BW Power Rank - September

With the conclusion of the Jin Air OSL, the 2010-2011 season of Brood War is effectively over. And what would the end of a season be without one last power rank? We bring you the September Power Rank; may it be the undisputed authority on Brood War prowess until the 2011-2012 season begins!

Please leave your comments in the original PR thread.

Rank	Player	Prev	High	Description
1.	Jangbi (P) (stats)	-	1	There has never been a moment in the entirety of my Brood War-watching career where I have been as happy as I was to see JangBi take the fifth set of the Jin Air OSL final over Fantasy. Quite literally, that deciding game was the best comeback I have ever seen, and ostensibly ever will see. As I wrote in the live report thread, if you do not watch that game, you are actually hurting ESPORTS. Despite not unleashing a single psionic storm throughout the entirety of the series, JangBi winning this OSL is important for a plenitude of reasons. First and foremost, JangBi, for two years now one of the most unlikeliest candidates, has proven to us that the Legend of the Fall still lives on. This OSL gold marks the first time since ClubDay MSL in late 2008 that a Protoss has won a Starleague. JangBi's victory shows that the power of intense preparation and the power of teamwork cannot be beaten. I feel like the plot writer for Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh right now when I say this, but this final has shown us that when your friends band together to truly help you, you can achieve greatness--with the help of his teammates, JangBi took down the best TvPer in the world, a solid ZvP sniper, and then the second-best TvPer in the world, all in highly convincing fashion. And with this non-silver medal, JangBi finally breaks free of the Kong line, leaving... actually, just YellOw. I don't know how long Brood War has left as a professional ESPORT. I don't know if this OSL final will spur large corporations into sponsoring teams. With the history books slamming shut on three progaming teams, I don't know how many players are going to be forcibly retired in the coming months. I don't know if the MSL will continue. I do know this though: by winning the 2011 Jin Air OSL, JangBi has not only won a victory for himself, but for all of Brood War. And not even considering any of the factors listed above, that alone is enough to slot JangBi in at this Power Rank's top spot. From Dragon to paewang and back again--JangBi's catastrophic slump and amazing recovery is one of the most powerful narratives in StarCraft, and will go down in the annals of Brood War history no matter what becomes of our beloved game. To Heo Yeong Moo.
2.	Flash (T) (stats)	-1	1	In light of JangBi's amazing dash to the gold, I've totally forgotten about everything and everybody else in the Brood War universe relevant to the Power Rank. Actually, this is due to the lack of games played since the beginning of August. In the last six weeks, only OSL matches, a few Survivor groups, STX Masters' Cup games, and the Proleague Grand Final sets have been played. All in all, this is going to make the rest of the ranking, for the most part, very hard to do. Because of the paucity of hard data, I will take some liberties in the rankings based on extrapolating previous "power levels" of various players that I would normally not take. And since this is kind of a season recap, I will take into account a player's growth [or lack thereof] relative to his start at the beginning of the 2010-2011 season. So onto Flash. In a statistically-driven world, Flash would still be #1 in the charts--who's going to argue that he's still the undisputed best in the world? Yes, he lost to JangBi after winning the first set in a best of three. However, had he won I definitely think that regardless of his hand injury, Flash would have taken yet another OSL. But that's all conjectural. What Flash did do in the past month in a half was trump BeSt twice in the Proleague Grand Finals, thus sealing KT's victory two years running--and let's not forget the part he played throughout KT's entire post-season run. Be you a fan, a hater, or anything in between, let's all take the time to wish Flash a successful surgery. Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing him back for the start of the next season.
