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On April 28 2015 00:13 stuchiu wrote:Show nested quote +On April 27 2015 22:48 North2 wrote:
I haven't followed SC2 since WoL but I do like reading Top xx articles. Great read all around, but I gotta say your logic on Taeja is a little bullshit.
I think you're trying too hard tbh. I agree that there should be some attempt at valuing difficulty of matches and comparing them with actual prestige, but it really doesn't matter too much when it's about XX of ALL TIME of anything. I honestly don't know where your train of thought starts. I read your entire logic on why you put Taeja at #3 and read it 2 more times, yet everything you wrote makes no sense why he'd be in third place. If anything, I'd expect him to be in #7. This is just from reading your Foreword of this whole list and putting it side by side with what you said about Taeja. Like...what's the point of valuing Blizzcon over everything else if you're gonna put so much weight on the difficulty of opponents? I really don't get it.
At the very least, you're completely forgetting that this is the list of the greatest players of ALL TIME. MC found success in the highly volatile stages of the game back when I actually played SC2 and continued onwards as the game changed. The general vibe I get is that you're making a list of the greatest players currently, or the presumed equivalent of how they would fare if they played at their prime form. I think that's rather unfair since SC2 of now is not the whole history of SC2.
Michael Jordan is without a doubt the greatest basketball player of all time by most people's standards, but I kinda doubt he would be Top 1 if he played in his prime form today since the standards have been pushed up. Jack Nicklaus is at the very least Top 2 greatest golfers of all time (Tiger Woods being the other one) but I doubt he would even be top 10 now because the game has changed. Because the context of players wins mattered to me. Who they beat along the way to win a tournament as well as the relative strength of their scenes. Like I said it was just a general guideline to give people a decent feel for how I ranked tournaments. I wasn't completely dismissive of what MC did in the early phases and I wasn't dismissive of what Taeja did internationally. Taeja was essentially a conundrum. What would happen if there was a player who consistently beat the top players of his era over and over and over again in international lans, but could never really make it happen in prep tournaments beyond a few RO4s? But what if he had won so many and had beaten so many of the good players that it dwarfed his competition? At the end of the day things like prestige and preparation formats and innovation can only take you so far. At some point the results of what you did and who you had to beat to get there eventually start outweighing those intangible aspects. And with Taeja he went past that point a long time ago.
I couldn't agree more with taeja's pick. he was winning the big name protoss in macro games when most players were just cheesing them. the only terran doing well, just like mc was winning everything when protoss was weak.
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I think all of Taeja's tournament wins look better now in hindsight since Life's playing really well again and Taeja beat Life in pretty much all of his weekend LAN wins. So when Life is playing well, Taeja's "difficulty of opponents" skyrockets, and when Life is slumping, it looks weaker.
Given the theory that Life was just as good between MLG 2013 and Blizzcon 2014 as he was before and after, and Taeja was just better, then Taeja definitely deserves #3, maybe even #2. But if you think that Life was in a very long slump in that period, even though he still won a few tournaments, then Taeja is more like #5.
On April 28 2015 00:43 tokinho wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 00:13 stuchiu wrote:On April 27 2015 22:48 North2 wrote:
I haven't followed SC2 since WoL but I do like reading Top xx articles. Great read all around, but I gotta say your logic on Taeja is a little bullshit.
I think you're trying too hard tbh. I agree that there should be some attempt at valuing difficulty of matches and comparing them with actual prestige, but it really doesn't matter too much when it's about XX of ALL TIME of anything. I honestly don't know where your train of thought starts. I read your entire logic on why you put Taeja at #3 and read it 2 more times, yet everything you wrote makes no sense why he'd be in third place. If anything, I'd expect him to be in #7. This is just from reading your Foreword of this whole list and putting it side by side with what you said about Taeja. Like...what's the point of valuing Blizzcon over everything else if you're gonna put so much weight on the difficulty of opponents? I really don't get it.
At the very least, you're completely forgetting that this is the list of the greatest players of ALL TIME. MC found success in the highly volatile stages of the game back when I actually played SC2 and continued onwards as the game changed. The general vibe I get is that you're making a list of the greatest players currently, or the presumed equivalent of how they would fare if they played at their prime form. I think that's rather unfair since SC2 of now is not the whole history of SC2.
Michael Jordan is without a doubt the greatest basketball player of all time by most people's standards, but I kinda doubt he would be Top 1 if he played in his prime form today since the standards have been pushed up. Jack Nicklaus is at the very least Top 2 greatest golfers of all time (Tiger Woods being the other one) but I doubt he would even be top 10 now because the game has changed. Because the context of players wins mattered to me. Who they beat along the way to win a tournament as well as the relative strength of their scenes. Like I said it was just a general guideline to give people a decent feel for how I ranked tournaments. I wasn't completely dismissive of what MC did in the early phases and I wasn't dismissive of what Taeja did internationally. Taeja was essentially a conundrum. What would happen if there was a player who consistently beat the top players of his era over and over and over again in international lans, but could never really make it happen in prep tournaments beyond a few RO4s? But what if he had won so many and had beaten so many of the good players that it dwarfed his competition? At the end of the day things like prestige and preparation formats and innovation can only take you so far. At some point the results of what you did and who you had to beat to get there eventually start outweighing those intangible aspects. And with Taeja he went past that point a long time ago. I couldn't agree more with taeja's pick. he was winning the big name protoss in macro games when most players were just cheesing them. the only terran doing well, just like mc was winning everything when protoss was weak.
Not really though. In 2012 Mvp was still clearly better at the beginning of the BL/Infestor era, and by the end of that era no terran was winning anything. In 2014 every single terran player was quick to remind you that Taeja's tournament wins didn't have a single Code S protoss. I'd rate Maru making the Ro8 during all 3 protoss-won GSLs as being closer to "the only terran doing well" for that era.
