Having already done exhaustive rankings of the Greatest Players of All Time and the Greatest Foreigners of All Time, it seemed natural to me to that I’d wrap up HotS with a list of the Greatest HotS players. None of my criteria have changed from previous iterations, but here is a quick summary for those who hadn’t read the previous editions. You can read all of my criteria here.
Because there is a large overlap with this list and the previous Greatest Players of All Time, there will not be an exhaustive analysis on their stories, playstyles or an extensive explanation describing how I balanced the various factors. Just a brief summary of their place in the history of HotS and what they did to make the list.
Polt’s greatest strength is his knowledge of how to fight at a disadvantage. And I don’t mean just inside the game (where he has historically made multiple comebacks after being down in a game), but outside of the game too. Polt may be one of the least mechanically gifted players of all time and it has become almost standard to see him supply blocked or banking resources into the thousands.
So how does he do it; how does Polt keep winning against players that should already have a natural advantage in just pure fire power over him in a majority of his games? It is two things. First, Polt is a tactical genius and is one of the greatest minds when it comes to how to engage, when to engage or when not to engage and go for the base trade. Second, Polt understands the game and his own limitations on a fundamental level very few players ever achieve. He never plays the game according to his opponents' rules (which is generally a straight macro game). He always drags the game into a strategic and tactical war and even though he always starts with fewer pieces or is behind in supply or tech or army, it is in this arena that he creates the best chances to constantly beat and upset players mechanically superior to him.
Difference between Polt and Classic:
Polt had a longer peak consistency than Classic as he stayed a Top 5 Terran for 1.5 years (from 2013 to mid 2014) and another year as a Top 10 Terran while Classic has been a Top 5 Protoss for about 2 years. Classic's peak was stronger, but Polt has had premier wins every year. His WCS wins and placings in 2013 and 2014 are deceptive as there were a decent amount of Koreans in both years and some within the Top 10 players of those eras (Jaedong, Bomber, Taeja all come to mind). Add all of that with the number of players he’s beaten and how he was the most successful Terran during the blink era and his consistency outweighs Classic's 2 years in HotS.
#9 | herO
Achievements:
Tier 1:
IEM WC 2014 - 2nd
KeSPA Cup 2014 - 2nd
GSL S1 2015 - Top 4
SSL S2 2015 - Top 4
KeSPA Cup S1 2015 - 1st
SSL S3 2015 - 1st
Tier 2
DH Stockholm 2014 - Top 4
IEM San Jose 2014 - 1st
Tier 3
IEM Singapore 2013 - 1st
IEM Shenzhen 2015 - Top 4
Tier 4
IEM Sao Paulo 2014 - 1st
If there was any rivalry that could describe the greatest aspects of herO’s play it would be his rivalry against Snute during the Swarmhost era. To understand the context of that era, Swarmhosts weren’t imbalanced, at least not in the way that BL/infestors were. It forced a completely different kind of a game and a completely different kind of mindset. However the games were slow and grinding and ones where the Zerg had to slowly chip away at the Protoss while the Protoss tried to outmaneuver and catch any weakness the Zerg had.
In this arena, Snute was unarguably the best at this strategy of anyone. And the first two times he met herO, herO got outplayed. They were fairly close games, but in the end it was clear, Snute was just better at the matchup than herO. The third time they played was at IEM San Jose. There Snute again won the first two games and herO finally made two crucial adjustments. He realized Snute had two weaknesses. Snute played too safe, so herO opted to go nexus first the following three games giving him a nice economic boost in the early game. And secondly he learned that against Snute at least, ground based armies were okay in the mid game and early-late game, but he had to transition to air if he wanted any hope of beating Snute. In three long grueling matches, he finally overcame his rival and defeated the best SwarmhostvP in the world.
herO’s two strongest attributes are that he is incredibly good at standard plays (particularly with blink stalkers) and that he learns how to adapt against playstyles and players the longer he goes up against them. The only two exceptions to this rule are Classic (who always beats him like a drum) and proxy 2 gate (which beats him even harder). Still one of mechanically strongest Protoss in an era where Protoss are the most numerous Champions.
Difference between herO and Polt:
herO had the consistency that Soulkey lacked. In addition to that he had way more results across all three years compared to Polt, especially in 2015. Fairly clean cut.
#8 | Rain
Achievements
Tier 1:
OSL 2013 - 2nd
Hot6ix Cup - 1st
GSL Season 1 2014 - Top 4
IEM Cologne - Top 4
GSL S2 2015 - 1st
SSL S3 2015 - Top 4
Tier 2:
IEM San Jose - 2nd
Tier 3:
HSC IX - 1st
Rain was the chosen one. The first truly great KeSPA player to prove his mettle against the old guard. More than that he was the Protoss messiah, the heir to MC, the player that had tamed the chaos that was PvP. Mechanically he was of the upper echelon. His understanding of the game was arguably the best of any Protoss (and one of the best Protoss of all time). He had great micro, great macro, a great sense of how every matchup played out and a vision of how every game should be played out and he executed it perfectly. If there was anyone everyone expected to win a GSL in 2012, it was Rain.
Especially because the opponent he met in the semi-finals was Mvp. A player whose worst matchup was TvP. Who had only won his last GSL series off of cheese, surprise gambits, strategy, mind-games and pure grit. A player whose injuries were horrendous for his career (He had Cervical Kyphosis which also caused his carpal tunnel. This meant he had severe pressure on his spine when playing which cause pain in his shoulders wrist and arms. In addition to that if he could sometimes not even lift his arms and he could no longer feel his hands when he played. It also caused his grip to weaken when playing, making it harder to control the mouse.) Rain was on a one way ticket to a GSL Finals and all he had to do was beat a man who had been playing with career ending injuries and who had said injuries for the entirety of 2012.
But Mvp did what Mvp did best. He dragged his ailing body across the finish line by out thinking Rain every step of the way. From start to finish he had accurately predicted exactly when and how Rain would react to each game in consecutive order of each other and won over the strongest Protoss in the world.
Rain wouldn’t understand the fundamental reason of his loss then and he wouldn’t for the next two years until he finally left SKT to join mYi. At that point in his career, Rain stopped believing in his own game. He never said as much (until his interview at BlizzCon in 2015), but it was clear. He no longer played the super safe 'get to the late game and win from there' style that he had from 2012 to the end of 2014. He would still go late game (especially vs Zergs), but he started to mix in all-ins and timings. More than that he started to mix them in specifically to counter what he had seen from his opponents in the past. He was no longer just playing the race, he was also playing the player. Rain in 2015 had finally learned the lessons Mvp had taught him back in 2012. That mechanics and theoretical understanding was not enough. That the game was just as much about playing the player as it was about playing the game. And with it he attained his first GSL when he was arguably the weakest he’d ever been mechanically.
Difference between Rain and herO:
While herO had a phenomenal year in 2015, Rain’s year was really strong as well with a GSL and a Top 4. Then you add in how much stronger Rain’s 2013-2014 years were, his influence on the Protoss race, and the paths they took for their tournaments and it’s clear that Rain was ahead.
#7 | sOs
Achievements:
Tier 1
GSL 2013 S1 - Top 4
WCS Season 1 Finals - 2nd
BlizzCon 2013 - 1st
IEM WC 2014 - 1st
Hot6ix Cup - 1st
GSL S2 2015 - Top 4
BlizzCon 2015 - 1st
Tier 2:
DH Stockholm 2015 - Top 4
Tier 3:
RB NY - 2nd
MSI 2015 - 1st
Back in 2013, I wrote that sOs’ victory at BlizzCon wasn’t the ending of the year, it was the real beginning of sOs’ story. Since then he has won three other big tournaments: IEM WC, Hot6ix Cup and Blizzcon 2015. All of that tells us one thing, sOs is one of the clutchest players SC2 has ever seen. Combine that clutchness with an insane kind of free flowing playstyle that allows him to pull any kind of build or composition at any time against anyone of any race and you get the recipe for one of the most dangerous players in the world. When huge amounts of money is on the line, when the pressure is on, sOs remains completely unfazed. When other players crumble, sOs seems to rise to another level. When other players play safe, sOs plays even crazier than before. sOs has no fear, sOs has no shame and sOs is now 300,000 dollars richer for it.
Difference between sOs and Rain
How you ask, can a player that has won two Blizzcons not be in the top 5? Aren’t they the biggest tournaments of their year? Yes random reader they are. However they are not the only tournament of the year. In fact there has been anywhere from 20-50 Premier events each year in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Winning the culminating end of the year event is amazing, but that is not the same thing as winning the year. sOs won Blizzcon 2013, yet many people would have put Taeja, INnoVation, Soulkey, Dear and possibly Jaedong ahead of him for that year. In terms of pure skill sOs has probably been around a Top 5 Protoss level for the entirety of HotS. The problem with sOs is that he doesn’t show it until the big one. And yes winning the big ones is amazing and huge and it counts for something, but that isn’t everything. In terms of pure consistency alone he has been worse than Classic, herO, Polt, Rain and PartinG in general consistency and peak consistency. Yet his wins were so massive that he jumped ahead of them on this list, but his consistency just wasn’t enough to get past 7th place.
#6 | Maru
Achievements:
Tier 1
OSL 2013 - 1st
GSL Season 3 2013 - Top 4
WCS Season 3 Finals 2013 - Top 4
Bizzcon 2013 - Top 4
GSL Season 2 2014 - Top 4
SSL 2015 - 1st
IEM Taipei - 2nd
GSL S3 2015 - Top 4
In terms of sustained peak consistency, there is no one else on this list that can match Maru. From the day he won OSL in 2013 to now, he has always been a Top 3 player in his race (and at points top 1). This is not something you can say for any other player on this list (Even INnoVation had a drop off in the early half of 2014). If I had to describe Maru, he most reminds me of Life. He doesn’t have the crazy peaks of domination where he kills everyone, but he has an incredible consistency, one that has lasted three years with Maru just wailing on his opponents with constant aggression. Among the Terrans, he is probably the best there ever was at taking initiative in a game and snowballing that into a victory.
Difference between Maru and sOs:
In terms of player paths at their major victories Maru and sOs are very close. In fact sOs edges Maru out by just a few Top 10 players, so how did Maru place ahead of sOs on this list? Because of his insane consistency. Here is an interesting stat. Outside of their major Top 4 finishings, how many Top 8s in Korean leagues do you think sOs and Maru have respectively? sOs has 1 extra. Maru has 6. Once I add in the paths of the players they had to get there, it becomes instantly clear that Maru has beaten more top 10 players throughout his career than sOs and has had much more consistency. Those two factors just outweigh the prestige of sOs’ victories.
More controversial than Nerchio #1 in the PR. I need to seriously read the article but the mere idea of a guy who won 3 100k stacked tourneys being only #7 just looks ridiculous to me.
OK I read the part about sOs and the justifications are interesting, it actually really makes sense, sOs indeed had really bad times when he couldn't get good performances. Still, this ability to give it all when it matters the most is what makes a true champion, and when it happens two times (3 if you count IEM) it's not just bracket luck. sOs deserved FAR better imo (#1 or #2) but that's always subjective.
Thanks for those articles btw, always amazing to look back at those wonderful HotS years.
On March 03 2016 02:38 LongShot27 wrote: Maru over sOs? rofl
He tells you exactly why and it's not really worth laughing about. His consistency in HotS was rather absurd. sOs had month long stretches in HotS with no top 8 performances. Maru just didn't. If he wasn't the most clutch player in SC2 history, the guy who wins when it matters, there'd be no reason for sOs to even be on the list.
On March 03 2016 02:38 LongShot27 wrote: Maru over sOs? rofl
He tells you exactly why and it's not really worth laughing about. His consistency in HotS was rather absurd. sOs had month long stretches in HotS with no top 8 performances. Maru just didn't.
In the same article they've put Rain over herO because they think that Rain's peaks are more important than herO's consistency. It's completely arbitrary and the reasoning is totally inconsistent.
Good job! I think I would switch Maru and sOs but I agree on the rest.
Maybe sOs is a little bit low at #7, but I personally wouldn't put him above #5. Suggesting he is #1 or #2 looks wrong to me because it would be too much focus on one single aspect (winning the big things).
On March 03 2016 02:36 Elentos wrote: So that leaves us with Zest, soO, INno, Life, and Taeja
And from the GOAT rankings we have Life > Taeja > Zest > Innovation > soO. Only Taeja had significant enough success in WoL to alter the rankings but there's no way stuchiu puts him below Zest.
On March 03 2016 02:47 Video2000 wrote: Well if this list is about consistently decent results why doesnt Parting just win.. what a joke :D
Because in the grand scheme of things, merely making the Ro16 isn't *that impressive an achievement. It's something to mark him out as someone special, but when you're putting multiple champions against a player who's got a bunch of ro16s, it's not even close
On March 03 2016 02:50 Silvana wrote: Good job! I think I would switch Maru and sOs but I agree on the rest.
Maybe sOs is a little bit low at #7, but I personally wouldn't put him above #5. Suggesting he is #1 or #2 looks wrong to me because it would be too much focus on one single aspect (winning the big things).
Hmmm I can understand that stance but we'll probably get soO, who never won a huge tournament in HotS, in the top 5. I think sOs should be above soO no matter how astonishingly consistent this guy has been. You remember a 4 time finalist of course, but for me that's not enough to counteract even 1 Blizzcon.
On March 03 2016 02:38 LongShot27 wrote: Maru over sOs? rofl
He tells you exactly why and it's not really worth laughing about. His consistency in HotS was rather absurd. sOs had month long stretches in HotS with no top 8 performances. Maru just didn't. If he wasn't the most clutch player in SC2 history, the guy who wins when it matters, there'd be no reason for sOs to even be on the list.
That kind of season planning that makes him have his top form when it matters most is actually very common among Pros in classic sports, particularly at the top level. I disagree with the importance that the OP gives to in-season consistency.
On March 03 2016 02:50 Silvana wrote: Good job! I think I would switch Maru and sOs but I agree on the rest.
Maybe sOs is a little bit low at #7, but I personally wouldn't put him above #5. Suggesting he is #1 or #2 looks wrong to me because it would be too much focus on one single aspect (winning the big things).
Hmmm I can understand that stance but we'll probably get soO, who never won a huge tournament in HotS, in the top 5. I think sOs should be above soO no matter how astonishingly consistent this guy has been. You remember a 4 time finalist of course, but for me that's not enough to counteract even 1 Blizzcon.
KeSPA Cup was HotS, and was about as stacked as cups get
On March 03 2016 02:50 Silvana wrote: Good job! I think I would switch Maru and sOs but I agree on the rest.
Maybe sOs is a little bit low at #7, but I personally wouldn't put him above #5. Suggesting he is #1 or #2 looks wrong to me because it would be too much focus on one single aspect (winning the big things).
Hmmm I can understand that stance but we'll probably get soO, who never won a huge tournament in HotS, in the top 5. I think sOs should be above soO no matter how astonishingly consistent this guy has been. You remember a 4 time finalist of course, but for me that's not enough to counteract even 1 Blizzcon.
On March 03 2016 02:50 Silvana wrote: Good job! I think I would switch Maru and sOs but I agree on the rest.
Maybe sOs is a little bit low at #7, but I personally wouldn't put him above #5. Suggesting he is #1 or #2 looks wrong to me because it would be too much focus on one single aspect (winning the big things).
Hmmm I can understand that stance but we'll probably get soO, who never won a huge tournament in HotS, in the top 5. I think sOs should be above soO no matter how astonishingly consistent this guy has been. You remember a 4 time finalist of course, but for me that's not enough to counteract even 1 Blizzcon.
Even though making four consecutive GSL finals is much harder.
Hmm i think this thread should be titled: A list of Stuchiu's favourite players from the HotS era.
All subjective of course but I think herO @ 9 and $o$ @ 7 seems a bit far down to me. Nicely written and presented article though, well played on that.
On March 03 2016 03:18 Ensiferum8 wrote: I wish I had more than 2 hands to facepalm. sOs 7# ? really?!
No amount of justification can justify that ranking. He was superior to Life, Taeja, Maru, Zest. Only Inno was better than him.
Lost a lot of respect for stuchiu and his ranking. Will not read the other ones as they might just be even more of a joke.
Life got to 2 Blizzcon finals and won a bunch more tournaments than sOs, including having better results in Korea. So I'm intrigued as to how sOs is better than Life but INnoVation is better than sOs.
On March 03 2016 03:14 Shellshock wrote: who are the guys in the banner?
I think we have been asking this for a while now. Also at this point I actually predict Zest to be placed ahead of soO considering how many times Zest won against soO and also the sole fact that Zest actually won shit and not get second every single time like soO. Not sure how much Taeja won in HotS but I think he was more impressive in WoL, therefore soO in 5th place, Taeja in 4th place, Zest in 3rd place, INno in 2nd place and Life in 1st place.
On March 03 2016 03:14 Shellshock wrote: who are the guys in the banner?
I think we have been asking this for a while now. Also at this point I actually predict Zest to be placed ahead of soO considering how many times Zest won against soO and also the sole fact that Zest actually won shit and not get second every single time like soO. Not sure how much Taeja won in HotS but I think he was more impressive in WoL, therefore soO in 5th place, Taeja in 4th place, Zest in 3rd place, INno in 2nd place and Life in 1st place.
For the record, looking at the sheer number of wins, TaeJa won more Premier tournaments than anyone else in HotS.
sOs 7???????? WTF this guy had 2 of the 3 World Championships + another 100k tournament. so 3 out of the 5 biggest tournaments in starcraft 2 history. This article is bullshit. No longer interested in the rest of the list.
On March 03 2016 02:50 Silvana wrote: Good job! I think I would switch Maru and sOs but I agree on the rest.
Maybe sOs is a little bit low at #7, but I personally wouldn't put him above #5. Suggesting he is #1 or #2 looks wrong to me because it would be too much focus on one single aspect (winning the big things).
Hmmm I can understand that stance but we'll probably get soO, who never won a huge tournament in HotS, in the top 5. I think sOs should be above soO no matter how astonishingly consistent this guy has been. You remember a 4 time finalist of course, but for me that's not enough to counteract even 1 Blizzcon.
Even though making four consecutive GSL finals is much harder.
I guess it's extremely subjective, but I'll always value the guy who wins when it matters the most, especially when he does that TWO times. I don't know if making 4 GSL finals is actually much harder than winning 2 Blizzcons, both achievements are totally insane.
On March 03 2016 02:50 Silvana wrote: Good job! I think I would switch Maru and sOs but I agree on the rest.
Maybe sOs is a little bit low at #7, but I personally wouldn't put him above #5. Suggesting he is #1 or #2 looks wrong to me because it would be too much focus on one single aspect (winning the big things).
Hmmm I can understand that stance but we'll probably get soO, who never won a huge tournament in HotS, in the top 5. I think sOs should be above soO no matter how astonishingly consistent this guy has been. You remember a 4 time finalist of course, but for me that's not enough to counteract even 1 Blizzcon.
