Shinhan Proleague 2008/2009 Coverage by Riptide and Heyoka
There must be some kind of way out of here Said the joker to the thief Theres too much confusion I can't get no relief
Advanced Mutalisk micromanagement is needed when teams enter the playoff phase. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines. The truth is five hatch hydra. Interceptors attack endlessly, mindlessly, in the dead of night the Overmind screams. A new heir, a new era, the old will rise up and take the crown once more. A bloody coronation. Lee Jaedong will lead Oz to its end. He is the herald of the apocalypse. The harbinger of death. End of line, end of line, end of line.
– Heyoka, after watching Chill vs Combatex fifteen times.
At 53 wins, Lee Jaedong is sitting pretty for top gun. Kim Taek Yong, on the other hand, had a bit of a bad spell, much to the chagrin of SKT, a team that had grown accustomed to him leading from the front. With a string of losses against the likes of Jangbi and go.go, Bisu’s recent performance no doubt raised some eyebrows among the team’s coaching staff. If there’s one thing the Protoss titan is known for though, it’s consistency, and Bisu has bounced back with five straight wins. Yes, the universe is back in order, and we can all breathe again. With 52 wins, he is also still very much in contention for top gun.
Leta, at just 46 wins, is so far down that we really don't see him able to recover. Flash, on the other hand, is right up there with both Bisu and Jaedong. Any run for top gun made by the Terran monster, however, hinges on KT making the playoffs. Although not impossible, it is unlikely that KT will oust KHAN, even a KHAN that is failing, from a number six spot. Thus, though Flash's individual performance puts him neck and neck with Jaedong, his team's overall performance is probably going to let him down as he reaches for number one.
Thus, the end game is very likely going to be in the hands of just two players. The powerhouse which Oz revolves around, Jaedong plays at least one game every match, and playing 10 of their 15 ace games, is well and truly their certified ace. Currently 9 – 1 in his last ten games, and boasting 64% or higher percentages in all his matchups, including a stellar 81.52% in ZvZ, if the current pro scene has a destroyer, it is him. Oz last won Proleague in 2007, beating KHAN in a final in which the then Legend Killer was sniped by Frozean.
Now, two years later, Oz is here, and ready to fight SKT to the bitter end, and if there is anyone to lead them it is a man, who while still finding his stride, fell in the battle of all battles to an opponent clearly his inferior. Now, as this season draws to a close, it is that same man, now in reach of a Golden Mouse, who stands ready to take his team all the way.
Of course, Bisu is nowhere near done. Although SKT doesn’t rely on him the same way Oz relies almost exclusively on Jaedong, he is still very much the team’s heavy artillery. While Fantasy and Best, the latter ailing, do pad the team’s lineup pretty well, it will be Bisu who sits at the center of any serious quest for glory. Their R5 performance has been very consistent, and in the last two weeks have managed to bridge the gap with Oz and tie for wins. As this last week of Proleague draws near however, expectations for Kim Taek Yong to perform are high, and rightly so. If SKT is going to improve on their 2008 bronze medal, it will be this Protoss that leads the way, and if someone can steal the title of top gun from Jaedong, it’s certainly him.
No reason to get excited The thief he kindly spoke There are many here among us Who feel that life is but a joke But you and I we’ve been through that And this is not our fate So let us not talk falsely now The hour’s getting late
Playoff Fever
With the Proleague round robin stages ending this week, and six teams making the playoffs, the last playoff spot is clearly still up for grabs. While Oz, SKT, Sparkyz, STX and CJ are pretty much in, KHAN and KT are battling it out for sixth place. With KHAN facing Oz and Ace, and KT only having a single match against STX this week, however, KHAN does have the advantage of having that extra game to play. However, although Samsung will very likely walk over ACE with ease, their other match is against a rock solid Oz led by Lee Jaedong himself, and a win there does seem difficult, if not unlikely. KT on the other hand also have their work cut out for them as they face a peaking STX. All in all, the fight for number six is going to be brutal, and the remaining games should therefore be a treat to watch.
In the STX house, spirits are high, and the goal for this last week is clear. Reach number two. Given their current form, Coach Jo Gyu Baek knows that if the team were to end up in a higher playoff spot, the chances of ousting a giant like SKT or Oz is much higher. The true dark horse of this season, SouL is a force to be contended with, and as SKT, Oz and CJ fight each other out for first, second and third place, they are no doubt also keeping their eye on the pretender who is fast approaching.
Finally, it is also time for eSTRO and ACE to give up playoff dreams, and give some rookies time to play. In a season that’s all but over for them, it would be beneficial in the long run to have their newbies get games against the league’s top players, and learn valuable lessons by being stomped on. In the end however, it is undeniable that the battle ahead is between the powerhouses of this round, and that the showdown everyone is waiting for is that of two teams led by the current masters of the game.
Outside in the cold distance A wild cat did growl Two riders were approachin And the wind began to howl
Statisfaction Now, on to the nerdery. As we’ve discussed in previous PL updates, the playoff system is quite complex.