MC on the other hand was the best Protoss in every single aspect of the game until Parting showed up. MC had 17 top 4 placements in premiers in the first 2 years of WoL, about the same as Taeja in his first 2 years after his first non-Code-A top 4. The difference between MC and Taeja? Besides MC's 2 GSLs, there's the fact that the next best Protosses in that era had 4 top 4's in events with Koreans. (Huk, Squirtle and Naniwa) Liquid'HerO had 3 top 4's.
Taeja's contemporaries: Polt and Innovation had 9 top 4 placements, and Bomber had 8. There were other top Korean terrans during Taeja's dominance, but MC was the only top Korean protoss. No one else in SC2 has been the best player of their race like MC, especially when their race was weakest.
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On April 28 2015 00:43 tokinho wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 00:13 stuchiu wrote:On April 27 2015 22:48 North2 wrote:
I haven't followed SC2 since WoL but I do like reading Top xx articles. Great read all around, but I gotta say your logic on Taeja is a little bullshit.
I think you're trying too hard tbh. I agree that there should be some attempt at valuing difficulty of matches and comparing them with actual prestige, but it really doesn't matter too much when it's about XX of ALL TIME of anything. I honestly don't know where your train of thought starts. I read your entire logic on why you put Taeja at #3 and read it 2 more times, yet everything you wrote makes no sense why he'd be in third place. If anything, I'd expect him to be in #7. This is just from reading your Foreword of this whole list and putting it side by side with what you said about Taeja. Like...what's the point of valuing Blizzcon over everything else if you're gonna put so much weight on the difficulty of opponents? I really don't get it.
At the very least, you're completely forgetting that this is the list of the greatest players of ALL TIME. MC found success in the highly volatile stages of the game back when I actually played SC2 and continued onwards as the game changed. The general vibe I get is that you're making a list of the greatest players currently, or the presumed equivalent of how they would fare if they played at their prime form. I think that's rather unfair since SC2 of now is not the whole history of SC2.
Michael Jordan is without a doubt the greatest basketball player of all time by most people's standards, but I kinda doubt he would be Top 1 if he played in his prime form today since the standards have been pushed up. Jack Nicklaus is at the very least Top 2 greatest golfers of all time (Tiger Woods being the other one) but I doubt he would even be top 10 now because the game has changed. Because the context of players wins mattered to me. Who they beat along the way to win a tournament as well as the relative strength of their scenes. Like I said it was just a general guideline to give people a decent feel for how I ranked tournaments. I wasn't completely dismissive of what MC did in the early phases and I wasn't dismissive of what Taeja did internationally. Taeja was essentially a conundrum. What would happen if there was a player who consistently beat the top players of his era over and over and over again in international lans, but could never really make it happen in prep tournaments beyond a few RO4s? But what if he had won so many and had beaten so many of the good players that it dwarfed his competition? At the end of the day things like prestige and preparation formats and innovation can only take you so far. At some point the results of what you did and who you had to beat to get there eventually start outweighing those intangible aspects. And with Taeja he went past that point a long time ago. I couldn't agree more with taeja's pick. he was winning the big name protoss in macro games when most players were just cheesing them. the only terran doing well, just like mc was winning everything when protoss was weak.
Prep and innovation aren't intangibles. You clearly understood the valuation of the innovation aspect when it can change the landscape of the game as you have mentioned with...Rain I think? Prep is also an essential part of the game, otherwise there would be no series.
Difficulty of players can vary by so much that it's not really something to even attempt to try valuing by yourself. The condition of BOTH players can vary day by day, along with just a general affinity for some playstyles to beat others, especially on specific patches. If we started valuing every single win-loss like that, then we really need to look into every single game for every single person. Why is taeja the only one getting the special treatment by getting his accomplishments weighed more based on who he beat? It's very possible that Life didn't play at his best in any of taeja's matches, and it's also very possible that he played like a god against a lot of other players.
I don't even know a third of the people on this list, that's how out of touch I am. Still, I read all of it and I could at least say, "OK, I can agree to that". But then there's the logic of Taeja, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. The results are really what matters the most by a large margin. Your explanation gives me even more confidence that this is more of a list of the "Most Skilled Players of All Time", which just doesn't do the list justice. Either you explained it really badly or I'm just missing something, because Taeja's accomplishments didn't come anywhere near MC's from what I read while Taeja had to beat a lot of tough competition to do what he did.
Right now, I can agree with Taeja's spot at #3 and believe the whole rest of the rankings is shit because you didn't go into as much detail as you did with Taeja, or I can disagree with Taeja's spot at #3 and believe the rest of the rankings is great since you covered all aspects of the game rather fairly except for the difficulty of players.
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On April 28 2015 00:45 Cheren wrote:I think all of Taeja's tournament wins look better now in hindsight since Life's playing really well again and Taeja beat Life in pretty much all of his weekend LAN wins. So when Life is playing well, Taeja's "difficulty of opponents" skyrockets, and when Life is slumping, it looks weaker. Given the theory that Life was just as good between MLG 2013 and Blizzcon 2014 as he was before and after, and Taeja was just better, then Taeja definitely deserves #3, maybe even #2. But if you think that Life was in a very long slump in that period, even though he still won a few tournaments, then Taeja is more like #5. Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 00:43 tokinho wrote:On April 28 2015 00:13 stuchiu wrote:On April 27 2015 22:48 North2 wrote:
I haven't followed SC2 since WoL but I do like reading Top xx articles. Great read all around, but I gotta say your logic on Taeja is a little bullshit.
I think you're trying too hard tbh. I agree that there should be some attempt at valuing difficulty of matches and comparing them with actual prestige, but it really doesn't matter too much when it's about XX of ALL TIME of anything. I honestly don't know where your train of thought starts. I read your entire logic on why you put Taeja at #3 and read it 2 more times, yet everything you wrote makes no sense why he'd be in third place. If anything, I'd expect him to be in #7. This is just from reading your Foreword of this whole list and putting it side by side with what you said about Taeja. Like...what's the point of valuing Blizzcon over everything else if you're gonna put so much weight on the difficulty of opponents? I really don't get it.
