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United States1853 Posts
On February 08 2024 18:36 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2024 18:09 Charoisaur wrote:On February 08 2024 17:08 Poopi wrote:
^ I don't think it's as simple as that, I personally didn't watch as much HotS as WoL (basically watched from start to finish), or LotV (actually watched from start to now, still going strong :D), yet I remember Rain perfectly for his ability to play strong standard protoss. Kinda like what Stats did, or ShoWTimE, but making it work (albeit in a different game where protoss was stronger).
I also don't think Life is "easily" in a top 10 list, when there are a lot of players that achieved much greater things. Even in terms of style and mechanics, Life was basically a better Stephano (who already raised lings runbyes and such to another level back then), and Reynor is a better Life. Sure, there are a lot of QoL changes now and the infamous windows registry "hack" to have even faster fire rate, and players had the time to adapt / perfect small mechanical things, like the mouse wheel scrolling + moving to the sides of the screen thing of Serral, camera locations and group rebinding, etc.
But it's not obvious that Life would have adapted / kept on improving to the current mechanical tiers.
Also the sOs case is peculiar imho: I get how Miz can rate him #8 by being generous with the windows of domination of each player, and not holding their "weak" eras too much against them, but sOs to me has been so lackluster in LotV (outside of his GSL finals vs INno and iirc ByuN?), that after seeing him be "bad" compared to other LotV protoss for so many years, I have a hard time putting him in top 10, or even top 15, despite the huge WC count. I just think winning three WCs within 3 years during the Kespa era is one of the craziest achievements ever and that alone should guarantee him a top 10 spot. I mean, it's a record that even 9 years later hasn't been surpassed despite the competition being much weaker and the rise of the GOAT-level players like Serral or Maru The crazier part is he didn’t win a huge amount outside of those titles, whereas Innovation and Maru amongst others haven’t won one. Shows a remarkable clutch factor in the lad. And yes I’m aware of WESG, and it’s a great achievement but those tournament fields weren’t quite at the level of what most consider WCs. In terms of difficulty, qualifying as a Korean representative is crazy hard, and obviously everyone would have been practicing hardcore for that process. But the tournament itself you don’t have to answer the question of ‘can I peak for a weekend, on stage against the best of the best?’
sOs had a pretty good first 2-3 years of Lotv. He failed to qualify for a bunch of KILs, but he did reach the finals of Code S in 2016 (lost to ByuN), made the semifinals in Season 1 of 2017 (lost to soO) and reached the finals of Code S again later that year in Season 3 (lost to INnoVation). He was pretty solid in 2018 as well. He made the finals of Pyeonchang (lost to one of the most disgusting cheeses ever and really had no chance in the series), was one game shy of beating Classic in the finals of a Super Tournament and upset Maru at the WCS Global Finals on the way to a 3/4th finish.
All in all, one could reasonably assert that sOs was the second best Korean Protoss during the nascent years of Lotv.
I wish people would look at stuff before just saying stuff.
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Northern Ireland25185 Posts
On February 08 2024 21:01 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2024 18:36 WombaT wrote:On February 08 2024 18:09 Charoisaur wrote:On February 08 2024 17:08 Poopi wrote:
^ I don't think it's as simple as that, I personally didn't watch as much HotS as WoL (basically watched from start to finish), or LotV (actually watched from start to now, still going strong :D), yet I remember Rain perfectly for his ability to play strong standard protoss. Kinda like what Stats did, or ShoWTimE, but making it work (albeit in a different game where protoss was stronger).
I also don't think Life is "easily" in a top 10 list, when there are a lot of players that achieved much greater things. Even in terms of style and mechanics, Life was basically a better Stephano (who already raised lings runbyes and such to another level back then), and Reynor is a better Life. Sure, there are a lot of QoL changes now and the infamous windows registry "hack" to have even faster fire rate, and players had the time to adapt / perfect small mechanical things, like the mouse wheel scrolling + moving to the sides of the screen thing of Serral, camera locations and group rebinding, etc.
But it's not obvious that Life would have adapted / kept on improving to the current mechanical tiers.
