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[WCS] Winter Championship 2016 - Preview - Page 3

Forum Index > SC2 General
68 CommentsPost a Reply
Prev 1 2 3 4 Next All
feardragon
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
United States973 Posts
March 02 2016 01:53 GMT
#41
So much NA hate putting everyone except for Neeb at the absolute bottom! I believe in the NA upset! Show them what you're all made of guys.
Ok Starcraft 2 Commentator
Scarlett`
Profile Joined April 2011
Canada2393 Posts
March 02 2016 02:00 GMT
#42
puck and major could be higher x__x if they dont play much worse on LAN at least;;
kelazur too if he wasnt vs neeb first round
Progamer
kochanfe
Profile Joined July 2011
Micronesia1338 Posts
March 02 2016 03:41 GMT
#43
Hmmm... kind of a strange order... I feel like if ShoWTimE can get past Nerchio he has a really good shot of meeting Polt in the finals because his PvP is very strong and he's likely to play against Lilbow and MaNa in the next two rounds.
"The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long." - Lao Tzu
Ja.Y.
Profile Joined February 2015
United States253 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-03-02 04:31:55
March 02 2016 04:31 GMT
#44
I've been so pumped for this and now, it's only a few hours away!
MMA will reign supreme once again // MaSa is gawd
Menace_ZhuGeLiang
Profile Blog Joined August 2015
15 Posts
March 02 2016 07:47 GMT
#45
elazer should be much higher, otherwise seems pretty reasonable.
A_Scarecrow
Profile Joined March 2013
Australia721 Posts
March 02 2016 08:54 GMT
#46
no confidence in the power of aussie zerg T_T
Railgan
Profile Joined August 2010
Switzerland1507 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-03-02 09:14:33
March 02 2016 09:14 GMT
#47
On March 02 2016 10:53 feardragon wrote:
So much NA hate putting everyone except for Neeb at the absolute bottom! I believe in the NA upset! Show them what you're all made of guys.

I wouldn't call it hate more common sense. Weakest Region -> Weakest Players -> Lowest Chance of victory -> Worst Rating
Grandmaster Zerg from Switzerland!!! www.twitch.tv/railgan // www.twitter.com/railgansc // www.youtube.com/c/railgansc
opisska
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Poland8852 Posts
March 02 2016 09:28 GMT
#48
So I tried to look at myself to evaluate how does the system work on me, and I still don't know if it's better or worse. I must admit that I watch mostly Korean SC2 nowadays, because the supply is just overwhelmingly good. Still, I have at least a vague idea about every player on this list. I am honestly not sure if I would be able to find 29 foreigners to say so about last year, so WCS has made a relatively good job in increasing the visibility (to me) of these players. On the other hand, I am not sure if that isn't simultaneously a failure to see the same set of usual suspects - sure, there are some players I know very little about, but in general, this event doesn't make a very good job in showing new players to me.

The worst problem, which is albeit probably just mine own, is that I have no fucking idea who is supposed do beat whom, who is good and who isn't. I was honestly surprised at seeing Nerchio #1 - I knew he really stepped up with LoTV and I watched some of his games earlier and they were great, but I had really no idea he is that highly valued (and it was a pleasant surprise, it's always great to see people who post in LRs doing well ) That's because I just can't make myself really follow the WCS scene - I watch a game here and there, when I feel like SC2 and it's on, and it's usually good, but I completely fail to see the big picture, usually have no idea, what the game means to the players.

It seems like my life has taken a dive deep enough so that I will have nothing else to do on the weekend than to watch SC2 (even though there is powder in the Alps), so I will probably watch this and enjoy it, but I kinda lack the suspense of player X going against Y, when I have no expectation about basically any match. Still, probably gonna be fun nevertheless.
"Jeez, that's far from ideal." - Serral, the king of mild trashtalk
TL+ Member
stardog
Profile Joined August 2011
556 Posts
March 02 2016 09:51 GMT
#49
On March 02 2016 18:28 opisska wrote:
So I tried to look at myself to evaluate how does the system work on me, and I still don't know if it's better or worse. I must admit that I watch mostly Korean SC2 nowadays, because the supply is just overwhelmingly good. Still, I have at least a vague idea about every player on this list. I am honestly not sure if I would be able to find 29 foreigners to say so about last year, so WCS has made a relatively good job in increasing the visibility (to me) of these players. On the other hand, I am not sure if that isn't simultaneously a failure to see the same set of usual suspects - sure, there are some players I know very little about, but in general, this event doesn't make a very good job in showing new players to me.