Even though making four consecutive GSL finals is much harder.
I guess it's extremely subjective, but I'll always value the guy who wins when it matters the most, especially when he does that TWO times. I don't know if making 4 GSL finals is actually much harder than winning 2 Blizzcons, both achievements are totally insane.
soO 4 GSL finals in a row is the closest we have ever had to a bonjwa
On March 03 2016 02:42 [PkF] Wire wrote: sOs 7 ???
More controversial than Nerchio #1 in the PR. I need to seriously read the article but the mere idea of a guy who won 3 100k stacked tourneys being only #7 just looks ridiculous to me.
OK I read the part about sOs and the justifications are interesting, it actually really makes sense, sOs indeed had really bad times when he couldn't get good performances. Still, this ability to give it all when it matters the most is what makes a true champion, and when it happens two times (3 if you count IEM) it's not just bracket luck. sOs deserved FAR better imo (#1 or #2) but that's always subjective.
Thanks for those articles btw, always amazing to look back at those wonderful HotS years.
I suppose it comes down to what your opinion of "Greatest" means. Is it consistency, that is, doing well over a long period of time against arguably inferior opponents like in many of Taeja's wins? Or, is it pulling it out when it really matters in very specific occasions?
Does "almost" getting there a lot of the time outweigh getting "there" a few times? Personally, I feel like sOs's ability to marathon top 10 level players over weekends is superior than Maru's top eights, but that's just my opinion.
Don't get me wrong; Maru is a fantastic player, but, in the end, who are we going to remember? Maru for getting his top eights? Or sOs three $100,000 wins?.
Pretty much agree with the list. Didn't think sOs desereved to be top 5. He has never been consistent and unlike all the guys ahead of him i never thought of him as some sort of beast who is favored vs anyone they come up against(at their peaks)
On March 03 2016 02:42 [PkF] Wire wrote: sOs 7 ???
More controversial than Nerchio #1 in the PR. I need to seriously read the article but the mere idea of a guy who won 3 100k stacked tourneys being only #7 just looks ridiculous to me.
OK I read the part about sOs and the justifications are interesting, it actually really makes sense, sOs indeed had really bad times when he couldn't get good performances. Still, this ability to give it all when it matters the most is what makes a true champion, and when it happens two times (3 if you count IEM) it's not just bracket luck. sOs deserved FAR better imo (#1 or #2) but that's always subjective.
Thanks for those articles btw, always amazing to look back at those wonderful HotS years.
I suppose it comes down to what your opinion of "Greatest" means. Is it consistency, that is, doing well over a long period of time against arguably inferior opponents like in many of Taeja's wins? Or, is it pulling it out when it really matters in very specific occasions?
Does "almost" getting there a lot of the time outweigh getting "there" a few times? Personally, I feel like sOs's ability to marathon top 10 level players over weekends is superior than Maru's top eights, but that's just my opinion.
Don't get me wrong; Maru is a fantastic player, but, in the end, who are we going to remember? Maru for getting his top eights? Or sOs three $100,000 wins?.
You'll end up remembering both because Maru is the only double royal roader in Starcraft 2 (both in HotS, too).
On March 03 2016 02:50 Silvana wrote: Good job! I think I would switch Maru and sOs but I agree on the rest.
Maybe sOs is a little bit low at #7, but I personally wouldn't put him above #5. Suggesting he is #1 or #2 looks wrong to me because it would be too much focus on one single aspect (winning the big things).
Hmmm I can understand that stance but we'll probably get soO, who never won a huge tournament in HotS, in the top 5. I think sOs should be above soO no matter how astonishingly consistent this guy has been. You remember a 4 time finalist of course, but for me that's not enough to counteract even 1 Blizzcon.
No one remembers Sync.
Everyone remembers Yellow.
Maybe bc Sync was just one time guy like jjakji? I dunno who sync is but surely sOs with his wonky styles and his amazing proleague performance alone deserves recognition. Seriously, even if he lost in iem katowice, the fact that he did proxy gates twice in a winner takes all finals would make him the ballsiest palyer known to man.
On March 03 2016 02:50 Silvana wrote: Good job! I think I would switch Maru and sOs but I agree on the rest.
Maybe sOs is a little bit low at #7, but I personally wouldn't put him above #5. Suggesting he is #1 or #2 looks wrong to me because it would be too much focus on one single aspect (winning the big things).
Hmmm I can understand that stance but we'll probably get soO, who never won a huge tournament in HotS, in the top 5. I think sOs should be above soO no matter how astonishingly consistent this guy has been. You remember a 4 time finalist of course, but for me that's not enough to counteract even 1 Blizzcon.
No one remembers Sync.
Everyone remembers Yellow.
Maybe bc Sync was just one time guy like jjakji? I dunno who sync is but surely sOs with his wonky styles and his amazing proleague performance alone deserves recognition. Seriously, even if he lost in iem katowice, the fact that he did proxy gates twice in a winner takes all finals would make him the ballsiest palyer known to man.
On March 03 2016 02:42 [PkF] Wire wrote: sOs 7 ???
More controversial than Nerchio #1 in the PR. I need to seriously read the article but the mere idea of a guy who won 3 100k stacked tourneys being only #7 just looks ridiculous to me.
OK I read the part about sOs and the justifications are interesting, it actually really makes sense, sOs indeed had really bad times when he couldn't get good performances. Still, this ability to give it all when it matters the most is what makes a true champion, and when it happens two times (3 if you count IEM) it's not just bracket luck. sOs deserved FAR better imo (#1 or #2) but that's always subjective.
Thanks for those articles btw, always amazing to look back at those wonderful HotS years.
I suppose it comes down to what your opinion of "Greatest" means. Is it consistency, that is, doing well over a long period of time against arguably inferior opponents like in many of Taeja's wins? Or, is it pulling it out when it really matters in very specific occasions?
Does "almost" getting there a lot of the time outweigh getting "there" a few times? Personally, I feel like sOs's ability to marathon top 10 level players over weekends is superior than Maru's top eights, but that's just my opinion.
Don't get me wrong; Maru is a fantastic player, but, in the end, who are we going to remember? Maru for getting his top eights? Or sOs three $100,000 wins?.
You'll end up remembering both because Maru is the only double royal roader in Starcraft 2 (both in HotS, too).
Sos is the only person to reverse all kill in proleague and win twice at blizzcon finals. Seriously, maru won only two premier tournaments. Is consistency that important?
On March 03 2016 03:18 Ensiferum8 wrote: I wish I had more than 2 hands to facepalm. sOs 7# ? really?!
No amount of justification can justify that ranking. He was superior to Life, Taeja, Maru, Zest. Only Inno was better than him.
Lost a lot of respect for stuchiu and his ranking. Will not read the other ones as they might just be even more of a joke.
Life got to 2 Blizzcon finals and won a bunch more tournaments than sOs, including having better results in Korea. So I'm intrigued as to how sOs is better than Life but INnoVation is better than sOs.
Life won one more premier tournament than sos in hots.
On March 03 2016 03:18 Ensiferum8 wrote: I wish I had more than 2 hands to facepalm. sOs 7# ? really?!
No amount of justification can justify that ranking. He was superior to Life, Taeja, Maru, Zest. Only Inno was better than him.
Lost a lot of respect for stuchiu and his ranking. Will not read the other ones as they might just be even more of a joke.
Life got to 2 Blizzcon finals and won a bunch more tournaments than sOs, including having better results in Korea. So I'm intrigued as to how sOs is better than Life but INnoVation is better than sOs.
Life won 1 blizzcon. sOs 2. 2>1
On top of that, sOs was way more consistent. Life would be great for 6 months, then completly disappear. On top of that, sOs wins are impressive that Life's wins.
Finally, sOs was a god almost all HOTS long in Proleague, where Life was simply garbage with KT. sOs even all killed KT rolster in playoff, and brought his team to PL finals.
Mostly because of PL performance, sOs should be above.
But even if you disagree about that and thinks Life is better than sOs, theres no way an unbias person would not put sOs in top 3, (inno #1 and Life #2).
The fact that he is #7 is just an insult to every sc2 fans, and every people who follows ssc2 closely.
Theres a reason why every comments here are questionning why is sOs #7, when usually, most people agree with stuchiu.
Stuchiu just made a list of his favorite players, and listened to his heart, instead of listening to logic. Which sucks, because i really loved stuchiu thread before, he was really competent and a good writer. He lost tons of credibility right there. Im still gonna give him a second chance, and read his future stuff, but man thats disappointing.
P.S: Im not an sOs fan, Im terran and my favs are FlaSh and especially TY, so im not saying that because im bias
On March 03 2016 03:18 Ensiferum8 wrote: I wish I had more than 2 hands to facepalm. sOs 7# ? really?!
No amount of justification can justify that ranking. He was superior to Life, Taeja, Maru, Zest. Only Inno was better than him.
Lost a lot of respect for stuchiu and his ranking. Will not read the other ones as they might just be even more of a joke.
Life got to 2 Blizzcon finals and won a bunch more tournaments than sOs, including having better results in Korea. So I'm intrigued as to how sOs is better than Life but INnoVation is better than sOs.
Life won one more premier tournament than sos in hots.
yeah, but sOs tournaments wins are more impressive. + Life is garbage in PL, while sOs was a god.
On March 03 2016 02:42 [PkF] Wire wrote: sOs 7 ???
More controversial than Nerchio #1 in the PR. I need to seriously read the article but the mere idea of a guy who won 3 100k stacked tourneys being only #7 just looks ridiculous to me.
OK I read the part about sOs and the justifications are interesting, it actually really makes sense, sOs indeed had really bad times when he couldn't get good performances. Still, this ability to give it all when it matters the most is what makes a true champion, and when it happens two times (3 if you count IEM) it's not just bracket luck. sOs deserved FAR better imo (#1 or #2) but that's always subjective.
Thanks for those articles btw, always amazing to look back at those wonderful HotS years.
It's the greatest of Heart of the Swarm, so don't think of it as ranking the player with the absolute best skill, think of it as ranking the player who was most consistently dominating over that period of time. $O$ has undeniable skill, and might have the best skill out of anyone, but he didn't turn it on as consistently as the others.
On March 03 2016 02:42 [PkF] Wire wrote: sOs 7 ???
More controversial than Nerchio #1 in the PR. I need to seriously read the article but the mere idea of a guy who won 3 100k stacked tourneys being only #7 just looks ridiculous to me.
OK I read the part about sOs and the justifications are interesting, it actually really makes sense, sOs indeed had really bad times when he couldn't get good performances. Still, this ability to give it all when it matters the most is what makes a true champion, and when it happens two times (3 if you count IEM) it's not just bracket luck. sOs deserved FAR better imo (#1 or #2) but that's always subjective.
Thanks for those articles btw, always amazing to look back at those wonderful HotS years.
It's the greatest of Heart of the Swarm, so don't think of it as ranking the player with the absolute best skill, think of it as ranking the player who was most consistently dominating over that period of time. $O$ has undeniable skill, and might have the best skill out of anyone, but he didn't turn it on as consistently as the others.
Consistency matters.
Life is probably the most inconsistne player of all time. If sOs is #7 because of his inconsistency, Life should be #8-9 or maybe 6. not top 5 lol
On March 03 2016 03:18 Ensiferum8 wrote: I wish I had more than 2 hands to facepalm. sOs 7# ? really?!
No amount of justification can justify that ranking. He was superior to Life, Taeja, Maru, Zest. Only Inno was better than him.
Lost a lot of respect for stuchiu and his ranking. Will not read the other ones as they might just be even more of a joke.
Life got to 2 Blizzcon finals and won a bunch more tournaments than sOs, including having better results in Korea. So I'm intrigued as to how sOs is better than Life but INnoVation is better than sOs.
Life won one more premier tournament than sos in hots.
yeah, but sOs tournaments wins are more impressive. + Life is garbage in PL, while sOs was a god.
I think he might have completely ommitted team leagues from this ranking, because it's not mentioned for any of the top performers listed so far. Not for herO, who got the award for most wins twice, not for sOs, not for Maru. He might list it for INnoVation because INno's team league performances are batshit crazy, but beyond that, not sure.
On March 03 2016 02:50 Silvana wrote: Good job! I think I would switch Maru and sOs but I agree on the rest.
Maybe sOs is a little bit low at #7, but I personally wouldn't put him above #5. Suggesting he is #1 or #2 looks wrong to me because it would be too much focus on one single aspect (winning the big things).
Hmmm I can understand that stance but we'll probably get soO, who never won a huge tournament in HotS, in the top 5. I think sOs should be above soO no matter how astonishingly consistent this guy has been. You remember a 4 time finalist of course, but for me that's not enough to counteract even 1 Blizzcon.
No one remembers Sync.
Everyone remembers Yellow.
Sparks/Fireworks Terran I was cheering for the zerg. (HOT, wasnt it?)
The coolest part of this list for me is how many absolutely amazing players hots gave us. To add, its a pleasure seeing sOs and Maru, two guys with unique playstyles, so high.
On March 03 2016 03:18 Ensiferum8 wrote: I wish I had more than 2 hands to facepalm. sOs 7# ? really?!
No amount of justification can justify that ranking. He was superior to Life, Taeja, Maru, Zest. Only Inno was better than him.
Lost a lot of respect for stuchiu and his ranking. Will not read the other ones as they might just be even more of a joke.
Life got to 2 Blizzcon finals and won a bunch more tournaments than sOs, including having better results in Korea. So I'm intrigued as to how sOs is better than Life but INnoVation is better than sOs.
Life won one more premier tournament than sos in hots.
yeah, but sOs tournaments wins are more impressive. + Life is garbage in PL, while sOs was a god.
I think he might have completely ommitted team leagues from this ranking, because it's not mentioned for any of the top performers listed so far. Not for herO, who got the award for most wins twice, not for sOs, not for Maru. He might list it for INnoVation because INno's team league performances are batshit crazy, but beyond that, not sure.
that might be possible, you are right. But that would be a huge mistake, since PL is as important for the scene as GSL (probably more).
Just look at Flash's parent after he won vs Parting in PL final, they were crying and the stadium was on fire.
On top of that, PL brings a completly different set of skills from players. And seeing sOs performing so well in both is insanely impressive, and was the big reason why IMO (and in a lot of people opinions) sOs and Innovation should be #1 and 2 (dont know which one is #1 though) while Life should be #3, etc....
Both ways, stuchiu made a huge mistake.
If he didnt take PL into account, thats completly wrong since PL is HUGE.
If he take it into account, well theres no way sOs is not above Life, or at least top #3 on the list
On March 03 2016 02:50 Silvana wrote: Good job! I think I would switch Maru and sOs but I agree on the rest.
Maybe sOs is a little bit low at #7, but I personally wouldn't put him above #5. Suggesting he is #1 or #2 looks wrong to me because it would be too much focus on one single aspect (winning the big things).
Hmmm I can understand that stance but we'll probably get soO, who never won a huge tournament in HotS, in the top 5. I think sOs should be above soO no matter how astonishingly consistent this guy has been. You remember a 4 time finalist of course, but for me that's not enough to counteract even 1 Blizzcon.
Even though making four consecutive GSL finals is much harder.
I guess it's extremely subjective, but I'll always value the guy who wins when it matters the most, especially when he does that TWO times. I don't know if making 4 GSL finals is actually much harder than winning 2 Blizzcons, both achievements are totally insane.
Blizzcon is ro16, GSL is ro32 with group stages
Blizzcon is 4 series to win, GSL is 7-9
That's right. One single code S is worth more than two Blizzcons.
I like sOs at 7, but Maru is too low. Double royal roader in Korean leagues, most consistent player in Korean leagues by far, amazing in Proleague... Taeja's billion irrelevant premiers have nothing on that.
Edit: Polt is too high as well. I strongly disagree with the international bias of this ranking. There's no way Polt is ahead of PartinG, there just isn't, and thats coming from someone who got a stiffy watching Polt wreck Rain and Classic when everyone else (except Maru of course) would have thrown in the towel.
On March 03 2016 02:50 Silvana wrote: Good job! I think I would switch Maru and sOs but I agree on the rest.
Maybe sOs is a little bit low at #7, but I personally wouldn't put him above #5. Suggesting he is #1 or #2 looks wrong to me because it would be too much focus on one single aspect (winning the big things).
Hmmm I can understand that stance but we'll probably get soO, who never won a huge tournament in HotS, in the top 5. I think sOs should be above soO no matter how astonishingly consistent this guy has been. You remember a 4 time finalist of course, but for me that's not enough to counteract even 1 Blizzcon.
Even though making four consecutive GSL finals is much harder.
I guess it's extremely subjective, but I'll always value the guy who wins when it matters the most, especially when he does that TWO times. I don't know if making 4 GSL finals is actually much harder than winning 2 Blizzcons, both achievements are totally insane.
Blizzcon is ro16, GSL is ro32 with group stages
Blizzcon is 4 series to win, GSL is 7-9
That's right. One single code S is worth more than two Blizzcons.
I like sOs at 7, but Maru is too low. Double royal roader in Korean leagues, most consistent player in Korean leagues by far, amazing in Proleague... Taeja's billion irrelevant premiers have nothing on that.
You can't really compare Bo3s against potentially borderline Code S-level players who fluked in through a lucky Code A draw to Bo5s against the greatest 16 players of the year across the WCS circuit.
On March 03 2016 02:50 Silvana wrote: Good job! I think I would switch Maru and sOs but I agree on the rest.
Maybe sOs is a little bit low at #7, but I personally wouldn't put him above #5. Suggesting he is #1 or #2 looks wrong to me because it would be too much focus on one single aspect (winning the big things).
Hmmm I can understand that stance but we'll probably get soO, who never won a huge tournament in HotS, in the top 5. I think sOs should be above soO no matter how astonishingly consistent this guy has been. You remember a 4 time finalist of course, but for me that's not enough to counteract even 1 Blizzcon.
Even though making four consecutive GSL finals is much harder.
I guess it's extremely subjective, but I'll always value the guy who wins when it matters the most, especially when he does that TWO times. I don't know if making 4 GSL finals is actually much harder than winning 2 Blizzcons, both achievements are totally insane.
Blizzcon is ro16, GSL is ro32 with group stages
Blizzcon is 4 series to win, GSL is 7-9
That's right. One single code S is worth more than two Blizzcons.
I like sOs at 7, but Maru is too low. Double royal roader in Korean leagues, most consistent player in Korean leagues by far, amazing in Proleague... Taeja's billion irrelevant premiers have nothing on that.
You can't really compare Bo3s against potentially borderline Code S-level players who fluked in through a lucky Code A draw to Bo5s against the greatest 16 players of the year across the WCS circuit.
once again, thats not true all the time. Life playing vs Lilbow was defenitly easier than a GSL round of 32. Even players like hyun, san, MMA, polt, MC etc.. are all way weaker than GSL round of 8. I think both are almsot as important.