Also the sOs case is peculiar imho: I get how Miz can rate him #8 by being generous with the windows of domination of each player, and not holding their "weak" eras too much against them, but sOs to me has been so lackluster in LotV (outside of his GSL finals vs INno and iirc ByuN?), that after seeing him be "bad" compared to other LotV protoss for so many years, I have a hard time putting him in top 10, or even top 15, despite the huge WC count. I just think winning three WCs within 3 years during the Kespa era is one of the craziest achievements ever and that alone should guarantee him a top 10 spot. I mean, it's a record that even 9 years later hasn't been surpassed despite the competition being much weaker and the rise of the GOAT-level players like Serral or Maru The crazier part is he didn’t win a huge amount outside of those titles, whereas Innovation and Maru amongst others haven’t won one. Shows a remarkable clutch factor in the lad. And yes I’m aware of WESG, and it’s a great achievement but those tournament fields weren’t quite at the level of what most consider WCs. In terms of difficulty, qualifying as a Korean representative is crazy hard, and obviously everyone would have been practicing hardcore for that process. But the tournament itself you don’t have to answer the question of ‘can I peak for a weekend, on stage against the best of the best?’ sOs had a pretty good first 2-3 years of Lotv. He failed to qualify for a bunch of KILs, but he did reach the finals of Code S in 2016 (lost to ByuN), made the semifinals in Season 1 of 2017 (lost to soO) and reached the finals of Code S again later that year in Season 3 (lost to INnoVation). He was pretty solid in 2018 as well. He made the finals of Pyeonchang (lost to one of the most disgusting cheeses ever), was one game shy of beating Classic in the finals of a Super Tournament and upset Maru at the WCS Global Finals. All in all, one could reasonably assert that sOs was the second best Korean Protoss during the nascent years of Lotv. I wish people would look at stuff before just saying stuff.
I wish people would look at what I said before saying stuff :p I kid
I said he didn’t win a huge amount outside of big, shiny WCs, which he didn’t really. He still had a fantastic career and many high placements.
He’s 3:3, well, 1:1 just briefly scanning in World Championship titles to any other Premier tournament wins.
That’s part of what makes $o$ so remarkable as a player, absolutely peaking for the culimination of a season, with all the other big hitters as hungry and motivated as they could be.
In the same sense I can say Maru hasn’t won a WC, which he hasn’t, but still acknowledge a whole bunch of top 4s and a silver show he’s no slouch either.
Indeed Maru is like the inverse $o$, his lack of a WC is remarkable because he’s won so much else, and been at worst top 3 in the world for at least 5 years
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Northern Ireland25185 Posts
*Edit*
Dupe post, my subconscious must really want those 20K posts…
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United States1853 Posts
On February 08 2024 21:11 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2024 21:01 Mizenhauer wrote:On February 08 2024 18:36 WombaT wrote:On February 08 2024 18:09 Charoisaur wrote:On February 08 2024 17:08 Poopi wrote:
^ I don't think it's as simple as that, I personally didn't watch as much HotS as WoL (basically watched from start to finish), or LotV (actually watched from start to now, still going strong :D), yet I remember Rain perfectly for his ability to play strong standard protoss. Kinda like what Stats did, or ShoWTimE, but making it work (albeit in a different game where protoss was stronger).
I also don't think Life is "easily" in a top 10 list, when there are a lot of players that achieved much greater things. Even in terms of style and mechanics, Life was basically a better Stephano (who already raised lings runbyes and such to another level back then), and Reynor is a better Life. Sure, there are a lot of QoL changes now and the infamous windows registry "hack" to have even faster fire rate, and players had the time to adapt / perfect small mechanical things, like the mouse wheel scrolling + moving to the sides of the screen thing of Serral, camera locations and group rebinding, etc.
But it's not obvious that Life would have adapted / kept on improving to the current mechanical tiers.
