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A common narrative I see is that Trap is a top tier (i.e. consistently top 5 in the world) player except in big moments where he "chokes." The most vivid example of this is IEM where he got wiped out in the group stage big time.
I claim that Trap's chokes aren't actually related to the event scope. There are two parts to my argument. First, a lot of the big tier events where trap loses aren't actually due to him playing terribly. Second, while there are definitely instances of Trap playing really poorly during a day (i.e. IEM katowice), this ALSO occurs during lower tier tournaments. Combining these arguments, I'm basically saying that trap is a consistent player that just occasionally has off days, and that these off days aren't actually that correlated with the scope of the event.
For the first part of my argument, I'll first address IEM Katowice. While trap has done horribly there, this is just one big tournament and in my opinion this isn't enough to conclude that "big tournaments" are the problem. A more consistent source of big tournament that trap plays is GSL, and overthere, his performance has been remarkably consistent. Here is a list of Trap's elimination losses.
1. (2020 S1) 2-3 vs Innovation.
2. (2020 S2) 0-3 vs Stats.
3. (2020 S3) 1-3 vs Maru.
4. (2021 S1) 3-4 vs Maru.
5. (2021 S2) 1-4 vs Dark.
6. (2021 S3) 2-4 vs Rogue.
I believe that in almost all of these losses, Trap actually played reasonably well. Perhaps not his best, but it would be a disservice to his opponent to call them chokes. People bring up the 3-4 vs Maru a lot, but my interpretation of those matches were both players going for very high volatility early game micro/mind games. Because it was a reverse sweep, people want to conclude that Trap "fell apart," but I feel like if those games were played in a different order, the narrative would be more like "a tense bo7 between 2 strong players who know each other well."
For the second part of my argument, while Trap has looked ungodly online, he does lose, sometimes to much weaker players! For example, he got eliminated in DH masters going 1-2 against Scarlett and 0-2 against Lambo (although tbf I think Lambo has excellent Zvp). Another example: Wardi Spring Championship, a "lower tier" event that Trap should dominate in theory. He got eliminated 7-12 on maps finishing second from the bottom in his group. This is a performance reminiscent of his IEM performance except it was against arguably a weaker set of players (Reynor, Zest, and Big Gabe are all very strong players where going 1-2 against them isn't that damning).
Finally, before people try to accuse me of being a Trap stan or something, I want to point out that my point is really neutral on how strong trap is. By detracting from the "Trap Chokes" narrative, I am also implying that he's not an invincible player as long as he "shows up." I think his losses 4-1 and 6-0 to Dark and Serral recently were just a result of him getting totally outplayed and his actual performance wasn't even that bad.
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Bisutopia19225 Posts
I'm not really sure what to do here because the title looks like a GSL spoiler. And the discussion will only lead to spoiling GSL results. I'm going to change the title some just to be safe.
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Basically the conclusion is that he's a good player that has off days, just like any other good player, because staying consistently the best is extremely difficult.
I personally agree somewhat that some of his losses in bigger tournaments weren't necessarily due to choking (that 3-4 to Maru was really just super unlucky with the scout in game 7 and the misclick on Blackburn), but his mentality definitely has come into play many times.
He used to be a hardstuck deciders match Ro16 GSL player until he said he changed his mentality to let him focus better and not get distracted. He also said in my interview with him that he changed his entire way of thinking to finally get his tournament victories after getting stuck with 2nds for a while.
So basically yes and no. I agree that some people overdo the "Trap choking" meme, but there absolutely is merit to it.
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On September 16 2021 22:33 angry_maia wrote:
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6. (2021 S3) 2-4 vs Rogue.
....
Did you just spoil the future?
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Did you just spoil the future?
Yeah (hence the spoilers). Trap did suprise Rogue with Glaives once, and BARELY held a queen walk once, but then he just got picked apart in several late game PvZs along with a cheeky nydus build in game 3.
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On September 16 2021 23:14 Gemini_19 wrote:
So basically yes and no. I agree that some people overdo the "Trap choking" meme, but there absolutely is merit to it.
Yeah I think I rambled a bit in my initial post. I do think Trap does have mentality issues (he said so), but I don't think the mentality is necessarily that correlated with the scope of the event. I think he's more or less equally likely to have an off-day for a smaller prize pool tournament as a big GSL level tournament.
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United States33327 Posts
I agree that it's hard to separate the mentality aspect of Trap's losses from the 'legit' losses. Like the two PvZ finals in 2020... those were going to be brutal for any Protoss.
Honestly, I think if IEM Katowice had never happened, we'd be more forgiving, and just say he lost against better players. But Katowice was just SO bad it's hard to brush off as an outlier. He went as one of the top title contenders—if not THE #1 title contender—and ended up dropping TWO series he was ridiculous favored in to Astrea and HeroMarine (the losses to Reynor and Zest are more acceptable).
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Northern Ireland24931 Posts
Trap had a legitimately bad Katowice.
Aside from that he’s been the most consistent Protoss, by FAR for years, the most consistent Korean player outright for a long stretch in terms of international tournaments, has set the record for consecutive GSL Ro8s in this span too.