On March 03 2016 02:50 Silvana wrote: Good job! I think I would switch Maru and sOs but I agree on the rest.
Maybe sOs is a little bit low at #7, but I personally wouldn't put him above #5. Suggesting he is #1 or #2 looks wrong to me because it would be too much focus on one single aspect (winning the big things).
Hmmm I can understand that stance but we'll probably get soO, who never won a huge tournament in HotS, in the top 5. I think sOs should be above soO no matter how astonishingly consistent this guy has been. You remember a 4 time finalist of course, but for me that's not enough to counteract even 1 Blizzcon.
Even though making four consecutive GSL finals is much harder.
I guess it's extremely subjective, but I'll always value the guy who wins when it matters the most, especially when he does that TWO times. I don't know if making 4 GSL finals is actually much harder than winning 2 Blizzcons, both achievements are totally insane.
Blizzcon is ro16, GSL is ro32 with group stages
Blizzcon is 4 series to win, GSL is 7-9
That's right. One single code S is worth more than two Blizzcons.
I like sOs at 7, but Maru is too low. Double royal roader in Korean leagues, most consistent player in Korean leagues by far, amazing in Proleague... Taeja's billion irrelevant premiers have nothing on that.
You can't really compare Bo3s against potentially borderline Code S-level players who fluked in through a lucky Code A draw to Bo5s against the greatest 16 players of the year across the WCS circuit.
once again, thats not true all the time. Life playing vs Lilbow was defenitly easier than a GSL round of 32. Even players like hyun, san, MMA, polt, MC etc.. are all way weaker than GSL round of 8. I think both are almsot as important.
Very much this. Not trying to take anything away from Blizzcon but that was a silly argument. Pigbaby won a WCS NA. That shows you how weak those fields were.
On March 03 2016 02:50 Silvana wrote: Good job! I think I would switch Maru and sOs but I agree on the rest.
Maybe sOs is a little bit low at #7, but I personally wouldn't put him above #5. Suggesting he is #1 or #2 looks wrong to me because it would be too much focus on one single aspect (winning the big things).
Hmmm I can understand that stance but we'll probably get soO, who never won a huge tournament in HotS, in the top 5. I think sOs should be above soO no matter how astonishingly consistent this guy has been. You remember a 4 time finalist of course, but for me that's not enough to counteract even 1 Blizzcon.
Even though making four consecutive GSL finals is much harder.
I guess it's extremely subjective, but I'll always value the guy who wins when it matters the most, especially when he does that TWO times. I don't know if making 4 GSL finals is actually much harder than winning 2 Blizzcons, both achievements are totally insane.
Blizzcon is ro16, GSL is ro32 with group stages
Blizzcon is 4 series to win, GSL is 7-9
That's right. One single code S is worth more than two Blizzcons.
I like sOs at 7, but Maru is too low. Double royal roader in Korean leagues, most consistent player in Korean leagues by far, amazing in Proleague... Taeja's billion irrelevant premiers have nothing on that.
You can't really compare Bo3s against potentially borderline Code S-level players who fluked in through a lucky Code A draw to Bo5s against the greatest 16 players of the year across the WCS circuit.
Lilbow? Stardust? Duckdeok? Jjakji? Fantasy? HyuN? These were some of your "greatest players of the year" in HOTS.
Fantasy, a classic "borderline code S" Terran, is HARDER to beat in a code S because getting into Code S means you've recently beaten strong Koreans. By the time these guys show up at Blizzcon at the end of the year, many of them look like they barely know what SC2 is, because they peaked six months ago and then fell off.
Can we stop comparing weekenders to starleagues for once? sOs, soO and TaeJa have never won a starleague. NesTea and Maru have never won a weekender. Can't we just accept that they're different disciplines requiring different skillsets? Only the very best have ever been truly great at both i.e. basically just Life and Mvp
On March 03 2016 02:50 Silvana wrote: Good job! I think I would switch Maru and sOs but I agree on the rest.
Maybe sOs is a little bit low at #7, but I personally wouldn't put him above #5. Suggesting he is #1 or #2 looks wrong to me because it would be too much focus on one single aspect (winning the big things).
Hmmm I can understand that stance but we'll probably get soO, who never won a huge tournament in HotS, in the top 5. I think sOs should be above soO no matter how astonishingly consistent this guy has been. You remember a 4 time finalist of course, but for me that's not enough to counteract even 1 Blizzcon.
Even though making four consecutive GSL finals is much harder.
I guess it's extremely subjective, but I'll always value the guy who wins when it matters the most, especially when he does that TWO times. I don't know if making 4 GSL finals is actually much harder than winning 2 Blizzcons, both achievements are totally insane.
Blizzcon is ro16, GSL is ro32 with group stages
Blizzcon is 4 series to win, GSL is 7-9
That's right. One single code S is worth more than two Blizzcons.
I like sOs at 7, but Maru is too low. Double royal roader in Korean leagues, most consistent player in Korean leagues by far, amazing in Proleague... Taeja's billion irrelevant premiers have nothing on that.
You can't really compare Bo3s against potentially borderline Code S-level players who fluked in through a lucky Code A draw to Bo5s against the greatest 16 players of the year across the WCS circuit.
once again, thats not true all the time. Life playing vs Lilbow was defenitly easier than a GSL round of 32. Even players like hyun, san, MMA, polt, MC etc.. are all way weaker than GSL round of 8. I think both are almsot as important.
I was just talking about the Ro32s in GSL. I never said anything about its Ro8. Most of the time you won't play against more than 4 Ro8-grade players anyway.
On March 03 2016 02:50 Silvana wrote: Good job! I think I would switch Maru and sOs but I agree on the rest.
Maybe sOs is a little bit low at #7, but I personally wouldn't put him above #5. Suggesting he is #1 or #2 looks wrong to me because it would be too much focus on one single aspect (winning the big things).
Hmmm I can understand that stance but we'll probably get soO, who never won a huge tournament in HotS, in the top 5. I think sOs should be above soO no matter how astonishingly consistent this guy has been. You remember a 4 time finalist of course, but for me that's not enough to counteract even 1 Blizzcon.
Even though making four consecutive GSL finals is much harder.
I guess it's extremely subjective, but I'll always value the guy who wins when it matters the most, especially when he does that TWO times. I don't know if making 4 GSL finals is actually much harder than winning 2 Blizzcons, both achievements are totally insane.
Blizzcon is ro16, GSL is ro32 with group stages
Blizzcon is 4 series to win, GSL is 7-9
That's right. One single code S is worth more than two Blizzcons.
I like sOs at 7, but Maru is too low. Double royal roader in Korean leagues, most consistent player in Korean leagues by far, amazing in Proleague... Taeja's billion irrelevant premiers have nothing on that.
You can't really compare Bo3s against potentially borderline Code S-level players who fluked in through a lucky Code A draw to Bo5s against the greatest 16 players of the year across the WCS circuit.
Fantasy, a classic "borderline code S" Terran, is HARDER to beat in a code S because getting into Code S means you've recently beaten strong Koreans. By the time these guys show up at Blizzcon at the end of the year, many of them look like they barely know what SC2 is, because they peaked six months ago and then fell off.
Fantasy wasn't really the kind of guy I'm talking about. I mean more like the Sleeps, Hurricanes and RagnaroKs, the guys who fluked in once and barely deserved to be there.
On March 03 2016 04:45 thecrazymunchkin wrote: Can we stop comparing weekenders to starleagues for once? sOs, soO and TaeJa have never won a starleague. NesTea and Maru have never won a weekender. Can't we just accept that they're different disciplines requiring different skillsets? Only the very best have ever been truly great at both i.e. basically just Life and Mvp
You would be completely right if weekend tournaments and starleagues featured identical rosters, but that isn't exactly the case, is it?
How many freebie Ro32 and ro16s did Taeja have over his career?
Maru isn't in Code S right now because he met Zest IN CODE A. That's the real difference. Not the tournament format.
On March 03 2016 04:45 thecrazymunchkin wrote: Can we stop comparing weekenders to starleagues for once? sOs, soO and TaeJa have never won a starleague. NesTea and Maru have never won a weekender. Can't we just accept that they're different disciplines requiring different skillsets? Only the very best have ever been truly great at both i.e. basically just Life and Mvp
You would be completely right if weekend tournaments and starleagues featured identical rosters, but that isn't exactly the case, is it?
How many freebie Ro32 and ro16s did Taeja have over his career?
Maru isn't in Code S right now because he met Zest IN CODE A. That's the real difference. Not the tournament format.
Look, I'm far from a TaeJa fan, but it's just lazy to continue to accuse him of having free tournaments. Yes, he certainly had a few, but to just claim that the majority were easy is silly. This is an edited list of his HotS weekender runs showing the top class players he beat
Some were obviously just weak tournaments, but others were quite clearly up against some of the best in the world (DH Bucharest / Winter in 2013 stand out in particular, as does IEM Shenzhen)
I don't know why I always get roped in despite not even liking him as a player, but it's a fallacy to reduce his career to 'shitty foreign events lol'
I strongly agree that ProLeague results should be factored into this. For me it's the most important tournament. GSL is nice for individual skill, but being able to prove your worth for a team week in week out is what gets the great players into the great teams, and it's the training their that helps them do well in individual leagues. Rain winning a GSL whilst on myInsanity was a tremendous feat baring in mind he was competing against many players from the KeSpa teams.
I also agree that winning Blizzcon in the premier tournament for individual leagues. Even though GSL is arguably harder if you happen to qualify for both.
I am a Terran fan at heart and TaeJa would be one of my favourite players in Starcraft 2 but i couldn't justify saying he was better than the Korean based players who smash proleague and GSL's, SSL's on a regular basis.
Also having your face on a plane must count for something right???
On March 03 2016 04:45 thecrazymunchkin wrote: Can we stop comparing weekenders to starleagues for once? sOs, soO and TaeJa have never won a starleague. NesTea and Maru have never won a weekender. Can't we just accept that they're different disciplines requiring different skillsets? Only the very best have ever been truly great at both i.e. basically just Life and Mvp
but Life is awfull in PL where Maru is great in PL and starleague. I would not say Life is better than that.
On top of that, if Maru/zest etc... played way more IEM / Dh, they would have way better results than Life
I cant believe SOS is 7th, he won 2 blizzcons, twice he won the biggest tournament represented by the best players over a calendar year. Even if he hadnt won a single other tournament, which is highly unlikley since you have perform well to get to blizzcon in the first place, but even if he hadnt, he should still be easily top 3 of the HOTS era. Thats why official lists like this need to include a panel of experts, not just one guy, cause one guy can always get it wrong.
On March 03 2016 05:10 Orr wrote: While the exact order isn't as important, excluding sOs and Maru from the top five is a disgrace.
Honestly I think for the top 6-7 players of HotS the order is in a large part down to personal preference and at the end of the day the world doesn't change because somebody thinks sOs is only the #7 player instead of the #3 or w/e. I'd have him higher than 7 but I can see stuchiu's argument, and since he has the courage to write his opinions into articles that can be ridiculed for years to come, I'm not gonna shit on him.
On March 03 2016 05:18 CrayonPopChoa wrote: Thats why official lists like this need to include a panel of experts, not just one guy, cause one guy can always get it wrong.
The only thing that's official about this is that it's officially stuchiu's personal opinion.
sOs' bags of money are drowning out the utterly absurd ranking you gave him. The fact that you felt the need to devote half your post on him to defending why he shouldn't have a higher rank should say it all, but in case it doesn't, let's just clarify how weak the argument of consistency is in this context.
A "lack of consistency" over the course of a 3 year period and countless tournaments could be pretty simply explained by a tactical decision to concentrate your attention to specific periods of time. I'm not saying this IS the reason for him not staying consistent over this period of time, but it could be. We could then say that this type of thinking didn't pay off if it didn't result in big tournament wins, but it did - sOs won when it mattered. Again, I'm not definitively saying that this is what happened, but it is a reason that we can't weight consistency so heavily in a ranking system like this. Big tournament wins should matter way, way more.
But the consistency argument against sOs sort of falls flat on its face when you consider Proleague, which isn't mentioned at all? Really? sOs was unequivocally the most consistently dominant player in Proleague over the course of HOTS. Only Innovation had a higher win rate and didn't play for one season. sOs had the MOST WINS and played all 3 seasons.
Though I express strong disagreement with this particular choice I still enjoyed reading the article and look forward to the final segment(s). Keep making this content!
On March 03 2016 05:10 Orr wrote: While the exact order isn't as important, excluding sOs and Maru from the top five is a disgrace.
Honestly I think for the top 6-7 players of HotS the order is in a large part down to personal preference and at the end of the day the world doesn't change because somebody thinks sOs is only the #7 player instead of the #3 or w/e. I'd have him higher than 7 but I can see stuchiu's argument, and since he has the courage to write his opinions into articles that can be ridiculed for years to come, I'm not gonna shit on him.
On March 03 2016 05:18 CrayonPopChoa wrote: Thats why official lists like this need to include a panel of experts, not just one guy, cause one guy can always get it wrong.
The only thing that's official about this is that it's officially stuchiu's personal opinion.
Ive never seen soo many people disagreeing with the OP in teamliquid like right now in this thread. Theres without a doubt a good reason for it.
Its 1 thing to do a list and be a bit bias with your personnal opinion. But putting sOs #7 is more than just an ''opinion''. Its straight up a huge mistake. Thats like if stuchiu put MaximusBlack #3 in greatest foreigner of all time. Its just wrong.
Personal opnion that people would not mind is like putting polt above classic. Some people might argue that Classic was just better, won in harder tournament, but thats no big deal.
Putting a guy like sOs #7, where the vast majority of hardcore, casual, players etc... would have put him at least top #3 is not just personal opinion, its a mistake, a big one (in terms of ranking of course).
Thats like saying that in your personal opinion, Fernando Torres is better than Lionel Messi. Thats just wrong.
On March 03 2016 05:23 smoosh wrote: sOs had the MOST WINS and played all 3 seasons.
You know who's #2 on that list by 3 wins, but not close to top 15 HotS? Flash.
On March 03 2016 05:31 Ensiferum8 wrote: Thats like saying that in your personal opinion, Fernando Torres is better than Lionel Messi. Thats just wrong.
It's more like saying Nadal > Federer considering all the guys above sOs on the list are also insanely successful. And also play individually.
The consistency argument is bullshit because you have to play good enough to make it to blizzcon in the first place, and he was playing in the most brutal region, this is why I dont even like putting Polt and Taeja on this list, how many tournaments would they have won if they played in korea? Probably a lot less then they did outside of it. Still to get to the global finals you have to be a top 16 player in a year, the year in between the wins he was 18th, missed it by 2 spots, that was the year , where Bomber and Hyun were 1 and 2 and Polt was 4th in the year end standings, and they all played in the America region, plus jaedong got in as 16th playing in America. Europes region wasnt much better and again it was mostly koreans playing in Europe that got in. Do you think that, if SOS played in either of those regions he wouldnt have made it to blizzcon?? that he wouldnt have won a few more tournaments??? Of course he would have. In fact you take any of the top kroeans, Maru, Life, Hero, Zest you ship em to europe or America and they will do what Polt and MC and others have done. Thats why I dont think winning premier leagues in America, Europe should count as much as doing it in korea, You win 1 GSL in korea should be like winning 3 premier league tournaments in America, maybe 2 in EUrope.
On March 03 2016 05:31 Ensiferum8 wrote:Ive never seen soo many people disagreeing with the OP in teamliquid like right now in this thread.
You must not have read many articles then, particularly PRs. And this coming from someone who has been on TL only since 2013...
I think the biggest mistake anyone is doing ITT is asserting their priorities ("Blizzcon is GOAT of tournaments", "PL should be more important", "consistency is bullshit") as objective or as "what the majority here think". Stuchiu gave his explanation on what his priorities are and made the list according to that. You can go and do your own list too, according to your own priorities which will probably be different. But call the other lists "wrong" makes no sense...
On March 03 2016 04:45 thecrazymunchkin wrote: Can we stop comparing weekenders to starleagues for once? sOs, soO and TaeJa have never won a starleague. NesTea and Maru have never won a weekender. Can't we just accept that they're different disciplines requiring different skillsets? Only the very best have ever been truly great at both i.e. basically just Life and Mvp
You would be completely right if weekend tournaments and starleagues featured identical rosters, but that isn't exactly the case, is it?
How many freebie Ro32 and ro16s did Taeja have over his career?
Maru isn't in Code S right now because he met Zest IN CODE A. That's the real difference. Not the tournament format.
Look, I'm far from a TaeJa fan, but it's just lazy to continue to accuse him of having free tournaments. Yes, he certainly had a few, but to just claim that the majority were easy is silly. This is an edited list of his HotS weekender runs showing the top class players he beat
Some were obviously just weak tournaments, but others were quite clearly up against some of the best in the world (DH Bucharest / Winter in 2013 stand out in particular, as does IEM Shenzhen)
I don't know why I always get roped in despite not even liking him as a player, but it's a fallacy to reduce his career to 'shitty foreign events lol'
Yeah TaeJa is just in his own tier... What is he doing nowadays btw ? Still playing in KR ?
On March 03 2016 04:45 thecrazymunchkin wrote: Can we stop comparing weekenders to starleagues for once? sOs, soO and TaeJa have never won a starleague. NesTea and Maru have never won a weekender. Can't we just accept that they're different disciplines requiring different skillsets? Only the very best have ever been truly great at both i.e. basically just Life and Mvp
You would be completely right if weekend tournaments and starleagues featured identical rosters, but that isn't exactly the case, is it?
How many freebie Ro32 and ro16s did Taeja have over his career?
Maru isn't in Code S right now because he met Zest IN CODE A. That's the real difference. Not the tournament format.
Look, I'm far from a TaeJa fan, but it's just lazy to continue to accuse him of having free tournaments. Yes, he certainly had a few, but to just claim that the majority were easy is silly. This is an edited list of his HotS weekender runs showing the top class players he beat
Some were obviously just weak tournaments, but others were quite clearly up against some of the best in the world (DH Bucharest / Winter in 2013 stand out in particular, as does IEM Shenzhen)
I don't know why I always get roped in despite not even liking him as a player, but it's a fallacy to reduce his career to 'shitty foreign events lol'
Yeah TaeJa is just in his own tier... What is he doing nowadays btw ? Still playing in KR ?
On March 03 2016 04:45 thecrazymunchkin wrote: Can we stop comparing weekenders to starleagues for once? sOs, soO and TaeJa have never won a starleague. NesTea and Maru have never won a weekender. Can't we just accept that they're different disciplines requiring different skillsets? Only the very best have ever been truly great at both i.e. basically just Life and Mvp
You would be completely right if weekend tournaments and starleagues featured identical rosters, but that isn't exactly the case, is it?
How many freebie Ro32 and ro16s did Taeja have over his career?