At the very least, you're completely forgetting that this is the list of the greatest players of ALL TIME. MC found success in the highly volatile stages of the game back when I actually played SC2 and continued onwards as the game changed. The general vibe I get is that you're making a list of the greatest players currently, or the presumed equivalent of how they would fare if they played at their prime form. I think that's rather unfair since SC2 of now is not the whole history of SC2.
Michael Jordan is without a doubt the greatest basketball player of all time by most people's standards, but I kinda doubt he would be Top 1 if he played in his prime form today since the standards have been pushed up. Jack Nicklaus is at the very least Top 2 greatest golfers of all time (Tiger Woods being the other one) but I doubt he would even be top 10 now because the game has changed. Because the context of players wins mattered to me. Who they beat along the way to win a tournament as well as the relative strength of their scenes. Like I said it was just a general guideline to give people a decent feel for how I ranked tournaments. I wasn't completely dismissive of what MC did in the early phases and I wasn't dismissive of what Taeja did internationally. Taeja was essentially a conundrum. What would happen if there was a player who consistently beat the top players of his era over and over and over again in international lans, but could never really make it happen in prep tournaments beyond a few RO4s? But what if he had won so many and had beaten so many of the good players that it dwarfed his competition? At the end of the day things like prestige and preparation formats and innovation can only take you so far. At some point the results of what you did and who you had to beat to get there eventually start outweighing those intangible aspects. And with Taeja he went past that point a long time ago. I couldn't agree more with taeja's pick. he was winning the big name protoss in macro games when most players were just cheesing them. the only terran doing well, just like mc was winning everything when protoss was weak. Not really though. In 2012 Mvp was still clearly better at the beginning of the BL/Infestor era, and by the end of that era no terran was winning anything. In 2014 every single terran player was quick to remind you that Taeja's tournament wins didn't have a single Code S protoss. I'd rate Maru making the Ro8 during all 3 protoss-won GSLs as being closer to "the only terran doing well" for that era. MC on the other hand was the best Protoss in every single aspect of the game until Parting showed up. MC had 17 top 4 placements in premiers in the first 2 years of WoL, about the same as Taeja in his first 2 years after his first non-Code-A top 4. The difference between MC and Taeja? Besides MC's 2 GSLs, there's the fact that the next best Protosses in that era had 4 top 4's in events with Koreans. (Huk, Squirtle and Naniwa) Liquid'HerO had 3 top 4's. Taeja's contemporaries: Polt and Innovation had 9 top 4 placements, and Bomber had 8. There were other top Korean terrans during Taeja's dominance, but MC was the only top Korean protoss. No one else in SC2 has been the best player of their race like MC, especially when their race was weakest.
If I am not mistaken, Stuchiu only consider the form of the player at the time when the match is played. Life being the top player now does not make Taeja's victory in 2013 looks better. The fact is even in 2013 form, Life still ranked among the top 5 zergs and beating him in 2013 counts as beating a top 5 zerg, not as beating the best player.
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On April 27 2015 20:13 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On April 27 2015 19:45 genai wrote:On April 26 2015 21:09 YuiHirasawa wrote:
That's funny I remember games from MMA, MC, Mvp, Life, Parting, Innovation; games that made me think I LOVE STARCRAFT.
Yet I don't remember ONE game from Taeja that made me react that way. Yet he has several games among great games list. Watch him against Rain, Innovation, Solar (that just silly 200 vs 200 fights where he still snipes banelings and mutas... ends up with less than half of resource lost of Solar even in loses), Life, Zest(being considered god at the time... losing both times he met Taeja), soO (playing godlike according to artosis... and it wasnt enough to beat Taeja) For his level, soO's play at Blizzcon was disastrous in the Nimbus game. It reminded me of the (in)famous Nestea vs Mvp game on Shakuras at the 2011 Blizzcon. I can't comment on the IEM Toronto series, but Zest's play in the IEM Shenzhen one was awful as well. Names alone mean little, you really have to look at the content of the games; TaeJa's play was of course extremely solid in those games, but he had much more impressive achievements than mauling heavily under-performing players. Those series were similar to TaeJa bashing MC 4-0 at the HSC IX. As for people claiming TaeJa did not produce any notable game... yeah, no. Even if his style is rather bland, you really have to be blind not to find jaw-dropping stuff in the compendium of his games. It's really a pity he'll leave the game without having a GSL under his belt.
that reminds me of life. All players just happen to make disastrous mistakes vs him.
Maybe it could be that... you know, they FORCE those mistakes through their play?
Zest and soO were considered by far the 2 best players in the world and then when they play taeja they are suddenly trash? Just a coincidence, has nothing to do with taejas skill
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On April 28 2015 00:45 Cheren wrote:I think all of Taeja's tournament wins look better now in hindsight since Life's playing really well again and Taeja beat Life in pretty much all of his weekend LAN wins. So when Life is playing well, Taeja's "difficulty of opponents" skyrockets, and when Life is slumping, it looks weaker. Given the theory that Life was just as good between MLG 2013 and Blizzcon 2014 as he was before and after, and Taeja was just better, then Taeja definitely deserves #3, maybe even #2. But if you think that Life was in a very long slump in that period, even though he still won a few tournaments, then Taeja is more like #5. Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 00:43 tokinho wrote:On April 28 2015 00:13 stuchiu wrote:On April 27 2015 22:48 North2 wrote:
I haven't followed SC2 since WoL but I do like reading Top xx articles. Great read all around, but I gotta say your logic on Taeja is a little bullshit.
I think you're trying too hard tbh. I agree that there should be some attempt at valuing difficulty of matches and comparing them with actual prestige, but it really doesn't matter too much when it's about XX of ALL TIME of anything. I honestly don't know where your train of thought starts. I read your entire logic on why you put Taeja at #3 and read it 2 more times, yet everything you wrote makes no sense why he'd be in third place. If anything, I'd expect him to be in #7. This is just from reading your Foreword of this whole list and putting it side by side with what you said about Taeja. Like...what's the point of valuing Blizzcon over everything else if you're gonna put so much weight on the difficulty of opponents? I really don't get it.
