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On October 13 2011 00:11 Liquid`Tyler wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 17:48 Djagulingu wrote: Population of Korea: 40 million. Population of Rest of the World: ~6.5 billion.
Enough said. Not enough said. Why do these populations matter? I think the relevant populations are the number of SC2 players practicing 8+ hours a day (already pro) and the number of SC2 players practicing 20+ hours a week and trying their best to get as good as they can. It doesn't matter how many people in a country aren't playing SC2 or how many people are playing SC2 casually or how many "pro" SC2 players are half-assing it. What matters is the number of people trying to be pro and actually putting in the effort. Korea has the highest number for any country, and I think they still have the highest number when counting the entire rest of the world as one country.
It's just like the NHL and Canadians. Canada has a similar population to that of California, yet we produce a greater number of top tier hockey players, this is because more Canadians love hockey.
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Thorzain taking three games in a row in GSTL was amazing for me. (guess QXC and Fenix did alright too
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On October 13 2011 05:44 Slangen wrote:Thorzain taking three games in a row in GSTL was amazing for me. (guess QXC and Fenix did alright too 
Playing individual leagues is a completely different dynamic. As for IPL 3 Stephano has been on a tear and frankly his games against Lucky were all BO wins where he basically just mindfucked the hell out of lucky who had no idea what was going on. As for his v T I feel he understands the matchup fanastically and his control and tempo during the game screams talent, but he had the advantage of being rather unkown/underestimated (amongst koreans). I find it hard for him to repeat the fight with a cross hair on his back. Something every korean deals with every single game they play when they go to foreign tournaments, atleast the regular ones.
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On October 13 2011 06:13 Rebs wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 05:44 Slangen wrote:Thorzain taking three games in a row in GSTL was amazing for me. (guess QXC and Fenix did alright too  Playing individual leagues is a completely different dynamic. As for IPL 3 Stephano has been on a tear and frankly his games against Lucky were all BO wins where he basically just mindfucked the hell out of lucky who had no idea what was going on. As for his v T I feel he understands the matchup fanastically and his control and tempo during the game screams talent, but he had the advantage of being rather unkown/underestimated (amongst koreans). I find it hard for him to repeat the fight with a cross hair on his back. Something every korean deals with every single game they play when they go to foreign tournaments, atleast the regular ones.
I'm confused...how is a "BO win" the same as mindfucking "the hell out of" your opponent? A BO win is a victory that didn't have anything to do with mindfucking at all...a victory where you just happened to use a BO that blind-countered (hence, no mindfucking) another BO.
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its pretty simple, he forced the BO wins. If youve seen the games it should be obvious. He got a headstart in every single game, it was very little things like forcing a pool while hatching but in Z v Z its huge. Im not sure a BO win has to be a blind counter either, it just has to counter.I could be wrong but its not my understanding of it anyway. Just because he didnt do it blind doesnt mean that the Build Orders were not a huge if not the most important factor in taking those games.
Either way theres really no point in nitpicking what a BO win is I feel like I got my point across.
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Top Koreans Top Foreigners Mid Koreans Mid Foreigners
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On October 13 2011 00:11 Liquid`Tyler wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 17:48 Djagulingu wrote: Population of Korea: 40 million. Population of Rest of the World: ~6.5 billion.
Enough said. Not enough said. Why do these populations matter? I think the relevant populations are the number of SC2 players practicing 8+ hours a day (already pro) and the number of SC2 players practicing 20+ hours a week and trying their best to get as good as they can. It doesn't matter how many people in a country aren't playing SC2 or how many people are playing SC2 casually or how many "pro" SC2 players are half-assing it. What matters is the number of people trying to be pro and actually putting in the effort. Korea has the highest number for any country, and I think they still have the highest number when counting the entire rest of the world as one country. Exactly, that's what I was trying to tell (but, well... sometimes my writing skills go down to 5% of the original value). A country with 40 million population may have higher amount of pro gamers and skill than rest of the world.
Back to the skill gap, is not clearly as large as in BW, where top foreigners could easily get dismantled by unknown b-teamers, but it's not any different from before since I've been following SC2. Foreigners were always in it, but a serious competition between foreigners and koreans has never happened. For each tournament that is won by a foreigner, something like 5 tournaments has been won by Koreans.
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best foreigners (with the exception of huk hes practically korean lol) barley compare to lowmid tier koreans
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On October 13 2011 07:08 Ribbon wrote: Top Koreans Top Foreigners Mid Koreans Mid Foreigners
Yes, this is pretty much the gist of it. Although we are seeing a few more foreigners improving and breaking through that Mid level skill gap, namely IdrA, Ret, Stephano, MaNa and SeleCT have proven they can beat the Mid level Koreans. ThorZain, NaNiwa and HuK are pretty much at the top of the foreign scene and have been for a while. Top Koreans are still dominating though, but I would say there is moderate change in my viewpoint.