Maru isn't in Code S right now because he met Zest IN CODE A. That's the real difference. Not the tournament format.
Look, I'm far from a TaeJa fan, but it's just lazy to continue to accuse him of having free tournaments. Yes, he certainly had a few, but to just claim that the majority were easy is silly. This is an edited list of his HotS weekender runs showing the top class players he beat
Some were obviously just weak tournaments, but others were quite clearly up against some of the best in the world (DH Bucharest / Winter in 2013 stand out in particular, as does IEM Shenzhen)
I don't know why I always get roped in despite not even liking him as a player, but it's a fallacy to reduce his career to 'shitty foreign events lol'
Yeah TaeJa is just in his own tier... What is he doing nowadays btw ? Still playing in KR ?
On March 03 2016 04:45 thecrazymunchkin wrote: Can we stop comparing weekenders to starleagues for once? sOs, soO and TaeJa have never won a starleague. NesTea and Maru have never won a weekender. Can't we just accept that they're different disciplines requiring different skillsets? Only the very best have ever been truly great at both i.e. basically just Life and Mvp
You would be completely right if weekend tournaments and starleagues featured identical rosters, but that isn't exactly the case, is it?
How many freebie Ro32 and ro16s did Taeja have over his career?
Maru isn't in Code S right now because he met Zest IN CODE A. That's the real difference. Not the tournament format.
Look, I'm far from a TaeJa fan, but it's just lazy to continue to accuse him of having free tournaments. Yes, he certainly had a few, but to just claim that the majority were easy is silly. This is an edited list of his HotS weekender runs showing the top class players he beat
Some were obviously just weak tournaments, but others were quite clearly up against some of the best in the world (DH Bucharest / Winter in 2013 stand out in particular, as does IEM Shenzhen)
I don't know why I always get roped in despite not even liking him as a player, but it's a fallacy to reduce his career to 'shitty foreign events lol'
Yeah TaeJa is just in his own tier... What is he doing nowadays btw ? Still playing in KR ?
In Code S atm.
Oh yeah lol how could I forget that group A... Guess all those memories are beginning to mix up in my mind
If you win three of the most stacked tournaments in that time, isn't the winner the best player? Why aren't you counting Go4sc2, there are pretty consistent players there too you know? How do you even define consistency, winning those 3 tournaments was pretty damn consistent wasn't it? And why isn't herO 1# then??
Also think sOs is a bit low. Inconsistencies or not, when it comes time to win the money he's one of the scariest players of all-time. I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure he's the most innovative HotS protoss as well. That's got to count for something. This is even if we don't factor in SPL, major, or online tournaments.
On March 03 2016 05:58 FrostedMiniWheats wrote: Swap herO and Rain.
Also think sOs is a bit low. Inconsistencies or not, when it comes time to win the money he's one of the scariest players of all-time. I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure he's the most innovative HotS protoss as well. That's got to count for something. This is even if we don't factor in SPL, major, or online tournaments.
yeah he pretty much invented void ray chargelot storm in PvZ for instance
On March 03 2016 05:58 FrostedMiniWheats wrote: Swap herO and Rain.
Also think sOs is a bit low. Inconsistencies or not, when it comes time to win the money he's one of the scariest players of all-time. I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure he's the most innovative HotS protoss as well. That's got to count for something. This is even if we don't factor in SPL, major, or online tournaments.
yeah he pretty much invented void ray chargelot storm in PvZ for instance
Also, he inspired the masses by cannon rushing in the blizzcon finals. That did a lot (in my mind, if only there lol) to legitimize it a bit.
Plus that tempest rush last blizzcon. (Pigbaby also had a good tempest rush in a big finals, but this was at the most prestigious tournament of the year).
sOs doesn't care that he's 7th, he won the most money in HotS by a 5-digit margin and is currently swimming in a pool of it. And not to mention Jin Air probably spent less money sending him to a few big tourneys than Liquid did sending Taeja to every single little one.
In terms of raw skill Taeja is likely the greatest player ever, but people always overstate his results. You can really only compare him to HerO and Jaedong, no other player had a team that would send them to every single event.
On March 03 2016 02:38 LongShot27 wrote: Maru over sOs? rofl
He tells you exactly why and it's not really worth laughing about. His consistency in HotS was rather absurd. sOs had month long stretches in HotS with no top 8 performances. Maru just didn't. If he wasn't the most clutch player in SC2 history, the guy who wins when it matters, there'd be no reason for sOs to even be on the list.
Maru has been the definition of inconsistency and if you think Maru is clutch you're the thing worth laughing about.
On March 03 2016 08:03 ejozl wrote: Can just say that I don't agree, I find it extremely hard to follow your line of thought and therefore have no idea who to expect at no. 1.
Any of Taeja/Life or Inno. Probably Inno for mine.
On March 03 2016 02:38 LongShot27 wrote: Maru over sOs? rofl
He tells you exactly why and it's not really worth laughing about. His consistency in HotS was rather absurd. sOs had month long stretches in HotS with no top 8 performances. Maru just didn't. If he wasn't the most clutch player in SC2 history, the guy who wins when it matters, there'd be no reason for sOs to even be on the list.
Maru has been the definition of inconsistency and if you think Maru is clutch you're the thing worth laughing about.
Yes, clearly, "if Maru wasn't clutch, there'd be no reason for sOs to be on the list" is a sensible statement and you didn't fail at reading that at all.
Also as much as I dislike Maru, calling him the definition of inconsistency is bullshit. He had a 1-year stretch in HotS where his lowest tournament finish was top 12. He finished top 4 in more Korean leagues than soO (and even won 2 of them).
On March 03 2016 07:27 bypLy wrote: sos on #7 ? you must be joking
yep, 4 pages of people complaining about that but hes too ''inconsistent'' (even though hes the most consistent ever in PL)
and even thought life is 10 times more inconsistent.
Stuchiu's work usually is great, but thats by far his worst ive seen from him. Hopefully hes gonna improve in the next one
It's mostly you complaining tbh ^^
Not sure how i feel about the list, will be all about Taeja's placing in the end Nah srsly, in my opinion stuchiu (and most people in general) overvalue the foreign tournaments a bit, i have explained multiple times why that is (tldr: the competition is significantly worse than in korea) but that's just how priorities work i guess. I also think that proleague should be a factor though.
Other than that, excited for the last part to see how this plays out in the most important ranks :D
On March 03 2016 12:20 Charoisaur wrote: I've never disagreed with a stuchiu writeup this much but whatever in the end it's all about personal preferences. I still enjoy the write-ups.
Well put. He's a great writer w/ an incredible knowledge base from mounds of research. And these lists are very thought provoking at a minimum.
Clearly, I have serious disagreements with much of this ranking and parts of the logic behind, as explained in more depth on the previous thread, but I highly doubt anyone here (possibly anywhere) has put in the amount of time researching each player over their entirety like Stuchiu has.
Actually surprised Polt was only #10 here. Figured he might be on the top five borderline for this PR.
On March 03 2016 12:20 Charoisaur wrote: I've never disagreed with a stuchiu writeup this much but whatever in the end it's all about personal preferences. I still enjoy the write-ups.
Well put. He's a great writer w/ an incredible knowledge base from mounds of research. And these lists are very thought provoking at a minimum.
Clearly, I have serious disagreements with much of this ranking and parts of the logic behind, as explained in more depth on the previous thread, but I highly doubt anyone here (possibly anywhere) has put in the amount of time researching each player over their entirety like Stuchiu has.
Actually surprised Polt was only #10 here. Figured he might be on the top five borderline for this PR.
Polt did some amazing things, but outside of WCS America, he just didn't win that many tournaments. But we'll forever have Captain America and finding a way to win in TvP during the Blink Era.
As for sOs being #7, it's really a matter of the comparison to the players above him. Maru was always the Ace of Jin Air, even if sOs was their 2nd. And that's the proper relation between the two of them.
$o$ showed up when it really counted, but if he hadn't figured out something special about current map pool, he was just a top 10 Protoss. When he'd figured something out, he could get to that "next level". He did some special stuff.
Lol, sOs #7. I wonder whether Stuchiu wants start discussion or is just trolling. This is the worst list TL produced so far and I wasn't critical in the past(Except for #LiquidBias)
On March 03 2016 17:17 deacon.frost wrote: So top6 is TZ? Because result-wise is sOs the most accomplished Protoss in single leagues... And Zest wasn't mentioned, was he?
On March 03 2016 17:17 deacon.frost wrote: So top6 is TZ? Because result-wise is sOs the most accomplished Protoss in single leagues... And Zest wasn't mentioned, was he?
Zest will be top 5 for sure.
That will be funny. Even sOs, #7 has longer list of accomplishments than Zest on liquipedia I wonder how Stuchiu makes it possible
On March 03 2016 17:17 deacon.frost wrote: So top6 is TZ? Because result-wise is sOs the most accomplished Protoss in single leagues... And Zest wasn't mentioned, was he?
Zest will be top 5 for sure.
That will be funny. Even sOs, #7 has longer list of accomplishments than Zest on liquipedia I wonder how Stuchiu makes it possible
Because Zest was a more dominant player during HotS. Or something along those lines.
On March 03 2016 17:17 deacon.frost wrote: So top6 is TZ? Because result-wise is sOs the most accomplished Protoss in single leagues... And Zest wasn't mentioned, was he?
Zest will be top 5 for sure.
That will be funny. Even sOs, #7 has longer list of accomplishments than Zest on liquipedia I wonder how Stuchiu makes it possible
Because Zest was a more dominant player during HotS. Or something along those lines.
Consistency. Personally, I'd rank Zest and sOs right next to each other in the top 5 going either way. But following the reasoning so far in these articles, if Maru beats sOs for consistency then Zest easily does as well.
Despite tons of contenders during the Blink Era of 2014, Zest firmly sat on the Protoss throne for about a year. No player except Mvp has had a stronger year than him. He made ro8+ in every tournament he entered except Blizzcon (and even then lost 2-3 to the eventual champ). Then he followed that up with a respectable 2015, which while not nearly as dominant as the previous year was still pretty good for him.
sOs on the other hand has always hovered between genius and just another top-tier Protoss. He's just never been able to keep the spark alive for long like Zest. He's always lurking around as potentially the strongest Protoss though.
You really get the idea if you scroll through their results page. It's unstable vs rigid:
On March 03 2016 17:17 deacon.frost wrote: So top6 is TZ? Because result-wise is sOs the most accomplished Protoss in single leagues... And Zest wasn't mentioned, was he?
Zest will be top 5 for sure.
That will be funny. Even sOs, #7 has longer list of accomplishments than Zest on liquipedia I wonder how Stuchiu makes it possible
Because Zest was a more dominant player during HotS. Or something along those lines.
Consistency. Personally, I'd rank Zest and sOs right next to each other in the top 5 going either way. But following the reasoning so far in these articles, if Maru beats sOs for consistency then Zest easily does as well.
Despite tons of contenders during the Blink Era of 2014, Zest firmly sat on the Protoss throne for about a year. No player except Mvp has had a stronger year than him. He made ro8+ in every tournament he entered except Blizzcon (and even then lost 2-3 to the eventual champ). Then he followed that up with a respectable 2015, which while not nearly as dominant as the previous year was still pretty good for him.
sOs on the other hand has always hovered between genius and just another top-tier Protoss. He's just never been able to keep the spark alive for long like Zest. He's always lurking around as potentially the strongest Protoss though.
You really get the idea if you scroll through their results page. It's unstable vs rigid:
Consistency is too big factor IMO. Maru was at least dominant in the time when Terran was bad(3 Terrans GSL ). Maru made it far in these settings, which should be considered as a huge success.
Well, I think that this time Stu shouldn't made the list and it would be better.
Edit> That being said I still think Maru was beast but result wise sOs was better in HotS. Also all killed KT
On March 03 2016 21:04 boxerfred wrote: sOs is even worse than 7. He's kind of an abusive player which gives him results but not greatness.
He has results.
Watch his all kill of KT - he wasn't abusive he was better. sOs can play really well, he can have stellar micro & macro.
Skillwise he's not top10, herO, Parting, Rain, Zest - all these players are above him based on their skill(not in this exact order) and their consistency in skill.
Also he cheesed the shit of JD, but his 2nd Blizzcon title was taken from cheesing Life And I bet your left testicle Life, the abusive player, is better than #7
On March 03 2016 21:04 boxerfred wrote: sOs is even worse than 7. He's kind of an abusive player which gives him results but not greatness.
He has results.
Watch his all kill of KT - he wasn't abusive he was better.
I think abusive is a good way to describe a 2-base all-in off a gold nexus and 2-base blink into DTs into macro against Terran.
But there's greatness to the way sOs abuses not only player mentalities, but also things in the game people really don't know they can abuse the way he does (e.g. tempests or gold bases).
There's a reason stuchiu said he likes sOs better than most players on his own list, after all.
On March 03 2016 21:04 boxerfred wrote: sOs is even worse than 7. He's kind of an abusive player which gives him results but not greatness.
He has results.
Watch his all kill of KT - he wasn't abusive he was better.
I think abusive is a good way to describe a 2-base all-in off a gold nexus and 2-base blink into DTs into macro against Terran.
But there's greatness to the way sOs abuses not only player mentalities, but also things in the game people really don't know they can abuse the way he does (e.g. tempests or gold bases).
There's a reason stuchiu said he likes sOs better than most players on his own list, after all.
Both PvP games were standard and that TY game was unscouted/misread blink all-in. That wasn't abusive. The gold bae game... hmmm :D
jjakji vs. sOs - carrier storm - where's the abuse?
I think all this comes to the fact that sOs effectively killed JD who couldn't adapt and from then JD is worse and worse. And people here don't forget
On March 03 2016 21:04 boxerfred wrote: sOs is even worse than 7. He's kind of an abusive player which gives him results but not greatness.
He has results.
Watch his all kill of KT - he wasn't abusive he was better.
I think abusive is a good way to describe a 2-base all-in off a gold nexus and 2-base blink into DTs into macro against Terran.
But there's greatness to the way sOs abuses not only player mentalities, but also things in the game people really don't know they can abuse the way he does (e.g. tempests or gold bases).
There's a reason stuchiu said he likes sOs better than most players on his own list, after all.
Both PvP games were standard and that TY game was unscouted/misread blink all-in. That wasn't abusive. The gold bae game... hmmm :D
jjakji vs. sOs - carrier storm - where's the abuse?
I think all this comes to the fact that sOs effectively killed JD who couldn't adapt and from then JD is worse and worse. And people here don't forget
Blink all-ins with DT follow-ups were abusive as fuck in HotS, at least on the Terran side you felt like you got abused in the worst way after it was over
I'm not sure it's really because of Jaedong. But neither sOs nor Jaedong is close to the top of my popularity chart by any margin, so I can't really tell.
On March 03 2016 21:04 boxerfred wrote: sOs is even worse than 7. He's kind of an abusive player which gives him results but not greatness.
He has results.
Watch his all kill of KT - he wasn't abusive he was better.
I think abusive is a good way to describe a 2-base all-in off a gold nexus and 2-base blink into DTs into macro against Terran.
But there's greatness to the way sOs abuses not only player mentalities, but also things in the game people really don't know they can abuse the way he does (e.g. tempests or gold bases).
There's a reason stuchiu said he likes sOs better than most players on his own list, after all.
Both PvP games were standard and that TY game was unscouted/misread blink all-in. That wasn't abusive. The gold bae game... hmmm :D
jjakji vs. sOs - carrier storm - where's the abuse?
I think all this comes to the fact that sOs effectively killed JD who couldn't adapt and from then JD is worse and worse. And people here don't forget
Blink all-ins with DT follow-ups were abusive as fuck in HotS, at least on the Terran side you felt like you got abused in the worst way after it was over
I'm not sure it's really because of Jaedong. But neither sOs nor Jaedong is close to the top of my popularity chart by any margin, so I can't really tell.
TY didn't scout it properly. But whatever, I myself agree that sOs can play abusive as fuck, turning meta into worthless nothing, doing things that shouldn't be possible and changing everything.
But he can play standard game, that's when he's the most abusive at all. Everyone is waiting on his cheese and there's NONE!
Still, should be in top5 at least. And I don't think he should be called as abusive player. he's a nice guy, smiling and stuff. Losira is abusive, look at his stare! (The Staremaster!)
On March 03 2016 22:38 Tosster wrote: Maru higher than herO AND sOs? This is some bullshit, sorry
Consistency > accomplishments. Maru was the best Terran when every other Terran sucked
Winning a tournament isn't everything... Making it fairly far a lot of the time is more impressive then winning one time and never be seen again. Maru had a lot of high place finishes in hots in korea, that's more impressive than sOs for sure
On March 03 2016 22:38 Tosster wrote: Maru higher than herO AND sOs? This is some bullshit, sorry
Consistency > accomplishments. Maru was the best Terran when every other Terran sucked
Winning a tournament isn't everything... Making it fairly far a lot of the time is more impressive then winning one time and never be seen again. Maru had a lot of high place finishes in hots in korea, that's more impressive than sOs for sure
That depends on the view, the drive to make it able and to not choke in the finals(soO! I am looking at you!) should be counted high too.
That's so subjective topic I don't think this rating should be done. This is no WoL, where we had the king certain, MVP was the best for a long time and was winning things when he was the best. Maru was the best Terran for a year and won what? There wasn't a consistent player who dominated. Even Life had his ups and downs. Innovation, soO, ByuL. All these players were consistent but were not winning. Do we value consistency more than the ability to not choke yourself and win? Really?
OK, some people may say so. But I don't get it. Honestly, today Classic choked himself to lose the game vs. Patience. Hydra choked himself to lose 2:0 lead vs. Lilbow(he was outclassing him and then he lost somehow 2 games in a row after that game #3). These players are missing the key ingredient to be the best - the ability to win things. And that's why in my head sOs > Maru, herO, Rain, Parting, Zest. sOs >= Innovation, Life(depends on how big value you gave to each tourney win)
And as this topic shows this view is really big, 4 pages of "WTF? sOs #7?". Edit> 6 pages
Edit #2> And look few posts back what I wrote about herO, Rain, Parting and Zest
Maru higher than herO AND sOs? This is some bullshit, sorry
Consistency > accomplishments. Maru was the best Terran when every other Terran sucked
Winning a tournament isn't everything... Making it fairly far a lot of the time is more impressive then winning one time and never be seen again. Maru had a lot of high place finishes in hots in korea, that's more impressive than sOs for sure
That depends on the view, the drive to make it able and to not choke in the finals(soO! I am looking at you!) should be counted high too.
That's so subjective topic I don't think this rating should be done. This is no WoL, where we had the king certain, MVP was the best for a long time and was winning things when he was the best. Maru was the best Terran for a year and won what? There wasn't a consistent player who dominated. Even Life had his ups and downs. Innovation, soO, ByuL. All these players were consistent but were not winning. Do we value consistency more than the ability to not choke yourself and win? Really?
