As you may have noticed (but probably not), the gracious people at Team Liquid have made me a part of their extended family. If it helps, think of me as the drunken uncle that everyone hates but that they have no choice but to invite to family reunions.
Regardless of my status amongst my now-peers, I have been put in charge of the new Power Ranking feature, visible, if you have not yet noticed, in the upper-right portion of the website. Click on the link to see the detailed list.
Every month, I will create a list—my list—of the top ten Brood War players in the world. No foreigner, just in case you felt the urge to ask, will ever grace that list. No, not even if he managed to beat Midas in a Bo1 during WCG.
To clarify: this is not a rehash of the KeSPA rankings. This is not a lifetime achievement award. This list consists entirely of my picks of who is hot right now. Any player who loses a big game to an amateur opponent or attempts some particularly retarded cheese can look forward to dropping off the list as quickly as he arrived. I consider much more than statistics when formulating this list, and although the placement might seem, on occasion, biased or even completely random, I assure you that I have my own, incredibly valid reasons for the decisions I make. You are, of course, welcome to try and change my mind, but before you try and do that, let me provide you with a crucial piece of information: I am smarter than you—much.
In subsequent months, I will post a brief essay announcing the presence of the new list and defending some of my potentially controversial choices, but as this post is already much longer than I would like, I will spare all of you any further reading.
So enjoy the list, and feel free to place your inane comments in the provided, well, comments area. I assure you that I will consider each one briefly before dismissing it on any number of purely objective grounds.
Added:
I can't believe I forgot to mention this before, but please be sure to thank Saro for adding this new feature. Without him, the website would be, from a technical standpoint, stagnant. His work makes possible all of these fun little things we have, and he, I believe, goes underappreciated far too often.
Sounds great. Not everyone can agree with the KESPA rankings, and while people will disagree with your rankings, you're under no obligation to make people "happy" or whatever.
I'm sure you're already looking at ESPN's power rankings and such, and I know that yours will be just as good.
Looking forward to great debates, discussion, and debouchery (huh) with these lists
Comments: You might want to update it regularly, like "power rankings for week of Nov 21st" so that we have a frame of reference, and debaters can debate within a time frame (again, like ESPN)
So it's actually a list of top10 koreans. You can't really compare them to foreigners anyway since true matches between these two species are rare. But after the "top 3 korean" d00d's prestations at WCG, I'm not that impressed by their gosus anymore. Oov was hot, and july was ok. Midas sucks big time.
giving his own opinions like "hate" about ppl you do not even know is childish and a language like "fuck" fits in privat com´s or on the street but not on a communitypage, done by a newser
We should really have a smarts test sometimes. Would be fun to see how all the braggers fare. Only problem is smarts cannot be measured on a one dimension axis. sigh
Dont like it. If it was made by poll or by some kind of thread gathering the opinions of the tlnetters it would have been better. Now we have some random rankings with the current OSL champion and arguebly the best player last few months on 3rd place
Thanks DJEtterStyle and Saro! and congrats to being a TL Blue
I think this is an excellent idea! Reminds me of NBA Power rankings and rankings on other major sports sites............really good...........great job guys
On November 22 2006 05:18 mdb wrote: Dont like it. If it was made by poll or by some kind of thread gathering the opinions of the tlnetters it would have been better. Now we have some random rankings with the current OSL champion and arguebly the best player last few months on 3rd place
maybe if you required everyone who wanted to vote on that poll to watch every single vod and go through an extensive program to prove that they're extremely knowledgeable regarding everything pro gaming, that could have some merit. part of the point behind this is that it's far, far, far more accurate than a poll conducted on any website because djetterstyle knows way more about this than the average person who would answer that poll.
On November 22 2006 05:18 mdb wrote: Dont like it. If it was made by poll or by some kind of thread gathering the opinions of the tlnetters it would have been better. Now we have some random rankings with the current OSL champion and arguebly the best player last few months on 3rd place
maybe if you required everyone who wanted to vote on that poll to watch every single vod and go through an extensive program to prove that they're extremely knowledgeable regarding everything pro gaming, that could have some merit. part of the point behind this is that it's far, far, far more accurate than a poll conducted on any website because djetterstyle knows way more about this than the average person who would answer that poll.
I am pretty sure that djjetterstyle knows more for Korean pro scene more than 99% of the people visting here,but a ranking made by a single person will always be biased.If this was made on weekly bases like LiquoScoop it would have been cool, but a space on the front page reserved for the opinion of one guy is just not correct to other visitors imo :-D
On November 22 2006 06:16 mcmascote wrote: hahaha how funny..
some 'nerds' felt offended because you said you are smartter hahaha
Sorry if I don't like EVERYTHING. You sound like the 'nerd' who laughs for no apparent reason. Where the fuck have you seen that someone was offended from the first post?
I think it's confusing to have this on top of the right-hand menu, no less so because it replaces the tournaments links (my memory is hazy about this, was there something else up there after tournaments?). From reading various tournament threads it's clear that Etter knows his stuff. TL's version of 'Your Band Sucks'?
