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I think for me, with the one notable exception of MVP, I think it's a combination of the following:
1) There are a lot of overrated players in Code S and still are. MarineKing for example largely got to two finals on the back of a unique style which no one had figured out how to counter. We saw in both the team league and at the end of GSL4 that when he tries to play standard, really solid players like MVP make him look fairly ordinary. Other players like Boxer, Rainbow, FD and Genius I don't think were (comparitively) anything special at Sc2 to begin with and are largely in Code S as a result of luck and not many good players being around at the time they were successful (GSL season1/Blizzcon).
2) People have by and large figured out the answer to Zerg, and generally speaking Zergs have to rely on an unexpected all in or an opponent playing inferior in order to win. Fruit Dealer, NesTea and Zenio unfortunately just came up against solid opposition that either won straight up or just didn't fall for the all in.
3) The game itself and the way it's designed means that anyone in Code S is easily capable of beating anyone else in Code S. It's much like the way that baseball works in that even the best team in the MLB still has a 40% chance or so of losing a game to the worst team, unlike say, Tennis where your top players like Nadal are almost guaranteed to beat an opponent outside the top 10.
Out of that whole list of players eliminated, the only real shock for me is MVP.
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Only real upsets are MVP, nestea and MKP imo. THe way this is fomulated it seems that regardless of the outcome the OP expects many upsets.. There can only be 2 guys expected to go through in a group.. If others don't make it that's not an upset.
For example its just impossible to have both genius and fruidealer being out be an upset while trickster going through is not... Imo Fruitdealer going out was to be expected (he has never shown to be good vs P) and any of the others going out in that group wouldn't be an upset (as they are very close in skill).
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right now the format is not good but it will be really good once the game develops more. If a player can not win in unexpected matches vs lower level player that they can not prepare for they do not deserve to be considered the best player in the world for a month. Right now the difference between the best in Code S and the worst is not enough. The best can drop a game to one of the lower level players. the format forces people to be able to adapt and think on there feet which i think is a must to be considered the best. If they leave the format alone the truly good players will sort themselves out. it just takes time. Mvp will be back next season don't worry.
my explanation of why their are so many upsets this season is the new maps. all of the players do not have enough experience on the new maps. So a low level player can stumble upon something and get lucky. Also the new maps are not in the map hopper on battle net so they do not get to practice playing vs random players on a random map. when they play on the new maps they are most likely playing vs their own team mates. people on Startale might exploit different things on the new maps than people on oGs. Ideas on the map can't spread as easily. I have not watched the games because i have not purchased a ticket and can't stay up to watch it so this is meerly me speculating.
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i hate to say it for all the zerg QQ'ers out there, but its clear how underpowered zerg is, when a player like nestea plays flawlessly and loses to sanzenith because it takes 800 apm to deal with the death ball and dt warp in a-click. Then MVP lost because july got lucky. Granted, it was partly because july did clever timings but i doubt MVP will ever lose to attacks like that again after this gsl. MVP might have been a little cocky also, running into a baneling ling army with just helions and marines -_- and then of course bo1 can lead to upsets...
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United States7483 Posts
i hate to say it for all the zerg QQ'ers out there, but its clear how underpowered zerg is, when a player like nestea plays flawlessly and loses to sanzenith because it takes 800 apm to deal with the death ball and dt warp in a-click. Then MVP lost because july got lucky. Granted, it was partly because july did clever timings but i doubt MVP will ever lose to attacks like that again after this gsl. MVP might have been a little cocky also, running into a baneling ling army with just helions and marines -_- and then of course bo1 can lead to upsets...
This is doing sanszenith a huge disservice, the man played spectacularly well. Yeah, zerg is underpowered, but don't blame the loss on imbalance, sanszenith is a beast.
anyway....
This is Jinro's GSL! JINRO HWAITING!
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On March 02 2011 04:14 kickinhead wrote:
I think the fact that older players underperform and some new players have their time to shine is also because of balance-reasons and of course the BO1-System.
It's pretty obvious that players like Nestea, Zenio and Fruitdealer have huge Problems as Zerg now and that extremely good players like July (won with 2 cheeses in a row) and the player with probably the most games (Check.Prime) just barely made it out of the first round.