OK, some people may say so. But I don't get it. Honestly, today Classic choked himself to lose the game vs. Patience. Hydra choked himself to lose 2:0 lead vs. Lilbow(he was outclassing him and then he lost somehow 2 games in a row after that game #3). These players are missing the key ingredient to be the best - the ability to win things. And that's why in my head sOs > Maru, herO, Rain, Parting, Zest. sOs >= Innovation, Life(depends on how big value you gave to each tourney win)
And as this topic shows this view is really big, 4 pages of "WTF? sOs #7?". Edit> 6 pages
Edit #2> And look few posts back what I wrote about herO, Rain, Parting and Zest
I'd say stating that Classic doesn't have what it takes to win when he's won 2 Starleagues and an IEM is a bit questionable.
Also, Zest is gonna end up in front of sOs is because he won 3 tournaments in Korea in 2014 and finished top 4 in like every Korean tournament except one GSL that year. I guarantee you that's gonna be the main reason for stuchiu.
On March 03 2016 22:38 Tosster wrote: Maru higher than herO AND sOs? This is some bullshit, sorry
Consistency > accomplishments. Maru was the best Terran when every other Terran sucked
Winning a tournament isn't everything... Making it fairly far a lot of the time is more impressive then winning one time and never be seen again. Maru had a lot of high place finishes in hots in korea, that's more impressive than sOs for sure
That depends on the view, the drive to make it able and to not choke in the finals(soO! I am looking at you!) should be counted high too.
That's so subjective topic I don't think this rating should be done. This is no WoL, where we had the king certain, MVP was the best for a long time and was winning things when he was the best. Maru was the best Terran for a year and won what? There wasn't a consistent player who dominated. Even Life had his ups and downs. Innovation, soO, ByuL. All these players were consistent but were not winning. Do we value consistency more than the ability to not choke yourself and win? Really?
OK, some people may say so. But I don't get it. Honestly, today Classic choked himself to lose the game vs. Patience. Hydra choked himself to lose 2:0 lead vs. Lilbow(he was outclassing him and then he lost somehow 2 games in a row after that game #3). These players are missing the key ingredient to be the best - the ability to win things. And that's why in my head sOs > Maru, herO, Rain, Parting, Zest. sOs >= Innovation, Life(depends on how big value you gave to each tourney win)
And as this topic shows this view is really big, 4 pages of "WTF? sOs #7?". Edit> 6 pages
Edit #2> And look few posts back what I wrote about herO, Rain, Parting and Zest
I don't understand your examples tbh. Classic "choked" today before the finals and thus he cannot win stuff? He already won 2 starleagues last year btw. What about sOs when he doesn't even make it far in a tournament? Why isn't that considered "choking" then?
IMO the only fair way to value a player is to look at all of his results, not just the tournament wins (i actually think this view is fairly objective tbh) No player ever has only extremely good results (winning), all the other results have a certain value too (getting to the finals, soO!, a lot of semis, Maru!, etc) Even more so when we consider that these guys did it in the hardest region (korea).
Is a tournament win vs worse players (Taeja) really better than getting to the semis or even quarters in code s? I am not so sure tbh.
You certainly wouldn't say that Fruitdealer had a better career than soO?
I think the vast majority of people here are really disappopinted by stuchiu awfull ranking. Im glad im not the only one. Honestly, its not even about personal preference.
Putting sOs #7 is not just personal preference, its just plain wrong.
Anyone with basic sc2 knowldge could say that sOs should be top 3. Meh, hopefully we see better stuff out of him. I thought stuchiu knew soo much about sc2, maybe i was wrong......
On March 04 2016 01:11 Ensiferum8 wrote: I think the vast majority of people here are really disappopinted by stuchiu awfull ranking. Im glad im not the only one. Honestly, its not even about personal preference.
Putting sOs #7 is not just personal preference, its just plain wrong.
Anyone with basic sc2 knowldge could say that sOs should be top 3. Meh, hopefully we see better stuff out of him. I thought stuchiu knew soo much about sc2, maybe i was wrong......
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
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.
Made an account just to post here. It's ridiculous how much crap people are giving stuchui for putting sOs at 7 without even giving a reasonable counter argument. I guess they would just rather insult him. I would probably have sOs a little bit higher but the article is well written and I enjoyed it. Thanks stuchui!
On March 04 2016 01:11 Ensiferum8 wrote: I think the vast majority of people here are really disappopinted by stuchiu awfull ranking. Im glad im not the only one. Honestly, its not even about personal preference.
Putting sOs #7 is not just personal preference, its just plain wrong.
Anyone with basic sc2 knowldge could say that sOs should be top 3. Meh, hopefully we see better stuff out of him. I thought stuchiu knew soo much about sc2, maybe i was wrong......
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
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
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.
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.
Im Salty about the #7, because liquid Taeja will be rank 5-1. And I cant accept Taeja over sos. Grinding Dreamhacks, HSCs and lesser IEMs shouldnt put you above 2 Blizzcon, 1 Hot6, 1 IEM Worlds
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.
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.
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....
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.
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.
On March 04 2016 01:11 Ensiferum8 wrote: I think the vast majority of people here are really disappopinted by stuchiu awfull ranking. Im glad im not the only one. Honestly, its not even about personal preference.
Putting sOs #7 is not just personal preference, its just plain wrong.
Anyone with basic sc2 knowldge could say that sOs should be top 3. Meh, hopefully we see better stuff out of him. I thought stuchiu knew soo much about sc2, maybe i was wrong......
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
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.
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.
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)?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Okay i regret using the dramatic phrasing that sos doesn't hold a candle to those guys, because obviously he does, and he deserves a very nice place in the historical framework of starcraft.
@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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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).
this is a top#7 that the vast majority of people would agree with. I hope you will be doing the next one, so at least its not garbage
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.
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.
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).
this is a top#7 that the vast majority of people would agree with. I hope you will be doing the next one, so at least its not garbage
I have the feeling that i feed a troll at this point, but whatever. The vast majority would agree? How exactly do you come to this conclusion? Maybe i should do a "community power rank of hots" , that might be interesting. hmhm
Taeja over Maru,herO and sOs??? xd Gsl and Ssl are on another level if you compare to all other tournament,because u know what opponent u play and have a lot of time to prepare and every player can give 100% every time,studying opponent ecc... I can see Taeja at 8# or 7# but not top 5
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.
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.
Criticising Taeja yet sOs has only ever won weekenders too. Both have two Ro4s in GSL and apart from that its just weekend tournaments.
On March 04 2016 01:11 Ensiferum8 wrote: I think the vast majority of people here are really disappopinted by stuchiu awfull ranking. Im glad im not the only one. Honestly, its not even about personal preference.
Putting sOs #7 is not just personal preference, its just plain wrong.
Anyone with basic sc2 knowldge could say that sOs should be top 3. Meh, hopefully we see better stuff out of him. I thought stuchiu knew soo much about sc2, maybe i was wrong......
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
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.
Leagues need different set of skills. To win a weekend tournament you need different skills than to win a league. See soO, one of the most dominant Zergs of HotS yet how many times he won some tournament? Even amongst foreigners he ended 2nd to Solar, who was inferior player back then. Blizzcon soO was just a fail.
You cannot say that Korean leagues are harder to win when that;s just your subjective point. I say that if both competitions(weekend tournament & league) have the same players, both competitions have the same difficulty. Simply put several players have better skill set to shine during weekends(the top Taeja, sOs) and others have the proper set of skills to do good in leagues(in HotS soO). Some have both(Life).
If Korean leagues are so much harder to win why it is that their winners/runner ups end so badly in weekend tournaments, which are easier to win?
On March 04 2016 01:11 Ensiferum8 wrote: I think the vast majority of people here are really disappopinted by stuchiu awfull ranking. Im glad im not the only one. Honestly, its not even about personal preference.
Putting sOs #7 is not just personal preference, its just plain wrong.
Anyone with basic sc2 knowldge could say that sOs should be top 3. Meh, hopefully we see better stuff out of him. I thought stuchiu knew soo much about sc2, maybe i was wrong......
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
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.
Leagues need different set of skills. To win a weekend tournament you need different skills than to win a league. See soO, one of the most dominant Zergs of HotS yet how many times he won some tournament? Even amongst foreigners he ended 2nd to Solar, who was inferior player back then. Blizzcon soO was just a fail.
You cannot say that Korean leagues are harder to win when that;s just your subjective point. I say that if both competitions(weekend tournament & league) have the same players, both competitions have the same difficulty. Simply put several players have better skill set to shine during weekends(the top Taeja, sOs) and others have the proper set of skills to do good in leagues(in HotS soO). Some have both(Life).
If Korean leagues are so much harder to win why it is that their winners/runner ups end so badly in weekend tournaments, which are easier to win?
Yeah seriously, it doesn't matter if SoO in practice has been the best player in 2 years, if he doesn't have what it takes to become a champion. sOs is just that he's a freaking champion, when it truly matters that is when he flicks on the switch and tears down everyone.
On March 04 2016 01:11 Ensiferum8 wrote: I think the vast majority of people here are really disappopinted by stuchiu awfull ranking. Im glad im not the only one. Honestly, its not even about personal preference.
Putting sOs #7 is not just personal preference, its just plain wrong.
Anyone with basic sc2 knowldge could say that sOs should be top 3. Meh, hopefully we see better stuff out of him. I thought stuchiu knew soo much about sc2, maybe i was wrong......
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
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.
Leagues need different set of skills. To win a weekend tournament you need different skills than to win a league. See soO, one of the most dominant Zergs of HotS yet how many times he won some tournament? Even amongst foreigners he ended 2nd to Solar, who was inferior player back then. Blizzcon soO was just a fail.
You cannot say that Korean leagues are harder to win when that;s just your subjective point. I say that if both competitions(weekend tournament & league) have the same players, both competitions have the same difficulty. Simply put several players have better skill set to shine during weekends(the top Taeja, sOs) and others have the proper set of skills to do good in leagues(in HotS soO). Some have both(Life).
If Korean leagues are so much harder to win why it is that their winners/runner ups end so badly in weekend tournaments, which are easier to win?
They are completely different types of tournaments. GSL/SSL etc are all preparation based, you have loads of time to prepare specific builds on specific maps against your known opponent. I wouldn't say one is harder or easier to win, they are just different. It just depends on your specific skills.
Hence why Taeja won so many weekenders based on his solid mechanics and gameplay and failed to even win WCS NA. Fantastic player, but found lacking in preparation tournaments.
On March 04 2016 01:11 Ensiferum8 wrote: I think the vast majority of people here are really disappopinted by stuchiu awfull ranking. Im glad im not the only one. Honestly, its not even about personal preference.
Putting sOs #7 is not just personal preference, its just plain wrong.
Anyone with basic sc2 knowldge could say that sOs should be top 3. Meh, hopefully we see better stuff out of him. I thought stuchiu knew soo much about sc2, maybe i was wrong......
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
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.
Leagues need different set of skills. To win a weekend tournament you need different skills than to win a league. See soO, one of the most dominant Zergs of HotS yet how many times he won some tournament? Even amongst foreigners he ended 2nd to Solar, who was inferior player back then. Blizzcon soO was just a fail.
You cannot say that Korean leagues are harder to win when that;s just your subjective point. I say that if both competitions(weekend tournament & league) have the same players, both competitions have the same difficulty. Simply put several players have better skill set to shine during weekends(the top Taeja, sOs) and others have the proper set of skills to do good in leagues(in HotS soO). Some have both(Life).
If Korean leagues are so much harder to win why it is that their winners/runner ups end so badly in weekend tournaments, which are easier to win?
My point isn't necessarily that GSL/SSL is harder because of the format, it is harder because of the players competing in these tournaments. I agree that weekend tournaments have a different skillset, even though i disagree that soO for example did badly at weekend tournaments, losing to solar and Innovation in the final (in the FINAL) is simply a soO thing. He also won Kespa Cup which is a mixture of preparation and 'freestyle'.
The main difference is that most korean s class players simply don't have a lot of experience with travelling in general, jetlag, weekend style formats besides laddering and the most important factor, they wouldn't get experience because they almost never played in these tournaments to begin with. If every single foreign weekend tournament had all the "code s players" competing in them, it would be a lot easier to value these tournaments closely to korean starleagues. The fact is that there aren't the same players competing though, sure sometimes you will get a handful of s class players in an IEM/Dreamhack, but that's still not the same as GSL/SSL. This is the difference, this is why i don't value Taeja's achievements as highly as constant 'good results' in starleagues.
This is also the reason why i don't value sOs' performance over Maru's for example. The 100k tournaments he won are that highly regarded because, well, they had a big prize pool and the title 'blizzcon champion' The truth is that any Starleague you can win in korea is more prestigious.
tldr: Weekend tournaments and starleagues are hard to compare not (only) because of the difference in format, but because they don't share the same player talent pool (starleagues have the more skilled one BY FAR) This is the main reason they aren't in the same league of prestige.
It doesn't matter at what position Stuchiu is placing each player. This kind of post is not about the ranks themselves, So rather than calling things you don't agree with bullshit, just take it as an opportunity to discuss about the the relative strengths of the players during HoTS. Stuchiu is not some kind of SC god and his posts have no official value, he never claimed any of that so don't get pissed at his articles when you don't agree with it xD
What I like about it even when I disagree with it is how he justifies his choices and it end up making some sense, even if you have a different stance you can see why he picked players the way he did. If ranking was based on pure titles with bigger weights on GSL/SSL it would be entirely different. Same if it was only on pure consistency. This one tries to mix both criteria (and also the impact players had on their race playstyle) so obviously demarcation becomes more blurry.
On March 05 2016 00:30 The_Masked_Shrimp wrote: It doesn't matter at what position Stuchiu is placing each player. This kind of post is not about the ranks themselves, So rather than calling things you don't agree with bullshit, just take it as an opportunity to discuss about the the relative strengths of the players during HoTS. Stuchiu is not some kind of SC god and his posts have no official value, he never claimed any of that so don't get pissed at his articles when you don't agree with it xD
What I like about it even when I disagree with it is how he justifies his choices and it end up making some sense, even if you have a different stance you can see why he picked players the way he did. If ranking was based on pure titles with bigger weights on GSL/SSL it would be entirely different. Same if it was only on pure consistency. This one tries to mix both criteria (and also the impact players had on their race playstyle) so obviously demarcation becomes more blurry.
Can you take the reason and logic out of here please? This is not the place for that /s
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.
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.
What? How did you come up the 4days of dominance?
sOs has been in beast mode from MSI tournament up until Blizzcon. He absolutely wrecked everybody during that time, not only in individual tournaments but also in team league. Never forget his double all-kill in the Proleagues final.
That is as dominant as a player can get in Hots, on par with Life's run at the end of 2014.
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.
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.
What? How did you come up the 4days of dominance?
sOs has been in beast mode from MSI tournament up until Blizzcon. He absolutely wrecked everybody during that time, not only in individual tournaments but also in team league. Never forget his double all-kill in the Proleagues final.
That is as dominant as a player can get in Hots, on par with Life's run at the end of 2014.
The run sOs had from MSI to Blizzcon is nothing compared to Life's run from Blizzcon all the way up to his gsl win. Life won Blizzcon, came in 2nd at Dreamhack Winter, won iem Taipei, got to the ro4 in ssl and barely didn't make the final, and won gsl. Life's run was much more dominant and it isn't even close.
Wow :D This list is an insane joke... sOs at number 7. Maru, sOs, Rain below the likes of soO and Taeja is simply an insult to these players. How can anyone do this? :/
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.
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.
What? How did you come up the 4days of dominance?
sOs has been in beast mode from MSI tournament up until Blizzcon. He absolutely wrecked everybody during that time, not only in individual tournaments but also in team league. Never forget his double all-kill in the Proleagues final.
That is as dominant as a player can get in Hots, on par with Life's run at the end of 2014.
The run sOs had from MSI to Blizzcon is nothing compared to Life's run from Blizzcon all the way up to his gsl win. Life won Blizzcon, came in 2nd at Dreamhack Winter, won iem Taipei, got to the ro4 in ssl and barely didn't make the final, and won gsl. Life's run was much more dominant and it isn't even close.
Well, did he reverse all kill tho? Life played great on teamleague but it was never on the level of sOs' as well. Obviously sOs' run was not "nothing compared". And we're talking about HoTS in general.
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.
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.
What? How did you come up the 4days of dominance?
sOs has been in beast mode from MSI tournament up until Blizzcon. He absolutely wrecked everybody during that time, not only in individual tournaments but also in team league. Never forget his double all-kill in the Proleagues final.
That is as dominant as a player can get in Hots, on par with Life's run at the end of 2014.
The run sOs had from MSI to Blizzcon is nothing compared to Life's run from Blizzcon all the way up to his gsl win. Life won Blizzcon, came in 2nd at Dreamhack Winter, won iem Taipei, got to the ro4 in ssl and barely didn't make the final, and won gsl. Life's run was much more dominant and it isn't even close.
Well, did he reverse all kill tho? Life played great on teamleague but it was never on the level of sOs' as well. Obviously sOs' run was not "nothing compared". And we're talking about HoTS in general.
sOs is the only one to do it I believe. And Life isn't great in teamleauges.. he's average.
On March 05 2016 03:26 Homunculus159 wrote: Do people actually read the articles or just look at the numbers and instantly start bitching?
Do you read people's detailed responses or just look at the number of posts and instantly start bitching?
I read peoples responses. A FEW explained why they think this ranking is wrong and why player x should be higher up or lower in the rankings.
MOST of them though are just: Player x is #y? -> This is Bullshit.
I am not bitching either. I just think it is funny how fast people jump the gun without even reading stuff. I dont agree with all the rankings but the writer explained why HE(!) thinks these players deserve these rankings.
This list is silly. Ranking Classic 11 is outrageous. Classic is the only player in HOTS to win both GSL and SSL. That alone makes Classic better than every other protoss except for possibly sOs. But Team Liquid caters to fan bias and makes this a pure popularity contest by sticking a Top 2 protoss at #11. Ridiculous.
And ranking Rain ahead of herO? Rain won 1 GSL in HotS. That's it! herO won SSL, 3 IEMs, Kespa Cup, and had the most wins in Proleague in back to back seasons.
And sOs, who has won 3 world chamionships, is not even Top 5? But everyone's favorite pretty boy Zest, who won GSL at the height of protoss imbalance and a forgettable IEM Katowice over a nerve-wrecked Trap, obviously makes the Top 5 to satisfy the ridiculous biases of this obtuse fan base.
Peace.
Edit: Rain also won Hot6 Cup 2013 but that's his only other premier win in HotS (he won a Homestory Cup but that is not a premier tourney). The article falsely lists Rain as having won an OSL in 2013 HotS but that was actually a 2012 WoL tournament.
