Stephano is so scary, I can only dream about how high is potential is when he fully trains/plays for next month orso. Even with 3h a day he rapes ladder and win big international LANs.
On November 07 2011 19:29 Ylrahc wrote: Fanboys or haters, overstating since the dawn of (e)sports.
Facts : Stephano crushes code A players like a high code S would (ask Violet, Inori, lucky, TaiLS, anypro, revival...) Facts : Stephano can beat "koreans", even code S ones (Ask MMA & puzzle (IPL3 qualifiers), MKP, HuK, ...) Facts : Stephano has displayed a large variety of strategies in pretty much all his matchups, and he has proven to be able to adapt very well to his opponents. Facts : Stephano has shown some weaknesses against high lvl korean terrans, even if says it is / was his best match-up, although he rapes average ones. Facts : Stephano has taken maps from pretty much all koreans he faced since he went pro. Facts : Stephano has never faced those SC2 legends haters say he can't compete against (MvP, Nestea, ..)
Conclusion : noone knows what the result of such a match would be. Even if he would not be the favorite, he won't be rolled over and certainly can make those matches entertaining, and can even pretend to win. That will make the Blizzard cup interesting to watch, to say the least. And to those who say he doesn't practice as much as other pros, well, maybe he doesn't play as much, but he certainly thinks about the game and his strategies at least as much, if not more.
What I think of Stephano : imho he is the best foreigner atm. Strong in all his matchups, and very rarely loses against a supposely really weaker opponent (as opposed to, let's say, Idra :p) : his play is very safe and well thought, he is the type of player that creates strategies, not apply the ones of others, and that makes him less predictable that many many pros. He has some weaknesses though, sometimes those strategies don't work very well, and he seems to lack some stamina in long run events (4 / 5 big BoX a day seems to be his limit). We don't know yet how he will do in an environment where you have days to prepare to your opponents (GSL type), but as he will go to Korea in december, we will see soon
And to those who say he is not topX world wide : it is pretty much as meaningless as those who say he is topY world wide. Considering the volatility of the current SC2 scene(s), there is pretty much no point to build a global ranking. Only way to be credible would to name X players that would be favorite in a Bo5+ match against Stephano, and backup these names with previous results. And this, dear friends, would be hard to do to say the least
Oh please you try to come off with a "realistic" view of Stephano but it's heavily coated with fanboyism. You conviently forget that STC and Boxer both won against Stephano in their 2nd showing, both Code A players. Alive, a low tier Code S terran decisively beat him too.
Then you go on to say that a match between Stephano and someone like MVP can not be known but immediatly afterwards claim that MVP would not have an easy ride, suggesting that in fact you do "know" something about the result.
Top X world wide implies inclusion of Koreans, and if you told everyone to create a "top 10 in the world" it would probably have almost all the same players, maybe even top 20(they'd probably also be all Koreans). You'd be highly delusional to think that Stephano is better than the high amount of very good Korean Terrans.
The scene might be volatile but it's not anything like a sinus curve. This community has extremely short term memory and writes off every player that hasn't won a championship in the last month. You do not see the top tier Koreans or foreigners dropping sets like flies to every other player, please take into consideration that a 70% winrate is considering extremely good.
You've probably already written me off as a "hater" but know that I think Stephano is a very good player,on par with Huk and Idra, but his fanboys overhype him to high heaven and aren't afraid to post it -.-
It's almost impossible to actually rank the top 20 players right now, but it's fucking safe to say stephano is not top 10...because TOP 10 would be something like this: MVP, Nestea, MMA, Bomber, Taeja, DRG, IMHappy, MarineKing, Polt, sC, LosirA...and I can also list a bunch of contenders like Jjakji, Curious, Gumiho, Puzzle, Puma, Ryung, Ganzi, Clide, aLive, MC, July, Sage, Leenock, Coca and even TheStC...and the list goes on and on. You would be delusional to think stephano can be rank in top 10...even the worst player I listed above(probably theStC?) might be better than him... Sometimes these fanboys just blindly forget how DEEP the water is in Korea. Again, I'm not a hater. I'm just a viewer who closely follow the scene and know what I'm saying.
^ You do realize that some of the top players you mentioned aren't doing so hot right now? Bomber, Polt, Marineking? Both Polt and Marineking didn't make it out of their groups and and Bomber did horribly in the AoL and lost to IdrA recently. And IMHappy? Besides his one good run to the top 4 what else has he done?
On November 07 2011 19:29 Ylrahc wrote: Fanboys or haters, overstating since the dawn of (e)sports.
Facts : Stephano crushes code A players like a high code S would (ask Violet, Inori, lucky, TaiLS, anypro, revival...) Facts : Stephano can beat "koreans", even code S ones (Ask MMA & puzzle (IPL3 qualifiers), MKP, HuK, ...) Facts : Stephano has displayed a large variety of strategies in pretty much all his matchups, and he has proven to be able to adapt very well to his opponents. Facts : Stephano has shown some weaknesses against high lvl korean terrans, even if says it is / was his best match-up, although he rapes average ones. Facts : Stephano has taken maps from pretty much all koreans he faced since he went pro. Facts : Stephano has never faced those SC2 legends haters say he can't compete against (MvP, Nestea, ..)
Conclusion : noone knows what the result of such a match would be. Even if he would not be the favorite, he won't be rolled over and certainly can make those matches entertaining, and can even pretend to win. That will make the Blizzard cup interesting to watch, to say the least. And to those who say he doesn't practice as much as other pros, well, maybe he doesn't play as much, but he certainly thinks about the game and his strategies at least as much, if not more.
