[WCS] Global Finals 2014 Day 1 - Page 2

So, I didn't feel like making a traditional power rank! Instead, I made it more of a WCS re-seed of the players. I made a few changes to how I assigned "points" (I didn't actually calculate any point values but instead assigned an arbitrary value). I placed a lot more value on recent events (essentially having a point decay for winning early and struggling lately). I also punished players who attended many events but failed to place highly (helping to average out players that stayed in Korea). Finally, because the Blizzcon format is a combination of being able to prepare for your first couple of opponents followed by a "traditional weekend tournament" I put more emphasis on WCS results since the tournaments follow a similar format.

I've also included each player's premier tournament results in the spoilers so you can see exactly what I was looking at when making the comparisons between players.

#16 jjakji
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Jjakji isn't the only one without a gold medal. Unlike some others, he also only managed a single silver. Combine those with the fact that he participated in TWELVE! WCS point events and it does NOT look good. In fact, the only positive note for Jjakji is that his highest place was at the recent DH Moscow (lost to MMA). If not for his ro4 apperances back in WCS EU season 1 and IEM San Paulo (Feburary) Jjakji would not even be on this list.

#15 Jaedong
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How did Jaedong manage to get second (from the bottom)? First, unilke Jjakji Jaedong managed to take a gold. However, that's not the main reason. Jaedong managed to place better at every tournament he and Jjakji attended (IEM Cologne and Shenzen as well as DH summer and Stockholm). He even managed semi-finals in two of those.

#14 Life
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So, why is Life ahead of Jaedong despite placing lower at IEM Shenzen and DH stockholm (same at ASUS winter)? Life managed some sucess in his WCS region AND his region was Korea. Life can boast a GSL semi-final (season 1), another semi-final at IEM Toronto and a win at DH Bucharest. Unforunately Life's GSL runs continually got worse and he has a string of failures to reach past the ro8.

#13: StarDust
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Things start to get really muddy and close here. Without spoiling who comes next I'll just say that although Stardust managed as WCS win (Europ Season 2) his only other notable achievements are semi-final apperances at ASUS winter, DH Valencia and RedBull Detriot. Beyond those tournaments Stardust only managed to break the ro8 a few times and failed to reach that point almost as often.

#12: MC 1782
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MC and Stardust trade WCS Europ standing from season 1 to 2. Although Stardust's win is more recent MC outplaced in season 3. Beyond that each attended the same tournaments quite often either with similar results (IEM World Championships, DH Bucharest) or MC coming out on top (IEM Cologne, DH Summer and Valencia). MC also may have only had a single win, but he managed to collect a fair amount of silver (San Paulo, HSC IX, Valencia). Unfortunately his most recent major was a dissapointing failure to crack the ro32 at DH Stockholm!

#11 Polt
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Captain America's only win comes from a relatively small RedBull Detriot event. He did respectably in his WCS region (ro8 in season 1 and 2 and a semi-final in the latest one). So, why didn't MC's WCS Europe win put him ahead? Unfortunately, appart from GSL I wasn't very comfortable comparing America vs Europe directly if I don't have to. Also, MC's win was in season 1 while Polt improved his placement. Both players also have a similar collection of silver (Polt took second in IEM Cologne, MLG Anaheim and RedBull Atlanta). Polt however has more semi-finals (two to none) and a Bronze medal from RedBull Washington. Now, I don't put a whole lot of stock in the RedBull Battlegrounds so again, why is Polt ahead of MC? Their shared tournaments finally tipped the scales. Dispite MC placing higher at IEM Toronto Polt placed higher at IEM Cologne, World Championships and most recently at DH Stockholm.

#10 HyuN
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Polt beat Hyun in most of the tournaments they both attended. Polt came out ahead in IEM Cologne, World CHampionships, MLG Anaheim, RedBull Detroit and DH Stockholm. However, they also both competed in the same WCS region and here Hyun came out far ahead. He won season 1 and reach the semi-finals in the following seasons. Now, Hyun came out as Blizzard's #2 seed because of his multitude of tournament apperances (14) however in several cases he failed to reach the ro8. For my ranking this is actually hurts Hyun or he would most likely be higher up.

