The May Power Rank comes in a few days early, squeezing in before the start of the new Code S Season. Two GSL trophies have been handed out since the previous power rank, which makes picking #1 and #2 a cinch. As for the rest of the rankings? Well, that's a good deal more complicated after an unusual Super Tournament...
The Power Rank is an aggregate, average ranking of separate lists submitted by individual members of the TeamLiquid.net writing staff.
Criteria considered include, but are not limited to: Tournament placements, overall record, quality of opponents faced, and quality of play.
Recent results are weighted more heavily, but players receive benefit of the doubt for consistent performance over time.
Close, But No Cigar
Reynor and Neeb: The WCS Winter champions just barely missed out on making the power rank over players who didn't do much winning in the past month. While that's partially due to the Korean elitism that's always pervaded this entire website the Power Rank, the half-value perception of the Winter season certainly didn't help either of their cases.
While INnoVation’s bank account soared upwards after his WESG championship, his standing in the Power Rank has tanked severely due to his shoddy results ever since. On the positive side of things, Inno did manage to qualify for the next season of GSL Code S, albeit in a very shaky manner through the lower bracket of his group (he defeated MC, a recently returned Armani, and Creator).
About everything else has gone wrong for INnoVation. He failed to qualify for the Super Tournament after being eliminated by sOs and PartinG in the qualifiers, both of whom made a resurgence at the main event. Combined with his previous RO16 elimination from Code S, the lack of GSL results in 2019 so far has been a huge blow to INnoVation's reputation, despite his big WESG payday.
We’re trusting in our major tournament champions for a little while longer as soO remains in the Power Rank alongside INnoVation. However, the former teammates are on steady course to leave the top ten by the time the June edition of the Power Rank rolls around.
For soO, the only bright points since winning IEM Katowice have been his qualification for the upcoming season of GSL Code S (which was even shakier than INnoVation’s lackluster run) and his qualification for the previous GSL Super Tournament. Although soO fell immediately to Classic in the Super Tournament, at least losing to the eventual tournament champion was the 'best' way to suffer first round elimination.
With INnoVation and soO dropping rapidly down the ranks, Dear finds himself somehow moving up a single spot. April was very 'meh' for the veteran Protoss. His prior loss to Maru in Code S may have killed his PvT hot-streak, but Dear quickly got another streak going in the GSL Code S and Super Tournament qualifiers where he defeated FanTaSy, KeeN, and aLive on his way to dual qualification.
However, he was quickly eliminated from the Super Tournament in a 1-3 loss to Zest, and he put in some mixed performances as Newbee's ace player in the two Chinese team tournaments. Notably, he showed weakness in PvP, getting sniped by Chinese Protoss Sakura/TATP while also dropping games to both Zest and herO. If Dear continues to to be so unbalanced in his match-ups, then he might be doomed to only advance as far as his PvT takes him.
Trap's shocking semifinal run in the first season of the GSL Code S was a much needed breath of fresh air for both the JAGW player and the Code S title picture, but he was unable to follow it with an appearance in the Super Tournament. It felt like a missed opportunity—the level of play in some of the matches seemed like that of the lower rounds of Code S, and a lucky bracket could have seen Trap make a deep run.
Still, Trap was impressive in online tournaments, placing first in two OlimoLeague Weeklies over the likes of TY, Zest, herO, Leenock and a handful of other GSL regulars. While online tournaments aren't as meaningful as the offline majors, at least Trap used online competition to earn some benefit of the doubt, unlike many other players where we have to go largely on reputation and faith.
Four months into 2019, Serral has already suffered three major tournament losses that were decided by a single game—2-3 to soO at IEM Katowice (RO8), 3-4 to INnoVation at WESG (finals), and in April, 3-4 to Reynor at WCS Winter Europe (finals). While some might consider this to be a mere unlucky streak, it's a bit concerning when you consider how clutch Serral was in 2018.
Serral enjoyed plenty of stomps in 2018, but it was also a year where he came from 2-3 behind against Stats to win GSL vs. The World, and a year where he won WCS Montreal by taking three full-set ZvZ's series in a row. Reynor actually had Serral dead to rights in the WCS Montreal finals, but Serral ended up stealing the trophy after winning the single most ridiculous comeback game in WCS Circuit history in game six. While the overall quality of Serral's play in 2019 suggests he hasn't declined much, one has to wonder if he's lost an edge—be it intimidation, series planning, or some other quality—that allowed him to force victories in 2018.
GuMiho continues his 2019 Power Rank roller-coaster ride, soaring all the way to #5 after being unranked in the previous month. In March, GuMiho looked outmatched against the GSL's elite players when he went 0-4 against TY and soO in his Code S RO16 group. In April, he looked like a member of the elite himself as he meched down Dark and Stats on his way to the Super Tournament finals.
The Super Tournament final against Classic was a neat encapsulation of the best and worst of GuMiho—his build orders and harassment put him in position to take an early series lead, but instead he blew two enormous in-game leads when Classic crushed him in key battles.
GuMiho will probably stick around the PR for at least another month this time around, as he typically manages to get through to the Code S RO16. But would we be shocked if he dropped out after losing in his RO32 group? Not particularly—that would just be life as usual for one of StarCraft II's most chaotic and entertaining players.
Stats prompted an interesting dilemma for TLnet’s writing staff last month. How were we weigh Stats complete inactivity (literally) against everyone else’s underwhelming results?
After a month's break from Korean StarCraft (going 0-2 in the Round of 32 of Code S will do these things), Stats played what very well could have been the best series of the Super Tournament against Maru in the tournament’s opening tilt. Game four in particular is being lauded for its frenetic pace and back and forth action, but the entire affair served to remind us of just how good Stats is. He’s remains one of, if not the best, Protoss in the world, though being swept by GuMiho in the very next match does tarnish that claim a bit.
Regardless of how his Super Tournament came to an end, Stats has once more proven he belongs among the elite. He may have had a rare failure in last season’s Code S, but he’s one of two Koreans who’ve been able to routinely defeat Maru (the other being sOs) and one of the few who has a chance to dethrone the four time champion in this next season.
Last month, we saw Dark at his best, being the only Korean player with the consistency to earn a high placement at all three majors (Code S, WESG, IEM). This month, we saw Dark at his worst.
Dark's Code S semifinal loss summed up why we call him a title contender and choker at the same time. He looked to be the superior player against Classic. His multitasking had Classic grasping at thin air. His macro made Classic leery of playing the long game. His micro was too much for Classic’s old-hands. But somehow, Dark was still outwitted just enough times by proxies and timings to lose in a seven game series.
The Super Tournament offered Dark a chance to make up a chance for his latest failure, but he only ended up suffering an even more embarrassing defeat. Dark’s RO16 series against GuMiho was brutally long, with players each winning a pair of drawn out macro games. GuMiho seemed to have all but gifted Dark a path to the quarterfinals after inexplicably giving up his third Command Center during a Ravager-Ling all-in, but Dark gifted the series right back by playing his lead far too passively.
Dark and his fans must once again look at the upcoming season of Code S with both hope and dread, and wonder what another playoff loss would mean for his legacy.
Classic’s year started out on a grim note, with the specter of military service manifesting quite viscerally by denying his participation at IEM Katowice. However, the veteran Protoss responded to the setback by setting his laser-like focus on winning glory in Korea.
His first major obstacle of the month was his old nemesis Dark in the Code S semifinals. Classic's insolent ex-teammate had gotten the better of him in many past meetings, but Classic managed to overcome Dark with a combination of great preparation and Dark’s misplaced faith in neural parasite. Classic was just as diligent in preparing against his finals opponent Maru, even bringing out a proxy tempest in his long list of cunning builds. Despite Classic’s best efforts, Maru was not as easily duped as Classic's previous opponents, and held out to take a 4-2 victory.
While Maru bowed out of the Super Tournament early in his 'traditional' post-Code S malaise, Classic seemed even more intent on winning a title after his Code S finals loss. He vanquished soO and sOs with ease, and then took out Patience 3-2 in the semifinals. In the finals, Classic proved that it was Maru—not Terran—that was his problem, crushing GuMiho 4-1 to win the championship.
While this will probably be Classic’s last pro gaming year, he's given us reason to believe that Super Tournament 1 won't be the grand finale.
To say that we were 'worried' about Maru at the start of the year would be an understatement. A group stage exit at IEM Katowice, 2nd place advancement in the Code S Ro16, and 3rd place WESG: not the kind of results we expected from last year’s triple Code S champion.
Yet, in Korea's most prestigious competition, Maru returned to magnificent form. A Code S semifinal upset to Trap seemed to be on the cards after Maru's prior struggles (especially given the nature of team kills), but he made the match seem like a formality by speed-running Trap in around forty minutes on his way to the finals.
The final was a much closer affair—while Maru smashed Classic with strong two-base timings, Classic responded by hitting Maru with devastating cheeses. But with the series tied up 2-2 Maru, closed the series out with two decisive victories. On King's Cove, Maru managed to both turtle and stay active, slowly building his advantage until he could finish Classic off with Battlecruisers. Then, on the deciding map of Year Zero, Maru deflected a desperate DT rush to clinch his fourth consecutive Code S title.
Despite an early elimination at the hands of Stats in the GSL Super Tournament a few days later, there Maru managed to look frightening even in his defeat. His attempts to mech vs Protoss seemed like more than a curiosity, with his match on Year Zero a sure candidate for best game of the year.
With such strong performances, a match-up innovation, and historic Code S achievement, Maru has vindicated himself once more as the best in the world.
I think it would've been legit to rank Classic as #1 as he is the only one who achieved great results in all of his tournaments this year so far. But think Maru is ok, too.
This ranking actually does look better to me than some of the other ones lately. Even if I do think Serral will smash every other player on it the next time they meet.
Also dear and trap don't really sit well with me on that ranking... don't see why Reynor wouldn't be in there when they are.
On April 28 2019 07:00 MyiPtitDrogo wrote: Just make this power ranking a korean only thing and save me the trouble of triggering the fuck out of me by ranking serral so low everytime
What has he done lately to be ranked higher than the 5 Koreans above him?
The problem with ranking Serral any higher is, he simply does not play enough matches against quality opponents (i am not talking about only Koreans) to prove that he should be any higher. We all know that he Is the best player in EU/NA by a mile, and also the one of the best player in the world, but this year already proved he can bleed. It would have been one thing, to loose against Maru, but in the last ~6 months, he has losses against all races, and players with mediocre results at the times they played (Neeb, Heromarine, Innovation, Reynor, soO). So maybe those were right all along, who said from the very beggining that, we just cannot place him any higher in those months when he barely plays against any high quality player. It is one thing to do it a few times a year (actually there is only 2 tournaments for him to show his skill, Katowice and Blizzcon), and it is another thing to beat them (Koreans) week in week out. As soO/Inno proved us in Korea,not just the top players beat Serral, the GSL round 16 tear can do it also. So yes, maybe Serral should be higher than Gumiho, who just bombed out from the group of Death in GSL r16, and act like Serral's loss to Heromarine does not count, or maybe he shouldn't.
So let me get this straight. Neeb beat scarlett (Code S caliber player) to win a premier tournament and Reynor beat Serral in the finals of a premier tournament and Serral is ahead of them both?
On April 28 2019 07:00 MyiPtitDrogo wrote: Just make this power ranking a korean only thing and save me the trouble of triggering the fuck out of me by ranking serral so low everytime
What has he done lately to be ranked higher than the 5 Koreans above him?
The counterargument would be that Serral has barely played since WESG and IEM (which were not the dominating performance that some people expected from Serral, but still quite good), so is losing a close series to Reynor really worth dropping three spots?
Personally I don't have an issue with players speculatively dropping down the list when they have very little activity to go upon though.
On April 28 2019 07:58 BerserkSword wrote: So let me get this straight. Neeb beat scarlett (Code S caliber player) to win a premier tournament and Reynor beat Serral in the finals of a premier tournament and Serral is ahead of them both?
just sayin
Reynor hedging Serral out by one map in WCS Winter doesn't magically compensate for a much worse result in every other meaningful tournament.
On April 28 2019 07:00 MyiPtitDrogo wrote: Just make this power ranking a korean only thing and save me the trouble of triggering the fuck out of me by ranking serral so low everytime
What has he done lately to be ranked higher than the 5 Koreans above him?
The counterargument would be that Serral has barely played since WESG and IEM (which were not the dominating performance that some people expected from Serral, but still quite good), so is losing a close series to Reynor really worth dropping three spots?
Personally I don't have an issue with players speculatively dropping down the list when they have very little activity to go upon though.
On April 28 2019 07:58 BerserkSword wrote: So let me get this straight. Neeb beat scarlett (Code S caliber player) to win a premier tournament and Reynor beat Serral in the finals of a premier tournament and Serral is ahead of them both?
just sayin
Reynor hedging Serral out by one map in WCS Winter doesn't magically compensate for a much worse result in every other meaningful tournament.
I understand, but this is a monthly power ranking
and serral had an abysmal month.
It's the same reason gumiho is "new" for this month. It's because he had a great month. Otherwise, someone like Neeb has out performed gumiho in every premier tournament they've both been in recently and yet Neeb is still not top 10. just seems inconsistent to me
that said, i know power rankings are highly subjective anyway especially when time frame comes into the picture
On April 28 2019 07:00 MyiPtitDrogo wrote: Just make this power ranking a korean only thing and save me the trouble of triggering the fuck out of me by ranking serral so low everytime
What has he done lately to be ranked higher than the 5 Koreans above him?
The counterargument would be that Serral has barely played since WESG and IEM (which were not the dominating performance that some people expected from Serral, but still quite good), so is losing a close series to Reynor really worth dropping three spots?
Personally I don't have an issue with players speculatively dropping down the list when they have very little activity to go upon though.
On April 28 2019 07:58 BerserkSword wrote: So let me get this straight. Neeb beat scarlett (Code S caliber player) to win a premier tournament and Reynor beat Serral in the finals of a premier tournament and Serral is ahead of them both?
just sayin
Reynor hedging Serral out by one map in WCS Winter doesn't magically compensate for a much worse result in every other meaningful tournament.
I understand, but this is a monthly power ranking
and serral had an abysmal month.
It's the same reason gumiho is "new" for this month. It's because he had a great month. Otherwise, someone like Neeb has out performed gumiho in every premier tournament they've both been in recently and yet Neeb is still not top 10. just seems inconsistent to me
that said, i know power rankings are highly subjective anyway especially when time frame comes into the picture
Sure, but the power rank doesn't only consider the results of the last month. GuMiho got his rank because a super-tournament 2nd place finish is more impressive than beating Scarlett in a bo7 match which happens to be called WCS Winter Americas (and that's not say I actually agree with the writers' assessment of GuMiho's results).
On April 28 2019 08:26 IshinShishi wrote: Dear being this high again and again is non-sensical and meme worthy, Id put so many players above dear it isnt funny, Reynor being one of them.
Dear got top 8 at IEM and GSL and qualified for super tournament. I think that beats not making groups at IEM, losing in ro16 of WESG, and winning WCS winter.
On April 28 2019 07:00 MyiPtitDrogo wrote: Just make this power ranking a korean only thing and save me the trouble of triggering the fuck out of me by ranking serral so low everytime
What has he done lately to be ranked higher than the 5 Koreans above him?
The counterargument would be that Serral has barely played since WESG and IEM (which were not the dominating performance that some people expected from Serral, but still quite good), so is losing a close series to Reynor really worth dropping three spots?
Personally I don't have an issue with players speculatively dropping down the list when they have very little activity to go upon though.
On April 28 2019 07:58 BerserkSword wrote: So let me get this straight. Neeb beat scarlett (Code S caliber player) to win a premier tournament and Reynor beat Serral in the finals of a premier tournament and Serral is ahead of them both?
just sayin
Reynor hedging Serral out by one map in WCS Winter doesn't magically compensate for a much worse result in every other meaningful tournament.
I understand, but this is a monthly power ranking
and serral had an abysmal month.
It's the same reason gumiho is "new" for this month. It's because he had a great month. Otherwise, someone like Neeb has out performed gumiho in every premier tournament they've both been in recently and yet Neeb is still not top 10. just seems inconsistent to me
that said, i know power rankings are highly subjective anyway especially when time frame comes into the picture
Sure, but the power rank doesn't only consider the results of the last month. GuMiho got his rank because a super-tournament 2nd place finish is more impressive than beating Scarlett in a bo7 match which happens to be called WCS Winter Americas (and that's not say I actually agree with the writers' assessment of GuMiho's results).
I am not directly contesting Gumiho's placement with regards to Neeb
I am contesting Serral's placement with regards to Neeb and Reynor considering the fact that april results apparently weigh so heavily (gumio getting into top 10 on the back of his april performance alone)
if the argument is that Serral maintained his top 10 because of prior results, despite having an atrocious April, while Neeb and Reynor are still stuck above 10, then how is it that Gumiho's prior results are ignored and he is catapulted to top 5 just because he got second place at a recent super tournament.
I'm just saying it's inconsistent imo. Serral's april is nowhere near top 10, but he got in by virtue of his older results. Gumiho had a top 10 april imo, but his older results are relatively poor. and yet these players are 1 spot apart. how is this possible especially when a player like neeb had a better april than serral and better results before april than gumiho, and he is still stuck outside of top 10.
On April 28 2019 07:00 MyiPtitDrogo wrote: Just make this power ranking a korean only thing and save me the trouble of triggering the fuck out of me by ranking serral so low everytime
What has he done lately to be ranked higher than the 5 Koreans above him?
The counterargument would be that Serral has barely played since WESG and IEM (which were not the dominating performance that some people expected from Serral, but still quite good), so is losing a close series to Reynor really worth dropping three spots?
Personally I don't have an issue with players speculatively dropping down the list when they have very little activity to go upon though.
On April 28 2019 07:58 BerserkSword wrote: So let me get this straight. Neeb beat scarlett (Code S caliber player) to win a premier tournament and Reynor beat Serral in the finals of a premier tournament and Serral is ahead of them both?
just sayin
Reynor hedging Serral out by one map in WCS Winter doesn't magically compensate for a much worse result in every other meaningful tournament.
I understand, but this is a monthly power ranking
and serral had an abysmal month.
It's the same reason gumiho is "new" for this month. It's because he had a great month. Otherwise, someone like Neeb has out performed gumiho in every premier tournament they've both been in recently and yet Neeb is still not top 10. just seems inconsistent to me
that said, i know power rankings are highly subjective anyway especially when time frame comes into the picture
Sure, but the power rank doesn't only consider the results of the last month. GuMiho got his rank because a super-tournament 2nd place finish is more impressive than beating Scarlett in a bo7 match which happens to be called WCS Winter Americas (and that's not say I actually agree with the writers' assessment of GuMiho's results).
I am not directly contesting Gumiho's placement with regards to Neeb
I am contesting Serral's placement with regards to Neeb and Reynor considering the fact that april results apparently weigh so heavily (gumio getting into top 10 on the back of his april performance alone)
if the argument is that Serral maintained his top 10 because of prior results, despite having an atrocious April, while Neeb and Reynor are still stuck above 10, then how is it that Gumiho's prior results are ignored and he is catapulted to top 5 just because he got second place at a recent super tournament.
I'm just saying it's inconsistent imo. Serral's april is nowhere near top 10, but he got in by virtue of his older results. Gumiho had a top 10 april imo, but his older results are relatively poor. and yet these players are 1 spot apart. how is this possible especially when a player like neeb had a better april than serral and better results before april than gumiho, and he is still stuck outside of top 10.
Because his 2019 as a whole has been worse than both GuMiho and Serral I assume.
On April 28 2019 06:51 fronkschnonk wrote: I think it would've been legit to rank Classic as #1 as he is the only one who achieved great results in all of his tournaments this year so far. But think Maru is ok, too.
I agree, Classic would deserve #1 but it is acceptable for Maru to occupy the first spot. Serral dropped too many positions, especially when compared to Dark losing two and Stats remaining stationary; I'm not sold on Dear advancing, as well. A decent Power Ranking, overall.
PR makes a good point about Serral riding on the success in ZvZs. They are legitimate wins and he put on a fantastic show, but the resume always looks weaker if you dont play non-mirror matchups.
On April 28 2019 07:00 MyiPtitDrogo wrote: Just make this power ranking a korean only thing and save me the trouble of triggering the fuck out of me by ranking serral so low everytime
What has he done lately to be ranked higher than the 5 Koreans above him?
The counterargument would be that Serral has barely played since WESG and IEM (which were not the dominating performance that some people expected from Serral, but still quite good), so is losing a close series to Reynor really worth dropping three spots?
Personally I don't have an issue with players speculatively dropping down the list when they have very little activity to go upon though.
On April 28 2019 07:58 BerserkSword wrote: So let me get this straight. Neeb beat scarlett (Code S caliber player) to win a premier tournament and Reynor beat Serral in the finals of a premier tournament and Serral is ahead of them both?
just sayin
Reynor hedging Serral out by one map in WCS Winter doesn't magically compensate for a much worse result in every other meaningful tournament.
I understand, but this is a monthly power ranking
and serral had an abysmal month.
It's the same reason gumiho is "new" for this month. It's because he had a great month. Otherwise, someone like Neeb has out performed gumiho in every premier tournament they've both been in recently and yet Neeb is still not top 10. just seems inconsistent to me
that said, i know power rankings are highly subjective anyway especially when time frame comes into the picture
Sure, but the power rank doesn't only consider the results of the last month. GuMiho got his rank because a super-tournament 2nd place finish is more impressive than beating Scarlett in a bo7 match which happens to be called WCS Winter Americas (and that's not say I actually agree with the writers' assessment of GuMiho's results).
I am not directly contesting Gumiho's placement with regards to Neeb
I am contesting Serral's placement with regards to Neeb and Reynor considering the fact that april results apparently weigh so heavily (gumio getting into top 10 on the back of his april performance alone)
if the argument is that Serral maintained his top 10 because of prior results, despite having an atrocious April, while Neeb and Reynor are still stuck above 10, then how is it that Gumiho's prior results are ignored and he is catapulted to top 5 just because he got second place at a recent super tournament.
I'm just saying it's inconsistent imo. Serral's april is nowhere near top 10, but he got in by virtue of his older results. Gumiho had a top 10 april imo, but his older results are relatively poor. and yet these players are 1 spot apart. how is this possible especially when a player like neeb had a better april than serral and better results before april than gumiho, and he is still stuck outside of top 10.
Because his 2019 as a whole has been worse than both GuMiho and Serral I assume.
Neeb did better in 2019 than gumiho
finals of ST is more impressive than winning WCS, but otherwise neeb had the superior 2019
Reynor has only had mid tier results this year with the single exception of WCS Winter. People are giving him way too much credit for beating Serral when he has lost so many other matches vs mid tier players.
Reynor has lost to Losira, Alive, Creator, Gumiho, PtitDrogo, Neeb(multiple times), Showtime, Marinelord and Heromarine this year and that is just major events or qualifiers for those major events. Reynor has shown that he can beat almost anyone but he can also lose to players regularly that most of the people on this power rank almost never lose to.
serral could retire today and in the power ranking of september 2021 he'd somehow come in at #8. then the hardcore fanboys would ask how come he's rated so low
On April 28 2019 07:00 MyiPtitDrogo wrote: Just make this power ranking a korean only thing and save me the trouble of triggering the fuck out of me by ranking serral so low everytime
What has he done lately to be ranked higher than the 5 Koreans above him?
Yea if anyone got robbed on these rankings that wasn't Korean it was Reynor not Serral.
Serral has lost to a couple of Code S Ro16 players in Global tournaments and to a young upstart in WCS Europe.
Neither of those are anywhere near as impressive as any of the things he did last year. If anything, his ranking right now is due to past merits rather than current form.
On April 28 2019 07:58 BerserkSword wrote: So let me get this straight. Neeb beat scarlett (Code S caliber player) to win a premier tournament and Reynor beat Serral in the finals of a premier tournament and Serral is ahead of them both?
just sayin
Mental excercise: Put these 10 players + Reynor and Neeb in a 12-man tournament. Who do you think the betting sites would give the lowest odds to win it all?
On April 28 2019 07:58 BerserkSword wrote: So let me get this straight. Neeb beat scarlett (Code S caliber player) to win a premier tournament and Reynor beat Serral in the finals of a premier tournament and Serral is ahead of them both?
just sayin
Mental excercise: Put these 10 players + Reynor and Neeb in a 12-man tournament. Who do you think the betting sites would give the lowest odds to win it all?
i dont really know how betting sites choose, but i'd choose serral tbh
serral has been pretty weak lately
in 2019 he's 1-5 against everyone on the list that he's played
lost to neeb lost to reynor lost twice to innovation lost to soo
Thanks to the writers for providing this new power rank, it's always fun to read some of the more opinionated responses to those. I have some thoughts on some of the rankings I disagree with.
INnoVation: 10 is too low, I have him at 7. Yes he's had a shaky month and failing to qualify for any tournament is unworthy of him, but look at the context of his losses. You rightfully mention Dear's weakness in PvP yet Dear got a generous rank 8. Inno failed to qualify because he lost to sOs and Parting, both protoss, both finished top 4 in the tournament. You then mention his loss in code S ro16, but you fail to mention that he was in a group with 3 protoss, including Classic and Trap, rank 2 and 7 respectively. Balance whine aside, the pattern is clear, Inno only lost TvP, and always to very strong protoss. Hence why I think 10 is a harsh rank for him.
Serral: After winning Blizzcon 2018, Serral had a strong case for best player in the world. After 4 months of 2019 gone by, it's clear that he's not in the discussion anymore. Should he be out of the top 5? I'd argue no. I have him at 4. Dark still at 3 after a ro16 super tournament exit is puzzling to me. I'd argue that Serral is still the best zerg in the world and Dark has no business being in the top 3 after choking his 2 most recent tournament exits.
For the rest, I agree with Maru and Classic at 1 and 2 respectively, though I wouldn't be shocked to see Classic at the first spot. Stats is still a big question mark but 4 is fair after his fantastic series against Maru. Gumiho at 5 might be generous, but he had such a fantastic run to the finals that I won't argue against it.
On April 28 2019 16:09 fastr wrote: Thanks to the writers for providing this new power rank, it's always fun to read some of the more opinionated responses to those. I have some thoughts on some of the rankings I disagree with.
INnoVation: 10 is too low, I have him at 7. Yes he's had a shaky month and failing to qualify for any tournament is unworthy of him, but look at the context of his losses. You rightfully mention Dear's weakness in PvP yet Dear got a generous rank 8. Inno failed to qualify because he lost to sOs and Parting, both protoss, both finished top 4 in the tournament. You then mention his loss in code S ro16, but you fail to mention that he was in a group with 3 protoss, including Classic and Trap, rank 2 and 7 respectively. Balance whine aside, the pattern is clear, Inno only lost TvP, and always to very strong protoss. Hence why I think 10 is a harsh rank for him.
Serral: After winning Blizzcon 2018, Serral had a strong case for best player in the world. After 4 months of 2019 gone by, it's clear that he's not in the discussion anymore. Should he be out of the top 5? I'd argue no. I have him at 4. Dark still at 3 after a ro16 super tournament exit is puzzling to me. I'd argue that Serral is still the best zerg in the world and Dark has no business being in the top 3 after choking his 2 most recent tournament exits.
For the rest, I agree with Maru and Classic at 1 and 2 respectively, though I wouldn't be shocked to see Classic at the first spot. Stats is still a big question mark but 4 is fair after his fantastic series against Maru. Gumiho at 5 might be generous, but he had such a fantastic run to the finals that I won't argue against it.
Dark lost to Gumiho and Classic. Serral lost to Heromarine and Reynor. I'd say Serral was much more disappointing this month.
Dark and Stats are still rated so high, on the principle of benefit of the doubt. Neither winning anything anywhere. After Stats group stage failure in code S, he is 3-0d in supertournament 2nd round. His only accomplishment these past 2 months is one close win vs Maru. he's 4th based on relative strength and benefit of the doubt. Dark got 1st and now is 3rd based on overall decent performance, no titles or finals. Good thing at least Rogue isnt around based on just caster-hype and past results.
Classic should clearly be nr.1 but I wasnt surprised either that it ended up Maru
I just can't not write though. The Maru bias annoys me so much, Classic got 2nd GSL and then 1st ST in the month. How Classic isn't number 1 baffles me so... When soO and Inno faltered in the subsequent tournament to their victory they crashed down the rankings, but for Maru it is completely overlooked.
Again I think Maru is great in prep style tournaments but he also has huge advantages on his side, I don't understand why this is continually dismissed and there is so so much inconsistency about how he is ranked as number 1. It's like everyone wants him to be Flash when he clearly isn't in the same conversation as God.
As for Serral I think the ranking this month is probably fair given his poor (relative to 2018) form, but it remains criminal that he hasn't topped a PowerRank.
All other positions look reasonable, I think trap is a bit high considering he has won nothing and never really looked frightening like many other candidates. Agree Reynor should probably be on the list ahead of him given he did win something, including beating Serral (which would be considered a crowning jewel for many others on the power rank).
On April 28 2019 16:09 fastr wrote: Thanks to the writers for providing this new power rank, it's always fun to read some of the more opinionated responses to those. I have some thoughts on some of the rankings I disagree with.
INnoVation: 10 is too low, I have him at 7. Yes he's had a shaky month and failing to qualify for any tournament is unworthy of him, but look at the context of his losses. You rightfully mention Dear's weakness in PvP yet Dear got a generous rank 8. Inno failed to qualify because he lost to sOs and Parting, both protoss, both finished top 4 in the tournament. You then mention his loss in code S ro16, but you fail to mention that he was in a group with 3 protoss, including Classic and Trap, rank 2 and 7 respectively. Balance whine aside, the pattern is clear, Inno only lost TvP, and always to very strong protoss. Hence why I think 10 is a harsh rank for him.
Serral: After winning Blizzcon 2018, Serral had a strong case for best player in the world. After 4 months of 2019 gone by, it's clear that he's not in the discussion anymore. Should he be out of the top 5? I'd argue no. I have him at 4. Dark still at 3 after a ro16 super tournament exit is puzzling to me. I'd argue that Serral is still the best zerg in the world and Dark has no business being in the top 3 after choking his 2 most recent tournament exits.
For the rest, I agree with Maru and Classic at 1 and 2 respectively, though I wouldn't be shocked to see Classic at the first spot. Stats is still a big question mark but 4 is fair after his fantastic series against Maru. Gumiho at 5 might be generous, but he had such a fantastic run to the finals that I won't argue against it.
Dark lost to Gumiho and Classic. Serral lost to Heromarine and Reynor. I'd say Serral was much more disappointing this month.
Funny how that works, Maru loses to Stats in a close series. The loss doesnt hinder Maru and the match gives a struggling Stats 4th place. Both come out ahead off of it. Reynor beats Serral in close series (with impressive new builds), it means Serral is slumping hard, and it doesnt mean Reynor is top 10 now. They both come out behind off of it.
On April 28 2019 16:09 fastr wrote: Thanks to the writers for providing this new power rank, it's always fun to read some of the more opinionated responses to those. I have some thoughts on some of the rankings I disagree with.
INnoVation: 10 is too low, I have him at 7. Yes he's had a shaky month and failing to qualify for any tournament is unworthy of him, but look at the context of his losses. You rightfully mention Dear's weakness in PvP yet Dear got a generous rank 8. Inno failed to qualify because he lost to sOs and Parting, both protoss, both finished top 4 in the tournament. You then mention his loss in code S ro16, but you fail to mention that he was in a group with 3 protoss, including Classic and Trap, rank 2 and 7 respectively. Balance whine aside, the pattern is clear, Inno only lost TvP, and always to very strong protoss. Hence why I think 10 is a harsh rank for him.
Serral: After winning Blizzcon 2018, Serral had a strong case for best player in the world. After 4 months of 2019 gone by, it's clear that he's not in the discussion anymore. Should he be out of the top 5? I'd argue no. I have him at 4. Dark still at 3 after a ro16 super tournament exit is puzzling to me. I'd argue that Serral is still the best zerg in the world and Dark has no business being in the top 3 after choking his 2 most recent tournament exits.
For the rest, I agree with Maru and Classic at 1 and 2 respectively, though I wouldn't be shocked to see Classic at the first spot. Stats is still a big question mark but 4 is fair after his fantastic series against Maru. Gumiho at 5 might be generous, but he had such a fantastic run to the finals that I won't argue against it.
Dark lost to Gumiho and Classic. Serral lost to Heromarine and Reynor. I'd say Serral was much more disappointing this month.
Funny how that works, Maru loses to Stats in a close series. The loss doesnt hinder Maru and the match gives a struggling Stats 4th place. Both come out ahead off of it. Reynor beats Serral in close series (with impressive new builds), it means Serral is slumping hard, and it doesnt mean Reynor is top 10 now. They both come out behind off of it.
#TLforeignerbias
turns out Power Rank isn't based on the performance in a single tournament - what a shocker. Maybe it has to do with the fact Maru just comes fresh of a GSL victory while Serral has shown nothing really impressive so far this year and is 1-5 against the top 12 players according to this list?
On April 28 2019 16:09 fastr wrote: Thanks to the writers for providing this new power rank, it's always fun to read some of the more opinionated responses to those. I have some thoughts on some of the rankings I disagree with.
INnoVation: 10 is too low, I have him at 7. Yes he's had a shaky month and failing to qualify for any tournament is unworthy of him, but look at the context of his losses. You rightfully mention Dear's weakness in PvP yet Dear got a generous rank 8. Inno failed to qualify because he lost to sOs and Parting, both protoss, both finished top 4 in the tournament. You then mention his loss in code S ro16, but you fail to mention that he was in a group with 3 protoss, including Classic and Trap, rank 2 and 7 respectively. Balance whine aside, the pattern is clear, Inno only lost TvP, and always to very strong protoss. Hence why I think 10 is a harsh rank for him.
Serral: After winning Blizzcon 2018, Serral had a strong case for best player in the world. After 4 months of 2019 gone by, it's clear that he's not in the discussion anymore. Should he be out of the top 5? I'd argue no. I have him at 4. Dark still at 3 after a ro16 super tournament exit is puzzling to me. I'd argue that Serral is still the best zerg in the world and Dark has no business being in the top 3 after choking his 2 most recent tournament exits.
For the rest, I agree with Maru and Classic at 1 and 2 respectively, though I wouldn't be shocked to see Classic at the first spot. Stats is still a big question mark but 4 is fair after his fantastic series against Maru. Gumiho at 5 might be generous, but he had such a fantastic run to the finals that I won't argue against it.
Dark lost to Gumiho and Classic. Serral lost to Heromarine and Reynor. I'd say Serral was much more disappointing this month.
Funny how that works, Maru loses to Stats in a close series. The loss doesnt hinder Maru and the match gives a struggling Stats 4th place. Both come out ahead off of it. Reynor beats Serral in close series (with impressive new builds), it means Serral is slumping hard, and it doesnt mean Reynor is top 10 now. They both come out behind off of it.
#TLforeignerbias
turns out Power Rank isn't based on the performance in a single tournament - what a shocker.
For some people it's based on performance in no tournaments.
On April 28 2019 16:09 fastr wrote: Thanks to the writers for providing this new power rank, it's always fun to read some of the more opinionated responses to those. I have some thoughts on some of the rankings I disagree with.
INnoVation: 10 is too low, I have him at 7. Yes he's had a shaky month and failing to qualify for any tournament is unworthy of him, but look at the context of his losses. You rightfully mention Dear's weakness in PvP yet Dear got a generous rank 8. Inno failed to qualify because he lost to sOs and Parting, both protoss, both finished top 4 in the tournament. You then mention his loss in code S ro16, but you fail to mention that he was in a group with 3 protoss, including Classic and Trap, rank 2 and 7 respectively. Balance whine aside, the pattern is clear, Inno only lost TvP, and always to very strong protoss. Hence why I think 10 is a harsh rank for him.
Serral: After winning Blizzcon 2018, Serral had a strong case for best player in the world. After 4 months of 2019 gone by, it's clear that he's not in the discussion anymore. Should he be out of the top 5? I'd argue no. I have him at 4. Dark still at 3 after a ro16 super tournament exit is puzzling to me. I'd argue that Serral is still the best zerg in the world and Dark has no business being in the top 3 after choking his 2 most recent tournament exits.
For the rest, I agree with Maru and Classic at 1 and 2 respectively, though I wouldn't be shocked to see Classic at the first spot. Stats is still a big question mark but 4 is fair after his fantastic series against Maru. Gumiho at 5 might be generous, but he had such a fantastic run to the finals that I won't argue against it.
Dark lost to Gumiho and Classic. Serral lost to Heromarine and Reynor. I'd say Serral was much more disappointing this month.
Funny how that works, Maru loses to Stats in a close series. The loss doesnt hinder Maru and the match gives a struggling Stats 4th place. Both come out ahead off of it. Reynor beats Serral in close series (with impressive new builds), it means Serral is slumping hard, and it doesnt mean Reynor is top 10 now. They both come out behind off of it.
#TLforeignerbias
turns out Power Rank isn't based on the performance in a single tournament - what a shocker. Maybe it has to do with the fact Maru just comes fresh of a GSL victory while Serral has shown nothing really impressive so far this year and is 1-5 against the top 12 players according to this list?
I mean Serral does have two silver placings this year already (both 3-4 in the finals). But don't let that stop your glorious cherry picked stats for an argument. Guys literally lost like half a dozen series in 12 months.
On April 28 2019 16:09 fastr wrote: Thanks to the writers for providing this new power rank, it's always fun to read some of the more opinionated responses to those. I have some thoughts on some of the rankings I disagree with.
INnoVation: 10 is too low, I have him at 7. Yes he's had a shaky month and failing to qualify for any tournament is unworthy of him, but look at the context of his losses. You rightfully mention Dear's weakness in PvP yet Dear got a generous rank 8. Inno failed to qualify because he lost to sOs and Parting, both protoss, both finished top 4 in the tournament. You then mention his loss in code S ro16, but you fail to mention that he was in a group with 3 protoss, including Classic and Trap, rank 2 and 7 respectively. Balance whine aside, the pattern is clear, Inno only lost TvP, and always to very strong protoss. Hence why I think 10 is a harsh rank for him.
Serral: After winning Blizzcon 2018, Serral had a strong case for best player in the world. After 4 months of 2019 gone by, it's clear that he's not in the discussion anymore. Should he be out of the top 5? I'd argue no. I have him at 4. Dark still at 3 after a ro16 super tournament exit is puzzling to me. I'd argue that Serral is still the best zerg in the world and Dark has no business being in the top 3 after choking his 2 most recent tournament exits.
For the rest, I agree with Maru and Classic at 1 and 2 respectively, though I wouldn't be shocked to see Classic at the first spot. Stats is still a big question mark but 4 is fair after his fantastic series against Maru. Gumiho at 5 might be generous, but he had such a fantastic run to the finals that I won't argue against it.
