In the last 5 years, SC2 has had 166 Premier Tournaments. This includes all GSLs, SSLs, OSLs, KeSPA Cups, WCS, IEMs, MLGs, IPLs, NASLs, ASUS ROGs, DreamHacks, Red Bulls, Hot6ix Cups and a large amount of assorted other tournaments. This doesn’t even touch on major, minor, online or national tournaments.
In that time we have had large influxes of new players throughout all 5 years totaling anywhere between 450-500 pro players depending on your definition. Perhaps more importantly, we have had 2 expansions and multiple patches across that time that have changed the game dramatically. This doesn’t include the chaos of how map pools can affect balance and matchups at any given moment. Additionally, there is no seeding system nor a world wide agreed upon ELO system which lessens top players knocking each other out in earlier rounds.
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.
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.
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.
Next I looked at the Top 8 of Korean leagues. This includes every Korean LAN barring the first 3 GSL Opens (as the game had just begun), the first OSL (because of the strange half Kespa/half non-Kespa seeding), and the GSL Worlds, GSL ST and the KeSPA Cups because they were all single bracket elimination tournaments with no seeding. Given these parameters there have been a total of 25 Ro8s in Korean tournaments in the last 5 years.
The next problem is trying to judge whether a result was an upset or not. Essentially, we can define it as any player that was a Ro8 player not making it to the Ro8 by to someone not of that caliber. 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 contrast to that is Paralyze’s run to the Ro8 in GSL Season 2 2014. In order to get there he had to beat both Life and Rain. That was Paralyze’s best and only notable results in nearly 2 years of play.
This is a subjective ranking based on my judgement of how good a player was relative to the scene and where we should have expected him given his approximate skill. Given all of that, you find that there are generally on average two players per tournament that were upset before the Ro8. (An interesting data point to this rule is that SSL 1-3 put together only had 1 upset total being Classic’s loss to Rogue, however this can be explained by only having a single Swiss bracket group compared to GSL’s 2). The players who have been upset the most before the Ro8 are: Rain, MC, Parting, Life, Flash and MarineKing. The first 4 were upset 3 times before reaching the Ro16. Flash was upset 4 times (6 if you count the two times he was in a Group of Death) and MKP was upset the most at 5 times total during his peak skill level from 2011-early 2012. Given what we know of both MarineKing and Flash, this isn’t surprising at all as both players were known for playing greedy static styles and were taken advantage of by their opponents time and time again. That means on average an upset can happen a quarter of the time which matches up with the data of overall champions as the “upset” champions account for approximately 30% of titles while the other 70% of titles are won by the same 38 people.
The numbers are convincing, but you also need to remember the fact that players are limited in how many tournaments they can participate in at any given time due to scheduling, travel limitations, expense limitations or tournament entry restrictions. This doesn’t even include the variance of skill at any given tournament, but the overall picture is clear. In a majority of Premier tournaments, the strongest players just seem to win. In Mvp’s words, “Winners just win.”
It is only natural that fans will begin to make comparisons with Brood War. While it is way too lengthy to go through the same amount of rigorous analysis for Ro8s and upsets, it is fairly easy to compare the number of champions that both games have spawned over the years.
The number indicated on the left is the number of titles each player has won. For Brood War, we included every OSL and MSL. For Starcraft 2, we included all GSLs, OSLs, SSLs, KeSPA Cups and Hot6ix Cups—basically every premier tournament held in Korea barring WCS Finals. We decided to include every premier tournament in order to even out the randomness of early BW with the randomness of early SC2 and its stranger formats (Super Tournament, single elimination cups).
Total titles: 39 Total champions: 22 Average titles per champion: 1.77 One time champions - 11 Percentage of one time champs - 50.00%
Based on the number of champions, we can make the following observations:
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 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.
While SC2 has had fewer one time champions, many of those were players that dropped off completely or never again contended for a title. Seed was good for one more season. Dear completely fell off until a mini revival in 2015. Sniper will forever be remembered as the most reviled champion. However, it is difficult to argue that they weren't deserving of their titles. Their rises and falls in form were still peculiar.
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.
Photo Credits: silverfire, Helena Kristiansson, teamacer.com, ESL, ThisIsEsports, DailyEsports Writer: stuchiu Gfx: shiroiusagi CSS: Meru Editor and Appendix: lichter
Well comparison of winners is a poor means of examining this. Comparing Ro8s for instance offers substantially more data about consistency (as in your remark). You also ignored the other major leagues that existed in BW (KT-KTF, iTv ranking, GSI for instance). e.g. start here: http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/korean/individual-leagues#tblt-727-9-0-DESC
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
doesn't really make sense. If you have 166 tournaments there is absolutely no way that there are more than, well, 166 different winners The comment is thus pretty nonsensical tbh.