At the very least, you're completely forgetting that this is the list of the greatest players of ALL TIME. MC found success in the highly volatile stages of the game back when I actually played SC2 and continued onwards as the game changed. The general vibe I get is that you're making a list of the greatest players currently, or the presumed equivalent of how they would fare if they played at their prime form. I think that's rather unfair since SC2 of now is not the whole history of SC2.
Michael Jordan is without a doubt the greatest basketball player of all time by most people's standards, but I kinda doubt he would be Top 1 if he played in his prime form today since the standards have been pushed up. Jack Nicklaus is at the very least Top 2 greatest golfers of all time (Tiger Woods being the other one) but I doubt he would even be top 10 now because the game has changed. Because the context of players wins mattered to me. Who they beat along the way to win a tournament as well as the relative strength of their scenes. Like I said it was just a general guideline to give people a decent feel for how I ranked tournaments. I wasn't completely dismissive of what MC did in the early phases and I wasn't dismissive of what Taeja did internationally. Taeja was essentially a conundrum. What would happen if there was a player who consistently beat the top players of his era over and over and over again in international lans, but could never really make it happen in prep tournaments beyond a few RO4s? But what if he had won so many and had beaten so many of the good players that it dwarfed his competition? At the end of the day things like prestige and preparation formats and innovation can only take you so far. At some point the results of what you did and who you had to beat to get there eventually start outweighing those intangible aspects. And with Taeja he went past that point a long time ago. I couldn't agree more with taeja's pick. he was winning the big name protoss in macro games when most players were just cheesing them. the only terran doing well, just like mc was winning everything when protoss was weak. Not really though. In 2012 Mvp was still clearly better at the beginning of the BL/Infestor era, and by the end of that era no terran was winning anything. In 2014 every single terran player was quick to remind you that Taeja's tournament wins didn't have a single Code S protoss. I'd rate Maru making the Ro8 during all 3 protoss-won GSLs as being closer to "the only terran doing well" for that era. MC on the other hand was the best Protoss in every single aspect of the game until Parting showed up. MC had 17 top 4 placements in premiers in the first 2 years of WoL, about the same as Taeja in his first 2 years after his first non-Code-A top 4. The difference between MC and Taeja? Besides MC's 2 GSLs, there's the fact that the next best Protosses in that era had 4 top 4's in events with Koreans. (Huk, Squirtle and Naniwa) Liquid'HerO had 3 top 4's. Taeja's contemporaries: Polt and Innovation had 9 top 4 placements, and Bomber had 8. There were other top Korean terrans during Taeja's dominance, but MC was the only top Korean protoss. No one else in SC2 has been the best player of their race like MC, especially when their race was weakest.
ah I forgot, Zest was in code B when taeJa 3:0ed him at IEM Shenzhen.
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MVP should be GOAT because he is playing with crippling pain and still found ways to win, and during time when gg lord/winfestor broken combo made it impossible for terran to win in the late game
Also I find it funny that now this article bring up just how broken the end of WOL era was, even though back then ppl were banned for rightfully pointing out how bad the queen range patch was. Even poor avilo was mocked mercilessly by idra and incontrol for pointing this out on SOTG. its good that the truth is finally out
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On April 28 2015 03:03 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On April 27 2015 20:13 TheDwf wrote:On April 27 2015 19:45 genai wrote:On April 26 2015 21:09 YuiHirasawa wrote:
That's funny I remember games from MMA, MC, Mvp, Life, Parting, Innovation; games that made me think I LOVE STARCRAFT.
Yet I don't remember ONE game from Taeja that made me react that way. Yet he has several games among great games list. Watch him against Rain, Innovation, Solar (that just silly 200 vs 200 fights where he still snipes banelings and mutas... ends up with less than half of resource lost of Solar even in loses), Life, Zest(being considered god at the time... losing both times he met Taeja), soO (playing godlike according to artosis... and it wasnt enough to beat Taeja) For his level, soO's play at Blizzcon was disastrous in the Nimbus game. It reminded me of the (in)famous Nestea vs Mvp game on Shakuras at the 2011 Blizzcon. I can't comment on the IEM Toronto series, but Zest's play in the IEM Shenzhen one was awful as well. Names alone mean little, you really have to look at the content of the games; TaeJa's play was of course extremely solid in those games, but he had much more impressive achievements than mauling heavily under-performing players. Those series were similar to TaeJa bashing MC 4-0 at the HSC IX. As for people claiming TaeJa did not produce any notable game... yeah, no. Even if his style is rather bland, you really have to be blind not to find jaw-dropping stuff in the compendium of his games. It's really a pity he'll leave the game without having a GSL under his belt. that reminds me of life. All players just happen to make disastrous mistakes vs him. Maybe it could be that... you know, they FORCE those mistakes through their play? Zest and soO were considered by far the 2 best players in the world and then when they play taeja they are suddenly trash? Just a coincidence, has nothing to do with taejas skill
Of course great players force mistakes from their opponent, if only passively thanks to their very aura! But no, TaeJa did nothing to make Zest forget Warpgate or the Templar Archives.
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Fiddler's Green42661 Posts
On April 28 2015 02:31 North2 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 00:43 tokinho wrote:On April 28 2015 00:13 stuchiu wrote:On April 27 2015 22:48 North2 wrote:
I haven't followed SC2 since WoL but I do like reading Top xx articles. Great read all around, but I gotta say your logic on Taeja is a little bullshit.
I think you're trying too hard tbh. I agree that there should be some attempt at valuing difficulty of matches and comparing them with actual prestige, but it really doesn't matter too much when it's about XX of ALL TIME of anything. I honestly don't know where your train of thought starts. I read your entire logic on why you put Taeja at #3 and read it 2 more times, yet everything you wrote makes no sense why he'd be in third place. If anything, I'd expect him to be in #7. This is just from reading your Foreword of this whole list and putting it side by side with what you said about Taeja. Like...what's the point of valuing Blizzcon over everything else if you're gonna put so much weight on the difficulty of opponents? I really don't get it.