Also the sOs case is peculiar imho: I get how Miz can rate him #8 by being generous with the windows of domination of each player, and not holding their "weak" eras too much against them, but sOs to me has been so lackluster in LotV (outside of his GSL finals vs INno and iirc ByuN?), that after seeing him be "bad" compared to other LotV protoss for so many years, I have a hard time putting him in top 10, or even top 15, despite the huge WC count. I just think winning three WCs within 3 years during the Kespa era is one of the craziest achievements ever and that alone should guarantee him a top 10 spot. I mean, it's a record that even 9 years later hasn't been surpassed despite the competition being much weaker and the rise of the GOAT-level players like Serral or Maru The crazier part is he didn’t win a huge amount outside of those titles, whereas Innovation and Maru amongst others haven’t won one. Shows a remarkable clutch factor in the lad. And yes I’m aware of WESG, and it’s a great achievement but those tournament fields weren’t quite at the level of what most consider WCs. In terms of difficulty, qualifying as a Korean representative is crazy hard, and obviously everyone would have been practicing hardcore for that process. But the tournament itself you don’t have to answer the question of ‘can I peak for a weekend, on stage against the best of the best?’ sOs had a pretty good first 2-3 years of Lotv. He failed to qualify for a bunch of KILs, but he did reach the finals of Code S in 2016 (lost to ByuN), made the semifinals in Season 1 of 2017 (lost to soO) and reached the finals of Code S again later that year in Season 3 (lost to INnoVation). He was pretty solid in 2018 as well. He made the finals of Pyeonchang (lost to one of the most disgusting cheeses ever), was one game shy of beating Classic in the finals of a Super Tournament and upset Maru at the WCS Global Finals. All in all, one could reasonably assert that sOs was the second best Korean Protoss during the nascent years of Lotv. I wish people would look at stuff before just saying stuff. I wish people would look at what I said before saying stuff :p I kid I said he didn’t win a huge amount outside of big, shiny WCs, which he didn’t really. He still had a fantastic career and many high placements. He’s 3:3, well, 1:1 just briefly scanning in World Championship titles to any other Premier tournament wins. That’s part of what makes $o$ so remarkable as a player, absolutely peaking for the culimination of a season, with all the other big hitters as hungry and motivated as they could be. In the same sense I can say Maru hasn’t won a WC, which he hasn’t, but still acknowledge a whole bunch of top 4s and a silver show he’s no slouch either. Indeed Maru is like the inverse $o$, his lack of a WC is remarkable because he’s won so much else, and been at worst top 3 in the world for at least 5 years
The exasperated sigh was not meant for you.
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France12818 Posts
I'd say Zest + Stats had better 2016-2018 overall, while Classic had a better 2018 and similar 2016-2017 as sOs. herO had a better 2017 but worse 2018. Trap was not at his best yet. Even though sOs upset Maru in 2018, many people blamed Maru for not trying the macro game because sOs was seen as kinda weak otherwise ; and he was completely hopeless vs Serral while Stats put up a very good fight.
Imo 2018 was when sOs started to become "weak" (for top KR player standards)
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United States1853 Posts
On February 08 2024 21:37 Poopi wrote:
I'd say Zest + Stats had better 2016-2018 overall, while Classic had a better 2018 and similar 2016-2017 as sOs. herO had a better 2017 but worse 2018. Trap was not at his best yet. Even though sOs upset Maru in 2018, many people blamed Maru for not trying the macro game because sOs was seen as kinda weak otherwise ; and he was completely hopeless vs Serral while Stats put up a very good fight.
Imo 2018 was when sOs started to become "weak" (for top KR player standards)
This is why I said "reasonably assert". He's not locked up for second best by any means, but you can make a very believable argument that he should. Stats is far and away the best during this period, but the clump of Protoss behind him can go any number of ways.
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I actually really wish that PiG was doing his casting channel back when Inno was at his peak, or if there was similar analysis on that level. Everyone would say "GOAT macro mechanics," and we'd nod sagely, and notice that Inno had more stuff earlier than everyone or that his attack would always come EXACTLY when his upgrades kicked in, but there was nobody really using a fine-toothed comb and going over what made Inno better at macro -- how refined his builds were, how they branched, how he never forgot to do X little thing, how he had his hotkeys set up in such a way, et cetera -- than even the other top-level players, the way PiG does when he makes Dark vs. Serral type comparisons now or points out stuff like "Maru has his hotkeys set up in such a way you almost never see him scroll."
