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France12758 Posts
The whole "the game was easier back then" thing is is bullshit tho ^^'. The game was different, not easier not harder. It was still difficult as hell to stay consistently at the top, and if you send current players into the past they wouldn't be able to dominate.
Stephano had a far better relative skill level back then. He now thinks Serral is better because he is better currently.
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On April 04 2018 21:49 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2018 19:36 Azhrak wrote: First Serral conquered battle.net, then he made history in aligulac, and now he is climbing the power rank - it's only a matter of time until he claims this peak as well. Just ask Scarlett, prior to March and her exit from Code S she was looking just as dominant as Serral was except she actually had some GSL mojo to go with it. Didn't take long for her to get knocked down to a point where she isn't even on these rankings. That's how fast things can change. That's how hard it is to stay on top. Scarlett had certain "GSL mojo", but outside of that and then PyeongChang she hasn't shown much in the recent past. Serral has actually been continuously improving during the last year after finishing high school and has the potential to further improve, with more practice in Korea for example.
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United States33074 Posts
Scarlett was incredible in the IEM PyeongChang run, but in a weird sense, it felt like cashing a late check for a tournament she "deserved" to win in 2014. That version of Scarlett still feels like the better player than present Scarlett, and maybe even by a considerable margin. Consistently strong macro play is always going to seem like the most impressive way to win, unless you're a god-tier cheese player like sOs or just have incredible game sense like Life (and both of them played good macro in their primes too).
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On April 05 2018 06:46 Waxangel wrote: Scarlett was incredible in the IEM PyeongChang run, but in a weird sense, it felt like cashing a late check for a tournament she "deserved" to win in 2014. That version of Scarlett still feels like the better player than present Scarlett, and maybe even by a considerable margin. Consistently strong macro play is always going to seem like the most impressive way to win, unless you're a god-tier cheese player like sOs or just have incredible game sense like Life (and both of them played good macro in their primes too). If Scarlett beat Trap there's no doubt in my mind she would have won MLG Anaheim. She had beat Polt and Violet earlier that week at Red Bull, with 3 straight Bo3 wins against Polt. I'm still a little upset about game 3 of that series vs Trap.
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On April 05 2018 07:24 Solar424 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2018 06:46 Waxangel wrote: Scarlett was incredible in the IEM PyeongChang run, but in a weird sense, it felt like cashing a late check for a tournament she "deserved" to win in 2014. That version of Scarlett still feels like the better player than present Scarlett, and maybe even by a considerable margin. Consistently strong macro play is always going to seem like the most impressive way to win, unless you're a god-tier cheese player like sOs or just have incredible game sense like Life (and both of them played good macro in their primes too). If Scarlett beat Trap there's no doubt in my mind she would have won MLG Anaheim. She had beat Polt and Violet earlier that week at Red Bull, with 3 straight Bo3 wins against Polt. I'm still a little upset about game 3 of that series vs Trap.
"What if" scenarios are innumerable, but "What if Mvp was healthy" and "What if Life didn't matchfix" are by far the biggest.
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On April 04 2018 22:52 xelnaga_empire wrote: Aside from Maru, all the other Terran have a poor power rank. Sucks to be Terran now. Don't worry just play like Maru.
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Great power rank. Funny too read, too.
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United States97274 Posts
On April 05 2018 06:46 Waxangel wrote: Scarlett was incredible in the IEM PyeongChang run, but in a weird sense, it felt like cashing a late check for a tournament she "deserved" to win in 2014. That version of Scarlett still feels like the better player than present Scarlett, and maybe even by a considerable margin. Consistently strong macro play is always going to seem like the most impressive way to win, unless you're a god-tier cheese player like sOs or just have incredible game sense like Life (and both of them played good macro in their primes too). HIGHEST SKILL ERA
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Just for the sake of having some more names here: Serral, Neeb, Special. Best foreigners atm. I do especially miss Juan in the ranking. He seems to play really fantastic lately.
