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On February 20 2011 00:03 Lightwip wrote:
Flamewheel, I'm sorry for your ranking predicament every month, but I like the fact that you doing PR makes a lot of stuff change. It's not 100% Flash/Jaedong anymore.
Uhh... maybe it's not 100% Flash/Jaedong recently because the actual BW scene stopped being 100% Flash/Jaedong. I'd give Flamewheel a lot of credit, but I wouldn't claim that he makes stuff change over in Korea.
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If Hydra performs fairly well in WL between now and the end of the month, then in my mind he's a lock for #1.
Yeah, sure, at the end of the day TBLS are probably all stronger players, but PR isn't just a "skill" ranking, and even if it were, it's hard to measure the "skill" of someone like Hydra who just exploded to the top. Consider this: Hydra's ZvZ carried him through Calm, Jaedong and Great, his ZvP has been the strongest of anyone's this season, and yet historically speaking, ZvT has been his best (that is, his lifetime win % is highest in ZvT).
What for me sets Hydra as #1 is this: of all the players in all of BW, who has had the best overall season? The answer is Hydra. Not only is he our MSL champ, but unlike Fantasy who couldn't get it together outside of OSL, in PL Hydra is just a hair behind in Stork and Jaedong. He's proven that he can hang with the big dogs and we will now carry expectations of him.
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As of right now
1. Hydra - Good in PL, and honestly taking the grand slam is a lock for #1-2
2/3. Flash/Bisu - 2 best PL players, we'll have to watch and see who shows more for the rest of the month.
4/5/6 - Stork/Fantasy/Jaedong - I'd say in that order. Bisu is doing well enough for Fantasy to really not get much play time, but he did have that one nice ace save. Stork has some nice games, but keeps losing to Zero. Jaedong has been disappointing, but still performing well. I'd say Stork Fanta JD, but we need to see.
7. Great- made it to the finals
8-10 No idea and I don't want to put placeholders.
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It'd be cool to see Hydra versus Flash in Winners League soon.
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On February 20 2011 01:12 Mortality wrote:
If Hydra performs fairly well in WL between now and the end of the month, then in my mind he's a lock for #1.
Yeah, sure, at the end of the day TBLS are probably all stronger players, but PR isn't just a "skill" ranking, and even if it were, it's hard to measure the "skill" of someone like Hydra who just exploded to the top. Consider this: Hydra's ZvZ carried him through Calm, Jaedong and Great, his ZvP has been the strongest of anyone's this season, and yet historically speaking, ZvT has been his best (that is, his lifetime win % is highest in ZvT).
What for me sets Hydra as #1 is this: of all the players in all of BW, who has had the best overall season? The answer is Hydra. Not only is he our MSL champ, but unlike Fantasy who couldn't get it together outside of OSL, in PL Hydra is just a hair behind in Stork and Jaedong. He's proven that he can hang with the big dogs and we will now carry expectations of him.
This seems like a shallow observation given just how few games Hydra has played against Terran compared to the other races overall. Even now in his breakout season, he hasn't demonstrated much of anything convincing in the matchup and remains mostly unproven.
For example, this season he's played 9 games against Terran, 15 against Protoss, and 36 against Zerg. In PL he's 3-2 against somewhat uninspiring Terran opponents. Interestingly, right after his loss to Midas against FOX, Hite's WL match against MBCTerran was one of I think only two matches all season they did not try to field Hydra.
That all isn't to say that he's terrible versus Terran, just that I need to see more to be convinced it isn't a possible weakness of his. Hopefully a test will come soon.
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On February 20 2011 04:12 Bwenjarin Raffrack wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 01:12 Mortality wrote:
If Hydra performs fairly well in WL between now and the end of the month, then in my mind he's a lock for #1.
Yeah, sure, at the end of the day TBLS are probably all stronger players, but PR isn't just a "skill" ranking, and even if it were, it's hard to measure the "skill" of someone like Hydra who just exploded to the top. Consider this: Hydra's ZvZ carried him through Calm, Jaedong and Great, his ZvP has been the strongest of anyone's this season, and yet historically speaking, ZvT has been his best (that is, his lifetime win % is highest in ZvT).