At the very least, you're completely forgetting that this is the list of the greatest players of ALL TIME. MC found success in the highly volatile stages of the game back when I actually played SC2 and continued onwards as the game changed. The general vibe I get is that you're making a list of the greatest players currently, or the presumed equivalent of how they would fare if they played at their prime form. I think that's rather unfair since SC2 of now is not the whole history of SC2.
Michael Jordan is without a doubt the greatest basketball player of all time by most people's standards, but I kinda doubt he would be Top 1 if he played in his prime form today since the standards have been pushed up. Jack Nicklaus is at the very least Top 2 greatest golfers of all time (Tiger Woods being the other one) but I doubt he would even be top 10 now because the game has changed. Because the context of players wins mattered to me. Who they beat along the way to win a tournament as well as the relative strength of their scenes. Like I said it was just a general guideline to give people a decent feel for how I ranked tournaments. I wasn't completely dismissive of what MC did in the early phases and I wasn't dismissive of what Taeja did internationally. Taeja was essentially a conundrum. What would happen if there was a player who consistently beat the top players of his era over and over and over again in international lans, but could never really make it happen in prep tournaments beyond a few RO4s? But what if he had won so many and had beaten so many of the good players that it dwarfed his competition? At the end of the day things like prestige and preparation formats and innovation can only take you so far. At some point the results of what you did and who you had to beat to get there eventually start outweighing those intangible aspects. And with Taeja he went past that point a long time ago. I couldn't agree more with taeja's pick. he was winning the big name protoss in macro games when most players were just cheesing them. the only terran doing well, just like mc was winning everything when protoss was weak. Prep and innovation aren't intangibles. You clearly understood the valuation of the innovation aspect when it can change the landscape of the game as you have mentioned with...Rain I think? Prep is also an essential part of the game, otherwise there would be no series. Difficulty of players can vary by so much that it's not really something to even attempt to try valuing by yourself. The condition of BOTH players can vary day by day, along with just a general affinity for some playstyles to beat others, especially on specific patches. If we started valuing every single win-loss like that, then we really need to look into every single game for every single person. Why is taeja the only one getting the special treatment by getting his accomplishments weighed more based on who he beat? It's very possible that Life didn't play at his best in any of taeja's matches, and it's also very possible that he played like a god against a lot of other players. I don't even know a third of the people on this list, that's how out of touch I am. Still, I read all of it and I could at least say, "OK, I can agree to that". But then there's the logic of Taeja, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. The results are really what matters the most by a large margin. Your explanation gives me even more confidence that this is more of a list of the "Most Skilled Players of All Time", which just doesn't do the list justice. Either you explained it really badly or I'm just missing something, because Taeja's accomplishments didn't come anywhere near MC's from what I read while Taeja had to beat a lot of tough competition to do what he did. Right now, I can agree with Taeja's spot at #3 and believe the whole rest of the rankings is shit because you didn't go into as much detail as you did with Taeja, or I can disagree with Taeja's spot at #3 and believe the rest of the rankings is great since you covered all aspects of the game rather fairly except for the difficulty of players.
Taeja wasn't getting special treatment. He just happened to be the only player to have won so many tournaments with so much high level competition that the first criteria started to outweigh the rest.
And despite having bad prep, at Blizzcon he beat both Inno and soO. Both had long periods of time to prepare, but Taeja won. In terms of consistency he did worse than MC (though not by much) and better at peak consistency when considering increased skill over time.
Taeja also had max points in refinement of his playstyle and had done well in bad metas. I did this ranking for all players in the top 15. For reasons of length and clarity, the balance of what I did for everyone was taken out except for Taeja because obviously people were going to be super enraged by it.
Not all criteria were created equal. I put the most weight on results (relative to the times the won them), but considering we're talking about the Best of the Best of all time it came to be that for most players their intangibles were what weighed them ahead of other players (whether it be prestige, prep formats, adversity, consistency, innovation, refinement, etc.) Taeja had a competitive amount in all formats except innovation, prestige and prep formats (though like I said, he proved himself at Blizzcon). Taeja is the "exception" because he was the sole player to have done sooooo much in the first part that it eclipsed the rest.
At some point you have so much skill that you naturally become one of the greatest. That added with the rest of what Taeja has done was what earned him this spot.
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On April 28 2015 03:07 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 00:45 Cheren wrote:I think all of Taeja's tournament wins look better now in hindsight since Life's playing really well again and Taeja beat Life in pretty much all of his weekend LAN wins. So when Life is playing well, Taeja's "difficulty of opponents" skyrockets, and when Life is slumping, it looks weaker. Given the theory that Life was just as good between MLG 2013 and Blizzcon 2014 as he was before and after, and Taeja was just better, then Taeja definitely deserves #3, maybe even #2. But if you think that Life was in a very long slump in that period, even though he still won a few tournaments, then Taeja is more like #5. On April 28 2015 00:43 tokinho wrote:On April 28 2015 00:13 stuchiu wrote:On April 27 2015 22:48 North2 wrote:
I haven't followed SC2 since WoL but I do like reading Top xx articles. Great read all around, but I gotta say your logic on Taeja is a little bullshit.
I think you're trying too hard tbh. I agree that there should be some attempt at valuing difficulty of matches and comparing them with actual prestige, but it really doesn't matter too much when it's about XX of ALL TIME of anything. I honestly don't know where your train of thought starts. I read your entire logic on why you put Taeja at #3 and read it 2 more times, yet everything you wrote makes no sense why he'd be in third place. If anything, I'd expect him to be in #7. This is just from reading your Foreword of this whole list and putting it side by side with what you said about Taeja. Like...what's the point of valuing Blizzcon over everything else if you're gonna put so much weight on the difficulty of opponents? I really don't get it.
At the very least, you're completely forgetting that this is the list of the greatest players of ALL TIME. MC found success in the highly volatile stages of the game back when I actually played SC2 and continued onwards as the game changed. The general vibe I get is that you're making a list of the greatest players currently, or the presumed equivalent of how they would fare if they played at their prime form. I think that's rather unfair since SC2 of now is not the whole history of SC2.
