• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 18:39
CEST 00:39
KST 07:39
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
[ASL21] Ro4 Preview: On Course12Code S Season 1 - RO8 Preview7[ASL21] Ro8 Preview Pt2: Progenitors8Code S Season 1 - RO12 Group A: Rogue, Percival, Solar, Zoun13[ASL21] Ro8 Preview Pt1: Inheritors16
Community News
Weekly Cups (May 4-10): Clem, MaxPax, herO win1Maestros of The Game 2 announcement and schedule !10Weekly Cups (April 27-May 4): Clem takes triple0RSL Revival: Season 5 - Qualifiers and Main Event12Code S Season 1 (2026) - RO12 Results1
StarCraft 2
General
MaNa leaves Team Liquid Weekly Cups (May 4-10): Clem, MaxPax, herO win Code S Season 1 - RO8 Preview Behind the Blue - Team Liquid History Book Weekly Cups (April 27-May 4): Clem takes triple
Tourneys
2026 GSL Season 2 Qualifiers $5,000 WardiTV Spring Championship 2026 Maestros of The Game 2 announcement and schedule ! SC2 INu's Battles#16 <BO.9> Master Swan Open (Global Bronze-Master 2)
Strategy
Custom Maps
[D]RTS in all its shapes and glory <3 [A] Nemrods 1/4 players
External Content
Mutation # 525 Wheel of Misfortune The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 524 Death and Taxes Mutation # 523 Firewall
Brood War
General
(Spoiler) Interview ASL Ro4 Day 2 Winner Data needed Flashes ASL S21 Ro8 Review ASL Tickets to Live Event Finals? Pros React To: Leta vs Tulbo (ASL S21, Ro.8)
Tourneys
[ASL21] Semifinals B [Megathread] Daily Proleagues [ASL21] Semifinals A [BSL22] RO16 Group Stage - 02 - 10 May
Strategy
[G] Hydra ZvZ: An Introduction Simple Questions, Simple Answers Fighting Spirit mining rates Muta micro map competition
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Nintendo Switch Thread Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne Starcraft Tabletop Miniature Game PC Games Sales Thread
Dota 2
The Story of Wings Gaming
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
Vanilla Mini Mafia Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas TL Mafia Community Thread Five o'clock TL Mafia
Community
General
Russo-Ukrainian War Thread US Politics Mega-thread UK Politics Mega-thread YouTube Thread European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
The IdrA Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
[Manga] One Piece Anime Discussion Thread [Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread McBoner: A hockey love story Formula 1 Discussion
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
streaming software Strange computer issues (software) [G] How to Block Livestream Ads
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
How EEG Data Can Predict Gam…
TrAiDoS
ramps on octagon
StaticNine
Funny Nicknames
LUCKY_NOOB
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 1721 users

stuchiu's 1000: Myth of the Inconsistent Champion - Page 3

Forum Index > SC2 General
99 CommentsPost a Reply
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 Next All
FFW_Rude
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
France10201 Posts
January 25 2016 07:26 GMT
#41
On January 25 2016 16:19 Hier wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 25 2016 15:09 NiHiLuSsc2 wrote:
doesnt sAviOr technically have 0 championships

No, he still has them.


Really ? I tohught all the tournaments he won have no champion and every picture off him as ben erased from the hall of fame or something.
#1 KT Rolster fanboy. KT BEST KT ! Hail to KT playoffs Zergs ! Unofficial french translator for SlayerS_`Boxer` biography "Crazy as me".
joshie0808
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
Canada1024 Posts
January 25 2016 07:39 GMT
#42
Great article, tho it was short, it was an entertaining narrative on the perspective that there really are very consistent champions.
Hier
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
2391 Posts
January 25 2016 07:40 GMT
#43
On January 25 2016 16:26 FFW_Rude wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 25 2016 16:19 Hier wrote:
On January 25 2016 15:09 NiHiLuSsc2 wrote:
doesnt sAviOr technically have 0 championships

No, he still has them.


Really ? I tohught all the tournaments he won have no champion and every picture off him as ben erased from the hall of fame or something.

KeSPA has stripped him of all nominated awards, such as for Proleague, and his photo has been removed from the OGN Wall of Fame. His medals were never taken away, however. Why would they? He didn't cheat to get them.
"But on a more serious note..." -everyone on this forum at some point.
jalstar
Profile Blog Joined September 2009
United States8198 Posts
January 25 2016 07:43 GMT
#44
On January 25 2016 15:41 stuchiu wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 25 2016 15:33 lichter wrote:
tbh i never understood the desire for dominance. having one winner all the time is fucking boring and has no relation to the 'legitimacy' of a sport. if anything, dominance over an excessive period of time is what turns a sport into a farce. having short periods of dominance is okay though.

people can be fans of any player, so it works both ways. your player always winning is fun, but your player never winning sucks even more. everyone knows that for sports fans losing hurts more than winning feels good.