The worst problem, which is albeit probably just mine own, is that I have no fucking idea who is supposed do beat whom, who is good and who isn't. I was honestly surprised at seeing Nerchio #1 - I knew he really stepped up with LoTV and I watched some of his games earlier and they were great, but I had really no idea he is that highly valued (and it was a pleasant surprise, it's always great to see people who post in LRs doing well ) That's because I just can't make myself really follow the WCS scene - I watch a game here and there, when I feel like SC2 and it's on, and it's usually good, but I completely fail to see the big picture, usually have no idea, what the game means to the players.

It seems like my life has taken a dive deep enough so that I will have nothing else to do on the weekend than to watch SC2 (even though there is powder in the Alps), so I will probably watch this and enjoy it, but I kinda lack the suspense of player X going against Y, when I have no expectation about basically any match. Still, probably gonna be fun nevertheless.

I'm at work 99% of time when Koreans play (VODs don't have the same appeal to me) so I'm naturally focused on foreign scene more. I can only confirm your observations:
- there is no clear number 1, Nerchio is just the most consistent of the contenders and one of the few guys who, if he won the IEM, would be called top foreigner, as opposed to e.g. Drogo who only raised his stacks after DH,
- there is no sudden rush of new players, a few new faces - yes, but scenes like Scandinavia, France, Poland of Germany have always delivered.

I don't think it proves much, though. In Korea, apart from short periods of dominance of a single player, it's usually hard to name the top dog, rather there's a few currently best players, closely chased by a few more, and so on. I think that's pretty much what you can observe in Europe now.

Regarding fresh blood, I think we need at least half a year to see if there is an influx. Even if there are talented players attracted by more opportunities, they need some time to ascend to high GM level of play.

fezvez
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
France3021 Posts
March 02 2016 12:58 GMT
#50
WCS has started an hour ago and... oops #3 power rank!
dzionny
Profile Joined February 2015
Poland3 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-03-02 14:13:20
March 02 2016 14:11 GMT
#51
WCS has started an hour ago and... oops #3 power rank!

Also add:
PtitDrogo[3] 0:3 Dayshi [17]
Bunny [13] 2:3 Has [23]
Serral[7] 0:3 Firecake [14]
ZertoN
Profile Joined February 2014
Germany214 Posts
March 02 2016 14:16 GMT
#52
TL witers should stop making these power ranks, its embarrassing how bad of a job they do every. single. time.

User was temp banned for this post.
"I don't like games that i need to think a lot, i am not interested in those games." - TaeJa, 2016
deacon.frost
Profile Joined February 2013
Czech Republic12129 Posts
March 02 2016 14:21 GMT
#53
On March 02 2016 23:16 ZertoN wrote:
TL witers should stop making these power ranks, its embarrassing how bad of a job they do every. single. time.

Thank god your power rank was better every time
I imagine France should be able to take this unless Lilbow is busy practicing for Starcraft III. | KadaverBB is my fairy ban mother.
munch
Profile Joined July 2014
Mute City2363 Posts
March 02 2016 14:46 GMT
#54
I wish people actually read things instead of looking at numbers
WriterForm is temporary, MMA is permanent || http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/508630-article-archive
ZertoN
Profile Joined February 2014
Germany214 Posts
March 02 2016 14:53 GMT
#55
I wish you'd get the numbers right
"I don't like games that i need to think a lot, i am not interested in those games." - TaeJa, 2016
Hider
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Denmark9431 Posts
March 02 2016 14:56 GMT
#56
On March 02 2016 23:53 ZertoN wrote:
I wish you'd get the numbers right


I wish people like you wouldn't post.
Hider
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Denmark9431 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-03-02 15:39:43
March 02 2016 15:34 GMT
#57
Anyway, after looking at some data, I think Major is definitely somewhat underrated compared to someone like SortOf (who is ranked better than Major).

Major record vs top 15 foreigners in LOTV: 12-13
Sortof record vs top 15 foreigners in LOTV: 16-23

Major record vs top 16-30 foreigners in LOTV: 26-22
Sortof record vs top 16-30 15 foreigners in LOTV: 20-13

Major record vs top 31-65 foreigners in LOTV: 15-7
Sortof record vs top 36-65 15 foreigners in LOTV: 21-13

So overall, I give a small edge to Major. On top of that he is rank 1 EU server.

Over the last year in HOTS, sortof had a below 37% win/rate against top 15 foreigners and only 54% vs 16-30 foreigners.
Major had a 45% win/rate vs top 15 and 58% vs 16-30.

I'd argue you could easily switch the ranks of both players and it would be more fair.

