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stuchiu's 1000: Myth of the Inconsistent Champion - Page 5

Forum Index > SC2 General
99 CommentsPost a Reply
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 All
ejozl
Profile Joined October 2010
Denmark3491 Posts
January 25 2016 17:41 GMT
#81
For me the appendix wasn't that interesting, especially since you mentioned Taeja, spoke about number of Primier tournaments won in SC2 and linked the GOAT article. If we only looked at tournaments held in Korea Taeja wouldn't even be in the top 15.
I'm not shitting on Taeja, but just saying, looking at tournaments only held in Korea is not indicitive to who's the greatest champions in SC2.
SC2 Archon needs "Terrible, terrible damage" as one of it's quotes.
nimdil
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Poland3759 Posts
January 25 2016 18:25 GMT
#82
On January 26 2016 02:41 ejozl wrote:
For me the appendix wasn't that interesting, especially since you mentioned Taeja, spoke about number of Primier tournaments won in SC2 and linked the GOAT article. If we only looked at tournaments held in Korea Taeja wouldn't even be in the top 15.
I'm not shitting on Taeja, but just saying, looking at tournaments only held in Korea is not indicitive to who's the greatest champions in SC2.

You're hugely incorrect. Looking at tournaments in Korean is extremely indicative to who's the greatest champion in SC2. It's just not definite.

If you think about greatest players in SC2 most of them were successful in Korea, at least for a time. Look at top 10 from GOAT series

Mvp - successful in Korea
Life - successful in Korea
TaeJa - nonfactor in Korea
MC - successful in Korea
Polt - moderate success in Korea
MMA - successful in Korea
NesTea - successful only in Korea
Zest - successful in Korea
INnoVation - successful in Korea
Rain - successful in Korea

If you look at players with most $$ earned in SC2 then:

MC - successful in Korea
Life - successful in Korea
sOs - moderate success in Korea (unless you count Proleague)
Mvp - successful in Korea
MMA - successful in Korea
Polt - moderate success in Korea
PartinG - strong presence in Korea (unless PL)
INnoVation - successful in Korea
NesTea- successful in Korea

If you look at players with most premier tournament wins of any kind than you add to the table:

HerO - unsuccessful in Korea
Bomber - neglible success in Korea (Code A)

and finally peak rating in tlpd you get:

INnoVation - successful in Korea
sOs - moderate success in Korea (unless you count Proleague)
soO - significant success in challeing inner YellOw and winning special event
Parting - strong presence in Korea (unless PL)
Life - successful in Korea
Maru - successful in Korea
herO - moderately successful in Korea
Rain - successful in Korea
TaeJa - nonfactor in Korea
Classic - successful in Korea

Bagration
Profile Blog Joined October 2011
United States18282 Posts
January 25 2016 18:34 GMT
#83
On January 26 2016 02:41 ejozl wrote:
For me the appendix wasn't that interesting, especially since you mentioned Taeja, spoke about number of Primier tournaments won in SC2 and linked the GOAT article. If we only looked at tournaments held in Korea Taeja wouldn't even be in the top 15.
I'm not shitting on Taeja, but just saying, looking at tournaments only held in Korea is not indicitive to who's the greatest champions in SC2.


Taeja is the god of weekenders and foreign tournaments, but for some reason when it came to the GSL or even WCS he under-performed. He's one of the greatest due to his unparalleled dominance in that area, but I can't help but feel his body of work is missing a critical component.

He's like a Yellow of SC2 - the special events king!
Team Slayers, Axiom-Acer and Vile forever
ejozl
Profile Joined October 2010
Denmark3491 Posts
January 25 2016 18:36 GMT
#84
Whoops, should've said it is wrong to ONLY look at Korea.
If you're strong in Korea that IS indicitive of you being a strong player..
SC2 Archon needs "Terrible, terrible damage" as one of it's quotes.
ClaudeSc2
Profile Joined May 2014
United States73 Posts
January 25 2016 19:04 GMT
#85
I disagree with his reasoning. It's not just about who won tournaments. It's about how consistently deep players runs were. Ro8's and Ro4's need to be factored in. In Sc2 we've seen two many GSL champions drop out in the Ro32 the next season...which is a fucking embarrassing level of volatility in the game.
jalstar
Profile Blog Joined September 2009
United States8198 Posts
January 25 2016 19:19 GMT
#86
On January 26 2016 04:04 ClaudeSc2 wrote:
I disagree with his reasoning. It's not just about who won tournaments. It's about how consistently deep players runs were. Ro8's and Ro4's need to be factored in. In Sc2 we've seen two many GSL champions drop out in the Ro32 the next season...which is a fucking embarrassing level of volatility in the game.