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On April 05 2018 06:09 Poopi wrote: The whole "the game was easier back then" thing is is bullshit tho ^^'. The game was different, not easier not harder. It was still difficult as hell to stay consistently at the top, and if you send current players into the past they wouldn't be able to dominate.
Stephano had a far better relative skill level back then. He now thinks Serral is better because he is better currently.
WRONG
the level of play now is much higher
hence all the old champions had to retire cause they couldn't hang anymore. except maru. because he is a GOD
edit: so sad about soo though. damn man, please win a tournament! I BELIEVE
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On April 05 2018 04:34 MockHamill wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2018 03:34 Durnuu wrote:On April 05 2018 03:33 MockHamill wrote: Serral all-killed Korea. His aligulac ranking is the highest in the world.
Except for Maru I do not see any Korean that is clearly better. He is on the same level as Dark and Classic. Serral didn't all-kill Korea. Unless Poland = Korea in your mind. I provided some alternative facts. Still, Koreans are overrated. The gap used to be huge but it is not any more. Top Koreans are just slightly better than top foreigners now and I think Serral will pass every Korean (with the possible exception of Maru) within a year.
There is literally zero evidence to suggest that the gap is narrower than it has been in the past.
During Stephano's era, Stephano was frequently either winning or going to finals in global events against code S quality Koreans.
Serral as good as he is, the best he has managed is top 4 in global events.
He's good, but the Koreans are better. The gap hasn't gone anywhere. The skill level of foreign players has definitely improved over the years but the Koreans have gotten better too.
There is zero evidence to suggest that the gap is narrowed. Literally none. You can't just argue that point and have no results to back it up.
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On April 05 2018 06:35 D-light wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2018 21:49 Vindicare605 wrote:On April 04 2018 19:36 Azhrak wrote: First Serral conquered battle.net, then he made history in aligulac, and now he is climbing the power rank - it's only a matter of time until he claims this peak as well. Just ask Scarlett, prior to March and her exit from Code S she was looking just as dominant as Serral was except she actually had some GSL mojo to go with it. Didn't take long for her to get knocked down to a point where she isn't even on these rankings. That's how fast things can change. That's how hard it is to stay on top. Scarlett had certain "GSL mojo", but outside of that and then PyeongChang she hasn't shown much in the recent past. Serral has actually been continuously improving during the last year after finishing high school and has the potential to further improve, with more practice in Korea for example.
And yet, Scarlett won a global non-regionlocked event, something that Serral has NOT managed to do in his career.
Results speak louder than anything else. As good as Serral is right now, he hasn't proven anything other than he's the best foreign player right now, but many people have held that title over the years and yet the gap in skill between them and the top Koreans hasn't gone anywhere.
Until Serral wins a global in a non-regionlocked event. He can't climb any higher than "best foreigner." That's just all there is to it.
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On April 05 2018 10:42 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2018 06:35 D-light wrote:On April 04 2018 21:49 Vindicare605 wrote:On April 04 2018 19:36 Azhrak wrote: First Serral conquered battle.net, then he made history in aligulac, and now he is climbing the power rank - it's only a matter of time until he claims this peak as well. Just ask Scarlett, prior to March and her exit from Code S she was looking just as dominant as Serral was except she actually had some GSL mojo to go with it. Didn't take long for her to get knocked down to a point where she isn't even on these rankings. That's how fast things can change. That's how hard it is to stay on top. Scarlett had certain "GSL mojo", but outside of that and then PyeongChang she hasn't shown much in the recent past. Serral has actually been continuously improving during the last year after finishing high school and has the potential to further improve, with more practice in Korea for example. And yet, Scarlett won a global non-regionlocked event, something that Serral has NOT managed to do in his career. Results speak louder than anything else. As good as Serral is right now, he hasn't proven anything other than he's the best foreign player right now, but many people have held that title over the years and yet the gap in skill between them and the top Koreans hasn't gone anywhere. Until Serral wins a global in a non-regionlocked event. He can't climb any higher than "best foreigner." That's just all there is to it.
