EPT
Yes, that's right. Power Ranks are back! We have decided to once again collectively decide on a ranking of the top 10 players in the world every month. This ranking will be split in two—an overall ranking and one dedicated purely to the international WCS circuit. The first of the two may include WCS players, but we felt that a lot of the time the ranking would be dominated by Korean players, leaving the top of the international scene with very little exposure.
The way our list is put together is through a very simple point-system, where each writer decides their own top 10, with more points awarded for higher placement. Points from all contributing writers are then added and the player with the most points ranks at #1. Very simple—very frustrating for us, as it almost always assures our personal rankings will not entirely make it into the finished article the way we had hoped. We hope to see as much, if not more, debate from you concerning specific placements, or even the entire list if you feel entirely unsatisfied by what we came up with. So let us know just how wrong we are, how biased we are towards Liquid players (???), and why your personal opinion is far more wise than that of our writing collective.
And so, here's our list...
As he has been for much of his career,
Solar has been hard to pin down lately. Is he an innovator or merely a mad scientist? Though Dark was the first player to pair hydralisks with zerglings and banelings in ZvT way back at the end of 2016, Solar has refined the strategy into one of the premier Zerg gameplans in the matchup. Solar remains a clever player in ZvZ and, although the tired narrative of his legendary ZvP hasn’t been spun so much in recent years, Solar is still 28-13 in the matchup over the last two months, with wins over elite Protosses, Korean and foreigner alike.
Is Solar a legitimate contender or tier two Zerg? Solar was the second best Korean Zerg in 2016, but in a slide that began with a disappointing Blizzcon, he has been supplanted by soO and more recently Rogue. Solar’s name is held in high regard, but he’s only made it out of the first group stage of GSL once this year; a truly sobering fact. He has shown more progress in his favored league, SSL, however. Making the finals of SSL Premier Season 1 is undoubtedly impressive, but when the dust settled fans were left wondering if INnoVation’s ascendency or Solar’s ineptitude was more to blame for the 4-1 slaughter. He’s off to a 2-2 start in Season 2 which once more gives fans little reason to trust Solar, a player who’s mercurial nature is well documented.
And that’s really been the story of Solar. He has all the talent in the world, but often fails to find that “next gear”. When he does, it’s a fleeting state, as he tumbles back into the pack as abruptly as the initial surge in form which brought him there. For the first time all year, Solar is looking competitive in both Starleagues. He’s in a good position as far as WCS points go and will be afforded many opportunities to strengthen his standing as July turns to August. Maybe not yet a legitimate contender, but certainly capable of catching lightning in a bottle, there’s no denying that Solar is a threat to once more join the Korean elite as both Starleagues progress.
Of all the odd ducklings currently waddling through the Korean scene at the moment,
Stats might just be at the front of the line. Players are bound to suffer dips in form and results in such a hypercompetitive environment, but as of late usually Stats looks a far cry from the man who took down soO back in March and claimed the title of not just GSL champion, but undisputed best player in the world. Stats rose to the mountain top, showing no signs of stopping. Even in defeat he looked impressive. He was the best player at Katowice, but wasn’t able to seal the deal. But a player can only remain on top for so long. The results kept coming for Stats. A fourth place finish in SSL Premier Season 1, a top eight in GSL Season 2, but the aura of invincibility was missing.
Flash forward a month or so and Stats is looking like a world-beater all over again. He topped a GSL group that included and is sitting atop the SSL standings after after back to back victories over aLive and Classic. Fans had every reason to expect great things from Stats heading into IEM: Shanghai. After a brief lull, he was looking every bit the WCS Korea leading point getter.
Stats’ excursion to Shanghai failed to live up to expectations, though. After squeaking by iAsonu in the first match of Group B, Rogue refused to punch Stats’ ticket to the next round. No worries, the Chinese Zerg would be even less of a challenge the second time around. iAsonu just couldn’t resist proving everyone wrong. Getting knocked out of IEM at such an early stage has to leave Stats feeling deflated. The question now is whether this result will dispel his forward momentum or if he can get right back on the horse. Stats may be automatically qualified for Blizzcon, but whether or not his opponents view him as a true challenge or a walk over has yet to be determined.
While INnoVation can best be described as repeatable consistency, GuMiho is the exact opposite. Not only is he capable of switching from cheese to macro game or from bio to mech in the middle of a series, but he even does so while seemingly making up builds on the fly. But to say GuMiho is just a random player would be to do him a great disservice, as he has the execution to get through any situation. Due to his long career, unique style and tendency to enter all online tournaments he can, GuMiho has probably been through nearly every possible scenario.
Yet premier success eluded him until the GSL Season 2 finals. GuMiho’s full range of skills, adaptability and resilience was on display; flowing from build to build, taking excellent fights, and reading soO when it mattered most. Since then, he's done more of the same—securing his IEM Shanghai spot (albeit flunking his test there horribly), winning the BaseTradeTV Star League June Cup, his Master's Coliseum Group, and even advancing to the Ro16 of the GSL.