What I think of Stephano : imho he is the best foreigner atm. Strong in all his matchups, and very rarely loses against a supposely really weaker opponent (as opposed to, let's say, Idra :p) : his play is very safe and well thought, he is the type of player that creates strategies, not apply the ones of others, and that makes him less predictable that many many pros. He has some weaknesses though, sometimes those strategies don't work very well, and he seems to lack some stamina in long run events (4 / 5 big BoX a day seems to be his limit). We don't know yet how he will do in an environment where you have days to prepare to your opponents (GSL type), but as he will go to Korea in december, we will see soon
And to those who say he is not topX world wide : it is pretty much as meaningless as those who say he is topY world wide. Considering the volatility of the current SC2 scene(s), there is pretty much no point to build a global ranking. Only way to be credible would to name X players that would be favorite in a Bo5+ match against Stephano, and backup these names with previous results. And this, dear friends, would be hard to do to say the least
Oh please you try to come off with a "realistic" view of Stephano but it's heavily coated with fanboyism. You conviently forget that STC and Boxer both won against Stephano in their 2nd showing, both Code A players. Alive, a low tier Code S terran decisively beat him too.
Then you go on to say that a match between Stephano and someone like MVP can not be known but immediatly afterwards claim that MVP would not have an easy ride, suggesting that in fact you do "know" something about the result.
Top X world wide implies inclusion of Koreans, and if you told everyone to create a "top 10 in the world" it would probably have almost all the same players, maybe even top 20(they'd probably also be all Koreans). You'd be highly delusional to think that Stephano is better than the high amount of very good Korean Terrans.
The scene might be volatile but it's not anything like a sinus curve. This community has extremely short term memory and writes off every player that hasn't won a championship in the last month. You do not see the top tier Koreans or foreigners dropping sets like flies to every other player, please take into consideration that a 70% winrate is considering extremely good.
You've probably already written me off as a "hater" but know that I think Stephano is a very good player,on par with Huk and Idra, but his fanboys overhype him to high heaven and aren't afraid to post it -.-
It's almost impossible to actually rank the top 20 players right now, but it's fucking safe to say stephano is not top 10...because TOP 10 would be something like this: MVP, Nestea, MMA, Bomber, Taeja, DRG, IMHappy, MarineKing, Polt, sC, LosirA...and I can also list a bunch of contenders like Jjakji, Curious, Gumiho, Puzzle, Puma, Ryung, Ganzi, Clide, aLive, MC, July, Sage, Leenock, Coca and even TheStC...and the list goes on and on. You would be delusional to think stephano can be rank in top 10...even the worst player I listed above(probably theStC?) might be better than him... Sometimes these fanboys just blindly forget how DEEP the water is in Korea. Again, I'm not a hater. I'm just a viewer who closely follow the scene and know what I'm saying.
If you list Coca, Leenock and Curious as contenders I don't see how Stephano is not a contender in your eyes. Yes, it's hard to judge his level, but we only really saw him lose during MLG Orlando against well prepared opponents during an exhausting run through the open bracket. There is nothing indicating that he is NOT a contender.
On November 07 2011 19:29 Ylrahc wrote: Fanboys or haters, overstating since the dawn of (e)sports.
Facts : Stephano crushes code A players like a high code S would (ask Violet, Inori, lucky, TaiLS, anypro, revival...) Facts : Stephano can beat "koreans", even code S ones (Ask MMA & puzzle (IPL3 qualifiers), MKP, HuK, ...) Facts : Stephano has displayed a large variety of strategies in pretty much all his matchups, and he has proven to be able to adapt very well to his opponents. Facts : Stephano has shown some weaknesses against high lvl korean terrans, even if says it is / was his best match-up, although he rapes average ones. Facts : Stephano has taken maps from pretty much all koreans he faced since he went pro. Facts : Stephano has never faced those SC2 legends haters say he can't compete against (MvP, Nestea, ..)
Conclusion : noone knows what the result of such a match would be. Even if he would not be the favorite, he won't be rolled over and certainly can make those matches entertaining, and can even pretend to win. That will make the Blizzard cup interesting to watch, to say the least. And to those who say he doesn't practice as much as other pros, well, maybe he doesn't play as much, but he certainly thinks about the game and his strategies at least as much, if not more.
What I think of Stephano : imho he is the best foreigner atm. Strong in all his matchups, and very rarely loses against a supposely really weaker opponent (as opposed to, let's say, Idra :p) : his play is very safe and well thought, he is the type of player that creates strategies, not apply the ones of others, and that makes him less predictable that many many pros. He has some weaknesses though, sometimes those strategies don't work very well, and he seems to lack some stamina in long run events (4 / 5 big BoX a day seems to be his limit). We don't know yet how he will do in an environment where you have days to prepare to your opponents (GSL type), but as he will go to Korea in december, we will see soon
And to those who say he is not topX world wide : it is pretty much as meaningless as those who say he is topY world wide. Considering the volatility of the current SC2 scene(s), there is pretty much no point to build a global ranking. Only way to be credible would to name X players that would be favorite in a Bo5+ match against Stephano, and backup these names with previous results. And this, dear friends, would be hard to do to say the least
Oh please you try to come off with a "realistic" view of Stephano but it's heavily coated with fanboyism. You conviently forget that STC and Boxer both won against Stephano in their 2nd showing, both Code A players. Alive, a low tier Code S terran decisively beat him too.
Then you go on to say that a match between Stephano and someone like MVP can not be known but immediatly afterwards claim that MVP would not have an easy ride, suggesting that in fact you do "know" something about the result.
Top X world wide implies inclusion of Koreans, and if you told everyone to create a "top 10 in the world" it would probably have almost all the same players, maybe even top 20(they'd probably also be all Koreans). You'd be highly delusional to think that Stephano is better than the high amount of very good Korean Terrans.
The scene might be volatile but it's not anything like a sinus curve. This community has extremely short term memory and writes off every player that hasn't won a championship in the last month. You do not see the top tier Koreans or foreigners dropping sets like flies to every other player, please take into consideration that a 70% winrate is considering extremely good.