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On February 08 2024 16:55 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2024 12:53 Pandain wrote:On February 08 2024 11:34 Cricketer12 wrote:On February 08 2024 10:04 WombaT wrote:On February 08 2024 07:58 Durnuu wrote:On February 08 2024 07:35 Waxangel wrote:Funny enough, TaeJa positivity is prolly one of the things that conflicts me the most when I look back at my old opinions (we gave him player of the year in 2013. OF THE YEAR) My views on tournaments have changed a lot over time, and with the benefit of big picture hindsight, these "tier 2" DH Opens, Homestories, and IEM Circuit stops seem far less impressive. Reading community posts, I think they've generally faded from the collective memory, outside the fact that TaeJa won a ton of them (amusingly enough, no one seems to want to remember the WCS EU and WCS AM tournaments at all). + Show Spoiler +The one TaeJa thing l still have to vouch for is the aura/vibes. Yeah, he was mashing foreigners who had no chance against him in like 85% of his games [b]but when he did play the best guys from Korea he was every bit as good. [\b]If he had played in GSL during his prime, he would surely have contended for titles. In that sense, there was a mini-Serral thing going on with him. Guy couldn’t even win the tier 2 GSL in WCS america, stop with the liquid bias It’s been years, and while some may have gone overboard on Liquid’s lads (although HerO was my bae not Taeja) I think there’s been an over correction to the extent Taeja is actually underrated at this juncture. Especially the bolded part, it’s not as if Taeja dropped off a cliff once the Kespa influx matured. He had a sadly truncated rivalry with Life that was pretty even if memory serves, that Blizzcon semi-final was an excellent series and he was one set away from that final. He has some decent scalps of players who are making the top 10 of this series. He did win a regular IEM taking out the likes of Zest, placed top 4 in the one Flash won etc. Just scanning Liquipedia briefly after seeing your post. Pity about the injuries. Like yourself I find it difficult to really parse some of these tournaments given the weight of time passing, and the scene being very different. Trying to place myself back in that era, part of what was notable was Taeja winning a bunch close together, or even consecutively sometimes. Which is commonplace now, but even with weaker fields that was pretty uncommon then. In additional mitigation you probably had 40-50 players at the time who could play in Code S, and not just making up the numbers either. Then another few Koreans who would be ‘Code A’ level, but still better than most of the foreign scene at the time. While looking back at some runs the names may feel a bit ‘meh’ in retrospect, equally the level was probably higher than one’s initial reaction. I mean with guys like Inno and herO in the field it was a Jaedong taking the silver and a Taeja in the Ro4 so the ‘foreign’ Koreans, or at least some of them were pretty likely to have been competitive in their native comps. Actually do think Jaedong is possibly the most underrated player around I'd agree with this. Taeja certainly lacked in GSL specifically, but just because he was a weekend warrior doesn't mean he couldn't beat Koreans. People forget how good he was vs Life, or that he crushed soO 3-1 in 2014 when soO was on absolute fire. In fact he regularly beat the best players in the world outside of GSL specifically, and even then he had a few decent runs. + Show Spoiler +I agree with both of these, including Wax's prior point, and that Taeja is underrated. It feels like somewhere along the way we've discounted most/all of the non-KR starleague/world championship events from 2013-2016, presumably because of some sense that those were the only ones were you truly had the absolute best of the world playing. But its just kind of not fair to the fragmented nature of the scene in 2012-2016, which was both mostly pseudo-region-locked and where it just wasn't practical for all the top players to travel to every international tournament. The fact Taeja was able to get player of the year in 2013, when in retrospect everyone probably considers that Innovation's year, shows how perspectives have changed, probably unfairly.
Where does that make Taeja (and for that matter, others?) No idea, but probably enough to get top 10 to be honest, and maybe even as high as #7. + Show Spoiler +I've been trying to think of a way to better explain how I feel about it, and you bring up a good point that the scene back then was different, as in because of the weird region locks and stuff, and there being a ton of KR pros, they ended up kind of splitting up over different regions (Polt dominating AM for example, MC dominating EU, etc.). And it's not fair to retroactively just discount wins from that era just because they weren't wins at GSLs or WCs. It's not like Taeja was dodging the best players by farming weak regions, there were strong KR players everywhere. He had close rivalries with Life and MVP, the 2 other GOAT candidates back then.
That brings me to another way I'd like to explain why I feel Taeja is underrated now.
I feel like, when we think about GOAT discussions, sometimes we end up overthinking things and weighing things a lot less or than they should. Regardless of how we might feel like weighing things now, I think it's helpful to try to remember the feeling back then of who was the most dominant and highest skilled players.
Back then, MVP and Life were basically matched in achievements and praise when it came to their skill (genius intellect, etc. etc.). And the GSL where Life beat MVP in the grand finals and stopped him from claiming a 4th GSL Code S was like a symbolic passing of the torch.
However, Taeja was right up there with them, and with Life in the post-MVP generation (his last big win is in 2013, but his peak was in 2011-2012, he was already on the decline when Taeja and Life were rising). It was often argued who was greater, Taeja or Life. They both won a ton of international weekend events in a short time of 1.5-2 years, had high placements at WC, and in Life's case he has a more rounded achievements list by winning at least one Starleague unlike Taeja. However, the feeling at the time when MVP's time was ending was that Life and Taeja were very close and the most dominant players.