We saw that in BW as well with the OSL curse. BW alternated between SC2-like periods where there was an "S-class" of players and bonjwa periods where one player was unstoppable.
Ace Frehley
Profile Joined December 2012
2030 Posts
January 25 2016 19:45 GMT
#87
On January 26 2016 04:04 ClaudeSc2 wrote:
I disagree with his reasoning. It's not just about who won tournaments. It's about how consistently deep players runs were. Ro8's and Ro4's need to be factored in. In Sc2 we've seen two many GSL champions drop out in the Ro32 the next season...which is a fucking embarrassing level of volatility in the game.


I wish I could find a post that some guy did a long time ago, compiling the performance of all the BW champions in the very next tournament they played (individual league). You'd be surprised with the amount of champions being kicked out very early.

It's a myth that this only happened with sc2
...
nimdil
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Poland3759 Posts
January 25 2016 19:57 GMT
#88
On January 26 2016 04:45 Ace Frehley wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 26 2016 04:04 ClaudeSc2 wrote:
I disagree with his reasoning. It's not just about who won tournaments. It's about how consistently deep players runs were. Ro8's and Ro4's need to be factored in. In Sc2 we've seen two many GSL champions drop out in the Ro32 the next season...which is a fucking embarrassing level of volatility in the game.


I wish I could find a post that some guy did a long time ago, compiling the performance of all the BW champions in the very next tournament they played (individual league). You'd be surprised with the amount of champions being kicked out very early.

It's a myth that this only happened with sc2

Part of the information is here http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Starcraft_Leagues_Results/Prominence

The only thing that's missing is why the player didn't have any result in subsequent event if there's nothing (Like NaDa in OSL after his 3 KPGAs) - either did not play or did not qualify.

MrMischelito
Profile Joined February 2014
347 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-01-25 20:30:52
January 25 2016 20:30 GMT
#89
Ooooh, when I saw Mvp's picture I was expecting an announcement of his return to SC2... But this is also great. Thanks for the write-up!
PickyProtoss
Profile Blog Joined April 2014
Ireland74 Posts
January 25 2016 23:02 GMT
#90
On January 25 2016 22:40 RKC wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 25 2016 22:21 Elentos wrote:
On January 25 2016 21:56 PickyProtoss wrote:
On January 25 2016 20:23 Phredxor wrote:
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.


Comparing how humans perform across an array of sports and determining consistently levels would not help? You are focusing on the game, whereas I would argue that it is humans playing the game and consistency within games is a psychological phenomenon!

You would first have to prove that consistency in SC2 and consistency in other, "real" sports work in similar fashion. For example, the consistency of SC2 players can be derailed by injuries. Sports teams in general are not dependant on 1 person to achieve consistent results. Or as another example, PartinG made 10 consecutive Ro16s in Code S. For SC2, that's impressively consistent, and he got an award for it. Heck, you get an award for 10 consecutive appearances in Code S. In other sports, consistently qualifying is not something you get awarded for. So then, is consistency in Starcraft 2 really the same as consistency in football (soccer)? I wouldn't say it is, and it's certainly too deep for an article like this.


We could break down consistency rates into three levels: top, middle, bottom.

Top: Finals
Middle: RO16-RO4 for SC2, RO8-RO4 for BW
Bottom: RO32-RO16 for SC2, RO16-RO8 for BW

The rates could be very well be significantly different at different levels.

Then the next question would be which level of competition matters more in comparing consistency as a whole? Should we have a weighted ratio (e.g. Top:Mid:Bottom = 50:30:20)? Or should we only factor in top, or top and middle?