You've probably already written me off as a "hater" but know that I think Stephano is a very good player,on par with Huk and Idra, but his fanboys overhype him to high heaven and aren't afraid to post it -.-
It's almost impossible to actually rank the top 20 players right now, but it's fucking safe to say stephano is not top 10...because TOP 10 would be something like this: MVP, Nestea, MMA, Bomber, Taeja, DRG, IMHappy, MarineKing, Polt, sC, LosirA...and I can also list a bunch of contenders like Jjakji, Curious, Gumiho, Puzzle, Puma, Ryung, Ganzi, Clide, aLive, MC, July, Sage, Leenock, Coca and even TheStC...and the list goes on and on. You would be delusional to think stephano can be rank in top 10...even the worst player I listed above(probably theStC?) might be better than him... Sometimes these fanboys just blindly forget how DEEP the water is in Korea. Again, I'm not a hater. I'm just a viewer who closely follow the scene and know what I'm saying.
A lot of them havn't won a single major offline tournament such as IPL / MLG / ESWC / GSL / NASL ...
On November 08 2011 01:25 McFeser wrote: ^ You do realize that some of the top players you mentioned aren't doing so hot right now? Bomber, Polt, Marineking? Both Polt and Marineking didn't make it out of their groups and and Bomber did horribly in the AoL and lost to IdrA recently. And IMHappy? Besides his one good run to the top 4 what else has he done?
I believe someone who can get to TOP 4 code S has much more credibility than someone who won IPL3 and ESWC. Not saying it's not impressive, but the players in these tournaments are much weaker than average player skills in GSL code S, and I don't think any one could argue in this matter.
On November 07 2011 19:29 Ylrahc wrote: Fanboys or haters, overstating since the dawn of (e)sports.
Facts : Stephano crushes code A players like a high code S would (ask Violet, Inori, lucky, TaiLS, anypro, revival...) Facts : Stephano can beat "koreans", even code S ones (Ask MMA & puzzle (IPL3 qualifiers), MKP, HuK, ...) Facts : Stephano has displayed a large variety of strategies in pretty much all his matchups, and he has proven to be able to adapt very well to his opponents. Facts : Stephano has shown some weaknesses against high lvl korean terrans, even if says it is / was his best match-up, although he rapes average ones. Facts : Stephano has taken maps from pretty much all koreans he faced since he went pro. Facts : Stephano has never faced those SC2 legends haters say he can't compete against (MvP, Nestea, ..)
Conclusion : noone knows what the result of such a match would be. Even if he would not be the favorite, he won't be rolled over and certainly can make those matches entertaining, and can even pretend to win. That will make the Blizzard cup interesting to watch, to say the least. And to those who say he doesn't practice as much as other pros, well, maybe he doesn't play as much, but he certainly thinks about the game and his strategies at least as much, if not more.
What I think of Stephano : imho he is the best foreigner atm. Strong in all his matchups, and very rarely loses against a supposely really weaker opponent (as opposed to, let's say, Idra :p) : his play is very safe and well thought, he is the type of player that creates strategies, not apply the ones of others, and that makes him less predictable that many many pros. He has some weaknesses though, sometimes those strategies don't work very well, and he seems to lack some stamina in long run events (4 / 5 big BoX a day seems to be his limit). We don't know yet how he will do in an environment where you have days to prepare to your opponents (GSL type), but as he will go to Korea in december, we will see soon
And to those who say he is not topX world wide : it is pretty much as meaningless as those who say he is topY world wide. Considering the volatility of the current SC2 scene(s), there is pretty much no point to build a global ranking. Only way to be credible would to name X players that would be favorite in a Bo5+ match against Stephano, and backup these names with previous results. And this, dear friends, would be hard to do to say the least
Oh please you try to come off with a "realistic" view of Stephano but it's heavily coated with fanboyism. You conviently forget that STC and Boxer both won against Stephano in their 2nd showing, both Code A players. Alive, a low tier Code S terran decisively beat him too.
Then you go on to say that a match between Stephano and someone like MVP can not be known but immediatly afterwards claim that MVP would not have an easy ride, suggesting that in fact you do "know" something about the result.
Top X world wide implies inclusion of Koreans, and if you told everyone to create a "top 10 in the world" it would probably have almost all the same players, maybe even top 20(they'd probably also be all Koreans). You'd be highly delusional to think that Stephano is better than the high amount of very good Korean Terrans.
The scene might be volatile but it's not anything like a sinus curve. This community has extremely short term memory and writes off every player that hasn't won a championship in the last month. You do not see the top tier Koreans or foreigners dropping sets like flies to every other player, please take into consideration that a 70% winrate is considering extremely good.
You've probably already written me off as a "hater" but know that I think Stephano is a very good player,on par with Huk and Idra, but his fanboys overhype him to high heaven and aren't afraid to post it -.-
It's almost impossible to actually rank the top 20 players right now, but it's fucking safe to say stephano is not top 10...because TOP 10 would be something like this: MVP, Nestea, MMA, Bomber, Taeja, DRG, IMHappy, MarineKing, Polt, sC, LosirA...and I can also list a bunch of contenders like Jjakji, Curious, Gumiho, Puzzle, Puma, Ryung, Ganzi, Clide, aLive, MC, July, Sage, Leenock, Coca and even TheStC...and the list goes on and on. You would be delusional to think stephano can be rank in top 10...even the worst player I listed above(probably theStC?) might be better than him... Sometimes these fanboys just blindly forget how DEEP the water is in Korea. Again, I'm not a hater. I'm just a viewer who closely follow the scene and know what I'm saying.
A lot of them havn't won a single major offline tournament such as IPL / MLG / ESWC / GSL / NASL ...
Because not a lot of koreans have the chance to fly around the world like MC. And look at what MC has done in international tournaments you know what would happen if the players I listed above have equal chances to travel.
On November 07 2011 19:29 Ylrahc wrote: Fanboys or haters, overstating since the dawn of (e)sports.
Facts : Stephano crushes code A players like a high code S would (ask Violet, Inori, lucky, TaiLS, anypro, revival...) Facts : Stephano can beat "koreans", even code S ones (Ask MMA & puzzle (IPL3 qualifiers), MKP, HuK, ...) Facts : Stephano has displayed a large variety of strategies in pretty much all his matchups, and he has proven to be able to adapt very well to his opponents. Facts : Stephano has shown some weaknesses against high lvl korean terrans, even if says it is / was his best match-up, although he rapes average ones. Facts : Stephano has taken maps from pretty much all koreans he faced since he went pro. Facts : Stephano has never faced those SC2 legends haters say he can't compete against (MvP, Nestea, ..)
