EPTThere is no way in a million years i'd put sos over maru, taeja, life, zest, innovation. Yeah he won a lot of money, but compared to sheer impact on the game, the meta, the style of how a race is played, and crucially the beauty of the games they've provided, he doesn't hold a candle to those other guys. Not even close. He wins tournaments, but in terms of the games he has actually left behind in his wake, what the content actually IS, it's totally clear who ranks above him. There's more to this game than simply winning, as much as literalists would like to simplify history, or redefine sc by a singular champion...which would be a rewritting of what starcraft has been over the years.
Greatest HotS Players of All Time: Part 2 - Page 7
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jpoiv
15 Posts
There is no way in a million years i'd put sos over maru, taeja, life, zest, innovation. Yeah he won a lot of money, but compared to sheer impact on the game, the meta, the style of how a race is played, and crucially the beauty of the games they've provided, he doesn't hold a candle to those other guys. Not even close. He wins tournaments, but in terms of the games he has actually left behind in his wake, what the content actually IS, it's totally clear who ranks above him. There's more to this game than simply winning, as much as literalists would like to simplify history, or redefine sc by a singular champion...which would be a rewritting of what starcraft has been over the years. | ||
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Lil_nooblet
United States459 Posts
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Ensiferum8
Canada103 Posts
On March 04 2016 01:27 The_Red_Viper wrote: I counted, and theres at least 20 other comments about sOs being too low Maybe you should argue your point instead of making these comments over and over again without much reasoning. I didn't count, but i would bet that from all the comments which are about sOs being too low, you surely posted at least 50% of those   so yeah, im nto the only one whos complaining about stuchiu awfull ranking.Also, i didnt thought i needed to proove my point. The evidence is right there. Thats the reason why im soo upset about this. Anybody with a sense of logic would have rated sOs higher, and coming from stuchiu, a writer that i considered really great (before this awfull article), im even mroe disappointed. I thought this list would try to be objective, not stuchiu random list of players. I can argue all day that sOs should be at least, top 3, but its so obvious i shoudl not argue. Its like arguing that Messi is better than Balotelli. It should be obvious messi is the better one, but i guess stuchiu would say hes not as good because messi is blablabla (insert awfull arguments here). Basically, winning 2 blizzcon, the biggest IEM ever, being the arguably the best in PL since forever should rank him way above Maru, Life (king of inconsistency and awfull in PL), Taeja and Zest. Only inno could be higher. And im not even an sOs fan. Im a fan of TY, Maru, FlaSh. But im also a fan of logic and quality article, thats why stuchiu was a great writer for me before, and thats why im really disppointed now | ||
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Orr
United States168 Posts
On March 04 2016 01:34 jpoiv wrote: How are people so salty about sos at #7 slot? There is no way in a million years i'd put sos over maru, taeja, life, zest, innovation. Yeah he won a lot of money, but compared to sheer impact on the game, the meta, the style of how a race is played, and crucially the beauty of the games they've provided, he doesn't hold a candle to those other guys. Not even close. He wins tournaments, but in terms of the games he has actually left behind in his wake, what the content actually IS, it's totally clear who ranks above him. There's more to this game than simply winning, as much as literalists would like to simplify history, or redefine sc by a singular champion...which would be a rewritting of what starcraft has been over the years. This is one of the more hilariously odd things I've ever seen listed. If our main criteria is now prettiness of play to judge greatness, then we really are near the end and might as well pack up and GG out. Not sure if you followed BW, but Flash didn't ascend to God tier because his play-style made games beautiful to behold. If the guy who won two of the three biggest tournaments ever, along w/ the richest IEM WC ever, along w/ the most stacked Hot6ix Cup ever, who had multiple top-four GSL finishes along w/ insane PL stats and was co-anchor to one of the winningest teams, who went on perhaps the most dominant stretch ever seen in SC2 between 1st and 2nd rounds of the season ending playoffs last year (defeated Zest on D1. Then reverse all-kill of Flash, TY, Zest, Stats to defeat KT on D2 to eliminate the defending champions. Then against CJ in semis, defeated Byul on D1, and sent JAGW to the grand finals after defeating herO and Byul on D2), and ended the HOTS era by defeating the consensus GOAT at his own game on the biggest stage of all in possibly the closest and most insane BO7 GF ever, if this guy can't hold a candle to the five other names you've listed, I'd very much like to know what you're smoking. | ||