We still consider MVP and Life to be top 10 best players of all time, with many people feeling they'd be ranked around #5-8 (right below Serral Maru Rogue Innovation, but above players like sOs). But in retrospect we've placed Taeja soo much lower because of how we feel we should weigh things now. I think when it comes to "greatest" players, there is merit in simply trying to remember the feeling you had of seeing Taeja dominate and win so many tournies and being on MVP/Life's tier, because back then when we were experiencing his dominance in real time, we had an understanding of the scene and what was impressive and great and what was not. I don't think we should doubt too much this feeling, come up with different metrics in retrospect that convince us that he wasn't "as impressive as we thought back then" or whatnot, because metrics are simply a way to help us make objective sense of things, but much of what makes up "greatness" is the awe and inspiring feeling you get, and if we remember we felt that he was a top player and one of the most dominant/GOAT/best players of SC2, then it's probably true.
(Meanwhile I barely remember Rain for example and I know I'm not the only one).
Also, I think the weekend tournaments that Taeja (and Life and MVP) won had high enough prize pools. Like sure, they may be lower than a GSL Code S, but a weekend tournament also takes much less time and practice and prep. The money you get for playing in 4 weekend tournaments instead of 1 Code S for example, more than made up at the time. Because of this, I don't think we can discount those weekend tournaments as like, "ah players didn't care about them as much because $15k prize isn't as much as $60k for GSL". They were all definitely trying hard to win.
Does anyone remember MLG Anaheim, one of the fiercest and most memorable "Tier 2" weekend tournaments? The one that had the Slayers TvZ BFH drop build that zergs just got dropped out of the tournament against cus they couldn't figure it out, all the TvTs and the sudden reveal that Mech was broken and players just spamming BFH against marauders, and MVP coming out on top of all that craziness with all the TvT specialists of the time? No one can go back and say "that's a T2 tournament, it's not as competitive as a GSL". To do so would just be undermining how big that tournament actually was at the time. At the time we all knew that was a huge fierce tournament cus we had a better understanding of the scene then than we have now with hazy memories. Especially not a GSL in the post COVID era. Like yes, winning 1 GSL back then was still bigger than winning 1 weekend tournament, the time invested is simply more for a season, but if Taeja is winning MANY weekend tournaments, often in a row, then that's something very different from winning one once in a while due to sheer number of attempts by staying in the scene for 10 years
But discussion of GOAT has to come with all the factors coming onto one- that's what makes it a GOAT not "current best" or "best of one area"
Someone who is performing in non-top leagues would understandably have an asterisk on their name, just like how in soccer, even mbappe, who has performed in world cup and has come close to balon dor performance over the years, have an asterisk just because he stayed in "easier" ligue 1 and has yet to move on to top league even when he's shown so much. Pele wouldn't count because Brazil was a top league back when he played and Europe wasn't the powerhouse of today. Taeja is very comparable to someone line mbappe or even payet
And there's bit too much recency bias on these ranks imo. Post 2017 should count for lot less when comparing stuff like premier titles since even if skill level rose, the competition dropped by far to point it isn't really comparable to spl days - where there was much more pressure to perform, more games to perform, splitting attention between individual and team leagues and much more varied and deep pool of competition overall and constant fight to stay on top
Just like how players like light or last won't even come close into best Terran lists due to performing better only post kespa era with lessened competition, or how players like boxer, iloveoov will stay on top of list even though when compared to 2010s or even asl era, their skill is "lower", it's comparison relative to the amount of competition faced. Same could be said for savior and julyzerg.
If people go by only skill level, then players only at most recent times will dominate the list while ignoring people who laid the foundations and competed at peaks of the most competitive era. On top of that, the post spl era is lot less competitive and less pro playerpool than ever before
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mvp numba wan
obviously a sham list when bomber is left out of the top 10
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So much  for including that Huk picture.
Btw. That Taeja v Innovation game is still a contender for greatest game of all time.
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There is no way showtime loses from here
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France12818 Posts
On February 09 2024 06:33 Pandain wrote:
There is no way showtime loses from here
I doubt he is gonna beat Dark in this game list 
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I would love to see serral left out of the top 10
just to see the resulting meltdown :D
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On February 09 2024 03:49 Wintex wrote:
mvp numba wan
obviously a sham list when bomber is left out of the top 10
Bomber is not that far behind Rain.