It's also pretty obvious that none of those new talents are Zerg, which is pretty sad IMHO.
its pretty much zerg qq. but meh. that pretty much expresses the aggravation. everyone knows it exists but the more they say it the more its considered bitching and whining and moaning.
truth is they never fully compensated after making roach 2 supply.
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Nestea played flawlessly against San? Did you even watch the game? San played the game of his life and nestea made several big mistakes that let San pull out the win, and against Ensnare Nestea looked terrible, making huge mistakes all over the place. There hasn't been one zerg this season of GSL that has been knocked out while being the better player in game.
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Only shocked at the departure of MVP, Nestea and partly MKP. Players like FD, Boxer and company have been living off their fame from the past and doesn't surprise me that they had an early exit. When MVP lost you can definitely see how shocked and speechless Tastosis were, it's like they saw a ghost.
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Only 3 of 8 Quarterfinalists, only 1 of the Semifinalists, and neither finalist made it out of the Ro32
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lol what are you smoking... ^^
Haha. Idk. But if you look at the list of survived players, Jinro isn't bolded o.o
Btw, it was MKP that was playing against kyrix, not Mvp lol.
Ahh. I meant MKP  Thanks.
Edit: Oh yeah, also happy that TheWind made it through. I'm pretty glad about this season. A lot of good players I like got knocked out (BOXER NOO) but there are also many other favorites I have that have made it through. Which is cool cus they have less competition now that most of the top players have been eliminated xD
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On March 02 2011 09:06 Kazzabiss wrote:
Only 3 of 8 Quarterfinalists, only 1 of the Semifinalists, and neither finalist made it out of the Ro32
MC made it out?
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In my opinion the group system - while very entertaining - is not a good one. The better player is less likely to advance than in a best-off system.
One flaw is the unbalanced grouping (which got chosen by the players on top of it!) where some players have to prepare for 1 or 2 matchups while others in the group for 2, respectively 3 matchups, this makes it a harder for some.
At least up and down matches are Bo3 again.
I would favor a Bo5 system throughout the whole of code S with semis and finals Bo7, that way the better player will win and gimmicky players are less likely to get through, unless they are really good at it.
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On March 02 2011 09:12 Redneck! wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 09:06 Kazzabiss wrote:
Only 3 of 8 Quarterfinalists, only 1 of the Semifinalists, and neither finalist made it out of the Ro32 MC made it out?
I think he was going on only the non-open GSL seasons.
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Others have mentioned this, but I have to agree: the quality of games this season is much, much better. Maybe the people are just better, maybe its the new map pool, maybe its both, but you see a lot more macro games and a lot less cheese.
You still see one base pushes and all-ins, which is good, because they have their place in competitive play to punish a greedy or unprepared player. But season 3 where almost every game was an all-in sucked.
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On March 02 2011 09:12 Redneck! wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 09:06 Kazzabiss wrote:
Only 3 of 8 Quarterfinalists, only 1 of the Semifinalists, and neither finalist made it out of the Ro32 MC made it out?
From last season.
My thoughts:
Group A: Group of death, I think the ONLY surprising outcome would have been July+Hyperdub advance. July advancing instead of MVP isn't that surprising, since MC was in the group and July's ZvT is his best matchup. Weakest player was eliminated. With two champions and a golden mouse winner also in the group, any of them being knocked out is shocking, but it's not an "upset" if one strong player beats another strong player. (you can say whatever you want about July not being "strong" in SC2 but July is a beast)
Group B: Nothing surprising here. Zenio went out, so what? He played brilliantly against Byun, but SOMEONE had to be eliminated. Byun played more brilliantly. You also can't count out Clide, he's a beast. I would argue that the weakest player here was ultimately eliminated.
Group C: Rainbow sucks. I don't see how Check going through instead of Rainbow is a shock.
Group D: TOP losing is somewhat surprising, but you can't underestimate Hongun. Hongun can play very weird games (and surprising games at that). He had a really impressive season 1 run (if you don't consider season 1, why consider Fruitdealer's loss as an upset?) and went on to play rather well in season 3 as well. He also had nothing to practice but PvT, so he had a clear advantage preparation-wise going in.