I've been pretty happy watching Marineking lose.


So has MarineKing, if certain allegations are true.

User was warned for this post
Shuffleblade
Profile Joined February 2012
Sweden1903 Posts
January 25 2016 07:59 GMT
#45
This was an interesting article, while the opinions on how telling this actually is differ its still interesting numbers to see.

I want to point out that weekender tournaments like IEM and Dreamhack previously inflated the pereception of inconsistent champions. The skill needed to win weekenders and the skill needed to win GSL are fundamentally different, even though we know this we still feel disappointed and call it an upset when a playern that excels at one type of tournament gets knocked out early of a differently structured one.
Maru, Bomber, TY, Dear, Classic, DeParture and Rogue!
jalstar
Profile Blog Joined September 2009
United States8198 Posts
January 25 2016 08:06 GMT
#46
Given the insane amount of changes, the constantly rising competition, the slowly increasing skill of the players, unrelenting tournament schedules and the travel and fatigue that causes, it isn’t surprising to hear fans and casters call SC2 an inconsistent game with inconsistent results.

Or, we could listen to Occam's Razor and consider that it could be the results themselves.

While we have had dominating players, no single player has ever had a rightful claim to being the best player in the world for a sustained period longer than one year (with the notable exception being Mvp). The game is too competitive and changes too often for even the best players to stay on top unless they have the strength of will and ambition to do anything to win, like Mvp.

Mvp was not the best player in the world for a year straight. He was upstaged multiple times, first by MC and NesTea, then by MMA and Leenock, then arguably by MarineKing and DRG.

Mvp's peak was actually in early 2011. His later results were good but he never achieved the same dominance as when he sprung onto the scene.

However in another sense, they are completely wrong. The numbers alone tell you a very clear story. In 5 years we have had 166 Premier Tournaments. Out of the 450 players that could have won, only 68 have. That equates to only 15% of all pro players ever winning a Premier. Among those, 30 are one time winners. The total number of players that have won 2 Premier Tournaments or higher is 38. That means 8.5% of the competitive pro player pool have won 82% of total Premier Tournaments. There are 22 players that have won 3+ Premier Tournaments and they total 115 Premier Tournament victories, meaning that 5% of the pro player pool has 70% of all Premier Championships. There are 11 5+ Premier Tournament winners. They have won a total of 79 Premier victories and account for 47.5% of all Premier Championships. The three greatest players of all time: Taeja, Life and Mvp have 30 wins to their names making up 18% of all Premier Championships in 5 years.

Well first, Premier is an arbitrary definition made up by the website you work for. Secondly, this is just saying that there's a pool of best players who win a lot of tournaments. It has nothing to do with the issue of a few players failing to rise above the top player pool. In BW there were times where Flash, Jaedong, Bisu, and Stork were the best, but also Luxury and Calm could win tournaments, but there were also periods where almost no one could beat Flash or Savior. But I know you're getting to BW.

For instance, in GSL March 2011, Mvp was knocked out early on by JulyZerg. While this qualifies as an upset, you have to consider what July’s form was at the time. During the summer of 2011 he was unarguably the second best Zerg by results. A 2nd place in GSL, two Ro4s in DH and NASL and another Ro8 in GSL. While it is an upset he beat Mvp, July is a player we can say with hindsight we should have expected in a Ro8 of GSL.

In a game with consistency (a game with bonjwas), the best player in the world should easily topple the 2nd best zerg. Furthermore putting July above Coca and Losira is extremely suspect, as the Code A/S format made it easy to stay in Code S and hard to enter, keeping players who were initial Code S members like July far above other players, which led to July getting invites to foreign tournaments.

“upset” champions account for approximately 30% of titles while the other 70% of titles are won by the same 38 people.

How is this supposed to be convincing me that SC2 is consistent? 38 players are only the top 70%, in a game that's been out for 5 years or one esports career length? Wasn't your last article about how the player pool isn't really changing?

BW had a greater number of one-time champions. While many of these champions occurred during the early years unlike SC2, there were also one-off champs in BW's later life such as EffOrt and FanTaSy. However, it is a stretch to say that they were undeserving, because they were legitimately two of the best players during the time period where they won. The same goes for winners like Dear and Soulkey. FanTaSy was unfortunate not to win more titles due to JangBi beating him in two of the last OSL finals; otherwise he would not be considered a one-time champ. Similarly, soO (and ByuL, perhaps) would have been a deserving multi-time champion had history gone differently.

BW was also around for much much longer and the player pool replenished itself multiple times, which as you said in your last article hasn't been happening in SC2.