What for me sets Hydra as #1 is this: of all the players in all of BW, who has had the best overall season? The answer is Hydra. Not only is he our MSL champ, but unlike Fantasy who couldn't get it together outside of OSL, in PL Hydra is just a hair behind in Stork and Jaedong. He's proven that he can hang with the big dogs and we will now carry expectations of him. This seems like a shallow observation given just how few games Hydra has played against Terran compared to the other races overall. Even now in his breakout season, he hasn't demonstrated much of anything convincing in the matchup and remains mostly unproven. For example, this season he's played 9 games against Terran, 15 against Protoss, and 36 against Zerg. In PL he's 3-2 against somewhat uninspiring Terran opponents. Interestingly, right after his loss to Midas against FOX, Hite's WL match against MBCTerran was one of I think only two matches all season they did not try to field Hydra. That all isn't to say that he's terrible versus Terran, just that I need to see more to be convinced it isn't a possible weakness of his. Hopefully a test will come soon.
I've said repeatedly on this forum that Hydra's ZvT is untested. But it's hard to blame him for this when he just hasn't had that many run-ins. His only "test" was a 2-0 trouncing of Classic, who under 50% vs Zerg.
Nevertheless, the observation holds. Hydra's ZvZ and ZvP have been dynamite lately, but it should not be forgotten that going into this season -- and even now at the end of the season -- ZvT is where his lifetime best stats are. And if you look at his match history, almost everyone he's played has historically been strong in TvZ, and his only losses were to people A-class or better in TvZ at the time the match was played.
It would be interesting to see Hydra vs a strong Terran like Fantasy (1-1) or Midas (1-1) in a bo5 series, but you can't really blame Hydra for the fact that no Terrans advanced to even the Ro8 in MSL.
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Kind of late to comment on this, but I just noticed this particular part of the PR:
Stork is that kid that's naturally talented. He doesn't study, and does well on the pop quizzes. However, come test time, he can't deliver. Yes, I dropped Fantasy for his random failure at the end of December, but that was Fantasy failing across the board. I think Stork had way too strong of an earlier month (compared to everybody else), and even making it to a final (taking silver) and a quarterfinal means way more than to those who couldn't even get into the later rounds of even a single league.
I don't really agree with this analysis. In fact, I think it might be the opposite to a large degree. Stork has always thrived on builds. Fantasy just outdid him in that particular final in preparation, as had been the opposite when Stork really anticipated and took the initiative against Fantasy in Incruit. He might joke/brag about playing cellphone games all the time instead of practicing, but I think his mechanics are fairly lacking compared to a lot of modern players and he relies on countering with unpredictable builds.
He didn't this time, and he got destroyed.
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Stork is a very strong strategic player. Among TaekBaengLeeSsang I actually think Stork is the strongest strategically.
The problem is that being the strongest strategically does not equate to being strong at preparation for a series. Hence, Flamewheel's analysis is correct: Stork has historically not been a very strong series player. To be precise, he is the weakest series player among TBLS. Because preparing for a series is more than just preparing the right builds. It's about getting in your opponents head and keeping him out of yours.
On a related note... Jaedong is the strongest series player of TBLS followed by Flash. If Jaedong and Oov were of comparable skill in the same era I would have loved to see a battle between them because Jaedong's mental fortitude is just so incredibly amazing and I would love to see Oov's ridiculous ability to get inside his opponent's head do battle against that fortitude. And with Flash the true key is not that he just rolls his opponents with superior skill, but that he is also a master at the art of cheese and he's gotten really good at using the occasional cheese to completely throw off his opponent. Which is one of the reasons why the result vs Hyuk was more to Flash's discredit (in my opinion) than to his credit back in December.
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I'm starting to wonder how low Jaedong can fall in the PR next month...
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On February 20 2011 19:35 mnesthes wrote:
I'm starting to wonder how low Jaedong can fall in the PR next month...
At this point, 6-8th.
Also, Killer has actually been doing pretty good.
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On February 20 2011 13:12 Mortality wrote:On a related note... Jaedong is the strongest series player of TBLS followed by Flash.
I have trouble squaring this with recent results. Can you explain?