On March 11 2016 05:05 BlackZetsu wrote: This list is silly. Ranking Classic 11 is outrageous. Classic is the only player in HOTS to win both GSL and SSL. That alone makes Classic better than every other protoss except for possibly sOs. But Team Liquid caters to fan bias and makes this a pure popularity contest by sticking a Top 2 protoss at #11. Ridiculous.
And ranking Rain ahead of herO? Rain won 1 GSL in HotS. That's it! herO won SSL, 3 IEMs, Kespa Cup, and had the most wins in Proleague in back to back seasons.
And sOs, who has won 3 world chamionships, is not even Top 5? But everyone's favorite pretty boy Zest, who won GSL at the height of protoss imbalance and a forgettable IEM Katowice over a nerve-wrecked Trap, obviously makes the Top 5 to satisfy the ridiculous biases of this obtuse fan base.
Peace.
Edit: Rain also won Hot6 Cup 2013 but that's his only other premier win in HotS (he won a Homestory Cup but that is not a premier tourney). The article falsely lists Rain as having won an OSL in 2013 HotS but that was actually a 2012 WoL tournament.
Who cares if Classic won both Korean starleagues? As if that's some added prestige. It's basically two GSLs since they're nearly identical in format and level of competition. Should ByuL somehow be ranked ahead of soO for having made both starleagues finals compared to soO only making 4 consecutive GSL finals? I think not. In addition, Classic won both of those almost a year apart from each other, it might hold more weight if he pulled the feat off simultaneously as ByuL and Life almost did.
Then you diss Zest for abusing Protoss imbalance but not Classic? What? Protoss imba or not, Zest had one of the most dominant years ever in 2014. Not to mention, Zest's bread and butter is PvP anyway. He's way above Classic. Every Protoss above him easily earns their place over him. Rain and herO for having far better consistency, sOs for having bigger wins and the innovative contributions, Zest for being the best. I think there's even an argument for PartinG who had his share of wins/deep runs coupled with ro16+ in the GSL every season.
I do agree herO should be ahead of Rain but not by much. Rain had greater longevity and consistency (pretty damn good SPL record as well despite the heavy competition on SKT) but herO's 2015 was incredible. Also regarding Rain's 2013 OSL from the article:
On March 11 2016 05:05 BlackZetsu wrote: This list is silly. Ranking Classic 11 is outrageous. Classic is the only player in HOTS to win both GSL and SSL. That alone makes Classic better than every other protoss except for possibly sOs. But Team Liquid caters to fan bias and makes this a pure popularity contest by sticking a Top 2 protoss at #11. Ridiculous.
And ranking Rain ahead of herO? Rain won 1 GSL in HotS. That's it! herO won SSL, 3 IEMs, Kespa Cup, and had the most wins in Proleague in back to back seasons.
And sOs, who has won 3 world chamionships, is not even Top 5? But everyone's favorite pretty boy Zest, who won GSL at the height of protoss imbalance and a forgettable IEM Katowice over a nerve-wrecked Trap, obviously makes the Top 5 to satisfy the ridiculous biases of this obtuse fan base.
Peace.
Edit: Rain also won Hot6 Cup 2013 but that's his only other premier win in HotS (he won a Homestory Cup but that is not a premier tourney). The article falsely lists Rain as having won an OSL in 2013 HotS but that was actually a 2012 WoL tournament.
Who cares if Classic won both Korean starleagues? As if that's some added prestige. It's basically two GSLs since they're nearly identical in format and level of competition. Should ByuL somehow be ranked ahead of soO for having made both starleagues finals compared to soO only making 4 consecutive GSL finals? I think not.
Then you diss Zest for abusing Protoss imbalance but not Classic? What? Protoss imba or not, Zest had one of the most dominant years ever in 2014. Not to mention, Zest's bread and butter is PvP anyway. He's way above Classic. Every Protoss above him easily earns their place over him. Rain and herO for having far better consistency, sOs for having bigger wins and the innovative contributions, Zest for being the best. I think there's even an argument for PartinG who had his share of wins/deep runs coupled with ro16+ in the GSL every season.
I do agree herO should be ahead of Rain but not by much. Rain had greater longevity and consistency (pretty damn good SPL record as well despite the heavy competition on SKT) but herO's 2015 was incredible. Also regarding Rain's 2013 OSL from the article:
Ok, so what other players have won 2 Korean individual leagues in HotS besides Classic? Maru and Innovation. That's it. Sorry but winning one Code S then getting a top 8 and a top 4 is not "dominant." It is "very good" but it is not dominant. The Zest hype among Sc2 fans is absolutely nauseating. He didn't make it out of Code B for 2 seasons in 2015. He's not a Top 5 player.
Classic also made it to top 4 at Blizzcon 2 years in a row. By your standards that's "dominant."
On March 11 2016 05:05 BlackZetsu wrote: This list is silly. Ranking Classic 11 is outrageous. Classic is the only player in HOTS to win both GSL and SSL. That alone makes Classic better than every other protoss except for possibly sOs. But Team Liquid caters to fan bias and makes this a pure popularity contest by sticking a Top 2 protoss at #11. Ridiculous.
And ranking Rain ahead of herO? Rain won 1 GSL in HotS. That's it! herO won SSL, 3 IEMs, Kespa Cup, and had the most wins in Proleague in back to back seasons.
And sOs, who has won 3 world chamionships, is not even Top 5? But everyone's favorite pretty boy Zest, who won GSL at the height of protoss imbalance and a forgettable IEM Katowice over a nerve-wrecked Trap, obviously makes the Top 5 to satisfy the ridiculous biases of this obtuse fan base.
Peace.
Edit: Rain also won Hot6 Cup 2013 but that's his only other premier win in HotS (he won a Homestory Cup but that is not a premier tourney). The article falsely lists Rain as having won an OSL in 2013 HotS but that was actually a 2012 WoL tournament.
Who cares if Classic won both Korean starleagues? As if that's some added prestige. It's basically two GSLs since they're nearly identical in format and level of competition. Should ByuL somehow be ranked ahead of soO for having made both starleagues finals compared to soO only making 4 consecutive GSL finals? I think not.
Then you diss Zest for abusing Protoss imbalance but not Classic? What? Protoss imba or not, Zest had one of the most dominant years ever in 2014. Not to mention, Zest's bread and butter is PvP anyway. He's way above Classic. Every Protoss above him easily earns their place over him. Rain and herO for having far better consistency, sOs for having bigger wins and the innovative contributions, Zest for being the best. I think there's even an argument for PartinG who had his share of wins/deep runs coupled with ro16+ in the GSL every season.
I do agree herO should be ahead of Rain but not by much. Rain had greater longevity and consistency (pretty damn good SPL record as well despite the heavy competition on SKT) but herO's 2015 was incredible. Also regarding Rain's 2013 OSL from the article:
OSL 2013 - 2nd
Ok, so what other players have won 2 Korean individual leagues in HotS besides Classic? Maru and Innovation. That's it. Sorry but winning one Code S then getting a top 8 and a top 4 is not "dominant." It is "very good" but it is not dominant. The Zest hype among Sc2 fans is absolutely nauseating. He didn't make it out of Code B for 2 seasons in 2015. He's not a Top 5 player.
Classic also made it to top 4 at Blizzcon 2 years in a row. By your standards that's "dominant."
Sheesh.
Again, Classic has something to distinguish him apart from everyone in terms of achievement but it's only one factor. It's not nearly enough to cover his other shortcomings when compared to the top 10.
I'm not even a Zest fan, but he deserves his due. Even in 2015 he did good. He missed code S for two seasons but still had a good IEM WC victory, 2 SSL ro8s and a GSL ro8. Btw, Classic was also code B for those two seasons in 2015.
Factoring 2014 in just makes it no contest. Zest didn't just win code S, then go ro8 -> ro4. He won the GSL World Championship, a Kespa cup, came 2nd at a tough IEM and made it to the ro4 in a stacked Hotsix Cup. Hell, Zest was ro8+ in everything except Blizzcon for 2014 (Life is imba).
Winning a Korean individual league is the most difficult accomplishment in Starcraft. Only 3 players were able to do it twice in Heart of the Swarm. And Classic has prestigious "extras" that fully justify a Top 5 placement:
IEM Shenzhen 2015 Championship over Parting (where he also had to defeat Rain and herO) 2 Top 4 finishes at Blizzcon
Zest won 4 noteworthy tournaments, 3 of which occurred within a relatively tight timeframe from April to September 2014. He was literally nobody before then, and his only other accomplishment is winning IEM Katowice 2015, which is impressive but everyone knows the quality of his opponents at that tourney was weak (weaker than Classic's at IEM Shenzhen).
You also have to factor in that the better player will get better at the game as time goes on. Zest's results indicate that he was pretty much figured out by the end of 2014 (at least in Korea), whereas Classic was still able to win another Tier 1 Korean tournament. For this reason I don't even think Zest should be ranked higher than herO, who got better and better at HotS as the game matured and finished 2015 with an SSL championship.
Again, Zest is obviously a very good player, and he's definitely Top 10. But his championships and consistency are worse than Classic's. And there are easily 5 players who accomplished more than Zest in HotS - Classic, Maru, Innovation, Life and sOs.
On March 11 2016 07:58 BlackZetsu wrote: Oh, and I guarantee if you switched faces on Zest and Classic, everyone and their mother would be putting Classic ahead of Zest.
You know I'm right.
In your logic sOs and life must be pretty low in the rankings.
On March 11 2016 07:58 BlackZetsu wrote: Oh, and I guarantee if you switched faces on Zest and Classic, everyone and their mother would be putting Classic ahead of Zest.
You know I'm right.
In your logic sOs and life must be pretty low in the rankings.
It was a joke (with a lot of truth behind it). I already said sOs and Life are Top 5
Calm down, I do agree that classic is way too low but it's just stuchius personal opinion. You can do your own list if you want. Also I think Classic, rain, herO and Zest are all damn close in accomplishments so it's not like classic should be far ahead of Zest or zest doesn't deserve his high rank. Putting classic below Polt is laughable on the other hand...
On March 11 2016 08:21 BlackZetsu wrote: The real list should be:
1. sOs 2. Life 3. Innovation 4. Classic 5. Maru 6. herO 7. Zest 8. Rain 9. soO 10. Dear - I can't believe Dear didn't make the list. What an insult!
sOs higher than fourth place
TaeJa not in the ranking
herO above soO
Are you sure?
sOs won 3 world championships he is absolutely #1, all the moreso now that the only player who can contend for that honor has been arrested for matchfixing.
Taeja did nothing in Korean starcraft. He had his chance in 2015 and bombed out of Code A.
soO only won 1 tournament in HotS, Kespa Cup in 2015. herO won 5.
Winning a Korean individual league is the most difficult accomplishment in Starcraft. Only 3 players were able to do it twice in Heart of the Swarm. And Classic has prestigious "extras" that fully justify a Top 5 placement:
IEM Shenzhen 2015 Championship over Parting (where he also had to defeat Rain and herO) 2 Top 4 finishes at Blizzcon
Zest won 4 noteworthy tournaments, 3 of which occurred within a relatively tight timeframe from April to September 2014. He was literally nobody before then, and his only other accomplishment is winning IEM Katowice 2015, which is impressive but everyone knows the quality of his opponents at that tourney was weak (weaker than Classic's at IEM Shenzhen).
Classic was even more of a nobody before 2014. Zest was slightly notable in 2013. Nobody expected him to go god-mode in the coming year but he also was a decent upcoming Protoss that could support Stats and Flash in SPL.
Zest's path wasn't that weak at IEM. He went through Hydra, Bogus, Bbyong and Trap. Not quite as tough as Classic's IEM but at least he played every MU in a bo5+.
You also have to factor in that the better player will get better at the game as time goes on. Zest's results indicate that he was pretty much figured out by the end of 2014 (at least in Korea), whereas Classic was still able to win another Tier 1 Korean tournament. For this reason I don't even think Zest should be ranked higher than herO, who got better and better at HotS as the game matured and finished 2015 with an SSL championship.
Not necessarily. There are many factors that can contribute to players getting worse or better as time goes on such as meta, balance, motivation, and personal issues.
Again, Zest is obviously a very good player, and he's definitely Top 10. But his championships and consistency are worse than Classic's. And there are easily 5 players who accomplished more than Zest in HotS - Classic, Maru, Innovation, Life and sOs.
How is Classic more consistent? Zest has longer and more impressive streaks of relevancy as a top-tier Protoss. Even in longevity he has the edge. I said before Zest was ro8+ in everything except Blizzcon for 2014 (no shame in going 2-3 to a peak Life). That includes 3 GSLs, 2 IEMs, 1 Kespa Cup, a GSL WC, and a Hotsix Cup. Which is just absolutely insane. Only Mvp beats his 2014.
Even looking at the brackets, Zest went through quite a lot of difficult opponents to pull those results too. The one major criticism you can make for Zest is that he's fortunate in avoiding a lot PvT throughout 2014. Not that he was even bad in PvT, just not nearly as godly.
On March 11 2016 08:21 BlackZetsu wrote: The real list should be:
1. sOs 2. Life 3. Innovation 4. Classic 5. Maru 6. herO 7. Zest 8. Rain 9. soO 10. Dear - I can't believe Dear didn't make the list. What an insult!
I'm not even going to touch the rest of this, but Dear? DEAR?! C'mon, he doesn't belong in the top 10 or even top 15 at all.
Classic is more consistent because he actually won a Korean individual league a whole year after winning his first Korean league. Winning a tournament should count for far more than simply making it far in a lot of tournaments. That's the entire purpose of the game - to win. Performances short of winning should only be taken into account for players who are close in tournament wins - and winning a 2nd Korean individual league a full 12 months after winning his first Korean league puts Classic well ahead of every other Protoss (except for sOs).
I said before Zest was ro8+ in everything except Blizzcon for 2014 (no shame in going 2-3 to a peak Life). That includes 3 GSLs, 2 IEMs, 1 Kespa Cup, a GSL WC, and a Hotsix Cup. Which is just absolutely insane. Only Mvp beats his 2014.
Zest had a great 2014 but that's it - it was a 5 to 6 month time period and after that he couldn't make it out of Code B. Over the 3 year time period of HotS that's the very definition of not consistent.
Not necessarily. There are many factors that can contribute to players getting worse or better as time goes on such as meta, balance, motivation, and personal issues.
These are general factors affect whether a player does well in any tournament. We can only go by actual results. The meta got worse for Protoss (except arguably PvZ after the swarmhost patch) as the game went on. Zest got worse. Classic stayed a champion.
I'm not even going to touch the rest of this, but Dear? DEAR?! C'mon, he doesn't belong in the top 10 or even top 15 at all.
Dear won a Code S and WCS Season 3 finals in 2013, and made it to the Ro4 in Code S Season 3 2015 (and a Top 4 at 2013 Hot 6 Cup which you think is such a wonderfu acomplishment for Zest).
The fact that Dear isn't on the list shows how rampant the fanboyism is in this community. A good looking guy like Zest wins a few tournaments over a few months, Artosis starts hyping him, and people don't care what he does the rest of his career.
I'm not even going to touch the rest of this, but Dear? DEAR?! C'mon, he doesn't belong in the top 10 or even top 15 at all.
Dear won a Code S and WCS Season 3 finals in 2013, and made it to the Ro4 in Code S Season 3 2015 (and a Top 4 at 2013 Hot 6 Cup which you think is such a wonderfu acomplishment for Zest).
The fact that Dear isn't on the list shows how rampant the fanboyism is in this community. A good looking guy like Zest wins a few tournaments over a few months, Artosis starts hyping him, and people don't care what he does the rest of his career.
Zest was a top 5 Protoss for over a year Dear was a top 5 Protoss for about a week
I'm not even going to touch the rest of this, but Dear? DEAR?! C'mon, he doesn't belong in the top 10 or even top 15 at all.
Dear won a Code S and WCS Season 3 finals in 2013, and made it to the Ro4 in Code S Season 3 2015 (and a Top 4 at 2013 Hot 6 Cup which you think is such a wonderfu acomplishment for Zest).
The fact that Dear isn't on the list shows how rampant the fanboyism is in this community. A good looking guy like Zest wins a few tournaments over a few months, Artosis starts hyping him, and people don't care what he does the rest of his career.
Zest was a top 5 Protoss for over a year Dear was a top 5 Protoss for about a week
Dear was a top 1 protoss for a few weeks until sOs came in. Still not Zest level or even close, though. I don't think he should be in the top 10.
I'm not even going to touch the rest of this, but Dear? DEAR?! C'mon, he doesn't belong in the top 10 or even top 15 at all.
Dear won a Code S and WCS Season 3 finals in 2013, and made it to the Ro4 in Code S Season 3 2015 (and a Top 4 at 2013 Hot 6 Cup which you think is such a wonderfu acomplishment for Zest).
The fact that Dear isn't on the list shows how rampant the fanboyism is in this community. A good looking guy like Zest wins a few tournaments over a few months, Artosis starts hyping him, and people don't care what he does the rest of his career.
Zest was a top 5 Protoss for over a year Dear was a top 5 Protoss for about a week
I'm not even going to touch the rest of this, but Dear? DEAR?! C'mon, he doesn't belong in the top 10 or even top 15 at all.
Dear won a Code S and WCS Season 3 finals in 2013, and made it to the Ro4 in Code S Season 3 2015 (and a Top 4 at 2013 Hot 6 Cup which you think is such a wonderfu acomplishment for Zest).
The fact that Dear isn't on the list shows how rampant the fanboyism is in this community. A good looking guy like Zest wins a few tournaments over a few months, Artosis starts hyping him, and people don't care what he does the rest of his career.
Zest's Hotsix cup != Dear's. Different format and harder run. Dear literally only beat RorO to get to the ro8 as it was only an 8-man tournament. Zest went through PartinG, Terminator, and Soulkey before narrowly meeting his end at the hands of MKP (who randomly went back to being one of the best TvP players of all time for 1 tournament).
And if we're downplaying Zest's insane 2014, how in the world does Dear hold a candle to anyone here when his only wins were all the way back in 2013 and very close together? He's #17-16 at best imo.
PartinG beats him for being far more consistent at a higher level for longer.
Soulkey for similar reasons and for being a GSL champ (and having a hell of a run to get his title).
Taeja won numerous stacked foreign events but none as great as a GSL. Both had about a year of irrelevancy
Bomber, Polt and MMA are similar to Taeja. Lesser tournaments but numerous deep runs. Bomber and MMA even snuck in a ro4 WCS KR run each.
ByuL didn't start posting big individual league results until quarter 2 of 2015, but when he did he was on fire and maintained a stronger peak than Dear ever did for longer.
I'm not even going to touch the rest of this, but Dear? DEAR?! C'mon, he doesn't belong in the top 10 or even top 15 at all.
Dear won a Code S and WCS Season 3 finals in 2013, and made it to the Ro4 in Code S Season 3 2015 (and a Top 4 at 2013 Hot 6 Cup which you think is such a wonderfu acomplishment for Zest).