Although his 71% and 84% winrates in TvP and TvT in July look impressive, it's worth noting that they're inflated by online results, as well as his stomp through the group stages of HSC, and his worrying struggles with TvZ lately could potentially point to a downtown in form. Overall though, due to his shining GSL win, his awesome online results as well as his solid offline results, GuMiho can still be counted as one of the strongest players this past month.
It’s difficult to describe the current form of Dark. For someone who was pretty much the first, last, and only name on the list of great LotV zergs, his year-long drought in terms of tournament victories—and even grand final appearances—can only be called disappointing. Despite that, whenever Dark plays, his opponents have reason to be scared, no matter how hot their own form is at that moment: INnoVation's only the latest to find that out recently.
Dark might not reach the latest tournament stages right now, perhaps because his play is indeed riddled with small, sometimes critical, errors right now. Sometimes, he looks vulnerable, makes the wrong calls and takes too great a risk, which opens him up to punishment. Still, Dark is not far away from his terror inducing, all-devouring form, as his overall win rate of 70% at the moment throughout the board shows. All that’s missing is his stroke of genius—his black magic, as some call it—to return to him permanently and enable him to go the rest of the distance once more. We’ve seen glances of it, but too inconsistently so far.
The world champion’s year has been rather inglorious so far, despite really strong and solid showings overall statistically. It’s those critical, decisive moments, in which he seems to have lost the qualities which had made him such a monster throughout the second half of 2016. The silver at HomeStory Cup was an improvement in this regard, but his demise there in the grand finals at the hands of a recently slumping Zest doesn’t especially induce confidence. That his strength seems to derive mainly from different early-game reaper builds, which are bound to be figured out and easily defeated eventually, is also a factor.
We know, that ByuN isn’t a one-trick pony; he wouldn’t have survived until now if he was, but for the moment his ace move isn’t a surprise to anyone, which makes him automatically vulnerable to anyone surviving the early game and building up pressure against him. The first half of 2016 looked similar for the Terran, though. It remains to be seen, if he can emulate his success from last year, but for now, a higher rank just isn’t justified, as his inconsistency in the most important moments holds him back from reaching his former, glorious heights. The top four finish at IEM in Shanghai was a start—but we expect more from a world champion.
soO begs an interesting question. Does a player need to display excellence in all three matchups to be considered elite? The bottom line is that soO’s ZvT is abysmal lately. Since taking the stage against GuMiho in the GSL Finals, he is 9-20 against Terran. The root of the problem is difficult to nail down. Whether he’s employing roached based composition or ling/bane builds with mutalisks or hydralisks, soO seems to lack a fundamental understanding of the matchup. Simply put, his ZvT a glaring blotch on his otherwise stellar form.
If one were to add his semifinal victory over Classic to the aforementioned time frame, soO is 33-10 against Zerg and Protoss during the same stretch that has seen him struggle so mightily against Terran. It’s really been a tale of two soO’s. One soO is hapless. Banshees always find sporeless mineral lines and queens are regularly out of position to defend hellion run bys. soO is often behind on supply by the time the first bio push comes and by then he’s as good as dead. The other soO is at his imperious best. Crisp decision making, indefatigable macro and the unquenchable ruthlessness that has raised him above almost everyone to have played the game.
Despite his weak form against Terran, soO is still the most impressive player of the highlander race. Rogue’s pursuit of soO’s throne is a tempestuous one full of bluster, but he has a long way to go before he can match soO’s consistency. Solar, ByuL and Dark have been chasing Starcraft 2’s ultimate kong since the turn of the calendar, but show no sign of catching up. The fact that soO is considered one of the best players in the world despite his TvZ woes is a testament to his greatness. Should he piece together a solution to that problem he would have to be considered a favorite to make a seventh GSL Final.
It has certainly taken a while, but Classic finally seems to have found his footing in Legacy of the Void. One of the best players in StarCraft II's former iteration Heart of the Swarm, Classic struggled heavily with Legacy's seemingly thinned-out arsenal of Protoss builds. Classic's strength has never been the mastery of one specific style of play, or strategy, but rather his extraordinary ability to play them all very competently, no matter how unorthodox. In 2016, there were very clear strategic pigeonholes for Protoss play at all times that were simply superior to everything else. Nowadays, Protoss strategy appears to have diversified across all match-ups and Classic has benefited greatly from it. It allows him to utilize one of his main strengths—an often underestimated ability to craft and prepare very specific strategies tailored to his opponents and the map-pool.
And so the tournaments he has begun to shine in should be of no surprise to us—as well as the ones in which he has not. His domain are individual leagues, and his performances in GSL, where he topped his Ro32 group after reaching last season's semifinals, and in SSL, where he stands at 4-1, reflect that very well. Where he has failed to deliver, however, is VSL's team league. To be perfectly honest, Classic was estimated closer to players below him than those above him in our collective opinion, but his now steady performances at a high level awarded him his ranking.
At a time when few players are constantly brilliant, Classic is one of the most consistent among them. He's perhaps not at the level of winning a Starleague yet, as he was in HotS, but he is definitely of the caliber to reach their knockout stages consistently, and that is quite rare in itself.