Dark lost to Gumiho and Classic. Serral lost to Heromarine and Reynor. I'd say Serral was much more disappointing this month.
Funny how that works, Maru loses to Stats in a close series. The loss doesnt hinder Maru and the match gives a struggling Stats 4th place. Both come out ahead off of it. Reynor beats Serral in close series (with impressive new builds), it means Serral is slumping hard, and it doesnt mean Reynor is top 10 now. They both come out behind off of it.
#TLforeignerbias
turns out Power Rank isn't based on the performance in a single tournament - what a shocker. Maybe it has to do with the fact Maru just comes fresh of a GSL victory while Serral has shown nothing really impressive so far this year and is 1-5 against the top 12 players according to this list?
Feel free to explain how Stats has better tournament results in the past 6 months than the 6 people behind him
On April 28 2019 16:09 fastr wrote: Thanks to the writers for providing this new power rank, it's always fun to read some of the more opinionated responses to those. I have some thoughts on some of the rankings I disagree with.
INnoVation: 10 is too low, I have him at 7. Yes he's had a shaky month and failing to qualify for any tournament is unworthy of him, but look at the context of his losses. You rightfully mention Dear's weakness in PvP yet Dear got a generous rank 8. Inno failed to qualify because he lost to sOs and Parting, both protoss, both finished top 4 in the tournament. You then mention his loss in code S ro16, but you fail to mention that he was in a group with 3 protoss, including Classic and Trap, rank 2 and 7 respectively. Balance whine aside, the pattern is clear, Inno only lost TvP, and always to very strong protoss. Hence why I think 10 is a harsh rank for him.
Serral: After winning Blizzcon 2018, Serral had a strong case for best player in the world. After 4 months of 2019 gone by, it's clear that he's not in the discussion anymore. Should he be out of the top 5? I'd argue no. I have him at 4. Dark still at 3 after a ro16 super tournament exit is puzzling to me. I'd argue that Serral is still the best zerg in the world and Dark has no business being in the top 3 after choking his 2 most recent tournament exits.
For the rest, I agree with Maru and Classic at 1 and 2 respectively, though I wouldn't be shocked to see Classic at the first spot. Stats is still a big question mark but 4 is fair after his fantastic series against Maru. Gumiho at 5 might be generous, but he had such a fantastic run to the finals that I won't argue against it.
Dark lost to Gumiho and Classic. Serral lost to Heromarine and Reynor. I'd say Serral was much more disappointing this month.
Funny how that works, Maru loses to Stats in a close series. The loss doesnt hinder Maru and the match gives a struggling Stats 4th place. Both come out ahead off of it. Reynor beats Serral in close series (with impressive new builds), it means Serral is slumping hard, and it doesnt mean Reynor is top 10 now. They both come out behind off of it.
#TLforeignerbias
turns out Power Rank isn't based on the performance in a single tournament - what a shocker. Maybe it has to do with the fact Maru just comes fresh of a GSL victory while Serral has shown nothing really impressive so far this year and is 1-5 against the top 12 players according to this list?
Feel free to explain how Stats has better tournament results in the past 6 months than the 6 people behind him
On April 28 2019 16:09 fastr wrote: Thanks to the writers for providing this new power rank, it's always fun to read some of the more opinionated responses to those. I have some thoughts on some of the rankings I disagree with.
INnoVation: 10 is too low, I have him at 7. Yes he's had a shaky month and failing to qualify for any tournament is unworthy of him, but look at the context of his losses. You rightfully mention Dear's weakness in PvP yet Dear got a generous rank 8. Inno failed to qualify because he lost to sOs and Parting, both protoss, both finished top 4 in the tournament. You then mention his loss in code S ro16, but you fail to mention that he was in a group with 3 protoss, including Classic and Trap, rank 2 and 7 respectively. Balance whine aside, the pattern is clear, Inno only lost TvP, and always to very strong protoss. Hence why I think 10 is a harsh rank for him.
Serral: After winning Blizzcon 2018, Serral had a strong case for best player in the world. After 4 months of 2019 gone by, it's clear that he's not in the discussion anymore. Should he be out of the top 5? I'd argue no. I have him at 4. Dark still at 3 after a ro16 super tournament exit is puzzling to me. I'd argue that Serral is still the best zerg in the world and Dark has no business being in the top 3 after choking his 2 most recent tournament exits.
For the rest, I agree with Maru and Classic at 1 and 2 respectively, though I wouldn't be shocked to see Classic at the first spot. Stats is still a big question mark but 4 is fair after his fantastic series against Maru. Gumiho at 5 might be generous, but he had such a fantastic run to the finals that I won't argue against it.
Dark lost to Gumiho and Classic. Serral lost to Heromarine and Reynor. I'd say Serral was much more disappointing this month.
Funny how that works, Maru loses to Stats in a close series. The loss doesnt hinder Maru and the match gives a struggling Stats 4th place. Both come out ahead off of it. Reynor beats Serral in close series (with impressive new builds), it means Serral is slumping hard, and it doesnt mean Reynor is top 10 now. They both come out behind off of it.
#TLforeignerbias
turns out Power Rank isn't based on the performance in a single tournament - what a shocker. Maybe it has to do with the fact Maru just comes fresh of a GSL victory while Serral has shown nothing really impressive so far this year and is 1-5 against the top 12 players according to this list?
Feel free to explain how Stats has better tournament results in the past 6 months than the 6 people behind him
did you miss IEM Katowice?
I didnt, it was won by #9. Neither had any notable results since then. Stats went out as 4th in the first group stage in code S, and 3-0d in the 2nd round of ST.
On April 28 2019 16:09 fastr wrote: Thanks to the writers for providing this new power rank, it's always fun to read some of the more opinionated responses to those. I have some thoughts on some of the rankings I disagree with.
INnoVation: 10 is too low, I have him at 7. Yes he's had a shaky month and failing to qualify for any tournament is unworthy of him, but look at the context of his losses. You rightfully mention Dear's weakness in PvP yet Dear got a generous rank 8. Inno failed to qualify because he lost to sOs and Parting, both protoss, both finished top 4 in the tournament. You then mention his loss in code S ro16, but you fail to mention that he was in a group with 3 protoss, including Classic and Trap, rank 2 and 7 respectively. Balance whine aside, the pattern is clear, Inno only lost TvP, and always to very strong protoss. Hence why I think 10 is a harsh rank for him.
Serral: After winning Blizzcon 2018, Serral had a strong case for best player in the world. After 4 months of 2019 gone by, it's clear that he's not in the discussion anymore. Should he be out of the top 5? I'd argue no. I have him at 4. Dark still at 3 after a ro16 super tournament exit is puzzling to me. I'd argue that Serral is still the best zerg in the world and Dark has no business being in the top 3 after choking his 2 most recent tournament exits.
For the rest, I agree with Maru and Classic at 1 and 2 respectively, though I wouldn't be shocked to see Classic at the first spot. Stats is still a big question mark but 4 is fair after his fantastic series against Maru. Gumiho at 5 might be generous, but he had such a fantastic run to the finals that I won't argue against it.
Dark lost to Gumiho and Classic. Serral lost to Heromarine and Reynor. I'd say Serral was much more disappointing this month.
Funny how that works, Maru loses to Stats in a close series. The loss doesnt hinder Maru and the match gives a struggling Stats 4th place. Both come out ahead off of it. Reynor beats Serral in close series (with impressive new builds), it means Serral is slumping hard, and it doesnt mean Reynor is top 10 now. They both come out behind off of it.
#TLforeignerbias
turns out Power Rank isn't based on the performance in a single tournament - what a shocker. Maybe it has to do with the fact Maru just comes fresh of a GSL victory while Serral has shown nothing really impressive so far this year and is 1-5 against the top 12 players according to this list?
Feel free to explain how Stats has better tournament results in the past 6 months than the 6 people behind him
did you miss IEM Katowice?
I didnt, it was won by #9. Neither had any notable results since then. Stats went out as 4th in the first group stage in code S, and 3-0d in the 2nd round of ST.
and he beat the GSL winner who had previously smashed the 3 best PvTers back-to back-to back -no results.
On April 28 2019 16:09 fastr wrote: Thanks to the writers for providing this new power rank, it's always fun to read some of the more opinionated responses to those. I have some thoughts on some of the rankings I disagree with.
INnoVation: 10 is too low, I have him at 7. Yes he's had a shaky month and failing to qualify for any tournament is unworthy of him, but look at the context of his losses. You rightfully mention Dear's weakness in PvP yet Dear got a generous rank 8. Inno failed to qualify because he lost to sOs and Parting, both protoss, both finished top 4 in the tournament. You then mention his loss in code S ro16, but you fail to mention that he was in a group with 3 protoss, including Classic and Trap, rank 2 and 7 respectively. Balance whine aside, the pattern is clear, Inno only lost TvP, and always to very strong protoss. Hence why I think 10 is a harsh rank for him.
Serral: After winning Blizzcon 2018, Serral had a strong case for best player in the world. After 4 months of 2019 gone by, it's clear that he's not in the discussion anymore. Should he be out of the top 5? I'd argue no. I have him at 4. Dark still at 3 after a ro16 super tournament exit is puzzling to me. I'd argue that Serral is still the best zerg in the world and Dark has no business being in the top 3 after choking his 2 most recent tournament exits.
For the rest, I agree with Maru and Classic at 1 and 2 respectively, though I wouldn't be shocked to see Classic at the first spot. Stats is still a big question mark but 4 is fair after his fantastic series against Maru. Gumiho at 5 might be generous, but he had such a fantastic run to the finals that I won't argue against it.
Dark lost to Gumiho and Classic. Serral lost to Heromarine and Reynor. I'd say Serral was much more disappointing this month.
Funny how that works, Maru loses to Stats in a close series. The loss doesnt hinder Maru and the match gives a struggling Stats 4th place. Both come out ahead off of it. Reynor beats Serral in close series (with impressive new builds), it means Serral is slumping hard, and it doesnt mean Reynor is top 10 now. They both come out behind off of it.
#TLforeignerbias
turns out Power Rank isn't based on the performance in a single tournament - what a shocker. Maybe it has to do with the fact Maru just comes fresh of a GSL victory while Serral has shown nothing really impressive so far this year and is 1-5 against the top 12 players according to this list?
Feel free to explain how Stats has better tournament results in the past 6 months than the 6 people behind him
did you miss IEM Katowice?
I didnt, it was won by #9. Neither had any notable results since then. Stats went out as 4th in the first group stage in code S, and 3-0d in the 2nd round of ST.
and he beat the GSL winner who had previously smashed the 3 best PvTers back-to back-to back -no results.
And we're back to my first point, he got 4th based on 1 close (first round) series+ bias . But then u'll say again that it s not about a single tournament....
On April 28 2019 16:09 fastr wrote: Thanks to the writers for providing this new power rank, it's always fun to read some of the more opinionated responses to those. I have some thoughts on some of the rankings I disagree with.
INnoVation: 10 is too low, I have him at 7. Yes he's had a shaky month and failing to qualify for any tournament is unworthy of him, but look at the context of his losses. You rightfully mention Dear's weakness in PvP yet Dear got a generous rank 8. Inno failed to qualify because he lost to sOs and Parting, both protoss, both finished top 4 in the tournament. You then mention his loss in code S ro16, but you fail to mention that he was in a group with 3 protoss, including Classic and Trap, rank 2 and 7 respectively. Balance whine aside, the pattern is clear, Inno only lost TvP, and always to very strong protoss. Hence why I think 10 is a harsh rank for him.
Serral: After winning Blizzcon 2018, Serral had a strong case for best player in the world. After 4 months of 2019 gone by, it's clear that he's not in the discussion anymore. Should he be out of the top 5? I'd argue no. I have him at 4. Dark still at 3 after a ro16 super tournament exit is puzzling to me. I'd argue that Serral is still the best zerg in the world and Dark has no business being in the top 3 after choking his 2 most recent tournament exits.
For the rest, I agree with Maru and Classic at 1 and 2 respectively, though I wouldn't be shocked to see Classic at the first spot. Stats is still a big question mark but 4 is fair after his fantastic series against Maru. Gumiho at 5 might be generous, but he had such a fantastic run to the finals that I won't argue against it.
Dark lost to Gumiho and Classic. Serral lost to Heromarine and Reynor. I'd say Serral was much more disappointing this month.
Funny how that works, Maru loses to Stats in a close series. The loss doesnt hinder Maru and the match gives a struggling Stats 4th place. Both come out ahead off of it. Reynor beats Serral in close series (with impressive new builds), it means Serral is slumping hard, and it doesnt mean Reynor is top 10 now. They both come out behind off of it.
#TLforeignerbias
turns out Power Rank isn't based on the performance in a single tournament - what a shocker. Maybe it has to do with the fact Maru just comes fresh of a GSL victory while Serral has shown nothing really impressive so far this year and is 1-5 against the top 12 players according to this list?
Feel free to explain how Stats has better tournament results in the past 6 months than the 6 people behind him
did you miss IEM Katowice?
I didnt, it was won by #9. Neither had any notable results since then. Stats went out as 4th in the first group stage in code S, and 3-0d in the 2nd round of ST.
and he beat the GSL winner who had previously smashed the 3 best PvTers back-to back-to back -no results.
And we're back to my first point, he got 4th based on 1 close (first round) series+ bias . But then u'll say again that it s not about a single tournament....
On April 28 2019 16:09 fastr wrote: Thanks to the writers for providing this new power rank, it's always fun to read some of the more opinionated responses to those. I have some thoughts on some of the rankings I disagree with.
INnoVation: 10 is too low, I have him at 7. Yes he's had a shaky month and failing to qualify for any tournament is unworthy of him, but look at the context of his losses. You rightfully mention Dear's weakness in PvP yet Dear got a generous rank 8. Inno failed to qualify because he lost to sOs and Parting, both protoss, both finished top 4 in the tournament. You then mention his loss in code S ro16, but you fail to mention that he was in a group with 3 protoss, including Classic and Trap, rank 2 and 7 respectively. Balance whine aside, the pattern is clear, Inno only lost TvP, and always to very strong protoss. Hence why I think 10 is a harsh rank for him.
Serral: After winning Blizzcon 2018, Serral had a strong case for best player in the world. After 4 months of 2019 gone by, it's clear that he's not in the discussion anymore. Should he be out of the top 5? I'd argue no. I have him at 4. Dark still at 3 after a ro16 super tournament exit is puzzling to me. I'd argue that Serral is still the best zerg in the world and Dark has no business being in the top 3 after choking his 2 most recent tournament exits.
For the rest, I agree with Maru and Classic at 1 and 2 respectively, though I wouldn't be shocked to see Classic at the first spot. Stats is still a big question mark but 4 is fair after his fantastic series against Maru. Gumiho at 5 might be generous, but he had such a fantastic run to the finals that I won't argue against it.
Dark lost to Gumiho and Classic. Serral lost to Heromarine and Reynor. I'd say Serral was much more disappointing this month.
Funny how that works, Maru loses to Stats in a close series. The loss doesnt hinder Maru and the match gives a struggling Stats 4th place. Both come out ahead off of it. Reynor beats Serral in close series (with impressive new builds), it means Serral is slumping hard, and it doesnt mean Reynor is top 10 now. They both come out behind off of it.
#TLforeignerbias
turns out Power Rank isn't based on the performance in a single tournament - what a shocker. Maybe it has to do with the fact Maru just comes fresh of a GSL victory while Serral has shown nothing really impressive so far this year and is 1-5 against the top 12 players according to this list?
Feel free to explain how Stats has better tournament results in the past 6 months than the 6 people behind him
did you miss IEM Katowice?
I didnt, it was won by #9. Neither had any notable results since then. Stats went out as 4th in the first group stage in code S, and 3-0d in the 2nd round of ST.
and he beat the GSL winner who had previously smashed the 3 best PvTers back-to back-to back -no results.
And we're back to my first point, he got 4th based on 1 close (first round) series+ bias . But then u'll say again that it s not about a single tournament....
right, because he got 2nd at IEM Katowice...
Katowice(and Stats' results in 2018) explains why he already was in the list, the point here is why he didn't drop positions this month.
On April 28 2019 13:02 ZertoN wrote: serral could retire today and in the power ranking of september 2021 he'd somehow come in at #8. then the hardcore fanboys would ask how come he's rated so low
I don´t think so, but i laughed at this post :D There is some truth to it, good job! The same would apply to some other players aswell though.
On April 28 2019 20:31 MockHamill wrote: If Blizzcon was right now who would you put your money on?
It still comes down to Maru or Serral.
So this powerrank is clearly wrong, Serral should at least be number 2. Also Reynor is better than most Koreans on that list.
Serral clearly can't be that high on the list. He didn't win anything this year. He made two finals appearances only in mediocre tournaments (WCS and WESG). He lost to soO Neeb, Inno twice, Reynor twice and big Gabe, showing weaknesses in all matchups. Is he bad? Certainly not. But his lack of results can't be tarnished by his 2018 success anymore.
The idea of ranking Reynor as high as many are demanding is kind of weird. He has shown that he is excellent in ZvZ but he lost vs Creator and Gumiho in offline qualifiers at IEM, lost vs Neeb in Ro16 of WESG, lost vs Heromarine in groupstage of WCS Winter and lost his first match vs Marinelord (!) in WCS Spring. I really like Reynor and I think he can rise to the very top but he still hasn't proven his excellence vs. thoughest competition this year so far.
On April 28 2019 16:33 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] Dark lost to Gumiho and Classic. Serral lost to Heromarine and Reynor. I'd say Serral was much more disappointing this month.
Funny how that works, Maru loses to Stats in a close series. The loss doesnt hinder Maru and the match gives a struggling Stats 4th place. Both come out ahead off of it. Reynor beats Serral in close series (with impressive new builds), it means Serral is slumping hard, and it doesnt mean Reynor is top 10 now. They both come out behind off of it.
#TLforeignerbias
turns out Power Rank isn't based on the performance in a single tournament - what a shocker. Maybe it has to do with the fact Maru just comes fresh of a GSL victory while Serral has shown nothing really impressive so far this year and is 1-5 against the top 12 players according to this list?
Feel free to explain how Stats has better tournament results in the past 6 months than the 6 people behind him
did you miss IEM Katowice?
I didnt, it was won by #9. Neither had any notable results since then. Stats went out as 4th in the first group stage in code S, and 3-0d in the 2nd round of ST.
and he beat the GSL winner who had previously smashed the 3 best PvTers back-to back-to back -no results.
And we're back to my first point, he got 4th based on 1 close (first round) series+ bias . But then u'll say again that it s not about a single tournament....
right, because he got 2nd at IEM Katowice...
Katowice(and Stats' results in 2018) explains why he already was in the list, the point here is why he didn't drop positions this month.
Well, I'm not arguing exactly for Stats being ranked that high but I can understand the logic and don't think it's wrong per se. The only result of Stats since his great performance at IEM is GSL ST. The question would be: did he look bad enough at this tournament that one should think he's gotten worse? His win vs Maru who recently won vs all the top Protosses and threw a very effective and surprising mech style against him was really impressive. Not only because of the bare result but also because of his demonstrated skill ingame. He just played incredibly good and adjusted to Maru very well. Then he lost to Gumiho who made it to the finals. Can we say he's gotten worse because of this performance? Or isn't a Ro8 finish what you'd expect from a top4-player facing a really strong opponent in a tourney where almost all top10-players are participating? Serral got the benefit of the doubt in earlier PRs this year, Maru as well. It's just reasonable to do the same with Stats now.
Reynor and Neeb should definitely be in here, other than that the rankings seem fine to me. Serral is still a world class player, what you acknowledge in your ranking, and Reynor showed he is on the same level and even beat him, Neeb beat him too recently and also won against Scarlett.
On April 28 2019 20:31 MockHamill wrote: If Blizzcon was right now who would you put your money on?
It still comes down to Maru or Serral.
So this powerrank is clearly wrong, Serral should at least be number 2. Also Reynor is better than most Koreans on that list.
Serral clearly can't be that high on the list. He didn't win anything this year. He made two finals appearances only in mediocre tournaments (WCS and WESG). He lost to soO Neeb, Inno twice, Reynor twice and big Gabe, showing weaknesses in all matchups. Is he bad? Certainly not. But his lack of results can't be tarnished by his 2018 success anymore.
The idea of ranking Reynor as high as many are demanding is kind of weird. He has shown that he is excellent in ZvZ but he lost vs Creator and Gumiho in offline qualifiers at IEM, lost vs Neeb in Ro16 of WESG, lost vs Heromarine in groupstage of WCS Winter and lost his first match vs Marinelord (!) in WCS Spring. I really like Reynor and I think he can rise to the very top but he still hasn't proven his excellence vs. thoughest competition this year so far.
On April 28 2019 18:39 Geo.Rion wrote: [quote] Funny how that works, Maru loses to Stats in a close series. The loss doesnt hinder Maru and the match gives a struggling Stats 4th place. Both come out ahead off of it. Reynor beats Serral in close series (with impressive new builds), it means Serral is slumping hard, and it doesnt mean Reynor is top 10 now. They both come out behind off of it.
#TLforeignerbias
turns out Power Rank isn't based on the performance in a single tournament - what a shocker. Maybe it has to do with the fact Maru just comes fresh of a GSL victory while Serral has shown nothing really impressive so far this year and is 1-5 against the top 12 players according to this list?
Feel free to explain how Stats has better tournament results in the past 6 months than the 6 people behind him
did you miss IEM Katowice?
I didnt, it was won by #9. Neither had any notable results since then. Stats went out as 4th in the first group stage in code S, and 3-0d in the 2nd round of ST.
and he beat the GSL winner who had previously smashed the 3 best PvTers back-to back-to back -no results.
And we're back to my first point, he got 4th based on 1 close (first round) series+ bias . But then u'll say again that it s not about a single tournament....
right, because he got 2nd at IEM Katowice...
Katowice(and Stats' results in 2018) explains why he already was in the list, the point here is why he didn't drop positions this month.
Well, I'm not arguing exactly for Stats being ranked that high but I can understand the logic and don't think it's wrong per se. The only result of Stats since his great performance at IEM is GSL ST. The question would be: did he look bad enough at this tournament that one should think he's gotten worse? His win vs Maru who recently won vs all the top Protosses and threw a very effective and surprising mech style against him was really impressive. Not only because of the bare result but also because of his demonstrated skill ingame. He just played incredibly good and adjusted to Maru very well. Then he lost to Gumiho who made it to the finals. Can we say he's gotten worse because of this performance? Or isn't a Ro8 finish what you'd expect from a top4-player facing a really strong opponent in a tourney where almost all top10-players are participating? Serral got the benefit of the doubt in earlier PRs this year, Maru as well. It's just reasonable to do the same with Stats now.
I would not necessarily have made Stats drop positions(most likely, especially because Gumiho 3-0d him while he was clearly favored), but it's weird that he didn't because it doesn't seem consistent with the criteria applied to other people on this list.
Also, Gumiho jumping in at #5 seems excessive to me just as it is to leave Neeb out of this list(he'd deserve it over Dear, even at #10).
On April 28 2019 20:31 MockHamill wrote: If Blizzcon was right now who would you put your money on?
It still comes down to Maru or Serral.
So this powerrank is clearly wrong, Serral should at least be number 2. Also Reynor is better than most Koreans on that list.
Serral clearly can't be that high on the list. He didn't win anything this year. He made two finals appearances only in mediocre tournaments (WCS and WESG). He lost to soO Neeb, Inno twice, Reynor twice and big Gabe, showing weaknesses in all matchups. Is he bad? Certainly not. But his lack of results can't be tarnished by his 2018 success anymore.
The idea of ranking Reynor as high as many are demanding is kind of weird. He has shown that he is excellent in ZvZ but he lost vs Creator and Gumiho in offline qualifiers at IEM, lost vs Neeb in Ro16 of WESG, lost vs Heromarine in groupstage of WCS Winter and lost his first match vs Marinelord (!) in WCS Spring. I really like Reynor and I think he can rise to the very top but he still hasn't proven his excellence vs. thoughest competition this year so far.
On April 28 2019 21:47 Xain0n wrote:
On April 28 2019 21:34 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 28 2019 20:42 Geo.Rion wrote:
On April 28 2019 20:19 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 28 2019 20:06 Geo.Rion wrote:
On April 28 2019 19:59 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 28 2019 19:56 Geo.Rion wrote:
On April 28 2019 19:10 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] turns out Power Rank isn't based on the performance in a single tournament - what a shocker. Maybe it has to do with the fact Maru just comes fresh of a GSL victory while Serral has shown nothing really impressive so far this year and is 1-5 against the top 12 players according to this list?
Feel free to explain how Stats has better tournament results in the past 6 months than the 6 people behind him
did you miss IEM Katowice?
I didnt, it was won by #9. Neither had any notable results since then. Stats went out as 4th in the first group stage in code S, and 3-0d in the 2nd round of ST.
and he beat the GSL winner who had previously smashed the 3 best PvTers back-to back-to back -no results.
And we're back to my first point, he got 4th based on 1 close (first round) series+ bias . But then u'll say again that it s not about a single tournament....
right, because he got 2nd at IEM Katowice...
Katowice(and Stats' results in 2018) explains why he already was in the list, the point here is why he didn't drop positions this month.
Well, I'm not arguing exactly for Stats being ranked that high but I can understand the logic and don't think it's wrong per se. The only result of Stats since his great performance at IEM is GSL ST. The question would be: did he look bad enough at this tournament that one should think he's gotten worse? His win vs Maru who recently won vs all the top Protosses and threw a very effective and surprising mech style against him was really impressive. Not only because of the bare result but also because of his demonstrated skill ingame. He just played incredibly good and adjusted to Maru very well. Then he lost to Gumiho who made it to the finals. Can we say he's gotten worse because of this performance? Or isn't a Ro8 finish what you'd expect from a top4-player facing a really strong opponent in a tourney where almost all top10-players are participating? Serral got the benefit of the doubt in earlier PRs this year, Maru as well. It's just reasonable to do the same with Stats now.
I would not necessarily have made Stats drop positions(most likely, especially because Gumiho 3-0d him while he was clearly favored), but it's weird that he didn't because it doesn't seem consistent with the criteria applied to other people on this list.
Also, Gumiho jumping in at #5 seems excessive to me just as it is to leave Neeb out of this list(he'd deserve it over Dear, even at #10).
I don't see the inconsistency: Serral had his chance to make a point for his case but he didn't and thus he got ranked lower after two PRs in which he was credited with the benefit of the doubt. Stats just made his point for the last PR and thus he also gets the benefit of the doubt now like Serral did. Same goes for Dark.
I think that Dear over Neeb is reasonable, considering that Dear made it to Ro8 in both IEM and GSL after topping his tough groups while Neeb struggled to do so in IEM and WESG (which was the easier tournament). Losing to Zest in PvP in a Ro16 isn't enough information to instantly kick Dear down while Neeb did what he has to do at least to be considered somewhere near the top 10: win WCS winter NA. But yeah - Neeb, Dear, Inno and soO probably could be shuffled around. Gumiho being ranked 5th is a bold statement but it fits well in the recent PRs with soO instantly getting #1 after IEM and Maru now being 1# because of GSL. Also Inno got ranked #5 after his WESG victory, too.
On April 28 2019 20:31 MockHamill wrote: If Blizzcon was right now who would you put your money on?
It still comes down to Maru or Serral.
So this powerrank is clearly wrong, Serral should at least be number 2. Also Reynor is better than most Koreans on that list.
Serral clearly can't be that high on the list. He didn't win anything this year. He made two finals appearances only in mediocre tournaments (WCS and WESG). He lost to soO Neeb, Inno twice, Reynor twice and big Gabe, showing weaknesses in all matchups. Is he bad? Certainly not. But his lack of results can't be tarnished by his 2018 success anymore.
The idea of ranking Reynor as high as many are demanding is kind of weird. He has shown that he is excellent in ZvZ but he lost vs Creator and Gumiho in offline qualifiers at IEM, lost vs Neeb in Ro16 of WESG, lost vs Heromarine in groupstage of WCS Winter and lost his first match vs Marinelord (!) in WCS Spring. I really like Reynor and I think he can rise to the very top but he still hasn't proven his excellence vs. thoughest competition this year so far.
On April 28 2019 21:47 Xain0n wrote:
On April 28 2019 21:34 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 28 2019 20:42 Geo.Rion wrote:
On April 28 2019 20:19 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 28 2019 20:06 Geo.Rion wrote:
On April 28 2019 19:59 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 28 2019 19:56 Geo.Rion wrote: [quote] Feel free to explain how Stats has better tournament results in the past 6 months than the 6 people behind him
did you miss IEM Katowice?
I didnt, it was won by #9. Neither had any notable results since then. Stats went out as 4th in the first group stage in code S, and 3-0d in the 2nd round of ST.
and he beat the GSL winner who had previously smashed the 3 best PvTers back-to back-to back -no results.
And we're back to my first point, he got 4th based on 1 close (first round) series+ bias . But then u'll say again that it s not about a single tournament....
right, because he got 2nd at IEM Katowice...
Katowice(and Stats' results in 2018) explains why he already was in the list, the point here is why he didn't drop positions this month.
Well, I'm not arguing exactly for Stats being ranked that high but I can understand the logic and don't think it's wrong per se. The only result of Stats since his great performance at IEM is GSL ST. The question would be: did he look bad enough at this tournament that one should think he's gotten worse? His win vs Maru who recently won vs all the top Protosses and threw a very effective and surprising mech style against him was really impressive. Not only because of the bare result but also because of his demonstrated skill ingame. He just played incredibly good and adjusted to Maru very well. Then he lost to Gumiho who made it to the finals. Can we say he's gotten worse because of this performance? Or isn't a Ro8 finish what you'd expect from a top4-player facing a really strong opponent in a tourney where almost all top10-players are participating? Serral got the benefit of the doubt in earlier PRs this year, Maru as well. It's just reasonable to do the same with Stats now.
I would not necessarily have made Stats drop positions(most likely, especially because Gumiho 3-0d him while he was clearly favored), but it's weird that he didn't because it doesn't seem consistent with the criteria applied to other people on this list.
Also, Gumiho jumping in at #5 seems excessive to me just as it is to leave Neeb out of this list(he'd deserve it over Dear, even at #10).
I don't see the inconsistency: Serral had his chance to make a point for his case but he didn't and thus he got ranked lower after two PRs in which he was credited with the benefit of the doubt. Stats just made his point for the last PR and thus he also gets the benefit of the doubt now like Serral did. Same goes for Dark.
I think that Dear over Neeb is reasonable, considering that Dear made it to Ro8 in both IEM and GSL after topping his tough groups while Neeb struggled to do so in IEM and WESG (which was the easier tournament). Losing to Zest in PvP in a Ro16 isn't enough information to instantly kick Dear down while Neeb did what he has to do at least to be considered somewhere near the top 10: win WCS winter NA. But yeah - Neeb, Dear, Inno and soO probably could be shuffled around. Gumiho being ranked 5th is a bold statement but it fits well in the recent PRs with soO instantly getting #1 after IEM and Maru now being 1# because of GSL. Also Inno got ranked #5 after his WESG victory, too.
Serral was never given the benefit of the doubt: soO was skyrocketed at #1 from nowhere after Katowice, and the second place at WESG justified Serral not regressing any further in the following list; it's appropriate to scale him down after his losses this month, but I still see him in top5. Dark's month was disappointing, I would have had him drop more than two places.
Inno got ranked #5, but now there is one more month of results in 2019 so it would be logical for Gumiho to enter the PR at least one step lower.
Maru's progression is fine, he was just ranked too high in the last PR(and Classic maybe too low).
Ha ha OP needs to bring up those mech builds to justify giving Maru #1. First time a build appears in a Power rank? Classic #1 easily, the rest I am mostly ok with.
On April 29 2019 06:01 Xamo wrote: Ha ha OP needs to bring up those mech builds to justify giving Maru #1. First time a build appears in a Power rank? Classic #1 easily, the rest I am mostly ok with.
I agree, really not sure how Classic has been overlooked here. He clearly has the better results for the month and it's not like you can draw on anything else from 2019 to justify Marus ranking above Classic.
GSL Code S is the crown jewel of GSL circuit, and Maru dominated en route to winning it, including beating Classic.
Maru's ST run was cut short by stats, but it was a close series and it was against, at worst, a Top 2 protoss in the world.
So Maru had the more prestigious tournament win, and the H2H win over classic
And then there is the eye test. Maru NEVER looked weak/like the underdog in any of the matches he played, even when he lost to stats. Maru and stats looked equal. in fact if i had to bet money, stats is the only protoss player who couldve stopped what maru brought to that game imo.
As impressive as classic was against that death row of zerg players, sOs, and gumiho, he look eclipsed when he faced Maru
On April 29 2019 06:19 BerserkSword wrote: I'm fine with Maru #1 and Classic #2 tbh
GSL Code S is the crown jewel of GSL circuit, and Maru dominated en route to winning it, including beating Classic.
Maru's ST run was cut short by stats, but it was a close series and it was against, at worst, a Top 2 protoss in the world.
So Maru had the more prestigious tournament win, and the H2H win over classic
And then there is the eye test. Maru NEVER looked weak/like the underdog in any of the matches he played, even when he lost to stats. Maru and stats looked equal. in fact if i had to bet money, stats is the only protoss player who couldve stopped what maru brought to that game imo.
As impressive as classic was against that death row of zerg players, sOs, and gumiho, he look eclipsed when he faced Maru
You're reinforcing my view that Maru is held to a different standard.. Innovation and soO both tumbled down the PR after their losses in subsequent tournaments after winning WESG/IEM.
There's a lot of gloss for 4x GSL in a row, deservedly so, but again my view is that the odds are somewhat stacked for defending champ and people remaining in the only teamhouse left.
Also sOs and Trap at a minimum could have held those builds because they would have helped create them. Stats held it despite probably never playing against that style before.
I love TL writers despite my opinion of power rankings though.
On April 29 2019 06:19 BerserkSword wrote: I'm fine with Maru #1 and Classic #2 tbh
GSL Code S is the crown jewel of GSL circuit, and Maru dominated en route to winning it, including beating Classic.
Maru's ST run was cut short by stats, but it was a close series and it was against, at worst, a Top 2 protoss in the world.
So Maru had the more prestigious tournament win, and the H2H win over classic
And then there is the eye test. Maru NEVER looked weak/like the underdog in any of the matches he played, even when he lost to stats. Maru and stats looked equal. in fact if i had to bet money, stats is the only protoss player who couldve stopped what maru brought to that game imo.
As impressive as classic was against that death row of zerg players, sOs, and gumiho, he look eclipsed when he faced Maru
You're reinforcing my view that Maru is held to a different standard.. Innovation and soO both tumbled down the PR after their losses in subsequent tournaments after winning WESG/IEM.
There's a lot of gloss for 4x GSL in a row, deservedly so, but again my view is that the odds are somewhat stacked for defending champ and people remaining in the only teamhouse left.
Also sOs and Trap at a minimum could have held those builds because they would have helped create them. Stats held it despite probably never playing against that style before.
I love TL writers despite my opinion of power rankings though.
Innovation and soo's cases are different
If maru plays really badly in may (like soo and innovation did the months after they won their tournaments), let's see if he tumbles
I don't think Maru was ranked no. 1 because of his code s win's last year. Maru just looked ridiculously strong in april. I do think Maru has an advantage (I think terran is broken, but that's another discussion) but it still doesnt change the fact that he looks like the most powerful player to me at the moment. In april, Maru looked unstoppable and the one loss he had was a close one against a none other than stats. He easily won against the other no. 1 contender in classic too.
Maru simply never looked outmatched in April and dominated the most prestigious/hardest tournament of the year so far
On April 29 2019 08:59 IshinShishi wrote: How can you make a case for Classic being above Maru when Maru heavily outclassed him in the finals? That wasnt even close.
at this point they really need to put a breakdown of why "player A beating player B in a series doesn't automatically mean they're a higher rank," in the OP of these, maybe with a graphic for people who need visual aids
On April 28 2019 20:31 MockHamill wrote: If Blizzcon was right now who would you put your money on?
It still comes down to Maru or Serral.
So this powerrank is clearly wrong, Serral should at least be number 2. Also Reynor is better than most Koreans on that list.
Serral clearly can't be that high on the list. He didn't win anything this year. He made two finals appearances only in mediocre tournaments (WCS and WESG). He lost to soO Neeb, Inno twice, Reynor twice and big Gabe, showing weaknesses in all matchups. Is he bad? Certainly not. But his lack of results can't be tarnished by his 2018 success anymore.
The idea of ranking Reynor as high as many are demanding is kind of weird. He has shown that he is excellent in ZvZ but he lost vs Creator and Gumiho in offline qualifiers at IEM, lost vs Neeb in Ro16 of WESG, lost vs Heromarine in groupstage of WCS Winter and lost his first match vs Marinelord (!) in WCS Spring. I really like Reynor and I think he can rise to the very top but he still hasn't proven his excellence vs. thoughest competition this year so far.
On April 28 2019 21:47 Xain0n wrote:
On April 28 2019 21:34 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 28 2019 20:42 Geo.Rion wrote:
On April 28 2019 20:19 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 28 2019 20:06 Geo.Rion wrote:
On April 28 2019 19:59 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] did you miss IEM Katowice?
I didnt, it was won by #9. Neither had any notable results since then. Stats went out as 4th in the first group stage in code S, and 3-0d in the 2nd round of ST.
and he beat the GSL winner who had previously smashed the 3 best PvTers back-to back-to back -no results.
And we're back to my first point, he got 4th based on 1 close (first round) series+ bias . But then u'll say again that it s not about a single tournament....
right, because he got 2nd at IEM Katowice...
Katowice(and Stats' results in 2018) explains why he already was in the list, the point here is why he didn't drop positions this month.
Well, I'm not arguing exactly for Stats being ranked that high but I can understand the logic and don't think it's wrong per se. The only result of Stats since his great performance at IEM is GSL ST. The question would be: did he look bad enough at this tournament that one should think he's gotten worse? His win vs Maru who recently won vs all the top Protosses and threw a very effective and surprising mech style against him was really impressive. Not only because of the bare result but also because of his demonstrated skill ingame. He just played incredibly good and adjusted to Maru very well. Then he lost to Gumiho who made it to the finals. Can we say he's gotten worse because of this performance? Or isn't a Ro8 finish what you'd expect from a top4-player facing a really strong opponent in a tourney where almost all top10-players are participating? Serral got the benefit of the doubt in earlier PRs this year, Maru as well. It's just reasonable to do the same with Stats now.
I would not necessarily have made Stats drop positions(most likely, especially because Gumiho 3-0d him while he was clearly favored), but it's weird that he didn't because it doesn't seem consistent with the criteria applied to other people on this list.