On November 22 2006 01:18 DJEtterStyle wrote: You are, of course, welcome to try and change my mind, but before you try and do that, let me provide you with a crucial piece of information: I am smarter than you—much.
I disagree Andy. :D
Andy puts Anytime over NaDa. Reason: resenful protoss fag seeing his hero getting smashed
: D
ps: you didnt log into msn like for a day after anytime lost, so since my computer is broke again ill use this space to make fun of you
On November 22 2006 08:17 -Carlodajin- wrote: How about a thread were all the people on TeamLiquid can post their "Top 10"?...
lol, that would be a chaos... ! everybody would write, nobody would read. why argue with someone if you could just post your "top 10". It would be zero interaction between people.
For one, it would really help people with Liquibet.
Some things I think about when doing Liquibet.
The player obviously. Matchup How good each player's matchup is The map Who's HOT and who's not. (I only wish that these Power Rankings can be a tad bit longer say 25 but that would just be asking too much. Spoiled I am here at TL.net) ;D
i love this feature. a poll or some stupid user based decision is lame. let DJetterstyle make his opinions and back them up. i like opinionated, passionate articles and features rather than boring ones aimed at not offending anyone.
On November 22 2006 09:23 IdrA wrote: bitching because hes 'arrogant'? it makes it more interesting, because it makes it even funnier when he posts a list so horribly off like that.
On November 22 2006 06:16 mcmascote wrote: hahaha how funny..
some 'nerds' felt offended because you said you are smartter hahaha
Sorry if I don't like EVERYTHING. You sound like the 'nerd' who laughs for no apparent reason. Where the fuck have you seen that someone was offended from the first post?
You seem like you know more about nerdness...
LOL, whos you? I didn't said nothing about you..
now I'm really laughting cause we know you aren't a nerd.
Sounds like an interesting idea but I hope that if people bring up debate etc you arne't as PMS as you are in this post, even if it's somewhat sarcastic.
FUCK! I REALLY THOUGHT I WOULD BREAK TOP 10 THIS WEEK!!
Edit: I think this is a bad idea. No offense to DJ Cool (he can, after all, rock a rhyme with the greatest of ease), but while he may know more about korean players than us, there are a lot of people who know more about koreans than him. It'd be like sweetlemons having an NFL power ranking feature on this site (or rather like me, panthers rock, bears suck, steve smith going to get shut down my ass, bitch, he's going to rape you fools again, REMATCH, SON!?!?!).
I also think the featured threads idea is bad. Or rather just worthless.
That is because you are a homo that only trolls the forums, and does not read the news or care about the BW scene. Thus, your opinion is noted and disregarded.
For all of you who think you can do better, go scrap it up in the power ranking thread and do better yourself. This column, while perhaps abrasive to some, is sanctioned by the site. Go see if you can do better!
I can see now that what I was hoping to save for next month is going to have to come now. A similar write-up will be present with the posting of every list from this point on, but I thought--perhaps--I could get away without posting it to start. Apparently not. So, onward to the justifications...
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IPX - There's just no way to logically consider anyone else the hottest, most dominant player in progaming right now. He's won three of the last four MSLs, and he placed second in the one that he didn't win. Beyond that, he's into the ODT, and I can't even remember the last time he lost in the Proleague.
Anytime - This is a controversial choice, I know. But look at the players Anytime faced in getting to the OSL finals. Then watch his actual play. It's easy to look at the statistics and say, "Yo, Nada won 3-2 and had a better record in the tournament." Anytime faced harder players and displayed a greater degree of skill. If Arkanoid and Peaks weren't practically free wins TvP, I have no doubt that Anytime would have won the OSL with ease. And as an extra little nudge, Lecaf, under Anytime's stellar Proleague record, is current the #1 pro team.
Nada - He won the OSL and defeated both Reach and GoodFriend 3-0 in the weeks leading up to it. But he's just not in the same form as IPX or Anytime.
Midas - His semifinal performances have been lacking, but that doesn't change the fact that, on any given day, he can beat anyone in the world. His 2-3 losses to Anytime and Savior have been heartbreaking, and in both series, he's gone up 2-1, blown a huge game 4 lead, and just collapsed in game 5. If he learns to control his nerves, he'll be at the top of the game.
Sea - This is another controversial pick, but in terms of sheer scariness, no one out there has his combination of macro and multitasking. No one controls battles on multiple fronts while still macroing perfectly as well as Sea—no one. He needs to work on his TvZ, because it’s just not a matchup that lends itself to becoming a macro game, but once he figures that out, he’s going to be even more fearsome than he is already.
GGPlay – Argue with this pick all you want, but GGPlay has shown flat-out amazing ZvT and ZvZ as of late. There’s no shame in losing to Anytime 1-2. He’s also anchored his team in the Proleague for a very long time.
GoRush – Rush’s play in the OSL was strong enough for me to put him here. He advanced into the Ro8, losing 1-2 to Anytime in a series that could have easily gone 2-0 in the other direction.