Michael Jordan is without a doubt the greatest basketball player of all time by most people's standards, but I kinda doubt he would be Top 1 if he played in his prime form today since the standards have been pushed up. Jack Nicklaus is at the very least Top 2 greatest golfers of all time (Tiger Woods being the other one) but I doubt he would even be top 10 now because the game has changed. Because the context of players wins mattered to me. Who they beat along the way to win a tournament as well as the relative strength of their scenes. Like I said it was just a general guideline to give people a decent feel for how I ranked tournaments. I wasn't completely dismissive of what MC did in the early phases and I wasn't dismissive of what Taeja did internationally. Taeja was essentially a conundrum. What would happen if there was a player who consistently beat the top players of his era over and over and over again in international lans, but could never really make it happen in prep tournaments beyond a few RO4s? But what if he had won so many and had beaten so many of the good players that it dwarfed his competition? At the end of the day things like prestige and preparation formats and innovation can only take you so far. At some point the results of what you did and who you had to beat to get there eventually start outweighing those intangible aspects. And with Taeja he went past that point a long time ago. I couldn't agree more with taeja's pick. he was winning the big name protoss in macro games when most players were just cheesing them. the only terran doing well, just like mc was winning everything when protoss was weak. Not really though. In 2012 Mvp was still clearly better at the beginning of the BL/Infestor era, and by the end of that era no terran was winning anything. In 2014 every single terran player was quick to remind you that Taeja's tournament wins didn't have a single Code S protoss. I'd rate Maru making the Ro8 during all 3 protoss-won GSLs as being closer to "the only terran doing well" for that era. MC on the other hand was the best Protoss in every single aspect of the game until Parting showed up. MC had 17 top 4 placements in premiers in the first 2 years of WoL, about the same as Taeja in his first 2 years after his first non-Code-A top 4. The difference between MC and Taeja? Besides MC's 2 GSLs, there's the fact that the next best Protosses in that era had 4 top 4's in events with Koreans. (Huk, Squirtle and Naniwa) Liquid'HerO had 3 top 4's. Taeja's contemporaries: Polt and Innovation had 9 top 4 placements, and Bomber had 8. There were other top Korean terrans during Taeja's dominance, but MC was the only top Korean protoss. No one else in SC2 has been the best player of their race like MC, especially when their race was weakest. ah I forgot, Zest was in code B when taeJa 3:0ed him at IEM Shenzhen.
Context is important! I was talking about Taeja's two wins in a sea of protoss domination, since the post was responding to someone who said Taeja was the best Terran when Protoss was dominating. IEM Shenzhen came after a bunch of terran buffs and a new terran-friendly map pool.
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On April 28 2015 03:29 fishjie wrote:
MVP should be GOAT because he is playing with crippling pain and still found ways to win, and during time when gg lord/winfestor broken combo made it impossible for terran to win in the late game
Also I find it funny that now this article bring up just how broken the end of WOL era was, even though back then ppl were banned for rightfully pointing out how bad the queen range patch was. Even poor avilo was mocked mercilessly by idra and incontrol for pointing this out on SOTG. its good that the truth is finally out
Haha. Had MarineKing not collapsed at the critical time, I'm sure we would still find some guys arguing that he was the better player for beating a Zerg in 2010 with 2 rax on close Metalopolis. Come on.
This “community” has indeed quite a ridiculous amount of taboos. It's somewhat understandable considering that most of the time the game has been in a pathetic state. Injustice naturally triggers anger; add the dazzling mirror that the Internet is, and of course you get dynamite. In this regard, the “patchzerg” word was funny because it really nailed something, yet failed to apply it correctly as the phenomenon was almost exclusively located out of Korea. I thus remember some anonymous lowmaster from late 2011 suddenly being competitive against ForGG in late 2012, and even making him ragequit on stream… Ugh. More than one year afterwards, I stumbled upon that very Zerg on ladder in HotS; he had become again the rageful random high master that he should have never ceased to be, and was now complaining about Terran being “broken” and whatnot, haha… How the wheel turns.
Retrospectively, it's also funny to remember some people calling Life “patchzerg” when he was actually the anti-patchzerg—which is why the finals against Mvp was close, with Life winning despite his best attempts at repeatedly playing into Mvp's hands. Joyous poltergeist through-and-through. At any rate he amply proved afterwards that he did not need at all the massive imbalance of the end of WoL to be successful. Same as all the Protoss champions of the ZParcraft era were good to brilliant players, even if mathematically there is “Heart of the Storm” written in tiny golden letters on a few trophies.
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On April 28 2015 04:26 stuchiu wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 02:31 North2 wrote:On April 28 2015 00:43 tokinho wrote:On April 28 2015 00:13 stuchiu wrote:On April 27 2015 22:48 North2 wrote:
I haven't followed SC2 since WoL but I do like reading Top xx articles. Great read all around, but I gotta say your logic on Taeja is a little bullshit.
I think you're trying too hard tbh. I agree that there should be some attempt at valuing difficulty of matches and comparing them with actual prestige, but it really doesn't matter too much when it's about XX of ALL TIME of anything. I honestly don't know where your train of thought starts. I read your entire logic on why you put Taeja at #3 and read it 2 more times, yet everything you wrote makes no sense why he'd be in third place. If anything, I'd expect him to be in #7. This is just from reading your Foreword of this whole list and putting it side by side with what you said about Taeja. Like...what's the point of valuing Blizzcon over everything else if you're gonna put so much weight on the difficulty of opponents? I really don't get it.
At the very least, you're completely forgetting that this is the list of the greatest players of ALL TIME. MC found success in the highly volatile stages of the game back when I actually played SC2 and continued onwards as the game changed. The general vibe I get is that you're making a list of the greatest players currently, or the presumed equivalent of how they would fare if they played at their prime form. I think that's rather unfair since SC2 of now is not the whole history of SC2.