Calling IEM Pyeongchang a "global non-regionlocked event" comes with a huge asterisk, since only 2 Koreans could actually participate and Scarlett only played one of them. Add the fact that they were Zest and sOs, two Protoss players in a ZvP meta that Blizzard nerfed soon afterwards, then add the fact that Scarlett relied heavily on cheese to win, and you get a trophy built on ZvZ + ZvP cheese acknowledged by Blizzard as imbalanced.
A win is a win, of course. That being said, Serral has impressed me considerably more than Scarlett in 2018. If we're talking about gaps and closing them, defeating Koreans in macro games as Serral did is a thousand times more significant than cheesing them out as Scarlett did.
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On April 05 2018 08:19 fishjie wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2018 06:09 Poopi wrote: The whole "the game was easier back then" thing is is bullshit tho ^^'. The game was different, not easier not harder. It was still difficult as hell to stay consistently at the top, and if you send current players into the past they wouldn't be able to dominate.
Stephano had a far better relative skill level back then. He now thinks Serral is better because he is better currently.
WRONG the level of play now is much higher hence all the old champions had to retire cause they couldn't hang anymore. except maru. because he is a GOD edit: so sad about soo though. damn man, please win a tournament! I BELIEVE
Retiring doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't hang anymore, they could've easily just lost motivation after achieving success. Look at Rain and Soulkey, they could still be top-tier players but instead they went back to BW. Looking at the sorry state of opportunities for the Koreans these days compared to the past it wouldn't surprise me.
With Nestea, Mvp, Jjakji, Sniper and Seed you kinda have a point. Although even then there are excuses for why they all quickly fell off: Nestea was old by progamer standards even back in 2010 while Mvp had wrist issues and won pretty much everything under the sun already. Meanwhile, Jjakji, Sniper, and Seed never had much staying power to begin with and their GSL wins were all unexpected.
In contrast to that, MMA, DRG, MC, and Polt all proved they could still be competitive numerous times over the years. Even guys who weren't champs but really should've been like PartinG, Bomber and Taeja remained highly relevant across expansions.
Also, why not look at this argument from another direction? ByuN and Gumiho have had amazing success in LotV compared to their WoL and HotS levels while guys like aLive and Ryung are having their best results since WoL.
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On April 05 2018 10:56 pvsnp wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2018 10:42 Vindicare605 wrote:On April 05 2018 06:35 D-light wrote:On April 04 2018 21:49 Vindicare605 wrote:On April 04 2018 19:36 Azhrak wrote: First Serral conquered battle.net, then he made history in aligulac, and now he is climbing the power rank - it's only a matter of time until he claims this peak as well. Just ask Scarlett, prior to March and her exit from Code S she was looking just as dominant as Serral was except she actually had some GSL mojo to go with it. Didn't take long for her to get knocked down to a point where she isn't even on these rankings. That's how fast things can change. That's how hard it is to stay on top. Scarlett had certain "GSL mojo", but outside of that and then PyeongChang she hasn't shown much in the recent past. Serral has actually been continuously improving during the last year after finishing high school and has the potential to further improve, with more practice in Korea for example. And yet, Scarlett won a global non-regionlocked event, something that Serral has NOT managed to do in his career. Results speak louder than anything else. As good as Serral is right now, he hasn't proven anything other than he's the best foreign player right now, but many people have held that title over the years and yet the gap in skill between them and the top Koreans hasn't gone anywhere. Until Serral wins a global in a non-regionlocked event. He can't climb any higher than "best foreigner." That's just all there is to it. Calling IEM Pyeongchang a "global non-regionlocked event" comes with a huge asterisk, since only 2 Koreans could actually participate and Scarlett only played one of them. Add the fact that they were Zest and sOs, two Protoss players in a ZvP meta that Blizzard nerfed soon afterwards, then add the fact that Scarlett relied heavily on cheese to win, and you get a trophy built on ZvZ + ZvP cheese acknowledged by Blizzard as imbalanced. A win is a win, of course. That being said, Serral has impressed me considerably more than Scarlett in 2018. If we're talking about gaps and closing them, defeating Koreans in macro games as Serral did is a thousand times more significant than cheesing them out as Scarlett did.
