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Code-S is becoming a really even competition. All of the "upsets" this season weren't so much about the underdogs getting lucky; it's just that the gap between the underdogs and favorites has closed significantly. Except Nestea, he's still 500x better than everyone.
This is probably true among the Terrans, but I think for Protoss, MC is still well above players like Hongun in PvT and PvZ. PvP though just has a lower skill cap than those matchups, at least in the current metagame, and there was never much of a gap to close.
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On August 05 2011 17:52 Rococo wrote:Show nested quote +Code-S is becoming a really even competition. All of the "upsets" this season weren't so much about the underdogs getting lucky; it's just that the gap between the underdogs and favorites has closed significantly. Except Nestea, he's still 500x better than everyone. This is probably true among the Terrans, but I think for Protoss, MC is still well above players like Hongun in PvT and PvZ. PvP though just has a lower skill cap than those matchups, at least in the current metagame, and there was never much of a gap to close.
I am not sure about the skill cap, but mistakes are punished severely almost every time and therefore it often depends on who makes the first mistake. That often boils down to luck.
So it is not that the skill cap is low, it is that the luck factor is very high, making skill less of a factor than in the other match ups.
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I don't think we can blame the PvP matchup too much for MC's loss vs HongUn. MC just plain made too many mistakes and got punished for them, he had a bad day, he wasn't focussing on that matchup as he thought HongUn would be a walkover and was concentrating on his PvZ for Nestea.
I still want to see an MC vs Nestea next GSL.
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So...Nestea is a baller player killing machine who feeds on the tears of nerds. Was anyone surprised?
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It doesn't matter if he never wins a GSL title, Nada will always be a champion to me.
So true, so true. *tear*
(dang it, I wanted a losira upset)
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On August 05 2011 10:58 MrCon wrote:
Nestea is good, I have no problem about that.
But Nestea won 3 times the 3 times he had the most easiest path to the trophy ever.
GSL open 2 : TheBest, MC (MC was not what he is now. He was a mediocre protoss at this time, he exploded the next season (which means he was quite good during GSL2, I'll admit that)), TheWind, Zenio, Boxer, MKP. MKP was an ultimate challenge, it's true. That makes one real opponent he beat, one and half if I count MC.
GSL May : Clide, Jinro in groups. Got beat by Clide, won twice against jinro. Then FD, anypro, sC, inca. One real opponent again (sC, won 3-2).
GSL July : free win vs Rain, then July in groups. Then he got a path until the finals that July would have won too, I think it was the easiest road to any major tournament victory of anygame at any point of time in history. All the top tier players would have won this GSL (or went into the finals) with this path : ensnare, coca, hongun. Losira in the finals was his only real opponent.
I'm not saying nestea is bad. I'm saying that there's a high chance that if MVP, Bomer or any other top5 player would have had any of the paths Nestea had in his 3 victorious GSL runs, those players would likely had won too.
I'll stop the disclaimers here. But I don't hate Nestea, in fact I love him and I think he's the best player currently. My point is that he's a lucky bastard :D The difficulty of his GSL open 2 run is also open to discussion, one could argue it was not as easy as I described it.
Nestea is good, and if he keeps winning against those "real opponents" it's because he's very good. The thing is, Nestea is also very lucky. Perhaps one day we'll see Nestea draw a real group of death and meet more than one top tier code S player on his way, and then win code S. Until then, my theory is that he is an extremely talented player and also the luckiest GSL player, who basically won 3 GSL in 3 matches and 20 semi walkovers. (some of those were walkovers because he's a ZvZ god, which defeat my point a little :D)
This is what holds me back as well and losing to players like GoOdy and other foreign compitition. We shall see after this season if he's "the best in the world" now there is actually some stiff competition ahead of him rather than walkovers.
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So excited for next season! Both Code S and Code A are freaking stacked. And even after only a year, the players by now all bring their stories along.
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I have to laugh everytime i read about artosis jinxis players theories :-)
good read.
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On August 06 2011 02:46 tdt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2011 10:58 MrCon wrote:
Nestea is good, I have no problem about that.
But Nestea won 3 times the 3 times he had the most easiest path to the trophy ever.