BW champions had a greater average number of titles despite the greater number of one time champions. This is because of players like Flash, NaDa, Jaedong and iloveoov, who had 6 or 5 titles each. The highest number of Korean premier titles for SC2 is Mvp at 4. If we look at the players commonly referred to as bonjwas, 4 Korean titles appears to be the bar.

4 titles in a year is a better metric. Or maybe 4 finals in a year with 3 or more titles to include Boxer. Jaedong almost did it, but didn't quite get there. Mvp failed to do it despite getting 2-3 more chances than BW players did. And holding a tournament with all invites and 8 foreigners to the same standard as OSL and MSL is very disingenuous writing.

While it seems like a conclusion can be drawn from this, it's a very shallow examination of whether championship winners were consistent and how random one off winners truly were. In order to do that, a more thorough examination of brackets is necessary. The only thing this surface look can say is that based on title winners alone, the two games weren't that different in terms of consistency. It will be interesting to see whether anyone will reach more than 4 titles for SC2, however.

Looking at total titles instead of titles and finals per year doesn't tell you enough about consistency or dominance. A player who wins a title, goes to Code A, and comes back months later to win again isn't anywhere as consistent or dominant as anyone in the top 5 players in BW history.

What this article really reveals is how shallow the top level of the SC2 player pool really is. There's always been 5-10 players at most who are capable of winning a Korean title at any one point, but no player, even Mvp, has been able to consistently rise above the others. This far into SC2's life, it seems unlikely that any ever will.
nimdil
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Poland3759 Posts
January 25 2016 08:26 GMT
#47
Essentially Apples's and Oranges.

I will link this (Wiki)Starcraft Leagues Results/Prominence
aRyuujin
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
United States5049 Posts
January 25 2016 08:35 GMT
#48
This article had a lot of text but said very little
can i get my estro logo back pls
nimdil
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Poland3759 Posts
January 25 2016 08:38 GMT
#49
On January 25 2016 17:35 aRyuujin wrote:
This article had a lot of text but said very little

TO be fair it even says so at the end "it's a shallow examination".
Penev
Profile Joined October 2012
28528 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-01-25 09:04:20
January 25 2016 09:03 GMT
#50
Funny, sAviOr alone with his 4 wins, the Asian number of bad luck

Mvp the same tho
I Protoss winner, could it be?
REyeM
Profile Joined August 2014
2674 Posts
January 25 2016 09:23 GMT
#51
Or the game is just terrible lol
S4 Arrows, never forget. RIP Woongjin Stars.
ZertoN
Profile Joined February 2014
Germany214 Posts
January 25 2016 09:35 GMT
#52
On January 25 2016 14:18 sc2chronic wrote:
havent seen anything good ever come from this writer.


couldnt agree more
"I don't like games that i need to think a lot, i am not interested in those games." - TaeJa, 2016
FFW_Rude
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
France10201 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-01-25 09:50:47
January 25 2016 09:50 GMT
#53
On January 25 2016 16:40 Hier wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 25 2016 16:26 FFW_Rude wrote:
On January 25 2016 16:19 Hier wrote:
On January 25 2016 15:09 NiHiLuSsc2 wrote:
doesnt sAviOr technically have 0 championships

No, he still has them.


Really ? I tohught all the tournaments he won have no champion and every picture off him as ben erased from the hall of fame or something.

KeSPA has stripped him of all nominated awards, such as for Proleague, and his photo has been removed from the OGN Wall of Fame. His medals were never taken away, however. Why would they? He didn't cheat to get them.


Yeah that's true. Thanks for the clarification.
#1 KT Rolster fanboy. KT BEST KT ! Hail to KT playoffs Zergs ! Unofficial french translator for SlayerS_`Boxer` biography "Crazy as me".
PickyProtoss
Profile Blog Joined April 2014
Ireland74 Posts
January 25 2016 09:59 GMT
#54
Your conclusion is very biased and lacks context - The total number of players that have won 2 Premier Tournaments or higher is 38. That means 8.5% of the competitive pro player pool have won 82% of total Premier Tournaments - you would need to compare this finding to other sports, otherwise how do we know whether this represents a lot of champion or not a lot of champions? Take darts, pool, football, tennis, other esports, etc. and use them as a reference group.
lichter
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
January 25 2016 10:09 GMT
#55
i actually started doing the comparison with ro16 onwards for everything, but then i realized i'd have to make an algorithm to weigh it and write a script in visual basic for excel to solve it, so i decided nope not doing that
AdministratorYOU MUST HEED MY INSTRUCTIONS TAKE OFF YOUR THIIIINGS
Cascade
Profile Blog Joined March 2006
Australia5405 Posts
January 25 2016 10:15 GMT
#56
On January 25 2016 17:38 nimdil wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 25 2016 17:35 aRyuujin wrote:
This article had a lot of text but said very little

TO be fair it even says so at the end "it's a shallow examination".