Pachi's famous anti-confusion remedy.
As you can see, six teams make the playoffs. That in itself makes any kind of prediction kind of silly, because half the field makes it in.
It has an even weirder kink in the system, in that the teams who finished first and second are automatically seeded into the semifinal and final rounds. Finishing the ranks at #1 puts the team one victory away from the championship, #2 is two victories away, and #3-6 are all four victories away. Top finishers at the end of the regular season are highly rewarded, making the race close down to the very end. Essentially the team who finishes in second place is nearly 75% more likely to make it into the finals than who finishes in third.
The first thing to do is to look where I have teams projected to be at the end of round five. Here is what I got:
The numbers with the white background are actual match points against each other team this round (1 when they win, none when they lose). The green background are unplayed matches, the number is an 'expected win' based on the past four rounds (Oz has gone 1-3 against KHAN in the past so their "expected" value from playing that match is a quarter of a point). The expected column then adds up this round's results and projection with past results, to get a number of total wins.
There are better ways to do this, but every time I run through a more complex model the results tend to be within about half a point. These results right now coincide pretty closely with the model I made at the start of R5 (which you can find here).
This model in particular gives an interesting result, having STX finish in number two. I ran this two weeks ago to start with, and originally I thought that was mostly in error. STX has been doing well against teams they have lost to historically (SKT-Hite-FOX), and the way this is done it will greatly overvalue that in forecasting. They continued to crush in the last two weeks however, and with the matches they have coming up this is looking more and more like a good possibility. KHAN's place is also unrealistically high here, because this doesn't account for the week KHAN dropped their whole A-team squad. A more likely top 6 includes KT at the bottom and KHAN nowhere (interesting that they started this round at number two and now have given up hope in the playoffs at all).
Playoff Value I wanted to see how each team in the top spots have done in the past year against other teams. I decided to take the top 7 here vs each other top seven team, and here is what it looks like:
I'm showing this to make a few points. When you chop off the worse half of proleague teams, each team is pretty evenly matched with each other team (with the clear exception being teams who are falling in by the skin of their teeth). This means that spots one and two are incredibly valuable, as the first two rounds of the playoffs are somewhat of a crapshoot (this is the same in most sports, so no huge surprise).
It also shows that squeaking into the playoffs doesn't even mean a whole lot to a team like KT, as they don't stand a real great chance of winning the playoff A and playoff final just to get the chance to play in the semi final round. KT in particular gets even worse when you factor in that a playoff match is played with seven games, instead of five (a subject deep enough to warrant its own writeup or at least its own dedicated section).
Looking forward All in all, there is nothing too shocking to report right now. Oz, SKT, CJ, and STX are in good position to grab a title. Finishing in a top spot is important to Oz in particular, as their lineup does not do particularly well in a seven game series. STX might come out of nowhere to threaten the second place spot. We can expect some fun games in the last two weeks.
As we hit the final few week of Proleague this year, I will begin looking more specifically into what kinds of numbers can be quantified with more accuracy. Things such as team depth (to show the effect of bo7 over bo5 in the league) as well as simulating how playoffs will look and how they may play out. Stay tuned!
Highlights To finish off this week’s update, we’re bringing you nothing but the best. The highlight of the week, I'm sure many of you will agree, is the game between the SKT T1 wrecking machine Bisu and the veteran Zerg YellOw of Airforce ACE. Those of you who have been around Professional Starcraft for long enough remember a Zerg giant who sparred with the likes of Lim Yo Hwan. While more recent fans will probably never see The Storm Zerg in top form, they did glimpse a moment of King Hong’s former glory in this great game. From a beautifully executed build coupled with expert positioning and micro, this remnant of Starcraft’s golden era truly gave us all a match to remember. Thank you Hong Jin-Ho. In an era where veterans are either retired, or failing badly, a little nostalgia is more than welcome.
Nice informative post. I feel like its been a while since our last proleague newspost. thanks and that yellow game is amazing every time i think about it.
awesome feature! i wanted to write something like this but i guess you absorbed it from me when we were playing 2v2 that day in beijing. its really interesting to note the difference between Oz and SK. Oz is obviously built around JD with a hit or miss support cast of HoLoHiya. how many guys are even on their roster? 7? they are the Braves of the early 90s..
SK, on the other hand, has a very deep line-up from Bisu all the way to Doctor.K (with canata, best, phantasy, hyuk, thezerg in between). They have the most money and privilege of all teams and have boxer and oov as coaches. They are the yankees.
On July 05 2009 12:51 omninmo wrote: cool. i wanted to write something like this but i guess you absorbed it from me when we were playing 2v2 that day in beijing. its
At sixty wins, Lee Jaedong is sitting pretty for top gun..........
Flash and Leta, both contenders at one point, have now dropped far behind in the individual game race, a race which many say Lee Jaedong has all but won...........
At sixty wins, Lee Jaedong is sitting pretty for top gun..........