Also, Gumiho jumping in at #5 seems excessive to me just as it is to leave Neeb out of this list(he'd deserve it over Dear, even at #10).
I don't see the inconsistency: Serral had his chance to make a point for his case but he didn't and thus he got ranked lower after two PRs in which he was credited with the benefit of the doubt. Stats just made his point for the last PR and thus he also gets the benefit of the doubt now like Serral did. Same goes for Dark.
I think that Dear over Neeb is reasonable, considering that Dear made it to Ro8 in both IEM and GSL after topping his tough groups while Neeb struggled to do so in IEM and WESG (which was the easier tournament). Losing to Zest in PvP in a Ro16 isn't enough information to instantly kick Dear down while Neeb did what he has to do at least to be considered somewhere near the top 10: win WCS winter NA. But yeah - Neeb, Dear, Inno and soO probably could be shuffled around. Gumiho being ranked 5th is a bold statement but it fits well in the recent PRs with soO instantly getting #1 after IEM and Maru now being 1# because of GSL. Also Inno got ranked #5 after his WESG victory, too.
Serral was never given the benefit of the doubt: soO was skyrocketed at #1 from nowhere after Katowice, and the second place at WESG justified Serral not regressing any further in the following list; it's appropriate to scale him down after his losses this month, but I still see him in top5. Dark's month was disappointing, I would have had him drop more than two places.
Inno got ranked #5, but now there is one more month of results in 2019 so it would be logical for Gumiho to enter the PR at least one step lower.
Maru's progression is fine, he was just ranked too high in the last PR(and Classic maybe too low).
Now you're denying facts for the sake of your argument. Of course Serral was given the benefit of the doubt. He got ranked #2 in the march PR after finishing in the Ro8 at IEM and losing to Inno in group stage. And he still got ranked #3 after losing to Reynor and Heromarine in group stage of WCS Winter and being beaten by Neeb in group stage of WESG (where he also made a case for himself by finishing 2nd). There are good arguments for having Serral still ranked that high back then, which includes that it seemed reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. Dark month was disappointing, that's true. But after having rightfully earned a consistency #1 in the last PR it is consistent to give him the benefit of the doubt like it was done with Serral, Stats and Maru.
How does being one month more into the year affect the PR? Most recent results are still the highest valued factor in PRs.
On April 29 2019 08:59 IshinShishi wrote: How can you make a case for Classic being above Maru when Maru heavily outclassed him in the finals? That wasnt even close.
Outclassed, huh? Anywho: 1. Classic has a title and a 2nd place this month. He dindt get the chance to compete in WESG 2. Maru has a title, 4th code S in a row, amazing run, history is written, we may never see this achievement again. And he got a first round knock-out + Show Spoiler +
(from the guy who lost to the next guy, and that guy lost to Classic)
. Before that he had an invite for WESG where he was shaky and barely came in 3rd. (in a tournament with like 6 real names in it)
So gold+silver vs gold+nothing, and not much in the previous months. In Maru`s case due to shaky form, in Classic's case due to unable to make it to the event. That's the case for it
You still like Maru because of the code S legacy? That's fine, but Classic's case for nr. 1 is as strong or stronger, at least you should see that much, even if u disagree with the conclusion.
On April 28 2019 20:31 MockHamill wrote: If Blizzcon was right now who would you put your money on?
It still comes down to Maru or Serral.
So this powerrank is clearly wrong, Serral should at least be number 2. Also Reynor is better than most Koreans on that list.
Serral clearly can't be that high on the list. He didn't win anything this year. He made two finals appearances only in mediocre tournaments (WCS and WESG). He lost to soO Neeb, Inno twice, Reynor twice and big Gabe, showing weaknesses in all matchups. Is he bad? Certainly not. But his lack of results can't be tarnished by his 2018 success anymore.
The idea of ranking Reynor as high as many are demanding is kind of weird. He has shown that he is excellent in ZvZ but he lost vs Creator and Gumiho in offline qualifiers at IEM, lost vs Neeb in Ro16 of WESG, lost vs Heromarine in groupstage of WCS Winter and lost his first match vs Marinelord (!) in WCS Spring. I really like Reynor and I think he can rise to the very top but he still hasn't proven his excellence vs. thoughest competition this year so far.
On April 28 2019 21:47 Xain0n wrote:
On April 28 2019 21:34 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 28 2019 20:42 Geo.Rion wrote:
On April 28 2019 20:19 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 28 2019 20:06 Geo.Rion wrote: [quote] I didnt, it was won by #9. Neither had any notable results since then. Stats went out as 4th in the first group stage in code S, and 3-0d in the 2nd round of ST.
and he beat the GSL winner who had previously smashed the 3 best PvTers back-to back-to back -no results.
And we're back to my first point, he got 4th based on 1 close (first round) series+ bias . But then u'll say again that it s not about a single tournament....
right, because he got 2nd at IEM Katowice...
Katowice(and Stats' results in 2018) explains why he already was in the list, the point here is why he didn't drop positions this month.
Well, I'm not arguing exactly for Stats being ranked that high but I can understand the logic and don't think it's wrong per se. The only result of Stats since his great performance at IEM is GSL ST. The question would be: did he look bad enough at this tournament that one should think he's gotten worse? His win vs Maru who recently won vs all the top Protosses and threw a very effective and surprising mech style against him was really impressive. Not only because of the bare result but also because of his demonstrated skill ingame. He just played incredibly good and adjusted to Maru very well. Then he lost to Gumiho who made it to the finals. Can we say he's gotten worse because of this performance? Or isn't a Ro8 finish what you'd expect from a top4-player facing a really strong opponent in a tourney where almost all top10-players are participating? Serral got the benefit of the doubt in earlier PRs this year, Maru as well. It's just reasonable to do the same with Stats now.
I would not necessarily have made Stats drop positions(most likely, especially because Gumiho 3-0d him while he was clearly favored), but it's weird that he didn't because it doesn't seem consistent with the criteria applied to other people on this list.
Also, Gumiho jumping in at #5 seems excessive to me just as it is to leave Neeb out of this list(he'd deserve it over Dear, even at #10).
I don't see the inconsistency: Serral had his chance to make a point for his case but he didn't and thus he got ranked lower after two PRs in which he was credited with the benefit of the doubt. Stats just made his point for the last PR and thus he also gets the benefit of the doubt now like Serral did. Same goes for Dark.
I think that Dear over Neeb is reasonable, considering that Dear made it to Ro8 in both IEM and GSL after topping his tough groups while Neeb struggled to do so in IEM and WESG (which was the easier tournament). Losing to Zest in PvP in a Ro16 isn't enough information to instantly kick Dear down while Neeb did what he has to do at least to be considered somewhere near the top 10: win WCS winter NA. But yeah - Neeb, Dear, Inno and soO probably could be shuffled around. Gumiho being ranked 5th is a bold statement but it fits well in the recent PRs with soO instantly getting #1 after IEM and Maru now being 1# because of GSL. Also Inno got ranked #5 after his WESG victory, too.
Serral was never given the benefit of the doubt: soO was skyrocketed at #1 from nowhere after Katowice, and the second place at WESG justified Serral not regressing any further in the following list; it's appropriate to scale him down after his losses this month, but I still see him in top5. Dark's month was disappointing, I would have had him drop more than two places.
Inno got ranked #5, but now there is one more month of results in 2019 so it would be logical for Gumiho to enter the PR at least one step lower.
Maru's progression is fine, he was just ranked too high in the last PR(and Classic maybe too low).
Now you're denying facts for the sake of your argument. Of course Serral was given the benefit of the doubt. He got ranked #2 in the march PR after finishing in the Ro8 at IEM and losing to Inno in group stage. And he still got ranked #3 after losing to Reynor and Heromarine in group stage of WCS Winter and being beaten by Neeb in group stage of WESG (where he also made a case for himself by finishing 2nd). There are good arguments for having Serral still ranked that high back then, which includes that it seemed reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. Dark month was disappointing, that's true. But after having rightfully earned a consistency #1 in the last PR it is consistent to give him the benefit of the doubt like it was done with Serral, Stats and Maru.
How does being one month more into the year affect the PR? Most recent results are still the highest valued factor in PRs.
I am not denying anything. Before IEM(with 2018 results being the only one considered), Serral was #1 despite never figuring as such on a PR(although he was crowned best player of the year) with Maru being #2 and Stats #3; then Serral loses one pointless bo3(he already was first in the group) then is narrowly eliminated by the eventual winner and he immediately drops at #2 in the power ranking released shortly after? Maru did worse than him, Stats reached the finals but his 2018 achievements were not comparable to Serral's so that he could not earn the first spot(he was not given, in fact) while soO, who had one irrelevant 2018, was placed first. Are you convinced this was giving Serral the "benefit of the doubt"?
It's true that most recent results are valued more heavily but unlike the first tournament in 2019 whose sole comparison were 2018's one(rated much less), we have now a notable amount of tournaments played this year to consider; Gumiho's 2019 was not exactly great before Super Tournament so the leap he has made into the Power Ranking seems a little disproportioned(Inno's was fine since only IEM and groupstages were played before that while soO's seemed to me exaggerated as well).
On April 28 2019 20:31 MockHamill wrote: If Blizzcon was right now who would you put your money on?
It still comes down to Maru or Serral.
So this powerrank is clearly wrong, Serral should at least be number 2. Also Reynor is better than most Koreans on that list.
Serral clearly can't be that high on the list. He didn't win anything this year. He made two finals appearances only in mediocre tournaments (WCS and WESG). He lost to soO Neeb, Inno twice, Reynor twice and big Gabe, showing weaknesses in all matchups. Is he bad? Certainly not. But his lack of results can't be tarnished by his 2018 success anymore.
The idea of ranking Reynor as high as many are demanding is kind of weird. He has shown that he is excellent in ZvZ but he lost vs Creator and Gumiho in offline qualifiers at IEM, lost vs Neeb in Ro16 of WESG, lost vs Heromarine in groupstage of WCS Winter and lost his first match vs Marinelord (!) in WCS Spring. I really like Reynor and I think he can rise to the very top but he still hasn't proven his excellence vs. thoughest competition this year so far.
On April 28 2019 21:47 Xain0n wrote:
On April 28 2019 21:34 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 28 2019 20:42 Geo.Rion wrote:
On April 28 2019 20:19 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] and he beat the GSL winner who had previously smashed the 3 best PvTers back-to back-to back -no results.
And we're back to my first point, he got 4th based on 1 close (first round) series+ bias . But then u'll say again that it s not about a single tournament....
right, because he got 2nd at IEM Katowice...
Katowice(and Stats' results in 2018) explains why he already was in the list, the point here is why he didn't drop positions this month.
Well, I'm not arguing exactly for Stats being ranked that high but I can understand the logic and don't think it's wrong per se. The only result of Stats since his great performance at IEM is GSL ST. The question would be: did he look bad enough at this tournament that one should think he's gotten worse? His win vs Maru who recently won vs all the top Protosses and threw a very effective and surprising mech style against him was really impressive. Not only because of the bare result but also because of his demonstrated skill ingame. He just played incredibly good and adjusted to Maru very well. Then he lost to Gumiho who made it to the finals. Can we say he's gotten worse because of this performance? Or isn't a Ro8 finish what you'd expect from a top4-player facing a really strong opponent in a tourney where almost all top10-players are participating? Serral got the benefit of the doubt in earlier PRs this year, Maru as well. It's just reasonable to do the same with Stats now.
I would not necessarily have made Stats drop positions(most likely, especially because Gumiho 3-0d him while he was clearly favored), but it's weird that he didn't because it doesn't seem consistent with the criteria applied to other people on this list.
Also, Gumiho jumping in at #5 seems excessive to me just as it is to leave Neeb out of this list(he'd deserve it over Dear, even at #10).
I don't see the inconsistency: Serral had his chance to make a point for his case but he didn't and thus he got ranked lower after two PRs in which he was credited with the benefit of the doubt. Stats just made his point for the last PR and thus he also gets the benefit of the doubt now like Serral did. Same goes for Dark.
I think that Dear over Neeb is reasonable, considering that Dear made it to Ro8 in both IEM and GSL after topping his tough groups while Neeb struggled to do so in IEM and WESG (which was the easier tournament). Losing to Zest in PvP in a Ro16 isn't enough information to instantly kick Dear down while Neeb did what he has to do at least to be considered somewhere near the top 10: win WCS winter NA. But yeah - Neeb, Dear, Inno and soO probably could be shuffled around. Gumiho being ranked 5th is a bold statement but it fits well in the recent PRs with soO instantly getting #1 after IEM and Maru now being 1# because of GSL. Also Inno got ranked #5 after his WESG victory, too.
Serral was never given the benefit of the doubt: soO was skyrocketed at #1 from nowhere after Katowice, and the second place at WESG justified Serral not regressing any further in the following list; it's appropriate to scale him down after his losses this month, but I still see him in top5. Dark's month was disappointing, I would have had him drop more than two places.
Inno got ranked #5, but now there is one more month of results in 2019 so it would be logical for Gumiho to enter the PR at least one step lower.
Maru's progression is fine, he was just ranked too high in the last PR(and Classic maybe too low).
Now you're denying facts for the sake of your argument. Of course Serral was given the benefit of the doubt. He got ranked #2 in the march PR after finishing in the Ro8 at IEM and losing to Inno in group stage. And he still got ranked #3 after losing to Reynor and Heromarine in group stage of WCS Winter and being beaten by Neeb in group stage of WESG (where he also made a case for himself by finishing 2nd). There are good arguments for having Serral still ranked that high back then, which includes that it seemed reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. Dark month was disappointing, that's true. But after having rightfully earned a consistency #1 in the last PR it is consistent to give him the benefit of the doubt like it was done with Serral, Stats and Maru.
How does being one month more into the year affect the PR? Most recent results are still the highest valued factor in PRs.
I am not denying anything. Before IEM(with 2018 results being the only one considered), Serral was #1 despite never figuring as such on a PR(although he was crowned best player of the year) with Maru being #2 and Stats #3; then Serral loses one pointless bo3(he already was first in the group) then is narrowly eliminated by the eventual winner and he immediately drops at #2 in the power ranking released shortly after? Maru did worse than him, Stats reached the finals but his 2018 achievements were not comparable to Serral's so that he could not earn the first spot(he was not given, in fact) while soO, who had one irrelevant 2018, was placed first. Are you convinced this was giving Serral the "benefit of the doubt"?
It's true that most recent results are valued more heavily but unlike the first tournament in 2019 whose sole comparison were 2018's one(rated much less), we have now a notable amount of tournaments played this year to consider; Gumiho's 2019 was not exactly great before Super Tournament so the leap he has made into the Power Ranking seems a little disproportioned(Inno's was fine since only IEM and groupstages were played before that while soO's seemed to me exaggerated as well).
Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
On April 28 2019 20:31 MockHamill wrote: If Blizzcon was right now who would you put your money on?
It still comes down to Maru or Serral.
So this powerrank is clearly wrong, Serral should at least be number 2. Also Reynor is better than most Koreans on that list.
Serral clearly can't be that high on the list. He didn't win anything this year. He made two finals appearances only in mediocre tournaments (WCS and WESG). He lost to soO Neeb, Inno twice, Reynor twice and big Gabe, showing weaknesses in all matchups. Is he bad? Certainly not. But his lack of results can't be tarnished by his 2018 success anymore.
The idea of ranking Reynor as high as many are demanding is kind of weird. He has shown that he is excellent in ZvZ but he lost vs Creator and Gumiho in offline qualifiers at IEM, lost vs Neeb in Ro16 of WESG, lost vs Heromarine in groupstage of WCS Winter and lost his first match vs Marinelord (!) in WCS Spring. I really like Reynor and I think he can rise to the very top but he still hasn't proven his excellence vs. thoughest competition this year so far.
On April 28 2019 21:47 Xain0n wrote:
On April 28 2019 21:34 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 28 2019 20:42 Geo.Rion wrote: [quote] And we're back to my first point, he got 4th based on 1 close (first round) series+ bias . But then u'll say again that it s not about a single tournament....
right, because he got 2nd at IEM Katowice...
Katowice(and Stats' results in 2018) explains why he already was in the list, the point here is why he didn't drop positions this month.
Well, I'm not arguing exactly for Stats being ranked that high but I can understand the logic and don't think it's wrong per se. The only result of Stats since his great performance at IEM is GSL ST. The question would be: did he look bad enough at this tournament that one should think he's gotten worse? His win vs Maru who recently won vs all the top Protosses and threw a very effective and surprising mech style against him was really impressive. Not only because of the bare result but also because of his demonstrated skill ingame. He just played incredibly good and adjusted to Maru very well. Then he lost to Gumiho who made it to the finals. Can we say he's gotten worse because of this performance? Or isn't a Ro8 finish what you'd expect from a top4-player facing a really strong opponent in a tourney where almost all top10-players are participating? Serral got the benefit of the doubt in earlier PRs this year, Maru as well. It's just reasonable to do the same with Stats now.
I would not necessarily have made Stats drop positions(most likely, especially because Gumiho 3-0d him while he was clearly favored), but it's weird that he didn't because it doesn't seem consistent with the criteria applied to other people on this list.
Also, Gumiho jumping in at #5 seems excessive to me just as it is to leave Neeb out of this list(he'd deserve it over Dear, even at #10).
I don't see the inconsistency: Serral had his chance to make a point for his case but he didn't and thus he got ranked lower after two PRs in which he was credited with the benefit of the doubt. Stats just made his point for the last PR and thus he also gets the benefit of the doubt now like Serral did. Same goes for Dark.
I think that Dear over Neeb is reasonable, considering that Dear made it to Ro8 in both IEM and GSL after topping his tough groups while Neeb struggled to do so in IEM and WESG (which was the easier tournament). Losing to Zest in PvP in a Ro16 isn't enough information to instantly kick Dear down while Neeb did what he has to do at least to be considered somewhere near the top 10: win WCS winter NA. But yeah - Neeb, Dear, Inno and soO probably could be shuffled around. Gumiho being ranked 5th is a bold statement but it fits well in the recent PRs with soO instantly getting #1 after IEM and Maru now being 1# because of GSL. Also Inno got ranked #5 after his WESG victory, too.
Serral was never given the benefit of the doubt: soO was skyrocketed at #1 from nowhere after Katowice, and the second place at WESG justified Serral not regressing any further in the following list; it's appropriate to scale him down after his losses this month, but I still see him in top5. Dark's month was disappointing, I would have had him drop more than two places.
Inno got ranked #5, but now there is one more month of results in 2019 so it would be logical for Gumiho to enter the PR at least one step lower.
Maru's progression is fine, he was just ranked too high in the last PR(and Classic maybe too low).
Now you're denying facts for the sake of your argument. Of course Serral was given the benefit of the doubt. He got ranked #2 in the march PR after finishing in the Ro8 at IEM and losing to Inno in group stage. And he still got ranked #3 after losing to Reynor and Heromarine in group stage of WCS Winter and being beaten by Neeb in group stage of WESG (where he also made a case for himself by finishing 2nd). There are good arguments for having Serral still ranked that high back then, which includes that it seemed reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. Dark month was disappointing, that's true. But after having rightfully earned a consistency #1 in the last PR it is consistent to give him the benefit of the doubt like it was done with Serral, Stats and Maru.
How does being one month more into the year affect the PR? Most recent results are still the highest valued factor in PRs.
I am not denying anything. Before IEM(with 2018 results being the only one considered), Serral was #1 despite never figuring as such on a PR(although he was crowned best player of the year) with Maru being #2 and Stats #3; then Serral loses one pointless bo3(he already was first in the group) then is narrowly eliminated by the eventual winner and he immediately drops at #2 in the power ranking released shortly after? Maru did worse than him, Stats reached the finals but his 2018 achievements were not comparable to Serral's so that he could not earn the first spot(he was not given, in fact) while soO, who had one irrelevant 2018, was placed first. Are you convinced this was giving Serral the "benefit of the doubt"?
It's true that most recent results are valued more heavily but unlike the first tournament in 2019 whose sole comparison were 2018's one(rated much less), we have now a notable amount of tournaments played this year to consider; Gumiho's 2019 was not exactly great before Super Tournament so the leap he has made into the Power Ranking seems a little disproportioned(Inno's was fine since only IEM and groupstages were played before that while soO's seemed to me exaggerated as well).
Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
On April 29 2019 08:59 IshinShishi wrote: How can you make a case for Classic being above Maru when Maru heavily outclassed him in the finals? That wasnt even close.
at this point they really need to put a breakdown of why "player A beating player B in a series doesn't automatically mean they're a higher rank," in the OP of these, maybe with a graphic for people who need visual aids
Is there some kind of Power Ranking Curse? Right after being crowned #1, soO went out 0-4 of his ro16 group, Dark lost to Classic and Maru got eliminated in ro32.
On April 30 2019 01:14 Xain0n wrote: Is there some kind of Power Ranking Curse? Right after being crowned #1, soO went out 0-4 of his ro16 group, Dark lost to Classic and Maru got eliminated in ro32.
On April 30 2019 01:14 Xain0n wrote: Is there some kind of Power Ranking Curse? Right after being crowned #1, soO went out 0-4 of his ro16 group, Dark lost to Classic and Maru got eliminated in ro32.
Definitely. I had the same feeling!
It s actually the writers timing the articles and rigging the games to generate debate and controversy, i keep telling u guys
On April 30 2019 01:14 Xain0n wrote: Is there some kind of Power Ranking Curse? Right after being crowned #1, soO went out 0-4 of his ro16 group, Dark lost to Classic and Maru got eliminated in ro32.
Definitely. I had the same feeling!
It s actually the writers timing the articles and rigging the games to generate debate and controversy, i keep telling u guys
On April 30 2019 01:14 Xain0n wrote: Is there some kind of Power Ranking Curse? Right after being crowned #1, soO went out 0-4 of his ro16 group, Dark lost to Classic and Maru got eliminated in ro32.
Definitely. I had the same feeling!
It s actually the writers timing the articles and rigging the games to generate debate and controversy, i keep telling u guys
Wicked TL writers, true agents of chaos.
Apparently we have become more powerful than we could've ever imagined.
On April 30 2019 01:14 Xain0n wrote: Is there some kind of Power Ranking Curse? Right after being crowned #1, soO went out 0-4 of his ro16 group, Dark lost to Classic and Maru got eliminated in ro32.
Definitely. I had the same feeling!
It s actually the writers timing the articles and rigging the games to generate debate and controversy, i keep telling u guys
Wicked TL writers, true agents of chaos.
Apparently we have become more powerful than we could've ever imagined.
On April 30 2019 01:14 Xain0n wrote: Is there some kind of Power Ranking Curse? Right after being crowned #1, soO went out 0-4 of his ro16 group, Dark lost to Classic and Maru got eliminated in ro32.
Definitely. I had the same feeling!
It s actually the writers timing the articles and rigging the games to generate debate and controversy, i keep telling u guys
Wicked TL writers, true agents of chaos.
Apparently we have become more powerful than we could've ever imagined.
On April 30 2019 01:14 Xain0n wrote: Is there some kind of Power Ranking Curse? Right after being crowned #1, soO went out 0-4 of his ro16 group, Dark lost to Classic and Maru got eliminated in ro32.
Definitely. I had the same feeling!
It s actually the writers timing the articles and rigging the games to generate debate and controversy, i keep telling u guys
Wicked TL writers, true agents of chaos.
Apparently we have become more powerful than we could've ever imagined.
Holy shit you're ghosts?
How else could we travel into the future to see the results and then predict the opposite?
And, pvsnp: Not for a TL+ Member. (You need that sweet TL-, it's a path to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.)
On April 30 2019 01:14 Xain0n wrote: Is there some kind of Power Ranking Curse? Right after being crowned #1, soO went out 0-4 of his ro16 group, Dark lost to Classic and Maru got eliminated in ro32.
Definitely. I had the same feeling!
It s actually the writers timing the articles and rigging the games to generate debate and controversy, i keep telling u guys
Wicked TL writers, true agents of chaos.
Apparently we have become more powerful than we could've ever imagined.
Holy shit you're ghosts?
How else could we travel into the future to see the results and then predict the opposite?
And, pvsnp: Not for a TL+ Member. (You need that sweet TL-, it's a path to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.)
Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
It would also need someone else to really shine. GSL will be in Ro8 somewhere and WCS Spring will conclude in May, so maybe we will get some recency bias for foreigners (Neeb and Reynor <3) this time
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
On April 28 2019 20:31 MockHamill wrote: If Blizzcon was right now who would you put your money on?
It still comes down to Maru or Serral.
So this powerrank is clearly wrong, Serral should at least be number 2. Also Reynor is better than most Koreans on that list.
Serral clearly can't be that high on the list. He didn't win anything this year. He made two finals appearances only in mediocre tournaments (WCS and WESG). He lost to soO Neeb, Inno twice, Reynor twice and big Gabe, showing weaknesses in all matchups. Is he bad? Certainly not. But his lack of results can't be tarnished by his 2018 success anymore.
The idea of ranking Reynor as high as many are demanding is kind of weird. He has shown that he is excellent in ZvZ but he lost vs Creator and Gumiho in offline qualifiers at IEM, lost vs Neeb in Ro16 of WESG, lost vs Heromarine in groupstage of WCS Winter and lost his first match vs Marinelord (!) in WCS Spring. I really like Reynor and I think he can rise to the very top but he still hasn't proven his excellence vs. thoughest competition this year so far.
On April 28 2019 21:47 Xain0n wrote:
On April 28 2019 21:34 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] right, because he got 2nd at IEM Katowice...
Katowice(and Stats' results in 2018) explains why he already was in the list, the point here is why he didn't drop positions this month.
Well, I'm not arguing exactly for Stats being ranked that high but I can understand the logic and don't think it's wrong per se. The only result of Stats since his great performance at IEM is GSL ST. The question would be: did he look bad enough at this tournament that one should think he's gotten worse? His win vs Maru who recently won vs all the top Protosses and threw a very effective and surprising mech style against him was really impressive. Not only because of the bare result but also because of his demonstrated skill ingame. He just played incredibly good and adjusted to Maru very well. Then he lost to Gumiho who made it to the finals. Can we say he's gotten worse because of this performance? Or isn't a Ro8 finish what you'd expect from a top4-player facing a really strong opponent in a tourney where almost all top10-players are participating? Serral got the benefit of the doubt in earlier PRs this year, Maru as well. It's just reasonable to do the same with Stats now.
I would not necessarily have made Stats drop positions(most likely, especially because Gumiho 3-0d him while he was clearly favored), but it's weird that he didn't because it doesn't seem consistent with the criteria applied to other people on this list.
Also, Gumiho jumping in at #5 seems excessive to me just as it is to leave Neeb out of this list(he'd deserve it over Dear, even at #10).
I don't see the inconsistency: Serral had his chance to make a point for his case but he didn't and thus he got ranked lower after two PRs in which he was credited with the benefit of the doubt. Stats just made his point for the last PR and thus he also gets the benefit of the doubt now like Serral did. Same goes for Dark.
I think that Dear over Neeb is reasonable, considering that Dear made it to Ro8 in both IEM and GSL after topping his tough groups while Neeb struggled to do so in IEM and WESG (which was the easier tournament). Losing to Zest in PvP in a Ro16 isn't enough information to instantly kick Dear down while Neeb did what he has to do at least to be considered somewhere near the top 10: win WCS winter NA. But yeah - Neeb, Dear, Inno and soO probably could be shuffled around. Gumiho being ranked 5th is a bold statement but it fits well in the recent PRs with soO instantly getting #1 after IEM and Maru now being 1# because of GSL. Also Inno got ranked #5 after his WESG victory, too.
Serral was never given the benefit of the doubt: soO was skyrocketed at #1 from nowhere after Katowice, and the second place at WESG justified Serral not regressing any further in the following list; it's appropriate to scale him down after his losses this month, but I still see him in top5. Dark's month was disappointing, I would have had him drop more than two places.
Inno got ranked #5, but now there is one more month of results in 2019 so it would be logical for Gumiho to enter the PR at least one step lower.
Maru's progression is fine, he was just ranked too high in the last PR(and Classic maybe too low).
Now you're denying facts for the sake of your argument. Of course Serral was given the benefit of the doubt. He got ranked #2 in the march PR after finishing in the Ro8 at IEM and losing to Inno in group stage. And he still got ranked #3 after losing to Reynor and Heromarine in group stage of WCS Winter and being beaten by Neeb in group stage of WESG (where he also made a case for himself by finishing 2nd). There are good arguments for having Serral still ranked that high back then, which includes that it seemed reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. Dark month was disappointing, that's true. But after having rightfully earned a consistency #1 in the last PR it is consistent to give him the benefit of the doubt like it was done with Serral, Stats and Maru.
How does being one month more into the year affect the PR? Most recent results are still the highest valued factor in PRs.
I am not denying anything. Before IEM(with 2018 results being the only one considered), Serral was #1 despite never figuring as such on a PR(although he was crowned best player of the year) with Maru being #2 and Stats #3; then Serral loses one pointless bo3(he already was first in the group) then is narrowly eliminated by the eventual winner and he immediately drops at #2 in the power ranking released shortly after? Maru did worse than him, Stats reached the finals but his 2018 achievements were not comparable to Serral's so that he could not earn the first spot(he was not given, in fact) while soO, who had one irrelevant 2018, was placed first. Are you convinced this was giving Serral the "benefit of the doubt"?
It's true that most recent results are valued more heavily but unlike the first tournament in 2019 whose sole comparison were 2018's one(rated much less), we have now a notable amount of tournaments played this year to consider; Gumiho's 2019 was not exactly great before Super Tournament so the leap he has made into the Power Ranking seems a little disproportioned(Inno's was fine since only IEM and groupstages were played before that while soO's seemed to me exaggerated as well).
Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
On April 28 2019 20:31 MockHamill wrote: If Blizzcon was right now who would you put your money on?
It still comes down to Maru or Serral.
So this powerrank is clearly wrong, Serral should at least be number 2. Also Reynor is better than most Koreans on that list.
Serral clearly can't be that high on the list. He didn't win anything this year. He made two finals appearances only in mediocre tournaments (WCS and WESG). He lost to soO Neeb, Inno twice, Reynor twice and big Gabe, showing weaknesses in all matchups. Is he bad? Certainly not. But his lack of results can't be tarnished by his 2018 success anymore.
The idea of ranking Reynor as high as many are demanding is kind of weird. He has shown that he is excellent in ZvZ but he lost vs Creator and Gumiho in offline qualifiers at IEM, lost vs Neeb in Ro16 of WESG, lost vs Heromarine in groupstage of WCS Winter and lost his first match vs Marinelord (!) in WCS Spring. I really like Reynor and I think he can rise to the very top but he still hasn't proven his excellence vs. thoughest competition this year so far.
On April 28 2019 21:47 Xain0n wrote: [quote]
Katowice(and Stats' results in 2018) explains why he already was in the list, the point here is why he didn't drop positions this month.
Well, I'm not arguing exactly for Stats being ranked that high but I can understand the logic and don't think it's wrong per se. The only result of Stats since his great performance at IEM is GSL ST. The question would be: did he look bad enough at this tournament that one should think he's gotten worse? His win vs Maru who recently won vs all the top Protosses and threw a very effective and surprising mech style against him was really impressive. Not only because of the bare result but also because of his demonstrated skill ingame. He just played incredibly good and adjusted to Maru very well. Then he lost to Gumiho who made it to the finals. Can we say he's gotten worse because of this performance? Or isn't a Ro8 finish what you'd expect from a top4-player facing a really strong opponent in a tourney where almost all top10-players are participating? Serral got the benefit of the doubt in earlier PRs this year, Maru as well. It's just reasonable to do the same with Stats now.
I would not necessarily have made Stats drop positions(most likely, especially because Gumiho 3-0d him while he was clearly favored), but it's weird that he didn't because it doesn't seem consistent with the criteria applied to other people on this list.
Also, Gumiho jumping in at #5 seems excessive to me just as it is to leave Neeb out of this list(he'd deserve it over Dear, even at #10).
I don't see the inconsistency: Serral had his chance to make a point for his case but he didn't and thus he got ranked lower after two PRs in which he was credited with the benefit of the doubt. Stats just made his point for the last PR and thus he also gets the benefit of the doubt now like Serral did. Same goes for Dark.
I think that Dear over Neeb is reasonable, considering that Dear made it to Ro8 in both IEM and GSL after topping his tough groups while Neeb struggled to do so in IEM and WESG (which was the easier tournament). Losing to Zest in PvP in a Ro16 isn't enough information to instantly kick Dear down while Neeb did what he has to do at least to be considered somewhere near the top 10: win WCS winter NA. But yeah - Neeb, Dear, Inno and soO probably could be shuffled around. Gumiho being ranked 5th is a bold statement but it fits well in the recent PRs with soO instantly getting #1 after IEM and Maru now being 1# because of GSL. Also Inno got ranked #5 after his WESG victory, too.
Serral was never given the benefit of the doubt: soO was skyrocketed at #1 from nowhere after Katowice, and the second place at WESG justified Serral not regressing any further in the following list; it's appropriate to scale him down after his losses this month, but I still see him in top5. Dark's month was disappointing, I would have had him drop more than two places.
Inno got ranked #5, but now there is one more month of results in 2019 so it would be logical for Gumiho to enter the PR at least one step lower.
Maru's progression is fine, he was just ranked too high in the last PR(and Classic maybe too low).
Now you're denying facts for the sake of your argument. Of course Serral was given the benefit of the doubt. He got ranked #2 in the march PR after finishing in the Ro8 at IEM and losing to Inno in group stage. And he still got ranked #3 after losing to Reynor and Heromarine in group stage of WCS Winter and being beaten by Neeb in group stage of WESG (where he also made a case for himself by finishing 2nd). There are good arguments for having Serral still ranked that high back then, which includes that it seemed reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. Dark month was disappointing, that's true. But after having rightfully earned a consistency #1 in the last PR it is consistent to give him the benefit of the doubt like it was done with Serral, Stats and Maru.
How does being one month more into the year affect the PR? Most recent results are still the highest valued factor in PRs.
I am not denying anything. Before IEM(with 2018 results being the only one considered), Serral was #1 despite never figuring as such on a PR(although he was crowned best player of the year) with Maru being #2 and Stats #3; then Serral loses one pointless bo3(he already was first in the group) then is narrowly eliminated by the eventual winner and he immediately drops at #2 in the power ranking released shortly after? Maru did worse than him, Stats reached the finals but his 2018 achievements were not comparable to Serral's so that he could not earn the first spot(he was not given, in fact) while soO, who had one irrelevant 2018, was placed first. Are you convinced this was giving Serral the "benefit of the doubt"?
It's true that most recent results are valued more heavily but unlike the first tournament in 2019 whose sole comparison were 2018's one(rated much less), we have now a notable amount of tournaments played this year to consider; Gumiho's 2019 was not exactly great before Super Tournament so the leap he has made into the Power Ranking seems a little disproportioned(Inno's was fine since only IEM and groupstages were played before that while soO's seemed to me exaggerated as well).
Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
On April 28 2019 22:47 fronkschnonk wrote: [quote] Serral clearly can't be that high on the list. He didn't win anything this year. He made two finals appearances only in mediocre tournaments (WCS and WESG). He lost to soO Neeb, Inno twice, Reynor twice and big Gabe, showing weaknesses in all matchups. Is he bad? Certainly not. But his lack of results can't be tarnished by his 2018 success anymore.
The idea of ranking Reynor as high as many are demanding is kind of weird. He has shown that he is excellent in ZvZ but he lost vs Creator and Gumiho in offline qualifiers at IEM, lost vs Neeb in Ro16 of WESG, lost vs Heromarine in groupstage of WCS Winter and lost his first match vs Marinelord (!) in WCS Spring. I really like Reynor and I think he can rise to the very top but he still hasn't proven his excellence vs. thoughest competition this year so far.
[quote] Well, I'm not arguing exactly for Stats being ranked that high but I can understand the logic and don't think it's wrong per se. The only result of Stats since his great performance at IEM is GSL ST. The question would be: did he look bad enough at this tournament that one should think he's gotten worse? His win vs Maru who recently won vs all the top Protosses and threw a very effective and surprising mech style against him was really impressive. Not only because of the bare result but also because of his demonstrated skill ingame. He just played incredibly good and adjusted to Maru very well. Then he lost to Gumiho who made it to the finals. Can we say he's gotten worse because of this performance? Or isn't a Ro8 finish what you'd expect from a top4-player facing a really strong opponent in a tourney where almost all top10-players are participating? Serral got the benefit of the doubt in earlier PRs this year, Maru as well. It's just reasonable to do the same with Stats now.
I would not necessarily have made Stats drop positions(most likely, especially because Gumiho 3-0d him while he was clearly favored), but it's weird that he didn't because it doesn't seem consistent with the criteria applied to other people on this list.
Also, Gumiho jumping in at #5 seems excessive to me just as it is to leave Neeb out of this list(he'd deserve it over Dear, even at #10).
I don't see the inconsistency: Serral had his chance to make a point for his case but he didn't and thus he got ranked lower after two PRs in which he was credited with the benefit of the doubt. Stats just made his point for the last PR and thus he also gets the benefit of the doubt now like Serral did. Same goes for Dark.
I think that Dear over Neeb is reasonable, considering that Dear made it to Ro8 in both IEM and GSL after topping his tough groups while Neeb struggled to do so in IEM and WESG (which was the easier tournament). Losing to Zest in PvP in a Ro16 isn't enough information to instantly kick Dear down while Neeb did what he has to do at least to be considered somewhere near the top 10: win WCS winter NA. But yeah - Neeb, Dear, Inno and soO probably could be shuffled around. Gumiho being ranked 5th is a bold statement but it fits well in the recent PRs with soO instantly getting #1 after IEM and Maru now being 1# because of GSL. Also Inno got ranked #5 after his WESG victory, too.
Serral was never given the benefit of the doubt: soO was skyrocketed at #1 from nowhere after Katowice, and the second place at WESG justified Serral not regressing any further in the following list; it's appropriate to scale him down after his losses this month, but I still see him in top5. Dark's month was disappointing, I would have had him drop more than two places.
Inno got ranked #5, but now there is one more month of results in 2019 so it would be logical for Gumiho to enter the PR at least one step lower.
Maru's progression is fine, he was just ranked too high in the last PR(and Classic maybe too low).
Now you're denying facts for the sake of your argument. Of course Serral was given the benefit of the doubt. He got ranked #2 in the march PR after finishing in the Ro8 at IEM and losing to Inno in group stage. And he still got ranked #3 after losing to Reynor and Heromarine in group stage of WCS Winter and being beaten by Neeb in group stage of WESG (where he also made a case for himself by finishing 2nd). There are good arguments for having Serral still ranked that high back then, which includes that it seemed reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. Dark month was disappointing, that's true. But after having rightfully earned a consistency #1 in the last PR it is consistent to give him the benefit of the doubt like it was done with Serral, Stats and Maru.