Rogue has been flirting with greatness for a few months now. After a disappointing first year and half of Legacy of the Void, Rogue reaching the legendary 7k MMR threshold on the Korean server was a bit of a surprise. When he spent May marching all the way to the quarterfinals of GSL Season 2 there were many who were far from shocked. With everything pointing in the right direction, the Jin Air Zerg who has finally found himself at the forefront of a team full of superstars. But the split from his clingy partner, mediocrity, hasn’t been without tribulation. His victory over soO in Season 2 of GSL was supposed to be his coronation as best Zerg in the world, but thanks to an untimely queen, it was further evidence that Rogue would eternally be one step shy of greatness. He may have topped his GSL group, but GuMIho’s recent losses are casting doubt on the significance of that result. Add to that his struggles in SSL Challenge and Rogue paints the picture of someone stuck on the cusp, unable to bridge the final hurdle.
But where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And this past weekend Rogue became a veritable inferno. 2017 has been a year of first time champions; TY at WESG and IEM, Stats and GuMiho at GSL. After a sensational four days Rogue is the newest member of that cadre. In a word, Rogue performance at Shanghai was dominant. After dropped games to GuMiho and Stats in the group stage, but found the next level, making a mockery of Dark, ByuN and herO by a combined score of 10-2. Dark looked impotent before Rogue’s superior build selection and execution of said builds. ByuN, a master of mechanics was regularly outpaced by Rogue’s macro. herO, one of the most cunning players to even play Starcraft 2 looked constantly outfoxed by Rogue who expertly controlled a host of Zerg units on the way to victory.
Rogue proficiency was on display in all three matches, which lines up neatly with what a lot of people already knew. Rogue is the real deal. Since his lost to soO in the GSL quarterfinals, Rogue has posted an impressive 58-21 record in games and an even more astounding 24-6 record in matches. With SSL and GSL in their fledgling stages, there has been a lack of really high profile matches in Korea over the past month or so. As a result it’s been hard to notice Rogue’s ascent. But at this point it’s impossible to deny. Rogue is one of the best players in Korea.
When analyzing Rogue’s play a few things stick out. Rogue is fearless. He makes split second calls and sees them through to the end. His execution is unmatched. Be it an all in or controlling a late game army, Rogue always looks at ease. He has shown mastery of varying compositions, using all sorts of timing to sculpt the game to his liking. If INnoVation is best at dictating the tempo and tenor of a game, Rogue is a close second. Having made the Round of 16 of GSL, a run to the finals would keep Rogue’s Blizzcon alive. Whether or not he can retain this momentum remains to be seen, but for now he is one of the most intimidating players in the game, Korean or otherwise.
GSL Super Tournament champion herO ranks at #2. Coming off a Grand Final defeat at the hands of Rogue at IEM Shanghai—after an impressive tournament run—herO has firmly cemented his place among the very best players in the world. Few players have been able to put a dent in INnoVation's armor as of late, but herO at IEM did so by defeating him 3-2. A clean 4-0 sweep of his Code S Ro32 group and his IEM performance, stand in stark contrast to his disappointment in SSL. Currently 1-4 in series, herO has struggled to replicate his impeccable form of last season. Nevertheless, his highs definitely outweigh any shortcomings that may have crept into herO's play recently, and they are the reason why he ranks only below our #1—albeit quite clearly.
herO's playstyle has seldom changed since he switched over to StarCraft II—he is just as confident, sometimes overly so, and still just as aggressive as he always was. But most importantly he appears very competent in every match-up. Where HotS at times exposed weaknesses he had in overly aggressive tendencies, those flaws have been ironed out in Legacy as the game now favors those who command such a playstyle well, and herO is that player. herO was easily the best Protoss around the time of GSL's Super Tournament, as especially phoenix/adept played perfectly to his strengths, but the most recent nerf to the adept has evened the playing field a bit. Still, herO's performances when in form are the best among the top Protoss players currently playing the game, and it is only fair to rank him above them.
Ever since victory in SSL Premier Season 1, INnoVation has been in monstrous shape. Given all the critique that he's received over his ultra-standard style over the years, he has done a good job reinventing himself. The Machine now regularly mixes greedy builds with aggressive ones, keeping his opponents on their toes and punishing them heavily with strong mechanics whenever he gets the chance.
One observable trend from INnoVation seems to be his preference to engage in some kind of early game pressure or harass. He doesn’t seem to commit to killing his opponent early game, often just putting on enough pressure to enter the mid and late game favorably. In TvP this usually comes in the form of delaying his stim in order to execute an early drop with either pure marines or mines. When feeling pressured INnoVation delays his drop in order to get safety cyclones and when feeling confident INnoVation goes for greedy CC first builds. His variations in builds have allowed INnoVation to achieve a 71% win rate in this MU over the past month.
In TvT the Machine prefers to rely on early ravens, at times even going gas before rax or CC. This allows INnoVation to harass with auto-turrets as well as build up a strong air force to contest the mid and late game. He also makes ample use of his scouting reapers and safety cyclones, often diving in to get SCV kills or trading favorably. In TvZ INnoVation prefers more mid-term harass in the form of hellion banshee, but he won’t shy away from a 3 rax reaper.