#9 San
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There isn't much to go on when comparing San and Hyun. Both placed significantly well in their WCS regions (San sandwitched a Silver with two semi-final showings). Unfortunately they competed in different WCS regions and despite the multitude of tournaments they both attended only three of them were the same. When looking at those San comes out ahead. His ro8 at IEM World Championships and semi-final trump Hyun's ro16 at both (they both hit ro8 at RedBull Detroit). Finally, San never placed lower than ro8 in his 10 tournaments.

#8 herO 2176
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There's a few thigns going in herO's favor. Outside of GSL herO didn't travel much and within GSL he performed rather poorly. In fact, he did subsequently worse each season going from ro8 to ro16 to not making the ro32! So how is he this high with only four other tournaments? How is he even at Blizzcon? His few travels were extremely fruitful. The year started with a Gold at IEM Sao Paulo. He then made it all the way to the finals of the IEM World Championships. Despite failing to claim his $100000 he earned some nice points. He also outplaced San with earning another Silver at the recent KeSPA cup. Finally a semi-final finish at the most recent DH (Stockholm).

#7 Classic
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Classic traveled even less than herO. He placed worse at both the KeSPA cup and DH Stockholm... But he did better in GSL. Classic may not have placed better in Season 1, but he came away with a GSL title in season 2! In this power rank that counts for a lot. Despite his season 3 drop he was still ahead of herO and so he remains.

#6 TaeJa
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There isn't any direct comparison between Taeja and Classic so I have to just go on their tournament aceivements. Taeja's WCS America showing was terribly notable with ro8 finishes in the first two seasons. However, he hit another Golden summer with first place at HSC IX, DH Summer (duh) and IEM Shenzhen. He also added to his collection with a Silver at RedBull Detroit and hit semi-finals in IEM World Championships and Toronto. Overall, that was enough to place him in 6th.

#5 MMA
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The first of our WCS Season 3 winners is MMA. He did get fall behind Taeja in both HSC IX and DH Summer (as did everyone else) but as I said, I'm valuing WCS and recent results a lot. MMA delivered there. His WCS Europe results inlucde the season 3 win Silver in season 1 and his recent wins include a win at DH Moscow.

#4 INnoVation
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Our next WCS Season 3 winner took home gold from the most recent GSL. That counts for a lot. There's again, no overlap with Innovation's limited tournament visit and MMA's. However, again that GSL season 3 win... what more can I say? He'd be higher on the list if not for his poor showing in seasons 1 and 2.

#3 Bomber
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How is our WCS America season 3 winner behind the GSL season 3 winner? More overall results, multiple recent wins, better WCS resluts. Bomber continually improved his WCS placing going from ro8 to back to back finals. He also manged sponsor wins at RedBull Atlanta and Washington.

#2 soO
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Second place? Not because it just feels right (it does). Despite a lower showing than Bomber at the Kespa cup soO has been concistently high placing. Out of the 6 major tournament events he attended he only failed to make the semifinals once (KeSPA cup). In fact, he only failed to get past the semi-finals once and although he failed to claim a FINAL he took 2nd place in all 3 GSLs as well as DH Stockholm!!!

#1 Zest
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Zest bearly beat out soO for the top ranking. He beat him (directly) in the GSL season 1. Although soO outplaced him in seasons 2 and 3 Zest still managed a ro8 (season 2) and semi-final apperance in season 3. Zest also managed to win two additional tournaments soO attended (GSL Global Championships and KeSPA cup where soO got semifinals and ro16 respectivly). He also padded his stats with a ro8 at IEM Shenzhen and a silver at Toronto.

I went through and looked at OFFLINE results versus Korean players of the opponent's race to get match wins (and map wins) as well as Head to Head results (as well as online head to head results). I'm also including the Blizzcon rank (as well as my re-seed rank).