Now reading the rest
edit: Did read it all now and imo not one of your best articles tbh. The whole "upset part" is basically completely subjective (which you admit, i will give you that), which makes it imo not all that interesting. The whole statistics for premier tournaments itself is kinda so-so because we don't really have all "noteworthy" players even competing at every premier tournament, quite the contrary tbh (especially since kespa came over) In general it also would have been more interesting to look at more than just the winners, but i can understand that this would have been a lot of work, still preferable imo.
Understandably you chose to compare it to bw, but like plexa already said you left out tournaments there while including other 'not so important' tournaments for sc2 (hot6, etc)
It's funny to me that Nathanias likes this one while 'shitting' on the other, because the ESPN one was way better imo.
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
doesn't really make sense. If you have 166 tournaments there is absolutely no way that there are more than, well, 166 different winners The comment is thus pretty nonsensical tbh.
Now reading the rest
I think you need to learn English better before making edits. Three is nothing nonsensical. Good read.
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
doesn't really make sense. If you have 166 tournaments there is absolutely no way that there are more than, well, 166 different winners The comment is thus pretty nonsensical tbh.
On January 25 2016 13:52 Plexa wrote: Well comparison of winners is a poor means of examining this. Comparing Ro8s for instance offers substantially more data about consistency (as in your remark). You also ignored the other major leagues that existed in BW (KT-KTF, iTv ranking, GSI for instance). e.g. start here: http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/korean/individual-leagues#tblt-727-9-0-DESC
On January 25 2016 13:55 The_Red_Viper wrote: Didn't read all of it yet, but this here
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
doesn't really make sense. If you have 166 tournaments there is absolutely no way that there are more than, well, 166 different winners The comment is thus pretty nonsensical tbh.
Now reading the rest
i honestly dont understand your logic at all
His point is that out of 166 possible winners we've had only 68 distinct winners. Which means that only 40% of tournaments have had a distinct winner, meaning 60% are repeat winners.
Total titles: 60 Total champions: 30 Average titles per champion: 1.97
60/30 = 2, unless you mean a different statistical average than the mean?
Anyways, thanks for the comparisons! I think that we'll see more and more 1-time winners as SC2 increases in age, as many of those 2/3/4-time winners had their streaks when the game was newer.
It's good to see someone recording down some of the raw numbers, though as you mention its a pretty cursory glance of it. Nice read.
Though I do think the amount of people complaining SC2 isn't "consistent" enough has really dropped off in the last few years, I remember it mostly around 2011/12 (which, hilariously enough, is when we now say oh mvp/nestea were unbeatable in those days).
On January 25 2016 15:09 NiHiLuSsc2 wrote: doesnt sAviOr technically have 0 championships
Vacated, but still have to count them for the sake of the analysis - trying to prove the best players dominated, and despite his morals, savior was one of the best.
It varies wildly from sport to sport. Some (like Tennis) have players that are incredibly dominant to an almost oppressive extent, while others (most team sports) have very different results each year.
Starcraft does seem to be less consistent than most individual sports, which does make it more disappointing to root for a single player for those that like to do that.
edit: Also aren't these articles supposed to be 1000 words or less? This kinda defeats the (fairly arbitrary) theme.
On January 25 2016 15:09 NiHiLuSsc2 wrote: doesnt sAviOr technically have 0 championships
Vacated, but still have to count them for the sake of the analysis - trying to prove the best players dominated, and despite his morals, savior was one of the best.
TL revealing inside info that MMA is actually heading up the next incarnation of ACE and won't be leaving. Fitting because he was Boxer's prodigy and all that.
On January 25 2016 15:09 NiHiLuSsc2 wrote: doesnt sAviOr technically have 0 championships
Vacated, but still have to count them for the sake of the analysis - trying to prove the best players dominated, and despite his morals, savior was one of the best.
On January 25 2016 15:23 ZigguratOfUr wrote: Consistency is an interesting metric to measure.
It varies wildly from sport to sport. Some (like Tennis) have players that are incredibly dominant to an almost oppressive extent, while others (most team sports) have very different results each year.
Starcraft does seem to be less consistent than most individual sports, which does make it more disappointing to root for a single player for those that like to do that.
Starcraft's format is much more susceptible to variation than other sports though. Each tennis tournament is determined over hundreds of points, while going from Code S Ro.32 to winner takes anywhere from 19 to 37. When you consider that a single mistake in a BO3 could put you at immediate risk of elimination, compared to the inherent buffer the tennis scoring system provides, it's no wonder there's more variety
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.