INnoVation’s resurgence has seen him tear through a impressive number of opponents in the past four months over a veritable who's who of the KR SC2 scene, posting impressive 74% and 70% win rates in TvZ and TvP respectively, although his TvT is a somewhat notable weakness at 54%. Even when he loses, INnoVation usually does so against other top tier opponents such as ByuN, herO and Dark.
It remains to be seen if he can keep the ball rolling, or if his tendencies to over-rely on certain strategies will get the better of him. Despite the chinks in his armor starting to show, INnoVation can still be counted as the strongest player of July due his excellent results in the GSL, SSL and VSL and his 69% overall win rate.
The way our list is put together is through a very simple point-system, where each writer decides their own top 10, with more points awarded for higher placement. Points from all contributing writers are then added and the player with the most points ranks at #1. Very simple—very frustrating for us, as it almost always assures our personal rankings will not entirely make it into the finished article the way we had hoped. We hope to see as much, if not more, debate from you concerning specific placements, or even the entire list if you feel entirely unsatisfied by what we came up with. So let us know just how wrong we are, how biased we are towards Liquid players (???), and why your personal opinion is far more wise than that of our writing collective.
And so, here's our list...
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/4797.jpg)
As he has been for much of his career,
Solar has been hard to pin down lately. Is he an innovator or merely a mad scientist? Though Dark was the first player to pair hydralisks with zerglings and banelings in ZvT way back at the end of 2016, Solar has refined the strategy into one of the premier Zerg gameplans in the matchup. Solar remains a clever player in ZvZ and, although the tired narrative of his legendary ZvP hasn’t been spun so much in recent years, Solar is still 28-13 in the matchup over the last two months, with wins over elite Protosses, Korean and foreigner alike.Is Solar a legitimate contender or tier two Zerg? Solar was the second best Korean Zerg in 2016, but in a slide that began with a disappointing Blizzcon, he has been supplanted by soO and more recently Rogue. Solar’s name is held in high regard, but he’s only made it out of the first group stage of GSL once this year; a truly sobering fact. He has shown more progress in his favored league, SSL, however. Making the finals of SSL Premier Season 1 is undoubtedly impressive, but when the dust settled fans were left wondering if INnoVation’s ascendency or Solar’s ineptitude was more to blame for the 4-1 slaughter. He’s off to a 2-2 start in Season 2 which once more gives fans little reason to trust Solar, a player who’s mercurial nature is well documented.
And that’s really been the story of Solar. He has all the talent in the world, but often fails to find that “next gear”. When he does, it’s a fleeting state, as he tumbles back into the pack as abruptly as the initial surge in form which brought him there. For the first time all year, Solar is looking competitive in both Starleagues. He’s in a good position as far as WCS points go and will be afforded many opportunities to strengthen his standing as July turns to August. Maybe not yet a legitimate contender, but certainly capable of catching lightning in a bottle, there’s no denying that Solar is a threat to once more join the Korean elite as both Starleagues progress.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/611.jpg)
Of all the odd ducklings currently waddling through the Korean scene at the moment,
Stats might just be at the front of the line. Players are bound to suffer dips in form and results in such a hypercompetitive environment, but as of late usually Stats looks a far cry from the man who took down soO back in March and claimed the title of not just GSL champion, but undisputed best player in the world. Stats rose to the mountain top, showing no signs of stopping. Even in defeat he looked impressive. He was the best player at Katowice, but wasn’t able to seal the deal. But a player can only remain on top for so long. The results kept coming for Stats. A fourth place finish in SSL Premier Season 1, a top eight in GSL Season 2, but the aura of invincibility was missing. Flash forward a month or so and Stats is looking like a world-beater all over again. He topped a GSL group that included and is sitting atop the SSL standings after after back to back victories over aLive and Classic. Fans had every reason to expect great things from Stats heading into IEM: Shanghai. After a brief lull, he was looking every bit the WCS Korea leading point getter.
Stats’ excursion to Shanghai failed to live up to expectations, though. After squeaking by iAsonu in the first match of Group B, Rogue refused to punch Stats’ ticket to the next round. No worries, the Chinese Zerg would be even less of a challenge the second time around. iAsonu just couldn’t resist proving everyone wrong. Getting knocked out of IEM at such an early stage has to leave Stats feeling deflated. The question now is whether this result will dispel his forward momentum or if he can get right back on the horse. Stats may be automatically qualified for Blizzcon, but whether or not his opponents view him as a true challenge or a walk over has yet to be determined.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/2106.jpg)
While INnoVation can best be described as repeatable consistency, GuMiho is the exact opposite. Not only is he capable of switching from cheese to macro game or from bio to mech in the middle of a series, but he even does so while seemingly making up builds on the fly. But to say GuMiho is just a random player would be to do him a great disservice, as he has the execution to get through any situation. Due to his long career, unique style and tendency to enter all online tournaments he can, GuMiho has probably been through nearly every possible scenario.
Yet premier success eluded him until the GSL Season 2 finals. GuMiho’s full range of skills, adaptability and resilience was on display; flowing from build to build, taking excellent fights, and reading soO when it mattered most. Since then, he's done more of the same—securing his IEM Shanghai spot (albeit flunking his test there horribly), winning the BaseTradeTV Star League June Cup, his Master's Coliseum Group, and even advancing to the Ro16 of the GSL.