Match 1
#1 seed (3) Bomber vs #16 seed (15) Jaedong
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Both Blizzcon seeding and my seeding have this as one of the widest differences in rank. That should favor Bomber.
Looking at the stats, Bomber is currently 73% in offline matches (61% in maps) versus Korean Zergs! Jaedong on the other hand is 53% in matches with 51% in maps. These players have faced off head to head in an offline event this year at MLG Anaheim with bomber winning 2-1. The same score was also seen in online matches (WEC qualifiers and WCS season 1 qualifiers) and a reverse score favoring Jaedong in IEM Cologne qualifiers.
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Match 2
#9 seed (5) MMA vs #8 seed (13) StarDust
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Blizzcon has this as the closest match on paper. My rankings are a bit different (almost resulting in a rematch - 5 vs 12 or 4 vs 13). MMA comes in with a 36% win rate (43% map) where as Stardust boasts a somewhat better 40% win rate (50% maps). This not the best match up for either player... This is also an interesting match since it features two "EU Koreans". However, these players have managed only a single head to head match this year. A go4sc2 final in March that went 1-2 in Stardust's favor. Despite how far apart I seed these players I see this match being a lot closer (as the Blizzcon seeding would suggest).
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Match 3
#5 seed (12) MC vs # 12 seed (8) herO
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Another match where my rankings greatly differ. In fact, they're almost reversed.
MC has a surprisingly low PvP win rate with only 25% (34% in maps) compared to herO's 58% (54% maps). With no head to head games between these players this year all I can really go by is recent results and what the statistics tell me.
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Match 4
#4 seed (11) Polt vs #13 seed (7) Classic
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Seems players flipping spots between Blizzcon's seeding and my re-seed is a common occurrence. Polt does come into the match-up with an astounding 67% TvP (54% map) ... let me recheck that... yup! Classic however has a very respectable 58% (62% in maps). Wit the only head to head match being way back in IEM Cologne (going 3-2 in Polt's favor) this is a hard one to call. WIth Polt's ability to win very close series against Protoss it should be exciting!
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Match 5
#6 seed (9) San vs #11 seed (16) jjakji
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My re-seed has both players dropping back about 50%... This still leaves San as the favorite. His PvT record will continue to support that with a 38% (44% in maps) vs Jjakji's abysmal 21% (33% maps). To further San's favor their lone head to head match was a 2-0 win (Dragon Invitational #4).
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Match 6
#3 seed (1) Zest vs #14 seed (14) Life
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Zest becomes slightly more favored but otherwise not much change in seeding. His INSANE PvZ of 81% (67% maps) - yes, I double checked this too!! - doesn't make things look any better for Life. Life is no slouch with a 63% (57% in maps) ZvP but it wasn't enough when the two faced off at IEM Toronto. Zest took that semi-final series 3-1!
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Match 7
#10 seed (2) soO vs #7 seed (6) TaeJa
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Another case of both players moving up in the re-seed. Unfortunately for Taeja, soO moves past him (considerably) in my seeding. However, that only took overall results into consideration. Both players come into the match with top marks. Map wins are even at 64% and overall is close with Taeja taking a 77% to 71% edge. These two haven't faced each other this year in either offline or online events. I think the Blizzcon seeding better represents how close this match will be.
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Match 8
#15 seed (4) INnoVation vs #2 seed (10) HyuN
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Our final match... According to the Blizzcon seeding this shouldn't be close. I agree! However, I don't think we've seen a larger discrepancy! Now, obviously if you look at the tournament results you can see why HyuN had so many WCS points. You can also see that INnoVation just managed to qualify. However, I placed a lot of value on the GSL season 3 (most recent) win and HyuN's multitude of poor tournament results. HyuN does however bring with him a very strong 64% ZvT win rate (63% in maps) compared to INnoVation's 58% (59% maps). Their online head to head match this year is from the Dragon Invitational #1 which was a 2-0 for INnoVation. HyuN also had three very strong WCS AM seasons... but I don't think he's better than soO!
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