Who were/are the best foreign sc1 players? - Page 2
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Nightmarjoo
United States3359 Posts
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zerious
Canada3803 Posts
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LunarDestiny
United States4177 Posts
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n.DieJokes
United States3443 Posts
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Boblion
France8043 Posts
Most bm: NoHope First protoss fan: Idra Favourite clown: MisterZZZ Strongest foreigner: Incontrol Cookie time: Cloud Best nickname: Testie False modesty champion and waffle award: Mondragon Top mentally challenged player: GosI[Terran] Abuser forever: Yosh BBQ sauce: Dreiven Kimbo award: HovZ Best haircut: Elky #1 BGH player: Surfer4life Oblivion medal: Dino Australian starcraft player: Legionnaire Best storm drops and arbiter play: Nony | ||
7mk
Germany10156 Posts
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Aquafresh
United States824 Posts
If you have some free time here are some good threads and articles to get a good feel of the scenes history. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=71352 About as old-school as it gets. Lots of forgotten names turned up to post in that thread. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/index.php?show_part=26 http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/index.php?show_part=32 Subforums for the two TSLs, which were huge foreign events near the end of foreign BW relatively speaking. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=33197 Pretty much the oldest thread I can remember reading (I haven't been here all that long) that deals with this stuff. By Jinro (FrozenArbiter at the time) and a really good read to get familiarized with players. There was an old thread I remember from way back by someone with a nuke icon now that detailed a bunch of early foreigner/TL history all the way back from 1998 to about when Draco was in Korea. I couldn't find it anywhere, but if anyone knows what I'm talking about it would be awesome to have it linked. | ||
nekuodah
England2409 Posts
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Kenpachi
United States9908 Posts
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Ack1027
United States7873 Posts
Ex-progamers: Legionnaire, Elky, Naz, Grrr, Rek, Draco and later on Idra, nony, ret. Pretty much hexatron/amd Don't think he's been mentioned much yet, and I know a lot of koreans are bitter that he won KBK but it would be a disgrace not to mention this guy: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Slayer Edit: Little known fact. Russian player Asmodey http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Asmodey is the only player other than Elky Legion and Grr to play in a OSL. | ||
holyhalo5
United States187 Posts
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hacklebeast
United States5090 Posts
Besides, he rolled with random every game cuz that’s the only way to play. | ||
EliteReplay
Dominican Republic913 Posts
On December 17 2010 09:16 Boblion wrote: Best Achievements: Grrr Most bm: NoHope First protoss fan: Idra Favourite clown: MisterZZZ Strongest foreigner: Incontrol Cookie time: Cloud Best nickname: Testie False modesty champion and waffle award: Mondragon Top mentally challenged player: GosI[Terran] Abuser forever: Yosh BBQ sauce: Dreiven Kimbo award: HovZ Best haircut: Elky #1 BGH player: Surfer4life Oblivion medal: Dino Australian starcraft player: Legionnaire Best storm drops and arbiter play: Nony isnt GosI[Terran] and MisterZZZ and YOSh playing SC2? | ||
XsebT
Denmark2980 Posts
On December 17 2010 09:16 Boblion wrote: Best Achievements: Grrr Most bm: NoHope First protoss fan: Idra Favourite clown: MisterZZZ Strongest foreigner: Incontrol Cookie time: Cloud Best nickname: Testie False modesty champion and waffle award: Mondragon Top mentally challenged player: GosI[Terran] Abuser forever: Yosh BBQ sauce: Dreiven Kimbo award: HovZ Best haircut: Elky #1 BGH player: Surfer4life Oblivion medal: Dino Australian starcraft player: Legionnaire Best storm drops and arbiter play: Nony Haha, I thoroughly enjoyed that list. Just felt like linking this: http://ising.pl/nagranie/3isqrrmgf3 LEAVE MISTRZZZ ALONE! | ||
Kyhol
Canada2574 Posts
Terran - Yosh Zerg - Mondragon | ||
Kyhol
Canada2574 Posts
On December 17 2010 09:16 Boblion wrote: Best Achievements: Grrr Most bm: NoHope First protoss fan: Idra Favourite clown: MisterZZZ Strongest foreigner: Incontrol Cookie time: Cloud Best nickname: Testie False modesty champion and waffle award: Mondragon Top mentally challenged player: GosI[Terran] Abuser forever: Yosh BBQ sauce: Dreiven Kimbo award: HovZ Best haircut: Elky #1 BGH player: Surfer4life Oblivion medal: Dino Australian starcraft player: Legionnaire Best storm drops and arbiter play: Nony Abuser Forever: Yosh? Yosh was better than all of those Terran players that everyone assumed to be good. He was the best Terran in USA. Years of the highest skilled play in NA and now he's known as a "Abuser". I find it rather disgusting, really. It was two games and both games were played straight up. That just disturbs me. I was informed. Yosh was more of an abuser than I thought. | ||
Shana
Indonesia1814 Posts