Although his 71% and 84% winrates in TvP and TvT in July look impressive, it's worth noting that they're inflated by online results, as well as his stomp through the group stages of HSC, and his worrying struggles with TvZ lately could potentially point to a downtown in form. Overall though, due to his shining GSL win, his awesome online results as well as his solid offline results, GuMiho can still be counted as one of the strongest players this past month.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/4729.jpg)
It’s difficult to describe the current form of Dark. For someone who was pretty much the first, last, and only name on the list of great LotV zergs, his year-long drought in terms of tournament victories—and even grand final appearances—can only be called disappointing. Despite that, whenever Dark plays, his opponents have reason to be scared, no matter how hot their own form is at that moment: INnoVation's only the latest to find that out recently.
Dark might not reach the latest tournament stages right now, perhaps because his play is indeed riddled with small, sometimes critical, errors right now. Sometimes, he looks vulnerable, makes the wrong calls and takes too great a risk, which opens him up to punishment. Still, Dark is not far away from his terror inducing, all-devouring form, as his overall win rate of 70% at the moment throughout the board shows. All that’s missing is his stroke of genius—his black magic, as some call it—to return to him permanently and enable him to go the rest of the distance once more. We’ve seen glances of it, but too inconsistently so far.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/951.jpg)
The world champion’s year has been rather inglorious so far, despite really strong and solid showings overall statistically. It’s those critical, decisive moments, in which he seems to have lost the qualities which had made him such a monster throughout the second half of 2016. The silver at HomeStory Cup was an improvement in this regard, but his demise there in the grand finals at the hands of a recently slumping Zest doesn’t especially induce confidence. That his strength seems to derive mainly from different early-game reaper builds, which are bound to be figured out and easily defeated eventually, is also a factor.
We know, that ByuN isn’t a one-trick pony; he wouldn’t have survived until now if he was, but for the moment his ace move isn’t a surprise to anyone, which makes him automatically vulnerable to anyone surviving the early game and building up pressure against him. The first half of 2016 looked similar for the Terran, though. It remains to be seen, if he can emulate his success from last year, but for now, a higher rank just isn’t justified, as his inconsistency in the most important moments holds him back from reaching his former, glorious heights. The top four finish at IEM in Shanghai was a start—but we expect more from a world champion.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/634.jpg)
soO begs an interesting question. Does a player need to display excellence in all three matchups to be considered elite? The bottom line is that soO’s ZvT is abysmal lately. Since taking the stage against GuMiho in the GSL Finals, he is 9-20 against Terran. The root of the problem is difficult to nail down. Whether he’s employing roached based composition or ling/bane builds with mutalisks or hydralisks, soO seems to lack a fundamental understanding of the matchup. Simply put, his ZvT a glaring blotch on his otherwise stellar form.If one were to add his semifinal victory over Classic to the aforementioned time frame, soO is 33-10 against Zerg and Protoss during the same stretch that has seen him struggle so mightily against Terran. It’s really been a tale of two soO’s. One soO is hapless. Banshees always find sporeless mineral lines and queens are regularly out of position to defend hellion run bys. soO is often behind on supply by the time the first bio push comes and by then he’s as good as dead. The other soO is at his imperious best. Crisp decision making, indefatigable macro and the unquenchable ruthlessness that has raised him above almost everyone to have played the game.
Despite his weak form against Terran, soO is still the most impressive player of the highlander race. Rogue’s pursuit of soO’s throne is a tempestuous one full of bluster, but he has a long way to go before he can match soO’s consistency. Solar, ByuL and Dark have been chasing Starcraft 2’s ultimate kong since the turn of the calendar, but show no sign of catching up. The fact that soO is considered one of the best players in the world despite his TvZ woes is a testament to his greatness. Should he piece together a solution to that problem he would have to be considered a favorite to make a seventh GSL Final.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/680.jpg)
It has certainly taken a while, but Classic finally seems to have found his footing in Legacy of the Void. One of the best players in StarCraft II's former iteration Heart of the Swarm, Classic struggled heavily with Legacy's seemingly thinned-out arsenal of Protoss builds. Classic's strength has never been the mastery of one specific style of play, or strategy, but rather his extraordinary ability to play them all very competently, no matter how unorthodox. In 2016, there were very clear strategic pigeonholes for Protoss play at all times that were simply superior to everything else. Nowadays, Protoss strategy appears to have diversified across all match-ups and Classic has benefited greatly from it. It allows him to utilize one of his main strengths—an often underestimated ability to craft and prepare very specific strategies tailored to his opponents and the map-pool.
And so the tournaments he has begun to shine in should be of no surprise to us—as well as the ones in which he has not. His domain are individual leagues, and his performances in GSL, where he topped his Ro32 group after reaching last season's semifinals, and in SSL, where he stands at 4-1, reflect that very well. Where he has failed to deliver, however, is VSL's team league. To be perfectly honest, Classic was estimated closer to players below him than those above him in our collective opinion, but his now steady performances at a high level awarded him his ranking.