Bisu – Bisu, while going 3-0 in his OSL group, managed to qualify for the upcoming MSL. A 1-2 loss to GoodFriend just doesn’t mean enough to condemn the fact that Bisu has the most potential of any young Protoss out there. He is without question the strongest player in his ODT group, and I expect him to make it into the OSL with ease.
Nal_Ra – This is my final controversial choice, but I’m going to ask you to cast aside your love for all things cheesy for just a moment and consider a few things: Ra would have been eliminated from his MSL group if Boxer had not had to go into the military. Ra did not make the last OSL. Ra cannot qualify for the coming OSL. KTF is in last place in the Proleague. Making it into the semifinals of the MSL by virtue of a gift and losing 1-3 to Savior is nice and all, but putting him any higher than #9 would be an affront to all the players that have qualified for multiple leagues and actually advanced by virtue of their own merit.
Jju – Jju might irritate me with his inconsistent play, but he is one of the only players to make and advance past the group stages of both Starleagues all while anchoring Khan in the Proleague. That’s enough for me to name him #10.
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Jaedong is not on the list not because I'm unaware of him or because I don't think he's currently on fire. He's not on the list because he hasn't done anything--yet. A bunch of Proleague wins and making an MSL is nice, but it's not enough to warrant placing him among players who have performed well against the very stiffest of competition. If Jaedong makes the OSL and/or wins a few games in a Starleague, that's when I'll say, "Yes, yes, yes," but as of right now, it just feels premature. We all saw what happened with Canata. He made both Starleagues and everyone was hailing him as the second coming of Jesus himself... and then he went 0-3, losing to one member of every race. The same policy of "show me something" applies to Free[gm]. I've got my eye on him, but I need more than a feeling to put him in such elite company.
GF, Iris, July, Zergman, Daezang, and Silver are all close calls, but they just don't quite measure up to the ten players I've selected.
Ah very good point about rA's thing with Boxer's leave. Totally forgot about that fact, and his top4 MSL finish is rightfully diminished somewhat.
The only other "questionable" choice I could see is Sea, simply because he hasnt showed that much that was spectacular in the last msl/osl, compared to some of the other players on the list. (haha, the game vs boxer in proleague finals immediately comes to mind for me as a great performance of his ) I kind of feel worried that he chose to use SK Terran because a fan claimed he was too slow of a gamer... but as you say, his raw skill is unmatched for someone his age, and let's not forget that he is like what? 16?
On November 22 2006 18:48 Manifesto7 wrote: That is because you are a homo that only trolls the forums, and does not read the news or care about the BW scene. Thus, your opinion is noted and disregarded.
For all of you who think you can do better, go scrap it up in the power ranking thread and do better yourself. This column, while perhaps abrasive to some, is sanctioned by the site. Go see if you can do better!
Whatever. At least my opinion is noted. So note this: I think these power rankings will die. First off, DJ will get lazy. Maybe he'll quit, or maybe his rankings will just get increasingly sloppy. Secondly, even if he summons up the resolve to keep these things going for a good while (which I seriously doubt he will), people will just lose interest. May I ask why should I care about DJ's opinion? I know he's a solid player, and that his skill is nothing compared to his knowledge about BW and the scene, but other people know so much more. Maybe it'd be fun to read a news post once in a while, but a permanent feature... for me, too much.
Anyways, just remember I (and a bunch of other dudes before me) called the death of this thing.
And me being a troll? Fuck that. You sure have a short memory. I've posted some worhtless stuff lately, but not exclusively so. And I think that a good bunch of the stuff people think is trollish is just ironic (like when I correct someone's punctuation usage while making the same mistake, then get flamed). Certainly not all of it (sometimes it's just my poor sense of humor), but some.
So I hereby proclaim from this moment on all of my posts will be exceptional. Of course, since I'm doing it because you pissed me off, you still win for straightening me out, so I also say that each of my posts will be better than yours. Man... elitist punk.
What's the point of this power ranking? People will disagree with you anyways.... Shouldn't you be putting your efforts into something more useful. Is it like an opinion column because you dislike the KeSPA? The KeSPA does work from results, you know....
Oh well... At least effort will be going into it and will create discussion.
Whatever may people say, the facts stay: This ranking is disrespectful. Sorry, but I don't think high level players of this caliber should deal with such no-respect. Do your power ranking as you wish, but seriously, remove these personnal quotes. Talk with the facts like you somewhat did a little, but remove your comments.
I've always look foward to this website (I registered just for this). It has always been somehow professionnal and well mannered, and I can't understand how they've decided to let this ranking take the spot on the first page. It makes Tl.net looses credibility, and I don't think anyone who thinks about it for a minute would disagree with me. This is not about your ranking anymore, it's about Tl.net.
Keep it or don't keep it, I don't think anyone care. But if you do keep this ranking, do your job correctly as an Editor. We don't need a subjective point of view of the Korean Pro League scene based on one person's taste.
EPT
) I kind of feel worried that he chose to use SK Terran because a fan claimed he was too slow of a gamer... but as you say, his raw skill is unmatched for someone his age, and let's not forget that he is like what? 16?