The fact that Dear isn't on the list shows how rampant the fanboyism is in this community. A good looking guy like Zest wins a few tournaments over a few months, Artosis starts hyping him, and people don't care what he does the rest of his career.
Zest was a top 5 Protoss for over a year Dear was a top 5 Protoss for about a week
Dear was a top 1 protoss for a few weeks until sOs came in. Still not Zest level or even close, though. I don't think he should be in the top 10.
The question is which of the Korean individual league champions does not deserve Top 10? There were 9 players who won one or more Korean individual leagues in Korea in HotS:
Soulkey Maru Dear Zest Classic Innovation Life Rain herO
The question is, who else did something more impressive than winning a Korean individual league? The only players who did are soO, with his quadruple 2nd place finish at GSL, and sOs, who won 3 World Championships, Hot6 Cup, and had the most wins in Proleague in 2014 (tied with herO).
So which of these players should be kicked off the Top 10? It can only be Soulkey or Dear. Dear won a WCS Season Finals in addition to his GSL, and also rebounded strongly at the end of 2015 by making it to the GSL Ro4. He also won Hot6 Cup in 2013. Soulkey on the other hand was basically out of the scene by 2015. Soulkey deserves #11.
I'm not even going to touch the rest of this, but Dear? DEAR?! C'mon, he doesn't belong in the top 10 or even top 15 at all.
Dear won a Code S and WCS Season 3 finals in 2013, and made it to the Ro4 in Code S Season 3 2015 (and a Top 4 at 2013 Hot 6 Cup which you think is such a wonderfu acomplishment for Zest).
The fact that Dear isn't on the list shows how rampant the fanboyism is in this community. A good looking guy like Zest wins a few tournaments over a few months, Artosis starts hyping him, and people don't care what he does the rest of his career.
Zest was a top 5 Protoss for over a year Dear was a top 5 Protoss for about a week
Dear was a top 1 protoss for a few weeks until sOs came in. Still not Zest level or even close, though. I don't think he should be in the top 10.
The question is which of the Korean individual league champions does not deserve Top 10? There were 9 players who won one or more Korean individual leagues in Korea in HotS:
Soulkey Maru Dear Zest Classic Innovation Life Rain herO
The question is, who else did something more impressive than winning a Korean individual league? The only players who did are soO, with his quadruple 2nd place finish at GSL, and sOs, who won 3 World Championships, Hot6 Cup, and had the most wins in Proleague in 2014 (tied with herO).
So which of these players should be kicked off the Top 10? It can only be Soulkey or Dear. Dear won a WCS Season Finals in addition to his GSL, and also rebounded strongly at the end of 2015 by making it to the GSL Ro4. He also won Hot6 Cup in 2013. Soulkey on the other hand was basically out of the scene by 2015. Soulkey deserves #11.
By that logic I'm throwing ByuL's hat into the ring. 3 consecutive Starleague finals (+ro4 Kespa Cup, and ro8 SSL) run. Two of which were at the same time. While being a top-ranked SPL player and doing so at probably the worst era for Zerg in HotS.
I'm not even going to touch the rest of this, but Dear? DEAR?! C'mon, he doesn't belong in the top 10 or even top 15 at all.
Dear won a Code S and WCS Season 3 finals in 2013, and made it to the Ro4 in Code S Season 3 2015 (and a Top 4 at 2013 Hot 6 Cup which you think is such a wonderfu acomplishment for Zest).
The fact that Dear isn't on the list shows how rampant the fanboyism is in this community. A good looking guy like Zest wins a few tournaments over a few months, Artosis starts hyping him, and people don't care what he does the rest of his career.
Zest was a top 5 Protoss for over a year Dear was a top 5 Protoss for about a week
Dear was a top 1 protoss for a few weeks until sOs came in. Still not Zest level or even close, though. I don't think he should be in the top 10.
The question is which of the Korean individual league champions does not deserve Top 10? There were 9 players who won one or more Korean individual leagues in Korea in HotS:
Soulkey Maru Dear Zest Classic Innovation Life Rain herO
The question is, who else did something more impressive than winning a Korean individual league? The only players who did are soO, with his quadruple 2nd place finish at GSL, and sOs, who won 3 World Championships, Hot6 Cup, and had the most wins in Proleague in 2014 (tied with herO).
So which of these players should be kicked off the Top 10? It can only be Soulkey or Dear. Dear won a WCS Season Finals in addition to his GSL, and also rebounded strongly at the end of 2015 by making it to the GSL Ro4. He also won Hot6 Cup in 2013. Soulkey on the other hand was basically out of the scene by 2015. Soulkey deserves #11.
By that logic I'm throwing ByuL's hat into the ring. 3 consecutive Starleague finals (+ro4 Kespa Cup, and ro8 SSL) run. Two of which were at the same time. While being a top-ranked SPL player and doing so at probably the worst era for Zerg in HotS.
I'm not even going to touch the rest of this, but Dear? DEAR?! C'mon, he doesn't belong in the top 10 or even top 15 at all.
Dear won a Code S and WCS Season 3 finals in 2013, and made it to the Ro4 in Code S Season 3 2015 (and a Top 4 at 2013 Hot 6 Cup which you think is such a wonderfu acomplishment for Zest).
The fact that Dear isn't on the list shows how rampant the fanboyism is in this community. A good looking guy like Zest wins a few tournaments over a few months, Artosis starts hyping him, and people don't care what he does the rest of his career.
Zest's Hotsix cup != Dear's. Different format and harder run. Dear literally only beat RorO to get to the ro8 as it was only an 8-man tournament. Zest went through PartinG, Terminator, and Soulkey before narrowly meeting his end at the hands of MKP (who randomly went back to being one of the best TvP players of all time for 1 tournament).
And if we're downplaying Zest's insane 2014, how in the world does Dear hold a candle to anyone here when his only wins were all the way back in 2013 and very close together? He's #17-16 at best imo.
PartinG beats him for being far more consistent at a higher level for longer.
Soulkey for similar reasons and for being a GSL champ (and having a hell of a run to get his title).
Taeja won numerous stacked foreign events but none as great as a GSL. Both had about a year of irrelevancy
Bomber, Polt and MMA are similar to Taeja. Lesser tournaments but numerous deep runs. Bomber and MMA even snuck in a ro4 WCS KR run each.
ByuL didn't start posting big individual league results until quarter 2 of 2015, but when he did he was on fire and maintained a stronger peak than Dear ever did for longer.
I never said Dear was better than Zest. I said Dear is at the margin of top 10. I have him 10 overall because he won GSL, and WCS Season 3 2013, and a Hot6 Cup. Parting did not win a single tournament in Korea in HotS so he is definitely not Top 10.
And your obvious Zest fanboyism is shining through, ignoring his weak tournaments (IEM Katowice) and 8 player tournaments ("GSL Global Tourney") while leveling them as arguments against Dear.
I'm not even going to touch the rest of this, but Dear? DEAR?! C'mon, he doesn't belong in the top 10 or even top 15 at all.
Dear won a Code S and WCS Season 3 finals in 2013, and made it to the Ro4 in Code S Season 3 2015 (and a Top 4 at 2013 Hot 6 Cup which you think is such a wonderfu acomplishment for Zest).
The fact that Dear isn't on the list shows how rampant the fanboyism is in this community. A good looking guy like Zest wins a few tournaments over a few months, Artosis starts hyping him, and people don't care what he does the rest of his career.
Fun Fact. TY is the cutest pro gamer by far. Zest is a 4/10
I'm not even going to touch the rest of this, but Dear? DEAR?! C'mon, he doesn't belong in the top 10 or even top 15 at all.
Dear won a Code S and WCS Season 3 finals in 2013, and made it to the Ro4 in Code S Season 3 2015 (and a Top 4 at 2013 Hot 6 Cup which you think is such a wonderfu acomplishment for Zest).
The fact that Dear isn't on the list shows how rampant the fanboyism is in this community. A good looking guy like Zest wins a few tournaments over a few months, Artosis starts hyping him, and people don't care what he does the rest of his career.
Fun Fact. TY is the cutest pro gamer by far. Zest is a 4/10
What's up with the looks discussion anyway? We make jokes but I don't think the community as a whole ever loved a player due to one's looks. I mean Hero's good looking but is rarely talked about because he's not as good as before. If you are looking for people who actually care about the looks, then go to Justin Bieber's fanclub or sth.
I'm not even going to touch the rest of this, but Dear? DEAR?! C'mon, he doesn't belong in the top 10 or even top 15 at all.
Dear won a Code S and WCS Season 3 finals in 2013, and made it to the Ro4 in Code S Season 3 2015 (and a Top 4 at 2013 Hot 6 Cup which you think is such a wonderfu acomplishment for Zest).
The fact that Dear isn't on the list shows how rampant the fanboyism is in this community. A good looking guy like Zest wins a few tournaments over a few months, Artosis starts hyping him, and people don't care what he does the rest of his career.
Fun Fact. TY is the cutest pro gamer by far. Zest is a 4/10
What's up with the looks discussion anyway? We make jokes but I don't think the community as a whole ever loved a player due to one's looks. I mean Hero's good looking but is rarely talked about because he's not as good as before. If you are looking for people who actually care about the looks, then go to Justin Bieber's fanclub or sth.
Liquid HerO looks quite decent, but only without earing. But still, TY is the cutest. I agree
I'm not even going to touch the rest of this, but Dear? DEAR?! C'mon, he doesn't belong in the top 10 or even top 15 at all.
Dear won a Code S and WCS Season 3 finals in 2013, and made it to the Ro4 in Code S Season 3 2015 (and a Top 4 at 2013 Hot 6 Cup which you think is such a wonderfu acomplishment for Zest).
The fact that Dear isn't on the list shows how rampant the fanboyism is in this community. A good looking guy like Zest wins a few tournaments over a few months, Artosis starts hyping him, and people don't care what he does the rest of his career.
Fun Fact. TY is the cutest pro gamer by far. Zest is a 4/10
What's up with the looks discussion anyway? We make jokes but I don't think the community as a whole ever loved a player due to one's looks. I mean Hero's good looking but is rarely talked about because he's not as good as before. If you are looking for people who actually care about the looks, then go to Justin Bieber's fanclub or sth.
Well at the end of the day it's a business, and the business wants Artosis writing articles on ESPN with a picture of chiseltoss, not chintoss.
On March 11 2016 07:55 BlackZetsu wrote: Winning a Korean individual league is the most difficult accomplishment in Starcraft. Only 3 players were able to do it twice in Heart of the Swarm. And Classic has prestigious "extras" that fully justify a Top 5 placement:
IEM Shenzhen 2015 Championship over Parting (where he also had to defeat Rain and herO) 2 Top 4 finishes at Blizzcon
Zest won 4 noteworthy tournaments, 3 of which occurred within a relatively tight timeframe from April to September 2014. He was literally nobody before then, and his only other accomplishment is winning IEM Katowice 2015, which is impressive but everyone knows the quality of his opponents at that tourney was weak (weaker than Classic's at IEM Shenzhen).
You also have to factor in that the better player will get better at the game as time goes on. Zest's results indicate that he was pretty much figured out by the end of 2014 (at least in Korea), whereas Classic was still able to win another Tier 1 Korean tournament. For this reason I don't even think Zest should be ranked higher than herO, who got better and better at HotS as the game matured and finished 2015 with an SSL championship.
Again, Zest is obviously a very good player, and he's definitely Top 10. But his championships and consistency are worse than Classic's. And there are easily 5 players who accomplished more than Zest in HotS - Classic, Maru, Innovation, Life and sOs.
I don't know why you think Classic was more consistent. After his GSL win he dropped out in the RO32 next season. After his good Blizzcon run he bombed out in the first round of the Hot6ix cup/SSL failed to make GSL. Then he won SSL a season later and bombed out again in the next season.
On March 11 2016 07:55 BlackZetsu wrote: Winning a Korean individual league is the most difficult accomplishment in Starcraft. Only 3 players were able to do it twice in Heart of the Swarm. And Classic has prestigious "extras" that fully justify a Top 5 placement:
IEM Shenzhen 2015 Championship over Parting (where he also had to defeat Rain and herO) 2 Top 4 finishes at Blizzcon
Zest won 4 noteworthy tournaments, 3 of which occurred within a relatively tight timeframe from April to September 2014. He was literally nobody before then, and his only other accomplishment is winning IEM Katowice 2015, which is impressive but everyone knows the quality of his opponents at that tourney was weak (weaker than Classic's at IEM Shenzhen).
You also have to factor in that the better player will get better at the game as time goes on. Zest's results indicate that he was pretty much figured out by the end of 2014 (at least in Korea), whereas Classic was still able to win another Tier 1 Korean tournament. For this reason I don't even think Zest should be ranked higher than herO, who got better and better at HotS as the game matured and finished 2015 with an SSL championship.
Again, Zest is obviously a very good player, and he's definitely Top 10. But his championships and consistency are worse than Classic's. And there are easily 5 players who accomplished more than Zest in HotS - Classic, Maru, Innovation, Life and sOs.
I don't know why you think Classic was more consistent. After his GSL win he dropped out in the RO32 next season. After his good Blizzcon run he bombed out in the first round of the Hot6ix cup/SSL failed to make GSL. Then he won SSL a season later and bombed out again in the next season.
That sure ain't consistency.
More consistent than Zest, who did nothing in 2013, won an individual league in 2014, then never won another individual league.
BlackZetsu is right. The whole list is a joke. All of the Top 15 plyers of all time lists contaning Taeja are nonsense. Putting him into top3 is just an insult to SC2 pro players and the game itself. + completely agree with oveestimating players such as sOO and Zest as well.
Top Hots players:
1. sOs 2. Life 3. Innovation 4. Classic 5. Maru 6. herO 7. Rain 8. Zest 9. soO 10. Byul 11. Polt - for his consistency and eating top koeans during OP race era 12. Dear 13. Soulkey 14. Parting
All lists that got listed thus far are complete bullshit. The only real list is this one:
1. Life 2. TaeJa 3. sOs 4, INnoVation 5. herO 6. Zest 7. soO 8. Maru 9. PartinG 10. Classic
Everyone who disagrees with this list is just biased and doesn't want to see the truth because I'm the only human who can accurately rank players and all other so called "rankings" in this thread are made by people who know nothing about the game.
You are all biased and utterly blind by your fanboyism. How can you deny that <insert my favourite progamer trait> is the ultimate criterion to rank players fairly? Anyone with a functional brain and a sense of objectivism can see that and those who don't are simply liers or ignorant.
On March 12 2016 01:19 MarianoSC2 wrote: BlackZetsu is right. The whole list is a joke. All of the Top 15 plyers of all time lists contaning Taeja are nonsense. Putting him into top3 is just an insult to SC2 pro players and the game itself. + completely agree with oveestimating players such as sOO and Zest as well.
Top Hots players:
1. sOs 2. Life 3. Innovation 4. Classic 5. Maru 6. herO 7. Rain 8. Zest 9. soO 10. Byul 11. Polt - for his consistency and eating top koeans during OP race era 12. Dear 13. Soulkey 14. Parting
BTW there is absolutely NO reason to put Polt in the top 15 and TaeJa not.
On March 11 2016 07:55 BlackZetsu wrote: Winning a Korean individual league is the most difficult accomplishment in Starcraft. Only 3 players were able to do it twice in Heart of the Swarm. And Classic has prestigious "extras" that fully justify a Top 5 placement:
IEM Shenzhen 2015 Championship over Parting (where he also had to defeat Rain and herO) 2 Top 4 finishes at Blizzcon
Zest won 4 noteworthy tournaments, 3 of which occurred within a relatively tight timeframe from April to September 2014. He was literally nobody before then, and his only other accomplishment is winning IEM Katowice 2015, which is impressive but everyone knows the quality of his opponents at that tourney was weak (weaker than Classic's at IEM Shenzhen).
You also have to factor in that the better player will get better at the game as time goes on. Zest's results indicate that he was pretty much figured out by the end of 2014 (at least in Korea), whereas Classic was still able to win another Tier 1 Korean tournament. For this reason I don't even think Zest should be ranked higher than herO, who got better and better at HotS as the game matured and finished 2015 with an SSL championship.
Again, Zest is obviously a very good player, and he's definitely Top 10. But his championships and consistency are worse than Classic's. And there are easily 5 players who accomplished more than Zest in HotS - Classic, Maru, Innovation, Life and sOs.
I don't know why you think Classic was more consistent. After his GSL win he dropped out in the RO32 next season. After his good Blizzcon run he bombed out in the first round of the Hot6ix cup/SSL failed to make GSL. Then he won SSL a season later and bombed out again in the next season.
That sure ain't consistency.
More consistent than Zest, who did nothing in 2013, won an individual league in 2014, then never won another individual league.
If you don't think he was consistent during 2014 then I don't know what to say to you You poor soul.
On March 12 2016 01:19 MarianoSC2 wrote: BlackZetsu is right. The whole list is a joke. All of the Top 15 plyers of all time lists contaning Taeja are nonsense. Putting him into top3 is just an insult to SC2 pro players and the game itself. + completely agree with oveestimating players such as sOO and Zest as well.
Top Hots players:
1. sOs 2. Life 3. Innovation 4. Classic 5. Maru 6. herO 7. Rain 8. Zest 9. soO 10. Byul 11. Polt - for his consistency and eating top koeans during OP race era 12. Dear 13. Soulkey 14. Parting
BTW there is absolutely NO reason to put Polt in the top 15 and TaeJa not.
On March 11 2016 07:55 BlackZetsu wrote: Winning a Korean individual league is the most difficult accomplishment in Starcraft. Only 3 players were able to do it twice in Heart of the Swarm. And Classic has prestigious "extras" that fully justify a Top 5 placement:
IEM Shenzhen 2015 Championship over Parting (where he also had to defeat Rain and herO) 2 Top 4 finishes at Blizzcon
Zest won 4 noteworthy tournaments, 3 of which occurred within a relatively tight timeframe from April to September 2014. He was literally nobody before then, and his only other accomplishment is winning IEM Katowice 2015, which is impressive but everyone knows the quality of his opponents at that tourney was weak (weaker than Classic's at IEM Shenzhen).
You also have to factor in that the better player will get better at the game as time goes on. Zest's results indicate that he was pretty much figured out by the end of 2014 (at least in Korea), whereas Classic was still able to win another Tier 1 Korean tournament. For this reason I don't even think Zest should be ranked higher than herO, who got better and better at HotS as the game matured and finished 2015 with an SSL championship.
Again, Zest is obviously a very good player, and he's definitely Top 10. But his championships and consistency are worse than Classic's. And there are easily 5 players who accomplished more than Zest in HotS - Classic, Maru, Innovation, Life and sOs.
I don't know why you think Classic was more consistent. After his GSL win he dropped out in the RO32 next season. After his good Blizzcon run he bombed out in the first round of the Hot6ix cup/SSL failed to make GSL. Then he won SSL a season later and bombed out again in the next season.
