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On June 14 2010 00:48 WWJDD wrote:Flash is looking mighty shaky lately. He hasn't mounted his trademark comebacks as inevitably as they used to happen. I call mini-slump. + Show Spoiler +At the risk of vicious fanbois attacks.
I prefer the term "ace match slump" as Flash has been playing fine outside of them. Having said that, I'm confident Flash will bounce back in time for his next Starleague games.
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Flash is 9-8 after going 25-2. That's a mini-slump, even though he's still winning the majority of his games.
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Wow, jaedong's won his last 11 proleague games. :O
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Flash might be getting a little complacent after finally beating Jaedong. His TvT does need a little reworking (for instance, in all of his losses he either didn't get Dropships or was forced to not get them until very late ... Dropship-heavy style is what he's best at but if the maps aren't favoring that kind of play then he needs to retool his style a bit).
Personally I don't think it's a huge deal. Every player (even the Dong) has gone through these "win one lose one" stretches except Flash in the last 11 months, which is what makes it so shocking now that it's finally happened. Flash's ELO finally dropped to 2363, in other words below the second best ELO of all time (yes, Flash has been above it for like the last 7 months or so).
The thing with Flash is, even though his drive to get better is indisputable, it's also pretty clear that as a byproduct of him being so damn good at figuring out a matchup, it also takes him awhile to realize that he needs to re-figure out a matchup. His one size fits all TvP style was so invincible for so long in 2008 that it literally took him nearly a year to realize that it no longer worked. Can you blame him? He won almost all his games on Katrina and Medusa (at one point Flash was 7-0 on Medusa and all other T's were 7-34 or something absurd in TvP).
Similarly, his TvT has been so good for so long (hard to argue with 22 straight wins - the longest streak in any matchup ever as Oov's was actually 18-0 TvZ not 27-0 like is commonly believed). But a combination of opponents getting smarter and taking bigger risks (14cc or proxy, 14cc or proxy, 14cc or proxy), as well as maps where Dropship heavy play is not the optimal style (Odd Eye, Judgement Day), he has dropped some games.
You'll notice he almost never loses a TvT on a map that he's played 4 or more TvT's on (Skyhigh and Leta on Moon Glaive being the only notable exceptions - ... Fantasy's win on MP doesn't quite count because it was essentially a strict build order win combined with pure luck in encountering Flash's proxy Barracks as a byproduct of wanting to build his proxy Factory along that route).
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I think Flash has simply been neglecting his TvT. OSL/MSL semi-finals were both TvP. OSL/MSL finals were both TvZ. I can only imagine the insane amount of practice he devoted to those match-ups, it's only natural that it came at the cost of his TvT falling behind.
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On June 15 2010 16:59 J1.au wrote:
I think Flash has simply been neglecting his TvT. OSL/MSL semi-finals were both TvP. OSL/MSL finals were both TvZ. I can only imagine the insane amount of practice he devoted to those match-ups, it's only natural that it came at the cost of his TvT falling behind.
you said the same thing two weeks ago.
How long does Flash need to get back in shape then? lol
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On June 15 2010 18:34 SuperArc wrote:Show nested quote +On June 15 2010 16:59 J1.au wrote:
I think Flash has simply been neglecting his TvT. OSL/MSL semi-finals were both TvP. OSL/MSL finals were both TvZ. I can only imagine the insane amount of practice he devoted to those match-ups, it's only natural that it came at the cost of his TvT falling behind. you said the same thing two weeks ago. How long does Flash need to get back in shape then? lol
Flash has probably been taking it easy since the MSL finals. I doubt he has been practising as hard as he usually does. However I'm sure he will be mad as hell after losing to BaBy. Mainly because BaBy is shaping up to be an amazing Terran who might even challenge Flash. I'm sure this loss will spur Flash on to practice harder and to rethink his current TvT.
It's just a shame that STX doesn't have any good Terrans.
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I believe Baby is here to stay. Next step, winning a BO3 vs Flash.
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darktreb I've noticed your posts as being insightful many times in the past, and this latest post is no exception. Thanks for posting.
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JD is something like 13-1 this month (TLPD is not updated it seams). With his only loss coming from a random zvz (not to take anything away from Great). Hope he takes back the 1 spot next month!
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Fenrax
United States5018 Posts
#1 should have been Flash and #2 JD since 8 month now. I see no reason to keep on negating the fact that these two stand on top of the BW world only because player xyz goes 15-2 in some month. BaBy and Effort seem to be catching up, but they are still not there.
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Elroi, he's 9-1 to be exact. These 5 undocumented wins are over random scrubs and Reach from offline qualifiers, so they hardly count for anything at all. Coincidently, Great was the only good player jd faced there ;P
As for Flash, I don't think he is under pressure to get back into shape or something like that. He can pretty much relax at this point and lose couple more games, cause there's no serious matches upcoming for him anytime soon (though he won't be so reckless for sure). He has worked so hard past months in both individual leagues and team league, now he can finally rest till the end of the July when second round of play-offs will begin. I don't think it would be fair to take away his #1 spot in such situation.