Conclusion : noone knows what the result of such a match would be. Even if he would not be the favorite, he won't be rolled over and certainly can make those matches entertaining, and can even pretend to win. That will make the Blizzard cup interesting to watch, to say the least. And to those who say he doesn't practice as much as other pros, well, maybe he doesn't play as much, but he certainly thinks about the game and his strategies at least as much, if not more.
What I think of Stephano : imho he is the best foreigner atm. Strong in all his matchups, and very rarely loses against a supposely really weaker opponent (as opposed to, let's say, Idra :p) : his play is very safe and well thought, he is the type of player that creates strategies, not apply the ones of others, and that makes him less predictable that many many pros. He has some weaknesses though, sometimes those strategies don't work very well, and he seems to lack some stamina in long run events (4 / 5 big BoX a day seems to be his limit). We don't know yet how he will do in an environment where you have days to prepare to your opponents (GSL type), but as he will go to Korea in december, we will see soon
And to those who say he is not topX world wide : it is pretty much as meaningless as those who say he is topY world wide. Considering the volatility of the current SC2 scene(s), there is pretty much no point to build a global ranking. Only way to be credible would to name X players that would be favorite in a Bo5+ match against Stephano, and backup these names with previous results. And this, dear friends, would be hard to do to say the least
Oh please you try to come off with a "realistic" view of Stephano but it's heavily coated with fanboyism. You conviently forget that STC and Boxer both won against Stephano in their 2nd showing, both Code A players. Alive, a low tier Code S terran decisively beat him too.
Actually I didn't, see my sentence on his weakness against top terrans....
Then you go on to say that a match between Stephano and someone like MVP can not be known but immediatly afterwards claim that MVP would not have an easy ride, suggesting that in fact you do "know" something about the result.
Of course, if you start putting in my mouth words I haven't said, you get wrong conclusions. No, I don't know the result, I just expect the match to be very exciting to watch and the winner forced to pull off amazing play, which is exactly what not having an easy ride is...
Top X world wide implies inclusion of Koreans, and if you told everyone to create a "top 10 in the world" it would probably have almost all the same players, maybe even top 20(they'd probably also be all Koreans). You'd be highly delusional to think that Stephano is better than the high amount of very good Korean Terrans.
This is where we don't agree. He is overall 3 - 3 vs theSTC, 3 - 2 vs Boxer, 4 - 1 vs MKP, 1 - 4 vs aLive, 2 - 1 vs MMA...and these are facts. That is 13 - 11 vs some of the best terrans in the world. Saying he won those games because opponents weren't prepared or weren't focused or he lost those because he didn't play seriously / was tired is not part of the discussion, a game is a game, and those kind of players play most of the time to win, and all things balance themselves at the end. (see, trying to be objective here)
The scene might be volatile but it's not anything like a sinus curve. This community has extremely short term memory and writes off every player that hasn't won a championship in the last month. You do not see the top tier Koreans or foreigners dropping sets like flies to every other player, please take into consideration that a 70% winrate is considering extremely good.
We do agree there. So please take into consideration Stephano's records from last month, and come again and tell me he isn't part of this infamous top20. Obviously, he hasn't faced half of the earth, but that's still a good deal of koreans he beated, and only lost (twice) to terran ones.
You've probably already written me off as a "hater" but know that I think Stephano is a very good player,on par with Huk and Idra, but his fanboys overhype him to high heaven and aren't afraid to post it -.-
Spot on my friend. I don't overhype him to high even, I strongly doubt he would be able to take a GSL right now like some think, like any player he can be beaten, he has been and he will be, I just don't understand those who say he isn't atm one of the best players in the world. I check his records, I check his tournaments' cash win, and I don't understand those trying to diminish that
On November 07 2011 19:29 Ylrahc wrote: Fanboys or haters, overstating since the dawn of (e)sports.
Facts : Stephano crushes code A players like a high code S would (ask Violet, Inori, lucky, TaiLS, anypro, revival...) Facts : Stephano can beat "koreans", even code S ones (Ask MMA & puzzle (IPL3 qualifiers), MKP, HuK, ...) Facts : Stephano has displayed a large variety of strategies in pretty much all his matchups, and he has proven to be able to adapt very well to his opponents. Facts : Stephano has shown some weaknesses against high lvl korean terrans, even if says it is / was his best match-up, although he rapes average ones. Facts : Stephano has taken maps from pretty much all koreans he faced since he went pro. Facts : Stephano has never faced those SC2 legends haters say he can't compete against (MvP, Nestea, ..)
Conclusion : noone knows what the result of such a match would be. Even if he would not be the favorite, he won't be rolled over and certainly can make those matches entertaining, and can even pretend to win. That will make the Blizzard cup interesting to watch, to say the least. And to those who say he doesn't practice as much as other pros, well, maybe he doesn't play as much, but he certainly thinks about the game and his strategies at least as much, if not more.
What I think of Stephano : imho he is the best foreigner atm. Strong in all his matchups, and very rarely loses against a supposely really weaker opponent (as opposed to, let's say, Idra :p) : his play is very safe and well thought, he is the type of player that creates strategies, not apply the ones of others, and that makes him less predictable that many many pros. He has some weaknesses though, sometimes those strategies don't work very well, and he seems to lack some stamina in long run events (4 / 5 big BoX a day seems to be his limit). We don't know yet how he will do in an environment where you have days to prepare to your opponents (GSL type), but as he will go to Korea in december, we will see soon
And to those who say he is not topX world wide : it is pretty much as meaningless as those who say he is topY world wide. Considering the volatility of the current SC2 scene(s), there is pretty much no point to build a global ranking. Only way to be credible would to name X players that would be favorite in a Bo5+ match against Stephano, and backup these names with previous results. And this, dear friends, would be hard to do to say the least
Oh please you try to come off with a "realistic" view of Stephano but it's heavily coated with fanboyism. You conviently forget that STC and Boxer both won against Stephano in their 2nd showing, both Code A players. Alive, a low tier Code S terran decisively beat him too.