Of course IEM Pyeongchang wasn't anything like the level of IEM Katowice or even Blizzcon, but the point still stands.
I understand Serral is riding an enormous wave of hype and momentum right now because of what he's doing on ladder right now and how good he looked at Katowice (hell I was cheering for him too) but so far he hasn't shown anything that would suggest his level is higher than Scarlett's at her peak or even Neeb who we all just seemed to forget about, when they were beating Koreans.
The gap is still there, these top foreigners might get hot or get some bracket luck and get far in a tournament and people get excited, but there's still nothing resembling at the top level the level of consistency Stephano had against the level of "RELATIVE" competition he was consistently against.
So, while I'm as excited to see what Serral can do as the next guy we need to not start drawing these dumb conclusions before the fact.
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On April 05 2018 12:25 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2018 10:56 pvsnp wrote:On April 05 2018 10:42 Vindicare605 wrote:On April 05 2018 06:35 D-light wrote:On April 04 2018 21:49 Vindicare605 wrote:On April 04 2018 19:36 Azhrak wrote: First Serral conquered battle.net, then he made history in aligulac, and now he is climbing the power rank - it's only a matter of time until he claims this peak as well. Just ask Scarlett, prior to March and her exit from Code S she was looking just as dominant as Serral was except she actually had some GSL mojo to go with it. Didn't take long for her to get knocked down to a point where she isn't even on these rankings. That's how fast things can change. That's how hard it is to stay on top. Scarlett had certain "GSL mojo", but outside of that and then PyeongChang she hasn't shown much in the recent past. Serral has actually been continuously improving during the last year after finishing high school and has the potential to further improve, with more practice in Korea for example. And yet, Scarlett won a global non-regionlocked event, something that Serral has NOT managed to do in his career. Results speak louder than anything else. As good as Serral is right now, he hasn't proven anything other than he's the best foreign player right now, but many people have held that title over the years and yet the gap in skill between them and the top Koreans hasn't gone anywhere. Until Serral wins a global in a non-regionlocked event. He can't climb any higher than "best foreigner." That's just all there is to it. Calling IEM Pyeongchang a "global non-regionlocked event" comes with a huge asterisk, since only 2 Koreans could actually participate and Scarlett only played one of them. Add the fact that they were Zest and sOs, two Protoss players in a ZvP meta that Blizzard nerfed soon afterwards, then add the fact that Scarlett relied heavily on cheese to win, and you get a trophy built on ZvZ + ZvP cheese acknowledged by Blizzard as imbalanced. A win is a win, of course. That being said, Serral has impressed me considerably more than Scarlett in 2018. If we're talking about gaps and closing them, defeating Koreans in macro games as Serral did is a thousand times more significant than cheesing them out as Scarlett did. Of course IEM Pyeongchang wasn't anything like the level of IEM Katowice or even Blizzcon, but the point still stands. I understand Serral is riding an enormous wave of hype and momentum right now because of what he's doing on ladder right now and how good he looked at Katowice (hell I was cheering for him too) but so far he hasn't shown anything that would suggest his level is higher than Scarlett's at her peak or even Neeb who we all just seemed to forget about, when they were beating Koreans. The gap is still there, these top foreigners might get hot or get some bracket luck and get far in a tournament and people get excited, but there's still nothing resembling at the top level the level of consistency Stephano had against the level of "RELATIVE" competition he was consistently against. So, while I'm as excited to see what Serral can do as the next guy we need to not start drawing these dumb conclusions before the fact.