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jpoiv
15 Posts
I feel like you're hung up on results (and publicity of results) and you are confusing literalism with logic. You're also dangerously equating starcraft talent with money earned. When looking at sos's actual games, what the content of his starcraft actually is, it tells a story that simply isn't as beautiful or as impactful (on the actual game itself) as maru's, life's, innovations or zests, to name a few i'd rank above him. That's of course subjective, but that is what this kind of thing ultimately has to be, especially for a game that does not offer an easy, ready made champion figure, as much as people might like to forge one retroactively. So it is of course fine if you'd like to rank sos in your mind above these others, but i think the list ranked him well, for what it's worth. Btw. Maru has been the ace over sOs is proleague "since forever". Just saying. | ||
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Clonester
Germany2808 Posts
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jpoiv
15 Posts
in short: style counts for a lot. If you don't think beauty and style is a factor in everything, even sports, I don't know what to tell you. If you find sos's game's beautiful or very engaging to behold that's fine by me. I like winners too and I think there is a lot of elegance and deadliness to sos, but his actual games are not particularly memorable to me outside of his mind games, the way he plays an opponent in the grander scheme of a series, or the tricks he employs. I would not rank him above those other guys, who have an incredible flare, style, an entertaining it factor combined with the mechanical intelligence inherent to sc that they often leave within the content of a singular game, and then the game's meta as a whole BTW (adding this) I think flash has an incredibly beautiful style of starcraft. | ||
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Ensiferum8
Canada103 Posts
On March 04 2016 02:08 jpoiv wrote: i think that beauty is mostly your opinion. sOs did what he has to do to win. And in the end, TLO will never be the greatest because hes creative. Yes, sOs abused tons of crap, like proxy 2 gate, or tempest, or canon rush or dt etc....@ensiferum8 I feel like you're hung up on results (and publicity of results) and you are confusing literalism with logic. You're also dangerously equating starcraft talent with money earned. When looking at sos's actual games, what the content of his starcraft actually is, it tells a story that simply isn't as beautiful or as impactful (on the actual game itself) as maru's, life's, innovations or zests, to name a few i'd rank above him. That's of course subjective, but that is what this kind of thing ultimately has to be, especially for a game that does not offer an easy, ready made champion figure, as much as people might like to forge one retroactively. So it is of course fine if you'd like to rank sos in your mind above these others, but i think the list ranked him well, for what it's worth. Btw. Maru has been the ace over sOs is proleague "since forever". Just saying. But what makes him better than other toss is that he was GREAT in MACRO game also, unlike a lot of toss cheesers( has for exemple). Maru was insane to watch, because of his micro. TY was insane to watch, because of his startegy for every map (thats why hes my fav pro) But sOs was the best when it mattered the most. He was insane in PL, insane at blizzcon and in IEM. | ||
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jpoiv
15 Posts
Okay, I like what you are saying more now, cause youre giving me a clearer idea of why you actually like sos. I like sos for those same reasons also, but I still (and this is my opinion) valuate him lower precisely because of those reasons at the same time (if that makes sense, paradoxically). I think if we wanna get totally real, and kind of deep into it, I don't value protoss as much as a race, because the race itself, (to me) as a system (in hots), doesn't function is elegantly in my mind as terran or zerg (i personally think this occurs on an objective level, where the game design literally makes it this way to some degree). sos plays protoss to its exploitative maximum. He does it the best, and the most. He pushes it the farthest. For sure. But still, i can't, even then, rank him above maru, who plays terran, to me, so much more elegantly. I mean beauty to me is a big factor. But it's definitely not the only factor. And what anyone finds beautiful is going to vary, player to player, person to person. So yeah. | ||
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The_Red_Viper
19533 Posts