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'm a sucker for sports pain though. Why else would I keep thinking INno's gonna deliver on the big stage
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 think time should be a factor too. BW had less tourneys over the course of the same time period as SC2. Champions usually win because they hit their peak. So if there were more tourneys in a small period (like SC2), BW players could've perhaps won more tourneys when they hit their peaks. As it is, multiple BW champions generally took 4-5 years to capture >2 championships. So for BW, sustained or recurring dominance across 4-5 years is key to winning multiple championships.
Point is, if SC2 had fewer tourneys like BW, maybe players like MC, Nestea and Zest (who grabbed most of their championships in a short period) wouldn't have gotten as many championships. Conversely, if BW had as many tourneys as SC2, maybe top players would've gotten more championships under their belt.
Maybe Plexa's suggestion of taking account other major BW leagues would balance this 'time-quantity disparity' issue between BW and SC2.
Another factor is patches. Patches may help or hurt a player's chances of winning. Patches occur more in SC2. This, in turn, could add more volatility in the game, and consequently variance in SC2 champions. So maybe if there had been less patches in SC2, we would've seen less one-time champions and more repeat champions.
(I know it's hard, if not impossible, to quantify patches into the data or any form of formula. Which perhaps just leads to the conclusion that it's hard, if not impossible, to analyse raw numbers from both games to compare their consistency rates. But good article and attempt, nonetheless!)
I have always argued against the BS that SC2 is "inconsistent" and BW is consistent. Considering the context of competition in SC2, it's really not inconsistent at all. Most of the time, players who won were the ones who were expected to go far.
Oh, wow, this is one confused analysis. I have no intention to go into detail, as I would essentially have to rewrite the article for you, but some of the first few things you should have done if you wanted to study consistency of bw or sc2 is to
- check if results are different from random. - source data from aligulac.
instead you just calculate all these random percentages and number, without really talking about what number you would expect for a consistent or non-consistent game, or why. No direction or solid conclusions, just random numbers right and left... It's like reading a sc2 strategy article in Men's Health by a bronzie saying how massing hydras is the best way to success in ZvP.
But well, 99% of the readers won't be able to tell the difference, it is on a black background, you got pretty pictures, sexy title (with authors name in it ofc) and it's a featured news, so enjoy all the compliments you'll get for the great article.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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."
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
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.
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.
Premier tournaments have rather undemanding definition. While they are top tier it's hard to compare HSC4 and contemporary GSL Code S.
Actually I think this text is too forgiving. The fastest BW starleagues were ~2months. On the other hand stuff like GSL WC was just under two weeks, Blizzard Cups and Hot6ix Cups are ~1 week, so was GSL Global Championship. KeSPA Cup was what - half a week? It's not OK to compare these.
Even GSL Code S early on was like just 1 month long. Personally to compare dominance to MSL + OSL results I would kick out anything under 20 days long or s.t. like that. True - the result would be s.t. like: 3 - (T)Mvp, (Z)NesTea 2 - (Z)Life, (P)Rain, (P)MC, (T)Maru, (P)Classic, (T)INnoVation 1 - (P)Zest, (T)MMA, (Z)FruitDealer, (T)Polt, (T)jjakji, (Z)DongRaeGu, (P)Seed, (Z)Sniper, (Z)RorO, (Z)Soulkey, (P)Dear, (P)herO out: soO, sOs,
champions: 20 (-2) onetime champions: 12 (+1) championships: 30 (-9) average titles per champion: 1.5 (-0.27) % of championships by onetime champions: 60% (+10pp)
this way we can see that % of 1time champions is a bit closer to what happened in BW but the non1timechampions were unable to climb the dominance that BW counterparts achieved.
On the other hand if you take them into account, you should probably include some special events from BW era: Gom's starleagues, WCG Korea, 2007 Seoul e-Sports Festival and possibly more.
These were not domination defining and I think similar tournaments should be kicked out of discussion on SC2 side or it completely misses the point.
Anyway that's my 2 cents to discussion - I didn't check the exact numbers - just kicked weekly korean cups that - I think - don't compare well with standard BW leagues, regardless of amount of $$ in them.
I think now we just need 1 more year or so and sc2, with the last expansion out, will be just as consistent as BW. Maybe even more since we get so few new players, but I hope not :/.
The Korean discussion is interesting and it basically shows that the competitions in SC2 an in BW are pretty similar accounting to the much longer period of BW, over which it was the same game with the same scene in contrast with two expansions and one KeSPA invasion that happened over the life of SC2.
The "premier" statistics on the other hand is typical stuchiu nonsense. The "consistency" of results DH/IEM-style LANs is determined by the consistency of then being attended often by the very same and small group of relevant players.