How does being one month more into the year affect the PR? Most recent results are still the highest valued factor in PRs.
I am not denying anything. Before IEM(with 2018 results being the only one considered), Serral was #1 despite never figuring as such on a PR(although he was crowned best player of the year) with Maru being #2 and Stats #3; then Serral loses one pointless bo3(he already was first in the group) then is narrowly eliminated by the eventual winner and he immediately drops at #2 in the power ranking released shortly after? Maru did worse than him, Stats reached the finals but his 2018 achievements were not comparable to Serral's so that he could not earn the first spot(he was not given, in fact) while soO, who had one irrelevant 2018, was placed first. Are you convinced this was giving Serral the "benefit of the doubt"?
It's true that most recent results are valued more heavily but unlike the first tournament in 2019 whose sole comparison were 2018's one(rated much less), we have now a notable amount of tournaments played this year to consider; Gumiho's 2019 was not exactly great before Super Tournament so the leap he has made into the Power Ranking seems a little disproportioned(Inno's was fine since only IEM and groupstages were played before that while soO's seemed to me exaggerated as well).
Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
I would not necessarily have made Stats drop positions(most likely, especially because Gumiho 3-0d him while he was clearly favored), but it's weird that he didn't because it doesn't seem consistent with the criteria applied to other people on this list.
Also, Gumiho jumping in at #5 seems excessive to me just as it is to leave Neeb out of this list(he'd deserve it over Dear, even at #10).
I don't see the inconsistency: Serral had his chance to make a point for his case but he didn't and thus he got ranked lower after two PRs in which he was credited with the benefit of the doubt. Stats just made his point for the last PR and thus he also gets the benefit of the doubt now like Serral did. Same goes for Dark.
I think that Dear over Neeb is reasonable, considering that Dear made it to Ro8 in both IEM and GSL after topping his tough groups while Neeb struggled to do so in IEM and WESG (which was the easier tournament). Losing to Zest in PvP in a Ro16 isn't enough information to instantly kick Dear down while Neeb did what he has to do at least to be considered somewhere near the top 10: win WCS winter NA. But yeah - Neeb, Dear, Inno and soO probably could be shuffled around. Gumiho being ranked 5th is a bold statement but it fits well in the recent PRs with soO instantly getting #1 after IEM and Maru now being 1# because of GSL. Also Inno got ranked #5 after his WESG victory, too.
Serral was never given the benefit of the doubt: soO was skyrocketed at #1 from nowhere after Katowice, and the second place at WESG justified Serral not regressing any further in the following list; it's appropriate to scale him down after his losses this month, but I still see him in top5. Dark's month was disappointing, I would have had him drop more than two places.
Inno got ranked #5, but now there is one more month of results in 2019 so it would be logical for Gumiho to enter the PR at least one step lower.
Maru's progression is fine, he was just ranked too high in the last PR(and Classic maybe too low).
Now you're denying facts for the sake of your argument. Of course Serral was given the benefit of the doubt. He got ranked #2 in the march PR after finishing in the Ro8 at IEM and losing to Inno in group stage. And he still got ranked #3 after losing to Reynor and Heromarine in group stage of WCS Winter and being beaten by Neeb in group stage of WESG (where he also made a case for himself by finishing 2nd). There are good arguments for having Serral still ranked that high back then, which includes that it seemed reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. Dark month was disappointing, that's true. But after having rightfully earned a consistency #1 in the last PR it is consistent to give him the benefit of the doubt like it was done with Serral, Stats and Maru.
How does being one month more into the year affect the PR? Most recent results are still the highest valued factor in PRs.
I am not denying anything. Before IEM(with 2018 results being the only one considered), Serral was #1 despite never figuring as such on a PR(although he was crowned best player of the year) with Maru being #2 and Stats #3; then Serral loses one pointless bo3(he already was first in the group) then is narrowly eliminated by the eventual winner and he immediately drops at #2 in the power ranking released shortly after? Maru did worse than him, Stats reached the finals but his 2018 achievements were not comparable to Serral's so that he could not earn the first spot(he was not given, in fact) while soO, who had one irrelevant 2018, was placed first. Are you convinced this was giving Serral the "benefit of the doubt"?
It's true that most recent results are valued more heavily but unlike the first tournament in 2019 whose sole comparison were 2018's one(rated much less), we have now a notable amount of tournaments played this year to consider; Gumiho's 2019 was not exactly great before Super Tournament so the leap he has made into the Power Ranking seems a little disproportioned(Inno's was fine since only IEM and groupstages were played before that while soO's seemed to me exaggerated as well).
Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
Serral is still the best Zerg in the world, you cannot downgrade him because he started losing series instead of winning every single one of that; judging paths instead of results in tournaments brings us to a wholly different dimension, every placement should be reevaluated.
I can tell you winning WCS might not be better than reaching a Code S final, but is also definitely not worse than losing in one(nowadays, it was very different in the past).
I would not necessarily have made Stats drop positions(most likely, especially because Gumiho 3-0d him while he was clearly favored), but it's weird that he didn't because it doesn't seem consistent with the criteria applied to other people on this list.
Also, Gumiho jumping in at #5 seems excessive to me just as it is to leave Neeb out of this list(he'd deserve it over Dear, even at #10).
I don't see the inconsistency: Serral had his chance to make a point for his case but he didn't and thus he got ranked lower after two PRs in which he was credited with the benefit of the doubt. Stats just made his point for the last PR and thus he also gets the benefit of the doubt now like Serral did. Same goes for Dark.
I think that Dear over Neeb is reasonable, considering that Dear made it to Ro8 in both IEM and GSL after topping his tough groups while Neeb struggled to do so in IEM and WESG (which was the easier tournament). Losing to Zest in PvP in a Ro16 isn't enough information to instantly kick Dear down while Neeb did what he has to do at least to be considered somewhere near the top 10: win WCS winter NA. But yeah - Neeb, Dear, Inno and soO probably could be shuffled around. Gumiho being ranked 5th is a bold statement but it fits well in the recent PRs with soO instantly getting #1 after IEM and Maru now being 1# because of GSL. Also Inno got ranked #5 after his WESG victory, too.
Serral was never given the benefit of the doubt: soO was skyrocketed at #1 from nowhere after Katowice, and the second place at WESG justified Serral not regressing any further in the following list; it's appropriate to scale him down after his losses this month, but I still see him in top5. Dark's month was disappointing, I would have had him drop more than two places.
Inno got ranked #5, but now there is one more month of results in 2019 so it would be logical for Gumiho to enter the PR at least one step lower.
Maru's progression is fine, he was just ranked too high in the last PR(and Classic maybe too low).
Now you're denying facts for the sake of your argument. Of course Serral was given the benefit of the doubt. He got ranked #2 in the march PR after finishing in the Ro8 at IEM and losing to Inno in group stage. And he still got ranked #3 after losing to Reynor and Heromarine in group stage of WCS Winter and being beaten by Neeb in group stage of WESG (where he also made a case for himself by finishing 2nd). There are good arguments for having Serral still ranked that high back then, which includes that it seemed reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. Dark month was disappointing, that's true. But after having rightfully earned a consistency #1 in the last PR it is consistent to give him the benefit of the doubt like it was done with Serral, Stats and Maru.
How does being one month more into the year affect the PR? Most recent results are still the highest valued factor in PRs.
I am not denying anything. Before IEM(with 2018 results being the only one considered), Serral was #1 despite never figuring as such on a PR(although he was crowned best player of the year) with Maru being #2 and Stats #3; then Serral loses one pointless bo3(he already was first in the group) then is narrowly eliminated by the eventual winner and he immediately drops at #2 in the power ranking released shortly after? Maru did worse than him, Stats reached the finals but his 2018 achievements were not comparable to Serral's so that he could not earn the first spot(he was not given, in fact) while soO, who had one irrelevant 2018, was placed first. Are you convinced this was giving Serral the "benefit of the doubt"?
It's true that most recent results are valued more heavily but unlike the first tournament in 2019 whose sole comparison were 2018's one(rated much less), we have now a notable amount of tournaments played this year to consider; Gumiho's 2019 was not exactly great before Super Tournament so the leap he has made into the Power Ranking seems a little disproportioned(Inno's was fine since only IEM and groupstages were played before that while soO's seemed to me exaggerated as well).
Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
By your logic Maru isn't a "benchmark" either. Or any other player for that matter. Seems a bit over the top don't you think?
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
On April 29 2019 04:19 fronkschnonk wrote: [quote] I don't see the inconsistency: Serral had his chance to make a point for his case but he didn't and thus he got ranked lower after two PRs in which he was credited with the benefit of the doubt. Stats just made his point for the last PR and thus he also gets the benefit of the doubt now like Serral did. Same goes for Dark.
I think that Dear over Neeb is reasonable, considering that Dear made it to Ro8 in both IEM and GSL after topping his tough groups while Neeb struggled to do so in IEM and WESG (which was the easier tournament). Losing to Zest in PvP in a Ro16 isn't enough information to instantly kick Dear down while Neeb did what he has to do at least to be considered somewhere near the top 10: win WCS winter NA. But yeah - Neeb, Dear, Inno and soO probably could be shuffled around. Gumiho being ranked 5th is a bold statement but it fits well in the recent PRs with soO instantly getting #1 after IEM and Maru now being 1# because of GSL. Also Inno got ranked #5 after his WESG victory, too.
Serral was never given the benefit of the doubt: soO was skyrocketed at #1 from nowhere after Katowice, and the second place at WESG justified Serral not regressing any further in the following list; it's appropriate to scale him down after his losses this month, but I still see him in top5. Dark's month was disappointing, I would have had him drop more than two places.
Inno got ranked #5, but now there is one more month of results in 2019 so it would be logical for Gumiho to enter the PR at least one step lower.
Maru's progression is fine, he was just ranked too high in the last PR(and Classic maybe too low).
Now you're denying facts for the sake of your argument. Of course Serral was given the benefit of the doubt. He got ranked #2 in the march PR after finishing in the Ro8 at IEM and losing to Inno in group stage. And he still got ranked #3 after losing to Reynor and Heromarine in group stage of WCS Winter and being beaten by Neeb in group stage of WESG (where he also made a case for himself by finishing 2nd). There are good arguments for having Serral still ranked that high back then, which includes that it seemed reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. Dark month was disappointing, that's true. But after having rightfully earned a consistency #1 in the last PR it is consistent to give him the benefit of the doubt like it was done with Serral, Stats and Maru.
How does being one month more into the year affect the PR? Most recent results are still the highest valued factor in PRs.
I am not denying anything. Before IEM(with 2018 results being the only one considered), Serral was #1 despite never figuring as such on a PR(although he was crowned best player of the year) with Maru being #2 and Stats #3; then Serral loses one pointless bo3(he already was first in the group) then is narrowly eliminated by the eventual winner and he immediately drops at #2 in the power ranking released shortly after? Maru did worse than him, Stats reached the finals but his 2018 achievements were not comparable to Serral's so that he could not earn the first spot(he was not given, in fact) while soO, who had one irrelevant 2018, was placed first. Are you convinced this was giving Serral the "benefit of the doubt"?
It's true that most recent results are valued more heavily but unlike the first tournament in 2019 whose sole comparison were 2018's one(rated much less), we have now a notable amount of tournaments played this year to consider; Gumiho's 2019 was not exactly great before Super Tournament so the leap he has made into the Power Ranking seems a little disproportioned(Inno's was fine since only IEM and groupstages were played before that while soO's seemed to me exaggerated as well).
Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
By your logic Maru isn't a "benchmark" either. Or any other player for that matter. Seems a bit over the top don't you think?
I didn't say that Serral is no benchmark, just that he isn't as high of a benchmark as he used to be, after it has been demonstrated that he can be beaten by many players who aren't at the very top. I still would rate Serral above Heromarine and Neeb, for example, but players on that level obviously can beat him on a good day.
@xain0n I'm not quite sure, if "best zerg in the world" is justified for Serral anymore. He obviously is a contender but Dark has shown much more consistency on a high level apart from Super Tournament and Reynor and soO were able to beat him and many other good players. Sad thing is that Serral will be hard to compare again until probably GSL vs The World and his success or non-success will probably projected back on the time inbetween by you again, like last year.
@Dave How convenient. You're concealing the fact that Serral just managed to get 2nd in the two weakest premiers we had this year.
Serral was never given the benefit of the doubt: soO was skyrocketed at #1 from nowhere after Katowice, and the second place at WESG justified Serral not regressing any further in the following list; it's appropriate to scale him down after his losses this month, but I still see him in top5. Dark's month was disappointing, I would have had him drop more than two places.
Inno got ranked #5, but now there is one more month of results in 2019 so it would be logical for Gumiho to enter the PR at least one step lower.
Maru's progression is fine, he was just ranked too high in the last PR(and Classic maybe too low).
Now you're denying facts for the sake of your argument. Of course Serral was given the benefit of the doubt. He got ranked #2 in the march PR after finishing in the Ro8 at IEM and losing to Inno in group stage. And he still got ranked #3 after losing to Reynor and Heromarine in group stage of WCS Winter and being beaten by Neeb in group stage of WESG (where he also made a case for himself by finishing 2nd). There are good arguments for having Serral still ranked that high back then, which includes that it seemed reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. Dark month was disappointing, that's true. But after having rightfully earned a consistency #1 in the last PR it is consistent to give him the benefit of the doubt like it was done with Serral, Stats and Maru.
How does being one month more into the year affect the PR? Most recent results are still the highest valued factor in PRs.
I am not denying anything. Before IEM(with 2018 results being the only one considered), Serral was #1 despite never figuring as such on a PR(although he was crowned best player of the year) with Maru being #2 and Stats #3; then Serral loses one pointless bo3(he already was first in the group) then is narrowly eliminated by the eventual winner and he immediately drops at #2 in the power ranking released shortly after? Maru did worse than him, Stats reached the finals but his 2018 achievements were not comparable to Serral's so that he could not earn the first spot(he was not given, in fact) while soO, who had one irrelevant 2018, was placed first. Are you convinced this was giving Serral the "benefit of the doubt"?
It's true that most recent results are valued more heavily but unlike the first tournament in 2019 whose sole comparison were 2018's one(rated much less), we have now a notable amount of tournaments played this year to consider; Gumiho's 2019 was not exactly great before Super Tournament so the leap he has made into the Power Ranking seems a little disproportioned(Inno's was fine since only IEM and groupstages were played before that while soO's seemed to me exaggerated as well).
Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
By your logic Maru isn't a "benchmark" either. Or any other player for that matter. Seems a bit over the top don't you think?
I didn't say that Serral is no benchmark, just that he isn't as high of a benchmark as he used to be, after it has been demonstrated that he can be beaten by many players who aren't at the very top. I still would rate Serral above Heromarine and Neeb, for example, but players on that level obviously can beat him on a good day.
@xain0n I'm not quite sure, if "best zerg in the world" is justified for Serral anymore. He obviously is a contender but Dark has shown much more consistency on a high level apart from Super Tournament and Reynor and soO were able to beat him and many other good players. Sad thing is that Serral will be hard to compare again until probably GSL vs The World and his success or non-success will probably projected back on the time inbetween by you again, like last year.
@Dave How convenient. You're concealing the fact that Serral just managed to get 2nd in the two weakest premiers we had this year.
Dark this year reached two ro4, one ro8(at WESG where he was eliminated by Serral himself) and one ro16; weaker tournaments or not, Serral lost two finals and went out in ro8 once. Much more consistent at high level? Debatable.
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
A silver from foreigner only tourney(where the top NA playesr aren't allowed) is better than Code S title? Or IEM title? Really? Is this some form of trolling account with 3 already banned? Am I missing some meme?
So many questions.
Edit> This is what happens when you treat WCS EU the same way as Code S... ><
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
A silver from foreigner only tourney(where the top NA playesr aren't allowed) is better than Code S title? Or IEM title? Really? Is this some form of trolling account with 3 already banned? Am I missing some meme?
So many questions.
Edit> This is what happens when you treat WCS EU the same way as Code S... ><
You are missing the point, I guess. If he thought WCS Winter Silver to be better than Code S he'd be arguing for Serral to be #2 on the list; that was meant as an answer to Charoisaur's post stating Serral wouldn't even be top 10 if we would exclude 2018.
On April 29 2019 11:48 fronkschnonk wrote: [quote] Now you're denying facts for the sake of your argument. Of course Serral was given the benefit of the doubt. He got ranked #2 in the march PR after finishing in the Ro8 at IEM and losing to Inno in group stage. And he still got ranked #3 after losing to Reynor and Heromarine in group stage of WCS Winter and being beaten by Neeb in group stage of WESG (where he also made a case for himself by finishing 2nd). There are good arguments for having Serral still ranked that high back then, which includes that it seemed reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. Dark month was disappointing, that's true. But after having rightfully earned a consistency #1 in the last PR it is consistent to give him the benefit of the doubt like it was done with Serral, Stats and Maru.
How does being one month more into the year affect the PR? Most recent results are still the highest valued factor in PRs.
I am not denying anything. Before IEM(with 2018 results being the only one considered), Serral was #1 despite never figuring as such on a PR(although he was crowned best player of the year) with Maru being #2 and Stats #3; then Serral loses one pointless bo3(he already was first in the group) then is narrowly eliminated by the eventual winner and he immediately drops at #2 in the power ranking released shortly after? Maru did worse than him, Stats reached the finals but his 2018 achievements were not comparable to Serral's so that he could not earn the first spot(he was not given, in fact) while soO, who had one irrelevant 2018, was placed first. Are you convinced this was giving Serral the "benefit of the doubt"?
It's true that most recent results are valued more heavily but unlike the first tournament in 2019 whose sole comparison were 2018's one(rated much less), we have now a notable amount of tournaments played this year to consider; Gumiho's 2019 was not exactly great before Super Tournament so the leap he has made into the Power Ranking seems a little disproportioned(Inno's was fine since only IEM and groupstages were played before that while soO's seemed to me exaggerated as well).
Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
By your logic Maru isn't a "benchmark" either. Or any other player for that matter. Seems a bit over the top don't you think?
I didn't say that Serral is no benchmark, just that he isn't as high of a benchmark as he used to be, after it has been demonstrated that he can be beaten by many players who aren't at the very top. I still would rate Serral above Heromarine and Neeb, for example, but players on that level obviously can beat him on a good day.
@xain0n I'm not quite sure, if "best zerg in the world" is justified for Serral anymore. He obviously is a contender but Dark has shown much more consistency on a high level apart from Super Tournament and Reynor and soO were able to beat him and many other good players. Sad thing is that Serral will be hard to compare again until probably GSL vs The World and his success or non-success will probably projected back on the time inbetween by you again, like last year.
@Dave How convenient. You're concealing the fact that Serral just managed to get 2nd in the two weakest premiers we had this year.
Dark this year reached two ro4, one ro8(at WESG where he was eliminated by Serral himself) and one ro16; weaker tournaments or not, Serral lost two finals and went out in ro8 once. Much more consistent at high level? Debatable.
"much" more is exaggerated, that's true. But I don't think that 2nd place in half WCS can be measured very high, especially considering that Reynor hasn't had good showings elsewhere. Dark finished better in IEM. Dark finished in Ro4 in GSL which outclasses Serral's 2nd place at WCS by far. And Dark lost a match to Serral at WESG. 2:1 for Dark in terms of overall consistency, I'd say.
What kind of tilts those discussions in favor of Serral is, that he barely enters any tournaments where as elimination in early rounds is very likely for a player of his calibre. For a very good player it's more likely to get kicked out of ST in the first round than not making it out of group stage at IEM/WESG/WCS.
I am not denying anything. Before IEM(with 2018 results being the only one considered), Serral was #1 despite never figuring as such on a PR(although he was crowned best player of the year) with Maru being #2 and Stats #3; then Serral loses one pointless bo3(he already was first in the group) then is narrowly eliminated by the eventual winner and he immediately drops at #2 in the power ranking released shortly after? Maru did worse than him, Stats reached the finals but his 2018 achievements were not comparable to Serral's so that he could not earn the first spot(he was not given, in fact) while soO, who had one irrelevant 2018, was placed first. Are you convinced this was giving Serral the "benefit of the doubt"?
It's true that most recent results are valued more heavily but unlike the first tournament in 2019 whose sole comparison were 2018's one(rated much less), we have now a notable amount of tournaments played this year to consider; Gumiho's 2019 was not exactly great before Super Tournament so the leap he has made into the Power Ranking seems a little disproportioned(Inno's was fine since only IEM and groupstages were played before that while soO's seemed to me exaggerated as well).
Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
By your logic Maru isn't a "benchmark" either. Or any other player for that matter. Seems a bit over the top don't you think?
I didn't say that Serral is no benchmark, just that he isn't as high of a benchmark as he used to be, after it has been demonstrated that he can be beaten by many players who aren't at the very top. I still would rate Serral above Heromarine and Neeb, for example, but players on that level obviously can beat him on a good day.
@xain0n I'm not quite sure, if "best zerg in the world" is justified for Serral anymore. He obviously is a contender but Dark has shown much more consistency on a high level apart from Super Tournament and Reynor and soO were able to beat him and many other good players. Sad thing is that Serral will be hard to compare again until probably GSL vs The World and his success or non-success will probably projected back on the time inbetween by you again, like last year.
@Dave How convenient. You're concealing the fact that Serral just managed to get 2nd in the two weakest premiers we had this year.
Dark this year reached two ro4, one ro8(at WESG where he was eliminated by Serral himself) and one ro16; weaker tournaments or not, Serral lost two finals and went out in ro8 once. Much more consistent at high level? Debatable.
"much" more is exaggerated, that's true. But I don't think that 2nd place in half WCS can be measured very high, especially considering that Reynor hasn't had good showings elsewhere. Dark finished better in IEM. Dark finished in Ro4 in GSL which outclasses Serral's 2nd place at WCS by far. And Dark lost a match to Serral at WESG. 2:1 for Dark in terms of overall consistency, I'd say.
What kind of tilts those discussions in favor of Serral is, that he barely enters any tournaments where as elimination in early rounds is very likely for a player of his calibre. For a very good player it's more likely to get kicked out of ST in the first round than not making it out of group stage at IEM/WESG/WCS.
I don't think there is a single tournament where Serral's elimination in ro16 is very likely; Dark, too, was expected to beat Gumiho(in his most dominant matchup, nevertheless) so that's why I am treating his ro16 placement as a bad result: it counts as -1 for Dark in my opinion, in terms of overall consistency.
On April 30 2019 18:56 Xain0n wrote: Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
I keep hearing this, but how is WESG easier than other tournaments when you have to go through the Korean qualifier?
On April 29 2019 18:54 fronkschnonk wrote: [quote] Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
By your logic Maru isn't a "benchmark" either. Or any other player for that matter. Seems a bit over the top don't you think?
I didn't say that Serral is no benchmark, just that he isn't as high of a benchmark as he used to be, after it has been demonstrated that he can be beaten by many players who aren't at the very top. I still would rate Serral above Heromarine and Neeb, for example, but players on that level obviously can beat him on a good day.
@xain0n I'm not quite sure, if "best zerg in the world" is justified for Serral anymore. He obviously is a contender but Dark has shown much more consistency on a high level apart from Super Tournament and Reynor and soO were able to beat him and many other good players. Sad thing is that Serral will be hard to compare again until probably GSL vs The World and his success or non-success will probably projected back on the time inbetween by you again, like last year.
@Dave How convenient. You're concealing the fact that Serral just managed to get 2nd in the two weakest premiers we had this year.
Dark this year reached two ro4, one ro8(at WESG where he was eliminated by Serral himself) and one ro16; weaker tournaments or not, Serral lost two finals and went out in ro8 once. Much more consistent at high level? Debatable.
"much" more is exaggerated, that's true. But I don't think that 2nd place in half WCS can be measured very high, especially considering that Reynor hasn't had good showings elsewhere. Dark finished better in IEM. Dark finished in Ro4 in GSL which outclasses Serral's 2nd place at WCS by far. And Dark lost a match to Serral at WESG. 2:1 for Dark in terms of overall consistency, I'd say.
What kind of tilts those discussions in favor of Serral is, that he barely enters any tournaments where as elimination in early rounds is very likely for a player of his calibre. For a very good player it's more likely to get kicked out of ST in the first round than not making it out of group stage at IEM/WESG/WCS.
I don't think there is a single tournament where Serral's elimination in ro16 is very likely; Dark, too, was expected to beat Gumiho(in his most dominant matchup, nevertheless) so that's why I am treating his ro16 placement as a bad result: it counts as -1 for Dark in my opinion, in terms of overall consistency.
I'm not saying that it is likely that Serral would be eliminated in a Ro16 of, let's say Super Tournament. But it happens to every great player every now and then as history shows. But it's almost impossible to happen to Serral as long as he doesn't enter Tournaments with very stacked first rounds like Super Tournament. Here is a thought experiment: imagine Serral would've faced Inno in Ro16 at WESG. Or Reynor in he Ro4-match in WCS instead of PtitDrogo. Also you make it sound as if Serral losing in Ro16 of Super Tournament would be an insane surprise right now. That really depends on who he faces. If he'd participated and faced Classic, Maru, Stats, soO or Gumiho I totally could see him being eliminated in the first round (as in he wouldn't be favored in my book). And almost any other player in the ST-bracket would have a shot on a good day as it is in the nature of SC2 that very good players can make upsets vs favored opponents. This is why I don't think that Dark's loss vs Gumiho sais very much about his level. It's not to be taken in his favor of course but if this is a slipup or the beginning of a downwards trend can't be decided yet, especially since he only lost very close to Gumiho who overall impressed at ST.
@DSh1 Qualifying for WESG via the korean qualifier is a feat in itself, indeed. But it is only an online qualifier in the end which normally doesn't get valued as high. Also the qualifiers of WESG are way before the actual event (in this case even on another patch). So I think only the performances right at WESG can be taken into acount for measurement of the current skilllevel.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
By your logic Maru isn't a "benchmark" either. Or any other player for that matter. Seems a bit over the top don't you think?
I didn't say that Serral is no benchmark, just that he isn't as high of a benchmark as he used to be, after it has been demonstrated that he can be beaten by many players who aren't at the very top. I still would rate Serral above Heromarine and Neeb, for example, but players on that level obviously can beat him on a good day.
@xain0n I'm not quite sure, if "best zerg in the world" is justified for Serral anymore. He obviously is a contender but Dark has shown much more consistency on a high level apart from Super Tournament and Reynor and soO were able to beat him and many other good players. Sad thing is that Serral will be hard to compare again until probably GSL vs The World and his success or non-success will probably projected back on the time inbetween by you again, like last year.
@Dave How convenient. You're concealing the fact that Serral just managed to get 2nd in the two weakest premiers we had this year.
Dark this year reached two ro4, one ro8(at WESG where he was eliminated by Serral himself) and one ro16; weaker tournaments or not, Serral lost two finals and went out in ro8 once. Much more consistent at high level? Debatable.
"much" more is exaggerated, that's true. But I don't think that 2nd place in half WCS can be measured very high, especially considering that Reynor hasn't had good showings elsewhere. Dark finished better in IEM. Dark finished in Ro4 in GSL which outclasses Serral's 2nd place at WCS by far. And Dark lost a match to Serral at WESG. 2:1 for Dark in terms of overall consistency, I'd say.
What kind of tilts those discussions in favor of Serral is, that he barely enters any tournaments where as elimination in early rounds is very likely for a player of his calibre. For a very good player it's more likely to get kicked out of ST in the first round than not making it out of group stage at IEM/WESG/WCS.
I don't think there is a single tournament where Serral's elimination in ro16 is very likely; Dark, too, was expected to beat Gumiho(in his most dominant matchup, nevertheless) so that's why I am treating his ro16 placement as a bad result: it counts as -1 for Dark in my opinion, in terms of overall consistency.
I'm not saying that it is likely that Serral would be eliminated in a Ro16 of, let's say Super Tournament. But it happens to every great player every now and then as history shows. But it's almost impossible to happen to Serral as long as he doesn't enter Tournaments with very stacked first rounds like Super Tournament. Here is a thought experiment: imagine Serral would've faced Inno in Ro16 at WESG. Or Reynor in he Ro4-match in WCS instead of PtitDrogo. Also you make it sound as if Serral losing in Ro16 of Super Tournament would be an insane surprise right now. That really depends on who he faces. If he'd participated and faced Classic, Maru, Stats, soO or Gumiho I totally could see him being eliminated in the first round (as in he wouldn't be favored in my book). And almost any other player in the ST-bracket would have a shot on a good day as it is in the nature of SC2 that very good players can make upsets vs favored opponents. This is why I don't think that Dark's loss vs Gumiho sais very much about his level. It's not to be taken in his favor of course but if this is a slipup or the beginning of a downwards trend can't be decided yet, especially since he only lost very close to Gumiho who overall impressed at ST.
@DSh1 Qualifying for WESG via the korean qualifier is a feat in itself, indeed. But it is only an online qualifier in the end which normally doesn't get valued as high. Also the qualifiers of WESG are way before the actual event (in this case even on another patch). So I think only the performances right at WESG can be taken into acount for measurement of the current skilllevel.
Serral losing in ro16 of the Super Tournament would indeed be one insane surprise right now(at the end of 2018 the surprise would have simply been Serral dropping one series) and I do not think he would be the underdog against all of these players. Sc2 seems volatile again in 2019, no one is unbeatable but it's not like everyone is at the same level at once; i am sure Dark is not slumping, that ro16 placement is still kind of bad and goes against the "high level consistency" you are waving.
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
A silver from foreigner only tourney(where the top NA playesr aren't allowed) is better than Code S title? Or IEM title? Really? Is this some form of trolling account with 3 already banned? Am I missing some meme?
So many questions.
Edit> This is what happens when you treat WCS EU the same way as Code S... ><
I think maybe U misunderstood I said that's why he is 6 on the list, it's not because he is BlizzCon champ or he would surely be higher. I made no such statement that that was better than GSL in fact I had been saying previously Serral is well placed at 6 and Maru should be 2... You should read context before lashing out please let's build a healthy and loving community.
On April 30 2019 17:28 fronkschnonk wrote: [quote] Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
By your logic Maru isn't a "benchmark" either. Or any other player for that matter. Seems a bit over the top don't you think?
I didn't say that Serral is no benchmark, just that he isn't as high of a benchmark as he used to be, after it has been demonstrated that he can be beaten by many players who aren't at the very top. I still would rate Serral above Heromarine and Neeb, for example, but players on that level obviously can beat him on a good day.
@xain0n I'm not quite sure, if "best zerg in the world" is justified for Serral anymore. He obviously is a contender but Dark has shown much more consistency on a high level apart from Super Tournament and Reynor and soO were able to beat him and many other good players. Sad thing is that Serral will be hard to compare again until probably GSL vs The World and his success or non-success will probably projected back on the time inbetween by you again, like last year.
@Dave How convenient. You're concealing the fact that Serral just managed to get 2nd in the two weakest premiers we had this year.
Dark this year reached two ro4, one ro8(at WESG where he was eliminated by Serral himself) and one ro16; weaker tournaments or not, Serral lost two finals and went out in ro8 once. Much more consistent at high level? Debatable.
"much" more is exaggerated, that's true. But I don't think that 2nd place in half WCS can be measured very high, especially considering that Reynor hasn't had good showings elsewhere. Dark finished better in IEM. Dark finished in Ro4 in GSL which outclasses Serral's 2nd place at WCS by far. And Dark lost a match to Serral at WESG. 2:1 for Dark in terms of overall consistency, I'd say.
What kind of tilts those discussions in favor of Serral is, that he barely enters any tournaments where as elimination in early rounds is very likely for a player of his calibre. For a very good player it's more likely to get kicked out of ST in the first round than not making it out of group stage at IEM/WESG/WCS.
I don't think there is a single tournament where Serral's elimination in ro16 is very likely; Dark, too, was expected to beat Gumiho(in his most dominant matchup, nevertheless) so that's why I am treating his ro16 placement as a bad result: it counts as -1 for Dark in my opinion, in terms of overall consistency.
I'm not saying that it is likely that Serral would be eliminated in a Ro16 of, let's say Super Tournament. But it happens to every great player every now and then as history shows. But it's almost impossible to happen to Serral as long as he doesn't enter Tournaments with very stacked first rounds like Super Tournament. Here is a thought experiment: imagine Serral would've faced Inno in Ro16 at WESG. Or Reynor in he Ro4-match in WCS instead of PtitDrogo. Also you make it sound as if Serral losing in Ro16 of Super Tournament would be an insane surprise right now. That really depends on who he faces. If he'd participated and faced Classic, Maru, Stats, soO or Gumiho I totally could see him being eliminated in the first round (as in he wouldn't be favored in my book). And almost any other player in the ST-bracket would have a shot on a good day as it is in the nature of SC2 that very good players can make upsets vs favored opponents. This is why I don't think that Dark's loss vs Gumiho sais very much about his level. It's not to be taken in his favor of course but if this is a slipup or the beginning of a downwards trend can't be decided yet, especially since he only lost very close to Gumiho who overall impressed at ST.
@DSh1 Qualifying for WESG via the korean qualifier is a feat in itself, indeed. But it is only an online qualifier in the end which normally doesn't get valued as high. Also the qualifiers of WESG are way before the actual event (in this case even on another patch). So I think only the performances right at WESG can be taken into acount for measurement of the current skilllevel.
Serral losing in ro16 of the Super Tournament would indeed be one insane surprise right now(at the end of 2018 the surprise would have simply been Serral dropping one series) and I do not think he would be the underdog against all of these players. Sc2 seems volatile again in 2019, no one is unbeatable but it's not like everyone is at the same level at once; i am sure Dark is not slumping, that ro16 placement is still kind of bad and goes against the "high level consistency" you are waving.
Somehow you're understanding my statements in a black-white manner today. I didn't say that Serral would be the underdog. I just said that he wouldn't be favored vs quite some of the ST Ro16 players. As in it could go either way while I actually do think that soO, Classic and Inno should be considered favored vs Serral right now as soO demonstrated high class ZvZ, Classic demonstrated overall greatness and Inno demonstrated being superior to Serral in a direct match twice this year. Thinking of a loss of Serral against those players as a surprise is kind of ignoring this year's data. But "underdog" is a too strong word in this case for my taste. I consider underdogs as clearly unfavored players which obviously doesn't apply to Serral here.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
By your logic Maru isn't a "benchmark" either. Or any other player for that matter. Seems a bit over the top don't you think?
I didn't say that Serral is no benchmark, just that he isn't as high of a benchmark as he used to be, after it has been demonstrated that he can be beaten by many players who aren't at the very top. I still would rate Serral above Heromarine and Neeb, for example, but players on that level obviously can beat him on a good day.
@xain0n I'm not quite sure, if "best zerg in the world" is justified for Serral anymore. He obviously is a contender but Dark has shown much more consistency on a high level apart from Super Tournament and Reynor and soO were able to beat him and many other good players. Sad thing is that Serral will be hard to compare again until probably GSL vs The World and his success or non-success will probably projected back on the time inbetween by you again, like last year.
@Dave How convenient. You're concealing the fact that Serral just managed to get 2nd in the two weakest premiers we had this year.
Dark this year reached two ro4, one ro8(at WESG where he was eliminated by Serral himself) and one ro16; weaker tournaments or not, Serral lost two finals and went out in ro8 once. Much more consistent at high level? Debatable.
"much" more is exaggerated, that's true. But I don't think that 2nd place in half WCS can be measured very high, especially considering that Reynor hasn't had good showings elsewhere. Dark finished better in IEM. Dark finished in Ro4 in GSL which outclasses Serral's 2nd place at WCS by far. And Dark lost a match to Serral at WESG. 2:1 for Dark in terms of overall consistency, I'd say.
What kind of tilts those discussions in favor of Serral is, that he barely enters any tournaments where as elimination in early rounds is very likely for a player of his calibre. For a very good player it's more likely to get kicked out of ST in the first round than not making it out of group stage at IEM/WESG/WCS.
I don't think there is a single tournament where Serral's elimination in ro16 is very likely; Dark, too, was expected to beat Gumiho(in his most dominant matchup, nevertheless) so that's why I am treating his ro16 placement as a bad result: it counts as -1 for Dark in my opinion, in terms of overall consistency.
I'm not saying that it is likely that Serral would be eliminated in a Ro16 of, let's say Super Tournament. But it happens to every great player every now and then as history shows. But it's almost impossible to happen to Serral as long as he doesn't enter Tournaments with very stacked first rounds like Super Tournament. Here is a thought experiment: imagine Serral would've faced Inno in Ro16 at WESG. Or Reynor in he Ro4-match in WCS instead of PtitDrogo. Also you make it sound as if Serral losing in Ro16 of Super Tournament would be an insane surprise right now. That really depends on who he faces. If he'd participated and faced Classic, Maru, Stats, soO or Gumiho I totally could see him being eliminated in the first round (as in he wouldn't be favored in my book). And almost any other player in the ST-bracket would have a shot on a good day as it is in the nature of SC2 that very good players can make upsets vs favored opponents. This is why I don't think that Dark's loss vs Gumiho sais very much about his level. It's not to be taken in his favor of course but if this is a slipup or the beginning of a downwards trend can't be decided yet, especially since he only lost very close to Gumiho who overall impressed at ST.
@DSh1 Qualifying for WESG via the korean qualifier is a feat in itself, indeed. But it is only an online qualifier in the end which normally doesn't get valued as high. Also the qualifiers of WESG are way before the actual event (in this case even on another patch). So I think only the performances right at WESG can be taken into acount for measurement of the current skilllevel.
Serral losing in ro16 of the Super Tournament would indeed be one insane surprise right now(at the end of 2018 the surprise would have simply been Serral dropping one series) and I do not think he would be the underdog against all of these players. Sc2 seems volatile again in 2019, no one is unbeatable but it's not like everyone is at the same level at once; i am sure Dark is not slumping, that ro16 placement is still kind of bad and goes against the "high level consistency" you are waving.
Somehow you're understanding my statements in a black-white manner today. I didn't say that Serral would be the underdog. I just said that he wouldn't be favored vs quite some of the ST Ro16 players. As in it could go either way while I actually do think that soO, Classic and Inno should be considered favored vs Serral right now as soO demonstrated high class ZvZ, Classic demonstrated overall greatness and Inno demonstrated being superior to Serral in a direct match twice this year. Thinking of a loss of Serral against those players as a surprise is kind of ignoring this year's data. But "underdog" is a too strong word in this case for my taste. I consider underdogs as clearly unfavored players which obviously doesn't apply to Serral here.
