On January 26 2018 08:12 Musicus wrote: Btw Soularion, did you forget about Demuslim or do you think he is weaker than #37?
After thinking for a while, I think Drogo is a bit low and Showtime should probably be top 6.
37 and 36 got included since they're qualified players, so he's only saying that DeMuslim is weaker than Optimus which sounds plausible.
Bingo! To be quite honest I just have an odd enjoyment of Optimus as someone relatively new to the popular conscious, where as DeMuslim is similarly skilled but older, so I presume you guys kinda know what his life story is. Yours/GogojOey were auto-included due to qualifying for top 32.
On January 26 2018 05:46 DieuCure wrote: Masa, Zanster etc higher than TIME, explanations
TIME has a lower sample size than Zanster/MaSa, and has yet to really break out (even if he has faced some extremely difficult groups). He's also quite inconsistent in China, so it's hard to place him extraordinarily high.
MaSa also is a weird one, while he will often lose to the European Zergs, he's one of the only people that won a Best of 5 and a Best of 7 vs neeb in 2017..he has a career winning record vs. Scarlett, Kelazhur and TRUE and is much better than the higher ranked Cham on this list, 75% against him.
He's consistently been able to stay a Top 3 NA, while having a losing record to people like Snute and Serral.
So i almost agree with the assessment that his path matters the most, he's going to win until he hits a Top 5 Euro-Zerg and then that's the roadblock.
MaSa is 3-27 vs Neeb since the start of 2017 outside of the two sets he won, both of which were pretty much back to back at Neeb's low point of the year iirc.
He did get some big wins vs TRUE at dh atlanta and cheesdelphia, then got swept by Elazer at WCS - so that's pretty much what you described.
He's 0-8 in his last 3 meeting vs Scarlett, too, and he's only played Cham twice (both in online Bo3s) since 2017 began, so that's just a low sample size. I wouldn't put him top 3 NA - Neeb/SpeCial/Scarlett are better than him, and maybe Cham too.
I think that's a weird way to Phase anything... he's 3-27 if we intentionally don't count the ones he won.. well, i guess?
He is 0-8 vs Scarlett very recently, mostly at one single tournament where he literally refused to stop trying to bunker low ground vs a Roach-Ravager all-in in 5 consecutive games. That one was kind of a mental block issue more than anything.
True and Cham, yeah at tournaments he's winning with low sample sizes, but I guess I've seen enough of him laddering with the two as well to know he's got a good 2/3rds of those matches too.
Special is kind of a debatable one, He's definitely in that conversation. At any given time in the last probably 3 years you can probably say the top Terran outside of Korea is one of those 2 guys, but I think they've alternated who is was throughout that. With uthermal and Kelazhur, they've occassionally been better vs Zerg, but I think lose the direct TvT.
We'll see how this plays out, especially on this relatively new patch, but I maintain he's strictly better than at least a few people ahead of him, and he really is one of only a very few people that is capable of upsetting neeb.
Despite losing to him 3-1 in Cheesadelphia, you have to acknowledge that 1 was the only map neeb lost in the tournament, except the one he just quit after cancelling his own Nexus by mistake.
On January 26 2018 07:52 tantalus wrote: Not really sure where to ask something like this, but is there a reason we never see open bracket tournaments like this in Korea? Is it just a logistics thing or is that something that just never caught on in Korea?
The open brackets have been DreamHack's thing for years. In the olden days we used to have a good number of extra participants from the people who were there primarily for the LAN party.
I remember how pre-championship Neeb used to be this guy who everyone knew was really good but he couldn't deliver and had a reputation of a talented guy without a champion's mentality. Until he turned it around completely. I've got a feeling we might see the same thing from Serral this year.
Also, nice rank. I think Snute is a bit too high but otherwise I mostly agree with occasional 1-2 positions alternations.
I have neeb in first and major in 4th, and the rest of top 8 is all zerg. So the way i see it the player's strength vs zerg should be more impactful on the power rank. Snute is one of my favorite players and this last year got far when people weren't expecting much of him, so ill continue not expecting much and would put him 8th, with scarlet, since her zvz got powered up, and true ahead of him.
On January 27 2018 01:54 Muffloe wrote: I haven't been following the scene so closely for lotv, but my takeaway from this rank is that success in korea isnt that big of a deal anymore?
Right now because of the meta changes, any Tier 1 or Tier 2 Zerg or Protoss can take a korean out of a tourney. They changed the game from being about micro and skill to build order bluffs and the fact Terran has no game ending options that they can do and come back from. This allows opponents to take advantage of terran in an unfair way. Let's say a Terran proxies cyclones, they can maybe take out a hatch and the zerg counters with double hatch and a ravager push for a low cost and no tech tree. Terran is left in a position where they will always lose a lot and will be behind.
On January 27 2018 01:54 Muffloe wrote: I haven't been following the scene so closely for lotv, but my takeaway from this rank is that success in korea isnt that big of a deal anymore?
Right now because of the meta changes, any Tier 1 or Tier 2 Zerg or Protoss can take a korean out of a tourney. They changed the game from being about micro and skill to build order bluffs and the fact Terran has no game ending options that they can do and come back from. This allows opponents to take advantage of terran in an unfair way. Let's say a Terran proxies cyclones, they can maybe take out a hatch and the zerg counters with double hatch and a ravager push for a low cost and no tech tree. Terran is left in a position where they will always lose a lot and will be behind.
I love how your comment start off with a kind of dispassionate, objective journalistic tone, only to spiral down into full-on terran vindicative pamphlet in a single paragraph XD
In my humble opinion, a Ro16 at GSL is still something that is indicative of a very strong form.
EPT
Interesting read!