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On February 09 2024 06:44 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2024 06:33 Pandain wrote:
There is no way showtime loses from here I doubt he is gonna beat Dark in this game list
lololol
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On February 08 2024 18:36 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2024 18:09 Charoisaur wrote:On February 08 2024 17:08 Poopi wrote:
^ I don't think it's as simple as that, I personally didn't watch as much HotS as WoL (basically watched from start to finish), or LotV (actually watched from start to now, still going strong :D), yet I remember Rain perfectly for his ability to play strong standard protoss. Kinda like what Stats did, or ShoWTimE, but making it work (albeit in a different game where protoss was stronger).
I also don't think Life is "easily" in a top 10 list, when there are a lot of players that achieved much greater things. Even in terms of style and mechanics, Life was basically a better Stephano (who already raised lings runbyes and such to another level back then), and Reynor is a better Life. Sure, there are a lot of QoL changes now and the infamous windows registry "hack" to have even faster fire rate, and players had the time to adapt / perfect small mechanical things, like the mouse wheel scrolling + moving to the sides of the screen thing of Serral, camera locations and group rebinding, etc.
But it's not obvious that Life would have adapted / kept on improving to the current mechanical tiers.
Also the sOs case is peculiar imho: I get how Miz can rate him #8 by being generous with the windows of domination of each player, and not holding their "weak" eras too much against them, but sOs to me has been so lackluster in LotV (outside of his GSL finals vs INno and iirc ByuN?), that after seeing him be "bad" compared to other LotV protoss for so many years, I have a hard time putting him in top 10, or even top 15, despite the huge WC count. I just think winning three WCs within 3 years during the Kespa era is one of the craziest achievements ever and that alone should guarantee him a top 10 spot. I mean, it's a record that even 9 years later hasn't been surpassed despite the competition being much weaker and the rise of the GOAT-level players like Serral or Maru The crazier part is he didn’t win a huge amount outside of those titles, whereas Innovation and Maru amongst others haven’t won one. Shows a remarkable clutch factor in the lad. And yes I’m aware of WESG, and it’s a great achievement but those tournament fields weren’t quite at the level of what most consider WCs. In terms of difficulty, qualifying as a Korean representative is crazy hard, and obviously everyone would have been practicing hardcore for that process. But the tournament itself you don’t have to answer the question of ‘can I peak for a weekend, on stage against the best of the best?’
WeSG is a weird one because given the prize pool and status amongst players (INno for example said his goal was to win either WeSG, Katowice, or Blizzcon) you can absolutely give it the status of WC. It just doesn't feel like it to us because it's disconnected from the WCS/ESL circuit, and the actual tournaments only featured a handful of top players.
The korean qualifiers are probably the toughest qualifiers in the history of SC2. For most of the koreans, making it through qualifiers those would guarantee a top 4 in the tournament. You can easily consider the qualifiers to be as tough as the group stages of a Blizzcon or Katowice.
Side note, WeSG 2020 sadly would have been the all-time TvZ showdown (Rogue, Serral, Dark, INno, Maru, TY were the qualified players before it was cancelled).
Maru made top 3 in all three WeSG (he also made top 4 at another five Katowice/Blizzcons). Remarkably he's probably the most consistent player in World Championship events, despite never winning.
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Northern Ireland25185 Posts
On February 10 2024 00:26 Fango wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2024 18:36 WombaT wrote:On February 08 2024 18:09 Charoisaur wrote:On February 08 2024 17:08 Poopi wrote:
^ I don't think it's as simple as that, I personally didn't watch as much HotS as WoL (basically watched from start to finish), or LotV (actually watched from start to now, still going strong :D), yet I remember Rain perfectly for his ability to play strong standard protoss. Kinda like what Stats did, or ShoWTimE, but making it work (albeit in a different game where protoss was stronger).
I also don't think Life is "easily" in a top 10 list, when there are a lot of players that achieved much greater things. Even in terms of style and mechanics, Life was basically a better Stephano (who already raised lings runbyes and such to another level back then), and Reynor is a better Life. Sure, there are a lot of QoL changes now and the infamous windows registry "hack" to have even faster fire rate, and players had the time to adapt / perfect small mechanical things, like the mouse wheel scrolling + moving to the sides of the screen thing of Serral, camera locations and group rebinding, etc.
But it's not obvious that Life would have adapted / kept on improving to the current mechanical tiers.