At a time when few players are constantly brilliant, Classic is one of the most consistent among them. He's perhaps not at the level of winning a Starleague yet, as he was in HotS, but he is definitely of the caliber to reach their knockout stages consistently, and that is quite rare in itself.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/1099.jpg)
Rogue has been flirting with greatness for a few months now. After a disappointing first year and half of Legacy of the Void, Rogue reaching the legendary 7k MMR threshold on the Korean server was a bit of a surprise. When he spent May marching all the way to the quarterfinals of GSL Season 2 there were many who were far from shocked. With everything pointing in the right direction, the Jin Air Zerg who has finally found himself at the forefront of a team full of superstars. But the split from his clingy partner, mediocrity, hasn’t been without tribulation. His victory over soO in Season 2 of GSL was supposed to be his coronation as best Zerg in the world, but thanks to an untimely queen, it was further evidence that Rogue would eternally be one step shy of greatness. He may have topped his GSL group, but GuMIho’s recent losses are casting doubt on the significance of that result. Add to that his struggles in SSL Challenge and Rogue paints the picture of someone stuck on the cusp, unable to bridge the final hurdle.
But where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And this past weekend Rogue became a veritable inferno. 2017 has been a year of first time champions; TY at WESG and IEM, Stats and GuMiho at GSL. After a sensational four days Rogue is the newest member of that cadre. In a word, Rogue performance at Shanghai was dominant. After dropped games to GuMiho and Stats in the group stage, but found the next level, making a mockery of Dark, ByuN and herO by a combined score of 10-2. Dark looked impotent before Rogue’s superior build selection and execution of said builds. ByuN, a master of mechanics was regularly outpaced by Rogue’s macro. herO, one of the most cunning players to even play Starcraft 2 looked constantly outfoxed by Rogue who expertly controlled a host of Zerg units on the way to victory.
Rogue proficiency was on display in all three matches, which lines up neatly with what a lot of people already knew. Rogue is the real deal. Since his lost to soO in the GSL quarterfinals, Rogue has posted an impressive 58-21 record in games and an even more astounding 24-6 record in matches. With SSL and GSL in their fledgling stages, there has been a lack of really high profile matches in Korea over the past month or so. As a result it’s been hard to notice Rogue’s ascent. But at this point it’s impossible to deny. Rogue is one of the best players in Korea.
When analyzing Rogue’s play a few things stick out. Rogue is fearless. He makes split second calls and sees them through to the end. His execution is unmatched. Be it an all in or controlling a late game army, Rogue always looks at ease. He has shown mastery of varying compositions, using all sorts of timing to sculpt the game to his liking. If INnoVation is best at dictating the tempo and tenor of a game, Rogue is a close second. Having made the Round of 16 of GSL, a run to the finals would keep Rogue’s Blizzcon alive. Whether or not he can retain this momentum remains to be seen, but for now he is one of the most intimidating players in the game, Korean or otherwise.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/682.jpg)
GSL Super Tournament champion herO ranks at #2. Coming off a Grand Final defeat at the hands of Rogue at IEM Shanghai—after an impressive tournament run—herO has firmly cemented his place among the very best players in the world. Few players have been able to put a dent in INnoVation's armor as of late, but herO at IEM did so by defeating him 3-2. A clean 4-0 sweep of his Code S Ro32 group and his IEM performance, stand in stark contrast to his disappointment in SSL. Currently 1-4 in series, herO has struggled to replicate his impeccable form of last season. Nevertheless, his highs definitely outweigh any shortcomings that may have crept into herO's play recently, and they are the reason why he ranks only below our #1—albeit quite clearly.
herO's playstyle has seldom changed since he switched over to StarCraft II—he is just as confident, sometimes overly so, and still just as aggressive as he always was. But most importantly he appears very competent in every match-up. Where HotS at times exposed weaknesses he had in overly aggressive tendencies, those flaws have been ironed out in Legacy as the game now favors those who command such a playstyle well, and herO is that player. herO was easily the best Protoss around the time of GSL's Super Tournament, as especially phoenix/adept played perfectly to his strengths, but the most recent nerf to the adept has evened the playing field a bit. Still, herO's performances when in form are the best among the top Protoss players currently playing the game, and it is only fair to rank him above them.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/663.jpg)
Ever since victory in SSL Premier Season 1, INnoVation has been in monstrous shape. Given all the critique that he's received over his ultra-standard style over the years, he has done a good job reinventing himself. The Machine now regularly mixes greedy builds with aggressive ones, keeping his opponents on their toes and punishing them heavily with strong mechanics whenever he gets the chance.
One observable trend from INnoVation seems to be his preference to engage in some kind of early game pressure or harass. He doesn’t seem to commit to killing his opponent early game, often just putting on enough pressure to enter the mid and late game favorably. In TvP this usually comes in the form of delaying his stim in order to execute an early drop with either pure marines or mines. When feeling pressured INnoVation delays his drop in order to get safety cyclones and when feeling confident INnoVation goes for greedy CC first builds. His variations in builds have allowed INnoVation to achieve a 71% win rate in this MU over the past month.