Then you go on to say that a match between Stephano and someone like MVP can not be known but immediatly afterwards claim that MVP would not have an easy ride, suggesting that in fact you do "know" something about the result.
Top X world wide implies inclusion of Koreans, and if you told everyone to create a "top 10 in the world" it would probably have almost all the same players, maybe even top 20(they'd probably also be all Koreans). You'd be highly delusional to think that Stephano is better than the high amount of very good Korean Terrans.
The scene might be volatile but it's not anything like a sinus curve. This community has extremely short term memory and writes off every player that hasn't won a championship in the last month. You do not see the top tier Koreans or foreigners dropping sets like flies to every other player, please take into consideration that a 70% winrate is considering extremely good.
You've probably already written me off as a "hater" but know that I think Stephano is a very good player,on par with Huk and Idra, but his fanboys overhype him to high heaven and aren't afraid to post it -.-
It's almost impossible to actually rank the top 20 players right now, but it's fucking safe to say stephano is not top 10...because TOP 10 would be something like this: MVP, Nestea, MMA, Bomber, Taeja, DRG, IMHappy, MarineKing, Polt, sC, LosirA...and I can also list a bunch of contenders like Jjakji, Curious, Gumiho, Puzzle, Puma, Ryung, Ganzi, Clide, aLive, MC, July, Sage, Leenock, Coca and even TheStC...and the list goes on and on. You would be delusional to think stephano can be rank in top 10...even the worst player I listed above(probably theStC?) might be better than him... Sometimes these fanboys just blindly forget how DEEP the water is in Korea. Again, I'm not a hater. I'm just a viewer who closely follow the scene and know what I'm saying.
If you list Coca, Leenock and Curious as contenders I don't see how Stephano is not a contender in your eyes. Yes, it's hard to judge his level, but we only really saw him lose during MLG Orlando against well prepared opponents during an exhausting run through the open bracket. There is nothing indicating that he is NOT a contender.
If you really think about it, coca has top3 zvp in the world, and his zvz is strong and zvt is okay. Not fantastic, but it's good enough for him to survive in code S for a long time and defeat players like Puma convincingly at MLG and got 2nd in the end. What coca has done is at least equal to, if not better than, Stephano's win in IPL3 and ESWC considering coca has been facing stronger opponents all the time so it's naturally harder for him to actually win more prize. Leenock has been around code A for a long time and finally made to code S. I'd say he has better zvt than Stephano and a lot of you might agree. I can't really say much about zvp because in Korea it's terribly zerg favored and I would say Leenock is favored against most, if not all, of the protosses around. Curious had won code A, which consists of a player pool harder than any foreign tournament except MLG orlando. But since we have seen too few games from him so I cannot say much. It's more like a personal opinion when I listed him there.
And are you really saying he lost to boxer and stc because they are well-prepared and they are not tired? TheStC had to fight through the open bracket as well so if you thought stephano was tired and unprepared, I can say the same thing for stc. The suspicious part of this is that Stephano beat both of them at IPL3 but lost to both of them at MLG orlando, so it's not very unreasonable to think that stephano is figured out to some extent (I'm not saying he is totally figured out ofc) by korean terrans, which makes me further question his true abilities against korean terrans.
On November 07 2011 19:29 Ylrahc wrote: Fanboys or haters, overstating since the dawn of (e)sports.
Facts : Stephano crushes code A players like a high code S would (ask Violet, Inori, lucky, TaiLS, anypro, revival...) Facts : Stephano can beat "koreans", even code S ones (Ask MMA & puzzle (IPL3 qualifiers), MKP, HuK, ...) Facts : Stephano has displayed a large variety of strategies in pretty much all his matchups, and he has proven to be able to adapt very well to his opponents. Facts : Stephano has shown some weaknesses against high lvl korean terrans, even if says it is / was his best match-up, although he rapes average ones. Facts : Stephano has taken maps from pretty much all koreans he faced since he went pro. Facts : Stephano has never faced those SC2 legends haters say he can't compete against (MvP, Nestea, ..)
Conclusion : noone knows what the result of such a match would be. Even if he would not be the favorite, he won't be rolled over and certainly can make those matches entertaining, and can even pretend to win. That will make the Blizzard cup interesting to watch, to say the least. And to those who say he doesn't practice as much as other pros, well, maybe he doesn't play as much, but he certainly thinks about the game and his strategies at least as much, if not more.
What I think of Stephano : imho he is the best foreigner atm. Strong in all his matchups, and very rarely loses against a supposely really weaker opponent (as opposed to, let's say, Idra :p) : his play is very safe and well thought, he is the type of player that creates strategies, not apply the ones of others, and that makes him less predictable that many many pros. He has some weaknesses though, sometimes those strategies don't work very well, and he seems to lack some stamina in long run events (4 / 5 big BoX a day seems to be his limit). We don't know yet how he will do in an environment where you have days to prepare to your opponents (GSL type), but as he will go to Korea in december, we will see soon
And to those who say he is not topX world wide : it is pretty much as meaningless as those who say he is topY world wide. Considering the volatility of the current SC2 scene(s), there is pretty much no point to build a global ranking. Only way to be credible would to name X players that would be favorite in a Bo5+ match against Stephano, and backup these names with previous results. And this, dear friends, would be hard to do to say the least
Oh please you try to come off with a "realistic" view of Stephano but it's heavily coated with fanboyism. You conviently forget that STC and Boxer both won against Stephano in their 2nd showing, both Code A players. Alive, a low tier Code S terran decisively beat him too.
Then you go on to say that a match between Stephano and someone like MVP can not be known but immediatly afterwards claim that MVP would not have an easy ride, suggesting that in fact you do "know" something about the result.
