SC2 Power Rank - August 2013 - Page 11

On August 09 2013 11:14 BronzeKnee wrote:


You Innovation lovers are ridiculous. Seriously the bias is literally making me disgusted.

My claim for isn't for Innovation not being #1 because he lost a series 0-4 to Maru.

My claim is for Maru being #1 because he smashed Innovation who was the #1.

When you beat the best, you become the best. Look up the definition of the word "best".

Doesn't that make sense? This isn't about how everyone stacks up to our God Innovation who must play absolutely terribly and lose everything or he keeps the #1... it is about how each StarCraft 2 player plays in relation to each other. When you present it as "this is why Maru deserves it" rather than "this is why Innovation doesn't deserve it" the argument becomes much stronger. Because you've removed the bias. Without the bias you realize that wins in Proleague and a WCG qualifier pale in comparison to someone dominating the consensus #1 4-0 in the Ro4 of the best individual league in the world. Maru deserves the recognition, denying it is a slap in his face. Plenty of people did well in Proleague and the WCG qualifier in July, but only one swept the consensus #1 in a best of seven series 4-0.

And it isn't like the rest of Maru's month was terrible, he played extremely well in WCS. Take another look here at the July stats: Maru is 6-2 (75%) in matches 15-8 (65%) in games. Innovation is 17-4 (80%) in matches and 29-12 (70%) in games.

This is average Aligulac rating of Maru's opponents from July: 1603

This is average Aligulac rating of Innovation's opponents from July: 1429

So Innovation has the higher winrate, but it is against lesser opponents. But the main thing is that Maru proved to be the better player than Innovation in July, by sweeping the consensus #1 in a best of 7 series. Sweeping! It wasn't even close, no game was close!

You can't be #1 when you drop a best of seven 0-4 in the Ro4 of the best individual league in the world to someone you're supposed to beat. This doesn't mean that Innovation is bad, it doesn't mean he can't retake #1, but it means in July, he wasn't the best.

Because Maru was.

On August 09 2013 11:19 BronzeKnee wrote:


If you were judging the performance of players by only that MLG, then what you said is correct of course. How else can you view it? If someone unfamiliar with E-Sports looked only at the results from that MLG they would rank Haypro higher than Nestea. And that should be obvious. However, MLG is more difficult to gauge because it is a single day tournament and you don't have time to specifically prepare for each opponent. For this reason I believe it doesn't require as much SC2 skill, and you rely more on endurance. Finally, those were best of 3, not best of 7, and Haypro didn't sweep Nestea.

This Power Rank judges the performance of this month, with some weight given to past performances. Based on the past Innovation should have dominated this month. He did not. He was soundly beaten 4-0. Thus he no longer deserves the #1 spot.

That doesn't mean he can't get it back, or that he is bad. It means that when it mattered in July, Maru was better. And the results show that.

On August 09 2013 12:31 Race is Terran wrote:
Yes, he lost 0-4 to Maru. But besides that hiccup, Innovation probably had one of the most dominant months we've ever seen from a single player since the TaeJa of Summer '12. He led his team to a Proleague championship and 4-0'd his Zerg rival, Soulkey, considered by most to be Korea's best Zerg at the moment.

But did you also know that Innovation qualified for IEM Shanghai (which he declined so he could go win Proleague instead) and also advanced to the Ro8 in the WCG KR qualifiers?

Not only does Innovation TvZ continue to look mostly unstoppable, he actually has not lost an offline macro TvP in fourth months. Going into the WCS Season 2 Finals, Innovation will be the strong favorite, and he'll have a chance to avenge himself against Maru and Bomber to prove that you only get lucky once.

I am going to call bullshit on this sentence because he lost to Best in a proleague match on Neo Planet S in July 17th (which I presume is considered an offline match).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVPu4OrH_y0

On August 09 2013 11:19 BronzeKnee wrote:


If you were judging the performance of players by only that MLG, then what you said is correct of course. How else can you view it? If someone unfamiliar with E-Sports looked only at the results from that MLG they would rank Haypro higher than Nestea. And that should be obvious. However, MLG is more difficult to gauge because it is a single day tournament and you don't have time to specifically prepare for each opponent. For this reason I believe it doesn't require as much SC2 skill, and you rely more on endurance. Finally, those were best of 3, not best of 7, and Haypro didn't sweep Nestea.

This Power Rank judges the performance of this month, with some weight given to past performances. Based on the past Innovation should have dominated this month. He did not. He was soundly beaten 4-0. Thus he no longer deserves the #1 spot.

That doesn't mean he can't get it back, or that he is bad. It means that when it mattered in July, Maru was better. And the results show that.

On August 09 2013 12:24 Arceus wrote:

Have you not realized that PR is never about the logic of A > B so A ranked higher than B? Because it's retarded. Losira must have been #1 cuz he 2-0'd Maru. Hows about that?

Funny you talks about opponents' quality:
Maru: soO, sOs, EffOrt, SN, Trap, Losira, Symbol.
Bogus: Bbyong, Savage, Flying, Bomber, Flash, SoulKey, [insert SPL players]
Maru cheesed the shit out of sOs, Trap & later on Bogus, played a hilariously terrible ZvTer (srsly EffOrt should stop the hydraroach bs), played a lulz series with SN, drawing an similarly allinish Symbol. Now you tell me about opponents' quality.

The question to ask yourself is: what can one player achieve long-term with his play? Thats what PR is about. Maru with 80% of his game being shenanigans because he couldnt play straight-up? Top 4 for 3 consecutive cheeses is good enough for him. Everybody in the LR thread is like, lol this kid! lol cheesee loooool. Now you tell me thats the reaction for a top1 player?
Oh and stop your kindergarten "A beat B so A > B" logic please

On August 09 2013 07:41 0317`Strike- wrote:



Almost every one of the results you reference were accomplished before the JUNE power rank (Code S, the 2 ace matches vs. SKT, and every game except one in playoffs), when, like you say, INnoVation was clearly #1. Qualifying for IEM, rofl, any KeSPA player could've qualified. Life actually won the thing.

On August 09 2013 13:18 painkilla wrote:


"Lol Maru cheese lol" is everybody reaction toward Maru? Sounds like butthurt Kespa fanboys mostly. Maru played the player and won. If anybody can play like that and beat Innovation, they would've done it. And Maru topped the KR ladder recently so don't even try to imply that he is just some cheesy noob, you're making yourself look bad.
And what is so impressive about Bbyoung, Savage, Flying and Flash ? Are they better than Maru's opponents by definition? Innovation also lost to Bomber. Beating SK is impressive but SK also lost to SN, a player you seem to have a very low opinion on. So no, opponents quality of Maru is probably better, considering Innovation is among them.

On August 09 2013 13:18 painkilla wrote:


"Lol Maru cheese lol" is everybody reaction toward Maru? Sounds like butthurt Kespa fanboys mostly.

On August 09 2013 13:25 vesicular wrote:


Everything I quoted was in July after the last power ranks came out. Get your facts straight.

On August 09 2013 13:25 RKC wrote:


Where all other Zergs have fallen, SK is holding the fort like Gandalf holding up against the Balrog. Based on the current meta, it's an amazing feat. Also, if you do watch his games against Inno (not sure about those against SN, didn't watch those), he did put up a great fight despite not taking any game.

So yeah, in my view, PR should also take in consideration of the current state of the game (meta, map imbalances, patches, etc.).

SK fighting!