Relevance in starcraft is a funny thing. Amongst all of the players that seemed to be the best in the world for a few months, there were a few others that just barely slipped under the radar. Then, as quick as they came, they left. Alicia is one of these players.
When he started out in Code A during GSL March 2011, he made a decent run to the semis before being taken out by the ever-relevant SuperNova. He got through the Up & Downs, into Code S, and even succeeded in taking out NaDa and MarineKing. Then, he lost to LosirA in the Round of 16. After that, he stayed around in the Ro32 for a while before dropping out entirely around the summer of 2012. Despite getting knocked into the abyss known as Code B, he managed to string together a few impressive foreign tournament runs soon after. Yet, they were never good enough to break out into a big name again. He lost 0-4 to Stephano in the NASL Season 3 finals, got an upset over MarineKing only to lose to MKP's eternal rival DRG in the finals of the MLG Spring Championships. Even an impressive run to second place in the MLG Summer Arena was completely overshadowed by TaeJa's dominance. And then, he somewhat proved everyone right. He fell off the grid again, this time rising up in time for WCS America's birth. Despite not having very good foreign results recently, WCS America has been his home. He's taken top eight twice, and even took top four earlier this year. He's finally claimed an amount of solid success in it, and he's not going to leave this time.
NesTea is similar, yet not all that similar. Back in 2010/2011, he was the king : while Alicia was making it into Code S and taking out MKP, NesTea was winning GSLs. During GSL July, without even losing a game. Then, his results deteriorated. After the height of his dominance, winning two GSLs in a row, he fell into the Ro8. Then the Ro16. Then the Ro32. He had a brief stint of success in GSL Season 3 2012, where he took a top eight finish, but he could never claim true dominance again. Finally going overseas for WCS America, he pretty much remained the same. A fringe Ro16 player who never really climbed higher. However, a lot of his recent flaws get excused by his age. He's over thirty now, in a scene full of new life and youth that seems oh-so-tough to keep up with. NesTea is still one of the few pillars of the 2010/2011 scene, alongside MC and Mvp. They were the kings back then, yet they've all had wildly different paths into the present. MC has kept his relevance with much more ease, while Mvp has had spikes of obscene success. Unfortunately for him, NesTea has slipped perhaps completely underneath them. Maybe this is his time. Or maybe this is just another time that he'll fail in the Ro32, getting another step towards possible retirement after a couple drawn out years.
Jim is a lot closer to the story of rise and fall than most would expect, having an alright career in 2012 and a ton of success in the Chinese scene through 2013. His true height came after a great WCS America run last year, cruising through an impressive line-up of Koreans (including both NesTea and Alicia from this group) to take 5th place and go to the WCS Season Finals. However, he couldn't get his visa fixed in time and had to forfeit his spot to aLive. aLive had an incredibly successful run, and Jim was surrounded with a bunch of what ifs. He quickly fell out of WCS next season to Heart, but climbed through challenger to find himself facing a top-tier Korean in Bomber. He lost 0-3, and went on to watch Bomber find success in that WCS season. Last season, he once more lost to Heart in one of the toughest groups. Yet, he's found a second coming. He ran his way through a tough bracket to score top four at the stacked IEM Shenzhen, and it looks like Jim is in form. It's time to see if the youngster from China can capitalize on his recent victories, or if he'll once more fall out of WCS America in the Ro32.
iaguz's challenges with relevancy are fairly obvious. He's managed to find little to no success in big tournaments, overshadowed by fellow Australians mOOnGLaDe, PiG and even Petraeus. He was able to score some screen time by climbing through a couple of IEM qualifiers, and though he performed admirably (notably against Polt at IEM Shanghai), he was quickly eliminated 0-4 both times. Last season, he was one game away from his first Premier League appearance, but NesTea denied him in 3 straight games. Luckily for fans of the Australian terran, he hasn't given up. He qualified from ACL Sydney only after KingKong already earned a spot, the Korean zerg managing to go a total of 6-1 against him as of late. Still, iaguz didn't let that get to him. He took down qxc in a scrappy TvT, earning himself a place in Premier League as possibly the stand-out result of his career. For now, iaguz has all in the world to win and practically nothing to lose.
Everyone in this group has been around since at least 2011, and they've been through months with no solid results. This is a group filled with battle-hardened players, players who are striving to stand out in a scene that allows people to slip into irrelevance with absurd ease. Two of them will get their chance, while the two others will have to leave disappointed, considering the odds of finding success next season. Alicia, with his consistent success in WCS America through 2014, is clearly the favorite here. iaguz, despite being in a scene surrounded by zergs, hasn't impressed much in either TvZ or TvP. This leaves NesTea and Jim, two of the more unorthodox players in perhaps all of WCS AM, to battle it out for the final spot. Ultimately, NesTea's skilled ZvP that took down CranK last season seems like it could be too much for the Chinese protoss, although their meeting could go either way quite easily.
Predictions:
Alicia > iaguz NesTea < Jim Alicia > Jim NesTea > iaguz Jim < NesTea
This group looks like it could be interesting, but then you see that Iaguz couldn't beat NesTea last season, and NesTea is simply not the caliber of player that Alicia and Jim are. I see this as a pretty clean 2-Protoss advancement.
On July 31 2014 01:59 mikumegurine wrote: if the ping delay from China to NA is minimal during the games then Jim should probably advance
if the ping delay from China to NA is like how its usually is ie 300-500 delay, then lol anyone could be able to beat Jim probably?
offline tournaments or KR server vs KR Jim can be crazy good, beating the likes of Soulkey, Life, Taeja, San, etc
but thats probably cause he doesnt have to play with horrible lag from China for those games?