This is moving towards the deep dive analysis stuchiu hinted about. Good luck with juggling 25+ sheets!


Thank you for the response, you raise some interesting points. However, other sports people also get injuries! Also, I would not create a division between "real" sports and esports - because we are ultimately discussing humans playing a game. Rather than using the cliche of chess, tennis was also mentioned, this is not a team sport. I think performance in tennis and SC2 is comparable. The problem with esports is balancing. I think balance has lots to do with the issue of consistency! I suppose maps also play a factor - as the article states.

In terms of the analysis, it depends what you want to do - currently the analysis is descriptive statistics. I mean it seems rather difficult to prove the point that SC2 is any less or more consistent than any sports without a reference group. Also, the issue about comparing SC2 with BW is that BW influenced SC2, but SC2 did not influence BW. Therefore, the games are not independent esports. Skills attained in BW can be transferred to SC2. This is why I made reference to other sports. It is common to see consistent champions in sports, even single player games, such as darts and tennis.Indeed, soccer is a bad example!

Nevertheless, excellent article and comments. I have scrapped the ladder for 3 weeks over Christmas and ran some analysis on how many players rank up in a week. The results are quite startling. There are limitations to the analysis, but I would love to share them with the community. So if anyone is interested in writing a excerpt just let me know!!!
BowtiesAreCool
Profile Joined January 2016
5 Posts
January 26 2016 00:27 GMT
#91
"In a sense they are right. 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."


I don't think the data provided really refutes the idea above. Yes, there is a group of players that consistently make their way to the latter-stages of grand tournaments. Yes, very few have been able to repeat as champions. The information regarding upsets is pretty invalid and (really) only acts as a red herring... There isn't really a coherent argument as to why the "inconsistent champion" is a myth... SC2 is so volatile and given the constant changes in map pools, racial balance, and (now) the new WCS system, we might not ever see another MVP, NesTea, etc. Still, this was a fun read and there's an incredible amount of data in here.
FuzzyJAM
Profile Joined July 2010
Scotland9300 Posts
January 26 2016 00:33 GMT
#92
Only looking at Korea is the right way to go about it to be honest. When talking about the best ever football team, nobody brings up Simba because of their success in the Kagame Interclub Cup. But that's really a different discussion.

Even if you don't agree with that, I don't get the sense in comparing across games with totally different tournament formats. Format has as much impact on consistency as the game itself does. And for SC2 you factor in jet lag and other travel problems, randomising factors which Brood War almost never dealt with. And of course the game itself has changed a great deal - SC2 has never been stable, whereas BW has been on essentially the same patch for how many years? And so on.

I know this is supposed to be a very basic comparison and taken with a pinch of salt, but there are too many flaws for it to be worth anything.
Did you ever say Yes to a single joy?
RKC
Profile Joined June 2012
2848 Posts
January 26 2016 03:08 GMT
#93
On January 26 2016 08:02 PickyProtoss wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 25 2016 22:40 RKC wrote:
On January 25 2016 22:21 Elentos wrote:
On January 25 2016 21:56 PickyProtoss wrote:
On January 25 2016 20:23 Phredxor wrote:
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.


Comparing how humans perform across an array of sports and determining consistently levels would not help? You are focusing on the game, whereas I would argue that it is humans playing the game and consistency within games is a psychological phenomenon!

You would first have to prove that consistency in SC2 and consistency in other, "real" sports work in similar fashion. For example, the consistency of SC2 players can be derailed by injuries. Sports teams in general are not dependant on 1 person to achieve consistent results. Or as another example, PartinG made 10 consecutive Ro16s in Code S. For SC2, that's impressively consistent, and he got an award for it. Heck, you get an award for 10 consecutive appearances in Code S. In other sports, consistently qualifying is not something you get awarded for. So then, is consistency in Starcraft 2 really the same as consistency in football (soccer)? I wouldn't say it is, and it's certainly too deep for an article like this.


We could break down consistency rates into three levels: top, middle, bottom.