Mmm I got your statement right, I just chose my words inappropriately. I don't think there is someone clearly favored against Serral at the moment(soO's series was super close, Inno won twice with a mere two maps advantage overall, Classic did not really seem impressive in standard games); Serral is not favored against everyone anymore, that's true. Theorically Serral could go out with at worst a 50:50 ratio against chosen few but it would even be unlikely for him to face those players.
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
On April 29 2019 04:19 fronkschnonk wrote: [quote] I don't see the inconsistency: Serral had his chance to make a point for his case but he didn't and thus he got ranked lower after two PRs in which he was credited with the benefit of the doubt. Stats just made his point for the last PR and thus he also gets the benefit of the doubt now like Serral did. Same goes for Dark.
I think that Dear over Neeb is reasonable, considering that Dear made it to Ro8 in both IEM and GSL after topping his tough groups while Neeb struggled to do so in IEM and WESG (which was the easier tournament). Losing to Zest in PvP in a Ro16 isn't enough information to instantly kick Dear down while Neeb did what he has to do at least to be considered somewhere near the top 10: win WCS winter NA. But yeah - Neeb, Dear, Inno and soO probably could be shuffled around. Gumiho being ranked 5th is a bold statement but it fits well in the recent PRs with soO instantly getting #1 after IEM and Maru now being 1# because of GSL. Also Inno got ranked #5 after his WESG victory, too.
Serral was never given the benefit of the doubt: soO was skyrocketed at #1 from nowhere after Katowice, and the second place at WESG justified Serral not regressing any further in the following list; it's appropriate to scale him down after his losses this month, but I still see him in top5. Dark's month was disappointing, I would have had him drop more than two places.
Inno got ranked #5, but now there is one more month of results in 2019 so it would be logical for Gumiho to enter the PR at least one step lower.
Maru's progression is fine, he was just ranked too high in the last PR(and Classic maybe too low).
Now you're denying facts for the sake of your argument. Of course Serral was given the benefit of the doubt. He got ranked #2 in the march PR after finishing in the Ro8 at IEM and losing to Inno in group stage. And he still got ranked #3 after losing to Reynor and Heromarine in group stage of WCS Winter and being beaten by Neeb in group stage of WESG (where he also made a case for himself by finishing 2nd). There are good arguments for having Serral still ranked that high back then, which includes that it seemed reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. Dark month was disappointing, that's true. But after having rightfully earned a consistency #1 in the last PR it is consistent to give him the benefit of the doubt like it was done with Serral, Stats and Maru.
How does being one month more into the year affect the PR? Most recent results are still the highest valued factor in PRs.
I am not denying anything. Before IEM(with 2018 results being the only one considered), Serral was #1 despite never figuring as such on a PR(although he was crowned best player of the year) with Maru being #2 and Stats #3; then Serral loses one pointless bo3(he already was first in the group) then is narrowly eliminated by the eventual winner and he immediately drops at #2 in the power ranking released shortly after? Maru did worse than him, Stats reached the finals but his 2018 achievements were not comparable to Serral's so that he could not earn the first spot(he was not given, in fact) while soO, who had one irrelevant 2018, was placed first. Are you convinced this was giving Serral the "benefit of the doubt"?
It's true that most recent results are valued more heavily but unlike the first tournament in 2019 whose sole comparison were 2018's one(rated much less), we have now a notable amount of tournaments played this year to consider; Gumiho's 2019 was not exactly great before Super Tournament so the leap he has made into the Power Ranking seems a little disproportioned(Inno's was fine since only IEM and groupstages were played before that while soO's seemed to me exaggerated as well).
Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
Serral is still the best Zerg in the world, you cannot downgrade him because he started losing series instead of winning every single one of that; judging paths instead of results in tournaments brings us to a wholly different dimension, every placement should be reevaluated.
I can tell you winning WCS might not be better than reaching a Code S final, but is also definitely not worse than losing in one(nowadays, it was very different in the past).
Most top foreigners can compete well against Koreans but if you look at GSL vs World and Blizzcon, Koreans usually win close to 2/3 of the games. With that being said, I would say winning a WCS Circuit is a bit more difficult than making GSL ro8 and probably close to as difficult as making GSL ro4. I'll admit that if you're not Serral, winning WCS Circuit would be pretty damn hard, even for a strong Korean.
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names do not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
and that's where you lost all credibility
My credibility is intact, I just evaluate tournaments and results in a less korean centric way than you do but I think I'm pretty coherent overall.
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
and that's where you lost all credibility
I dunno you seem to pick and choose a fair bit. Like "tournament places don't matter" but "who you beat does", but "taking close 2-3 series doesn't" ...
It's very arbitrary to push your own position. E.g. you're probably the type who said "Serral can't be the best cause he never beat Maru" when it was Maru who faltered and didn't reach the finals in the first place.
Maru just lost to Patience and Inno who are not on the list/10th... And by your own metric, how many top players did Maru even beat to win GSL in the first place? He had no namers then Trap, Dear and Classic from ro8... Not exactly the hardest run ever.
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
and that's where you lost all credibility
I dunno you seem to pick and choose a fair bit. Like "tournament places don't matter" but "who you beat does", but "taking close 2-3 series doesn't" ...
It's very arbitrary to push your own position. E.g. you're probably the type who said "Serral can't be the best cause he never beat Maru" when it was Maru who faltered and didn't reach the finals in the first place.
Maru just lost to Patience and Inno who are not on the list/10th... And by your own metric, how many top players did Maru even beat to win GSL in the first place? He had no namers then Trap, Dear and Classic from ro8... Not exactly the hardest run ever.
I love TL
Hard to argue with that guy. He pretty much dismissed and discredited Serral's results with every post he made throughout 2018, and when he just kept on winning and took Blizzcon he reverted to just passive aggressive sassy trolling in the LR threads, cuz there werent any arguments left to make against him, save for "dodging code S".
Now that Serral actually does lose things, it's no wonder he's like this. Just let him do his thing, nobody will ever convince him of anything.
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
and that's where you lost all credibility
I dunno you seem to pick and choose a fair bit. Like "tournament places don't matter" but "who you beat does", but "taking close 2-3 series doesn't" ...
It's very arbitrary to push your own position. E.g. you're probably the type who said "Serral can't be the best cause he never beat Maru" when it was Maru who faltered and didn't reach the finals in the first place.
Maru just lost to Patience and Inno who are not on the list/10th... And by your own metric, how many top players did Maru even beat to win GSL in the first place? He had no namers then Trap, Dear and Classic from ro8... Not exactly the hardest run ever.
I love TL
Hard to argue with that guy. He pretty much dismissed and discredited Serral's results with every post he made throughout 2018, and when he just kept on winning and took Blizzcon he reverted to just passive aggressive sassy trolling in the LR threads, cuz there werent any arguments left to make against him, save for "dodging code S".
Now that Serral actually does lose things, it's no wonder he's like this. Just let him do his thing, nobody will ever convince him of anything.
Right, I'm the the Serral hater and you guys are reasonable human beings who objectively measure results with no bias towards either koreans or foreigners... How could I forget that?
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
and that's where you lost all credibility
I dunno you seem to pick and choose a fair bit. Like "tournament places don't matter" but "who you beat does", but "taking close 2-3 series doesn't" ...
It's very arbitrary to push your own position. E.g. you're probably the type who said "Serral can't be the best cause he never beat Maru" when it was Maru who faltered and didn't reach the finals in the first place.
Maru just lost to Patience and Inno who are not on the list/10th... And by your own metric, how many top players did Maru even beat to win GSL in the first place? He had no namers then Trap, Dear and Classic from ro8... Not exactly the hardest run ever.
I love TL
Hard to argue with that guy. He pretty much dismissed and discredited Serral's results with every post he made throughout 2018, and when he just kept on winning and took Blizzcon he reverted to just passive aggressive sassy trolling in the LR threads, cuz there werent any arguments left to make against him, save for "dodging code S".
Now that Serral actually does lose things, it's no wonder he's like this. Just let him do his thing, nobody will ever convince him of anything.
Right, I'm the the Serral hater and you guys are reasonable human beings who objectively measure results with no bias towards either koreans or foreigners... How could I forget that?
All people are biased to some degree, and the way sc2 data is generated is impossible to make 100% objectively correct analysis of the pro scene. But you just take bias to the next level, and double down.
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
and that's where you lost all credibility
I dunno you seem to pick and choose a fair bit. Like "tournament places don't matter" but "who you beat does", but "taking close 2-3 series doesn't" ...
It's very arbitrary to push your own position. E.g. you're probably the type who said "Serral can't be the best cause he never beat Maru" when it was Maru who faltered and didn't reach the finals in the first place.
Maru just lost to Patience and Inno who are not on the list/10th... And by your own metric, how many top players did Maru even beat to win GSL in the first place? He had no namers then Trap, Dear and Classic from ro8... Not exactly the hardest run ever.
I love TL
Hard to argue with that guy. He pretty much dismissed and discredited Serral's results with every post he made throughout 2018, and when he just kept on winning and took Blizzcon he reverted to just passive aggressive sassy trolling in the LR threads, cuz there werent any arguments left to make against him, save for "dodging code S".
Now that Serral actually does lose things, it's no wonder he's like this. Just let him do his thing, nobody will ever convince him of anything.
Right, I'm the the Serral hater and you guys are reasonable human beings who objectively measure results with no bias towards either koreans or foreigners... How could I forget that?
All people are biased to some degree, and the way sc2 data is generated is impossible to make 100% objectively correct analysis of the pro scene. But you just take bias to the next level, and double down.
nah, compared to your bias my bias is hardly noticably
On April 30 2019 17:07 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
and that's where you lost all credibility
I dunno you seem to pick and choose a fair bit. Like "tournament places don't matter" but "who you beat does", but "taking close 2-3 series doesn't" ...
It's very arbitrary to push your own position. E.g. you're probably the type who said "Serral can't be the best cause he never beat Maru" when it was Maru who faltered and didn't reach the finals in the first place.
Maru just lost to Patience and Inno who are not on the list/10th... And by your own metric, how many top players did Maru even beat to win GSL in the first place? He had no namers then Trap, Dear and Classic from ro8... Not exactly the hardest run ever.
I love TL
Hard to argue with that guy. He pretty much dismissed and discredited Serral's results with every post he made throughout 2018, and when he just kept on winning and took Blizzcon he reverted to just passive aggressive sassy trolling in the LR threads, cuz there werent any arguments left to make against him, save for "dodging code S".
Now that Serral actually does lose things, it's no wonder he's like this. Just let him do his thing, nobody will ever convince him of anything.
Right, I'm the the Serral hater and you guys are reasonable human beings who objectively measure results with no bias towards either koreans or foreigners... How could I forget that?
All people are biased to some degree, and the way sc2 data is generated is impossible to make 100% objectively correct analysis of the pro scene. But you just take bias to the next level, and double down.
nah, compared to your bias my bias is hardly noticably
Serral was never given the benefit of the doubt: soO was skyrocketed at #1 from nowhere after Katowice, and the second place at WESG justified Serral not regressing any further in the following list; it's appropriate to scale him down after his losses this month, but I still see him in top5. Dark's month was disappointing, I would have had him drop more than two places.
Inno got ranked #5, but now there is one more month of results in 2019 so it would be logical for Gumiho to enter the PR at least one step lower.
Maru's progression is fine, he was just ranked too high in the last PR(and Classic maybe too low).
Now you're denying facts for the sake of your argument. Of course Serral was given the benefit of the doubt. He got ranked #2 in the march PR after finishing in the Ro8 at IEM and losing to Inno in group stage. And he still got ranked #3 after losing to Reynor and Heromarine in group stage of WCS Winter and being beaten by Neeb in group stage of WESG (where he also made a case for himself by finishing 2nd). There are good arguments for having Serral still ranked that high back then, which includes that it seemed reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. Dark month was disappointing, that's true. But after having rightfully earned a consistency #1 in the last PR it is consistent to give him the benefit of the doubt like it was done with Serral, Stats and Maru.
How does being one month more into the year affect the PR? Most recent results are still the highest valued factor in PRs.
I am not denying anything. Before IEM(with 2018 results being the only one considered), Serral was #1 despite never figuring as such on a PR(although he was crowned best player of the year) with Maru being #2 and Stats #3; then Serral loses one pointless bo3(he already was first in the group) then is narrowly eliminated by the eventual winner and he immediately drops at #2 in the power ranking released shortly after? Maru did worse than him, Stats reached the finals but his 2018 achievements were not comparable to Serral's so that he could not earn the first spot(he was not given, in fact) while soO, who had one irrelevant 2018, was placed first. Are you convinced this was giving Serral the "benefit of the doubt"?
It's true that most recent results are valued more heavily but unlike the first tournament in 2019 whose sole comparison were 2018's one(rated much less), we have now a notable amount of tournaments played this year to consider; Gumiho's 2019 was not exactly great before Super Tournament so the leap he has made into the Power Ranking seems a little disproportioned(Inno's was fine since only IEM and groupstages were played before that while soO's seemed to me exaggerated as well).
Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
Serral is still the best Zerg in the world, you cannot downgrade him because he started losing series instead of winning every single one of that; judging paths instead of results in tournaments brings us to a wholly different dimension, every placement should be reevaluated.
I can tell you winning WCS might not be better than reaching a Code S final, but is also definitely not worse than losing in one(nowadays, it was very different in the past).
Most top foreigners can compete well against Koreans but if you look at GSL vs World and Blizzcon, Koreans usually win close to 2/3 of the games. With that being said, I would say winning a WCS Circuit is a bit more difficult than making GSL ro8 and probably close to as difficult as making GSL ro4. I'll admit that if you're not Serral, winning WCS Circuit would be pretty damn hard, even for a strong Korean.
I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
and that's where you lost all credibility
My credibility is intact, I just evaluate tournaments and results in a less korean centric way than you do but I think I'm pretty coherent overall.
Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
On April 29 2019 11:48 fronkschnonk wrote: [quote] Now you're denying facts for the sake of your argument. Of course Serral was given the benefit of the doubt. He got ranked #2 in the march PR after finishing in the Ro8 at IEM and losing to Inno in group stage. And he still got ranked #3 after losing to Reynor and Heromarine in group stage of WCS Winter and being beaten by Neeb in group stage of WESG (where he also made a case for himself by finishing 2nd). There are good arguments for having Serral still ranked that high back then, which includes that it seemed reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. Dark month was disappointing, that's true. But after having rightfully earned a consistency #1 in the last PR it is consistent to give him the benefit of the doubt like it was done with Serral, Stats and Maru.
How does being one month more into the year affect the PR? Most recent results are still the highest valued factor in PRs.
I am not denying anything. Before IEM(with 2018 results being the only one considered), Serral was #1 despite never figuring as such on a PR(although he was crowned best player of the year) with Maru being #2 and Stats #3; then Serral loses one pointless bo3(he already was first in the group) then is narrowly eliminated by the eventual winner and he immediately drops at #2 in the power ranking released shortly after? Maru did worse than him, Stats reached the finals but his 2018 achievements were not comparable to Serral's so that he could not earn the first spot(he was not given, in fact) while soO, who had one irrelevant 2018, was placed first. Are you convinced this was giving Serral the "benefit of the doubt"?
It's true that most recent results are valued more heavily but unlike the first tournament in 2019 whose sole comparison were 2018's one(rated much less), we have now a notable amount of tournaments played this year to consider; Gumiho's 2019 was not exactly great before Super Tournament so the leap he has made into the Power Ranking seems a little disproportioned(Inno's was fine since only IEM and groupstages were played before that while soO's seemed to me exaggerated as well).
Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
Serral is still the best Zerg in the world, you cannot downgrade him because he started losing series instead of winning every single one of that; judging paths instead of results in tournaments brings us to a wholly different dimension, every placement should be reevaluated.
I can tell you winning WCS might not be better than reaching a Code S final, but is also definitely not worse than losing in one(nowadays, it was very different in the past).
Most top foreigners can compete well against Koreans but if you look at GSL vs World and Blizzcon, Koreans usually win close to 2/3 of the games. With that being said, I would say winning a WCS Circuit is a bit more difficult than making GSL ro8 and probably close to as difficult as making GSL ro4. I'll admit that if you're not Serral, winning WCS Circuit would be pretty damn hard, even for a strong Korean.
I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
and that's where you lost all credibility
My credibility is intact, I just evaluate tournaments and results in a less korean centric way than you do but I think I'm pretty coherent overall.
Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
For what it is worth, on soO's stream after winning IEM, soO admitted he has been using Serral's mouse settings and game settings. Has been copying Serral's builds, and basically had been begging Serral for advice in certain matchups. Which means that the Korean pros greatly respect Serral. At least soO does.
I am not denying anything. Before IEM(with 2018 results being the only one considered), Serral was #1 despite never figuring as such on a PR(although he was crowned best player of the year) with Maru being #2 and Stats #3; then Serral loses one pointless bo3(he already was first in the group) then is narrowly eliminated by the eventual winner and he immediately drops at #2 in the power ranking released shortly after? Maru did worse than him, Stats reached the finals but his 2018 achievements were not comparable to Serral's so that he could not earn the first spot(he was not given, in fact) while soO, who had one irrelevant 2018, was placed first. Are you convinced this was giving Serral the "benefit of the doubt"?
It's true that most recent results are valued more heavily but unlike the first tournament in 2019 whose sole comparison were 2018's one(rated much less), we have now a notable amount of tournaments played this year to consider; Gumiho's 2019 was not exactly great before Super Tournament so the leap he has made into the Power Ranking seems a little disproportioned(Inno's was fine since only IEM and groupstages were played before that while soO's seemed to me exaggerated as well).
Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
Serral is still the best Zerg in the world, you cannot downgrade him because he started losing series instead of winning every single one of that; judging paths instead of results in tournaments brings us to a wholly different dimension, every placement should be reevaluated.
I can tell you winning WCS might not be better than reaching a Code S final, but is also definitely not worse than losing in one(nowadays, it was very different in the past).
Most top foreigners can compete well against Koreans but if you look at GSL vs World and Blizzcon, Koreans usually win close to 2/3 of the games. With that being said, I would say winning a WCS Circuit is a bit more difficult than making GSL ro8 and probably close to as difficult as making GSL ro4. I'll admit that if you're not Serral, winning WCS Circuit would be pretty damn hard, even for a strong Korean.
I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
On May 01 2019 19:27 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:16 Charoisaur wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:04 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 17:20 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 30 2019 20:28 Dave4 wrote:
On April 30 2019 17:07 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
and that's where you lost all credibility
My credibility is intact, I just evaluate tournaments and results in a less korean centric way than you do but I think I'm pretty coherent overall.
Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
On April 29 2019 18:54 fronkschnonk wrote: [quote] Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
Serral is still the best Zerg in the world, you cannot downgrade him because he started losing series instead of winning every single one of that; judging paths instead of results in tournaments brings us to a wholly different dimension, every placement should be reevaluated.
I can tell you winning WCS might not be better than reaching a Code S final, but is also definitely not worse than losing in one(nowadays, it was very different in the past).
Most top foreigners can compete well against Koreans but if you look at GSL vs World and Blizzcon, Koreans usually win close to 2/3 of the games. With that being said, I would say winning a WCS Circuit is a bit more difficult than making GSL ro8 and probably close to as difficult as making GSL ro4. I'll admit that if you're not Serral, winning WCS Circuit would be pretty damn hard, even for a strong Korean.
I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
On May 01 2019 19:27 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:16 Charoisaur wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:04 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 17:20 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 30 2019 20:28 Dave4 wrote:
On April 30 2019 17:07 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
and that's where you lost all credibility
My credibility is intact, I just evaluate tournaments and results in a less korean centric way than you do but I think I'm pretty coherent overall.
Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
On April 29 2019 18:54 fronkschnonk wrote: [quote] Yes, I'm convinced, because that's just an objectively measurable fact. A player that made it to the Ro8 got ranked 2nd in PR because of his prior achievements 3 months earlier. Without Serral performing that miraculously good in 2018 he wouldn't have been ranked that high. Not only soO but also Stats and Dark would've been ranked above him and it would've been a close call between Serral, Dear and herO.
I can somewhat understand the Gumi criticism but then again: I don't see, who should be ranked above him right now.
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
Serral is still the best Zerg in the world, you cannot downgrade him because he started losing series instead of winning every single one of that; judging paths instead of results in tournaments brings us to a wholly different dimension, every placement should be reevaluated.
I can tell you winning WCS might not be better than reaching a Code S final, but is also definitely not worse than losing in one(nowadays, it was very different in the past).
Most top foreigners can compete well against Koreans but if you look at GSL vs World and Blizzcon, Koreans usually win close to 2/3 of the games. With that being said, I would say winning a WCS Circuit is a bit more difficult than making GSL ro8 and probably close to as difficult as making GSL ro4. I'll admit that if you're not Serral, winning WCS Circuit would be pretty damn hard, even for a strong Korean.
I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
On May 01 2019 19:27 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:16 Charoisaur wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:04 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 17:20 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 30 2019 20:28 Dave4 wrote:
On April 30 2019 17:07 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 30 2019 05:40 Dave4 wrote: Would expect to see Marus ranking fall considerably next PR to maintain consistency with:
1) soO and Innos plummeted ranks after their wins 2)the fact that Serral's BlizzCon and HSC are seemingly not recent enough to be relevant anymore, therefore Marus first 3 GSLs are obviously out of scope for consideration as well, being well over 6 months ago. 3) Marus lackluster performance in every other non-GSL tournament.
It's obviously a bit early to call ranks without seeing how May progresses, but it'd be controversial to put Maru in top 5 based on the above I think. I guess there's fewer tournaments in May so he might hit 4th/5th.
Also given today's results are still in April it's a bit unfortunate that Marus fall from GSL wasn't considered in the May Power Rankings - Classic really was the ultimate April winner in my eyes.
Thanks for content TL writers.
If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
and that's where you lost all credibility
My credibility is intact, I just evaluate tournaments and results in a less korean centric way than you do but I think I'm pretty coherent overall.
Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
ACtually not. Many players gave interviews, that getting the 2nd place and watching the celebrations and the joy hurts as hell, but later it gets better and once the emotions are over you actually realize that being the 2nd best is way better than winning the "loser" league (maybe too harsh translation but I like the term).
The same happens for the 3rd match. Nobody cares because both teams are mentally down, but later they woudl change their decision about "not caring"
Of course getting shiny cup is nice and stuff but if the question stands - getting 2nd place or winning lower competition, many would take the 2nd place. Just don't listen to their opinions after the match
It also comes down to the size and skill of the team. I bet that Ajax is already celebrating and they are not even in the finals while United are in so deep depression they're doing reconnaissance at the Mariana Trench.
But hey, first price usually comes with shinies and more celebrations, so maybe they just want to drink as much as they can so they need any title
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
Serral is still the best Zerg in the world, you cannot downgrade him because he started losing series instead of winning every single one of that; judging paths instead of results in tournaments brings us to a wholly different dimension, every placement should be reevaluated.
I can tell you winning WCS might not be better than reaching a Code S final, but is also definitely not worse than losing in one(nowadays, it was very different in the past).
Most top foreigners can compete well against Koreans but if you look at GSL vs World and Blizzcon, Koreans usually win close to 2/3 of the games. With that being said, I would say winning a WCS Circuit is a bit more difficult than making GSL ro8 and probably close to as difficult as making GSL ro4. I'll admit that if you're not Serral, winning WCS Circuit would be pretty damn hard, even for a strong Korean.
I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
On May 01 2019 19:27 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:16 Charoisaur wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:04 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 17:20 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 30 2019 20:28 Dave4 wrote:
On April 30 2019 17:07 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
and that's where you lost all credibility
My credibility is intact, I just evaluate tournaments and results in a less korean centric way than you do but I think I'm pretty coherent overall.
Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
ACtually not. Many players gave interviews, that getting the 2nd place and watching the celebrations and the joy hurts as hell, but later it gets better and once the emotions are over you actually realize that being the 2nd best is way better than winning the "loser" league (maybe too harsh translation but I like the term).
The same happens for the 3rd match. Nobody cares because both teams are mentally down, but later they woudl change their decision about "not caring"
Of course getting shiny cup is nice and stuff but if the question stands - getting 2nd place or winning lower competition, many would take the 2nd place. Just don't listen to their opinions after the match
It also comes down to the size and skill of the team. I bet that Ajax is already celebrating and they are not even in the finals while United are in so deep depression they're doing reconnaissance at the Mariana Trench.
But hey, first price usually comes with shinies and more celebrations, so maybe they just want to drink as much as they can so they need any title
Not only prestige of victories is much superior, prize distribution in Sc2 is usually obscenely top heavy(in korean tournaments especially); I share your opinion about third places being more important than most of the people(and the athletes themselves) usually think they are.
Ah, let me point out(it's extremely off topic and I apologize for that, going to strictly stick to sc2 afterwards) Ajax AFC is in reality a more accomplished team than Manchester United in regards of international trophies(10 to 8); they haven't been winning anything for twenty years and their current team is young and hungry, but Ajax actually weights more than MU in the history of football(despite both being at the very top).
Try to guess ! Gumiho did not even win the tournament, unlike Inno.
If those new power rankings in 2019 didn't have the premise of (supposedly)valuing past results more than the previous ones I would share your point of view; some of the players in the first Power Ranking were rated for their monthly performance only, like soO. Serral had indeed to be given the benefit of the doubt and the first place; it did not happen.
Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
Serral is still the best Zerg in the world, you cannot downgrade him because he started losing series instead of winning every single one of that; judging paths instead of results in tournaments brings us to a wholly different dimension, every placement should be reevaluated.
I can tell you winning WCS might not be better than reaching a Code S final, but is also definitely not worse than losing in one(nowadays, it was very different in the past).
Most top foreigners can compete well against Koreans but if you look at GSL vs World and Blizzcon, Koreans usually win close to 2/3 of the games. With that being said, I would say winning a WCS Circuit is a bit more difficult than making GSL ro8 and probably close to as difficult as making GSL ro4. I'll admit that if you're not Serral, winning WCS Circuit would be pretty damn hard, even for a strong Korean.
I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
On May 01 2019 19:27 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:16 Charoisaur wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:04 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 17:20 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 30 2019 20:28 Dave4 wrote:
On April 30 2019 17:07 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] If 2) would be true, Serral wouldn't be in the top 10.
?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
and that's where you lost all credibility
My credibility is intact, I just evaluate tournaments and results in a less korean centric way than you do but I think I'm pretty coherent overall.
Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
On April 30 2019 17:28 fronkschnonk wrote: [quote] Yes, Gumiho didn't win unlike Inno but Inno didn't even qualify and also WESG had a much easier player pool and therefore their achievements are comparable.
And again regarding Serral in first PR this year: Serral was given the benefit of the doubt -just not as much as you would've liked it. Consistency is a factor, but it can't outmatch most recent results - especially if the consistency was proven 3 months ago. Also soO wasn't only rated for his monthly performance. He also topped his GSL group before IEM and had very good online results since mid december. Online results are not as important of course but they can give a more solid picture when there is uncertainty about a ranking.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
Serral is still the best Zerg in the world, you cannot downgrade him because he started losing series instead of winning every single one of that; judging paths instead of results in tournaments brings us to a wholly different dimension, every placement should be reevaluated.
I can tell you winning WCS might not be better than reaching a Code S final, but is also definitely not worse than losing in one(nowadays, it was very different in the past).
Most top foreigners can compete well against Koreans but if you look at GSL vs World and Blizzcon, Koreans usually win close to 2/3 of the games. With that being said, I would say winning a WCS Circuit is a bit more difficult than making GSL ro8 and probably close to as difficult as making GSL ro4. I'll admit that if you're not Serral, winning WCS Circuit would be pretty damn hard, even for a strong Korean.
I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
On May 01 2019 19:27 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:16 Charoisaur wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:04 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 17:20 Charoisaur wrote:
On April 30 2019 20:28 Dave4 wrote: [quote] ?? Serral is rank 6 because he has two silver premier medals so far this year though. Only other person above that is Classic.
he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
and that's where you lost all credibility
My credibility is intact, I just evaluate tournaments and results in a less korean centric way than you do but I think I'm pretty coherent overall.
Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
region lock inflates results. region lock killed the korean scene in an attempt to "close the gap" by eliminating the competition, not improving the foreigner skill. of course names count. lulz. too much delusion
On May 02 2019 04:24 fishjie wrote: the dave4 tears are delicious.
region lock inflates results. region lock killed the korean scene in an attempt to "close the gap" by eliminating the competition, not improving the foreigner skill. of course names count. lulz. too much delusion
Not improving foreigner skills? Have you watched Serral play last year? Delusion, you say...hmm.
Inno and Gumiho's achievements are not comparable, even admitting Super Tournament(all korean field, first prize being a meager 9k) is harder than WESG(more games agaist a weaker field but Inno had to face Serral in the finals and took home 150k), I would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory(as I already said, unless there is a huge difference between the tournaments said results were reached).
Again, if the first PR of this year didn't have to take into consideration 2018's results I would have agreed on soO being #1, looking at his GSL and online results we could conclude he had strictly the best results in 2019; however, those alone should have been insufficient to make him leapfrog directly to the top of the ranking.
I would like to add that, despite my posts may seem pretty critical towards Power Rankings, I am just sharing my point of view about the ranking itself; I am glad those articles are written and I thank TL's writers for them hoping many more will follow on a monthly basis.
So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
Serral is still the best Zerg in the world, you cannot downgrade him because he started losing series instead of winning every single one of that; judging paths instead of results in tournaments brings us to a wholly different dimension, every placement should be reevaluated.
I can tell you winning WCS might not be better than reaching a Code S final, but is also definitely not worse than losing in one(nowadays, it was very different in the past).
Most top foreigners can compete well against Koreans but if you look at GSL vs World and Blizzcon, Koreans usually win close to 2/3 of the games. With that being said, I would say winning a WCS Circuit is a bit more difficult than making GSL ro8 and probably close to as difficult as making GSL ro4. I'll admit that if you're not Serral, winning WCS Circuit would be pretty damn hard, even for a strong Korean.
I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
On May 01 2019 19:27 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:16 Charoisaur wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:04 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 17:20 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] he beat 0 top 10 players at WCS and 1 top 10 player at WESG so no, that doesn't make him a top 10 player. I know all you do is open liquipedia and count the entries in the achievements category because it fits your narrative but that approach is just completely flawed. Replace Serral's ID with Elazer or Lambo and he wouldn't be at #6.
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
and that's where you lost all credibility
My credibility is intact, I just evaluate tournaments and results in a less korean centric way than you do but I think I'm pretty coherent overall.
Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
On April 30 2019 19:25 fronkschnonk wrote: [quote] So you'd also say that winning a WCS tournament is a better feat than reaching the finals of GSL or IEM? I'm not comparing Gumihos loss to Innos victory btw but Gumihos 4 wins vs top opponents (including Qualifiers) on his road to the finals while Inno had to beat 2 top opponents in order to win WESG. And Serral isn't as much of a benchmark anymore since he proved his vulnerability multiple times now.
Serral is still the best Zerg in the world, you cannot downgrade him because he started losing series instead of winning every single one of that; judging paths instead of results in tournaments brings us to a wholly different dimension, every placement should be reevaluated.
I can tell you winning WCS might not be better than reaching a Code S final, but is also definitely not worse than losing in one(nowadays, it was very different in the past).
Most top foreigners can compete well against Koreans but if you look at GSL vs World and Blizzcon, Koreans usually win close to 2/3 of the games. With that being said, I would say winning a WCS Circuit is a bit more difficult than making GSL ro8 and probably close to as difficult as making GSL ro4. I'll admit that if you're not Serral, winning WCS Circuit would be pretty damn hard, even for a strong Korean.
I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
On May 01 2019 19:27 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:16 Charoisaur wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:04 Xain0n wrote: [quote]
Names does not count, results do! There is no way someone reaching WESG and WCS finals after a ro8 placenent in Katowice is not even top 10 on a PR.
and that's where you lost all credibility
My credibility is intact, I just evaluate tournaments and results in a less korean centric way than you do but I think I'm pretty coherent overall.
Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
Foreigners performed quite poorly at Katowice, a tournament that indeed possesses all the qualities you pointed out.
However, not having wholly open qualifiers has nothing to share with results and performances: if foreigners were as bad as IEM outcomes suggest they are(worse than top 12 koreans, on average) how would we explain their consistently much better placements at BlizzCon(Elazer's and Special's ro4, multiple ro8, Neeb and ShowTime both beating the eventual champions, let alone Serral's glory road) or the good showings in Code S in 2018(Neeb's ro4, Scarlett's ro8, Reynor's ro16). If such a huge skill gap would exist, no comfortable placement could save foreigners from a brutal beatdown like it happened almost every time back in HoTS.
I don't remember if you considered judged winning WCS something like a "ro12" or a "ro6" in Code S; in the best case scenario, that's inferior to reaching semifinals. I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Serral is still the best Zerg in the world, you cannot downgrade him because he started losing series instead of winning every single one of that; judging paths instead of results in tournaments brings us to a wholly different dimension, every placement should be reevaluated.
I can tell you winning WCS might not be better than reaching a Code S final, but is also definitely not worse than losing in one(nowadays, it was very different in the past).
Most top foreigners can compete well against Koreans but if you look at GSL vs World and Blizzcon, Koreans usually win close to 2/3 of the games. With that being said, I would say winning a WCS Circuit is a bit more difficult than making GSL ro8 and probably close to as difficult as making GSL ro4. I'll admit that if you're not Serral, winning WCS Circuit would be pretty damn hard, even for a strong Korean.
I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
On May 01 2019 19:27 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:16 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] and that's where you lost all credibility
My credibility is intact, I just evaluate tournaments and results in a less korean centric way than you do but I think I'm pretty coherent overall.
Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Funny how you take Serral getting elected player of the year by TL as proof he was the best that year and when soO gets placed above him or Serral gets placed #6 suddenly TL is wrong and their list means nothing
Serral is still the best Zerg in the world, you cannot downgrade him because he started losing series instead of winning every single one of that; judging paths instead of results in tournaments brings us to a wholly different dimension, every placement should be reevaluated.
I can tell you winning WCS might not be better than reaching a Code S final, but is also definitely not worse than losing in one(nowadays, it was very different in the past).
Most top foreigners can compete well against Koreans but if you look at GSL vs World and Blizzcon, Koreans usually win close to 2/3 of the games. With that being said, I would say winning a WCS Circuit is a bit more difficult than making GSL ro8 and probably close to as difficult as making GSL ro4. I'll admit that if you're not Serral, winning WCS Circuit would be pretty damn hard, even for a strong Korean.
I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
On May 01 2019 19:27 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:16 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] and that's where you lost all credibility
My credibility is intact, I just evaluate tournaments and results in a less korean centric way than you do but I think I'm pretty coherent overall.
Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
Foreigners performed quite poorly at Katowice, a tournament that indeed possesses all the qualities you pointed out.
However, not having wholly open qualifiers has nothing to share with results and performances: if foreigners were as bad as IEM outcomes suggest they are(worse than top 12 koreans, on average) how would we explain their consistently much better placements at BlizzCon(Elazer's and Special's ro4, multiple ro8, Neeb and ShowTime both beating the eventual champions, let alone Serral's glory road) or the good showings in Code S in 2018(Neeb's ro4, Scarlett's ro8, Reynor's ro16). If such a huge skill gap would exist, no comfortable placement could save foreigners from a brutal beatdown like it happened almost every time back in HoTS.
I don't remember if you considered judged winning WCS something like a "ro12" or a "ro6" in Code S; in the best case scenario, that's inferior to reaching semifinals. I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Honestly, I think Serral was called Player of the year in 2018 not because he had best achievements, but because what he did was more historic than what Maru did. Maru's domination has never been equaled in SC2 history (you'd have to go back to 2010 in BW to find something more impressive). But there was no foreigner before Serral who was anywhere near as dominant as him in nearly 20 years of Starcraft.
You can make good argument that Serral was the best player in 2018 but I personally think Maru was the better player by an inch. With that being said, in the past I've commented that if Serral competed in GSL instead of WCS, there's a good chance that he'd have more achievements, since he had higher vs Korean offline winrate than Maru.
Most top foreigners can compete well against Koreans but if you look at GSL vs World and Blizzcon, Koreans usually win close to 2/3 of the games. With that being said, I would say winning a WCS Circuit is a bit more difficult than making GSL ro8 and probably close to as difficult as making GSL ro4. I'll admit that if you're not Serral, winning WCS Circuit would be pretty damn hard, even for a strong Korean.
I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
On May 01 2019 19:27 Xain0n wrote: [quote]
My credibility is intact, I just evaluate tournaments and results in a less korean centric way than you do but I think I'm pretty coherent overall.
Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Funny how you take Serral getting elected player of the year by TL as proof he was the best that year and when soO gets placed above him or Serral gets placed #6 suddenly TL is wrong and their list means nothing
If I am funny, you are funnier.
The mere fact I am here discussing this power ranking implies I respect it as a reliable source; this does not mean I have to agree with everything TL writers say. I doubt you could accuse them of foreigner bias, yet they chose Serral as best player of the year; how could this happen if WCS titles are almost irrelevant as you guys think?
Serral is still the best Zerg in the world, you cannot downgrade him because he started losing series instead of winning every single one of that; judging paths instead of results in tournaments brings us to a wholly different dimension, every placement should be reevaluated.
I can tell you winning WCS might not be better than reaching a Code S final, but is also definitely not worse than losing in one(nowadays, it was very different in the past).
Most top foreigners can compete well against Koreans but if you look at GSL vs World and Blizzcon, Koreans usually win close to 2/3 of the games. With that being said, I would say winning a WCS Circuit is a bit more difficult than making GSL ro8 and probably close to as difficult as making GSL ro4. I'll admit that if you're not Serral, winning WCS Circuit would be pretty damn hard, even for a strong Korean.
I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
On May 01 2019 19:27 Xain0n wrote:
On May 01 2019 19:16 Charoisaur wrote: [quote] and that's where you lost all credibility
My credibility is intact, I just evaluate tournaments and results in a less korean centric way than you do but I think I'm pretty coherent overall.
Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
Foreigners performed quite poorly at Katowice, a tournament that indeed possesses all the qualities you pointed out.
However, not having wholly open qualifiers has nothing to share with results and performances: if foreigners were as bad as IEM outcomes suggest they are(worse than top 12 koreans, on average) how would we explain their consistently much better placements at BlizzCon(Elazer's and Special's ro4, multiple ro8, Neeb and ShowTime both beating the eventual champions, let alone Serral's glory road) or the good showings in Code S in 2018(Neeb's ro4, Scarlett's ro8, Reynor's ro16). If such a huge skill gap would exist, no comfortable placement could save foreigners from a brutal beatdown like it happened almost every time back in HoTS.