Group E: This is the only group that, IMO, was truly shocking. SanZenith over Nestea, I don't know if any sane person would have ever predicted that. Even if you call that a fluke, San went on to 3-0 his group. Really impressive. Boxer losing wasn't that much of a shock, he hasn't done anything significant since his season 2 debut. His TvZ is still trash, and his other matchups are slipping too. I think right now he lacks confidence and strong practice partners. Ensnare moving on instead of Nestea was fairly surprising, too.
Group F: Nothing shocking here. I don't understand how you can consider TheWind moving on "surprising" if you don't consider either of the two players who dropped to Up+Down "surprising" either. In order it to be surprising, it HAS to be surprising both ways: one player who is expected to move on should move down, and one player who is expected to move down should move up. This, IMO, can only truly be seen with Group E (and possibly Group H)
Group G: Nothing particularly surprising here, again. What have Genius or Fruitdealer done recently? Fruitdealer has demonstrated since winning season 1 that he has a huge tendency to all-in, or respond to any unorthodox situation with some sort of haphazard aggression. He hasn't played well since season 1. This is not a surprise.
As for Genius, that's not too much of a shock either. He's never been able to show the results to match his talk.
Anypro is somewhat unknown, but the word around the scene right now is that he's pretty beastly.
Group H: I don't understand how you can consider Kyrix moving on to be a "surprise." He played one of the best ZvTs ever against MKP in what can be considered a series that strongly redefined the matchup. Once again, among four good players, two have to lose. What's so hard to understand about this?
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^Nice write-up with some very nice thoughts.
Although the finals are pretty much a tossup right now after all these upsets, I would really like to see NaDa vs JulyZerg as this season's finalists.
Think about it. It would be a repeat of the 2004-2005 IOPS OSL. Two golden mouse winners. Two former Brood War champions once again duking it out to see who is the best retired bonjwa. I would be surprised to see the stadium less than packed with BW fans and SC2 fans alike. It would be an epic end to this very confusing season.
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On March 02 2011 03:21 Gaius Baltar wrote:
To be frank, I'm very disappointed with GSL 5 so far. It's not that I don't like upsets, just that so many of these games have been just that--disappointing. For example:
--You get a player like Ret, fresh from a win at Assembly, show some extremely high level play in his round of 32 in Code A but get 2-0'd. Lot's of people think he might leave Korea now.
--The next day you get a player like Tester, who hasn't impressed anybody since beta, cruise through to the round of 16 of Code S in two quick games with uninspiring 1 base play. He'll be sticking around for another two seasons at the very least.
In theory, the up and down system for Code S and Code A should allow the best players to rise to the top. I don't see it happening like that in practice. Code S seems to be stagnating with about half its number made up of players who were at the top of the game at release but are no longer impressive, while many of the best players in the world do not even qualify for Code A (Bomber, for example) or are knocked out in the first round (Ret, Ace, Squirtle).
Not that Ret shouldn't have lost, I think his opponent MMA was very good. It just seems to me that a match at the skill level of Ret-MMA would be more fitting in Code S. Instead Code S still has players like Choya and TheWind, who are... decent, I guess?
I do not think the GSL format is necessarily fundamentally broken, I just think if the cards keep falling the way they have been, we won't see a Code S full of the best players in Korea anytime soon.
You may disagree with my assessment, based on your judgments of individual players, but give it a few seasons. In half a year if we still see players 1-basing their way through Code S while better players flounder in Code A, I think most of us will have lost interest by then.
What I would really like to see is a more robust team league, which guarantees you get to see the best players in action all time. GSTL February was a treat (putting such stars as Squirtle in the limelight), but it was far too short. Just one week of single elimination team matches is not enough. I would like to see something like proleague or the Gosu Coaching Team League in GSL sooner rather than later, where all the teams play all the other teams.
I really dont see the problem, especially for code a as the format is best of 3's i understand you are dissapointed because some of the best players in your eyes lost. The thing is if your in the gsl you are more than likely practicing reallly really hard so some of these players that were unexpected to do well probably just buckled down and had a ridiculous practice regiment for the past month, i honestly think that some of these code s and code a players that did well in gstl let it get to their heads. Squirtle beat MVP probably thought he was invincible let it get to his head and either didnt practice as much as he should or didnt play safe enough builds. Same goes for other players I think its great that some of these lesser known players are showing the top players that they are not unbeatable its going to make the nestea's and mvp's of code s practice alot harder instead of just thinking they are unstoppable im sure MVP and nestea are practicing much harder now then they were before the round of 32.