3.	Fantasy (T) (stats)	-	2	There was almost no way Fantasy was going to be ranked first for this Power Rank, unless he had won the OSL final against JangBi in dominating fashion through close, epic games that showcased the best of both players' abilities. Basically, what I'm saying is that Fantasy winning the OSL would not be nearly as impressive as JangBi winning [for reasons stated above]. Even had Fantasy won the back-to-back following the conditions listed above, I wouldn't place him above Flash, though it would admittedly be pretty close. After all, Fantasy has almost nothing going against him. He won his match in the Grand Final, he wiped the floor with Hydra using some amazing bionic control [who knew he had it in him?], and he stretched JangBi to his absolute limit in the final. My main question is: why was your macro so bad Fantasy? Watching the OSL resource counter told all: Fantasy floated so much money in multiple games during the final. Had he spent it more efficiently, I'd have no doubt he would have been the victor. It's really hard to judge Fantasy's play though. I look at him as kind of the anti-Bisu. Because of the nature of Starleague matches, Fantasy is amazingly prepared for his games... and thus looks like an absolute champion. And then in Proleague, he'll randomly fluke out and lose. Personally, I've always thought that Fantasy was always just trolling everybody, but it's hard to say. We'll have to wait for the next season to start to be able to get a better angle on the Crown Prince.
4.	Hydra (Z) (stats)	0	2	I didn't expect Hydra to beat Fantasy, though I did think it was going to be close. Well, at least the Hydra-Fantasy series wasn't a completely one-sided mauling. Hydra and Fantasy both brought awesome play [mixed with some random failures] to their OSL semifinals match, though Fantasy proved the sharper. Still, look at Hydra this season. He went from being a relatively unknown player to dominant team Ace, ZvZ monster, indvidual league threat, and MSL champion. If I had to give an award for "most improved", it would go to Hydra. His growth and consistency throughout the year has impressed [though kind of bored] me to no end, and I think with a bit of toning-up on his ZvT, he'll be an even stronger threat for the year to come.
5.	ZerO (Z) (stats)	-3	2	ZerO only played two games in the past six weeks, and both of them were for the STX Masters' Cup. This makes it extremely, extremely hard to place him--especially since ZerO is still, by precedence, a very shaky and streaky player, one capable of wickedly wild highs and baffling bad lows. Because of this, he gets slotted into the Power Rank below Hydra. Still though, as I am recapping ZerO's play accomplishments in the 2010-2011 season as a whole, I see improvement. From pulling his ZvZ up by a notch, to earning his first silver medal, to performing better in Ace matches, ZerO has shown growth in both technical and mental prowess. The trend is positive, the correlation to the imaginary regression line is low, but I do expect ZerO to continue to grow as a player and leader of Stars in the upcoming season. Of course, if there's one player that is most heavily extrapolated for this Power Rank, it's ZerO. I may be completely wrong about how ZerO is going to play in the upcoming season, but I'm going to stand by my words. Also, I just can't resist that cute face.
6.	Bisu (P) (stats)	-3	1	The only game Bisu has played in the past month was in the Proleague Grand Final, against Crazy-Hydra [where Bisu won in typical BvZ fashion]. As usual, this makes it insanely hard to place him on the Power Rank. This time though, I'm not giving Bisu the benefit of the doubt. I placed him under Hydra and ZerO though because I ~~flipped a coin~~thought long and hard about it. ELO isn't a tell-all, but you can't ignore Bisu's ELO. It's monstrously high, and if he wins a few more games in a row he'll come close to breaking his all-time peak. However, Bisu's ELO is artificially inflated because he hasn't encountered "serious" competition that one would find in the later rounds of Starleagues. Bisu has shown consistency above consistency in the 2010-2011 season of Proleague, but so have other players [to varying lesser degrees than Bisu], such as Hydra and ZerO, that have juggled both the responsibilities of being their team's stable Ace player as well as the task of practicing for preparation-heavy matches in Starleages. However, a very critical factor in placing Bisu below both Hydra and ZerO lies in the fact that Coach Park did not send him to play Ace against Flash. Was this because they had specifically trained BeSt to take Flash down on Circuit Breaker? Was it because SKT believed that Flash would have prepared for the Ace match expecting Bisu? Or was it because Park didn't have confidence in Bisu? Regardless of the reason, there is something definite I can draw from SKT's choice in sending BeSt instead of Bisu. When it comes down to the wire, a sniper in the Ace slot will work once in a while. But we come back over and over to the stable carry Ace player, the one that will be expected to play, and will play, and will still win despite whatever the opposing team throws at him. For the 2010-2011 Shinhan Bank Proleague Grand Final, Bisu was not that player, and the important, Power Rank-delaying question of "Flash or Bisu?" has been left unanswered.