I don't remember if you considered judged winning WCS something like a "ro12" or a "ro6" in Code S; in the best case scenario, that's inferior to reaching semifinals. I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Of course the openness of a qualifier has an influence on the results. I'll list them for you: - not all the best (especially not all the current best) will participate due to some of them not having enough points or not being as popular to be successful in a vote. This is a bigger problem for koreans who have a bigger pool of top players - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament increases the chance of one/some of them advancing further - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament reduces the amount of tough koreans they will have to face on their tournament path - as IEM results imply this means that in earlier rounds there are to beat easier opponnents than if the tournament was open - this gives more opportunities to individual favorable/lucky tournament paths (as in smaller chance of being confronted with unfavorable matchups) - as results of Blizzcon/GSL vs The World show, in higher rounds foreigners normally get eliminated after the easier first rounds with Serral being the one exception - which validates previous points.
But you might have gotten something wrong: I never said that foreigners didn't improve. As you say, Serral, Neeb, Scarlett, Reynor, Showtime and Special are prove of the gap getting smaller for the very top of the foreigners. Still, while most of them may regularly beat top koreans, they also almost always aren't good enough to make it to Ro8 or further in a non-distorted tournament environment - with few exception of course (and Serral being a big one). What does this mean? Yes, the top foreigners are getting closer (or have getting closer - how this develops further is open) but they're not close enough yet to justify a only foreigner competition being valued as high as you're doing it.
Your question surprises me. As you know I never justified the fact that Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 but always critisized it as a wrong decision. A wrong decision probably caused by - as you would say - recency bias. A wrong decision more or less because of the reasons you stated.
@Anc13nt I think the record of Serral vs Koreans is kind of distorted. He only did compete in 2 tournaments with koreans in the first half of the year (in one of them only facing one korean: Maru to whom he lost 0-3), when he obviously wasn't as good as he became leater in the year. Thus it's highly questionable to think that he would've been as successful in the first two GSLs as his 2nd half of 2018 implies. Also, if you take the two best streaks of Maru and Serral in 2018, we compare a 17:2 record of Maru and a 15:0 record of Serral vs koreans. While Serral's record is obviously better if you translate it into win percentage, the bigger sample size of Maru's games makes it hard to make the statement that Serral was objectively spoken the better player based on this data - especially if you take in account that Maru's streak lasted over the course of 6 months and Serral's over the course of 4 months (if one would extend Serral's period of dominance with additional 2 months, one would have to include his two losses vs soO at Nationwars which would make his record worse than Maru's)
Most top foreigners can compete well against Koreans but if you look at GSL vs World and Blizzcon, Koreans usually win close to 2/3 of the games. With that being said, I would say winning a WCS Circuit is a bit more difficult than making GSL ro8 and probably close to as difficult as making GSL ro4. I'll admit that if you're not Serral, winning WCS Circuit would be pretty damn hard, even for a strong Korean.
I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
On May 01 2019 19:27 Xain0n wrote: [quote]
My credibility is intact, I just evaluate tournaments and results in a less korean centric way than you do but I think I'm pretty coherent overall.
Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
Foreigners performed quite poorly at Katowice, a tournament that indeed possesses all the qualities you pointed out.
However, not having wholly open qualifiers has nothing to share with results and performances: if foreigners were as bad as IEM outcomes suggest they are(worse than top 12 koreans, on average) how would we explain their consistently much better placements at BlizzCon(Elazer's and Special's ro4, multiple ro8, Neeb and ShowTime both beating the eventual champions, let alone Serral's glory road) or the good showings in Code S in 2018(Neeb's ro4, Scarlett's ro8, Reynor's ro16). If such a huge skill gap would exist, no comfortable placement could save foreigners from a brutal beatdown like it happened almost every time back in HoTS.
I don't remember if you considered judged winning WCS something like a "ro12" or a "ro6" in Code S; in the best case scenario, that's inferior to reaching semifinals. I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Of course the openness of a qualifier has an influence on the results. I'll list them for you: - not all the best (especially not all the current best) will participate due to some of them not having enough points or not being as popular to be successful in a vote. This is a bigger problem for koreans who have a bigger pool of top players - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament increases the chance of one/some of them advancing further - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament reduces the amount of tough koreans they will have to face on their tournament path - as IEM results imply this means that in earlier rounds there are to beat easier opponnents than if the tournament was open - this gives more opportunities to individual favorable/lucky tournament paths (as in smaller chance of being confronted with unfavorable matchups) - as results of Blizzcon/GSL vs The World show, in higher rounds foreigners normally get eliminated after the easier first rounds with Serral being the one exception - which validates previous points.
But you might have gotten something wrong: I never said that foreigners didn't improve. As you say, Serral, Neeb, Scarlett, Reynor, Showtime and Special are prove of the gap getting smaller for the very top of the foreigners. Still, while most of them may regularly beat top koreans, they also almost always aren't good enough to make it to Ro8 or further in a non-distorted tournament environment - with few exception of course (and Serral being a big one). What does this mean? Yes, the top foreigners are getting closer (or have getting closer - how this develops further is open) but they're not close enough yet to justify a only foreigner competition being valued as high as you're doing it.
Your question surprises me. As you know I never justified the fact that Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 but always critisized it as a wrong decision. A wrong decision probably caused by - as you would say - recency bias. A wrong decision more or less because of the reasons you stated.
@Anc13nt I think the record of Serral vs Koreans is kind of distorted. He only did compete in 2 tournaments with koreans in the first half of the year (in one of them only facing one korean: Maru to whom he lost 0-3), when he obviously wasn't as good as he became leater in the year. Thus it's highly questionable to think that he would've been as successful in the first two GSLs as his 2nd half of 2018 implies. Also, if you take the two best streaks of Maru and Serral in 2018, we compare a 17:2 record of Maru and a 15:0 record of Serral vs koreans. While Serral's record is obviously better if you translate it into win percentage, the bigger sample size of Maru's games makes it hard to make the statement that Serral was objectively spoken the better player based on this data - especially if you take in account that Maru's streak lasted over the course of 6 months and Serral's over the course of 4 months (if one would extend Serral's period of dominance with additional 2 months, one would have to include his two losses vs soO at Nationwars which would make his record worse than Maru's)
The openness of the qualifier bracket obviously has an influence in determining the pool of the participating players, with all the related consequences. Thus said, it has nothing to do with the actual results of thd matches, which are determined by the relative skills of the opponents; it doesn't matter how much you rig the bracket, if you would seed me directly at BlizzCon finals there is no way I could win. Luck cannot justify foreigners' results at BlizzCon in LoTV and Code S in 2018. IEM's top 16 in 2018 is not much different than BlizzCon's in 2013 and 2015, but that's where the comparison ends: during HoTS, koreans were immensely ahead to the point that foreigners won a single Premier tournament while in LoTV, even excluding Serral completely, foreigners won two Premiers on korean soil.
I never said foreigners are on par with koreans, I am instead stating their top 8 as a whole is close to a fair replacements of #9-#16 koreans(just winning one match out of three is akin to validating this theory). Compared to Code S, WCS is increasingly harder(or less easier if you prefer) at later stages(in relative terms) as it is less dense as only a restricted number of top foreigners is capable of beating top koreans on a somehow regular basis, but the potential finals are competitive even in absolute terms:Neeb vs Serral in PVZ or Serral vs Reynor in ZvZ, for example.
I know you wouldn't have given the award to Serral, it would have been a foolish decision considering how you evaluate tournaments; it seems one even bigger error than believing Maru to be the GOAT already, by my own standard. So, did TL writers commit such a huge error? Or maybe you are underestimating the Circuit and the decision was much harder to make as Serral's and Maru's accomplishments were closer than you think?
As for Serral's streak against korean, he achieved that against harder opponents on average, it might as well be shortened by the fact he could not play against mid tier ones in the qualifiers; it's impossible to know at what point, after April last year, Serral rose to his GSL vs the World level so that we just cannot theorize how he would have fared in Code S S2.
On May 01 2019 21:50 fronkschnonk wrote: [quote] I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
[quote] Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
Foreigners performed quite poorly at Katowice, a tournament that indeed possesses all the qualities you pointed out.
However, not having wholly open qualifiers has nothing to share with results and performances: if foreigners were as bad as IEM outcomes suggest they are(worse than top 12 koreans, on average) how would we explain their consistently much better placements at BlizzCon(Elazer's and Special's ro4, multiple ro8, Neeb and ShowTime both beating the eventual champions, let alone Serral's glory road) or the good showings in Code S in 2018(Neeb's ro4, Scarlett's ro8, Reynor's ro16). If such a huge skill gap would exist, no comfortable placement could save foreigners from a brutal beatdown like it happened almost every time back in HoTS.
I don't remember if you considered judged winning WCS something like a "ro12" or a "ro6" in Code S; in the best case scenario, that's inferior to reaching semifinals. I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Of course the openness of a qualifier has an influence on the results. I'll list them for you: - not all the best (especially not all the current best) will participate due to some of them not having enough points or not being as popular to be successful in a vote. This is a bigger problem for koreans who have a bigger pool of top players - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament increases the chance of one/some of them advancing further - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament reduces the amount of tough koreans they will have to face on their tournament path - as IEM results imply this means that in earlier rounds there are to beat easier opponnents than if the tournament was open - this gives more opportunities to individual favorable/lucky tournament paths (as in smaller chance of being confronted with unfavorable matchups) - as results of Blizzcon/GSL vs The World show, in higher rounds foreigners normally get eliminated after the easier first rounds with Serral being the one exception - which validates previous points.
But you might have gotten something wrong: I never said that foreigners didn't improve. As you say, Serral, Neeb, Scarlett, Reynor, Showtime and Special are prove of the gap getting smaller for the very top of the foreigners. Still, while most of them may regularly beat top koreans, they also almost always aren't good enough to make it to Ro8 or further in a non-distorted tournament environment - with few exception of course (and Serral being a big one). What does this mean? Yes, the top foreigners are getting closer (or have getting closer - how this develops further is open) but they're not close enough yet to justify a only foreigner competition being valued as high as you're doing it.
Your question surprises me. As you know I never justified the fact that Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 but always critisized it as a wrong decision. A wrong decision probably caused by - as you would say - recency bias. A wrong decision more or less because of the reasons you stated.
@Anc13nt I think the record of Serral vs Koreans is kind of distorted. He only did compete in 2 tournaments with koreans in the first half of the year (in one of them only facing one korean: Maru to whom he lost 0-3), when he obviously wasn't as good as he became leater in the year. Thus it's highly questionable to think that he would've been as successful in the first two GSLs as his 2nd half of 2018 implies. Also, if you take the two best streaks of Maru and Serral in 2018, we compare a 17:2 record of Maru and a 15:0 record of Serral vs koreans. While Serral's record is obviously better if you translate it into win percentage, the bigger sample size of Maru's games makes it hard to make the statement that Serral was objectively spoken the better player based on this data - especially if you take in account that Maru's streak lasted over the course of 6 months and Serral's over the course of 4 months (if one would extend Serral's period of dominance with additional 2 months, one would have to include his two losses vs soO at Nationwars which would make his record worse than Maru's)
The openness of the qualifier bracket obviously has an influence in determining the pool of the participating players, with all the related consequences. Thus said, it has nothing to do with the actual results of thd matches, which are determined by the relative skills of the opponents; it doesn't matter how much you rig the bracket, if you would seed me directly at BlizzCon finals there is no way I could win. Luck cannot justify foreigners' results at BlizzCon in LoTV and Code S in 2018. IEM's top 16 in 2018 is not much different than BlizzCon's in 2013 and 2015, but that's where the comparison ends: during HoTS, koreans were immensely ahead to the point that foreigners won a single Premier tournament while in LoTV, even excluding Serral completely, foreigners won two Premiers on korean soil.
I never said foreigners are on par with koreans, I am instead stating their top 8 as a whole is close to a fair replacements of #9-#16 koreans(just winning one match out of three is akin to validating this theory). Compared to Code S, WCS is increasingly harder(or less easier if you prefer) at later stages(in relative terms) as it is less dense as only a restricted number of top foreigners is capable of beating top koreans on a somehow regular basis, but the potential finals are competitive even in absolute terms:Neeb vs Serral in PVZ or Serral vs Reynor in ZvZ, for example.
I know you wouldn't have given the award to Serral, it would have been a foolish decision considering how you evaluate tournaments; it seems one even bigger error than believing Maru to be the GOAT already, by my own standard. So, did TL writers commit such a huge error? Or maybe you are underestimating the Circuit and the decision was much harder to make as Serral's and Maru's accomplishments were closer than you think?
As for Serral's streak against korean, he achieved that against harder opponents on average, it might as well be shortened by the fact he could not play against mid tier ones in the qualifiers; it's impossible to know at what point, after April last year, Serral rose to his GSL vs the World level so that we just cannot theorize how he would have fared in Code S S2.
But that is the problem no? It is artificial to say that Serral was the best player in the world second half of the year because he won GSL vs The world in summer and Blizzcon in winter. Because, only theorising without actual matches ,Maru would have been right now in the Ro16 or he would have never lost vs Meomaka, But he played and he lost and that is what it counts. I
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
Foreigners performed quite poorly at Katowice, a tournament that indeed possesses all the qualities you pointed out.
However, not having wholly open qualifiers has nothing to share with results and performances: if foreigners were as bad as IEM outcomes suggest they are(worse than top 12 koreans, on average) how would we explain their consistently much better placements at BlizzCon(Elazer's and Special's ro4, multiple ro8, Neeb and ShowTime both beating the eventual champions, let alone Serral's glory road) or the good showings in Code S in 2018(Neeb's ro4, Scarlett's ro8, Reynor's ro16). If such a huge skill gap would exist, no comfortable placement could save foreigners from a brutal beatdown like it happened almost every time back in HoTS.
I don't remember if you considered judged winning WCS something like a "ro12" or a "ro6" in Code S; in the best case scenario, that's inferior to reaching semifinals. I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Of course the openness of a qualifier has an influence on the results. I'll list them for you: - not all the best (especially not all the current best) will participate due to some of them not having enough points or not being as popular to be successful in a vote. This is a bigger problem for koreans who have a bigger pool of top players - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament increases the chance of one/some of them advancing further - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament reduces the amount of tough koreans they will have to face on their tournament path - as IEM results imply this means that in earlier rounds there are to beat easier opponnents than if the tournament was open - this gives more opportunities to individual favorable/lucky tournament paths (as in smaller chance of being confronted with unfavorable matchups) - as results of Blizzcon/GSL vs The World show, in higher rounds foreigners normally get eliminated after the easier first rounds with Serral being the one exception - which validates previous points.
But you might have gotten something wrong: I never said that foreigners didn't improve. As you say, Serral, Neeb, Scarlett, Reynor, Showtime and Special are prove of the gap getting smaller for the very top of the foreigners. Still, while most of them may regularly beat top koreans, they also almost always aren't good enough to make it to Ro8 or further in a non-distorted tournament environment - with few exception of course (and Serral being a big one). What does this mean? Yes, the top foreigners are getting closer (or have getting closer - how this develops further is open) but they're not close enough yet to justify a only foreigner competition being valued as high as you're doing it.
Your question surprises me. As you know I never justified the fact that Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 but always critisized it as a wrong decision. A wrong decision probably caused by - as you would say - recency bias. A wrong decision more or less because of the reasons you stated.
@Anc13nt I think the record of Serral vs Koreans is kind of distorted. He only did compete in 2 tournaments with koreans in the first half of the year (in one of them only facing one korean: Maru to whom he lost 0-3), when he obviously wasn't as good as he became leater in the year. Thus it's highly questionable to think that he would've been as successful in the first two GSLs as his 2nd half of 2018 implies. Also, if you take the two best streaks of Maru and Serral in 2018, we compare a 17:2 record of Maru and a 15:0 record of Serral vs koreans. While Serral's record is obviously better if you translate it into win percentage, the bigger sample size of Maru's games makes it hard to make the statement that Serral was objectively spoken the better player based on this data - especially if you take in account that Maru's streak lasted over the course of 6 months and Serral's over the course of 4 months (if one would extend Serral's period of dominance with additional 2 months, one would have to include his two losses vs soO at Nationwars which would make his record worse than Maru's)
The openness of the qualifier bracket obviously has an influence in determining the pool of the participating players, with all the related consequences. Thus said, it has nothing to do with the actual results of thd matches, which are determined by the relative skills of the opponents; it doesn't matter how much you rig the bracket, if you would seed me directly at BlizzCon finals there is no way I could win. Luck cannot justify foreigners' results at BlizzCon in LoTV and Code S in 2018. IEM's top 16 in 2018 is not much different than BlizzCon's in 2013 and 2015, but that's where the comparison ends: during HoTS, koreans were immensely ahead to the point that foreigners won a single Premier tournament while in LoTV, even excluding Serral completely, foreigners won two Premiers on korean soil.
I never said foreigners are on par with koreans, I am instead stating their top 8 as a whole is close to a fair replacements of #9-#16 koreans(just winning one match out of three is akin to validating this theory). Compared to Code S, WCS is increasingly harder(or less easier if you prefer) at later stages(in relative terms) as it is less dense as only a restricted number of top foreigners is capable of beating top koreans on a somehow regular basis, but the potential finals are competitive even in absolute terms:Neeb vs Serral in PVZ or Serral vs Reynor in ZvZ, for example.
I know you wouldn't have given the award to Serral, it would have been a foolish decision considering how you evaluate tournaments; it seems one even bigger error than believing Maru to be the GOAT already, by my own standard. So, did TL writers commit such a huge error? Or maybe you are underestimating the Circuit and the decision was much harder to make as Serral's and Maru's accomplishments were closer than you think?
As for Serral's streak against korean, he achieved that against harder opponents on average, it might as well be shortened by the fact he could not play against mid tier ones in the qualifiers; it's impossible to know at what point, after April last year, Serral rose to his GSL vs the World level so that we just cannot theorize how he would have fared in Code S S2.
But that is the problem no? It is artificial to say that Serral was the best player in the world second half of the year because he won GSL vs The world in summer and Blizzcon in winter. Because, only theorising without actual matches ,Maru would have been right now in the Ro16 or he would have never lost vs Meomaka, But he played and he lost and that is what it counts. I
Why would Serral not be the best player in the second half of 2018? He won every tournament he entered. The doubts are if he could theorically win before or if his streak would have been broken if he had to play against more koreans.
On May 02 2019 00:26 fronkschnonk wrote: [quote] I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
Foreigners performed quite poorly at Katowice, a tournament that indeed possesses all the qualities you pointed out.
However, not having wholly open qualifiers has nothing to share with results and performances: if foreigners were as bad as IEM outcomes suggest they are(worse than top 12 koreans, on average) how would we explain their consistently much better placements at BlizzCon(Elazer's and Special's ro4, multiple ro8, Neeb and ShowTime both beating the eventual champions, let alone Serral's glory road) or the good showings in Code S in 2018(Neeb's ro4, Scarlett's ro8, Reynor's ro16). If such a huge skill gap would exist, no comfortable placement could save foreigners from a brutal beatdown like it happened almost every time back in HoTS.
I don't remember if you considered judged winning WCS something like a "ro12" or a "ro6" in Code S; in the best case scenario, that's inferior to reaching semifinals. I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Of course the openness of a qualifier has an influence on the results. I'll list them for you: - not all the best (especially not all the current best) will participate due to some of them not having enough points or not being as popular to be successful in a vote. This is a bigger problem for koreans who have a bigger pool of top players - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament increases the chance of one/some of them advancing further - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament reduces the amount of tough koreans they will have to face on their tournament path - as IEM results imply this means that in earlier rounds there are to beat easier opponnents than if the tournament was open - this gives more opportunities to individual favorable/lucky tournament paths (as in smaller chance of being confronted with unfavorable matchups) - as results of Blizzcon/GSL vs The World show, in higher rounds foreigners normally get eliminated after the easier first rounds with Serral being the one exception - which validates previous points.
But you might have gotten something wrong: I never said that foreigners didn't improve. As you say, Serral, Neeb, Scarlett, Reynor, Showtime and Special are prove of the gap getting smaller for the very top of the foreigners. Still, while most of them may regularly beat top koreans, they also almost always aren't good enough to make it to Ro8 or further in a non-distorted tournament environment - with few exception of course (and Serral being a big one). What does this mean? Yes, the top foreigners are getting closer (or have getting closer - how this develops further is open) but they're not close enough yet to justify a only foreigner competition being valued as high as you're doing it.
Your question surprises me. As you know I never justified the fact that Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 but always critisized it as a wrong decision. A wrong decision probably caused by - as you would say - recency bias. A wrong decision more or less because of the reasons you stated.
@Anc13nt I think the record of Serral vs Koreans is kind of distorted. He only did compete in 2 tournaments with koreans in the first half of the year (in one of them only facing one korean: Maru to whom he lost 0-3), when he obviously wasn't as good as he became leater in the year. Thus it's highly questionable to think that he would've been as successful in the first two GSLs as his 2nd half of 2018 implies. Also, if you take the two best streaks of Maru and Serral in 2018, we compare a 17:2 record of Maru and a 15:0 record of Serral vs koreans. While Serral's record is obviously better if you translate it into win percentage, the bigger sample size of Maru's games makes it hard to make the statement that Serral was objectively spoken the better player based on this data - especially if you take in account that Maru's streak lasted over the course of 6 months and Serral's over the course of 4 months (if one would extend Serral's period of dominance with additional 2 months, one would have to include his two losses vs soO at Nationwars which would make his record worse than Maru's)
The openness of the qualifier bracket obviously has an influence in determining the pool of the participating players, with all the related consequences. Thus said, it has nothing to do with the actual results of thd matches, which are determined by the relative skills of the opponents; it doesn't matter how much you rig the bracket, if you would seed me directly at BlizzCon finals there is no way I could win. Luck cannot justify foreigners' results at BlizzCon in LoTV and Code S in 2018. IEM's top 16 in 2018 is not much different than BlizzCon's in 2013 and 2015, but that's where the comparison ends: during HoTS, koreans were immensely ahead to the point that foreigners won a single Premier tournament while in LoTV, even excluding Serral completely, foreigners won two Premiers on korean soil.
I never said foreigners are on par with koreans, I am instead stating their top 8 as a whole is close to a fair replacements of #9-#16 koreans(just winning one match out of three is akin to validating this theory). Compared to Code S, WCS is increasingly harder(or less easier if you prefer) at later stages(in relative terms) as it is less dense as only a restricted number of top foreigners is capable of beating top koreans on a somehow regular basis, but the potential finals are competitive even in absolute terms:Neeb vs Serral in PVZ or Serral vs Reynor in ZvZ, for example.
I know you wouldn't have given the award to Serral, it would have been a foolish decision considering how you evaluate tournaments; it seems one even bigger error than believing Maru to be the GOAT already, by my own standard. So, did TL writers commit such a huge error? Or maybe you are underestimating the Circuit and the decision was much harder to make as Serral's and Maru's accomplishments were closer than you think?
As for Serral's streak against korean, he achieved that against harder opponents on average, it might as well be shortened by the fact he could not play against mid tier ones in the qualifiers; it's impossible to know at what point, after April last year, Serral rose to his GSL vs the World level so that we just cannot theorize how he would have fared in Code S S2.
But that is the problem no? It is artificial to say that Serral was the best player in the world second half of the year because he won GSL vs The world in summer and Blizzcon in winter. Because, only theorising without actual matches ,Maru would have been right now in the Ro16 or he would have never lost vs Meomaka, But he played and he lost and that is what it counts. I
Why would Serral not be the best player in the second half of 2018? He won every tournament he entered. The doubts are if he could theorically win before or if his streak would have been broken if he had to play against more koreans.
well being the best player implies playing tournaments vs koreans who are the elite of the game right now.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
Foreigners performed quite poorly at Katowice, a tournament that indeed possesses all the qualities you pointed out.
However, not having wholly open qualifiers has nothing to share with results and performances: if foreigners were as bad as IEM outcomes suggest they are(worse than top 12 koreans, on average) how would we explain their consistently much better placements at BlizzCon(Elazer's and Special's ro4, multiple ro8, Neeb and ShowTime both beating the eventual champions, let alone Serral's glory road) or the good showings in Code S in 2018(Neeb's ro4, Scarlett's ro8, Reynor's ro16). If such a huge skill gap would exist, no comfortable placement could save foreigners from a brutal beatdown like it happened almost every time back in HoTS.
I don't remember if you considered judged winning WCS something like a "ro12" or a "ro6" in Code S; in the best case scenario, that's inferior to reaching semifinals. I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Of course the openness of a qualifier has an influence on the results. I'll list them for you: - not all the best (especially not all the current best) will participate due to some of them not having enough points or not being as popular to be successful in a vote. This is a bigger problem for koreans who have a bigger pool of top players - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament increases the chance of one/some of them advancing further - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament reduces the amount of tough koreans they will have to face on their tournament path - as IEM results imply this means that in earlier rounds there are to beat easier opponnents than if the tournament was open - this gives more opportunities to individual favorable/lucky tournament paths (as in smaller chance of being confronted with unfavorable matchups) - as results of Blizzcon/GSL vs The World show, in higher rounds foreigners normally get eliminated after the easier first rounds with Serral being the one exception - which validates previous points.
But you might have gotten something wrong: I never said that foreigners didn't improve. As you say, Serral, Neeb, Scarlett, Reynor, Showtime and Special are prove of the gap getting smaller for the very top of the foreigners. Still, while most of them may regularly beat top koreans, they also almost always aren't good enough to make it to Ro8 or further in a non-distorted tournament environment - with few exception of course (and Serral being a big one). What does this mean? Yes, the top foreigners are getting closer (or have getting closer - how this develops further is open) but they're not close enough yet to justify a only foreigner competition being valued as high as you're doing it.
Your question surprises me. As you know I never justified the fact that Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 but always critisized it as a wrong decision. A wrong decision probably caused by - as you would say - recency bias. A wrong decision more or less because of the reasons you stated.
@Anc13nt I think the record of Serral vs Koreans is kind of distorted. He only did compete in 2 tournaments with koreans in the first half of the year (in one of them only facing one korean: Maru to whom he lost 0-3), when he obviously wasn't as good as he became leater in the year. Thus it's highly questionable to think that he would've been as successful in the first two GSLs as his 2nd half of 2018 implies. Also, if you take the two best streaks of Maru and Serral in 2018, we compare a 17:2 record of Maru and a 15:0 record of Serral vs koreans. While Serral's record is obviously better if you translate it into win percentage, the bigger sample size of Maru's games makes it hard to make the statement that Serral was objectively spoken the better player based on this data - especially if you take in account that Maru's streak lasted over the course of 6 months and Serral's over the course of 4 months (if one would extend Serral's period of dominance with additional 2 months, one would have to include his two losses vs soO at Nationwars which would make his record worse than Maru's)
The openness of the qualifier bracket obviously has an influence in determining the pool of the participating players, with all the related consequences. Thus said, it has nothing to do with the actual results of thd matches, which are determined by the relative skills of the opponents; it doesn't matter how much you rig the bracket, if you would seed me directly at BlizzCon finals there is no way I could win. Luck cannot justify foreigners' results at BlizzCon in LoTV and Code S in 2018. IEM's top 16 in 2018 is not much different than BlizzCon's in 2013 and 2015, but that's where the comparison ends: during HoTS, koreans were immensely ahead to the point that foreigners won a single Premier tournament while in LoTV, even excluding Serral completely, foreigners won two Premiers on korean soil.
I never said foreigners are on par with koreans, I am instead stating their top 8 as a whole is close to a fair replacements of #9-#16 koreans(just winning one match out of three is akin to validating this theory). Compared to Code S, WCS is increasingly harder(or less easier if you prefer) at later stages(in relative terms) as it is less dense as only a restricted number of top foreigners is capable of beating top koreans on a somehow regular basis, but the potential finals are competitive even in absolute terms:Neeb vs Serral in PVZ or Serral vs Reynor in ZvZ, for example.
I know you wouldn't have given the award to Serral, it would have been a foolish decision considering how you evaluate tournaments; it seems one even bigger error than believing Maru to be the GOAT already, by my own standard. So, did TL writers commit such a huge error? Or maybe you are underestimating the Circuit and the decision was much harder to make as Serral's and Maru's accomplishments were closer than you think?
As for Serral's streak against korean, he achieved that against harder opponents on average, it might as well be shortened by the fact he could not play against mid tier ones in the qualifiers; it's impossible to know at what point, after April last year, Serral rose to his GSL vs the World level so that we just cannot theorize how he would have fared in Code S S2.
But that is the problem no? It is artificial to say that Serral was the best player in the world second half of the year because he won GSL vs The world in summer and Blizzcon in winter. Because, only theorising without actual matches ,Maru would have been right now in the Ro16 or he would have never lost vs Meomaka, But he played and he lost and that is what it counts. I
Why would Serral not be the best player in the second half of 2018? He won every tournament he entered. The doubts are if he could theorically win before or if his streak would have been broken if he had to play against more koreans.
well being the best player implies playing tournaments vs koreans who are the elite of the game right now.
Who did Serral win those tournaments(and HSC) against? Keen or even worse Mamuri should have meant an end to Serral's streak while he was at the top? Unlikely.
On May 02 2019 03:16 fronkschnonk wrote: [quote] Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
Foreigners performed quite poorly at Katowice, a tournament that indeed possesses all the qualities you pointed out.
However, not having wholly open qualifiers has nothing to share with results and performances: if foreigners were as bad as IEM outcomes suggest they are(worse than top 12 koreans, on average) how would we explain their consistently much better placements at BlizzCon(Elazer's and Special's ro4, multiple ro8, Neeb and ShowTime both beating the eventual champions, let alone Serral's glory road) or the good showings in Code S in 2018(Neeb's ro4, Scarlett's ro8, Reynor's ro16). If such a huge skill gap would exist, no comfortable placement could save foreigners from a brutal beatdown like it happened almost every time back in HoTS.
I don't remember if you considered judged winning WCS something like a "ro12" or a "ro6" in Code S; in the best case scenario, that's inferior to reaching semifinals. I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Of course the openness of a qualifier has an influence on the results. I'll list them for you: - not all the best (especially not all the current best) will participate due to some of them not having enough points or not being as popular to be successful in a vote. This is a bigger problem for koreans who have a bigger pool of top players - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament increases the chance of one/some of them advancing further - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament reduces the amount of tough koreans they will have to face on their tournament path - as IEM results imply this means that in earlier rounds there are to beat easier opponnents than if the tournament was open - this gives more opportunities to individual favorable/lucky tournament paths (as in smaller chance of being confronted with unfavorable matchups) - as results of Blizzcon/GSL vs The World show, in higher rounds foreigners normally get eliminated after the easier first rounds with Serral being the one exception - which validates previous points.
But you might have gotten something wrong: I never said that foreigners didn't improve. As you say, Serral, Neeb, Scarlett, Reynor, Showtime and Special are prove of the gap getting smaller for the very top of the foreigners. Still, while most of them may regularly beat top koreans, they also almost always aren't good enough to make it to Ro8 or further in a non-distorted tournament environment - with few exception of course (and Serral being a big one). What does this mean? Yes, the top foreigners are getting closer (or have getting closer - how this develops further is open) but they're not close enough yet to justify a only foreigner competition being valued as high as you're doing it.
Your question surprises me. As you know I never justified the fact that Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 but always critisized it as a wrong decision. A wrong decision probably caused by - as you would say - recency bias. A wrong decision more or less because of the reasons you stated.
@Anc13nt I think the record of Serral vs Koreans is kind of distorted. He only did compete in 2 tournaments with koreans in the first half of the year (in one of them only facing one korean: Maru to whom he lost 0-3), when he obviously wasn't as good as he became leater in the year. Thus it's highly questionable to think that he would've been as successful in the first two GSLs as his 2nd half of 2018 implies. Also, if you take the two best streaks of Maru and Serral in 2018, we compare a 17:2 record of Maru and a 15:0 record of Serral vs koreans. While Serral's record is obviously better if you translate it into win percentage, the bigger sample size of Maru's games makes it hard to make the statement that Serral was objectively spoken the better player based on this data - especially if you take in account that Maru's streak lasted over the course of 6 months and Serral's over the course of 4 months (if one would extend Serral's period of dominance with additional 2 months, one would have to include his two losses vs soO at Nationwars which would make his record worse than Maru's)
The openness of the qualifier bracket obviously has an influence in determining the pool of the participating players, with all the related consequences. Thus said, it has nothing to do with the actual results of thd matches, which are determined by the relative skills of the opponents; it doesn't matter how much you rig the bracket, if you would seed me directly at BlizzCon finals there is no way I could win. Luck cannot justify foreigners' results at BlizzCon in LoTV and Code S in 2018. IEM's top 16 in 2018 is not much different than BlizzCon's in 2013 and 2015, but that's where the comparison ends: during HoTS, koreans were immensely ahead to the point that foreigners won a single Premier tournament while in LoTV, even excluding Serral completely, foreigners won two Premiers on korean soil.
I never said foreigners are on par with koreans, I am instead stating their top 8 as a whole is close to a fair replacements of #9-#16 koreans(just winning one match out of three is akin to validating this theory). Compared to Code S, WCS is increasingly harder(or less easier if you prefer) at later stages(in relative terms) as it is less dense as only a restricted number of top foreigners is capable of beating top koreans on a somehow regular basis, but the potential finals are competitive even in absolute terms:Neeb vs Serral in PVZ or Serral vs Reynor in ZvZ, for example.
I know you wouldn't have given the award to Serral, it would have been a foolish decision considering how you evaluate tournaments; it seems one even bigger error than believing Maru to be the GOAT already, by my own standard. So, did TL writers commit such a huge error? Or maybe you are underestimating the Circuit and the decision was much harder to make as Serral's and Maru's accomplishments were closer than you think?
As for Serral's streak against korean, he achieved that against harder opponents on average, it might as well be shortened by the fact he could not play against mid tier ones in the qualifiers; it's impossible to know at what point, after April last year, Serral rose to his GSL vs the World level so that we just cannot theorize how he would have fared in Code S S2.
But that is the problem no? It is artificial to say that Serral was the best player in the world second half of the year because he won GSL vs The world in summer and Blizzcon in winter. Because, only theorising without actual matches ,Maru would have been right now in the Ro16 or he would have never lost vs Meomaka, But he played and he lost and that is what it counts. I
Why would Serral not be the best player in the second half of 2018? He won every tournament he entered. The doubts are if he could theorically win before or if his streak would have been broken if he had to play against more koreans.
well being the best player implies playing tournaments vs koreans who are the elite of the game right now.
Who did Serral win those tournaments(and HSC) against? Keen or even worse Mamuri should have meant an end to Serral's streak while he was at the top? Unlikely.
there were no tournaments between GSL vs the world and Blizzcon
On May 01 2019 21:50 fronkschnonk wrote: [quote] I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
[quote] Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
Foreigners performed quite poorly at Katowice, a tournament that indeed possesses all the qualities you pointed out.
However, not having wholly open qualifiers has nothing to share with results and performances: if foreigners were as bad as IEM outcomes suggest they are(worse than top 12 koreans, on average) how would we explain their consistently much better placements at BlizzCon(Elazer's and Special's ro4, multiple ro8, Neeb and ShowTime both beating the eventual champions, let alone Serral's glory road) or the good showings in Code S in 2018(Neeb's ro4, Scarlett's ro8, Reynor's ro16). If such a huge skill gap would exist, no comfortable placement could save foreigners from a brutal beatdown like it happened almost every time back in HoTS.
I don't remember if you considered judged winning WCS something like a "ro12" or a "ro6" in Code S; in the best case scenario, that's inferior to reaching semifinals. I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Of course the openness of a qualifier has an influence on the results. I'll list them for you: - not all the best (especially not all the current best) will participate due to some of them not having enough points or not being as popular to be successful in a vote. This is a bigger problem for koreans who have a bigger pool of top players - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament increases the chance of one/some of them advancing further - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament reduces the amount of tough koreans they will have to face on their tournament path - as IEM results imply this means that in earlier rounds there are to beat easier opponnents than if the tournament was open - this gives more opportunities to individual favorable/lucky tournament paths (as in smaller chance of being confronted with unfavorable matchups) - as results of Blizzcon/GSL vs The World show, in higher rounds foreigners normally get eliminated after the easier first rounds with Serral being the one exception - which validates previous points.
But you might have gotten something wrong: I never said that foreigners didn't improve. As you say, Serral, Neeb, Scarlett, Reynor, Showtime and Special are prove of the gap getting smaller for the very top of the foreigners. Still, while most of them may regularly beat top koreans, they also almost always aren't good enough to make it to Ro8 or further in a non-distorted tournament environment - with few exception of course (and Serral being a big one). What does this mean? Yes, the top foreigners are getting closer (or have getting closer - how this develops further is open) but they're not close enough yet to justify a only foreigner competition being valued as high as you're doing it.
Your question surprises me. As you know I never justified the fact that Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 but always critisized it as a wrong decision. A wrong decision probably caused by - as you would say - recency bias. A wrong decision more or less because of the reasons you stated.
@Anc13nt I think the record of Serral vs Koreans is kind of distorted. He only did compete in 2 tournaments with koreans in the first half of the year (in one of them only facing one korean: Maru to whom he lost 0-3), when he obviously wasn't as good as he became leater in the year. Thus it's highly questionable to think that he would've been as successful in the first two GSLs as his 2nd half of 2018 implies. Also, if you take the two best streaks of Maru and Serral in 2018, we compare a 17:2 record of Maru and a 15:0 record of Serral vs koreans. While Serral's record is obviously better if you translate it into win percentage, the bigger sample size of Maru's games makes it hard to make the statement that Serral was objectively spoken the better player based on this data - especially if you take in account that Maru's streak lasted over the course of 6 months and Serral's over the course of 4 months (if one would extend Serral's period of dominance with additional 2 months, one would have to include his two losses vs soO at Nationwars which would make his record worse than Maru's)
The openness of the qualifier bracket obviously has an influence in determining the pool of the participating players, with all the related consequences. Thus said, it has nothing to do with the actual results of thd matches, which are determined by the relative skills of the opponents; it doesn't matter how much you rig the bracket, if you would seed me directly at BlizzCon finals there is no way I could win. Luck cannot justify foreigners' results at BlizzCon in LoTV and Code S in 2018. IEM's top 16 in 2018 is not much different than BlizzCon's in 2013 and 2015, but that's where the comparison ends: during HoTS, koreans were immensely ahead to the point that foreigners won a single Premier tournament while in LoTV, even excluding Serral completely, foreigners won two Premiers on korean soil.
Of course: the matches are what they are. But the lack of more tough matches in a tournament due to it's qualification process makes a tournament overall easier. So Serral proved to be the best at GSL vs The World and Blizzcon and he could be rightfully called current "best player" since his blizzcon win. But still the accomplishment in terms of pure difficulty of opponents isn't as high as at IEM or in GSL Code S or even ST (but to be fair: I think that ST has the flaw of only being single elimination which always kills high skilled players earlier than their actual skill would imply due to bad luck in seeding). Thus being eliminated by another very good player who's having a great day is less probable at blizzcon than at IEM.