Also the sOs case is peculiar imho: I get how Miz can rate him #8 by being generous with the windows of domination of each player, and not holding their "weak" eras too much against them, but sOs to me has been so lackluster in LotV (outside of his GSL finals vs INno and iirc ByuN?), that after seeing him be "bad" compared to other LotV protoss for so many years, I have a hard time putting him in top 10, or even top 15, despite the huge WC count. I just think winning three WCs within 3 years during the Kespa era is one of the craziest achievements ever and that alone should guarantee him a top 10 spot. I mean, it's a record that even 9 years later hasn't been surpassed despite the competition being much weaker and the rise of the GOAT-level players like Serral or Maru The crazier part is he didn’t win a huge amount outside of those titles, whereas Innovation and Maru amongst others haven’t won one. Shows a remarkable clutch factor in the lad. And yes I’m aware of WESG, and it’s a great achievement but those tournament fields weren’t quite at the level of what most consider WCs. In terms of difficulty, qualifying as a Korean representative is crazy hard, and obviously everyone would have been practicing hardcore for that process. But the tournament itself you don’t have to answer the question of ‘can I peak for a weekend, on stage against the best of the best?’ WeSG is a weird one because given the prize pool and status amongst players (INno for example said his goal was to win either WeSG, Katowice, or Blizzcon) you can absolutely give it the status of WC. It just doesn't feel like it to us because it's disconnected from the WCS/ESL circuit, and the actual tournaments only featured a handful of top players. The korean qualifiers are probably the toughest qualifiers in the history of SC2. For most of the koreans, making it through qualifiers those would guarantee a top 4 in the tournament. You can easily consider the qualifiers to be as tough as the group stages of a Blizzcon or Katowice. Side note, WeSG 2020 sadly would have been the all-time TvZ showdown (Rogue, Serral, Dark, INno, Maru, TY were the qualified players before it was cancelled). Maru made top 3 in all three WeSG (he also made top 4 at another five Katowice/Blizzcons). Remarkably he's probably the most consistent player in World Championship events, despite never winning.
Aye agreed there, logically the combo of actually qualifying + winning the thing when you get there is just as difficult skill wise than winning a stacked tournament over the weekend.
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United States1853 Posts
On February 10 2024 00:26 Fango wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2024 18:36 WombaT wrote:On February 08 2024 18:09 Charoisaur wrote:On February 08 2024 17:08 Poopi wrote:
^ I don't think it's as simple as that, I personally didn't watch as much HotS as WoL (basically watched from start to finish), or LotV (actually watched from start to now, still going strong :D), yet I remember Rain perfectly for his ability to play strong standard protoss. Kinda like what Stats did, or ShoWTimE, but making it work (albeit in a different game where protoss was stronger).
I also don't think Life is "easily" in a top 10 list, when there are a lot of players that achieved much greater things. Even in terms of style and mechanics, Life was basically a better Stephano (who already raised lings runbyes and such to another level back then), and Reynor is a better Life. Sure, there are a lot of QoL changes now and the infamous windows registry "hack" to have even faster fire rate, and players had the time to adapt / perfect small mechanical things, like the mouse wheel scrolling + moving to the sides of the screen thing of Serral, camera locations and group rebinding, etc.
But it's not obvious that Life would have adapted / kept on improving to the current mechanical tiers.
Also the sOs case is peculiar imho: I get how Miz can rate him #8 by being generous with the windows of domination of each player, and not holding their "weak" eras too much against them, but sOs to me has been so lackluster in LotV (outside of his GSL finals vs INno and iirc ByuN?), that after seeing him be "bad" compared to other LotV protoss for so many years, I have a hard time putting him in top 10, or even top 15, despite the huge WC count. I just think winning three WCs within 3 years during the Kespa era is one of the craziest achievements ever and that alone should guarantee him a top 10 spot. I mean, it's a record that even 9 years later hasn't been surpassed despite the competition being much weaker and the rise of the GOAT-level players like Serral or Maru The crazier part is he didn’t win a huge amount outside of those titles, whereas Innovation and Maru amongst others haven’t won one. Shows a remarkable clutch factor in the lad. And yes I’m aware of WESG, and it’s a great achievement but those tournament fields weren’t quite at the level of what most consider WCs. In terms of difficulty, qualifying as a Korean representative is crazy hard, and obviously everyone would have been practicing hardcore for that process. But the tournament itself you don’t have to answer the question of ‘can I peak for a weekend, on stage against the best of the best?’ WeSG is a weird one because given the prize pool and status amongst players (INno for example said his goal was to win either WeSG, Katowice, or Blizzcon) you can absolutely give it the status of WC. It just doesn't feel like it to us because it's disconnected from the WCS/ESL circuit, and the actual tournaments only featured a handful of top players. The korean qualifiers are probably the toughest qualifiers in the history of SC2. For most of the koreans, making it through qualifiers those would guarantee a top 4 in the tournament. You can easily consider the qualifiers to be as tough as the group stages of a Blizzcon or Katowice. Side note, WeSG 2020 sadly would have been the all-time TvZ showdown (Rogue, Serral, Dark, INno, Maru, TY were the qualified players before it was cancelled). Maru made top 3 in all three WeSG (he also made top 4 at another five Katowice/Blizzcons). Remarkably he's probably the most consistent player in World Championship events, despite never winning.