In TvT the Machine prefers to rely on early ravens, at times even going gas before rax or CC. This allows INnoVation to harass with auto-turrets as well as build up a strong air force to contest the mid and late game. He also makes ample use of his scouting reapers and safety cyclones, often diving in to get SCV kills or trading favorably. In TvZ INnoVation prefers more mid-term harass in the form of hellion banshee, but he won’t shy away from a 3 rax reaper.
INnoVation’s resurgence has seen him tear through a impressive number of opponents in the past four months over a veritable who's who of the KR SC2 scene, posting impressive 74% and 70% win rates in TvZ and TvP respectively, although his TvT is a somewhat notable weakness at 54%. Even when he loses, INnoVation usually does so against other top tier opponents such as ByuN, herO and Dark.
It remains to be seen if he can keep the ball rolling, or if his tendencies to over-rely on certain strategies will get the better of him. Despite the chinks in his armor starting to show, INnoVation can still be counted as the strongest player of July due his excellent results in the GSL, SSL and VSL and his 69% overall win rate.
by Soularion![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/bird_blue_16.png)
- SoularionGG![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/2834.jpg)
Well, Snute's certainly been here before. For most of his domestic career, Snute has remained elite despite moments of stunning vulnerability. While against Koreans he's always a threat to win, he seems equally vulnerable against his fellow foreigners, and this weakness has only become more obvious with the growing tide of WCS opposition. Snute entered July on the heels of a poor performance in Jönköping, losing to Cham and dropping a map to Winter - no, not that Winter - to showcase him at his most defeated. But, in standard Snute fashion, he rose again. No matter how painful the loss, no matter how bitter the defeat, Snute has always risen back up. He showcased this resilience by returning to WCS Valencia and defeating Neeb, the reigning champion, as well as fiery opponents such as Scarlett and SpeCial to reach the finals stage. But, Snute's story has never been a fairy tale, and while he amassed an earlier lead on Elazer, he ended up losing the series in familiar, heartbreaking fashion. His performance at HomeStory Cup a week after, while not terrible, certainly didn't match his ambition- but there's no doubt that Snute will rise again. All the anguish of blown leads and disappointing tournaments only seems to fuel him, and with a return to Blizzcon at his fingertips, Snute's determination once more finds itself chasing vengeance.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/1173.jpg)
As fans of Starcraft, we often hear mythical tales of players who perform phenomenally on the ladder and even in online competition, but when they're faced with an offline event, tend to disappointment or wallow in mediocrity. It's incredibly rare to see one of these players ever become an offline monster quite the way they were first expected to be, which makes SpeCial's 2017 so enthralling. For the longest time he was perhaps the greatest example of this; consistently elite online, and while he certainly wasn't awful when it came to offline play, he never found himself close to that finals stage. Yet, against the odds, that reputation changed. In Austin he looked ridiculous against Serral and took eventual champion Neeb to a tense five games, and he followed that up with another fantastic series against Neeb in Jönköping. It was in Valencia that he finally conquered his demons, becoming the first player of the year to defeat Neeb in a WCS playoffs series, only to falter hard against Snute and reflect many of the inconsistencies of his past self. It's certainly true that inconsistency remains as a plague to his otherwise fantastic play; he often has way-too-close matches against the likes of Bly and iAsonu, and he has yet to make a dent in the GSL, but that doesn't matter. SpeCial has done it. He's wounded a truly elite player when the stakes are at their highest, and with the once-impossible goal of reaching Blizzcon now right in front of him, SpeCial stands as the ultimate dark horse of the foreign scene. Never a favorite, but always a possibility.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/4567.jpg)
Serral has spent his career as a human ticking time bomb. In his early teens, he was already well on his way to being the most talented player in the Finnish scene, winning Insomnia XV over Welmu and elfi - the two most accomplished Finnish players at the time. His career since has been marked by numerous important footsteps, but none as dramatic as his performance in 2017 so far. He's been dominant on the ladder, crushed his way through the qualifiers for the IEM World Championship, performed phenomenally in many of the European regional events, and even made the finals of Jönköping. Of course he ended up losing to the seemingly unstoppable Neeb, but it was the most important step of a career that has so far been bubbling on the edge of success; always close, but never quite good enough. Even his results since seem to echo that thought, as he fell in Valencia to TRUE and in HomeStory Cup to uThermal; both talented players, but neither of them superstars. Regardless of a couple stumbles, it's important to realize just how far Serral has come. After years of being the player forever on the edge, forever looking into a scene he never found a place within the top echelons of, forever wanting, forever striving, he breached the gates. Last year he looked like just another rising star destined to fade out before ever etching his place within the cosmos. This year, he's well on his way to cementing his place in StarCraft history, and has looked like the straight up best foreigner in the world at certain times. While the past couple tournaments may not have gone so well for him, he's still only one or two tiny steps away from what he's already dreamed of. In Jönköping, it came down to only one map. One scattered assortment of decisions, one game in a career that has already lasted thousands, one sub-conscious error or strategical mistake. To Serral, losing that game of moments must've hurt; and with only Montreal seperating himself from Blizzcon, he has one more shot to earn the glory of finally being on top. To be the player he was always fated to be in the minds of so many, to be an idol no dissimilar to the ones he looked up to, etched in the starry skies.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/6170.jpg)