Including reverse sweeping Stats in ST and any number of clutch performances. If Trap is a choker or has a weak mentality, basically every player in the scene is the same. It seems a little silly to me. He was genuinely unlucky in his previous showdown against Maru, nothing down to mentality he just barely missed a scout, and not just a random scout he knew shenanigans were a possibility and was actively looking for the location.
Aside from Katowice, his last GSL finals loss wasn’t a great performance. The two previous, no Protoss was winning in that meta against Dark and Rogue in a Bo7 l, I think Trap played better in both those series, by far compared to the last one and still got crushed anyway. In the recent Dark loss where nydus abuse wasn’t as potent and he had a much better shot he played below par and got punished for it. Which is fair enough, how SC2 should be.
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Trap is literally the most consistent strong player in the GSL. He's so consistent, in fact, that he's very close to winning the Trap Award, that is being the first person to make the Code S playoff Ro8 ten times in a row. He's done it 9 times in a row so far.
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On September 17 2021 01:24 WombaT wrote:
Trap had a legitimately bad Katowice.
Aside from that he’s been the most consistent Protoss, by FAR for years, the most consistent Korean player outright for a long stretch in terms of international tournaments, has set the record for consecutive GSL Ro8s in this span too.
Including reverse sweeping Stats in ST and any number of clutch performances.
Eh, he never reverse swept Stats. And he's actually a victim to many reverse sweeps himself.
Trap is a great player and remarkably consistent. Even in Katowice he used to almost over-perform (before he was considered a real championship contender).
But I wouldn't call him clutch. Especially when he has so many finals losses and losses to reverse sweeps like he does. Feel free to highlight any clutch performances or series because none come to my mind at least.
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On September 17 2021 02:36 Fango wrote:Show nested quote +On September 17 2021 01:24 WombaT wrote:
Trap had a legitimately bad Katowice.
Aside from that he’s been the most consistent Protoss, by FAR for years, the most consistent Korean player outright for a long stretch in terms of international tournaments, has set the record for consecutive GSL Ro8s in this span too.
Including reverse sweeping Stats in ST and any number of clutch performances. Eh, he never reverse swept Stats. And he's actually a victim to many reverse sweeps himself. Trap is a great player and remarkably consistent. Even in Katowice he used to almost over-perform (before he was considered a real championship contender). But I wouldn't call him clutch. Especially when he has so many finals losses and losses to reverse sweeps like he does. Feel free to highlight any clutch performances or series because none come to my mind at least.
I'm not saying Trap is clutch, but a few clutch performances are
1. Trap vs Reynor in TSL 7, he was down 3-1 in a bo7 (due to an extra point for Reynor) and had already lost 4-2 to Reynor that same day. He comes back wins the next 3 maps with a very clutch DT counter to the queen walk (he did get a bit lucky, but almost all comebacks involve some luck).
2. Trap vs Serral in Dremahack last chance 2020. He was down 3-1 in a bo7 (finals, had bad history against Serral), and went on to win the next 3 games.
3. The survival of the reverse sweep from Stats is still clutch imo. If you are up 3-0, lose 3 games and are at 3-3, I think it takes some good mentality to win that last game, which trap did.
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Northern Ireland24931 Posts
On September 17 2021 02:36 Fango wrote:Show nested quote +On September 17 2021 01:24 WombaT wrote:
Trap had a legitimately bad Katowice.
Aside from that he’s been the most consistent Protoss, by FAR for years, the most consistent Korean player outright for a long stretch in terms of international tournaments, has set the record for consecutive GSL Ro8s in this span too.
Including reverse sweeping Stats in ST and any number of clutch performances. Eh, he never reverse swept Stats. And he's actually a victim to many reverse sweeps himself. Trap is a great player and remarkably consistent. Even in Katowice he used to almost over-perform (before he was considered a real championship contender). But I wouldn't call him clutch. Especially when he has so many finals losses and losses to reverse sweeps like he does. Feel free to highlight any clutch performances or series because none come to my mind at least.
Absolutely my mistake, he gathered himself to win the final set and prevent a reverse sweep.
God, so much Starcraft. Need to actually go and rewatch some of the last 1/2 year’s tournies, getting more than that mixed up these days!
I wouldn’t call him notably clutch, but neither is he really a choker.
Outside of vZ perhaps, if he’s on his best game he wins often, often comfortably enough. Not edge of the seat excitement necessarily.
He largely just played well and dissected Maru in GSL. Lots of moments of good play but no obvious clutch play or miracle hold.
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On September 16 2021 23:39 angry_maia wrote:Yeah (hence the spoilers). Trap did suprise Rogue with Glaives once, and BARELY held a queen walk once, but then he just got picked apart in several late game PvZs along with a cheeky nydus build in game 3.
this is hilarious lol
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Bisutopia19225 Posts
How many finals did he lose where we actually thought he was by far the better of the two finalists? He’s a top 3 player that has never been quite good enough to be “the” best Starcraft player.
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EPT