Top X world wide implies inclusion of Koreans, and if you told everyone to create a "top 10 in the world" it would probably have almost all the same players, maybe even top 20(they'd probably also be all Koreans). You'd be highly delusional to think that Stephano is better than the high amount of very good Korean Terrans.
The scene might be volatile but it's not anything like a sinus curve. This community has extremely short term memory and writes off every player that hasn't won a championship in the last month. You do not see the top tier Koreans or foreigners dropping sets like flies to every other player, please take into consideration that a 70% winrate is considering extremely good.
You've probably already written me off as a "hater" but know that I think Stephano is a very good player,on par with Huk and Idra, but his fanboys overhype him to high heaven and aren't afraid to post it -.-
It's almost impossible to actually rank the top 20 players right now, but it's fucking safe to say stephano is not top 10...because TOP 10 would be something like this: MVP, Nestea, MMA, Bomber, Taeja, DRG, IMHappy, MarineKing, Polt, sC, LosirA...and I can also list a bunch of contenders like Jjakji, Curious, Gumiho, Puzzle, Puma, Ryung, Ganzi, Clide, aLive, MC, July, Sage, Leenock, Coca and even TheStC...and the list goes on and on. You would be delusional to think stephano can be rank in top 10...even the worst player I listed above(probably theStC?) might be better than him... Sometimes these fanboys just blindly forget how DEEP the water is in Korea. Again, I'm not a hater. I'm just a viewer who closely follow the scene and know what I'm saying.
If you list Coca, Leenock and Curious as contenders I don't see how Stephano is not a contender in your eyes. Yes, it's hard to judge his level, but we only really saw him lose during MLG Orlando against well prepared opponents during an exhausting run through the open bracket. There is nothing indicating that he is NOT a contender.
And are you really saying he lost to boxer and stc because they are well-prepared and they are not tired? All them three had to fight through the open bracket so if you thought stephano was tired and unprepared, I can say the same thing for boxer and stc.
On November 07 2011 19:29 Ylrahc wrote: Fanboys or haters, overstating since the dawn of (e)sports.
Facts : Stephano crushes code A players like a high code S would (ask Violet, Inori, lucky, TaiLS, anypro, revival...) Facts : Stephano can beat "koreans", even code S ones (Ask MMA & puzzle (IPL3 qualifiers), MKP, HuK, ...) Facts : Stephano has displayed a large variety of strategies in pretty much all his matchups, and he has proven to be able to adapt very well to his opponents. Facts : Stephano has shown some weaknesses against high lvl korean terrans, even if says it is / was his best match-up, although he rapes average ones. Facts : Stephano has taken maps from pretty much all koreans he faced since he went pro. Facts : Stephano has never faced those SC2 legends haters say he can't compete against (MvP, Nestea, ..)
Conclusion : noone knows what the result of such a match would be. Even if he would not be the favorite, he won't be rolled over and certainly can make those matches entertaining, and can even pretend to win. That will make the Blizzard cup interesting to watch, to say the least. And to those who say he doesn't practice as much as other pros, well, maybe he doesn't play as much, but he certainly thinks about the game and his strategies at least as much, if not more.
What I think of Stephano : imho he is the best foreigner atm. Strong in all his matchups, and very rarely loses against a supposely really weaker opponent (as opposed to, let's say, Idra :p) : his play is very safe and well thought, he is the type of player that creates strategies, not apply the ones of others, and that makes him less predictable that many many pros. He has some weaknesses though, sometimes those strategies don't work very well, and he seems to lack some stamina in long run events (4 / 5 big BoX a day seems to be his limit). We don't know yet how he will do in an environment where you have days to prepare to your opponents (GSL type), but as he will go to Korea in december, we will see soon
And to those who say he is not topX world wide : it is pretty much as meaningless as those who say he is topY world wide. Considering the volatility of the current SC2 scene(s), there is pretty much no point to build a global ranking. Only way to be credible would to name X players that would be favorite in a Bo5+ match against Stephano, and backup these names with previous results. And this, dear friends, would be hard to do to say the least
Oh please you try to come off with a "realistic" view of Stephano but it's heavily coated with fanboyism. You conviently forget that STC and Boxer both won against Stephano in their 2nd showing, both Code A players. Alive, a low tier Code S terran decisively beat him too.
Then you go on to say that a match between Stephano and someone like MVP can not be known but immediatly afterwards claim that MVP would not have an easy ride, suggesting that in fact you do "know" something about the result.
Top X world wide implies inclusion of Koreans, and if you told everyone to create a "top 10 in the world" it would probably have almost all the same players, maybe even top 20(they'd probably also be all Koreans). You'd be highly delusional to think that Stephano is better than the high amount of very good Korean Terrans.
The scene might be volatile but it's not anything like a sinus curve. This community has extremely short term memory and writes off every player that hasn't won a championship in the last month. You do not see the top tier Koreans or foreigners dropping sets like flies to every other player, please take into consideration that a 70% winrate is considering extremely good.
You've probably already written me off as a "hater" but know that I think Stephano is a very good player,on par with Huk and Idra, but his fanboys overhype him to high heaven and aren't afraid to post it -.-
It's almost impossible to actually rank the top 20 players right now, but it's fucking safe to say stephano is not top 10...because TOP 10 would be something like this: MVP, Nestea, MMA, Bomber, Taeja, DRG, IMHappy, MarineKing, Polt, sC, LosirA...and I can also list a bunch of contenders like Jjakji, Curious, Gumiho, Puzzle, Puma, Ryung, Ganzi, Clide, aLive, MC, July, Sage, Leenock, Coca and even TheStC...and the list goes on and on. You would be delusional to think stephano can be rank in top 10...even the worst player I listed above(probably theStC?) might be better than him... Sometimes these fanboys just blindly forget how DEEP the water is in Korea. Again, I'm not a hater. I'm just a viewer who closely follow the scene and know what I'm saying.