Watching Elazer's play perfectly encapsulates his inescapable duality. At times, you see the essence of the flaws present in the foreign scene, and at other times, you see real improvements, genuine stellar play, and moments that kind of make you tear up, a little. This can be summarized in his recent match against ByuN at HomeStory Cup. Yeah, sometimes he felt panicked and made too many overlords, or made similar subtle macro errors which the Korean star punished with his fabled ease, but there was also a spark. A confidence, present in counterattacks and ceremonies and grins and crazy hats. At his worst, Elazer is reminiscent of Lilbow vs MarineKing; a player with clever strategies and mirage-esque micro who stumbles way, way out of his league. At his best, Elazer is fearless; existing outside of the moment, a player who two years ago was irrelevant and now is sparring with a veteran such as Snute in a seven game series, and legitimately earning a difficult comeback. To see Elazer's growth has been stunning and yet at the same time inevitable, because his play over the past couple years has always been a little different. At times it may scream 'generic foreign zerg', signifying another faceless mediocrity in a crowd that grows by the day and yet never seems to improve beyond okay, or occasionally good, but Elazer refuses to be pinned down perfectly. There's an ingenuity. A cleverness. A usage of tactics. Elazer is the player who overcomes obstacles the best of perhaps any foreigner who has existed in the past couple years. He possesses a special ability to improve beyond his boundaries, present both in-game (legitimately challenging ByuN in the early game), in-tournament (making the Blizzcon semifinals against all odds) and in terms of storylines (going from being destroyed by his countryman Nerchio to legitimately overcoming him). He isn't some goofy, middling foreign zerg anymore. He proved that, earned that, in Valencia. Beating Nerchio and TRUE to reach the finals would be a satisfactory footstep for most players, and for a moment - down 3-1 against the far more experienced Snute, and being outclassed most of the time - it looked as though he was going to give in. It was a very expected story. A player who had to settle for a good result, going on a significant run, but- where does it end up? Just like Elazer back at BlizzCon. A round of four result, much like a finals at Valencia, was better than expectations, but didn't matter. It wasn't a championship. It wasn't glorious. It wasn't an unforgettable moment, it was progress; and progress, for all of its due praise, is an ultimately ugly thing. A naturally inferior result. Yet, that moment was anything but ugly. It was then, with that realization, that Elazer became different; because he didn't fulfill the expected story. He came back against Snute, a player he grew up watching, a player who was a top foreigner before Elazer even reached Grandmaster. He accomplished the unexpected, and in doing so, Elazer represents the WCS system at its core; flawed, and yet beyond those flaws, carrying a hope that he can be the one who can do the unthinkable. His ability to learn and improve from the obstacles in his path has made him go from a nobody to the reigning champion, the player to be feared, beyond just bracket luck and fortunate runs. Elazer is the King of WCS. A statement so odd to be incomprehensible even a year and a half ago, and now beginning to be expected.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/5875.jpg)
It's crazy how far a player can come in a couple of years. In 2015, Neeb was best known for being the guy who race swapped from Terran to Protoss and still managed to defeat StarDust in a best of five set, eliminating him from WCS and serving as the final nail in the Korean's coffin. Hindsight is a funny thing; it's insane for such a moment, once laughed about more for StarDust's failure than for Neeb's success, to serve as such a potent preview of the future. Only a couple years later, Neeb's PvP is perhaps the best in the world, and he's gone from struggling against Koreans invading America to being the sole American to ever win a Korean event. The path to where he's ended up wasn't particularly long, or particularly incredible, but it began with a solitary decision. The decision to swap from terran to protoss, once upon a time an insignificant change up for a middling player with moderate potential and now one of the greatest What If? moments in the history of the foreign scene. Back then, in 2015, he was in the back. Watching players such as HuK and puCK and MaSa strive, while his best result came at the hands of narrow wins against players such as Guitarcheese and Alicia. In 2016, he was a leader, the chief purveyor of a surge for North American players which brought them to a chain of significant tournament accomplishments, perhaps the greatest we've seen from them in a number of years. But in 2017, he's alone. He's the king on top of the hill that maybe should've never been there. The ruler without a ceremony. Neeb's victory in KeSPA Cup encaptured all of those bittersweet moments of his career, a win greater than any the foreign scene had managed to attain in the past five years if not longer. But with Neeb, the shock was so great that everyone seemed numb afterwards. Disbelief robbed him of grandiosity. Surprise stole away his moment. The same thought could be echoed by his victories in Jönköping and Austin. He could've lost one of those close matches against TLO, and been out of the tournament, and nobody would've been too surprised beyond a couple momentary gasps. But instead he won the event, and the event after, and not many people seemed very surprised. Dominance and failure to Neeb are both just footsteps in a career that has seen far worse and far better. It seems that Neeb is an enigma; he could win Blizzcon and, would anyone be truly surprised? After all, his accomplishment in Korea with the KeSPA Cup was on a similar scale, if perhaps a little easier to discredit. But similarly, he could lose in the group stage of Montreal, disappoint in Blizzcon, and be the same player he always was, showing up in 2018 as the same elite Protoss. The same champion. Impossible to pin down, impossible to comprehend, impossible to predict.
(credits to MarianoSC2 for the image)
