Foreigner with best chance in Code A?

On August 09 2011 03:33 Ejohrik wrote:
Jinro have been playing worse than ever and even if he does a slight comeback I think it will take at least another month before he can come back for real. Other players have caught up with him skill-wise.

On August 09 2011 03:05 Micket wrote:
I fear for Naniwa against Check, but I fear for Thorzain vs T. I don't know if he has any experience vs the Korean mech play and Marine Tank might be looking a bit shockingly bad when he realises that his marauders suck because of ravens, his opponent has 3 times as many siege tanks, and brue frame herrions are toasting his mineral lines.

On August 09 2011 04:33 clickrush wrote:
lol @ ppl not voting jinro who is one of the most consistent gsl foreigners so far.

On August 09 2011 03:21 red4ce wrote:
Naniwa. Not only is he the best among the five but he got the easiest first round opponent in CheckPrime.

On August 09 2011 08:17 asdfTT123 wrote:
fools, SaSe without a doubt

On August 09 2011 07:58 The Final Boss wrote:


How are you defining "the best" exactly, because this one time ThorZaIN dismantled Naniwa three games in a row. That being said, ThorZaIN is 5-5 against Naniwa, ever since their most recent encounter at the 2011 Blizzard Battle.net invitational. Both players have exceptionally good win/lose ratios as well, so I don't really understand how it is so clear that Naniwa is the best.

But even that's not fair to the other three players. SaSe is an exceptionally good Protoss who just recently came in second place in the CPL, with MarineKing taking first place. That's a pretty impressive performance.

Fenix is another incredible player. Personally I don't believe he is at the skill level of the Swedes playing in this tournament, but that doesn't mean that he won't stand a chance. I personally think there are so many Korean Terrans who play a very similar style to Fenix and do it at a higher skill level so his opponents should have plenty to practice against. That being said, Fenix has impressed me before, so who knows how well he'll do.

And then there's Jinro. He's gotten to GSL's Ro4 twice in a row! There's only two other players who have gotten into the Ro4 twice in a row (RainBOw and NesTea) and technically NesTea only really made it twice in a row if you don't count the Super Tournament in between his two GSL titles. Obviously, Jinro has been playing poorly recently, but he's a really strong player with a ridiculously good record (better than any other foreigner in Korea by far).

So before you go saying things like Naniwa is "the best among the five," you should really take a look at the players you're talking about (either that or come up with a good way of defining who is the best). I mean you can say "Oh well Naniwa's almost flawless MLG was incredibly well played," but my response to that is that ThorZaIN's TSL3 run--while he did not have the stunning win/lose ratio of Naniwa--was against better players, in a format more similar to the GSL (that is to say that you have more time to prepare for each game as opposed to MLG). Plus, ThorZaIN beat Naniwa in the finals.

And is Check really the worst player that the five foreigners will be going up against first round? Check has had wins over MC, MMA, and Rain, all finalists of a GSL (and of course MC is a two time winner). While those games were not in the GSL, they still have to count for something right? Check's play against Choya was exceptional last Code A (not that Choya is the scariest of players, but he actually really impressed me last Code A and Check still managed to 2-0 him). Check showed that he can hold ridiculously strong Protoss timing pushes at a high level. If he plays as well against Naniwa as he did against Choya, Naniwa vs Check will be a very close match-up.

On the other hand, YuGiOh has never impressed me with his play, and players like Sniper and Lucky are both completely unknown to me. Granted, they qualified for Code A so they must be good players, but does that accomplishment alone make them better than Check?

I voted for ThorZaIN 1. Because I'm a ThorZaIN fanboy if you couldn't tell, and 2. because I actually think he stands a good shot at succeeding in the Korean style of play. I feel like if ThorZaIN is given enough time to prepare, he can beat top tier players and progress through Code A. That being said, I'd probably give the second best shot to either Jinro or Naniwa, just because they're both so accomplished and have proven themselves to be great players. Really though, I want all the foreigners to do well haha!

On August 09 2011 17:32 Ayomeer wrote:
Ret should be on this poll! He's is just beastly lately :D

On August 09 2011 20:39 Bajsgrodan wrote:
3 out of 5 Swedes,
Rest of the world... are you even trying?

On August 09 2011 03:02 Talin wrote:
Boxer and MC say Thorzain so... Thorzain.

On August 10 2011 11:39 SpaNkinG wrote:
obv the both toss nani and sase , while nani's playing a Zerg and as we saw on blizzard inv. he isn't that good but anyway!
sase gonna take Code A

On August 09 2011 19:22 Beyonder wrote:
Probably none. Bad matchups for most, too much traveling for most.. Thorzain has tvz..

On August 10 2011 18:22 Beyonder wrote:

Wel... T_T