If you list Coca, Leenock and Curious as contenders I don't see how Stephano is not a contender in your eyes. Yes, it's hard to judge his level, but we only really saw him lose during MLG Orlando against well prepared opponents during an exhausting run through the open bracket. There is nothing indicating that he is NOT a contender.
And are you really saying he lost to boxer and stc because they are well-prepared and they are not tired? All them three had to fight through the open bracket so if you thought stephano was tired and unprepared, I can say the same thing for boxer and stc.
Just for the record, Boxer was in Pool Play.
Thanks for pointing out that, but my main points still stand: you cannot attribute stephano's losses to exhaustation.
On November 07 2011 19:29 Ylrahc wrote: Fanboys or haters, overstating since the dawn of (e)sports.
Facts : Stephano crushes code A players like a high code S would (ask Violet, Inori, lucky, TaiLS, anypro, revival...) Facts : Stephano can beat "koreans", even code S ones (Ask MMA & puzzle (IPL3 qualifiers), MKP, HuK, ...) Facts : Stephano has displayed a large variety of strategies in pretty much all his matchups, and he has proven to be able to adapt very well to his opponents. Facts : Stephano has shown some weaknesses against high lvl korean terrans, even if says it is / was his best match-up, although he rapes average ones. Facts : Stephano has taken maps from pretty much all koreans he faced since he went pro. Facts : Stephano has never faced those SC2 legends haters say he can't compete against (MvP, Nestea, ..)
Conclusion : noone knows what the result of such a match would be. Even if he would not be the favorite, he won't be rolled over and certainly can make those matches entertaining, and can even pretend to win. That will make the Blizzard cup interesting to watch, to say the least. And to those who say he doesn't practice as much as other pros, well, maybe he doesn't play as much, but he certainly thinks about the game and his strategies at least as much, if not more.
What I think of Stephano : imho he is the best foreigner atm. Strong in all his matchups, and very rarely loses against a supposely really weaker opponent (as opposed to, let's say, Idra :p) : his play is very safe and well thought, he is the type of player that creates strategies, not apply the ones of others, and that makes him less predictable that many many pros. He has some weaknesses though, sometimes those strategies don't work very well, and he seems to lack some stamina in long run events (4 / 5 big BoX a day seems to be his limit). We don't know yet how he will do in an environment where you have days to prepare to your opponents (GSL type), but as he will go to Korea in december, we will see soon
And to those who say he is not topX world wide : it is pretty much as meaningless as those who say he is topY world wide. Considering the volatility of the current SC2 scene(s), there is pretty much no point to build a global ranking. Only way to be credible would to name X players that would be favorite in a Bo5+ match against Stephano, and backup these names with previous results. And this, dear friends, would be hard to do to say the least
Oh please you try to come off with a "realistic" view of Stephano but it's heavily coated with fanboyism. You conviently forget that STC and Boxer both won against Stephano in their 2nd showing, both Code A players. Alive, a low tier Code S terran decisively beat him too.
Then you go on to say that a match between Stephano and someone like MVP can not be known but immediatly afterwards claim that MVP would not have an easy ride, suggesting that in fact you do "know" something about the result.
Top X world wide implies inclusion of Koreans, and if you told everyone to create a "top 10 in the world" it would probably have almost all the same players, maybe even top 20(they'd probably also be all Koreans). You'd be highly delusional to think that Stephano is better than the high amount of very good Korean Terrans.
The scene might be volatile but it's not anything like a sinus curve. This community has extremely short term memory and writes off every player that hasn't won a championship in the last month. You do not see the top tier Koreans or foreigners dropping sets like flies to every other player, please take into consideration that a 70% winrate is considering extremely good.
You've probably already written me off as a "hater" but know that I think Stephano is a very good player,on par with Huk and Idra, but his fanboys overhype him to high heaven and aren't afraid to post it -.-
It's almost impossible to actually rank the top 20 players right now, but it's fucking safe to say stephano is not top 10...because TOP 10 would be something like this: MVP, Nestea, MMA, Bomber, Taeja, DRG, IMHappy, MarineKing, Polt, sC, LosirA...and I can also list a bunch of contenders like Jjakji, Curious, Gumiho, Puzzle, Puma, Ryung, Ganzi, Clide, aLive, MC, July, Sage, Leenock, Coca and even TheStC...and the list goes on and on. You would be delusional to think stephano can be rank in top 10...even the worst player I listed above(probably theStC?) might be better than him... Sometimes these fanboys just blindly forget how DEEP the water is in Korea. Again, I'm not a hater. I'm just a viewer who closely follow the scene and know what I'm saying.
If you list Coca, Leenock and Curious as contenders I don't see how Stephano is not a contender in your eyes. Yes, it's hard to judge his level, but we only really saw him lose during MLG Orlando against well prepared opponents during an exhausting run through the open bracket. There is nothing indicating that he is NOT a contender.
And are you really saying he lost to boxer and stc because they are well-prepared and they are not tired? All them three had to fight through the open bracket so if you thought stephano was tired and unprepared, I can say the same thing for boxer and stc.
Just for the record, Boxer was in Pool Play.
Thanks for pointing out that, but my main points still stand: you cannot attribute stephano's losses to exhaustation.
I don't really like to 'defend' him all the time, because I don't see myself as totally biased, but why not? Boxer and STC have been used to playing Starcraft 10-14 hours a day for ages whereas Stephano only practiced for two hours a day a few months ago and says that now that he's gone full-time, he practices maybe 4-5 hours a day. He also said that his biggest weakness right now is the fact that he can't play more than 4-5 hours without playing significantly worse due to exhaustion of whatever kind.
I'm more inclined to believe Stephano's statements that this is indeed the case, than believe statements from people like us who don't even know him personally.
On November 08 2011 01:25 McFeser wrote: ^ You do realize that some of the top players you mentioned aren't doing so hot right now? Bomber, Polt, Marineking? Both Polt and Marineking didn't make it out of their groups and and Bomber did horribly in the AoL and lost to IdrA recently. And IMHappy? Besides his one good run to the top 4 what else has he done?