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On February 21 2011 01:01 Mumei wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 13:12 Mortality wrote:On a related note... Jaedong is the strongest series player of TBLS followed by Flash. I have trouble squaring this with recent results. Can you explain?
He means in general. Before 6 months ago, Jaedong almost never lost a Bo5.
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On February 21 2011 01:46 Lightwip wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2011 01:01 Mumei wrote:On February 20 2011 13:12 Mortality wrote:On a related note... Jaedong is the strongest series player of TBLS followed by Flash. I have trouble squaring this with recent results. Can you explain? He means in general. Before 6 months ago, Jaedong almost never lost a Bo5.
Oh, I know. He's still 24 - 7 (I think; Liquipedia says 23 - 6 through 2010, and I added 1 - 1 for Snow / Hydra) in Bo5 even after the last year against Flash. But if Flash has been consistently beating him for a year (and, at least to me, consistently looking better prepared and predicting his opponent better), wouldn't that make Flash better now? That's what I was asking about.
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On February 21 2011 01:46 Lightwip wrote:
He means in general. Before 6 months ago, Jaedong almost never lost a Bo5.
Make it more than a year. Flash had Jaedong's number in BoX since Ever OSL 2009 Ro8.
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On February 21 2011 02:03 bluetrolls wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2011 01:46 Lightwip wrote:
He means in general. Before 6 months ago, Jaedong almost never lost a Bo5. Make it more than a year. Flash had Jaedong's number in BoX since Ever OSL 2009 Ro8.
Except JD won the following Bo5. 
When was the last time JD was this ''bad''?  Doesn't look good at all for him now.
And by the way, is Killer actually getting good? O_o
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On February 21 2011 03:12 Holgerius wrote:Except JD won the following Bo5.
You mean the next Bo4 :p
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On February 21 2011 03:12 Holgerius wrote:When was the last time JD was this ''bad''? Doesn't look good at all for him now. And by the way, is Killer actually getting good? O_o
Judging from PR, Late 2008/Early 2009. Out of both leagues, losing a lot.
And Killer was good a while ago. Remember when he got to be ace over JD? No non-skilled player could do that.
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On February 21 2011 03:40 Lightwip wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2011 03:12 Holgerius wrote:When was the last time JD was this ''bad''? Doesn't look good at all for him now. And by the way, is Killer actually getting good? O_o Judging from PR, Late 2008/Early 2009. Out of both leagues, losing a lot. And Killer was good a while ago. Remember when he got to be ace over JD? No non-skilled player could do that.
Hyuk was also an ace for SKT in 2008... This doesn't mean anything. All it indicates that they saw a potential in him and probably wanted to develop him...
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On February 21 2011 03:58 Lebesgue wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2011 03:40 Lightwip wrote:On February 21 2011 03:12 Holgerius wrote:When was the last time JD was this ''bad''? Doesn't look good at all for him now. And by the way, is Killer actually getting good? O_o Judging from PR, Late 2008/Early 2009. Out of both leagues, losing a lot. And Killer was good a while ago. Remember when he got to be ace over JD? No non-skilled player could do that. Hyuk was also an ace for SKT in 2008... This doesn't mean anything. All it indicates that they saw a potential in him and probably wanted to develop him...
That was clearly a joke. I don't think Killer could ever have been considered better than "decent."
Though he was doing alright in R5 last season.
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On February 21 2011 04:01 Lightwip wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2011 03:58 Lebesgue wrote:On February 21 2011 03:40 Lightwip wrote:On February 21 2011 03:12 Holgerius wrote:When was the last time JD was this ''bad''? Doesn't look good at all for him now. And by the way, is Killer actually getting good? O_o Judging from PR, Late 2008/Early 2009. Out of both leagues, losing a lot. And Killer was good a while ago. Remember when he got to be ace over JD? No non-skilled player could do that. Hyuk was also an ace for SKT in 2008... This doesn't mean anything. All it indicates that they saw a potential in him and probably wanted to develop him... That was clearly a joke. I don't think Killer could ever have been considered better than "decent." Though he was doing alright in R5 last season.
Oh, I didn't get it...
I think he might have been thought to be promising
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EPT