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: I never said foreigners are on par with koreans, I am instead stating their top 8 as a whole is close to a fair replacements of #9-#16 koreans(just winning one match out of three is akin to validating this theory). Compared to Code S, WCS is increasingly harder(or less easier if you prefer) at later stages(in relative terms) as it is less dense as only a restricted number of top foreigners is capable of beating top koreans on a somehow regular basis, but the potential finals are competitive even in absolute terms:Neeb vs Serral in PVZ or Serral vs Reynor in ZvZ, for example.
I know, I'm on repeat, but still: the most realistic example of competition (IEM) implies that the top 8 of foreigners is indeed overall worse than #9-#16 koreans. Yes, the finals of WCS are legit, but they aren't representative for the foreign scene, not even for the top 8 of it. Look at Reynor: he is incredible at ZvZ but showed weaknesses in other matchups (thus not qualifying for IEM). And look at other finalists we had last year: Mana and Has... they are cool and can make something happen on a very good day but I would bet against them at any time if they were to get out of blizzcon groupstage. But I would think that of any top4 player of GSL since 2018 Season 1 would have a good chance (and most top8 players of GSL, too). Now we can repeat this thought experiment with quarterfinalist of WCS-events last year (since you're insisting that top8 foreigners would be a good replacement)...
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: I know you wouldn't have given the award to Serral, it would have been a foolish decision considering how you evaluate tournaments; it seems one even bigger error than believing Maru to be the GOAT already, by my own standard. So, did TL writers commit such a huge error? Or maybe you are underestimating the Circuit and the decision was much harder to make as Serral's and Maru's accomplishments were closer than you think?
Well, this "perhaps"-thinking isn't very helpful. Yes, perhaps many things could be different than I assume. But that this or that person or those writers are thinking different than me isn't prove of anything. Also I didn't say that TL writers did a "huge error". I just think they were wrong in this case which is indeed not easy to decide.
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: As for Serral's streak against korean, he achieved that against harder opponents on average, it might as well be shortened by the fact he could not play against mid tier ones in the qualifiers; it's impossible to know at what point, after April last year, Serral rose to his GSL vs the World level so that we just cannot theorize how he would have fared in Code S S2.
Didn't we have this argument already in another thread? I don't know which one anymore. I remember listing all the relevant players beaten by Maru and Serral over the year and I was pretty convinced that it turned out in favor of Maru - probably just due to the bigger sample size of Maru's opponents. I know - this approach was very debatable but nobody really argued against it apart from saying that this approach was debatable.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
Foreigners performed quite poorly at Katowice, a tournament that indeed possesses all the qualities you pointed out.
However, not having wholly open qualifiers has nothing to share with results and performances: if foreigners were as bad as IEM outcomes suggest they are(worse than top 12 koreans, on average) how would we explain their consistently much better placements at BlizzCon(Elazer's and Special's ro4, multiple ro8, Neeb and ShowTime both beating the eventual champions, let alone Serral's glory road) or the good showings in Code S in 2018(Neeb's ro4, Scarlett's ro8, Reynor's ro16). If such a huge skill gap would exist, no comfortable placement could save foreigners from a brutal beatdown like it happened almost every time back in HoTS.
I don't remember if you considered judged winning WCS something like a "ro12" or a "ro6" in Code S; in the best case scenario, that's inferior to reaching semifinals. I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Of course the openness of a qualifier has an influence on the results. I'll list them for you: - not all the best (especially not all the current best) will participate due to some of them not having enough points or not being as popular to be successful in a vote. This is a bigger problem for koreans who have a bigger pool of top players - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament increases the chance of one/some of them advancing further - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament reduces the amount of tough koreans they will have to face on their tournament path - as IEM results imply this means that in earlier rounds there are to beat easier opponnents than if the tournament was open - this gives more opportunities to individual favorable/lucky tournament paths (as in smaller chance of being confronted with unfavorable matchups) - as results of Blizzcon/GSL vs The World show, in higher rounds foreigners normally get eliminated after the easier first rounds with Serral being the one exception - which validates previous points.
But you might have gotten something wrong: I never said that foreigners didn't improve. As you say, Serral, Neeb, Scarlett, Reynor, Showtime and Special are prove of the gap getting smaller for the very top of the foreigners. Still, while most of them may regularly beat top koreans, they also almost always aren't good enough to make it to Ro8 or further in a non-distorted tournament environment - with few exception of course (and Serral being a big one). What does this mean? Yes, the top foreigners are getting closer (or have getting closer - how this develops further is open) but they're not close enough yet to justify a only foreigner competition being valued as high as you're doing it.
Your question surprises me. As you know I never justified the fact that Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 but always critisized it as a wrong decision. A wrong decision probably caused by - as you would say - recency bias. A wrong decision more or less because of the reasons you stated.
@Anc13nt I think the record of Serral vs Koreans is kind of distorted. He only did compete in 2 tournaments with koreans in the first half of the year (in one of them only facing one korean: Maru to whom he lost 0-3), when he obviously wasn't as good as he became leater in the year. Thus it's highly questionable to think that he would've been as successful in the first two GSLs as his 2nd half of 2018 implies. Also, if you take the two best streaks of Maru and Serral in 2018, we compare a 17:2 record of Maru and a 15:0 record of Serral vs koreans. While Serral's record is obviously better if you translate it into win percentage, the bigger sample size of Maru's games makes it hard to make the statement that Serral was objectively spoken the better player based on this data - especially if you take in account that Maru's streak lasted over the course of 6 months and Serral's over the course of 4 months (if one would extend Serral's period of dominance with additional 2 months, one would have to include his two losses vs soO at Nationwars which would make his record worse than Maru's)
The openness of the qualifier bracket obviously has an influence in determining the pool of the participating players, with all the related consequences. Thus said, it has nothing to do with the actual results of thd matches, which are determined by the relative skills of the opponents; it doesn't matter how much you rig the bracket, if you would seed me directly at BlizzCon finals there is no way I could win. Luck cannot justify foreigners' results at BlizzCon in LoTV and Code S in 2018. IEM's top 16 in 2018 is not much different than BlizzCon's in 2013 and 2015, but that's where the comparison ends: during HoTS, koreans were immensely ahead to the point that foreigners won a single Premier tournament while in LoTV, even excluding Serral completely, foreigners won two Premiers on korean soil.
I never said foreigners are on par with koreans, I am instead stating their top 8 as a whole is close to a fair replacements of #9-#16 koreans(just winning one match out of three is akin to validating this theory). Compared to Code S, WCS is increasingly harder(or less easier if you prefer) at later stages(in relative terms) as it is less dense as only a restricted number of top foreigners is capable of beating top koreans on a somehow regular basis, but the potential finals are competitive even in absolute terms:Neeb vs Serral in PVZ or Serral vs Reynor in ZvZ, for example.
I know you wouldn't have given the award to Serral, it would have been a foolish decision considering how you evaluate tournaments; it seems one even bigger error than believing Maru to be the GOAT already, by my own standard. So, did TL writers commit such a huge error? Or maybe you are underestimating the Circuit and the decision was much harder to make as Serral's and Maru's accomplishments were closer than you think?
As for Serral's streak against korean, he achieved that against harder opponents on average, it might as well be shortened by the fact he could not play against mid tier ones in the qualifiers; it's impossible to know at what point, after April last year, Serral rose to his GSL vs the World level so that we just cannot theorize how he would have fared in Code S S2.
But that is the problem no? It is artificial to say that Serral was the best player in the world second half of the year because he won GSL vs The world in summer and Blizzcon in winter. Because, only theorising without actual matches ,Maru would have been right now in the Ro16 or he would have never lost vs Meomaka, But he played and he lost and that is what it counts. I
Why would Serral not be the best player in the second half of 2018? He won every tournament he entered. The doubts are if he could theorically win before or if his streak would have been broken if he had to play against more koreans.
well being the best player implies playing tournaments vs koreans who are the elite of the game right now.
Who did Serral win those tournaments(and HSC) against? Keen or even worse Mamuri should have meant an end to Serral's streak while he was at the top? Unlikely.
there were no tournaments between GSL vs the world and Blizzcon
There were WCS Montreal and Code S S3(where Serral would have played against koreans). Serral didn't play Code S, yet he played and won GSL vs the World, BlizzCon and HSC against koreans; I don't think there can be any doubt he was the best player in the second half of 2018.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
Foreigners performed quite poorly at Katowice, a tournament that indeed possesses all the qualities you pointed out.
However, not having wholly open qualifiers has nothing to share with results and performances: if foreigners were as bad as IEM outcomes suggest they are(worse than top 12 koreans, on average) how would we explain their consistently much better placements at BlizzCon(Elazer's and Special's ro4, multiple ro8, Neeb and ShowTime both beating the eventual champions, let alone Serral's glory road) or the good showings in Code S in 2018(Neeb's ro4, Scarlett's ro8, Reynor's ro16). If such a huge skill gap would exist, no comfortable placement could save foreigners from a brutal beatdown like it happened almost every time back in HoTS.
I don't remember if you considered judged winning WCS something like a "ro12" or a "ro6" in Code S; in the best case scenario, that's inferior to reaching semifinals. I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Of course the openness of a qualifier has an influence on the results. I'll list them for you: - not all the best (especially not all the current best) will participate due to some of them not having enough points or not being as popular to be successful in a vote. This is a bigger problem for koreans who have a bigger pool of top players - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament increases the chance of one/some of them advancing further - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament reduces the amount of tough koreans they will have to face on their tournament path - as IEM results imply this means that in earlier rounds there are to beat easier opponnents than if the tournament was open - this gives more opportunities to individual favorable/lucky tournament paths (as in smaller chance of being confronted with unfavorable matchups) - as results of Blizzcon/GSL vs The World show, in higher rounds foreigners normally get eliminated after the easier first rounds with Serral being the one exception - which validates previous points.
But you might have gotten something wrong: I never said that foreigners didn't improve. As you say, Serral, Neeb, Scarlett, Reynor, Showtime and Special are prove of the gap getting smaller for the very top of the foreigners. Still, while most of them may regularly beat top koreans, they also almost always aren't good enough to make it to Ro8 or further in a non-distorted tournament environment - with few exception of course (and Serral being a big one). What does this mean? Yes, the top foreigners are getting closer (or have getting closer - how this develops further is open) but they're not close enough yet to justify a only foreigner competition being valued as high as you're doing it.
Your question surprises me. As you know I never justified the fact that Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 but always critisized it as a wrong decision. A wrong decision probably caused by - as you would say - recency bias. A wrong decision more or less because of the reasons you stated.
@Anc13nt I think the record of Serral vs Koreans is kind of distorted. He only did compete in 2 tournaments with koreans in the first half of the year (in one of them only facing one korean: Maru to whom he lost 0-3), when he obviously wasn't as good as he became leater in the year. Thus it's highly questionable to think that he would've been as successful in the first two GSLs as his 2nd half of 2018 implies. Also, if you take the two best streaks of Maru and Serral in 2018, we compare a 17:2 record of Maru and a 15:0 record of Serral vs koreans. While Serral's record is obviously better if you translate it into win percentage, the bigger sample size of Maru's games makes it hard to make the statement that Serral was objectively spoken the better player based on this data - especially if you take in account that Maru's streak lasted over the course of 6 months and Serral's over the course of 4 months (if one would extend Serral's period of dominance with additional 2 months, one would have to include his two losses vs soO at Nationwars which would make his record worse than Maru's)
The openness of the qualifier bracket obviously has an influence in determining the pool of the participating players, with all the related consequences. Thus said, it has nothing to do with the actual results of thd matches, which are determined by the relative skills of the opponents; it doesn't matter how much you rig the bracket, if you would seed me directly at BlizzCon finals there is no way I could win. Luck cannot justify foreigners' results at BlizzCon in LoTV and Code S in 2018. IEM's top 16 in 2018 is not much different than BlizzCon's in 2013 and 2015, but that's where the comparison ends: during HoTS, koreans were immensely ahead to the point that foreigners won a single Premier tournament while in LoTV, even excluding Serral completely, foreigners won two Premiers on korean soil.
Of course: the matches are what they are. But the lack of more tough matches in a tournament due to it's qualification process makes a tournament overall easier. So Serral proved to be the best at GSL vs The World and Blizzcon and he could be rightfully called current "best player" since his blizzcon win. But still the accomplishment in terms of pure difficulty of opponents isn't as high as at IEM or in GSL Code S or even ST (but to be fair: I think that ST has the flaw of only being single elimination which always kills high skilled players earlier than their actual skill would imply due to bad luck in seeding). Thus being eliminated by another very good player who's having a great day is less probable at blizzcon than at IEM.
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: I never said foreigners are on par with koreans, I am instead stating their top 8 as a whole is close to a fair replacements of #9-#16 koreans(just winning one match out of three is akin to validating this theory). Compared to Code S, WCS is increasingly harder(or less easier if you prefer) at later stages(in relative terms) as it is less dense as only a restricted number of top foreigners is capable of beating top koreans on a somehow regular basis, but the potential finals are competitive even in absolute terms:Neeb vs Serral in PVZ or Serral vs Reynor in ZvZ, for example.
I know, I'm on repeat, but still: the most realistic example of competition (IEM) implies that the top 8 of foreigners is indeed overall worse than #9-#16 koreans. Yes, the finals of WCS are legit, but they aren't representative for the foreign scene, not even for the top 8 of it. Look at Reynor: he is incredible at ZvZ but showed weaknesses in other matchups (thus not qualifying for IEM). And look at other finalists we had last year: Mana and Has... they are cool and can make something happen on a very good day but I would bet against them at any time if they were to get out of blizzcon groupstage. But I would think that of any top4 player of GSL since 2018 Season 1 would have a good chance (and most top8 players of GSL, too). Now we can repeat this thought experiment with quarterfinalist of WCS-events last year (since you're insisting that top8 foreigners would be a good replacement)...
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: I know you wouldn't have given the award to Serral, it would have been a foolish decision considering how you evaluate tournaments; it seems one even bigger error than believing Maru to be the GOAT already, by my own standard. So, did TL writers commit such a huge error? Or maybe you are underestimating the Circuit and the decision was much harder to make as Serral's and Maru's accomplishments were closer than you think?
Well, this "perhaps"-thinking isn't very helpful. Yes, perhaps many things could be different than I assume. But that this or that person or those writers are thinking different than me isn't prove of anything. Also I didn't say that TL writers did a "huge error". I just think they were wrong in this case which is indeed not easy to decide.
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: As for Serral's streak against korean, he achieved that against harder opponents on average, it might as well be shortened by the fact he could not play against mid tier ones in the qualifiers; it's impossible to know at what point, after April last year, Serral rose to his GSL vs the World level so that we just cannot theorize how he would have fared in Code S S2.
Didn't we have this argument already in another thread? I don't know which one anymore. I remember listing all the relevant players beaten by Maru and Serral over the year and I was pretty convinced that it turned out in favor of Maru - probably just due to the bigger sample size of Maru's opponents. I know - this approach was very debatable but nobody really argued against it apart from saying that this approach was debatable.
Judging by your own way of thinking, Maru's 3 Code S and WESG are compared to Serral's BlizzCon and GSL vs the World(not as hard as Code S), a non premier HSC and let's say at best the equivalent of three ro4 in Code S; you didn't say there is a huge difference, I would if I had to use your criteria. TL writers evidently had others parameters(not even mentioning mine that are miles away from yours).
We could go on discussing without end, I already pointed out one way to reach a common ground discussion; otherwise it's just different opinions that lead to very different conclusions.
You should look at quarterfinalists in WCS and compare them with the players who did not advance from the second groupstage in Code S; as I already said, probably 6 foreigners and 10 koreans at BlizzCon would be the best way to split them but 8-8 is not outrageous(unless a good amount of top foreigners somehow don't make it for various reasons, like it happened last year).
Serral's path to victory at BlizzCon was not easier because he had to play five matches instead of seven in Code S or because the field was weaker(not sure, actually), just look at the names and at the ratings of the player he took down; lucky runs are always possible, on the other hand.
We might have had that streak comparison argument before but I don't remember that conclusion; there is one list(again on Reddit) with the average rating of the opponents faced, nothing to comment here.
On May 02 2019 00:26 fronkschnonk wrote: [quote] I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
Foreigners performed quite poorly at Katowice, a tournament that indeed possesses all the qualities you pointed out.
However, not having wholly open qualifiers has nothing to share with results and performances: if foreigners were as bad as IEM outcomes suggest they are(worse than top 12 koreans, on average) how would we explain their consistently much better placements at BlizzCon(Elazer's and Special's ro4, multiple ro8, Neeb and ShowTime both beating the eventual champions, let alone Serral's glory road) or the good showings in Code S in 2018(Neeb's ro4, Scarlett's ro8, Reynor's ro16). If such a huge skill gap would exist, no comfortable placement could save foreigners from a brutal beatdown like it happened almost every time back in HoTS.
I don't remember if you considered judged winning WCS something like a "ro12" or a "ro6" in Code S; in the best case scenario, that's inferior to reaching semifinals. I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Of course the openness of a qualifier has an influence on the results. I'll list them for you: - not all the best (especially not all the current best) will participate due to some of them not having enough points or not being as popular to be successful in a vote. This is a bigger problem for koreans who have a bigger pool of top players - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament increases the chance of one/some of them advancing further - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament reduces the amount of tough koreans they will have to face on their tournament path - as IEM results imply this means that in earlier rounds there are to beat easier opponnents than if the tournament was open - this gives more opportunities to individual favorable/lucky tournament paths (as in smaller chance of being confronted with unfavorable matchups) - as results of Blizzcon/GSL vs The World show, in higher rounds foreigners normally get eliminated after the easier first rounds with Serral being the one exception - which validates previous points.
But you might have gotten something wrong: I never said that foreigners didn't improve. As you say, Serral, Neeb, Scarlett, Reynor, Showtime and Special are prove of the gap getting smaller for the very top of the foreigners. Still, while most of them may regularly beat top koreans, they also almost always aren't good enough to make it to Ro8 or further in a non-distorted tournament environment - with few exception of course (and Serral being a big one). What does this mean? Yes, the top foreigners are getting closer (or have getting closer - how this develops further is open) but they're not close enough yet to justify a only foreigner competition being valued as high as you're doing it.
Your question surprises me. As you know I never justified the fact that Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 but always critisized it as a wrong decision. A wrong decision probably caused by - as you would say - recency bias. A wrong decision more or less because of the reasons you stated.
@Anc13nt I think the record of Serral vs Koreans is kind of distorted. He only did compete in 2 tournaments with koreans in the first half of the year (in one of them only facing one korean: Maru to whom he lost 0-3), when he obviously wasn't as good as he became leater in the year. Thus it's highly questionable to think that he would've been as successful in the first two GSLs as his 2nd half of 2018 implies. Also, if you take the two best streaks of Maru and Serral in 2018, we compare a 17:2 record of Maru and a 15:0 record of Serral vs koreans. While Serral's record is obviously better if you translate it into win percentage, the bigger sample size of Maru's games makes it hard to make the statement that Serral was objectively spoken the better player based on this data - especially if you take in account that Maru's streak lasted over the course of 6 months and Serral's over the course of 4 months (if one would extend Serral's period of dominance with additional 2 months, one would have to include his two losses vs soO at Nationwars which would make his record worse than Maru's)
The openness of the qualifier bracket obviously has an influence in determining the pool of the participating players, with all the related consequences. Thus said, it has nothing to do with the actual results of thd matches, which are determined by the relative skills of the opponents; it doesn't matter how much you rig the bracket, if you would seed me directly at BlizzCon finals there is no way I could win. Luck cannot justify foreigners' results at BlizzCon in LoTV and Code S in 2018. IEM's top 16 in 2018 is not much different than BlizzCon's in 2013 and 2015, but that's where the comparison ends: during HoTS, koreans were immensely ahead to the point that foreigners won a single Premier tournament while in LoTV, even excluding Serral completely, foreigners won two Premiers on korean soil.
Of course: the matches are what they are. But the lack of more tough matches in a tournament due to it's qualification process makes a tournament overall easier. So Serral proved to be the best at GSL vs The World and Blizzcon and he could be rightfully called current "best player" since his blizzcon win. But still the accomplishment in terms of pure difficulty of opponents isn't as high as at IEM or in GSL Code S or even ST (but to be fair: I think that ST has the flaw of only being single elimination which always kills high skilled players earlier than their actual skill would imply due to bad luck in seeding). Thus being eliminated by another very good player who's having a great day is less probable at blizzcon than at IEM.
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: I never said foreigners are on par with koreans, I am instead stating their top 8 as a whole is close to a fair replacements of #9-#16 koreans(just winning one match out of three is akin to validating this theory). Compared to Code S, WCS is increasingly harder(or less easier if you prefer) at later stages(in relative terms) as it is less dense as only a restricted number of top foreigners is capable of beating top koreans on a somehow regular basis, but the potential finals are competitive even in absolute terms:Neeb vs Serral in PVZ or Serral vs Reynor in ZvZ, for example.
I know, I'm on repeat, but still: the most realistic example of competition (IEM) implies that the top 8 of foreigners is indeed overall worse than #9-#16 koreans. Yes, the finals of WCS are legit, but they aren't representative for the foreign scene, not even for the top 8 of it. Look at Reynor: he is incredible at ZvZ but showed weaknesses in other matchups (thus not qualifying for IEM). And look at other finalists we had last year: Mana and Has... they are cool and can make something happen on a very good day but I would bet against them at any time if they were to get out of blizzcon groupstage. But I would think that of any top4 player of GSL since 2018 Season 1 would have a good chance (and most top8 players of GSL, too). Now we can repeat this thought experiment with quarterfinalist of WCS-events last year (since you're insisting that top8 foreigners would be a good replacement)...
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: I know you wouldn't have given the award to Serral, it would have been a foolish decision considering how you evaluate tournaments; it seems one even bigger error than believing Maru to be the GOAT already, by my own standard. So, did TL writers commit such a huge error? Or maybe you are underestimating the Circuit and the decision was much harder to make as Serral's and Maru's accomplishments were closer than you think?
Well, this "perhaps"-thinking isn't very helpful. Yes, perhaps many things could be different than I assume. But that this or that person or those writers are thinking different than me isn't prove of anything. Also I didn't say that TL writers did a "huge error". I just think they were wrong in this case which is indeed not easy to decide.
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: As for Serral's streak against korean, he achieved that against harder opponents on average, it might as well be shortened by the fact he could not play against mid tier ones in the qualifiers; it's impossible to know at what point, after April last year, Serral rose to his GSL vs the World level so that we just cannot theorize how he would have fared in Code S S2.
Didn't we have this argument already in another thread? I don't know which one anymore. I remember listing all the relevant players beaten by Maru and Serral over the year and I was pretty convinced that it turned out in favor of Maru - probably just due to the bigger sample size of Maru's opponents. I know - this approach was very debatable but nobody really argued against it apart from saying that this approach was debatable.
Judging by your own way of thinking, Maru's 3 Code S and WESG are compared to Serral's BlizzCon and GSL vs the World(not as hard as Code S), a non premier HSC and let's say at best the equivalent of three ro4 in Code S; you didn't say there is a huge difference, I would if I had to use your criteria. TL writers evidently had others parameters(not even mentioning mine that are miles away from yours).
We could go on discussing without end, I already pointed out one way to reach a common ground discussion; otherwise it's just different opinions that lead to very different conclusions.
You should look at quarterfinalists in WCS and compare them with the players who did not advance from the second groupstage in Code S; as I already said, probably 6 foreigners and 10 koreans at BlizzCon would be the best way to split them but 8-8 is not outrageous(unless a good amount of top foreigners somehow don't make it for various reasons, like it happened last year).
Serral's path to victory at BlizzCon was not easier because he had to play five matches instead of seven in Code S or because the field was weaker(not sure, actually), just look at the names and at the ratings of the player he took down; lucky runs are always possible, on the other hand.
We might have had that streak comparison argument before but I don't remember that conclusion; there is one list(again on Reddit) with the average rating of the opponents faced, nothing to comment here.
Yes, you're somewhat correctly stating what I think is to campare between Maru and Serral in 2018. Plus the length of their respective periods of dominance which I think is quite important.
For your suggested foreigner/korean split: it kind of baffles me how you keep ignoring the results of IEM Katowice which has been the most objective measurement in terms of competetive conditions in the last 3 years. Are you just saying this tournament was bad luck and all the others (Blizzcon + GSL vs The World) are similarly meaningful in terms of foreigner strength? How comes then that the picture hasn't changed over the last 3 years at IEM? Bad luck again? In my book the split would be 3/13, 4/12 at best. Oh - before someone misinterprets: I don't think that Blizzcon foreigner/korean split should be different. It's exciting to see foreigners trying their best when given the opportunity. It just would be cool to have something like IEM more often. Well, we probably have to throw all our money at Homestory Cup to make this happen :D
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
Foreigners performed quite poorly at Katowice, a tournament that indeed possesses all the qualities you pointed out.
However, not having wholly open qualifiers has nothing to share with results and performances: if foreigners were as bad as IEM outcomes suggest they are(worse than top 12 koreans, on average) how would we explain their consistently much better placements at BlizzCon(Elazer's and Special's ro4, multiple ro8, Neeb and ShowTime both beating the eventual champions, let alone Serral's glory road) or the good showings in Code S in 2018(Neeb's ro4, Scarlett's ro8, Reynor's ro16). If such a huge skill gap would exist, no comfortable placement could save foreigners from a brutal beatdown like it happened almost every time back in HoTS.
I don't remember if you considered judged winning WCS something like a "ro12" or a "ro6" in Code S; in the best case scenario, that's inferior to reaching semifinals. I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Of course the openness of a qualifier has an influence on the results. I'll list them for you: - not all the best (especially not all the current best) will participate due to some of them not having enough points or not being as popular to be successful in a vote. This is a bigger problem for koreans who have a bigger pool of top players - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament increases the chance of one/some of them advancing further - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament reduces the amount of tough koreans they will have to face on their tournament path - as IEM results imply this means that in earlier rounds there are to beat easier opponnents than if the tournament was open - this gives more opportunities to individual favorable/lucky tournament paths (as in smaller chance of being confronted with unfavorable matchups) - as results of Blizzcon/GSL vs The World show, in higher rounds foreigners normally get eliminated after the easier first rounds with Serral being the one exception - which validates previous points.
But you might have gotten something wrong: I never said that foreigners didn't improve. As you say, Serral, Neeb, Scarlett, Reynor, Showtime and Special are prove of the gap getting smaller for the very top of the foreigners. Still, while most of them may regularly beat top koreans, they also almost always aren't good enough to make it to Ro8 or further in a non-distorted tournament environment - with few exception of course (and Serral being a big one). What does this mean? Yes, the top foreigners are getting closer (or have getting closer - how this develops further is open) but they're not close enough yet to justify a only foreigner competition being valued as high as you're doing it.
Your question surprises me. As you know I never justified the fact that Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 but always critisized it as a wrong decision. A wrong decision probably caused by - as you would say - recency bias. A wrong decision more or less because of the reasons you stated.
@Anc13nt I think the record of Serral vs Koreans is kind of distorted. He only did compete in 2 tournaments with koreans in the first half of the year (in one of them only facing one korean: Maru to whom he lost 0-3), when he obviously wasn't as good as he became leater in the year. Thus it's highly questionable to think that he would've been as successful in the first two GSLs as his 2nd half of 2018 implies. Also, if you take the two best streaks of Maru and Serral in 2018, we compare a 17:2 record of Maru and a 15:0 record of Serral vs koreans. While Serral's record is obviously better if you translate it into win percentage, the bigger sample size of Maru's games makes it hard to make the statement that Serral was objectively spoken the better player based on this data - especially if you take in account that Maru's streak lasted over the course of 6 months and Serral's over the course of 4 months (if one would extend Serral's period of dominance with additional 2 months, one would have to include his two losses vs soO at Nationwars which would make his record worse than Maru's)
The openness of the qualifier bracket obviously has an influence in determining the pool of the participating players, with all the related consequences. Thus said, it has nothing to do with the actual results of thd matches, which are determined by the relative skills of the opponents; it doesn't matter how much you rig the bracket, if you would seed me directly at BlizzCon finals there is no way I could win. Luck cannot justify foreigners' results at BlizzCon in LoTV and Code S in 2018. IEM's top 16 in 2018 is not much different than BlizzCon's in 2013 and 2015, but that's where the comparison ends: during HoTS, koreans were immensely ahead to the point that foreigners won a single Premier tournament while in LoTV, even excluding Serral completely, foreigners won two Premiers on korean soil.
Of course: the matches are what they are. But the lack of more tough matches in a tournament due to it's qualification process makes a tournament overall easier. So Serral proved to be the best at GSL vs The World and Blizzcon and he could be rightfully called current "best player" since his blizzcon win. But still the accomplishment in terms of pure difficulty of opponents isn't as high as at IEM or in GSL Code S or even ST (but to be fair: I think that ST has the flaw of only being single elimination which always kills high skilled players earlier than their actual skill would imply due to bad luck in seeding). Thus being eliminated by another very good player who's having a great day is less probable at blizzcon than at IEM.
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: I never said foreigners are on par with koreans, I am instead stating their top 8 as a whole is close to a fair replacements of #9-#16 koreans(just winning one match out of three is akin to validating this theory). Compared to Code S, WCS is increasingly harder(or less easier if you prefer) at later stages(in relative terms) as it is less dense as only a restricted number of top foreigners is capable of beating top koreans on a somehow regular basis, but the potential finals are competitive even in absolute terms:Neeb vs Serral in PVZ or Serral vs Reynor in ZvZ, for example.
I know, I'm on repeat, but still: the most realistic example of competition (IEM) implies that the top 8 of foreigners is indeed overall worse than #9-#16 koreans. Yes, the finals of WCS are legit, but they aren't representative for the foreign scene, not even for the top 8 of it. Look at Reynor: he is incredible at ZvZ but showed weaknesses in other matchups (thus not qualifying for IEM). And look at other finalists we had last year: Mana and Has... they are cool and can make something happen on a very good day but I would bet against them at any time if they were to get out of blizzcon groupstage. But I would think that of any top4 player of GSL since 2018 Season 1 would have a good chance (and most top8 players of GSL, too). Now we can repeat this thought experiment with quarterfinalist of WCS-events last year (since you're insisting that top8 foreigners would be a good replacement)...
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: I know you wouldn't have given the award to Serral, it would have been a foolish decision considering how you evaluate tournaments; it seems one even bigger error than believing Maru to be the GOAT already, by my own standard. So, did TL writers commit such a huge error? Or maybe you are underestimating the Circuit and the decision was much harder to make as Serral's and Maru's accomplishments were closer than you think?
Well, this "perhaps"-thinking isn't very helpful. Yes, perhaps many things could be different than I assume. But that this or that person or those writers are thinking different than me isn't prove of anything. Also I didn't say that TL writers did a "huge error". I just think they were wrong in this case which is indeed not easy to decide.
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: As for Serral's streak against korean, he achieved that against harder opponents on average, it might as well be shortened by the fact he could not play against mid tier ones in the qualifiers; it's impossible to know at what point, after April last year, Serral rose to his GSL vs the World level so that we just cannot theorize how he would have fared in Code S S2.
Didn't we have this argument already in another thread? I don't know which one anymore. I remember listing all the relevant players beaten by Maru and Serral over the year and I was pretty convinced that it turned out in favor of Maru - probably just due to the bigger sample size of Maru's opponents. I know - this approach was very debatable but nobody really argued against it apart from saying that this approach was debatable.
Judging by your own way of thinking, Maru's 3 Code S and WESG are compared to Serral's BlizzCon and GSL vs the World(not as hard as Code S), a non premier HSC and let's say at best the equivalent of three ro4 in Code S; you didn't say there is a huge difference, I would if I had to use your criteria. TL writers evidently had others parameters(not even mentioning mine that are miles away from yours).
We could go on discussing without end, I already pointed out one way to reach a common ground discussion; otherwise it's just different opinions that lead to very different conclusions.
You should look at quarterfinalists in WCS and compare them with the players who did not advance from the second groupstage in Code S; as I already said, probably 6 foreigners and 10 koreans at BlizzCon would be the best way to split them but 8-8 is not outrageous(unless a good amount of top foreigners somehow don't make it for various reasons, like it happened last year).
Serral's path to victory at BlizzCon was not easier because he had to play five matches instead of seven in Code S or because the field was weaker(not sure, actually), just look at the names and at the ratings of the player he took down; lucky runs are always possible, on the other hand.
We might have had that streak comparison argument before but I don't remember that conclusion; there is one list(again on Reddit) with the average rating of the opponents faced, nothing to comment here.
Yes, you're somewhat correctly stating what I think is to campare between Maru and Serral in 2018. Plus the length of their respective periods of dominance which I think is quite important.
For your suggested foreigner/korean split: it kind of baffles me how you keep ignoring the results of IEM Katowice which has been the most objective measurement in terms of competetive conditions in the last 3 years. Are you just saying this tournament was bad luck and all the others (Blizzcon + GSL vs The World) are similarly meaningful in terms of foreigner strength? How comes then that the picture hasn't changed over the last 3 years at IEM? Bad luck again? In my book the split would be 3/13, 4/12 at best. Oh - before someone misinterprets: I don't think that Blizzcon foreigner/korean split should be different. It's exciting to see foreigners trying their best when given the opportunity. It just would be cool to have something like IEM more often. Well, we probably have to throw all our money at Homestory Cup to make this happen :D
There is nothing more to discuss on Serral vs Maru then, you are of course entitled to your opinion but your point of view too is far and too radically different from mine for us to keep having an argument on that, it would clearly bring us nowhere.
On the foreigner/korean split: I am not ignoring Katowice, I am telling you that if Katowice could portray the exact situation of nowadays' foreigner scene, the improvements over HoTS would be very marginal; if we look at the other tournaments and achievements I mentioned, this simply cannot be the case for LoTV. To beat top koreans in bo3 or bo5 on a somewhat regular basis you have to be good enough at playing sc2, no matter how you ended up facing them(qualifiers, WCS points or votations); Katowice's results would suggest this happens quite rarely, BlizzCon's(not only) seem to indicate the opposite.
Foreigners struggling to overcome koreans is by far the most interesting narrative in sc2; it would be amazing to have more tournaments like Katowice and I am positive foreigners would have better results.
I personally think the gap closed the most during the first year of LoTV and since then it hasn't progressed much but, at the same time, several top foreigners are now capable of going head to head with the best koreans(kind of what happened in WoL); 2018, however, was a very good year for foreigners(better than 2019) even if we exclude Serral, who is a major outlier since he is the first foreigner ever who was capable of truly dominating Sc2 scene.
On May 02 2019 03:16 fronkschnonk wrote: [quote] Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
Foreigners performed quite poorly at Katowice, a tournament that indeed possesses all the qualities you pointed out.
However, not having wholly open qualifiers has nothing to share with results and performances: if foreigners were as bad as IEM outcomes suggest they are(worse than top 12 koreans, on average) how would we explain their consistently much better placements at BlizzCon(Elazer's and Special's ro4, multiple ro8, Neeb and ShowTime both beating the eventual champions, let alone Serral's glory road) or the good showings in Code S in 2018(Neeb's ro4, Scarlett's ro8, Reynor's ro16). If such a huge skill gap would exist, no comfortable placement could save foreigners from a brutal beatdown like it happened almost every time back in HoTS.
I don't remember if you considered judged winning WCS something like a "ro12" or a "ro6" in Code S; in the best case scenario, that's inferior to reaching semifinals. I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Of course the openness of a qualifier has an influence on the results. I'll list them for you: - not all the best (especially not all the current best) will participate due to some of them not having enough points or not being as popular to be successful in a vote. This is a bigger problem for koreans who have a bigger pool of top players - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament increases the chance of one/some of them advancing further - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament reduces the amount of tough koreans they will have to face on their tournament path - as IEM results imply this means that in earlier rounds there are to beat easier opponnents than if the tournament was open - this gives more opportunities to individual favorable/lucky tournament paths (as in smaller chance of being confronted with unfavorable matchups) - as results of Blizzcon/GSL vs The World show, in higher rounds foreigners normally get eliminated after the easier first rounds with Serral being the one exception - which validates previous points.
But you might have gotten something wrong: I never said that foreigners didn't improve. As you say, Serral, Neeb, Scarlett, Reynor, Showtime and Special are prove of the gap getting smaller for the very top of the foreigners. Still, while most of them may regularly beat top koreans, they also almost always aren't good enough to make it to Ro8 or further in a non-distorted tournament environment - with few exception of course (and Serral being a big one). What does this mean? Yes, the top foreigners are getting closer (or have getting closer - how this develops further is open) but they're not close enough yet to justify a only foreigner competition being valued as high as you're doing it.
Your question surprises me. As you know I never justified the fact that Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 but always critisized it as a wrong decision. A wrong decision probably caused by - as you would say - recency bias. A wrong decision more or less because of the reasons you stated.
@Anc13nt I think the record of Serral vs Koreans is kind of distorted. He only did compete in 2 tournaments with koreans in the first half of the year (in one of them only facing one korean: Maru to whom he lost 0-3), when he obviously wasn't as good as he became leater in the year. Thus it's highly questionable to think that he would've been as successful in the first two GSLs as his 2nd half of 2018 implies. Also, if you take the two best streaks of Maru and Serral in 2018, we compare a 17:2 record of Maru and a 15:0 record of Serral vs koreans. While Serral's record is obviously better if you translate it into win percentage, the bigger sample size of Maru's games makes it hard to make the statement that Serral was objectively spoken the better player based on this data - especially if you take in account that Maru's streak lasted over the course of 6 months and Serral's over the course of 4 months (if one would extend Serral's period of dominance with additional 2 months, one would have to include his two losses vs soO at Nationwars which would make his record worse than Maru's)
The openness of the qualifier bracket obviously has an influence in determining the pool of the participating players, with all the related consequences. Thus said, it has nothing to do with the actual results of thd matches, which are determined by the relative skills of the opponents; it doesn't matter how much you rig the bracket, if you would seed me directly at BlizzCon finals there is no way I could win. Luck cannot justify foreigners' results at BlizzCon in LoTV and Code S in 2018. IEM's top 16 in 2018 is not much different than BlizzCon's in 2013 and 2015, but that's where the comparison ends: during HoTS, koreans were immensely ahead to the point that foreigners won a single Premier tournament while in LoTV, even excluding Serral completely, foreigners won two Premiers on korean soil.
