he loses to HerO, and then loses again in MLG Summer Arena, then that portends a slump. He didn't lose in NASL, so he's not in a slump. But one of the things that has portended slumps in the past for world class players is when they begin to lose badly to NA / EU players. Stephano started doing that - he lost to SaSe, he lost to MaNa, he lost to Cytoplasm, he lost to Ziktomini, and he lost to Slivko all within the span of a month. He had great wins in the last two months, too, but the losses were recent, while the wins were further away.
Actually it says more about how competetive the EU scene has become. Funny thing is Stephano record is actually better vs the koreans then it is vs the EU players.
I just think you nitpicking Azarkon when i look at the last 2 month I see one of the most impressive win ratio and tournament results I ever seen from Stephano
Funny thing is, I'm starting to agree with that for tournaments outside of Korea. DH was won by an EU player, HSC was won by an EU player, and NASL was won by an EU player. MLG Summer is still going to be hard, because it's stacked with top Koreans, but the gap is narrowing. The EU scene hasn't had successes of this magnitude for over a year.
But with regard to your second comment, I think we're looking at different time periods. It's in the recent month and a half that I started feeling worried about Stephano's play. It started in GD Studio Arena when he lost to Bomber, and carried over to MLG Spring Championship when he lost to SaSe, and then DH when he lost against MaNa, and then to his rather terrible online performances in SC2SL and TSL 4 Quals. I know I had nothing but praise during Red Bull LAN, where he lost narrowly to MC and stomped Squirtle and Parting. That was a high mark of his career, exceeded only by this win in NASL.
How are you saying he looked weak at all at MLG? Dropping at the near end of the tournament vs SaSe, a foreigner that doesn't even reside in EU, but KR? Really? That's like saying MVP is slumping if he gets 4th place in a tournament.
Why? Because SaSe's PvZ was his weakest match up - and he had a terrible record vs. Stephano before going into that match. SaSe has improved a lot in recent months, but still, his play in those games was not exceptional - he executed a basic, well known two base all-in, and Stephano didn't lose to them twice, he lost to them four times in two separate tournaments, back to back.
SaSe alone wasn't, however, worrying. SaSe + Mana - who was 1-9 vs. Stephano in the last five months - using the same build became worrying when you start thinking about the level of SaSe and Mana vs. the level of HerO and MC. These used to be walkover opponents for Stephano.
One thing for surden when I read the last 10 pages is we got some really great posters in this fan club. Even though we all got very different opinions it has been a great read.
Tobad my english writing abilties sucks so bad I feel completly outmatched
On July 16 2012 17:05 Fus wrote: Stephano has really sloppy macro, imagine a zerg with Rets macro, Stephanos talent and Nesteas dedication. What an unstoppable beast that would be
What? He won that game on Antiga against MC because he had been hitting injects perfectly and was able to remax on 150 lings at once. MrBitter even made a remark about his incredible macro that game. When he hasn't been playing much his macro is sloppy at the start but after a few games he goes back to monster mode.
On July 16 2012 17:05 Fus wrote: Stephano has really sloppy macro, imagine a zerg with Rets macro, Stephanos talent and Nesteas dedication. What an unstoppable beast that would be
What? He won that game on Antiga against MC because he had been hitting injects perfectly and was able to remax on 150 lings at once. MrBitter even made a remark about his incredible macro that game. When he hasn't been playing much his macro is sloppy at the start but after a few games he goes back to monster mode.
Stephanos macro has failed to impress me countless of times, he is a tier below in macro, really.
On July 16 2012 13:36 Benjamin99 wrote: Lauren Elise @IamLaurenElise
@stephanop1 @MillStephano That is one of my favorite photoshoots with @Playboy !
Lauren sending links to Stephano with her playboy pictures lol wtf
And there are other good quotes from her twitter account For example : Lauren Elise @IamLaurenElise @MillStephano My french croissant... Please win... You are my favorite! "
EPT
In ze pocket!
