Interview of David Kim about Balance in IEM - Page 7

On July 26 2013 15:45 xyzz wrote:
That's just being a David Kim apologist. How would you be able to identify that Innovation is a better Starcraft 2 player than Rain or Parting? You'd have to be able to spot something in the non race-specific RTS skills that Rain and Parting and MC do much worse considering their results are so much worse. You'd then have to be able to be absolutely sure that the difference comes from exactly those non-race specific FLAWS that the players supposedly have, instead of actually the fact that Innovation is a wonderful player who ALSO happens to play Terran which is very strong in capable hands. David Kim is just talking out of his ass.


Exactly. Noone can come here and say this guy isn't just as good or better RTS player than everyone in the world. His control, decision making, multi-tasking, speed, imagination, etc are out of this world. His weakness is that his race is limiting his capabilities, while a stronger race wouldn't.

On July 26 2013 15:54 Vindicare605 wrote:


I like Rain, I think he's one of the best Protoss players in the world but I really think he's overrated and that is hard for me to say because I do know how good he is, but he isn't on the level of Innovation. I'm sorry but he just isn't.

Here's a good example of the kind of Elite status I'm talking about with Innovation. You EXPECT him to win, and he dominates, his series vs Soulkey in the OSL RO8 was a textbook example of domination over an opponent and Soulkey played some of the best ZvT (in game one at least) I've ever seen except from perhaps Startale Life at his peak.

Rain? Went 3-2 in a tough crazy series with Supernova who isn't even usually considered when we talk about world's top Terran players (perhaps we should?) That kind of thing you just don't see from Innovation and Soulkey, when they get paired against anyone that isn't each other the outcome is predictably one sided affairs.

You can't just decide to put Rain on their level of excellence just for parity's sake, just so we can point to 3 individual players and say "oh yea those are the best at their respective races at the moment, they're the new Bisu/Flash/Jaedong" the reality just isn't consistent with that.

Rain is good, but he doesn't have that Elite untouchable status right now the way Innovation does, or the way Life used to. Perhaps during his first OSL win when he dominated WCS Asia and looked unbeatable in PvT (even then MVP found a way to beat him.) he had it, and maybe he'll get back there, but he isn't there right now and hasn't been for all of HoTS.

Again this is all my opinion, but that's how I interpreted what David Kim said. It isn't so much that Protoss players aren't good, but when you look at the players winning championships, and compare those guys amongst each other, it's the top Terrans and Zergs that stand out as consistently dominant. We haven't had a Protoss in that company since MC.

Well, if for every single level from bronze to top GM (which is already pro level by the way), the game is balanced, you can reasonably suppose that, if there is a lack of balance at the top pro level, it's because of the players, not the game.

This is where I am interpreting the comment to mean, we have a lot of good Protoss players but what we don't have are a lot of ELITE Protoss players, elite players that are favored to win titles.

On July 26 2013 13:47 Kim Hyuna wrote:


Please explain.

Is it because you always got blink stalkers all in? Cos i always do that on ladder if they failed to scout. If scouted, it's very easy to defend.

Buff is just an word. It could be reduce resource, etc. Not damage output in any sense.

On July 26 2013 15:40 Vindicare605 wrote:


The pro scene is pretty balanced also at the moment. Aside from a lack of Protoss "champions" they've had very reasonable representation in HoTS pretty much across the board, foreign tournaments and Korean. (If you want an example of "not reasonable" look at foreign Terran winrates in WoL.)

You can easily blame there not being a Protoss champion on the simple fact that they don't have anyone has good as Innovation or Soulkey, I think that's where David Kim's "Protoss players need to get better" comment comes from, I don't think it's a stab at the players that play the race so much as it's an acknowledgement that there isn't a true ELITE Protoss player the way there's elite Zergs and Terrans like Innovation and Soulkey who are recognized as just being heads and shoulders above their peers.