7.	Stats (P) (stats)	-	4	Jaedong should be here. But through the last six weeks, I can't find a reason to place Jaedong here when somebody else deserves a slot. Stats hasn't won any major tournament [or even gotten far] recently, nor has he gone on some incredible streak--wait, I take that back. After going on a relatively bad losing streak during Round 6 of Proleague [Stats would also fail to qualify for both OSL and MSL as well], Stats pulled his game way, way up for the postseason. After losing all of his games in KT's first round match against STX, Stats rallied and went on to win every other game he was sent out in, taking out Zero, Hydra, and n.Die_soO [in a very important game] in highly convincing fashion. By no stretch is Stats the inimitable action hero of a good action movie. Instead, he is that sick sidekick, the one who sloughs on through with the hero, the one who has all the cool gadgets, the one who saves the main characters from perishing against overwhelming odds. I wonder how he will fare after losing Bonjaw status?
8.	Jaedong (Z) (stats)	-3	1	More and more, I find myself comparing Jaedong to Roger Federer, especially after the most recent OSL and US Open. For those of you that don't follow tennis, I can summarize it as such: Federer was the champion, and holds the most number of titles in Men's professional tennis. For the longest period of time, there wasn't a final that you wouldn't see Federer in. But since early 2010, he is no longer there in the deciding match. He's making it to the semifinals and quarterfinals, but is getting knocked out there. As a Federer fan, it's absolutely heartbreaking to watch--especially after his most recent US Open semifinal match against Novak Djokovic, where Federer threw away the match after being up two sets to zero and having multiple match points. In short, there's nothing wrong with Federer's play... it's just that he's no longer winning at the rate that the tennis world has grown used to him winning at. He's still #3 in the world after Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, but it seems increasingly so that his best days are behind him. I'm sure you can draw the parallel between Jaedong and Federer now. Jaedong is in a similar position: because of his ZvZ [the parallel is Federer's "weakness" to Djokovic and Nadal] he has failed to make it to the finals of a Starleague for quite some time now. Similarly, it's hard to find something positively trending about either Federer or Jaedong. For Federer, it's that he still beats mostly everybody else. For Jaedong, it's that his ZvT is impregnable right now... So? Being merely "way above average" isn't enough in either professional tennis or Brood War anymore. With new superstars arising in both sports, the captains of the old guard have to be on their toes, or risk being swept aside and relegated to the history books. Unfortunately, one big difference between Lee Jaedong and Roger Federer is that Federer has already attained his goal of having the most golds, of being the best. Sadly, just like how Flash denies Zerg's thirds, other players have denied Jaedong so many chances at tying [and surpassing] NaDa's medal count. And even more sadly, like Federer, I think Jaedong's best days are behind him, and that he'll be incredibly hard-pressed to make it to the final of another Starleague [especially with MBC shutting down], let alone win one. I want so badly to be wrong.
9.	Killer (Z) (stats)	-3	6	It's interesting. Imagine if Killer hadn't been disqualified in his match against n.Die_soO. Presumably, he would have made it through to face JangBi, and in the form he is in Killer would have had a much better chance against JangBi than soO... Imagine Killer in a final? Of course, this is all conjectural [thank you, KeSPA]. However, Killer has shown tremendous growth throughout the 2010-2011 season, and is finally starting to look like a suitable second Ace for OZ. Oh wait. ...
10.	HoeJJa[S.G] (Z) (stats)	-	10	I wrote in the last Power Rank that KT's chance at gold would depend heavily upon whether or not HoeJJa won his match in the Grand Final. And man, did HoeJJa's win matter. With SKT up 2-0, HoeJJa puts KT on the scoreboard by winning over s2. Yes, s2 isn't the best opponent, but that provided KT the boost it needed to start the proverbial rear-kicking engine. And if HoeJJa hadn't won, I think By.Sun would have just wrapped up the final at 4-0. And that would be boring. For the latter part of this season, HoeJJa has shown incredible growth. I hope he can keep it up.