Top: Finals
Middle: RO16-RO4 for SC2, RO8-RO4 for BW
Bottom: RO32-RO16 for SC2, RO16-RO8 for BW

The rates could be very well be significantly different at different levels.

Then the next question would be which level of competition matters more in comparing consistency as a whole? Should we have a weighted ratio (e.g. Top:Mid:Bottom = 50:30:20)? Or should we only factor in top, or top and middle?

This is moving towards the deep dive analysis stuchiu hinted about. Good luck with juggling 25+ sheets!


Thank you for the response, you raise some interesting points. However, other sports people also get injuries! Also, I would not create a division between "real" sports and esports - because we are ultimately discussing humans playing a game. Rather than using the cliche of chess, tennis was also mentioned, this is not a team sport. I think performance in tennis and SC2 is comparable. The problem with esports is balancing. I think balance has lots to do with the issue of consistency! I suppose maps also play a factor - as the article states.

In terms of the analysis, it depends what you want to do - currently the analysis is descriptive statistics. I mean it seems rather difficult to prove the point that SC2 is any less or more consistent than any sports without a reference group. Also, the issue about comparing SC2 with BW is that BW influenced SC2, but SC2 did not influence BW. Therefore, the games are not independent esports. Skills attained in BW can be transferred to SC2. This is why I made reference to other sports. It is common to see consistent champions in sports, even single player games, such as darts and tennis.Indeed, soccer is a bad example!

Nevertheless, excellent article and comments. I have scrapped the ladder for 3 weeks over Christmas and ran some analysis on how many players rank up in a week. The results are quite startling. There are limitations to the analysis, but I would love to share them with the community. So if anyone is interested in writing a excerpt just let me know!!!


Sure, do share your analysis!

Anyway, I wasn't the one saying esports can't be compared with real sports. I think it can, and should. I'm interested to see how individual sports like tennis, golf, snooker, darts, etc compare with each other (and yes, with SC2 and BW as well) in terms of champion consistency.
gg no re thx
Skynx
Profile Blog Joined January 2013
Turkey7150 Posts
January 26 2016 11:23 GMT
#94
Im happy cuz of the lovely picture of Sniper.
"When seagulls follow the troller, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. Thank you very much" - King Cantona | STX 4 eva
minigwar
Profile Joined June 2011
United States33 Posts
January 27 2016 03:18 GMT
#95
Where is Mvp? : (
cannabis is king
Richasliodo
Profile Joined January 2016
18 Posts
January 27 2016 03:38 GMT
#96
Probably one of the most extensive articles i have read of SC2 players - Love it welldone
nimdil
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Poland3759 Posts
January 27 2016 08:52 GMT
#97
On Bonjwa article on LP1 there's a Glicko rating of players with Bonjwa's rating highlighted showing their dominance.

To compare sc2 to that you would need to provide same criteria for ranking - essentially core gsl osl ssl proleague and gstl and plot something similar.
waiting2Bbanned
Profile Joined November 2015
United States154 Posts
January 27 2016 22:31 GMT
#98
Looking at the BW result made me sad. SaviOr would have been considered one of the greatest, had he not match fixed =(.


Since by "match-fixing" he artificially lost more (games he threw for $), he would've probably been on top of the winners' list;
still one of the best players in my book.
"If you are going to break the law, do it with two thousand people.. and Mozart." - Howard Zinn
TizeNO
Profile Joined April 2015
Croatia6 Posts
January 28 2016 04:36 GMT
#99
The only one consistent who you knew will win tourney for sure in sc2 was MVP in his time when he wasnt injured. Truly the best sc2 player...
nimdil
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Poland3759 Posts
January 28 2016 12:58 GMT
#100
On January 28 2016 13:36 TizeNO wrote:
The only one consistent who you knew will win tourney for sure in sc2 was MVP in his time when he wasnt injured. Truly the best sc2 player...

I don't agree. Mvp during his prime fell to Code A from Code S - during a period which was criticized for Code S being almost air tight and safe heaven while Code A being blood bath. He was strong the whole time but it was NesTea who was truly consistent in this period. Just less successful.
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