LOL. You really do think that going past bo1 groupstage means that you are doing good?
On November 08 2011 01:25 McFeser wrote: ^ You do realize that some of the top players you mentioned aren't doing so hot right now? Bomber, Polt, Marineking? Both Polt and Marineking didn't make it out of their groups and and Bomber did horribly in the AoL and lost to IdrA recently. And IMHappy? Besides his one good run to the top 4 what else has he done?
LOL. You really do think that going past bo1 groupstage means that you are doing good?
Um Yes
Players doing well in tournaments is a good indication that they are doing well
Just for your information, Boxer just said that in his opinion Stephano has the same level as an average code S player. That's not really good yet but fortunately he's still progressing very fast.
I think people are over hyping koreans.. Although players like MVP and Nestea are wayy ahead of the rest, Players like DRG, losira, ryung, polt and the sC can all be beaten by Stephano, Huk and idrA In bo3's
On November 07 2011 19:29 Ylrahc wrote: Fanboys or haters, overstating since the dawn of (e)sports.
Facts : Stephano crushes code A players like a high code S would (ask Violet, Inori, lucky, TaiLS, anypro, revival...) Facts : Stephano can beat "koreans", even code S ones (Ask MMA & puzzle (IPL3 qualifiers), MKP, HuK, ...) Facts : Stephano has displayed a large variety of strategies in pretty much all his matchups, and he has proven to be able to adapt very well to his opponents. Facts : Stephano has shown some weaknesses against high lvl korean terrans, even if says it is / was his best match-up, although he rapes average ones. Facts : Stephano has taken maps from pretty much all koreans he faced since he went pro. Facts : Stephano has never faced those SC2 legends haters say he can't compete against (MvP, Nestea, ..)
Conclusion : noone knows what the result of such a match would be. Even if he would not be the favorite, he won't be rolled over and certainly can make those matches entertaining, and can even pretend to win. That will make the Blizzard cup interesting to watch, to say the least. And to those who say he doesn't practice as much as other pros, well, maybe he doesn't play as much, but he certainly thinks about the game and his strategies at least as much, if not more.
What I think of Stephano : imho he is the best foreigner atm. Strong in all his matchups, and very rarely loses against a supposely really weaker opponent (as opposed to, let's say, Idra :p) : his play is very safe and well thought, he is the type of player that creates strategies, not apply the ones of others, and that makes him less predictable that many many pros. He has some weaknesses though, sometimes those strategies don't work very well, and he seems to lack some stamina in long run events (4 / 5 big BoX a day seems to be his limit). We don't know yet how he will do in an environment where you have days to prepare to your opponents (GSL type), but as he will go to Korea in december, we will see soon
And to those who say he is not topX world wide : it is pretty much as meaningless as those who say he is topY world wide. Considering the volatility of the current SC2 scene(s), there is pretty much no point to build a global ranking. Only way to be credible would to name X players that would be favorite in a Bo5+ match against Stephano, and backup these names with previous results. And this, dear friends, would be hard to do to say the least
Oh please you try to come off with a "realistic" view of Stephano but it's heavily coated with fanboyism. You conviently forget that STC and Boxer both won against Stephano in their 2nd showing, both Code A players. Alive, a low tier Code S terran decisively beat him too.
Then you go on to say that a match between Stephano and someone like MVP can not be known but immediatly afterwards claim that MVP would not have an easy ride, suggesting that in fact you do "know" something about the result.
Top X world wide implies inclusion of Koreans, and if you told everyone to create a "top 10 in the world" it would probably have almost all the same players, maybe even top 20(they'd probably also be all Koreans). You'd be highly delusional to think that Stephano is better than the high amount of very good Korean Terrans.
The scene might be volatile but it's not anything like a sinus curve. This community has extremely short term memory and writes off every player that hasn't won a championship in the last month. You do not see the top tier Koreans or foreigners dropping sets like flies to every other player, please take into consideration that a 70% winrate is considering extremely good.
You've probably already written me off as a "hater" but know that I think Stephano is a very good player,on par with Huk and Idra, but his fanboys overhype him to high heaven and aren't afraid to post it -.-
It's almost impossible to actually rank the top 20 players right now, but it's fucking safe to say stephano is not top 10...because TOP 10 would be something like this: MVP, Nestea, MMA, Bomber, Taeja, DRG, IMHappy, MarineKing, Polt, sC, LosirA...and I can also list a bunch of contenders like Jjakji, Curious, Gumiho, Puzzle, Puma, Ryung, Ganzi, Clide, aLive, MC, July, Sage, Leenock, Coca and even TheStC...and the list goes on and on. You would be delusional to think stephano can be rank in top 10...even the worst player I listed above(probably theStC?) might be better than him... Sometimes these fanboys just blindly forget how DEEP the water is in Korea. Again, I'm not a hater. I'm just a viewer who closely follow the scene and know what I'm saying.
A lot of them havn't won a single major offline tournament such as IPL / MLG / ESWC / GSL / NASL ...
Because not a lot of koreans have the chance to fly around the world like MC. And look at what MC has done in international tournaments you know what would happen if the players I listed above have equal chances to travel.
It's funny that people try to rate top 10s and list people like Taeja the he loses (badly) to Oz. Is Oz top 10 now? Of course he beat Taeja.
You can't call top 10 players, so just don't. You don't know if stephano is a top 10 player because he hasn't played everybody and his stretch of being really good hasn't lasted long enough. You don't become top 10 for beating a few Koreans. Yet he beat Koreans so he can compete.
All we can say is Stephano is a really good player and could compete in all tournaments. He would also have a reasonable chance at winning these tournaments. Did he? Not yet, so you can't rank him. Even if he did win Code S you could call it skill with a lot of luck.
Enough of this top 10 bullshit. Stephano is really fucking good and could compete with Koreans. You can't even rank the Korean top 10 other than Nestea, MMA and MVP being somewhere in there based on consistency. That's basically the only thing you say without being stupidly biased. So just stop.