On February 23 2013 11:59 lichter wrote: "BEST PLAYERS" is different from "GREATEST PLAYERS". Come on dudes we've discussed all this before.
BEST = skill and ability. Of course this grows with time and more recent players will obviously be better than older players.
GREATEST = accomplishments, influence, and historical importance. Time does not affect these things.
As much as I dislike Life, he is probably the best in terms of skill even during this time of Zerg dominance. But to say he is greater than Nestea who won GSLs when Zerg was shit, using unparalleled game sense to make up for his poor mechanics and sleepiness, is just silly.
That's like saying Shaq is greater than Bill Russel, or that Rooney is greater than Gerd Muller.
Probably after this GSL we should bring it back and reassess everything. However no matter who wins this season it's already probably set anyway.
Yeah best of each race is pretty much set for me no matter who wins this gsl. IPL6 I think is the last major WoL tournament so that could change a few things. DRG and Nestea are pretty neck and neck as far as I'm concerned for best WoL Zerg with Nestea a little bit ahead, so that could be the tipping point for DRG if he wins that.
If Taeja wins this GSL and IPL he will overtake Polt on the Terran Rushmore. However none of the Zergs who are still in it can supplant any of the Zergs already in it. But if one of them wins GSL and IPL they might have a shot.
HerO or Creator winning IPL would cement their place on the Protoss Mountain beside MC, Parting and Rain. That 4th spot is contestable in my opinion.
Nestea also has Nestea Award plus his undefeated season to trump DRG. I don't think it's as close as people think. The way we understand how to play Zerg was shaped by how Nestea played in those winning seasons. The reason why the Mvp/Nestea/MC triumvirate is untouchable for me is because they basically shaped how we play each race more than anyone else, and in more subtle ways than anyone else.
On February 23 2013 13:28 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:
On February 23 2013 12:06 lichter wrote:
On February 23 2013 12:01 Shellshock1122 wrote:
On February 23 2013 11:59 lichter wrote: "BEST PLAYERS" is different from "GREATEST PLAYERS". Come on dudes we've discussed all this before.
BEST = skill and ability. Of course this grows with time and more recent players will obviously be better than older players.
GREATEST = accomplishments, influence, and historical importance. Time does not affect these things.
As much as I dislike Life, he is probably the best in terms of skill even during this time of Zerg dominance. But to say he is greater than Nestea who won GSLs when Zerg was shit, using unparalleled game sense to make up for his poor mechanics and sleepiness, is just silly.
That's like saying Shaq is greater than Bill Russel, or that Rooney is greater than Gerd Muller.
Probably after this GSL we should bring it back and reassess everything. However no matter who wins this season it's already probably set anyway.
Yeah best of each race is pretty much set for me no matter who wins this gsl. IPL6 I think is the last major WoL tournament so that could change a few things. DRG and Nestea are pretty neck and neck as far as I'm concerned for best WoL Zerg with Nestea a little bit ahead, so that could be the tipping point for DRG if he wins that.
Nestea also has Nestea Award plus his undefeated season to trump DRG. I don't think it's as close as people think. The way we understand how to play Zerg was shaped by how Nestea played in those winning seasons. The reason why the Mvp/Nestea/MC triumvirate is untouchable for me is because they basically shaped how we play each race more than anyone else, and in more subtle ways than anyone else.
Category 1: Probably the most difficult area to call. At first glance Nestea has 2 gsl wins over DRG and has a higher number of ro8+ performances in gsl. Nestea clearly wins in Korea, hell he might even be a 6x champ were it not for MVP, lol. DRG still compares though, he too is a champ and has a silver from Blizzard cup and OSL and reached ro8 in the 2nd Blizzard cup and has a single ro4 appearance. Not as good, but still decent enough.
Where DRG really comes back, however, is in pretty much everything else. Nestea has a few good finishes at some international events, but he has never won the gold in any. DRG absolutely kills him in this area. It's not as if he did well in an MLG here and there either, no, the gap is quite staggering. So much so, I would either call this category a tie or just flat out give it to DRG.
Category 2: Nestea wins here clearly. Like you said, he has an award named after him for consistency, lol. DRG is very consistent himself and has been around for a very long time. You could even argue he's put out a higher quality of gameplay for a year now, but Nestea has never truly disappeared like say Jjakji, MMA, or Seed to the extent that I can say he's lost any points in this category. This is even in his darkest hour when he finally fell from the gsl...only to come right back. Nestea hands down.
Category 3: The most one-sided category. Nestea by a mile. DRG is a smart player, but he's not a very innovative one. Nestea's era brought us strong defensive play, Life's era showed us an extremely aggressive brand of Zerg. DRG's in between....didn't really yield anything, lol. DRG has always been rather standard but he has insane mechanics which is more than enough. He loses to Leenock and Stephano as well here.
Category 4: DRG really kicked tremendous ass early 2012 hitting 4 MLG finals and winning a gsl as well as two smaller tournaments and looked damn good doing it.