Inno's goal was to make money. That's why he wanted to win wesg, iem, bcon.
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Rogue, Serral, Dark, Inno, Maru, TY, damn. Now i feel robbed
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On February 10 2024 02:57 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2024 00:26 Fango wrote:On February 08 2024 18:36 WombaT wrote:On February 08 2024 18:09 Charoisaur wrote:On February 08 2024 17:08 Poopi wrote:
^ I don't think it's as simple as that, I personally didn't watch as much HotS as WoL (basically watched from start to finish), or LotV (actually watched from start to now, still going strong :D), yet I remember Rain perfectly for his ability to play strong standard protoss. Kinda like what Stats did, or ShoWTimE, but making it work (albeit in a different game where protoss was stronger).
I also don't think Life is "easily" in a top 10 list, when there are a lot of players that achieved much greater things. Even in terms of style and mechanics, Life was basically a better Stephano (who already raised lings runbyes and such to another level back then), and Reynor is a better Life. Sure, there are a lot of QoL changes now and the infamous windows registry "hack" to have even faster fire rate, and players had the time to adapt / perfect small mechanical things, like the mouse wheel scrolling + moving to the sides of the screen thing of Serral, camera locations and group rebinding, etc.
But it's not obvious that Life would have adapted / kept on improving to the current mechanical tiers.
Also the sOs case is peculiar imho: I get how Miz can rate him #8 by being generous with the windows of domination of each player, and not holding their "weak" eras too much against them, but sOs to me has been so lackluster in LotV (outside of his GSL finals vs INno and iirc ByuN?), that after seeing him be "bad" compared to other LotV protoss for so many years, I have a hard time putting him in top 10, or even top 15, despite the huge WC count. I just think winning three WCs within 3 years during the Kespa era is one of the craziest achievements ever and that alone should guarantee him a top 10 spot. I mean, it's a record that even 9 years later hasn't been surpassed despite the competition being much weaker and the rise of the GOAT-level players like Serral or Maru The crazier part is he didn’t win a huge amount outside of those titles, whereas Innovation and Maru amongst others haven’t won one. Shows a remarkable clutch factor in the lad. And yes I’m aware of WESG, and it’s a great achievement but those tournament fields weren’t quite at the level of what most consider WCs. In terms of difficulty, qualifying as a Korean representative is crazy hard, and obviously everyone would have been practicing hardcore for that process. But the tournament itself you don’t have to answer the question of ‘can I peak for a weekend, on stage against the best of the best?’ WeSG is a weird one because given the prize pool and status amongst players (INno for example said his goal was to win either WeSG, Katowice, or Blizzcon) you can absolutely give it the status of WC. It just doesn't feel like it to us because it's disconnected from the WCS/ESL circuit, and the actual tournaments only featured a handful of top players. The korean qualifiers are probably the toughest qualifiers in the history of SC2. For most of the koreans, making it through qualifiers those would guarantee a top 4 in the tournament. You can easily consider the qualifiers to be as tough as the group stages of a Blizzcon or Katowice. Side note, WeSG 2020 sadly would have been the all-time TvZ showdown (Rogue, Serral, Dark, INno, Maru, TY were the qualified players before it was cancelled). Maru made top 3 in all three WeSG (he also made top 4 at another five Katowice/Blizzcons). Remarkably he's probably the most consistent player in World Championship events, despite never winning. Inno's goal was to make money. That's why he wanted to win wesg, iem, bcon.
Every players goal is to make money
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EPT