Ro32 "online" tournaments though.....
1. You cite Jim's victories over a few really good players which all came from IEM Shenzen, but that is pretty much cherry picking results because you are stating it like, "Oh he can beat Koreans all the time if he didn't have lag". His offline results against Koreans are pretty good but not incredible (also I don't see him beating Soulkey on this list). 2. You complain about a Ro32 "online" tournament but do you have a good alternative for Chinese players who want to play in WCS America? Besides of course a WCS China.
I'm not going to make light of the lag difficulties Chinese players face but there doesn't seem to be an easy solution.
An interesting group, none of these players are particularly strong, honestly I could see any two of the four getting out. Although I would put Alicia, Jim as most likely. Rooting for Iaguz though!!
On July 31 2014 01:59 mikumegurine wrote: if the ping delay from China to NA is minimal during the games then Jim should probably advance
if the ping delay from China to NA is like how its usually is ie 300-500 delay, then lol anyone could be able to beat Jim probably?
offline tournaments or KR server vs KR Jim can be crazy good, beating the likes of Soulkey, Life, Taeja, San, etc
but thats probably cause he doesnt have to play with horrible lag from China for those games?
Ro32 "online" tournaments though.....
1. You cite Jim's victories over a few really good players which all came from IEM Shenzen, but that is pretty much cherry picking results because you are stating it like, "Oh he can beat Koreans all the time if he didn't have lag". His offline results against Koreans are pretty good but not incredible (also I don't see him beating Soulkey on this list). 2. You complain about a Ro32 "online" tournament but do you have a good alternative for Chinese players who want to play in WCS America? Besides of course a WCS China.
I'm not going to make light of the lag difficulties Chinese players face but there doesn't seem to be an easy solution.
he beat Soulkey during some qualifiers i think so it might have been played in China or on the KR server but he definitely did beat SK, i remember it because it was after Soulkey destroyed Naniwa completely
Jim has lost to SK in some earlier tournament, but the one im talking bout is he beat SK later in some other tournament/qualifier after that, whereas Naniwa has never beated SK (most foreigners dont)
yea those IEM Shenzen results were quite recent werent they? so it shows how Jim is playing right now at this moment, beating top tier koreans who are "arguably" better than the 2 koreans in his group (beating Taeja, San, Life recently, who some/most would agree are better than Nestea and Alicia who he will face)
im not complaining bout Ro32 online tournament, im just saying he is very strong offline or on KR server, but online he might play weaker, so he might not be a top contender in the group depending on the lag, theres no easy solution to fix China's lag and net infrastructure anyway, that will take decades lol
On December 20 2013 18:11 NovaMB wrote: Jim 2-0 Soulkey
Jim got his revenge for WCG Jim is always 1 step behind from being a champion...
so it happened at IEM after WCG
so my earlier posts included recent victories of Jim beating top koreans Taeja, San, Life, but also included a victory over Soulkey that wasnt recent...simply because very very few foreigners can beat Soulkey, even Naniwa who was regarded as the best foreigner/best Protoss foreigner could never beat Soulkey
not sure but Jim might have been the 1st foreigner ever to beat Soulkey in a best of 3? duno lol (probably not?)
also total map score between Jim and Soulkey is in favor of Jim 4:3
Jim win 4 maps, Soulkey win 3 maps (Jim 2-3 SK, Jim 2-0 SK)
btw Rotterdam said on stream that if u are a WCS NA/EU Grandmaster, if u play from China with the lag there, u would only get to Platinum on NA/EU lol.......probably exaggerating a bit lol, but like those casters said, "The lag is real."
it's crazy to me that Nestea is even making RO32, even if it's in NA. Is he even still relevant? I haven't seen any games with him playing since 2012 maybe...
EPT
Alicia is one of these players.
NesTea is similar, yet not all that similar. Back in 2010/2011, he was the king : while Alicia was making it into Code S and taking out MKP, NesTea was winning GSLs. During GSL July, without even losing a game. Then, his results deteriorated. After the height of his dominance, winning two GSLs in a row, he fell into the Ro8. Then the Ro16. Then the Ro32. He had a brief stint of success in GSL Season 3 2012, where he took a top eight finish, but he could never claim true dominance again. Finally going overseas for WCS America, he pretty much remained the same. A fringe Ro16 player who never really climbed higher. However, a lot of his recent flaws get excused by his age. He's over thirty now, in a scene full of new life and youth that seems oh-so-tough to keep up with. NesTea is still one of the few pillars of the 2010/2011 scene, alongside MC and Mvp. They were the kings back then, yet they've all had wildly different paths into the present. MC has kept his relevance with much more ease, while Mvp has had spikes of obscene success. Unfortunately for him, NesTea has slipped perhaps completely underneath them. Maybe this is his time. Or maybe this is just another time that he'll fail in the Ro32, getting another step towards possible retirement after a couple drawn out years.
iaguz's challenges with relevancy are fairly obvious. He's managed to find little to no success in big tournaments, overshadowed by fellow Australians mOOnGLaDe, PiG and even Petraeus. He was able to score some screen time by climbing through a couple of IEM qualifiers, and though he performed admirably (notably against Polt at IEM Shanghai), he was quickly eliminated 0-4 both times. Last season, he was one game away from his first Premier League appearance, but NesTea denied him in 3 straight games. Luckily for fans of the Australian terran, he hasn't given up. He qualified from ACL Sydney only after KingKong already earned a spot, the Korean zerg managing to go a total of 6-1 against him as of late. Still, iaguz didn't let that get to him. He took down qxc in a scrappy TvT, earning himself a place in Premier League as possibly the stand-out result of his career. For now, iaguz has all in the world to win and practically nothing to lose.