That sure ain't consistency.
More consistent than Zest, who did nothing in 2013, won an individual league in 2014, then never won another individual league.
If you don't think he was consistent during 2014 then I don't know what to say to you You poor soul.
If you think HotS began and ended in 2014 then I don't know what to say to you
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.
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.
What? How did you come up the 4days of dominance?
sOs has been in beast mode from MSI tournament up until Blizzcon. He absolutely wrecked everybody during that time, not only in individual tournaments but also in team league. Never forget his double all-kill in the Proleagues final.
That is as dominant as a player can get in Hots, on par with Life's run at the end of 2014.
The run sOs had from MSI to Blizzcon is nothing compared to Life's run from Blizzcon all the way up to his gsl win. Life won Blizzcon, came in 2nd at Dreamhack Winter, won iem Taipei, got to the ro4 in ssl and barely didn't make the final, and won gsl. Life's run was much more dominant and it isn't even close.
For individual league achievements in HOTS, it's pretty clear that Life is #1. But for many of us fans (as well as the actual players), Proleague role/results are weighted equally (if not more for them) in importance. And have to be an important component in the totality of measuring the best of the best.
And when top level opponents have been able to prepare for a single map against Life on a weekly basis in the highest level team league format, he has more often than not looked decidedly average. Which is in stark contrast to the other six names in my S class tier. While in addition to largely having much more important roles (many of them being the ace players for top teams), all have consistently great win rates every round and season, and probably most impressively, generally make their world class competition appear outclassed on a weekly basis (in addition to all their individual league success).
As I wrote earlier in Part 1 of the PR regarding Life (have him at #3 overall in my personal rankings),
<Life: the weakest PL player of my S class tier. Obviously his improvisational/adaptable play-style much better suited to the BO individual tournament format. Served as the ace player for Startale and carried a weak team to the R1 playoffs last season on multiple ace match wins. But largely disappointed upon joining KT mid round (when many assumed he would make them unbeatable), and by season ending playoff time, wasn't even in their core starting four. While having occasional PL success here and there, Life has never looked dominant/unbeatable on a weekly basis in the most challenging team league (against absolute top tier competition who study you and with coaching, craft a specific game-plan to snipe you on a single map), unlike the other six names on my list frequently have.>
On March 11 2016 08:21 BlackZetsu wrote: The real list should be:
1. sOs 2. Life 3. Innovation 4. Classic 5. Maru 6. herO 7. Zest 8. Rain 9. soO 10. Dear - I can't believe Dear didn't make the list. What an insult!
I'm a huge Dear fan. And seeing him rise back up to power again is magnificent. But he simply didn't have anywhere near the achievements/longevity to be on any logical top ten HOTS list. Not even close.
Never read the Artosis ESPN writings you allude to that apparently has contorted our bias towards Zest and others. I prefer to watch the actual games and make my own conclusions (along w/ factual research to help understand the bigger picture).
You asked earlier what else anyone did other than Korean individual leagues. There's something called Proleague, which is even bigger and more important. Maru and herO were dominant ace players for constant playoff teams. Zest (and I'm not a fan of his, despite your sweeping generalizations) was the unquestioned ace player for the KT juggernaut (2014 PL champions).
You're also much higher on Classic than almost anyone else here that I've seen (even the many like myself who felt Classic was ranked too low at #11). And your fixation w/ basing everything solely on Korean individual leagues is pretty odd and shows a clear lack of depth to your context (and I'm someone who is usually arguing that Korean leagues should be weighted much more heavily than the big foreign tournaments!).
On March 11 2016 07:58 BlackZetsu wrote: Oh, and I guarantee if you switched faces on Zest and Classic, everyone and their mother would be putting Classic ahead of Zest.
You know I'm right.
In your logic sOs and life must be pretty low in the rankings.
It was a joke (with a lot of truth behind it). I already said sOs and Life are Top 5
Not sure what you mean by first making a statement, then claiming it was a joke, but w/ the caveat that there is a lot of truth to it (which would make your initial claim a humorous fact). I feel I can safely say w/ a strong degree of certainty, that no one here (other than you) put any weight into the physical appearance of anyone when trying to weight their merits.
On March 11 2016 08:21 BlackZetsu wrote: The real list should be:
1. sOs 2. Life 3. Innovation 4. Classic 5. Maru 6. herO 7. Zest 8. Rain 9. soO 10. Dear - I can't believe Dear didn't make the list. What an insult!
I'm a huge Dear fan. And seeing him rise back up to power again is magnificent. But he simply didn't have anywhere near the achievements/longevity to be on any logical top ten HOTS list. Not even close.
Never read the Artosis ESPN writings you allude to that apparently has contorted our bias towards Zest and others. I prefer to watch the actual games and make my own conclusions (along w/ factual research to help understand the bigger picture).
You asked earlier what else anyone did other than Korean individual leagues. There's something called Proleague, which is even bigger and more important. Maru and herO were dominant ace players for constant playoff teams. Zest (and I'm not a fan of his, despite your sweeping generalizations) was the unquestioned ace player for the KT juggernaut (2014 PL champions).
You're also much higher on Classic than almost anyone else here that I've seen (even the many like myself who felt Classic was ranked too low at #11). And your fixation w/ basing everything solely on Korean individual leagues is pretty odd and shows a clear lack of depth to your context (and I'm someone who is usually arguing that Korean leagues should be weighted much more heavily than the big foreign tournaments!).
I'm not fixated on Korean individual leagues. If I were, I wouldn't have given the #1 spot to sOs, who never won a Korean individual league, nor the #2 spot to Life, who only won one Korean individual league in HotS while Classic, Maru and Innovation each won 2. I simply said that Korean individual league championships and World Championships deserve the most weight, meaning other tournaments should be taken into account too.
The question I posed is: Which of the 9 players who won a Korean individual league do not deserve a Top 10 spot, i.e., who accomplished something more impressive than winning a Korean individual league? I suggested that sOs and soO had each done something more impressive than winning a Korean individual league. If you think someone else did too, then by all means tell us who and explain why.
Proleague results support my list, with the exception of Life. sOs, Innovation, Maru, herO, Zest and Rain were all monsters in Proleague. Classic was on a crowded SKT team but still had an impressive 65% winrate in 2015 Proleague.
Dear had both the achievements and longevity to merit Top 10. He won GSL and WCS Season 3 in 2013, and made it to the Ro4 in GSL in 2015. If you think there are 10 players who deserve it more, please list them and explain why.
Classic absolutely deserves a Top 5 placement. He won 2 Korean individual leagues, IEM Shenzhen 2015, and finished in the Top 4 of Blizzcon in back to back years. Putting him at #11 is outrageous and an insult to the game, and shows the horrible fan favorite bias in this community.
On March 15 2016 12:07 oSoSexyWhiteBoy wrote: People need to realize that 4 tournaments doesn't out weigh tons of mediocre results
Name a player who doesn't have "tons of mediocre results." It's the nature of the game that literally every player had seasons where they failed to qualify for a premier individual league, or dropped out of tournaments in the early round. The fact that each of the top players actually has only a handful of Tier 1 tournament wins shows how volatile the game is, and how the rankings have to be decided by just 1 or 2 more championships than the next player on the list.
On March 11 2016 07:55 BlackZetsu wrote: Winning a Korean individual league is the most difficult accomplishment in Starcraft. Only 3 players were able to do it twice in Heart of the Swarm. And Classic has prestigious "extras" that fully justify a Top 5 placement:
IEM Shenzhen 2015 Championship over Parting (where he also had to defeat Rain and herO) 2 Top 4 finishes at Blizzcon
Zest won 4 noteworthy tournaments, 3 of which occurred within a relatively tight timeframe from April to September 2014. He was literally nobody before then, and his only other accomplishment is winning IEM Katowice 2015, which is impressive but everyone knows the quality of his opponents at that tourney was weak (weaker than Classic's at IEM Shenzhen).
You also have to factor in that the better player will get better at the game as time goes on. Zest's results indicate that he was pretty much figured out by the end of 2014 (at least in Korea), whereas Classic was still able to win another Tier 1 Korean tournament. For this reason I don't even think Zest should be ranked higher than herO, who got better and better at HotS as the game matured and finished 2015 with an SSL championship.
Again, Zest is obviously a very good player, and he's definitely Top 10. But his championships and consistency are worse than Classic's. And there are easily 5 players who accomplished more than Zest in HotS - Classic, Maru, Innovation, Life and sOs.
I don't know why you think Classic was more consistent. After his GSL win he dropped out in the RO32 next season. After his good Blizzcon run he bombed out in the first round of the Hot6ix cup/SSL failed to make GSL. Then he won SSL a season later and bombed out again in the next season.
That sure ain't consistency.
More consistent than Zest, who did nothing in 2013, won an individual league in 2014, then never won another individual league.
If you don't think he was consistent during 2014 then I don't know what to say to you You poor soul.
If you think HotS began and ended in 2014 then I don't know what to say to you
We were talking about consistency of Zest vs Classic. My point was Zest was consistently one of if not the best player for most of 2014. Whereas Classic was always up and down.
Saying Zest won nothing in 2013 is fine but neither did Classic. And in 2015 Classic got another individual title and Zest got a world championship which you seem to rate highly.
On March 11 2016 08:21 BlackZetsu wrote: The real list should be:
1. sOs 2. Life 3. Innovation 4. Classic 5. Maru 6. herO 7. Zest 8. Rain 9. soO 10. Dear - I can't believe Dear didn't make the list. What an insult!
I'm a huge Dear fan. And seeing him rise back up to power again is magnificent. But he simply didn't have anywhere near the achievements/longevity to be on any logical top ten HOTS list. Not even close.
Never read the Artosis ESPN writings you allude to that apparently has contorted our bias towards Zest and others. I prefer to watch the actual games and make my own conclusions (along w/ factual research to help understand the bigger picture).
You asked earlier what else anyone did other than Korean individual leagues. There's something called Proleague, which is even bigger and more important. Maru and herO were dominant ace players for constant playoff teams. Zest (and I'm not a fan of his, despite your sweeping generalizations) was the unquestioned ace player for the KT juggernaut (2014 PL champions).
You're also much higher on Classic than almost anyone else here that I've seen (even the many like myself who felt Classic was ranked too low at #11). And your fixation w/ basing everything solely on Korean individual leagues is pretty odd and shows a clear lack of depth to your context (and I'm someone who is usually arguing that Korean leagues should be weighted much more heavily than the big foreign tournaments!).
Dear had both the achievements and longevity to merit Top 10. He won GSL and WCS Season 3 in 2013, and made it to the Ro4 in GSL in 2015. If you think there are 10 players who deserve it more, please list them and explain why.
Life, Bogus, Zest, sOs, soO, and Maru are all obviously ahead of him. Not even going to explain.
Taeja didn't do much in Korea for HotS, but won numerous foreign tournaments of lesser weight and faced top-tier competition on many occasions. The same can be said of Polt to a lesser extent, but still enough to easily beat Dear.
herO might be the best player of 2015, Rain had good results throughout HotS. Both are starleague champs with better resumes.
Soulkey is GSL champ (who had a very tough road) with way more consistency. His 2015 sucked but so did Dear's 2014.
Classic...well you already said it.
PartinG has numerous premiere results and was 1 game from being a GSL champ (vs Life) and 1 game away from being a GSL WC (vs. Zest). He is by far the most consistent HotS player as well with a ro16+ for every code S season.
ByuL I already touched on. Triple starleague finalist, 2 of which simultaneous, SPL star, ro4 Kespa Cup from qualifier, did it all post-SH patch.
Bomber made a ro4 in OSL, dominated WCS s2 finals, made a Blizzcon semi, and had several other big wins thereafter.
MMA is the same argument as Polt and Taeja. Numerous premiere results of lesser weight. Although he did sneak in a Blizzcon final in 2014, and randomly made a GSL ro4 in 2015.
After all that, then Dear can have a spot. Although, I think arguments can be made for Solar.
whoever wrote this list must have not seen the game when sOs reverse ALL KILLED one of the best team in proleague (KT Rolster) to take JinAir to finals. Do you know how hard it is to reverse all kill? It is even harder than a normal all kill mate. The pressure of knowing that if you lose 1 game your team is defeated is ridiculous.
To me, sOs must be at least in top 3 of HOTS. At least! He might not be the best in individual Korean leagues but his results in Proleague, Blizzcons, and his win in IEM Katowice and Hot6ix cup is by far one of the best, if not the best.
Life, Bogus, Zest, sOs, soO, and Maru are all obviously ahead of him. Not even going to explain.
Agreed.
Taeja didn't do much in Korea for HotS, but won numerous foreign tournaments of lesser weight and faced top-tier competition on many occasions. The same can be said of Polt to a lesser extent, but still enough to easily beat Dear.
Disagree. Taeja got spanked badly when he returned to Korea in 2015, whereas Dear did quite well. Consider Dear’s 2015 performance in Korea:
SSL 2015 Season 1: Top 8 GSL 2015 Season 1: Code S Ro32 SSL 2015 Season 2: Top 16 GSL 2015 Season 3: Top 4 SSL 2015 Season 3: Top 16
Polt never even played in Korea HotS. When he had to face the best Koreans each year at Blizzcon, he only made it past the Ro16 once, in 2013.
herO might be the best player of 2015, Rain had good results throughout HotS. Both are starleague champs with better resumes.
Agreed.
Soulkey is GSL champ (who had a very tough road) with way more consistency. His 2015 sucked but so did Dear's 2014
Dear is also a GSL champ. They both went head to head at the end of their best year (2013) in WCS Season 3 finals … and Dear came out on top. Soulkey had a better 2014 but never made it past the Ro8. Dear had a much better 2015. Soulkey and Dear are neck and neck for the 10th spot, but you have to give the edge to Dear since he won a championship head to head and endured (did quite well) through the entire life of the game.
Classic...well you already said it.
Agreed.
PartinG has numerous premiere results and was 1 game from being a GSL champ (vs Life) and 1 game away from being a GSL WC (vs. Zest). He is by far the most consistent HotS player as well with a ro16+ for every code S season.
Parting never won a HotS tournament in Korea. He failed to qualify for SSL 2015 Seasons 1 and 3. In any event, consistently making the Top 16 makes you about … a Top 16 player. That’s it.
ByuL I already touched on. Triple starleague finalist, 2 of which simultaneous, SPL star, ro4 Kespa Cup from qualifier, did it all post-SH patch.
Very impressive, but he never won a championship. Dear won 2 championships, and was also impressive through the end of HotS.
Bomber made a ro4 in OSL, dominated WCS s2 finals, made a Blizzcon semi, and had several other big wins thereafter.
Kind of impressive, but not compared to Dear’s Korean results.
MMA is the same argument as Polt and Taeja. Numerous premiere results of lesser weight. Although he did sneak in a Blizzcon final in 2014, and randomly made a GSL ro4 in 2015.
Impressive, but not compared to Dear.
After all that, then Dear can have a spot. Although, I think arguments can be made for Solar.
Well it’s just insulting to suggest that Bomber, MMA and Solar did better than Dear in HotS. The other players you mentioned are worthy of consideration, but this just makes you look like a hater. You should have stopped with Byul.
On March 11 2016 07:55 BlackZetsu wrote: Winning a Korean individual league is the most difficult accomplishment in Starcraft. Only 3 players were able to do it twice in Heart of the Swarm. And Classic has prestigious "extras" that fully justify a Top 5 placement:
IEM Shenzhen 2015 Championship over Parting (where he also had to defeat Rain and herO) 2 Top 4 finishes at Blizzcon
Zest won 4 noteworthy tournaments, 3 of which occurred within a relatively tight timeframe from April to September 2014. He was literally nobody before then, and his only other accomplishment is winning IEM Katowice 2015, which is impressive but everyone knows the quality of his opponents at that tourney was weak (weaker than Classic's at IEM Shenzhen).
You also have to factor in that the better player will get better at the game as time goes on. Zest's results indicate that he was pretty much figured out by the end of 2014 (at least in Korea), whereas Classic was still able to win another Tier 1 Korean tournament. For this reason I don't even think Zest should be ranked higher than herO, who got better and better at HotS as the game matured and finished 2015 with an SSL championship.
Again, Zest is obviously a very good player, and he's definitely Top 10. But his championships and consistency are worse than Classic's. And there are easily 5 players who accomplished more than Zest in HotS - Classic, Maru, Innovation, Life and sOs.
I don't know why you think Classic was more consistent. After his GSL win he dropped out in the RO32 next season. After his good Blizzcon run he bombed out in the first round of the Hot6ix cup/SSL failed to make GSL. Then he won SSL a season later and bombed out again in the next season.
That sure ain't consistency.
More consistent than Zest, who did nothing in 2013, won an individual league in 2014, then never won another individual league.
If you don't think he was consistent during 2014 then I don't know what to say to you You poor soul.
If you think HotS began and ended in 2014 then I don't know what to say to you
We were talking about consistency of Zest vs Classic. My point was Zest was consistently one of if not the best player for most of 2014. Whereas Classic was always up and down.
Saying Zest won nothing in 2013 is fine but neither did Classic. And in 2015 Classic got another individual title and Zest got a world championship which you seem to rate highly.
It's just silly to label a burst of excellence over a 6 month period during a 3 year game as "consistent." Every player had ups and downs. That's why it really comes down to strength of championships.
IEM Katowice should rank below Blizzcon, GSL and SSL. And Zest's path at Katowice was remarkably easy, no one has denied that. Classic had a harder path at IEM Shenzhen.
Sorry but trying to diminish the significance of winning 2 Korean individual leagues is silly. Classic is absolutely better than Zest.
On March 12 2016 01:27 Charoisaur wrote: All lists that got listed thus far are complete bullshit. The only real list is this one:
1. Life 2. TaeJa 3. sOs 4, INnoVation 5. herO 6. Zest 7. soO 8. Maru 9. PartinG 10. Classic
Everyone who disagrees with this list is just biased and doesn't want to see the truth because I'm the only human who can accurately rank players and all other so called "rankings" in this thread are made by people who know nothing about the game.
That is my exact top 4 as well. I might even agree with plenty more of the list, but with less certainty, as I haven't looked through all of the numbers.
Lol. Check the guy's aligulac rating. His results never justified top 5. Just benefited from positive variance in a few tournaments where he won as the outsider.
EPT![[image loading]](/staff/stuchiu/GoaTsc2/Poltturtleentertainment.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/stuchiu/GoaTsc2/herOdailyesports.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/stuchiu/GoaTsc2/rainfomos.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/stuchiu/GoaTsc2/sOs2013.jpeg)
![[image loading]](/staff/stuchiu/GoaTsc2/marusilverfire.jpg)
I was cheering for the zerg. (HOT, wasnt it?)
so yeah, im nto the only one whos complaining about stuchiu awfull ranking.