Of course: the matches are what they are. But the lack of more tough matches in a tournament due to it's qualification process makes a tournament overall easier. So Serral proved to be the best at GSL vs The World and Blizzcon and he could be rightfully called current "best player" since his blizzcon win. But still the accomplishment in terms of pure difficulty of opponents isn't as high as at IEM or in GSL Code S or even ST (but to be fair: I think that ST has the flaw of only being single elimination which always kills high skilled players earlier than their actual skill would imply due to bad luck in seeding). Thus being eliminated by another very good player who's having a great day is less probable at blizzcon than at IEM.
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: I never said foreigners are on par with koreans, I am instead stating their top 8 as a whole is close to a fair replacements of #9-#16 koreans(just winning one match out of three is akin to validating this theory). Compared to Code S, WCS is increasingly harder(or less easier if you prefer) at later stages(in relative terms) as it is less dense as only a restricted number of top foreigners is capable of beating top koreans on a somehow regular basis, but the potential finals are competitive even in absolute terms:Neeb vs Serral in PVZ or Serral vs Reynor in ZvZ, for example.
I know, I'm on repeat, but still: the most realistic example of competition (IEM) implies that the top 8 of foreigners is indeed overall worse than #9-#16 koreans. Yes, the finals of WCS are legit, but they aren't representative for the foreign scene, not even for the top 8 of it. Look at Reynor: he is incredible at ZvZ but showed weaknesses in other matchups (thus not qualifying for IEM). And look at other finalists we had last year: Mana and Has... they are cool and can make something happen on a very good day but I would bet against them at any time if they were to get out of blizzcon groupstage. But I would think that of any top4 player of GSL since 2018 Season 1 would have a good chance (and most top8 players of GSL, too). Now we can repeat this thought experiment with quarterfinalist of WCS-events last year (since you're insisting that top8 foreigners would be a good replacement)...
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: I know you wouldn't have given the award to Serral, it would have been a foolish decision considering how you evaluate tournaments; it seems one even bigger error than believing Maru to be the GOAT already, by my own standard. So, did TL writers commit such a huge error? Or maybe you are underestimating the Circuit and the decision was much harder to make as Serral's and Maru's accomplishments were closer than you think?
Well, this "perhaps"-thinking isn't very helpful. Yes, perhaps many things could be different than I assume. But that this or that person or those writers are thinking different than me isn't prove of anything. Also I didn't say that TL writers did a "huge error". I just think they were wrong in this case which is indeed not easy to decide.
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: As for Serral's streak against korean, he achieved that against harder opponents on average, it might as well be shortened by the fact he could not play against mid tier ones in the qualifiers; it's impossible to know at what point, after April last year, Serral rose to his GSL vs the World level so that we just cannot theorize how he would have fared in Code S S2.
Didn't we have this argument already in another thread? I don't know which one anymore. I remember listing all the relevant players beaten by Maru and Serral over the year and I was pretty convinced that it turned out in favor of Maru - probably just due to the bigger sample size of Maru's opponents. I know - this approach was very debatable but nobody really argued against it apart from saying that this approach was debatable.
Judging by your own way of thinking, Maru's 3 Code S and WESG are compared to Serral's BlizzCon and GSL vs the World(not as hard as Code S), a non premier HSC and let's say at best the equivalent of three ro4 in Code S; you didn't say there is a huge difference, I would if I had to use your criteria. TL writers evidently had others parameters(not even mentioning mine that are miles away from yours).
We could go on discussing without end, I already pointed out one way to reach a common ground discussion; otherwise it's just different opinions that lead to very different conclusions.
You should look at quarterfinalists in WCS and compare them with the players who did not advance from the second groupstage in Code S; as I already said, probably 6 foreigners and 10 koreans at BlizzCon would be the best way to split them but 8-8 is not outrageous(unless a good amount of top foreigners somehow don't make it for various reasons, like it happened last year).
Serral's path to victory at BlizzCon was not easier because he had to play five matches instead of seven in Code S or because the field was weaker(not sure, actually), just look at the names and at the ratings of the player he took down; lucky runs are always possible, on the other hand.
We might have had that streak comparison argument before but I don't remember that conclusion; there is one list(again on Reddit) with the average rating of the opponents faced, nothing to comment here.
Yes, you're somewhat correctly stating what I think is to campare between Maru and Serral in 2018. Plus the length of their respective periods of dominance which I think is quite important.
For your suggested foreigner/korean split: it kind of baffles me how you keep ignoring the results of IEM Katowice which has been the most objective measurement in terms of competetive conditions in the last 3 years. Are you just saying this tournament was bad luck and all the others (Blizzcon + GSL vs The World) are similarly meaningful in terms of foreigner strength? How comes then that the picture hasn't changed over the last 3 years at IEM? Bad luck again? In my book the split would be 3/13, 4/12 at best. Oh - before someone misinterprets: I don't think that Blizzcon foreigner/korean split should be different. It's exciting to see foreigners trying their best when given the opportunity. It just would be cool to have something like IEM more often. Well, we probably have to throw all our money at Homestory Cup to make this happen :D
There is nothing more to discuss on Serral vs Maru then, you are of course entitled to your opinion but your point of view too is far and too radically different from mine for us to keep having an argument on that, it would clearly bring us nowhere.
On the foreigner/korean split: I am not ignoring Katowice, I am telling you that if Katowice could portray the exact situation of nowadays' foreigner scene, the improvements over HoTS would be very marginal; if we look at the other tournaments and achievements I mentioned, this simply cannot be the case for LoTV. To beat top koreans in bo3 or bo5 on a somewhat regular basis you have to be good enough at playing sc2, no matter how you ended up facing them(qualifiers, WCS points or votations); Katowice's results would suggest this happens quite rarely, BlizzCon's(not only) seem to indicate the opposite.
Foreigners struggling to overcome koreans is by far the most interesting narrative in sc2; it would be amazing to have more tournaments like Katowice and I am positive foreigners would have better results.
I personally think the gap closed the most during the first year of LoTV and since then it hasn't progressed much but, at the same time, several top foreigners are now capable of going head to head with the best koreans(kind of what happened in WoL); 2018, however, was a very good year for foreigners(better than 2019) even if we exclude Serral, who is a major outlier since he is the first foreigner ever who was capable of truly dominating Sc2 scene.
I don't think that having 3-4 foreigners in the top16 in LotV is contradicting the perception that foreigners improved alot in comparison to HotS and pre regionlock. Look at WCS global finals of 2015. In the WCS point ranking only Lilbow made it in the top16. The next best foreigner was Snute at #26. Overall only 3 foreigners in top30. Also the IEMs with many koreans participating barely had foreigners at all in Ro16: Taipei only had Harstem and Sen (both via region locked qualifiers for their region) and Katowice had none. This year's IEM had 7 foreigners in top 28 and 3 in top16 tripling the foreigner success rate (and even more considering the good placements of some foreigners) and qualifying without the help of regionlocked qualifiers. This is indeed a huge step up.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
Foreigners performed quite poorly at Katowice, a tournament that indeed possesses all the qualities you pointed out.
However, not having wholly open qualifiers has nothing to share with results and performances: if foreigners were as bad as IEM outcomes suggest they are(worse than top 12 koreans, on average) how would we explain their consistently much better placements at BlizzCon(Elazer's and Special's ro4, multiple ro8, Neeb and ShowTime both beating the eventual champions, let alone Serral's glory road) or the good showings in Code S in 2018(Neeb's ro4, Scarlett's ro8, Reynor's ro16). If such a huge skill gap would exist, no comfortable placement could save foreigners from a brutal beatdown like it happened almost every time back in HoTS.
I don't remember if you considered judged winning WCS something like a "ro12" or a "ro6" in Code S; in the best case scenario, that's inferior to reaching semifinals. I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Of course the openness of a qualifier has an influence on the results. I'll list them for you: - not all the best (especially not all the current best) will participate due to some of them not having enough points or not being as popular to be successful in a vote. This is a bigger problem for koreans who have a bigger pool of top players - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament increases the chance of one/some of them advancing further - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament reduces the amount of tough koreans they will have to face on their tournament path - as IEM results imply this means that in earlier rounds there are to beat easier opponnents than if the tournament was open - this gives more opportunities to individual favorable/lucky tournament paths (as in smaller chance of being confronted with unfavorable matchups) - as results of Blizzcon/GSL vs The World show, in higher rounds foreigners normally get eliminated after the easier first rounds with Serral being the one exception - which validates previous points.
But you might have gotten something wrong: I never said that foreigners didn't improve. As you say, Serral, Neeb, Scarlett, Reynor, Showtime and Special are prove of the gap getting smaller for the very top of the foreigners. Still, while most of them may regularly beat top koreans, they also almost always aren't good enough to make it to Ro8 or further in a non-distorted tournament environment - with few exception of course (and Serral being a big one). What does this mean? Yes, the top foreigners are getting closer (or have getting closer - how this develops further is open) but they're not close enough yet to justify a only foreigner competition being valued as high as you're doing it.
Your question surprises me. As you know I never justified the fact that Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 but always critisized it as a wrong decision. A wrong decision probably caused by - as you would say - recency bias. A wrong decision more or less because of the reasons you stated.
@Anc13nt I think the record of Serral vs Koreans is kind of distorted. He only did compete in 2 tournaments with koreans in the first half of the year (in one of them only facing one korean: Maru to whom he lost 0-3), when he obviously wasn't as good as he became leater in the year. Thus it's highly questionable to think that he would've been as successful in the first two GSLs as his 2nd half of 2018 implies. Also, if you take the two best streaks of Maru and Serral in 2018, we compare a 17:2 record of Maru and a 15:0 record of Serral vs koreans. While Serral's record is obviously better if you translate it into win percentage, the bigger sample size of Maru's games makes it hard to make the statement that Serral was objectively spoken the better player based on this data - especially if you take in account that Maru's streak lasted over the course of 6 months and Serral's over the course of 4 months (if one would extend Serral's period of dominance with additional 2 months, one would have to include his two losses vs soO at Nationwars which would make his record worse than Maru's)
The openness of the qualifier bracket obviously has an influence in determining the pool of the participating players, with all the related consequences. Thus said, it has nothing to do with the actual results of thd matches, which are determined by the relative skills of the opponents; it doesn't matter how much you rig the bracket, if you would seed me directly at BlizzCon finals there is no way I could win. Luck cannot justify foreigners' results at BlizzCon in LoTV and Code S in 2018. IEM's top 16 in 2018 is not much different than BlizzCon's in 2013 and 2015, but that's where the comparison ends: during HoTS, koreans were immensely ahead to the point that foreigners won a single Premier tournament while in LoTV, even excluding Serral completely, foreigners won two Premiers on korean soil.
Of course: the matches are what they are. But the lack of more tough matches in a tournament due to it's qualification process makes a tournament overall easier. So Serral proved to be the best at GSL vs The World and Blizzcon and he could be rightfully called current "best player" since his blizzcon win. But still the accomplishment in terms of pure difficulty of opponents isn't as high as at IEM or in GSL Code S or even ST (but to be fair: I think that ST has the flaw of only being single elimination which always kills high skilled players earlier than their actual skill would imply due to bad luck in seeding). Thus being eliminated by another very good player who's having a great day is less probable at blizzcon than at IEM.
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: I never said foreigners are on par with koreans, I am instead stating their top 8 as a whole is close to a fair replacements of #9-#16 koreans(just winning one match out of three is akin to validating this theory). Compared to Code S, WCS is increasingly harder(or less easier if you prefer) at later stages(in relative terms) as it is less dense as only a restricted number of top foreigners is capable of beating top koreans on a somehow regular basis, but the potential finals are competitive even in absolute terms:Neeb vs Serral in PVZ or Serral vs Reynor in ZvZ, for example.
I know, I'm on repeat, but still: the most realistic example of competition (IEM) implies that the top 8 of foreigners is indeed overall worse than #9-#16 koreans. Yes, the finals of WCS are legit, but they aren't representative for the foreign scene, not even for the top 8 of it. Look at Reynor: he is incredible at ZvZ but showed weaknesses in other matchups (thus not qualifying for IEM). And look at other finalists we had last year: Mana and Has... they are cool and can make something happen on a very good day but I would bet against them at any time if they were to get out of blizzcon groupstage. But I would think that of any top4 player of GSL since 2018 Season 1 would have a good chance (and most top8 players of GSL, too). Now we can repeat this thought experiment with quarterfinalist of WCS-events last year (since you're insisting that top8 foreigners would be a good replacement)...
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: I know you wouldn't have given the award to Serral, it would have been a foolish decision considering how you evaluate tournaments; it seems one even bigger error than believing Maru to be the GOAT already, by my own standard. So, did TL writers commit such a huge error? Or maybe you are underestimating the Circuit and the decision was much harder to make as Serral's and Maru's accomplishments were closer than you think?
Well, this "perhaps"-thinking isn't very helpful. Yes, perhaps many things could be different than I assume. But that this or that person or those writers are thinking different than me isn't prove of anything. Also I didn't say that TL writers did a "huge error". I just think they were wrong in this case which is indeed not easy to decide.
On May 02 2019 18:42 Xain0n wrote: As for Serral's streak against korean, he achieved that against harder opponents on average, it might as well be shortened by the fact he could not play against mid tier ones in the qualifiers; it's impossible to know at what point, after April last year, Serral rose to his GSL vs the World level so that we just cannot theorize how he would have fared in Code S S2.
Didn't we have this argument already in another thread? I don't know which one anymore. I remember listing all the relevant players beaten by Maru and Serral over the year and I was pretty convinced that it turned out in favor of Maru - probably just due to the bigger sample size of Maru's opponents. I know - this approach was very debatable but nobody really argued against it apart from saying that this approach was debatable.
Judging by your own way of thinking, Maru's 3 Code S and WESG are compared to Serral's BlizzCon and GSL vs the World(not as hard as Code S), a non premier HSC and let's say at best the equivalent of three ro4 in Code S; you didn't say there is a huge difference, I would if I had to use your criteria. TL writers evidently had others parameters(not even mentioning mine that are miles away from yours).
We could go on discussing without end, I already pointed out one way to reach a common ground discussion; otherwise it's just different opinions that lead to very different conclusions.
You should look at quarterfinalists in WCS and compare them with the players who did not advance from the second groupstage in Code S; as I already said, probably 6 foreigners and 10 koreans at BlizzCon would be the best way to split them but 8-8 is not outrageous(unless a good amount of top foreigners somehow don't make it for various reasons, like it happened last year).
Serral's path to victory at BlizzCon was not easier because he had to play five matches instead of seven in Code S or because the field was weaker(not sure, actually), just look at the names and at the ratings of the player he took down; lucky runs are always possible, on the other hand.
We might have had that streak comparison argument before but I don't remember that conclusion; there is one list(again on Reddit) with the average rating of the opponents faced, nothing to comment here.
Yes, you're somewhat correctly stating what I think is to campare between Maru and Serral in 2018. Plus the length of their respective periods of dominance which I think is quite important.
For your suggested foreigner/korean split: it kind of baffles me how you keep ignoring the results of IEM Katowice which has been the most objective measurement in terms of competetive conditions in the last 3 years. Are you just saying this tournament was bad luck and all the others (Blizzcon + GSL vs The World) are similarly meaningful in terms of foreigner strength? How comes then that the picture hasn't changed over the last 3 years at IEM? Bad luck again? In my book the split would be 3/13, 4/12 at best. Oh - before someone misinterprets: I don't think that Blizzcon foreigner/korean split should be different. It's exciting to see foreigners trying their best when given the opportunity. It just would be cool to have something like IEM more often. Well, we probably have to throw all our money at Homestory Cup to make this happen :D
There is nothing more to discuss on Serral vs Maru then, you are of course entitled to your opinion but your point of view too is far and too radically different from mine for us to keep having an argument on that, it would clearly bring us nowhere.
On the foreigner/korean split: I am not ignoring Katowice, I am telling you that if Katowice could portray the exact situation of nowadays' foreigner scene, the improvements over HoTS would be very marginal; if we look at the other tournaments and achievements I mentioned, this simply cannot be the case for LoTV. To beat top koreans in bo3 or bo5 on a somewhat regular basis you have to be good enough at playing sc2, no matter how you ended up facing them(qualifiers, WCS points or votations); Katowice's results would suggest this happens quite rarely, BlizzCon's(not only) seem to indicate the opposite.
Foreigners struggling to overcome koreans is by far the most interesting narrative in sc2; it would be amazing to have more tournaments like Katowice and I am positive foreigners would have better results.
I personally think the gap closed the most during the first year of LoTV and since then it hasn't progressed much but, at the same time, several top foreigners are now capable of going head to head with the best koreans(kind of what happened in WoL); 2018, however, was a very good year for foreigners(better than 2019) even if we exclude Serral, who is a major outlier since he is the first foreigner ever who was capable of truly dominating Sc2 scene.
I don't think that having 3-4 foreigners in the top16 in LotV is contradicting the perception that foreigners improved alot in comparison to HotS and pre regionlock. Look at WCS global finals of 2015. In the WCS point ranking only Lilbow made it in the top16. The next best foreigner was Snute at #26. Overall only 3 foreigners in top30. Also the IEMs with many koreans participating barely had foreigners at all in Ro16: Taipei only had Harstem and Sen (both via region locked qualifiers for their region) and Katowice had none. This year's IEM had 7 foreigners in top 28 and 3 in top16 tripling the foreigner success rate (and even more considering the good placements of some foreigners) and qualifying without the help of regionlocked qualifiers. This is indeed a huge step up.
A consistent step up from nothingness that, alone, cannot explain the (much better) results foreigners achieved in certain other tournaments in LoTV.
Most top foreigners can compete well against Koreans but if you look at GSL vs World and Blizzcon, Koreans usually win close to 2/3 of the games. With that being said, I would say winning a WCS Circuit is a bit more difficult than making GSL ro8 and probably close to as difficult as making GSL ro4. I'll admit that if you're not Serral, winning WCS Circuit would be pretty damn hard, even for a strong Korean.
I have to say this again: GSL vs The World and Blizzcon aren't good measurements for foreigner skill vs korean skill because the number of participating foreigners is artificially inflated while quite some top korean aren't participating. So we have all the best foreigners (because there aren't that much on such a high level) but not all the best koreans at those tournaments. GSL vs The World was filled by invites based on community votings on top of that. The only somewhat realistic picture is drawn by IEM katowice in which only two foreigners made it to the top12 (and also advanced to RO8. In 2018 only Serral made it to the top12 (and impressively made it to the Ro4).
On May 01 2019 19:27 Xain0n wrote: [quote]
My credibility is intact, I just evaluate tournaments and results in a less korean centric way than you do but I think I'm pretty coherent overall.
Of course this is no factor for one's credibility. But I have to agree that your approach "names do not count, results do" is heavily flawed because it kind of ignores the difficulty of each event and of individual tournament paths of the players. Your statements that winning a WCS final is always better than losing a final of way harder competition shows that very well, because you're not acknowledging the fact that a GSL finalist probably won 2-3 matches (with bad luck in group seeding perhaps even more) as hard or harder than a WCS circuit final can be in order to reach the finals. Losing a final doesn't make the loser suddenly way worse than his prior wins in the same tournament indicated. It just means that there is someone in that tournament who is even better.
Actually, WCS point system does not grant that all the best foreigners will be at BlizzCon; for example Scarlett, Reynor and Elazer were all missing last year due to different reasons. Not sharing a qualifier in no way affects the fact you will have to face and beat the best koreans to advance at or even win GSL vs the World and BlizzCon, if the difference in skill was as high as it was back in the days you'd be seeing no foreigner win a match.
What I said about WCS and Code S finals is not what you are reporting here, reread my phrase; still, I heavily contest the belief there are two or three stages of Code S that are harder or as hard of a WCS final circuit, one must be really unlucky for that to happen.
My heavily flawed approach is the one most traditional sports(and korean culture too:look at the prize for the second place or how devastated soO was because of his endless streak of second places) follow. I don't know if you follow football(I do; european football of course), we could try to compare WCS to Europa League and Code S to Champions League(or even better UEFA Cup and Champions League at the end of the '90 in terms of relative prizes, prestige and competitivity of the field): the first is for sure harder and most prestigious, but would you really want to lose a Champions final instead of winning EL?
Moreover, if my approach is that wrong, how could it happen that Serral was crowned player of the year by TL's staff?
I checked and you're right. You didn't say that winning WCS is better than losing in a finals of GSL or IEM. You basically said it's equal which is still a huge overestimation of the foreign scene. Right before that you stated that you "would never consider one loss to be on par with a victory" referring to Gumiho's 2nd and Inno's 1rst place at ST and WESG. That statement was made in such a generalising way that it sticked to my mind as being appliable to any premier event in your eyes.
Your comparison to others sports is kind of pointless. Of course almost anybody will prefer being 1rst in a less prestigious/competetive tournament than being 2nd in a tougher one. But that doesn't say anything about the measurement of skill but just about the human nature to be emotionally drawn to win stuff. But this all-or-nothing-approach only tells us something about human emotions and is no objective criterion at all.
What the non-shared qualifier does affect is the amount of high tier players you'll have to beat in a tournament. This is why it would be much more likely for Serral (or anyone) to be eliminated at Ro16 of ST than at Ro16 of GSL vs The World.
@Amarillo Caballero Nobody questions that Serral is highly respected by Koreans. Of course he is, after beating many of 'em in 2018.
I suggested long ago what a more objective way to compare victories in different tournaments would be: considering both for the average rating of their participants(Aligulac is great but it only looks at map won, you get the same rating by going 1-2(4-4) or 2-1(4-4); this should probably be mediated with some other kind of ranking based on series victories and ignoring maps) and the average rating of the opponents effectively faced during the path to the trophy(assuming Code S S1 2018 and 2019 approximately had the same average league rating, beating sOs, Dark and Stats was harder than taking down Dear, Trap and Classic). I think a guy on Reddit(?) already did that for 2018 tournaments only, this process should be extended to every competition to obtain someway reliable datas to discuss on; until that, I'll still consider winning better than losing on average and you will still claim korean scene is so ahead this is not true.
Again, much more likely? Are you that convinced #9-#16 korean are so much stronger than #2-#8 foreigners?
Yes I am conviced. Just look at top 16 of IEM Katowice this and last year: only 3 foreigners in there. This year, of the foreigners capable of making matches close vs Serral or even beating him, only Neeb made it into Ro8 and only Special made it into the #9-#16 stage. The others like Lambo, Scarlett, Reynor, Heromarine all placed below or didn't even qualify.
It's not like Katowice is the ultimate tournament, otherwise the Terran race would have gone exctinct already. Thus said, even representation at BlizzCon probably is not the fairest system but I wouldn't skew it much in favor of koreans(probably the top 10 koreans and 6 foreigners would be the best at the moment).
You have not answered yet me on how could Serral be named best player of the year in 2018 if he achieved that on top of the equivalent of less than four consecutive ro8 placements in Code S(in addiction to his international successes, of course).
No tournament is "the ultimate tournament" but some are far more accurate in displaying an undistorted picture of the current competition. IEM features almost all top players - foreigners and koreans - since almost all try to qualify (before and also in offline qualifiers at the event). Thus no group of players is artificially inflated in numbers and also no current hot player can be excluded due to not gathering enough points earlier. IEM Katowice 2017, 2018 and 2019 all had the same format and all drew the same picture: only 3 (4 in 2017) foreigners in top 16, only 2 making it to the playoffs (top12 - only 1 in 2018).
I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly... could you please rephrase?
Foreigners performed quite poorly at Katowice, a tournament that indeed possesses all the qualities you pointed out.
However, not having wholly open qualifiers has nothing to share with results and performances: if foreigners were as bad as IEM outcomes suggest they are(worse than top 12 koreans, on average) how would we explain their consistently much better placements at BlizzCon(Elazer's and Special's ro4, multiple ro8, Neeb and ShowTime both beating the eventual champions, let alone Serral's glory road) or the good showings in Code S in 2018(Neeb's ro4, Scarlett's ro8, Reynor's ro16). If such a huge skill gap would exist, no comfortable placement could save foreigners from a brutal beatdown like it happened almost every time back in HoTS.
I don't remember if you considered judged winning WCS something like a "ro12" or a "ro6" in Code S; in the best case scenario, that's inferior to reaching semifinals. I'll rephrase my question: how do you justify the fact Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 if his triumphs(following your evaluations) basically equates to two artificially inflated tournaments, a non Premier HSC and four consecutive less-than-ro4 in Code S?
Of course the openness of a qualifier has an influence on the results. I'll list them for you: - not all the best (especially not all the current best) will participate due to some of them not having enough points or not being as popular to be successful in a vote. This is a bigger problem for koreans who have a bigger pool of top players - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament increases the chance of one/some of them advancing further - having a artificially increased number of foreigners in a tournament reduces the amount of tough koreans they will have to face on their tournament path - as IEM results imply this means that in earlier rounds there are to beat easier opponnents than if the tournament was open - this gives more opportunities to individual favorable/lucky tournament paths (as in smaller chance of being confronted with unfavorable matchups) - as results of Blizzcon/GSL vs The World show, in higher rounds foreigners normally get eliminated after the easier first rounds with Serral being the one exception - which validates previous points.
But you might have gotten something wrong: I never said that foreigners didn't improve. As you say, Serral, Neeb, Scarlett, Reynor, Showtime and Special are prove of the gap getting smaller for the very top of the foreigners. Still, while most of them may regularly beat top koreans, they also almost always aren't good enough to make it to Ro8 or further in a non-distorted tournament environment - with few exception of course (and Serral being a big one). What does this mean? Yes, the top foreigners are getting closer (or have getting closer - how this develops further is open) but they're not close enough yet to justify a only foreigner competition being valued as high as you're doing it.
Your question surprises me. As you know I never justified the fact that Serral was elected player of the year in 2018 but always critisized it as a wrong decision. A wrong decision probably caused by - as you would say - recency bias. A wrong decision more or less because of the reasons you stated.
@Anc13nt I think the record of Serral vs Koreans is kind of distorted. He only did compete in 2 tournaments with koreans in the first half of the year (in one of them only facing one korean: Maru to whom he lost 0-3), when he obviously wasn't as good as he became leater in the year. Thus it's highly questionable to think that he would've been as successful in the first two GSLs as his 2nd half of 2018 implies. Also, if you take the two best streaks of Maru and Serral in 2018, we compare a 17:2 record of Maru and a 15:0 record of Serral vs koreans. While Serral's record is obviously better if you translate it into win percentage, the bigger sample size of Maru's games makes it hard to make the statement that Serral was objectively spoken the better player based on this data - especially if you take in account that Maru's streak lasted over the course of 6 months and Serral's over the course of 4 months (if one would extend Serral's period of dominance with additional 2 months, one would have to include his two losses vs soO at Nationwars which would make his record worse than Maru's)
Serral played around 80 games offline against Koreans while Maru played around 130. I think Serral played enough games to show he was definitely at least 2nd best player but I agree with your point still.
On May 03 2019 18:19 Harris1st wrote: We just have to wait for HSC 19 and then GSLvWorld to see what the state of foreign Starcraft actually is I guess.
Pity that Neeb and Reynor didn't go for GSL S2. Hope they try S3. Maybe by then they have secured their seats for Blizzcon
If the GSL vs the World will be invitational and voting again, then we have IEM and Blizzcon, partially HSC where they try to bring the best players but without NA players. (why so few NA players was discussed in the HSC thread)
On May 03 2019 18:19 Harris1st wrote: We just have to wait for HSC 19 and then GSLvWorld to see what the state of foreign Starcraft actually is I guess.
Pity that Neeb and Reynor didn't go for GSL S2. Hope they try S3. Maybe by then they have secured their seats for Blizzcon
If the GSL vs the World will be invitational and voting again, then we have IEM and Blizzcon, partially HSC where they try to bring the best players but without NA players. (why so few NA players was discussed in the HSC thread)
who was missing, based on that vote, who would have made a difference?
On May 03 2019 18:19 Harris1st wrote: We just have to wait for HSC 19 and then GSLvWorld to see what the state of foreign Starcraft actually is I guess.
Pity that Neeb and Reynor didn't go for GSL S2. Hope they try S3. Maybe by then they have secured their seats for Blizzcon
If the GSL vs the World will be invitational and voting again, then we have IEM and Blizzcon, partially HSC where they try to bring the best players but without NA players. (why so few NA players was discussed in the HSC thread)
who was missing, based on that vote, who would have made a difference?
thats a pervert question, Nobody knows because no games were played, there cannot be any revelation players or rising starts if we dont allow the games to be played based on: high placed players in the game always won so qualifers no make a difference in who participe.
You cannot argue that It would have made no difference. Moreover, if the participant players would have been the same, then why popular voting and invitees instead of qualifiers?
On May 03 2019 18:19 Harris1st wrote: We just have to wait for HSC 19 and then GSLvWorld to see what the state of foreign Starcraft actually is I guess.
Pity that Neeb and Reynor didn't go for GSL S2. Hope they try S3. Maybe by then they have secured their seats for Blizzcon
If the GSL vs the World will be invitational and voting again, then we have IEM and Blizzcon, partially HSC where they try to bring the best players but without NA players. (why so few NA players was discussed in the HSC thread)
who was missing, based on that vote, who would have made a difference?
thats a pervert question, Nobody knows because no games were played, there cannot be any revelation players or rising starts if we dont allow the games to be played based on: high placed players in the game always won so qualifers no make a difference in who participe.
You cannot argue that It would have made no difference. Moreover, if the participant players would have been the same, then why popular voting and invitees instead of qualifiers?
GSLvsWorld is not a breakout tournament. It's an allstar tournament.
Breakout players have GSL / WCS respectively
You can qualify by beeing good all year. Similiar to Blizzcon where people get "invited" by their perfomances they had this year. I can understand the "but it has no qualifier" argument, but it is not universally applicable. Like you don't get to play Champions League because of 1 qualifier. No you have to have a good year and then get invited.
On May 03 2019 18:19 Harris1st wrote: We just have to wait for HSC 19 and then GSLvWorld to see what the state of foreign Starcraft actually is I guess.
Pity that Neeb and Reynor didn't go for GSL S2. Hope they try S3. Maybe by then they have secured their seats for Blizzcon
If the GSL vs the World will be invitational and voting again, then we have IEM and Blizzcon, partially HSC where they try to bring the best players but without NA players. (why so few NA players was discussed in the HSC thread)
who was missing, based on that vote, who would have made a difference?
A future GSL finalist TY? GuMiho? Dear? Leenock wasn't that bad back then either.
For example if we would replace slumping Inno with TY who had much better form back then the overall skill quality would have highly increased.
On May 03 2019 18:19 Harris1st wrote: We just have to wait for HSC 19 and then GSLvWorld to see what the state of foreign Starcraft actually is I guess.
Pity that Neeb and Reynor didn't go for GSL S2. Hope they try S3. Maybe by then they have secured their seats for Blizzcon
If the GSL vs the World will be invitational and voting again, then we have IEM and Blizzcon, partially HSC where they try to bring the best players but without NA players. (why so few NA players was discussed in the HSC thread)
who was missing, based on that vote, who would have made a difference?
thats a pervert question, Nobody knows because no games were played, there cannot be any revelation players or rising starts if we dont allow the games to be played based on: high placed players in the game always won so qualifers no make a difference in who participe.
You cannot argue that It would have made no difference. Moreover, if the participant players would have been the same, then why popular voting and invitees instead of qualifiers?
GSLvsWorld is not a breakout tournament. It's an allstar tournament.
Breakout players have GSL / WCS respectively
You can qualify by beeing good all year. Similiar to Blizzcon where people get "invited" by their perfomances they had this year. I can understand the "but it has no qualifier" argument, but it is not universally applicable. Like you don't get to play Champions League because of 1 qualifier. No you have to have a good year and then get invited.
How Innovation got in? He was bad the whole year, certainly GuMi or TY were better, soO wasn't anything special either. He ended 4th in his RO16 group in the Season 2 and 4th in his RO32 group Season 3 while placing bellow Special and he was the top8 Korean player in there with a good year?
I can respect Zest, Stats, Classic, Maru, Dark & Rogue choice. But soO and Inno were not in the top8 by any valid statistic other than "name value"
(I actually believe these two were people choice, not sure though and I cannot search for it at work properly)
Inno was community vote, while soO was Wildcard. You can't really argue those are bad players (or bad choices), a few month later they each won a premier respectively.
Also my Champions League argument still stands. You play a good season and are qualified for a tournament NEXT season. Every system has its flaws I guess.
Back to topic: June PR will see a new number #1 - Classic beeing the obvious choice right now - Dark and Stats have chances, depending on their runs - Serral as underdog if he shows a convincing perfomance and wins Kiev
On May 03 2019 22:12 Harris1st wrote: Inno was community vote, while soO was Wildcard. You can't really argue those are bad players (or bad choices), a few month later they each won a premier respectively.
Also my Champions League argument still stands. You play a good season and are qualified for a tournament NEXT season. Every system has its flaws I guess.
Back to topic: June PR will see a new number #1 - Classic beeing the obvious choice right now - Dark and Stats have chances, depending on their runs - Serral as underdog if he shows a convincing perfomance and wins Kiev
Noone critisizes GSL vs The World or Blizzcon for what they are. It's cool to have an allstar tournament which partially seeds based on popularity. But that Inno and soO were mediocre back then in comparison to their high standards and in comparison to other top players, is obvious due to the results of the first half of 2018. Also foreigners being invited while better koreans probably would've qualified over many of them, makes those tournaments a less accurate representation of the current competition. There is nothing bad about this but it has to be acknowledged when one uses the results of this tournaments in a ranking-discussion.
Serral shouldn't be able to be ranked #1 in next PR due to not participating in comparable competition. After now Maru also Dark, Stats, Classic and Gumiho would have to bomb out of their GSL-groups. Also those players may not be replaced by Inno, soO, Dear or Trap in the top4 of GSL in order to Serral making it to the top of the PR again. So all in all it's almost impossible that Serral climbs up on the ranks very much. If he wins WCS I think he can become #4 at best.
On May 03 2019 22:12 Harris1st wrote: Inno was community vote, while soO was Wildcard. You can't really argue those are bad players (or bad choices), a few month later they each won a premier respectively.
Also my Champions League argument still stands. You play a good season and are qualified for a tournament NEXT season. Every system has its flaws I guess.
Back to topic: June PR will see a new number #1 - Classic beeing the obvious choice right now - Dark and Stats have chances, depending on their runs - Serral as underdog if he shows a convincing perfomance and wins Kiev
Noone critisizes GSL vs The World or Blizzcon for what they are. It's cool to have an allstar tournament which partially seeds based on popularity. But that Inno and soO were mediocre back then in comparison to their high standards and in comparison to other top players, is obvious due to the results of the first half of 2018. Also foreigners being invited while better koreans probably would've qualified over many of them, makes those tournaments a less accurate representation of the current competition. There is nothing bad about this but it has to be acknowledged when one uses the results of this tournaments in a ranking-discussion.
Serral shouldn't be able to be ranked #1 in next PR due to not participating in comparable competition. After now Maru also Dark, Stats, Classic and Gumiho would have to bomb out of their GSL-groups. Also those players may not be replaced by Inno, soO, Dear or Trap in the top4 of GSL in order to Serral making it to the top of the PR again. So all in all it's almost impossible that Serral climbs up on the ranks very much. If he wins WCS I think he can become #4 at best.
On May 03 2019 22:12 Harris1st wrote: Inno was community vote, while soO was Wildcard. You can't really argue those are bad players (or bad choices), a few month later they each won a premier respectively.
Also my Champions League argument still stands. You play a good season and are qualified for a tournament NEXT season. Every system has its flaws I guess.
Back to topic: June PR will see a new number #1 - Classic beeing the obvious choice right now - Dark and Stats have chances, depending on their runs - Serral as underdog if he shows a convincing perfomance and wins Kiev
Noone critisizes GSL vs The World or Blizzcon for what they are. It's cool to have an allstar tournament which partially seeds based on popularity. But that Inno and soO were mediocre back then in comparison to their high standards and in comparison to other top players, is obvious due to the results of the first half of 2018. Also foreigners being invited while better koreans probably would've qualified over many of them, makes those tournaments a less accurate representation of the current competition. There is nothing bad about this but it has to be acknowledged when one uses the results of this tournaments in a ranking-discussion.
Serral shouldn't be able to be ranked #1 in next PR due to not participating in comparable competition. After now Maru also Dark, Stats, Classic and Gumiho would have to bomb out of their GSL-groups. Also those players may not be replaced by Inno, soO, Dear or Trap in the top4 of GSL in order to Serral making it to the top of the PR again. So all in all it's almost impossible that Serral climbs up on the ranks very much. If he wins WCS I think he can become #4 at best.
Well he just won another qualifier
And how does this respond to my statement in any form? I never said Serral was a bad player, nor did I say he wouldn't be capable of beating top players in WCS. Just that after his recent performances a WCS win should't elevate him to much in a PR due to not competing vs the toughest competition.
On May 05 2019 07:03 BadHabits wrote: innovation just beat maru and serral, but i guess he's doing poorly.. who writes this stuff?
It was written prior to the Maru match. Which is a bit of a shame.
he beat maru and seral in wesg, which he won
record in 2019 is
2-0 vs maru (wesg and code s S2) 2-0 vs serral (iem and wesg)
beast
also the power ranking makes it seem that losing to sos and parting is some kind of knock
sos and parting have multiple world championships between them lol....these dudes are legends
TL (and a large portion of the SC2 fanbase) have long underestimated Inno regardless of how many tournaments he wins or world beaters he outclasses. Don't get me wrong, I like Stats a lot, but he and Classic take turns as the tallest midget among lackluster Protoss talent.
On May 05 2019 07:03 BadHabits wrote: innovation just beat maru and serral, but i guess he's doing poorly.. who writes this stuff?
It was written prior to the Maru match. Which is a bit of a shame.
he beat maru and seral in wesg, which he won
record in 2019 is
2-0 vs maru (wesg and code s S2) 2-0 vs serral (iem and wesg)
beast
also the power ranking makes it seem that losing to sos and parting is some kind of knock
sos and parting have multiple world championships between them lol....these dudes are legends
TL (and a large portion of the SC2 fanbase) have long underestimated Inno regardless of how many tournaments he wins or world beaters he outclasses. Don't get me wrong, I like Stats a lot, but he and Classic take turns as the tallest midget among lackluster Protoss talent.
I really don't get the sense that anyone underestimates him. He just goes through long cycles. There are long stretches where he is pretty trash and decent bursts where he is near if not the best in the world. As he gets older those trash stretches are longer and the god tier times are becoming shorter.
EPT
Reynor and ![[image loading]](/tlpd/images/players/663.jpg)
![[image loading]](/tlpd/images/players/634.jpg)
![[image loading]](/tlpd/images/players/958.jpg)
![[image loading]](/tlpd/images/players/618.jpg)
![[image loading]](/tlpd/images/players/4567.jpg)
![[image loading]](/tlpd/images/players/2106.jpg)
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