On March 04 2016 01:52 Ensiferum8 wrote: I counted, and theres at least 20 other comments about sOs being too low so yeah, im nto the only one whos complaining about stuchiu awfull ranking.Also, i didnt thought i needed to proove my point. The evidence is right there. Thats the reason why im soo upset about this. Anybody with a sense of logic would have rated sOs higher, and coming from stuchiu, a writer that i considered really great (before this awfull article), im even mroe disappointed. I thought this list would try to be objective, not stuchiu random list of players. I can argue all day that sOs should be at least, top 3, but its so obvious i shoudl not argue. Its like arguing that Messi is better than Balotelli. It should be obvious messi is the better one, but i guess stuchiu would say hes not as good because messi is blablabla (insert awfull arguments here). Basically, winning 2 blizzcon, the biggest IEM ever, being the arguably the best in PL since forever should rank him way above Maru, Life (king of inconsistency and awfull in PL), Taeja and Zest. Only inno could be higher. And im not even an sOs fan. Im a fan of TY, Maru, FlaSh. But im also a fan of logic and quality article, thats why stuchiu was a great writer for me before, and thats why im really disppointed now Still mostly statements without much reasoning. Fact is that sOs did fairly poorly in korean starleagues in comparison to the other top players (except Taeja ) Korean starleagues will always be the most important factor because it's simply the highest form of competition you can find in sc2. Proleague surely should count as well though, but even then Maru,Zest have similar results there tbh. sOs basically 'only' has the big money tournament wins, you could argue that the money alone makes them the most prestigious, but i would disagree with that. At the end of the day the guys above sOs simply had better results overall (even though you actually could argue about Taeja) Your argument that "it's so obvious" is simply wrong and doesn't change the situation that you should argue your point further. Comparing sOs' case to Messi vs Balotelli is ridiculous btw. | ||
munch
Mute City2363 Posts
BlizzCon 2013: HerO, Polt, Bomber, Jaedong IEM WC 2014: Oz, jjakji, TaeJa, herO Big name tournaments don't necessarily correspond to the hardest tournaments | ||
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Orr
United States168 Posts
On March 04 2016 02:51 thecrazymunchkin wrote: Just going to list 2 tournament runs: BlizzCon 2013: HerO, Polt, Bomber, Jaedong IEM WC 2014: Oz, jjakji, TaeJa, herO Big name tournaments don't necessarily correspond to the hardest tournaments You can use this kind of selective sampling to try and prove/disprove anything you want for all the elite players. Everyone has had the draw break right for them on multiple occasions, while on others losing much earlier than they should have (specifically Korean Starleagues) because of ridiculous early match-ups. At some point you just have to make a personal value judgement on which tournaments should be weighted the most, and how much more you factor in holding the trophy compared to continual high finishes. And most contentiously, how to weight the weekender foreign champions against those being asked to carry their teams every week in PL while simultaneously performing in the Korean individual ones. | ||
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Orr
United States168 Posts
On March 04 2016 02:16 jpoiv wrote: @orr in short: style counts for a lot. If you don't think beauty and style is a factor in everything, even sports, I don't know what to tell you. If you find sos's game's beautiful or very engaging to behold that's fine by me. I like winners too and I think there is a lot of elegance and deadliness to sos, but his actual games are not particularly memorable to me outside of his mind games, the way he plays an opponent in the grander scheme of a series, or the tricks he employs. I would not rank him above those other guys, who have an incredible flare, style, an entertaining it factor combined with the mechanical intelligence inherent to sc that they often leave within the content of a singular game, and then the game's meta as a whole BTW (adding this) I think flash has an incredibly beautiful style of starcraft. Beauty is forever in the eye of the beholder. What's beautiful to me, is repeatedly winning on the biggest stages with every eye in the SC2 scene watching you. I've played and watched a variety of sports my entire life. Let's use tennis as an example (since it's probably the most analogous single player one akin to SC). No one would disagree that Federer has the most stylistically beautiful game ever seen. He's also widely regarded as the GOAT by virtue of his 17 GS titles. Djoker is currently at the height of his powers and crushing everything in sight (including Fed, who dominates most everyone else ) and rapidly closing at 11 and counting. If Djoker has 3-4 more elite years (a real possibility considering his superior fitness, training, and age) and surpasses Fed's total, would you still contend that Fed is the GOAT (on the strength of his gracefulness and enchanting play-style)? I sure wouldn't. | ||
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Phredxor
New Zealand15076 Posts