Michael Jordan is without a doubt the greatest basketball player of all time by most people's standards, but I kinda doubt he would be Top 1 if he played in his prime form today since the standards have been pushed up. Jack Nicklaus is at the very least Top 2 greatest golfers of all time (Tiger Woods being the other one) but I doubt he would even be top 10 now because the game has changed. Because the context of players wins mattered to me. Who they beat along the way to win a tournament as well as the relative strength of their scenes. Like I said it was just a general guideline to give people a decent feel for how I ranked tournaments. I wasn't completely dismissive of what MC did in the early phases and I wasn't dismissive of what Taeja did internationally. Taeja was essentially a conundrum. What would happen if there was a player who consistently beat the top players of his era over and over and over again in international lans, but could never really make it happen in prep tournaments beyond a few RO4s? But what if he had won so many and had beaten so many of the good players that it dwarfed his competition? At the end of the day things like prestige and preparation formats and innovation can only take you so far. At some point the results of what you did and who you had to beat to get there eventually start outweighing those intangible aspects. And with Taeja he went past that point a long time ago. I couldn't agree more with taeja's pick. he was winning the big name protoss in macro games when most players were just cheesing them. the only terran doing well, just like mc was winning everything when protoss was weak. Prep and innovation aren't intangibles. You clearly understood the valuation of the innovation aspect when it can change the landscape of the game as you have mentioned with...Rain I think? Prep is also an essential part of the game, otherwise there would be no series. Difficulty of players can vary by so much that it's not really something to even attempt to try valuing by yourself. The condition of BOTH players can vary day by day, along with just a general affinity for some playstyles to beat others, especially on specific patches. If we started valuing every single win-loss like that, then we really need to look into every single game for every single person. Why is taeja the only one getting the special treatment by getting his accomplishments weighed more based on who he beat? It's very possible that Life didn't play at his best in any of taeja's matches, and it's also very possible that he played like a god against a lot of other players. I don't even know a third of the people on this list, that's how out of touch I am. Still, I read all of it and I could at least say, "OK, I can agree to that". But then there's the logic of Taeja, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. The results are really what matters the most by a large margin. Your explanation gives me even more confidence that this is more of a list of the "Most Skilled Players of All Time", which just doesn't do the list justice. Either you explained it really badly or I'm just missing something, because Taeja's accomplishments didn't come anywhere near MC's from what I read while Taeja had to beat a lot of tough competition to do what he did. Right now, I can agree with Taeja's spot at #3 and believe the whole rest of the rankings is shit because you didn't go into as much detail as you did with Taeja, or I can disagree with Taeja's spot at #3 and believe the rest of the rankings is great since you covered all aspects of the game rather fairly except for the difficulty of players. Taeja wasn't getting special treatment. He just happened to be the only player to have won so many tournaments with so much high level competition that the first criteria started to outweigh the rest. .
This is honestly all I needed to hear, and your long-winded explanation in the original list is just misleading.
Compared to everything else you considered, there's nothing more intangible than the play level of opponents on that particular day, on that particular patch, against that particular player, against that particular race, and even on that particular location. It finally started to make a lot more sense when I removed all the 'harder path' junk that's in there.
I've pinpointed what makes your writing so shady for a clueless person like me. It's when you were comparing Taeja and MC's wins 1:1 while insisting that MC had an easier time for most(which is totally ambiguous), and then adding and subtracting tournaments based on what you felt was equal. Why do all of this? Just compare by tournament prestige. It should have simply been noted that by tallying all of the tournament victories, Taeja should have been more renowned than MC based purely on results. I thought you were trying to justify Taeja's fewer tournament wins as counting for more because of the level of competition.
It's even more misleading considering MC's playstyle's ability to cause upsets for better or for worse (mostly for the better), especially in prep formats. He takes great calculated risks and adaptations that can sometimes fall flat on its face. On that note, does 'consistency' really need to be a category to be considered? I don't think slumps and bad finishes should even be tallied at all. To me it's like trying to make a list of the "Greatest Athletes of All Time" and saying, "Well, Jordan was a godlike basketball player, but he was kinda mediocre at golf and baseball".
I personally would still disagree since I don't think Top 4 means absolutely anything, which takes huge points out of Taeja's two IEM Top 4 finishes while putting much more value on MC's numerous, less difficult First/Second place finishes. I would respect your opinion though, and it'd be really close.
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Fiddler's Green42661 Posts
So you want me to remove all context for their wins and why the runs were impressive or not impressive? The details are what is telling about every run and every tournament and why I balanced it out the way I did. I've watched and analyzed and discussed this game from the beginning to now. There are probably only a handful of people in the world who have watched more SC2 than me. None have written as much. I have a very strong sense of how well they were playing on that day on that patch against that player and race and location.
Essentially the problem here is whether or not you trust my judgement. If not then there is no point in discussing this.
MC's style also hurt him at international lans. He went to way more lans than Taeja ever did and never got close to near the success Taeja had. I'm not sure why you're so ready to disregard the ability to adapt on the fly for what he did earlier in his career and WCS EU.
Yes consistency over time is something that needs to be considered. Squirtle was the single best player by a mile for exactly 2 months relative to his playing field, but he is not here and no one would ever put him in the top 15. The reason players like Boxer, Oov, Nada, Savior, Flash were considered bonjwas was because they were consistent over a long period of time.
And I did think top 4 was worth something and worth writing down. You're the only person I've met who said I should completely disregard all top 4 finishes.
Not sure what you mean by shady? I laid out the critiera, I wrote my reasons, I was honest about how I did what I did and I judged all players to the criteria equally.
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Poland3751 Posts
On April 27 2015 22:08 Zealos wrote:
Please MVP @#1
I love Life or what have you, but MVP will always be the hero the game needed
I'd say MC was the hero game needed and Mvp was a hero the game deserved.
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MC's style also hurt him at international lans. He went to way more lans than Taeja ever did and never got close to near the success Taeja had. I'm not sure why you're so ready to disregard the ability to adapt on the fly for what he did earlier in his career and WCS EU.