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.
Premier tournaments have rather undemanding definition. While they are top tier it's hard to compare HSC4 and contemporary GSL Code S.
Actually I think this text is too forgiving. The fastest BW starleagues were ~2months. On the other hand stuff like GSL WC was just under two weeks, Blizzard Cups and Hot6ix Cups are ~1 week, so was GSL Global Championship. KeSPA Cup was what - half a week? It's not OK to compare these.
Even GSL Code S early on was like just 1 month long. Personally to compare dominance to MSL + OSL results I would kick out anything under 20 days long or s.t. like that. True - the result would be s.t. like: 3 - (T)Mvp, (Z)NesTea 2 - (Z)Life, (P)Rain, (P)MC, (T)Maru, (P)Classic, (T)INnoVation 1 - (P)Zest, (T)MMA, (Z)FruitDealer, (T)Polt, (T)jjakji, (Z)DongRaeGu, (P)Seed, (Z)Sniper, (Z)RorO, (Z)Soulkey, (P)Dear, (P)herO out: soO, sOs,
champions: 20 (-2) onetime champions: 12 (+1) championships: 30 (-9) average titles per champion: 1.5 (-0.27) % of championships by onetime champions: 60% (+10pp)
this way we can see that % of 1time champions is a bit closer to what happened in BW but the non1timechampions were unable to climb the dominance that BW counterparts achieved.
On the other hand if you take them into account, you should probably include some special events from BW era: Gom's starleagues, WCG Korea, 2007 Seoul e-Sports Festival and possibly more.
These were not domination defining and I think similar tournaments should be kicked out of discussion on SC2 side or it completely misses the point.
Anyway that's my 2 cents to discussion - I didn't check the exact numbers - just kicked weekly korean cups that - I think - don't compare well with standard BW leagues, regardless of amount of $$ in them.
I agree. This is somewhat along the lines of the 'time' factor I mentioned earlier.
Weekend tourneys should be disregarded completely for the purpose of comparison with Starleagues - which means ignoring KeSPA Cup, WCS Global, Blizzcon, etc. (I am not saying that weekend tourneys are lesser tourneys, but just different from preparation-based tourneys).
And zooming on what constitutes as 'Starleagues', there should be some standard on the timing: (a) how spaced out the rounds are within individual tourneys; (b) how frequently they are being hosted in a time period i.e. a year. (I am not saying that Starleagues should be the best basis to measure consistency of top players, but if it is being chosen as the focus of comparison between BW and SC2 which is what the OP has done, then a proper standard ought to be used)
Perhaps Proleague stats could also be a factor to consider to measure dominance and consistency?
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!
On January 25 2016 15:33 lichter wrote: having one winner all the time is fucking boring
Opinions.
But keep peddling this meme that everyone cares about underdogs. No, no we don't. Stop speaking for everyone.
Underdogs make things interesting but we love champions more (on average).
I think the sweet-spot is someone winning a lot, but not everything. We do like underdogs, but you need a favourite to have an underdog.
So the level of domination that we have in BW and sc2, where a really strong played can have a 70% winrate (by map) against the rest of players, is about right I think. That'll give an 90% probability or so to win a BO3, and maybe something around 50% to take home a major title. I think that's about good. They'll win enough tournaments (#tourneys per year/2) to get a "bonjwa" status, but will still not win tournaments regularly (half), and whoever kicks them out will be an upset (10% series). So I think that makes for a great narrative.
Much lower winrate, and things become too random: new people will win every tournament, no bonjwa. Much higher winrate and there'll be no upsets (looking at you Jokovic!) which is boring.
At the start of an expansions, the winrates are obstreperous, but as things settle down in a year or a half or so, I think we can have people go around 70% winrate over longer times, making good narrative for the TL writers. Well, assuming the gaem isn't ded by then ofc.
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.
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!
I enjoyed reading the article, and I think there's a similar kind of consistency in both Europe and NA. It seems like there's always been a group of players that stand above the rest on the long term, but ofc the Europe and NA players don't really win anything on the global scale except for the chosen few, but residency required events seem to have a lot of the same faces over the years.
Why am I feeling like "wait, wait, SC2 is actually not a bad game" after reading this article?
It's all true on paper but at the end of the day it is all about the viewers. And, as a viewer, I struggle to get my head around why SC2 turned from a promising new game into a boring game. Look at the numbers for "Live streams" now.
There is little drama in SC2, in my humble opinion.
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.
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
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!!!
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
EPT
NaDa 
Jaedong 
Bisu 
The comment is thus pretty nonsensical tbh. 
Starcraft Leagues Results/Prominence