Me saying the gap is closed? Me drawing dumb conclusions before the fact? You sure you have the right guy?
I'm the guy who wrote this about the gap, in case you missed it when I originally posted:
KeSPA is gone and the Korean teams (except JAGW) with it, but time and time again we've seen that foreigners simply cannot compete with the top Koreans in any consistent fashion. The Korean veterans, born and raised under KeSPA's banner, still retain enough of their old skill to smash foreign hopes time and time again.
What happens when the top 4 of every Circuit tournament are Korean? How long will the foreign scene stay quiet about the parade of Korean champions? It wouldn't even take half the number of Koreans as there are foreigners in Korea to upend the foreign scene. If Stats, Maru, Rogue, and Dark attend every event, who do you think will be in the semifinals? Substitute whatever top 4 Koreans you like. (Context here was removing region-lock)
As it stands, the foreigners have their own pond and their own big fish, but they've never thrived in the ocean. Neeb gave the foreigners hope in 2016 before falling short a year later. Scarlett gave them hope in GSL 2017 before dying in the Ro32. Major gave them hope at Blizzcon before dropping off the map. Scarlett came back to give them an insane high before reality (and dropperlord nerfs) came crashing down.
Upsets happen, as they always have. How are the upsets of today any different from when Life lost to Sjow, or Inno to Naniwa? Do you remember the GSL World Championship in 2011? The Koreans scraped their way to a 8-7 victory off JulyZerg's miracle run and foreigners exulted that the gap was closed. Then the next seven years of SC2 happened.
The mid-tier players of Korea are either dead or dying. Domestic interest in Korean SC2 is a fading memory. The foreign scene as a whole is closer to the asthmatic shell of the Korean scene than it ever has been. But the last few Koreans that bestrode the world in their prime are still standing, and no foreigner has ever matched them.
Yes, SC2 in Korea is a shadow of its former glory. Yes, the Korean scene is living on borrowed time, with the doomsday clock of military service hanging over everyone's heads. But until the last generation of Korean champions finally steps down, their skill will keep the gap in existence, and region-lock in place.
(Sorry for the bombast, I'm feeling melodramatic today)
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Sorry you're right, I was directing the whole "drawing conclusions thing" at the other people in this thread. You just brought up a valid point that Pyeongchang needed an asterisk, which it does.
I just lumped you in with the Serral fans my posts are arguing with, my fault. Sorry about that.
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On April 05 2018 14:34 Vindicare605 wrote: Sorry you're right, I was directing the whole "drawing conclusions thing" at the other people in this thread. You just brought up a valid point that Pyeongchang needed an asterisk, which it does.
I just lumped you in with the Serral fans my posts are arguing with, my fault. Sorry about that.
No problem, I've been there before too.
Drawing premature conclusions and getting swept up in hype is one of the most annoying things about the forums, imo, so I sympathize with your stance here. It seems to happen every time someone (especially foreigners) has any kind of upset, and annoys me to no end because people never seem to learn from the inevitable fall from grace. As soon as the next player of the week does something remotely unexpected, people jump on that hype bandwagon too.
Remember this article? http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/531006-veni-vidi-vici-the-international-era-part-1
Cheesing a better player does not overturn consistent inferiority. Winning something online does not mean offline success. Lifting a trophy does not make you the greatest of all time. Enthusiasm is not a substitute for sanity.