On March 04 2016 02:05 Orr wrote: This is one of the more hilariously odd things I've ever seen listed. If our main criteria is now prettiness of play to judge greatness, then we really are near the end and might as well pack up and GG out. Not sure if you followed BW, but Flash didn't ascend to God tier because his play-style made games beautiful to behold. If the guy who won two of the three biggest tournaments ever, along w/ the richest IEM WC ever, along w/ the most stacked Hot6ix Cup ever, who had multiple top-four GSL finishes along w/ insane PL stats and was co-anchor to one of the winningest teams, who went on perhaps the most dominant stretch ever seen in SC2 between 1st and 2nd rounds of the season ending playoffs last year (defeated Zest on D1. Then reverse all-kill of Flash, TY, Zest, Stats to defeat KT on D2 to eliminate the defending champions. Then against CJ in semis, defeated Byul on D1, and sent JAGW to the grand finals after defeating herO and Byul on D2), and ended the HOTS era by defeating the consensus GOAT at his own game on the biggest stage of all in possibly the closest and most insane BO7 GF ever, if this guy can't hold a candle to the five other names you've listed, I'd very much like to know what you're smoking. I dunno if you can call 4 days perhaps the most dominant stretch ever seen in sc2.. Obviously sOs can hold a candle to everyone above him. He's one of the best players out there and on his day can make anyone look silly. Doesn't mean he deserves to be top 5 though. | ||
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munch
Mute City2363 Posts
On March 04 2016 05:11 Orr wrote: You can use this kind of selective sampling to try and prove/disprove anything you want for all the elite players. Everyone has had the draw break right for them on multiple occasions, while on others losing much earlier than they should have (specifically Korean Starleagues) because of ridiculous early match-ups. At some point you just have to make a personal value judgement on which tournaments should be weighted the most, and how much more you factor in holding the trophy compared to continual high finishes. And most contentiously, how to weight the weekender foreign champions against those being asked to carry their teams every week in PL while simultaneously performing in the Korean individual ones. It isn't selective sampling though. People are talking about his Blizzcon / IEM wins as if they should be the most praised runs of all time; my point is that they were good, but were far from the toughest. People should stop being blinded by the 'Top 16 players in the World' hype and actually look at the players he had to beat. | ||
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Yonnua
United Kingdom2331 Posts
On March 04 2016 06:14 thecrazymunchkin wrote: It isn't selective sampling though. People are talking about his Blizzcon / IEM wins as if they should be the most praised runs of all time; my point is that they were good, but were far from the toughest. People should stop being blinded by the 'Top 16 players in the World' hype and actually look at the players he had to beat. Today I learned that Parting, Rain, Rogue, and Life were all outside the top 16 in late 2015. Whereas Maru's run at the same tournament (3-0 loss to Rogue in round 1) was really good. At IEM WC, he beat Taeja and herO, the latter of whom had two recent premier wins, second place in Kespa Cup, and a bunch more premier wins throughout that year such that he ended the year rank 1 in WCS points (playing from Korea). Once again, not really weak players. sOs also beat Innovation, Rain, and TY in the Hot6ix Cup, another massive tournament which he won. He also had two all-kills in premier team leagues. He also won MSI, beating Innovation (again), and Solar to do so. He also got Most Wins in the 2013 Proleague. People are claiming that sOs is "inconsistent" because they arbitrarily decided that Ro8 is the most important, rather than Ro16 or Ro4, either of which he is far superior on, with no real logic behind that. The author of the article literally wrote a couple of throw-away sentences which amounted to "Maru is more consistent because he was in more Ro8s." Consistency isn't about making it to the QFs; it's about being able to repeatedly perform at the top level, and repeatedly win when it matters; like winning the world championships three times. It is ludicrous to suggest that Maru or several of the other players in the top 6 are superior to sOs. The idea that Taeja is even in the top 10 is bizarre beyond belief. His achievements in HotS are in no way comparable to sOs, whether you look at consistency, peaks, team leagues, or the impact they had on the game. sOs was just a vastly better player throughout HotS than most of the others here, and it's really silly to deny that, as many of the other commentators have noticed. | ||
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jpoiv
15 Posts