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The only true upsets were MVP, MKP, and Nestea. No one really expected those 3 to get knocked out this early. The other players it was definitely possible.
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On March 02 2011 09:55 cheesemaster wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 03:21 Gaius Baltar wrote:
To be frank, I'm very disappointed with GSL 5 so far. It's not that I don't like upsets, just that so many of these games have been just that--disappointing. For example:
--You get a player like Ret, fresh from a win at Assembly, show some extremely high level play in his round of 32 in Code A but get 2-0'd. Lot's of people think he might leave Korea now.
--The next day you get a player like Tester, who hasn't impressed anybody since beta, cruise through to the round of 16 of Code S in two quick games with uninspiring 1 base play. He'll be sticking around for another two seasons at the very least.
In theory, the up and down system for Code S and Code A should allow the best players to rise to the top. I don't see it happening like that in practice. Code S seems to be stagnating with about half its number made up of players who were at the top of the game at release but are no longer impressive, while many of the best players in the world do not even qualify for Code A (Bomber, for example) or are knocked out in the first round (Ret, Ace, Squirtle).
Not that Ret shouldn't have lost, I think his opponent MMA was very good. It just seems to me that a match at the skill level of Ret-MMA would be more fitting in Code S. Instead Code S still has players like Choya and TheWind, who are... decent, I guess?
I do not think the GSL format is necessarily fundamentally broken, I just think if the cards keep falling the way they have been, we won't see a Code S full of the best players in Korea anytime soon.
You may disagree with my assessment, based on your judgments of individual players, but give it a few seasons. In half a year if we still see players 1-basing their way through Code S while better players flounder in Code A, I think most of us will have lost interest by then.
What I would really like to see is a more robust team league, which guarantees you get to see the best players in action all time. GSTL February was a treat (putting such stars as Squirtle in the limelight), but it was far too short. Just one week of single elimination team matches is not enough. I would like to see something like proleague or the Gosu Coaching Team League in GSL sooner rather than later, where all the teams play all the other teams. I really dont see the problem, especially for code a as the format is best of 3's i understand you are dissapointed because some of the best players in your eyes lost. The thing is if your in the gsl you are more than likely practicing reallly really hard so some of these players that were unexpected to do well probably just buckled down and had a ridiculous practice regiment for the past month, i honestly think that some of these code s and code a players that did well in gstl let it get to their heads. Squirtle beat MVP probably thought he was invincible let it get to his head and either didnt practice as much as he should or didnt play safe enough builds. Same goes for other players I think its great that some of these lesser known players are showing the top players that they are not unbeatable its going to make the nestea's and mvp's of code s practice alot harder instead of just thinking they are unstoppable im sure MVP and nestea are practicing much harder now then they were before the round of 32.
The system of moving up and down between code A and code S is just bad.
Overall the system is too protective imo, it is too hard to get into code S as it takes too much time. For example if you are in a position like Ret is now he can't get into code S before season 7. Having to wait that long at a shot is just too long.
Also the fact that the people who play up and down matches from code S is a bit too random, instead of the people losing in the first round it should be some kind of score system where achievements in the previous GSL should also count. It is silly that a finalist or winner can be forced into a up and down match after losing in the group next time, in the same idea it is silly that getting through 1 group immediately puts you safe. Because great players can be put into it the up and down matches it gets even harder to get into code S as you might have to beat nestea, MVP or whatever to do so...
I think code A should be completely reworked so that it is some kind of competition with more matches, just not televizing them all (code A isn't interesting so much anyway). Losing round 1 of code A is just so demotivating as it takes too long before you get another shot at it.
Code S plays should just get points for the round they reach in a tournament and then the players forced to play a up and down match should just be the bottom 12 or 16 in score. The score should be compromised of the last 3 GSL's imo where the most recent ones count heavier.
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I think the TL writing team didn't realise just how prophetic it would be when they named the preview for this season's GSL "March Madness". I'm pretty much prepared for anything at this point, nothing is guaranteed in Code S. If there's one thing the GSL keeps reminding us of, it's to expect the unexpected...
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EPT
