On January 21 2024 23:29 Charoisaur wrote: Glad to see sOs here, he's truly one of the games biggest legends and one of my favorite players. I guess this means Dark or Stats won't make the list now?
I think both Stats and soO don't make it, although I'd personally have both of them over Rain. The top 5 is a lock, and Zest+Dark probably get picked over those two.
On January 21 2024 23:29 Charoisaur wrote: Glad to see sOs here, he's truly one of the games biggest legends and one of my favorite players. I guess this means Dark or Stats won't make the list now?
Yeah i think stats is out. Top 6 should be pretty easy to figure, 7th is the only unknown
On January 21 2024 18:01 RPR_Tempest wrote: When you think big money player, you think $o$. Not many nicknames were as earned as that one. His lack of results outside of the absolute biggest stages and prize pools just adds to his charm, making him a lot more memorable than if he were just winning everything.
Ironically the biggest big money maker is Rogue, who made $500k in 3 tournaments compared to sOs' $300k in 3 tournaments, but Rogue is also so successful at non-big money tournies (also won in later years) that he doesn't get the moniker.
Well Rogue kinda got lucky he peaked when the blizzcon prize pool got inflated, him and sOs won the same tournaments at the end of the day. sOs' first two championships both being $100K prizes is a something to behold
TY also came unbelievably close to winning $600K in one year (we won WeSG, Katowice, and then threw the deciding map in the Blizzcon ro4, where he would have been a lock in the finals).
sOs vs herO 2014 IEM Katowice - Grand Finals (March 16, 2014) was my first public viewing of StarCraft 2. The game was still big enough to attract a decent crowd. It was a memorable match and we had a great time.
I always wanted someone to go back and do a real dive-in on the hero vs sos finals. Ppl just wrote it off as awful, but I am pretty sure it is a masterclass in planning a series. I really like Parting vs ty as well that is one where both of them were planning amazingly. Rogue destroying maru when he had OP ravens was another.
sOs, rogue, ty, parting and even to a lesser degree solar, are the players that I really admire because they're not just playing ladder as one race against the other, no they really play the player and sOs, rogue and ty did this on the biggest of stages. The lotv part of sOs shows the struggle of protoss, but he didn't become irrelevant, I think it's a feat that he could continue playing a very cerebral style in a completely different game as well. It's like how someone awesome like MC could still come back and have flashes of brilliance. Edit: The duckdeok vs innovation and sos vs maru, I actually predicted, these two always had a weakness to toss bullshit, especially in hots where it was stronger.
On January 22 2024 03:48 ejozl wrote: I always wanted someone to go back and do a real dive-in on the hero vs sos finals. Ppl just wrote it off as awful, but I am pretty sure it is a masterclass in planning a series. I really like Parting vs ty as well that is one where both of them were planning amazingly. Rogue destroying maru when he had OP ravens was another.
sOs picked up on the fact herO never ever scouted for proxygates. Every other Korean protoss soon followed and got themselves free wins against him.
But I think his finals vs Jaedong was an even greater display of planning. Jaedong got played like a fiddle, mindgame'd and countered every map. Even on the one game sOs lost, he had Jaedong fooled on what was going on.
Rogue has a lot of similar wins. Although I'll say in that case he had significantly more OP nydus than Maru had ravens. That event, he won at least one game every match, sometimes 2, with unkillable nydus worms allins without even trying to hide them. It was broken beyond reason
On January 22 2024 03:48 ejozl wrote: I always wanted someone to go back and do a real dive-in on the hero vs sos finals. Ppl just wrote it off as awful, but I am pretty sure it is a masterclass in planning a series. I really like Parting vs ty as well that is one where both of them were planning amazingly. Rogue destroying maru when he had OP ravens was another.
sOs picked up on the fact herO never ever scouted for proxygates. Every other Korean protoss soon followed and got themselves free wins against him.
But I think his finals vs Jaedong was an even greater display of planning. Jaedong got played like a fiddle, mindgame'd and countered every map. Even on the one game sOs lost, he had Jaedong fooled on what was going on.
Rogue has a lot of similar wins. Although I'll say in that case he had significantly more OP nydus than Maru had ravens. That event, he won at least one game every match, sometimes 2, with unkillable nydus worms allins without even trying to hide them. It was broken beyond reason
I feel Rogue planned well but made use of some pretty grotesque parts of the Zerg arsenal, whereas with sOs it was very tailored, often mindgamey with further mind games if it got spotted, and frequently not especially potent stuff without those elements.