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If Flash just keeps on delivering for the rest of the month he should remain at #1 IMO. The dual finals and 3-0 rape vs JD should still keep him there. The distance between them has been reduced a lot recently though, and I wouldn't be too upset if JD was at the top.
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On June 16 2010 21:49 Elroi wrote:
JD is something like 13-1 this month (TLPD is not updated it seams). With his only loss coming from a random zvz (not to take anything away from Great). Hope he takes back the 1 spot next month!
A good record isn't enough to justify Jaedong being #1. He has to prove he is stronger than Flash, something he hasn't done yet. The last time they met was at the MSL finals, where Flash won convincingly (remember them?).
It's true Flash hasn't been playing perfectly recently. However he has only shown difficulties in TvT, and there is nothing to suggest his other match-ups have weakened at all. Even these vT problems were caused more by a lack of practice than anything serious.
The only way I can see Flash losing #1 is if he starts losing hard (worse than WLWLWL), or alternatively if Jaedong wins against him.
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On June 17 2010 00:16 J1.au wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2010 21:49 Elroi wrote:
JD is something like 13-1 this month (TLPD is not updated it seams). With his only loss coming from a random zvz (not to take anything away from Great). Hope he takes back the 1 spot next month! A good record isn't enough to justify Jaedong being #1. He has to prove he is stronger than Flash, something he hasn't done yet. The last time they met was at the MSL finals, where Flash won convincingly (remember them?). It's true Flash hasn't been playing perfectly recently. However he has only shown difficulties in TvT, and there is nothing to suggest his other match-ups have weakened at all. Even these vT problems were caused more by a lack of practice than anything serious. The only way I can see Flash losing #1 is if he starts losing hard (worse than WLWLWL), or alternatively if Jaedong wins against him.
Jaedong and Flash cant meet each other, Hiya beat Flash already.
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FREEAGLELAND26781 Posts
Oh, at least EffOrt isn't going to be freaking #2...
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the more i think about it, the more laughable it is that effort is in front of jaedong.
is jd going to have to go 10-0 in ace matches before he's not slumping?
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On June 17 2010 00:16 J1.au wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2010 21:49 Elroi wrote:
JD is something like 13-1 this month (TLPD is not updated it seams). With his only loss coming from a random zvz (not to take anything away from Great). Hope he takes back the 1 spot next month! A good record isn't enough to justify Jaedong being #1. He has to prove he is stronger than Flash, something he hasn't done yet. The last time they met was at the MSL finals, where Flash won convincingly (remember them?). It's true Flash hasn't been playing perfectly recently. However he has only shown difficulties in TvT, and there is nothing to suggest his other match-ups have weakened at all. Even these vT problems were caused more by a lack of practice than anything serious. The only way I can see Flash losing #1 is if he starts losing hard (worse than WLWLWL), or alternatively if Jaedong wins against him.
like effort proved he is stronger than jaedong?
and don't even give me crap about effort beating flash.
effort didn't win the osl, flash lost it. artosis was right when he said, "jaedong, jaedong, flash, should-be-flash.."
you can't make up rules when they suit you.
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On June 17 2010 17:49 danl9rm wrote:
the more i think about it, the more laughable it is that effort is in front of jaedong.
is jd going to have to go 10-0 in ace matches before he's not slumping?
It's not like this rank was made right after Effort had a dominating month and then won the OSL over Flash, with JD subsequently getting murdered 3-0. Wait, what's that? It was made right after that happened? The only thing that's laughable is what you're saying.
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On June 17 2010 00:16 J1.au wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2010 21:49 Elroi wrote:
JD is something like 13-1 this month (TLPD is not updated it seams). With his only loss coming from a random zvz (not to take anything away from Great). Hope he takes back the 1 spot next month! A good record isn't enough to justify Jaedong being #1. He has to prove he is stronger than Flash, something he hasn't done yet. The last time they met was at the MSL finals, where Flash won convincingly (remember them?). It's true Flash hasn't been playing perfectly recently. However he has only shown difficulties in TvT, and there is nothing to suggest his other match-ups have weakened at all. Even these vT problems were caused more by a lack of practice than anything serious. The only way I can see Flash losing #1 is if he starts losing hard (worse than WLWLWL), or alternatively if Jaedong wins against him.
Jaedong isn't going to play Flash this month, it's just a ridicules criteria to say that he has to beat him to be #1. The best way for JD to prove that he deserves that spot this month has been to beat Baby after he dismantled Flash. About only showing difficulies in TvT: he has almost only played TvTs this month (2 vP and no vZ).
Flash is not losing hard, that's right. But I think he is losing too hard to not let a JD on fire be #1 - if Flash doesn't make a monster come back this month and JD stops owning. I don't think JD has ever lost as many ace games in a row as Flash has recently. You are right too though that Flash would remain #1 if the monthly power rank was something like a quarterly power rank, by virtue of his MSL win. But it's not as clean-cut as you make it look like, JD has more wins than Flash now over 40 games (even though this dosn't say that much due to the fact that Flash's last 40 games have generally been a bit harder)... And he clearly has shown more power thus far in the month than Flash. If we don't recongnize this there is no point imo to have a monthly power rank, we might just as well reiterate the Kespa rank every month.
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EPT