That's what I'm saying, and that's why it's misleading.
Yes consistency over time is something that needs to be considered. Squirtle was the single best player by a mile for exactly 2 months relative to his playing field, but he is not here and no one would ever put him in the top 15. The reason players like Boxer, Oov, Nada, Savior, Flash were considered bonjwas was because they were consistent over a long period of time.
People with more big wins over a long period of time is how I see it. I wouldn't care to remember all the games that they lost because it really doesn't matter. MC's "poor performances in OSL" or Taeja's "bad results in prep formats" does not take away anything from what they've accomplished. In other words, there's a difference between 'consistently winning tournaments' and 'consistently not flopping'.
And I did think top 4 was worth something and worth writing down. You're the only person I've met who said I should completely disregard all top 4 finishes.
I'm not saying you should. I'm saying I disregard it. I would completely understand your ranking and have no problem with it.
So you want me to remove all context for their wins and why the runs were impressive or not impressive? The details are what is telling about every run and every tournament and why I balanced it out the way I did. I've watched and analyzed and discussed this game from the beginning to now. There are probably only a handful of people in the world who have watched more SC2 than me. None have written as much. I have a very strong sense of how well they were playing on that day on that patch against that player and race and location.
Essentially the problem here is whether or not you trust my judgement. If not then there is no point in discussing this.
That is what it boils down to, yes. I don't doubt it for a second that you have one of the best sense in valuing their play, and I'm saying it's still not reliable enough. Not only that, but it's a moot point. A win is a win. It's not the exact players they beat that matters, it's the level of competition of the entire tournament that would make the groundwork for an unbiased formula on how 'difficult' the tournaments were. There would certainly be luck involved on how the tournament played out, but that's just part of the game and it doesn't take away from their accomplishments.
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Fiddler's Green42661 Posts
At this point I think we're at a impasse then.
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On April 28 2015 04:34 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 03:29 fishjie wrote:
MVP should be GOAT because he is playing with crippling pain and still found ways to win, and during time when gg lord/winfestor broken combo made it impossible for terran to win in the late game
Also I find it funny that now this article bring up just how broken the end of WOL era was, even though back then ppl were banned for rightfully pointing out how bad the queen range patch was. Even poor avilo was mocked mercilessly by idra and incontrol for pointing this out on SOTG. its good that the truth is finally out Haha. Had MarineKing not collapsed at the critical time, I'm sure we would still find some guys arguing that he was the better player for beating a Zerg in 2010 with 2 rax on close Metalopolis. Come on. This “community” has indeed quite a ridiculous amount of taboos. It's somewhat understandable considering that most of the time the game has been in a pathetic state. Injustice naturally triggers anger; add the dazzling mirror that the Internet is, and of course you get dynamite. In this regard, the “patchzerg” word was funny because it really nailed something, yet failed to apply it correctly as the phenomenon was almost exclusively located out of Korea. I thus remember some anonymous lowmaster from late 2011 suddenly being competitive against ForGG in late 2012, and even making him ragequit on stream… Ugh. More than one year afterwards, I stumbled upon that very Zerg on ladder in HotS; he had become again the rageful random high master that he should have never ceased to be, and was now complaining about Terran being “broken” and whatnot, haha… How the wheel turns. Retrospectively, it's also funny to remember some people calling Life “patchzerg” when he was actually the anti-patchzerg—which is why the finals against Mvp was close, with Life winning despite his best attempts at repeatedly playing into Mvp's hands. Joyous poltergeist through-and-through. At any rate he amply proved afterwards that he did not need at all the massive imbalance of the end of WoL to be successful. Same as all the Protoss champions of the ZParcraft era were good to brilliant players, even if mathematically there is “Heart of the Storm” written in tiny golden letters on a few trophies.
The game has been in a pretty bad state at many times in its history. And then Blizzard brings on the nerf hammer which just swings the balance in another direction. Which makes anytime somebody won when their race was weak awesome. Fruiterdealer, Nestea, MC, MVP, and so on. And MVP especially because not only could he win when his race was weakened by nerfs, he also did it when his wrists were weak and causing him crippling pain that lesser mortals would have folded under.
There were some korean patchzergs I'd say Roro won using gglord/winfestor and then after HOTS he fell off until swarm host style came into favor, and then fell off again once it was nerfed. But yeah majority of them were foreigners. Which makes players like Scarlett who managed to stay elite in HOTS all the more impressive
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On April 28 2015 08:34 nimdil wrote:Show nested quote +On April 27 2015 22:08 Zealos wrote:
Please MVP @#1
I love Life or what have you, but MVP will always be the hero the game needed I'd say MC was the hero game needed and Mvp was a hero the game deserved.
Especially since it was only those two competing for #1 prize money for sooo long!
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As a terran player i just feel its necessary to say that i feel that MC added more innovation to Protoss than Teaga did for Terran. And while in comparing outright tournament wins mc vs teaga, with teaga pulling a bit ahead.
I think it needs to be said that its odd for a player who seems to lack the ability to handle/prepare for preparation style tournaments such as wcs and gsl, also worth noting that wcs was an easier version of gsl in which teaga still seemed unable to perp himself for.
I think When you consider that MC won more money, did more for protoss in terms of innovation, has proven himself very strong at both preparation tornys and weekend tournaments, and finally and for most has shown himself to be more relevant over a longer period of time.
With the "GREAT RESET" that sent most of the koreans back home it should be noted that MC went further than teaga, and i know team support isnt a factor in the criteria but its important to note that mc is basically being sponsored, where as teaga has a better team to help him get further in prep tournaments and he still failed to get further than MC. However MC did have an easier group than teaga it doesn't change the fact that MC advanced and teaga didn't and sometimes when your comparing players that are neck in neck you got to compare there current form a little bit higher than there over all form. Especially when you consider that MC was relaventant/dominate for a longer period of time.
Sorry for grammer and spelling mistakes
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Haha taeja being #3 is like making some basketball player who won alot of college and high school championships ahead of players who won actual NBA championships. Its just silly.
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EPT