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On April 05 2018 00:09 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2018 23:03 Soularion wrote:On April 04 2018 20:29 Poopi wrote:On April 04 2018 19:53 Soularion wrote:On April 04 2018 19:28 ZigguratOfUr wrote: The two notable players not mentioned here are ByuN and herO. I rather think that ByuN probably deserves to sneak into the top 16. As for herO his spot in KeSPA jail is well merited after losing to eMotion, but there's some weird stuff going on with his form so who the hell knows. ByuN has done nothing all year aside from beat Impact a couple times at Super Tournament quals. 0-4 to Trap, 0-2 to Classic, 0-2 to Solar. Completely unnoteworthy player. herO similarly hasn't done much to earn faith, and his complete collapse in GSL quals (not just losing to eMotion, but LosirA and Dear too - the fuck, herO?) kinda booted him off the list. He qualified for both GSL and GSL ST, and trashed herO / Stats / Creator. That's better than Impact. So you're basically counting an online series against Stats and arguably herO, and then 2-1 wins vs Hurricane and Impact as him being top 16. Meanwhile Impact got out of IEM Katowice groups, beat Stats online *twice*, beat Dear and Rogue online, and recently beat Solar as well. His online repertoire is better, and while ByuN got the better of him at GSL ST quals, Impact showed up to IEM Katowice and proved he could play at a fairly high level when the stakes are high. It's very simple, let's do the math. In 2018 : Impact went from 2440 aligulac rating to 2442, he gained 2 points. ByuN went from 2564 aligulac rating to 2588, he gained 24 points. Not only did ByuN gain more points in 2018 than Impact, he was at an higher rating, so had he performed the same (same win/loss against the same players) as Impact, he would have gained less points than him (probably lost points).
Oh aligulac points a system which means pretty much nothing (like the power ranking but that has a nice read to it and it is made by people who can consider more than numbers).
I like the power ranks by the way it adds a little bit of story to the scene.
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On April 05 2018 17:10 Corvuuss wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2018 00:09 Poopi wrote:On April 04 2018 23:03 Soularion wrote:On April 04 2018 20:29 Poopi wrote:On April 04 2018 19:53 Soularion wrote:On April 04 2018 19:28 ZigguratOfUr wrote: The two notable players not mentioned here are ByuN and herO. I rather think that ByuN probably deserves to sneak into the top 16. As for herO his spot in KeSPA jail is well merited after losing to eMotion, but there's some weird stuff going on with his form so who the hell knows. ByuN has done nothing all year aside from beat Impact a couple times at Super Tournament quals. 0-4 to Trap, 0-2 to Classic, 0-2 to Solar. Completely unnoteworthy player. herO similarly hasn't done much to earn faith, and his complete collapse in GSL quals (not just losing to eMotion, but LosirA and Dear too - the fuck, herO?) kinda booted him off the list. He qualified for both GSL and GSL ST, and trashed herO / Stats / Creator. That's better than Impact. So you're basically counting an online series against Stats and arguably herO, and then 2-1 wins vs Hurricane and Impact as him being top 16. Meanwhile Impact got out of IEM Katowice groups, beat Stats online *twice*, beat Dear and Rogue online, and recently beat Solar as well. His online repertoire is better, and while ByuN got the better of him at GSL ST quals, Impact showed up to IEM Katowice and proved he could play at a fairly high level when the stakes are high. It's very simple, let's do the math. In 2018 : Impact went from 2440 aligulac rating to 2442, he gained 2 points. ByuN went from 2564 aligulac rating to 2588, he gained 24 points. Not only did ByuN gain more points in 2018 than Impact, he was at an higher rating, so had he performed the same (same win/loss against the same players) as Impact, he would have gained less points than him (probably lost points). Oh aligulac points a system which means pretty much nothing (like the power ranking but that has a nice read to it and it is made by people who can consider more than numbers). I like the power ranks by the way it adds a little bit of story to the scene.
Aligulac is a much better ranking of the players than any Power Ranking since Power Rankings are completly subjective while Aligulac is based on well defined math that has been used to rank players in many sports for a very long time.
The only downside is that Koreans and Foreigners do not play each other as often as one would prefer.
At least you can look at Koreans and Foreigners seperatly and use Aligulac to rank them. (Who is the 3rd best Korean, who is the 3rd best Foreigner etc).
So basically, Aligulac, when used correctly, is superior to any subjective ranking.
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