Power Rank 02/01/2011 - Page 27

On February 27 2011 05:21 Mortality wrote:
To be honest, I'm hesitant to see Bisu at #2 again. This past month he went 3-3 against strong vsP players (wins: Horang2, JD, Calm; losses: Hydra, Hiya, Kal). Interestingly, all his losses were on Circuit Breaker, but having seen two of those games with my own eyes (Hydra and Kal), I don't consider the map to have played a role in those losses. Rather, Bisu was straight up out-played.

No doubt Bisu has been strong in WL this past month and no doubt he remains a top player in the world and could conceivably beat anyone (well, except maybe Stork :p) in a bo5, but I am not really happy with placing him over Fantasy or Hydra. I guess a part of it may be that there's a certain sloppiness I've felt in his game play lately that I didn't really feel a month or two ago, but maybe that's just me.

Fantasy went 6-2 this month. which on paper isn't quite Bisu's 9-3 (percentage wise the same, but over fewer games...) and I haven't seen his loss to Horang2, but his loss to Calm was... well, it was Fantasy being Fantasy, let's just say. Lately, Fantasy's standard play has been very, very strong, but he's always had a tendency to do wacky things that give him losses.

And Hydra... well, I'm very disappointed in him for his poor performance after the MSL final. I didn't catch the start of Hydra vs Sea either, but what I did see was outright rape. A couple of ZvZ losses right after establishing himself as one of the best ZvZ players in the world with his 1-2-3 knockout of top ZvZ players on his way to winning MSL could have been forgiven if he had followed up with a strong result last night. It's absurd to let a couple losses rate Hydra's ZvZ as "shaky" right after he won 3 big ZvZ bo5's in a row. I really, really wanted to see Hydra at #1. For the player to have had what amounts to the best season overall to not have been #1 on any PR -- and possibly not even top 3 -- would be kind of ridiculous. But it may well happen. Hydra hasn't delivered us the results to justify #1, but people who are saying "Hydra sucks now" have too readily forgotten his MSL result or the fact that he brought home a WL win over SKT1 with a 3-kill that included Bisu.

The reasoning for keeping Flash at #1 is a little more justified -- loathe as I am to admit that a player knocked out of SL months ago should hold #1 over both champions. In the case of Flash, he's only dropped 2 games in 2 months, with his only loss this month being to the #1 PvT player in the world. In the absence of Violet from KT's line-up, Flash has just completely taken up his teammate's weight. His only real weak performance I've seen was against Mind -- who should have won that game and would have if certain basic decisions were better made -- but considering how Flash followed up that near-miss with complete rapes of Mind's teammates for a Reverse AK... well then.

1. Flash
2. Fantasy
3. Hydra
4. Bisu

Here's where things really start to get interesting.

5. Stork
6. Jaedong
7. Hiya
8. Great
9. Zero
10. Kal

Justification:

Stork: Although he only went 3-3 this month, the thing I'm more interested in here is Stork's performance post-OSL finals taken as a whole. For Stork, I am quite sure that this was a landmark event. A night after getting 3-0'd by Fantasy, Stork pulled wins over Bisu and Fantasy, and then later last month he beat Flash. When I look at Stork, I see a player who lost his momentum, but none of his skill. Right now Stork can beat anyone.

JD: His play has been very strong on the whole, but right now JD isn't being an S-class monster... he's being an S-class indicator. After yet another month he has yet to pull a win over an S-class player (counting the 2-3 loss to Hydra as a net loss), and the match against Snow in WL recently was unbelievably close. So JD sits here below the players who have delivered S-class performances.

Hiya: With JD not being the wrecking ball we're used to his teammates have picked up the slack. I suppose I could just as easily have brought Killer up into the top 10, but I'd like to see more out of Killer before I say I am convinced of his skill. Hiya's TvT has been his weak point lately, yet he's maintained a 7-3 record despite playing TvT 5 times this month, with all 3 losses in that match-up. His TvP is looking very convincing (this month alone pulling wins over Bisu, M18M, and Tyson) and lately his TvZ been every bit as strong. It's important to note two things: 1. in order for Hiya to climb higher he needs to either dodge Terrans or improve in TvT, and 2. unlike Light who is much higher in ELO but is kept off PR for his lack of TvP, Hiya had a strong TvT less than a year ago, so I'm not holding it against him to the same degree.

Great: Making it to the MSL finals should in and of itself be enough for a PR position, but let's consider Great's actual qualities. I'm pretty convinced lately that Great has been an overlooked player with more talent than most people have realized. Rumors that January took him under his wing for his looks are absurd. Last month Great climbed over Kal in his worst match-up to make it to the MSL semifinals. Since then he has mostly played ZvZ, and while his results have been 50-50, his Hive play has been the talk of the town. In the past I've regarded Great as a somewhat robotic player. Look at his game against Midas last month for an example: stellar mechanics, but he kept trying to break Midas's mech with ling/lurk/defiler armies. His ZvZ shows that he is not such a one-dimensional player. Underrated? Yes.

Zero: Right now Zero is one of the hardest players to rate. For yet another month he continues his I-can-win-or-lose-vs-anyone tendency, but this month he does so against a less impressive line-up. Points for making to to the MSL semifinal, but unless he can gain some consistency I don't see him ever penetrating the top 5.

Kal: I'm hesitant to place Kal any higher. After an inconsistent December and an abysmal January, Kal seems to be getting his game back. But it's too soon to be sure: other than Bisu, who has Kal faced recently that you might characterize as a strong vs P player?


CBNC:

Snow: For Snow, whether we place him on PR or not really depends on exactly what time period we consider. Like with Stork, the real landmark in Snow's recent history was his series against JD. Since that series, Snow has gone 5-3 and been pretty impressive on the whole. I'd particularly invite people to watch his recent game against JD which I was almost sure Snow would win. Truly impeccable harassment, but his main army control was just a tad too sloppy and JD was able to keep Snow from reaching the kind of mass he needed. In February, Snow has only been 2-2. I don't like sticking too rigidly to "consider this month only" rankings since they are not always representative of what's going on, but this month I think there's a lot of competition for a PR spot, so Snow sits here instead of up there.

Mind: Almost managing an AK over KT alone is worthy of respect. 5-3 in February, and this season, Mind also made his return to SL. I think people may want to keep their eyes on Rommel. I could easily see him making the bo5 stages next season if he keeps up his current level of play.

Killer: Despite going 6-2 last month and being 8-2 in his last 10 games, I'm not ready to put Killer over anyone currently on the PR. Do remember that just two months ago Killer was on the worst loss streak of his career... a career of being a PL punching bag. But if he can keep this up? Then I might reconsider. At the end of the day, results are what matters most and Killer is currently delivering them.

Light: It's been nearly 3 months since you've dropped a game to a Zerg and in that time you've only dropped 3 games to fellow Terrans. Unfortunately, you've only secured 2 wins over Protoss during that time period. Light, I think you need to sit down with Tyson and play him over and over and over and over and over and over again until you finally learn what TvP is all about. In particular, your midgame timing sense is crap.

Sea: More recently you are starting to look strong again. But still inconsistent.


Sup?

Ggaemo: Mostly losses this month keep you away from PR or CBNC, but somehow it has happened that I think of the Minesweeper Zerg as a strong player. How did this happen?

Bbyong: TLnet says "Hi" right back~