At least in the real big clutch moments that somewhat define both of their careers, in lesser games I recall Rogue doing more inventive, cleverly tailored wonky stuff. Like regular Proleague matches, GSL groups etc.
I hope this doesn’t sound like a diss at Rogue at all, not my intent at all! Perfectly fine to crush someone with certain tendencies with a known strong all-in or two, but with sOs it felt like there was that extra layer to it.
Also still salty that Trap got swarmhost/nydused to death in two GSL finals by Dark and Rogue :p
Yay! So happy to see him on this list. Truly a special player, in many ways I think embodies the kind of creative play that should be much more viable in RTS at the highest levels of competition.
On January 22 2024 08:08 Amoyu7 wrote: Now that we have Rain, TY and sOs, and the top 6 would surely be some arrangement of Serral, Maru, Rogue, MVP, Innovation, Zest
This makes me sad that Dark got left out. I would have him placed on top of Rain. One of the greatest career longevity second only to Maru, one world champion title and one second place, most Ro4 finishes in premiere tournaments only after Serral and Maru, I think he deserves a top 10 spot. If only he won just a couple more of those heartbreaking 3:4 final losses. He lost EIGHT premiere finals with score of 3:4, can you believe that?
On January 22 2024 08:08 Amoyu7 wrote: This makes me sad that Dark got left out. I would have him placed on top of Rain. One of the greatest career longevity second only to Maru, one world champion title and one second place, most Ro4 finishes in premiere tournaments only after Serral and Maru, I think he deserves a top 10 spot. If only he won just a couple more of those heartbreaking 3:4 final losses. He lost EIGHT premiere finals with score of 3:4, can you believe that?
As a fan, I always knew Dark wasn't the most clutch player, but never actually looked up the numbers and man...
11-16 (40%) in bo7s, and 2-11 (15%) in game 7s. Including the game 7 he played in proleague. Heartbreaking how many times matches went the distance and then slipped away....
For reference to two players infamous for being extremely clutch:
sOs: 7-9 (44%) in bo7s, and 4-4 (50%) in game 7s. Rogue: 13-1 (93%) in bo7s, and 5-1 (83%) in game 7s
sOs' numbers aren't actually that impressive on paper, but he still pulled it out of the bag when it mattered, and that's what being clutch is really about.
On January 22 2024 09:13 spirit76 wrote: IEM is considered a world championship?
am i wrong or years ago the only world champion was the winner of the blizzcon/wcs?
You're not wrong. They were always called the World Championship, but like you said, Blizzcon/WCS was THE World Championship. It was around maybe like 2018/9ish where people seemed to start seriously considering all these tournaments with World Championship in the name to be a, well, World Championship.
Since the death of WCS, the IEM World Championship is now definitely the World Championship though.
Whether it was due to lack of motivation after his many successes, or simply his inability to transition fully to Legacy of the Void, sOs went down a path of slow decline.
I think it's fair to say that SC2 has trended towards being more RT than S with each expansion, and players like sOs are definitely a victim of that.
Whether it was due to lack of motivation after his many successes, or simply his inability to transition fully to Legacy of the Void, sOs went down a path of slow decline.
I think it's fair to say that SC2 has trended towards being more RT than S with each expansion, and players like sOs are definitely a victim of that.
Yupp, I think is the major downside of the 12 work start.
On January 22 2024 09:13 spirit76 wrote: IEM is considered a world championship?
am i wrong or years ago the only world champion was the winner of the blizzcon/wcs?
You're not wrong. They were always called the World Championship, but like you said, Blizzcon/WCS was THE World Championship. It was around maybe like 2018/9ish where people seemed to start seriously considering all these tournaments with World Championship in the name to be a, well, World Championship.
Since the death of WCS, the IEM World Championship is now definitely the World Championship though.
IEM were the official end-of-the-year World Championship for 3 years (2021-2023), although the first one was online and got its prizepool cut down by one-half. This year IEM is not the World Championship as ESL decide to extend the EPT "year" by 6 more months. To me, there isnt much of a difference between before-and-after with IEM, it makes it like Rogue winning 2 IEM wasnt that as valuable to the 1 that Serral/Oilveira won even though its nearly the same tournament format/prizepool
EPT