Yeah, it was pretty short and concise for TL standard, and didn't really claim that it arrived at any false conclusions. So that's good. It didn't really arrive at any other kind of conclusions either, but well, what can you do. "Here, have some numbers."
lichter
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-01-25 10:19:35
January 25 2016 10:18 GMT
#57
On January 25 2016 19:15 Cascade wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 25 2016 17:38 nimdil wrote:
On January 25 2016 17:35 aRyuujin wrote:
This article had a lot of text but said very little

TO be fair it even says so at the end "it's a shallow examination".

Yeah, it was pretty short and concise for TL standard, and didn't really claim that it arrived at any false conclusions. So that's good. It didn't really arrive at any other kind of conclusions either, but well, what can you do. "Here, have some numbers."


i considered doing ro16 onwards for the comparison but it would have been too complicated and time consuming. i don't think it's worth the effort tbh, the conclusion likely won't be drastically different, but that's only a guess
AdministratorYOU MUST HEED MY INSTRUCTIONS TAKE OFF YOUR THIIIINGS
Big J
Profile Joined March 2011
Austria16289 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-01-25 11:16:47
January 25 2016 11:16 GMT
#58
Raw stats. I like.
Phredxor
Profile Joined May 2013
New Zealand15076 Posts
January 25 2016 11:23 GMT
#59
On January 25 2016 18:59 PickyProtoss wrote:
Your conclusion is very biased and lacks context - The total number of players that have won 2 Premier Tournaments or higher is 38. That means 8.5% of the competitive pro player pool have won 82% of total Premier Tournaments - you would need to compare this finding to other sports, otherwise how do we know whether this represents a lot of champion or not a lot of champions? Take darts, pool, football, tennis, other esports, etc. and use them as a reference group.


Comparing completely different sports to sc2 wouldnt make anything any clearer. Don't see how that would help.
Gwavajuice
Profile Joined June 2014
France1810 Posts
January 25 2016 11:25 GMT
#60
I dunno if comparing with BW should really be the alpha and omega of all analysis...

Anyway, since the merge with Kespa, the SC2 big names have been the like of INno, Life, Zest, Rain, Classic, Maru, soO, sOs, MMA, Taeja, ...

If the results were inconsistents, we wouldn't have these guys dominating the HotS scene for so long.

Dear INno and all the former STX boys.
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 1h 22m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
UpATreeSC 111
CosmosSc2 27
StarCraft: Brood War
Artosis 445
910 29
Movie 27
NaDa 8
Dota 2
qojqva1132
monkeys_forever360
NeuroSwarm104
Counter-Strike
fl0m5320
minikerr10
Super Smash Bros
PPMD41
Other Games
summit1g6987
shahzam873
C9.Mang0273
ViBE18
Organizations
Other Games
BasetradeTV101
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
[ Show 17 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Hupsaiya 81
• musti20045 66
• RyuSc2 33
• Hinosc 29
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• sooper7s
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
StarCraft: Brood War
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
• BSLYoutube
Dota 2
• masondota2853
Other Games
• Scarra1560
• imaqtpie1262
Upcoming Events
PiGosaur Cup
1h 22m
Replay Cast
10h 22m
Replay Cast
1d 1h
The PondCast
1d 11h
OSC
1d 11h
Replay Cast
2 days
RSL Revival
2 days
OSC
2 days
Korean StarCraft League
3 days
RSL Revival
3 days
[ Show More ]
BSL
3 days
GSL
4 days
Cure vs herO
SHIN vs Maru
BSL
4 days
Replay Cast
5 days
Replay Cast
6 days
The PondCast
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-05-11
WardiTV TLMC #16
Nations Cup 2026

Ongoing

BSL Season 22
ASL Season 21
IPSL Spring 2026
KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 2
Acropolis #4
KK 2v2 League Season 1
BSL 22 Non-Korean Championship
Proleague 2026-05-12
SCTL 2026 Spring
RSL Revival: Season 5
2026 GSL S1
Asian Champions League 2026
IEM Atlanta 2026
PGL Astana 2026
BLAST Rivals Spring 2026
IEM Rio 2026
PGL Bucharest 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 1
BLAST Open Spring 2026
ESL Pro League S23 Finals
ESL Pro League S23 Stage 1&2

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S2: W7
YSL S3
Escore Tournament S2: W8
CSLAN 4
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
HSC XXIX
uThermal 2v2 2026 Main Event
Maestros of the Game 2
WardiTV Spring 2026
2026 GSL S2
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026: Closed Qualifier
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2
CS Asia Championships 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.