Flash and Leta, both contenders at one point, have now dropped far behind in the individual game race, a race which many say Lee Jaedong has all but won...........
On July 05 2009 12:29 riptide wrote: Flash and Leta, both contenders at one point, have now dropped far behind in the individual game race, a race which many say Lee Jaedong has all but won, even before playoffs begin.
as soon as I read that, I stopped reading.
get ur facts straight. Flash has the same number of wins as JD
The SC2GG numbers for individual wins are correct...Jaedong had 7 wins during the WL playoffs which aren't counted towards the PL contest for most individual wins. TLPD doesn't differentiate between normal WL games and the playoff games so I guess that's where he took his numbers from.
Numbers are a bit off, but the general message of the writeup is pretty good.
Also, thanks for reminding me to watch that bisu vs yellow match. I typically watch most bisu matches, but I had missed that one. Intense and great to see an old face win a match against one of the current best.
On July 05 2009 12:29 riptide wrote: Flash and Leta, both contenders at one point, have now dropped far behind in the individual game race, a race which many say Lee Jaedong has all but won, even before playoffs begin.
as soon as I read that, I stopped reading.
get ur facts straight. Flash has the same number of wins as JD
Oh, I think he counted the 7-1 record JD amassed in the Winners League finals. Don't stop reading, it's a great write-up. =[
There appear to be some discrepancies between the individual statistics found in the TLPD and those found on other sites. I was fully aware of this at the time I posted, and I am looking into this and will make corrections as necessary. Thanks for the feedback though.
Edit:
On July 05 2009 14:18 Rostam wrote: The SC2GG numbers for individual wins are correct...Jaedong had 7 wins during the WL playoffs which aren't counted towards the PL contest for most individual wins. TLPD doesn't differentiate between normal WL games and the playoff games so I guess that's where he took his numbers from.
This. Thank you for your patience. The stats have been redone, and the OP has been updated. I do not, as someone suggested, ever arrive at my conclusions based on speculation alone. What happened here was a simple miscalculation.
On July 05 2009 13:20 Avidkeystamper wrote: Are you going to continue writing for TL after the PL or are you just subbing, because this, like many other posts, is really good writeup,
On July 05 2009 13:47 Random_0 wrote: I don't understand your "expected wins" table. SKT1 already has 34 wins. How can they be expected to win only 33 games at the end of round 5?
I think he started working an it last week, so it's not 100% up to date, still a good read though.
On July 05 2009 12:29 riptide wrote: With the Proleague round robin stages ending this week, and six teams making the playoffs, the last playoff spot is clearly still up for grabs. While Oz, SKT, Sparkyz, STX and CJ are pretty much in, KHAN and KT are battling it out for sixth place.
Round robin doesn't end with week 6 btw, there will be another 6 matches in week 7 And instead of "pretty much in" you could just say that they are for sure, because that's how it is. Nice job!
On July 06 2009 14:46 29 fps wrote: somehow, i dont think STX is actually aiming for number 2. no Kal? the only regular members are calm, and to some extent, modesty.
It would appear this way! I didn't think to look at lineups when I wrote this, I've been too baffled for the past 2 weeks about KHAN's absurd lineups in the past few weeks. I get the feeling that at the end of the season teams care more about giving smaller names their shot rather than really trying to grab the #2 spot, or in KHAN's case any spot at all. Dunno if its because they care less about PL or don't think the advantage of auto-seeding is big or think they have an advantage anyway (STX might fall into that category, their team transitions fine into a bo7).
It looks like I have an error in the expected table, I think I'm not crediting SKT for a win. Some of the other numbers are going to be slightly off because it doesn't account for the matches played in week 6 - it is also possible that I missed something in translation because the table was originally done for a while ago but I've been updating it as I get too lazy to finish writing/posting.
I also take responsibility for some of the numbers being slightly off, Riptide asked me about it twice and I never looked into it seriously. I was too dumb to remember that WL had playoffs that are not officially counted in standings.
On July 06 2009 15:02 heyoka wrote: I get the feeling that at the end of the season teams care more about giving smaller names their shot rather than really trying to grab the #2 spot, or in KHAN's case any spot at all. Dunno if its because they care less about PL or don't think the advantage of auto-seeding is big or think they have an advantage anyway (STX might fall into that category, their team transitions fine into a bo7).
It might also be a chance to give some of the people they're going to need in a bo7 a little more experience and practice to get them into shape. Of course, this is all speculation, but it seems reasonable to me. + Show Spoiler [stx vs kt results] +
man seeding places 1 and 2 is so lame. they won 3 more match than STX and now they are SEEDED into a final? maybe seeded into round 2 of a Ro8 style-tournament would be far more fair (IE 3rd vs 6th plays 2nd spot, 4 vs 5 plays 1st, winners play each other in final). It's a fucking gauntlet to run for 6th-3rd place. I hope next proleague they dont give 1st and 2nd place some great seeds :\