Most remember Nestea for his undefeated run of the gsl, and he is still the only to ever pull it off. Still, even though it's still not easy to do due to how volatile sc2 can be that run is overrated. Even relative to that period in time, his opponents weren't that great except for Losira. Honestly, I was always more impressed with his open season 2 and January 2011 run. He was undefeated until the finals in open season 2 and undefeated until meeting MVP(also undefeated) in his January run. You could say the level of competition was way easier, but you also have to give Nestea huge props for dominating while all other Zergs fell left and right to imbalance and awful maps. His play was way ahead of its time. That being said, DRG still wins but Nestea isn't far behind.
All in all, I'd like to reiterate that they're pretty close but Nestea wins by a little bit more in my book. :D
MMA vs MKP for #2 terran I'm still undecided on, lol.
That is a fair assessment. If DRG wins IPL in impressive fashion then I might call it a tie. To be honest I have great bias towards Korean tournaments and don't really care for Weekend Tournaments. It's a different kind of tournament, and one I don't like.
MMA vs MKP is hard. Actually any place after Mvp is hard, that's how much he dominated terran. =/
Well MMA won GSLs, while MKP won other stuff and has been relevant/in the top tier for longer. They probably had about the same peaks, but MMA hit his at the right time to win GSLs. I'll probably go with MKP because he is ever-present and because MMA has fallen off so brutally.
Category 1: Probably the most difficult area to call. At first glance Nestea has 2 gsl wins over DRG and has a higher number of ro8+ performances in gsl. Nestea clearly wins in Korea, hell he might even be a 6x champ were it not for MVP, lol. DRG still compares though, he too is a champ and has a silver from Blizzard cup and OSL and reached ro8 in the 2nd Blizzard cup and has a single ro4 appearance. Not as good, but still decent enough.
Where DRG really comes back, however, is in pretty much everything else. Nestea has a few good finishes at some international events, but he has never won the gold in any. DRG absolutely kills him in this area. It's not as if he did well in an MLG here and there either, no, the gap is quite staggering. So much so, I would either call this category a tie or just flat out give it to DRG.
Category 2: Nestea wins here clearly. Like you said, he has an award named after him for consistency, lol. DRG is very consistent himself and has been around for a very long time. You could even argue he's put out a higher quality of gameplay for a year now, but Nestea has never truly disappeared like say Jjakji, MMA, or Seed to the extent that I can say he's lost any points in this category. This is even in his darkest hour when he finally fell from the gsl...only to come right back. Nestea hands down.
Category 3: The most one-sided category. Nestea by a mile. DRG is a smart player, but he's not a very innovative one. Nestea's era brought us strong defensive play, Life's era showed us an extremely aggressive brand of Zerg. DRG's in between....didn't really yield anything, lol. DRG has always been rather standard but he has insane mechanics which is more than enough. He loses to Leenock and Stephano as well here.
Category 4: DRG really kicked tremendous ass early 2012 hitting 4 MLG finals and winning a gsl as well as two smaller tournaments and looked damn good doing it.
Most remember Nestea for his undefeated run of the gsl, and he is still the only to ever pull it off. Still, even though it's still not easy to do due to how volatile sc2 can be that run is overrated. Even relative to that period in time, his opponents weren't that great except for Losira. Honestly, I was always more impressed with his open season 2 and January 2011 run. He was undefeated until the finals in open season 2 and undefeated until meeting MVP(also undefeated) in his January run. You could say the level of competition was way easier, but you also have to give Nestea huge props for dominating while all other Zergs fell left and right to imbalance and awful maps. His play was way ahead of its time. That being said, DRG still wins but Nestea isn't far behind.
All in all, I'd like to reiterate that they're pretty close but Nestea wins by a little bit more in my book. :D
MMA vs MKP for #2 terran I'm still undecided on, lol.
Woah. This is way to thoughtful for a live report thread.
I was expecting something more like: "Zerg > Terran, bro!" and I actually got some thoughtful content.
On February 23 2013 09:49 bourne117 wrote: And yeah Taejas run in IPL TAC was the most dominant performance in a team league to date. He went 23-3 against almost exclusively GSTL teams. That is so utterly insane. If only Hero was playing like it was Winter while he played like it was Summer.
MKP went 10-1 against exclusively GSTL teams in the season prime won
You can't mention the best Teamleague terrans and not mention MMA. This guy was the ace for the Slayers team that won 2 GSTL titles. MMA began as a teamleague monster.
began as one, but didn't end as one, not winning a game in GSTL for a loong time
That doesn't matter at all. Since when are achievements that aren't last month worthless? Nestea hasn't won a GSL since 2011, does that mean we don't include him as one of the greatest Zergs?
Boxer hasn't won an OSL in over 10 years, so we don't count him as a bonjwa either?
MMA was a 2x GSTL Gold Card MVP, and twice he won the deciding Game 9 in the GSTL finals. Achievements don't become invalid the moment you stop winning.
remember though that those GSTL seasons were one-week affairs, more akin to a weekend tournament than a proper GSTL season. it's not like he all-killed as last player standing or something
You can't just pick and choose what results to consider and what not to consider. Those GSTL are considered official GSTLs, and that's that. Sure, the seasons were shorter, but since it was single elimination it was arguably even more difficult since teams had no room for error.
There's a reason why they called MMA the "legend killer". He was the key factor in Slayers' 2 GSTL titles, and it's rewriting history if you discount his teamleague accomplishments.
EPT
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