Source: Data comes from Aligulac rankings.
Soularion
Profile Blog Joined January 2014
Canada2764 Posts
March 02 2016 15:48 GMT
#58
On March 03 2016 00:34 Hider wrote:
Anyway, after looking at some data, I think Major is definitely somewhat underrated compared to someone like SortOf (who is ranked better than Major).

Major record vs top 15 foreigners in LOTV: 12-13
Sortof record vs top 15 foreigners in LOTV: 16-23

Major record vs top 16-30 foreigners in LOTV: 26-22
Sortof record vs top 16-30 15 foreigners in LOTV: 20-13

Major record vs top 31-65 foreigners in LOTV: 15-7
Sortof record vs top 36-65 15 foreigners in LOTV: 21-13

So overall, I give a small edge to Major. On top of that he is rank 1 EU server.

Over the last year in HOTS, sortof had a below 37% win/rate against top 15 foreigners and only 54% vs 16-30 foreigners.
Major had a 45% win/rate vs top 15 and 58% vs 16-30.

I'd argue you could easily switch the ranks of both players and it would be more fair.

Source: Data comes from Aligulac rankings.

You can swap MajOr up fairly easily, as everything that far down is incredibly tight. I agree with your assessment, but here's a couple things that swayed my decision to place MajOr down so low.

- He competes largely in NA, and while he shows promise against the likes of Kelazhur and viOLet and puCK, those players are in turn hard to place which makes him hard to place.
- SortOf showed solid performances in Leipzig and in WCS Regionals, taking out the likes of MaNa, Happy and Harstem- these players are a lot easier to place.
- SortOf has the undeniably stronger run of the two with his run through DHW qualifiers and DHW, although that's too early in the year for me to give a substantial enough weighting to in order for him to rise further than where he is.
- MajOr has had a consistent problem with showing up in WCS even through 2015 when he had more 'hype' and more online results than he has now, which I'm predicting holds true with his relative online decline in 2016. This point especially took him down a lot.

It's hard to judge the two and you could make a case for swapping them around or what have you, but ultimately I favor SortOf because he has a greater deal of offline consistency while MajOr has a history supporting him as someone with promise online who fails to live up to said promise in WCS. So, when said online performance is lessened, it'd be a stretch to predict him to perform better offline- although not impossible, and I do consider MajOr a pretty solid dark horse. Just like SortOf, thanks to SortOf's unknown nature and surprising upsets against some of europe's best earlier in LotV.
Writermaru pls
Hider
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Denmark9431 Posts
Last Edited: 2016-03-02 16:04:25
March 02 2016 15:54 GMT
#59
He competes largely in NA, and while he shows promise against the likes of Kelazhur and viOLet and puCK, those players are in turn hard to place which makes him hard to place.


Well the numbers I listed take into account the skill level of the opponent. He has a better win/rate against similar skilled opponent than Sortof with the exception when he plays vs. 16-30 foreigners whom he is 26-22 and Sortof is 20-13.

But on every other metric, Sortof is inferior.

SortOf showed solid performances in Leipzig and in WCS Regionals, taking out the likes of MaNa, Happy and Harstem- these players are a lot easier to place.
SortOf has the undeniably stronger run of the two with his run through DHW qualifiers and DHW, although that's too early in the year for me to give a substantial enough weighting to in order for him to rise further than where he is.


Well my numbers take into account all of the results. So unless you add extra weight to certain tournaments/qualifiers, it doesn't make sense to not the look at the overall picture.

In terms of recent form, Sortof is 20-10 and Major 24-8. Though to be fair Major has met easier opponents and is 5-5 against top 16-30 players.

Sortof (recent form) is 0-2 vs top 15 players, and 4-0 vs 16-30 players. So perhaps you could argue he does look slightly stronger. It's tough to say since the data size is so low though.

I'd say that when weighting recent form I prefer to watch the games and make a qualitiative analysis. But the fact that he is doing so well on EU ladder makes me confident that his recent form is very good.
munch
Profile Joined July 2014
Mute City2363 Posts
March 02 2016 16:01 GMT
#60
Personally, I think the main issue is that it's entirely unclear how to rank everything given that we've still barely seen anyone from WCS in meaningful competition. Dreamhack is the only offline competition we've had this year, and frankly HSC and especially DHW are somewhat meaningless right now.

No one in WCS is good enough to beat everyone they face when in poor form, and no one in WCS is consistent enough to allow confidence when you say "this player should beat this player"

So PR-ing this is basically all about what conditions you personally set, and depending on how much importance you give certain things, like hots vs lotv achievements, or online vs offline, you can end up with wildly different rankings
WriterForm is temporary, MMA is permanent || http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/508630-article-archive
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