@orr Okay so in response to your tennis analogy, i'll just say I don't want my points before to be taken simply as "beauty or style is the penultimate factor in determining the greatest whatever." My point is more that beauty or style or whatever you want to call it is simply a big factor among many other factors. In other words the reason i brought it up and spoke against sos isn't because i don't respect sos as a player or think he doesn't have those things, but I wanted to support and defend a more holistic view for assessing strength and talent and memorability in starcraft players. If we are simply looking to literal resume results and money (which is also a factor, too, of course) I think sos obviously comes to mind--def over maru, anyway. But in balancing other factors, I think #7 is actually about right for him. When I think about great tourny runs, yeah, sos is right there (though he never won a code s). But when I think of the best games of hots, the ones i really remember, sos isn't there as often for me. Not like maru or taeja or innovation or life FOR SURE. His last blizzcon run was very memorable, though, esp against life. But for me, in valuating, I have to place the content of the actual game, inside the game itself, above tournament runs. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17443 Posts
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The_Red_Viper
19533 Posts
On March 04 2016 09:19 Yonnua wrote: Today I learned that Parting, Rain, Rogue, and Life were all outside the top 16 in late 2015. Whereas Maru's run at the same tournament (3-0 loss to Rogue in round 1) was really good. At IEM WC, he beat Taeja and herO, the latter of whom had two recent premier wins, second place in Kespa Cup, and a bunch more premier wins throughout that year such that he ended the year rank 1 in WCS points (playing from Korea). Once again, not really weak players. sOs also beat Innovation, Rain, and TY in the Hot6ix Cup, another massive tournament which he won. He also had two all-kills in premier team leagues. He also won MSI, beating Innovation (again), and Solar to do so. He also got Most Wins in the 2013 Proleague. People are claiming that sOs is "inconsistent" because they arbitrarily decided that Ro8 is the most important, rather than Ro16 or Ro4, either of which he is far superior on, with no real logic behind that. The author of the article literally wrote a couple of throw-away sentences which amounted to "Maru is more consistent because he was in more Ro8s." Consistency isn't about making it to the QFs; it's about being able to repeatedly perform at the top level, and repeatedly win when it matters; like winning the world championships three times. It is ludicrous to suggest that Maru or several of the other players in the top 6 are superior to sOs. The idea that Taeja is even in the top 10 is bizarre beyond belief. His achievements in HotS are in no way comparable to sOs, whether you look at consistency, peaks, team leagues, or the impact they had on the game. sOs was just a vastly better player throughout HotS than most of the others here, and it's really silly to deny that, as many of the other commentators have noticed. People claim that sOs is inconsistent because of his lack of starleage titles/ starleague results in general. He really doesn't have impressive results in gsl/ssl. This is also the reason why i would put him behind the top 6 too (ok probably in front of taeja) | ||
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Orr
United States168 Posts
On March 04 2016 09:19 Yonnua wrote: Today I learned that Parting, Rain, Rogue, and Life were all outside the top 16 in late 2015. Whereas Maru's run at the same tournament (3-0 loss to Rogue in round 1) was really good. At IEM WC, he beat Taeja and herO, the latter of whom had two recent premier wins, second place in Kespa Cup, and a bunch more premier wins throughout that year such that he ended the year rank 1 in WCS points (playing from Korea). Once again, not really weak players. sOs also beat Innovation, Rain, and TY in the Hot6ix Cup, another massive tournament which he won. He also had two all-kills in premier team leagues. He also won MSI, beating Innovation (again), and Solar to do so. He also got Most Wins in the 2013 Proleague. People are claiming that sOs is "inconsistent" because they arbitrarily decided that Ro8 is the most important, rather than Ro16 or Ro4, either of which he is far superior on, with no real logic behind that. The author of the article literally wrote a couple of throw-away sentences which amounted to "Maru is more consistent because he was in more Ro8s." Consistency isn't about making it to the QFs; it's about being able to repeatedly perform at the top level, and repeatedly win when it matters; like winning the world championships three times. It is ludicrous to suggest that Maru or several of the other players in the top 6 are superior to sOs. The idea that Taeja is even in the top 10 is bizarre beyond belief. His achievements in HotS are in no way comparable to sOs, whether you look at consistency, peaks, team leagues, or the impact they had on the game. sOs was just a vastly better player throughout HotS than most of the others here, and it's really silly to deny that, as many of the other commentators have noticed. Generally agree w/ you Yonnua, but that's not the opinion of others here which is fine. My personal top seven from the initial PR thread for comparison: + Show Spoiler + My final HOTS S class tier: 7) soO 6) herO 5) Zest 4) Maru 3) Life 2) sOs 1) Inno Not having sOs at minimum in the top three seems problematic (since I feel Tier 1 has to be some order of Life, Inno, sOs). Seems I'm slightly higher on Taeja than you, but still have him in the 3rd tier w/ Rain, Classic, and PartinG (probably all of whom I slightly prefer). | ||
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