GSL open 2 : TheBest, MC (MC was not what he is now. He was a mediocre protoss at this time, he exploded the next season (which means he was quite good during GSL2, I'll admit that)), TheWind, Zenio, Boxer, MKP. MKP was an ultimate challenge, it's true. That makes one real opponent he beat, one and half if I count MC.
GSL May : Clide, Jinro in groups. Got beat by Clide, won twice against jinro. Then FD, anypro, sC, inca. One real opponent again (sC, won 3-2).
GSL July : free win vs Rain, then July in groups. Then he got a path until the finals that July would have won too, I think it was the easiest road to any major tournament victory of anygame at any point of time in history. All the top tier players would have won this GSL (or went into the finals) with this path : ensnare, coca, hongun. Losira in the finals was his only real opponent.
I'm not saying nestea is bad. I'm saying that there's a high chance that if MVP, Bomer or any other top5 player would have had any of the paths Nestea had in his 3 victorious GSL runs, those players would likely had won too.
I'll stop the disclaimers here. But I don't hate Nestea, in fact I love him and I think he's the best player currently. My point is that he's a lucky bastard :D The difficulty of his GSL open 2 run is also open to discussion, one could argue it was not as easy as I described it.
Nestea is good, and if he keeps winning against those "real opponents" it's because he's very good. The thing is, Nestea is also very lucky. Perhaps one day we'll see Nestea draw a real group of death and meet more than one top tier code S player on his way, and then win code S. Until then, my theory is that he is an extremely talented player and also the luckiest GSL player, who basically won 3 GSL in 3 matches and 20 semi walkovers. (some of those were walkovers because he's a ZvZ god, which defeat my point a little :D) This is what holds me back as well and losing to players like GoOdy and other foreign compitition. We shall see after this season if he's "the best in the world" now there is actually some stiff competition ahead of him rather than walkovers.
What do you mean "other foreign competition"? Nestea said it himself he hates online tournaments because of the lag and latency issues between servers. He wants to compete in other foreign tournaments by coming in personally to avoid those issues but never gets the chance because of his GSL performance. Also, heavy mech style wasn't popular in Korea at that time so Nestea already had a disadvantage. He basically had no knowledge about his opponent, and since Nestea's dominance revolves around him studying his opponent's style, it was an impressive stand. Nestea will absolutely rape GoOdy if they were to meet again. In GSL Open Season 2, it was obviously less skilled matches, but the point was he absolutely dominated DURING that time. He was ahead of everyone and MKP only won games because of his marine timings/micro. Nestea during that time macroed harder than anyone and hasn't given that title up since. His micro keeps getting more refined which makes him even more deadly. Another point to make is that he hasn't slumped as hard as the other supposed "contenders" of the best SC2 player. He tilted a bit when players couldn't cope with MC's early game pressure and MVP's multi-pronged harass, but then came back with vigor in GSL May with some amazing strats and decision-making. Nestea's style is hardest to counter I would say compared to MVP and MC because he doesn't rely on perfect micro and focuses on out-thinking and out-macroing the other player. Although ZvT is his weakest MU, Terrans still have to execute perfect timings and builds to beat him. I guess MC, MMA, MVP and Bomber weren't as lucky as Nestea by getting put against HongUn, Puzzle, sC and Byun.
Edit: If you think about it, all GSL champions have had easy routes to their championships due to the fact that they actually haven't faced each other in the finals/semis with the exception of MVP/Nestea.
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OK so NesTea 10 pool -> 3.5/5
LosirA fast expand (coin flip) -> 2/5
way too much bias is this write-up for my taste
NesTea is such a scary zerg player. No one comes even close to his level. This has come to the point where it's hard to see objectivity when it comes to him.
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That was a great write up; thanks for putting in the effort!
Your list of "things we learned" made me chuckle as well; well played sir, well played.
Nestea is the GODZERG! FIGHTING!
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love the "artosis" remark... he really carries dense karma with him (maybe too much hating)
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I don't like your ratings, nevertheless, good writeup.
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It doesn't matter if Huk is Korean, American or Canadian. All I know is that he's a really good Starcraft 2 player.
kid's gonna do great in Korea. He's fitting in pretty well. Hope to see him more in the GSTL.
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Where is Code A review? :S
Nice Writeup on Code S though.
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I agree that wolf and qxc is an awesome casting duo, however Torch deserves a lot of hype. He is GOOD. Great write up.
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Nice, blurry JPEG. I like it
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EPT