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I agree with most of the posts here. I don't think anyone can say that top koreans arent the best around but we have seen how even they are only a little bit above players like huk, thorzain, stephano, sen ect.
the BEST foreigners have a good shot against mid-level Koreans, and they still have almost no chance against the BEST Koreans
I don't fully agree with this. The more you look the more you find games of the best of the best Koreans falling to foreigners, or even playing very even looking series with foreigners. A short list
GSL World Championship -sen vs. Marineking -TT1 vs. nada -MC vs. Whitera -Dimaga vs. July -Dimaga vs. MVP -Dimaga vs. Nestea (first nestea zvz loss i believe and it was bo3 too)
TSL 3 -Goody vs. Nestea -Adelscott vs. MVP -Qxc vs. Genious -Thorzain vs. fruitdealer -thorzain vs. MC -Kaz vs. Nada
Also one of my favorite series and one of the most evenly matched series i can remember is Thorzain vs. DRG (dreamhack valencia). Though thorzain didn't win, he played with DRG stride for stride throughout the series and looked evenly matched with DRG, a korean zerg who had looked practically invincible against terran in korea.
You will also notice many of the players on this list aren't even huge names. Players like adelscott, TT1, qxc, who are certainly good but who we don't think of as the very best around. this shows by what a thin margin Koreans surpass foreigners and how easy it is for a korean to have a bad day and a high level foreigner to have a good day and an upset to result.
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i don't see an elite korean terran losing a bo7 to a foreigner ever. foreigners can definitely beat the weaker korean players though. maybe we'll see something happen at blizzcon since nestea and mvp are going.
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On October 13 2011 11:09 blizzind wrote: i don't see an elite korean terran losing a bo7 to a foreigner ever. foreigners can definitely beat the weaker korean players though. maybe we'll see something happen at blizzcon since nestea and mvp are going.
There is no doubt that MVP and Nestea are the best of the best of Korea... I agree that since they're both going to blizzcon, we'll see how the rest of the world can compare.... (although it can be argued that the best of the best of the foreigners will not all be there)
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Man when MVP loses then i will believe the rapture is coming
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The koreans that were defeated by foreigners at IEM and IPL were pretty sup par. When push comes to shove the top koreans still dominate the scene. Immvp and Bomber schooled MLG for first place finishes when they went. As did Cocoa and Nobelesse. There are probably around 20 Koreans that I say are better than every foreigner in the world, and until they are beaten or even shown to be vulnerable against Foreigners I will still think the skill gap is large, with SC2 easiness and volatility giving the foreigners a few wins from time to time vs lesser korean players.
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i feel like my opinions aren't really that changed. The best foreigners can go toe to toe with some of the best koreans (the absolute best might still be higher, but foreigners won't get shut out 0-4 every single time).
as a whole skill base, i feel like KR is stronger than the whole foreign scene, but the skill gap at the top is a lot smaller.
Here's hoping it stays that way
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I feel westerners need to get a bit lucky with the brackets to grab wins.
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If July and MC are representatives of the "BEST Koreans," then no, not much is new, since July and MC have been beaten by foreigners before (ie Sen, HuK, etc.).
If "BEST Koreans" strictly mean MVP and Nestea, then it gets a bit more complicated. MVP has barely competed outside of Korea, and Nestea almost not at all. If Dimaga vs. Nestea isn't a legitimate result because it's ZvZ or too early or whatever, then I don't think anything can really be said about BEST Koreans vs. BEST foreigners.
What I do know, however, is that Ret 2-1'd Alive, a Code S player, in IPL 3, and that Stephano beat two Code A players and an ex-Code S player. Code S isn't what you normally think of as "mid-tier," and with people telling us all the time that Code A is just as competitive as Code S, well, I don't think it's fair to keep calling them "mid-tier" unless you are willing to define "BEST Koreans" so exclusively as to exclude the vast majority of GSL contestants.
To this end, I think the gap is definitely much, much narrower than in BW, when the best foreigners were having a hard time beating B teamers, much less A teamers, who still weren't the best of the best, but this isn't much of a change as it's been true since the start of SC 2.
What it does show, however, is that foreigners aren't "falling further and further behind," as people started talking about a while ago. SC 2 isn't looking to become BW, at least not yet, and so there's plenty to look forward to for the foreigner's scene.
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Not changed at all. Foreigners are only doing somewhat well when they are unknown. Like Thorzain coming out of nowhere and taking out MC which is the biggest win for a foreigner to date.
Stephano is exactly where Thorzain was. Just wait until the korean scene gets the replays and analyzes them and then Stephano won't be seen as the savior anymore but another good foreigner.
RIght now he is on the "unknown" foreigner bandwagon and can probably take down a korean top player or two.
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My opinion will change when a non-Korean wins the GSL or legitimately qualifies for it.
Edit: you know besides HuK/others qualifying way back when .
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On October 11 2011 14:44 jalstar wrote: Not particularly, the top foreigners like Thorzain, Huk, Idra, Stephano, have always been able to beat mid-tier Koreans.
Thorzain over MC remains the biggest foreigner win, with maybe Huk over Nada in second. ahaa?! and dimaga raping nestea and mvp is nothing?
zero changes, europeans elite could always beat any korean and will always be able
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