T - IdrA Z - Mondragon | ||
EliteReplay
Dominican Republic913 Posts
On December 17 2010 12:45 Khol wrote: Abuser Forever: Yosh? Yosh was better than all of those Terran players that everyone assumed to be good. He was the best Terran in USA. Years of the highest skilled play in NA and now he's known as a "Abuser". I find it rather disgusting, really. It was two games and both games were played straight up. That just disturbs me. but what he won? any tournament? | ||
Guybrush
Spain4744 Posts
My list for Top30 Alltime nonkoreans 1. Grrrr(P,R) - OSL(Hanaro), Blizzard world championship, WCG03 3rd, Best 99,00,01,02,03 2. Elky(T) - OSL(Sky2002) 4th, WCG01 2nd, ECG04, Best 01,02,03,04 3. Slayer(R) - KBK00, Best 99,00,01,02 4. Sven(T,R) - Best 99,00,01,02 5. Maynard(T,R) - Best 98,99,00, Nickname "God" among the best players 6. SaFT(P,R) - WGT season2(old french WGT), Best 01,02 7. Blackman(Z) - WCG02 3rd, Best 02,03,04,05 8. PJ(P,R) - WCG07 2nd, MYM tour, Best 03,04,05,06,07,08,09, Chinese tournaments 9. Androide(T) - WCG05 2nd, Best 03,04,05,06,07 10. Mondragon(Z) - WCG07 3rd, WGT season9, ECG05, GGL2, EuroCup, TLT1 2nd, TSL2 2nd, Best 03,04,05,06,07,08,09 11. Lx(P) - PGL08, Best 05,06,07,08,09 12. Draco(P) - PGL07, TANL3, Best 03,04,05,06,07,08 13. Sen(Z) - Best 05,06,07,09, ToT Tour 14. Advokate(T) - TLT2, SomE tour, Best 04,05,06,07,08,09 15. ret(Z,T) - TANL1, WGT season3, Best 03,05,08,09 16. Fisheye(P) - WCG03 2nd, Best 02,03,04,05,06 17. Smuft(P) - TLT1, Best 01,02,03 18. Yosh(T) - Best 01,02,05,07,09 19. Asmodey(R,P) - PGC2, OSL participant(Sky2001), Best 00,01,02 20. Testie(R) - Best(hacked before 03) 03,04,05,06, PlayIT, Ace 21. Super(T) - Best 05,06,08,09, Chinese tournaments 22. F91(Z) - Best 05,06,07,08,09, Chinese tournaments 23. Iefnaij(P) - Stamina, TSL1, Best 07,08,09 24. Nazgul(P) - PGC3 , OCL participant, Best 01,02,03 25. Legionnaire(P) - PL-Allkill, Courage, WCG05 3rd, Best 03,04,05 26. White-ra(P) - Best 06,07,08,09 27. Froz(T) - Best 01,02,03,04 28. Assem(T) - GGL1, Best 03,04,05 29. NTT(T) - WCG00 3rd Best 99,00,01 30. NonY(P) - Spirit, TSL2 Best 07,08,09 31. IdrA(T) - Valor, ESWC Best 09 I've followed the scene pretty much from the start and this is more or less the 31 of the best players in their respective primes. I've included some of their achievements that I remember. I didnt really think about taking Idra since his reign was so short, but he was very dominant in the end. Top 5 are oldschool players who were among the best in the world in their prime - not just the best foreigners. With the exception of Elky they also excelled with every race and were randoming in several tournaments. Grrrr and Elkys achievements in progaming speak for themselves(1st and 4th in OSLs respectively). Slayers KBK victory also stands out, but Maynard and Sven do not have the same accomplishments and because of this I'll enlighten you abit about these great players. Maynard was considered the best player before Grrrr started dominating and went by the nickname "God" among the best players on the Kali server (the alternative to playing on B.net back then with better latency). In terms of achievements Maynard didnt do too much but he introduced a gameplay with strong focus on economy and overwhelming the opponent with sheer numbers rather than trying to outcontrol him. For example the term "Maynarding" is still used today as a synonym for worker transfer. The textbook example of this was done in the battlereport (there werent replays back then) between Maynard and Grrrr in the USA vs Canada tournament back in summer 1999 covered by gamegurus.net. Maynard(6) was playing zerg against Grrrrs(9) protoss on Lost Temple. Maynard opened conservatively with a 12 hatch in his main (zealot rushes were extremely popular back then) and teched to 2 hatch hydra, harassing Grrrrs expand constantly with hydradancing using only small guerilla groups rather than his whole army to negate storm-efficiency. While he was doing this Maynard consumed the map with a low saturation of workers on every expand, continously transfering most of them to new expands as soon as he expanded to them. He did this because the efficiency of the workers are higher the lower saturation you have. Of course this means you need more expands than you would normally have to get the same income, but your army would be bigger because you would need less workers (than with a normal high worker saturation) to maintain an equal economy. He won the game after about 25-30 minutes with pure hydras, and because his saturation was so low I remember his 3rd expand going dry before his natural. He strongly influenced Grrrr and Grrrr himself has in several interviews said that he considered Maynard better than him even after going to Korea. Maynard was also living as a progamer in Korea for a short time. Slayer and Sven are considered some of the most talented players to ever play the game and were practicing with many of the best progamers in their era - H.O.T, Yellow, V-Gundam, Oddysay, KimWanChul, IntoTheRain, Love30.D.O.M, TheMarine, Foru, and so forth. They were also practice partners with Garimto when he was preparing for his match against Boxer in the Sky2002 OSL (Garimto was a also a part of the GG# team). Sven was even telling him which strategy he should use, and indeed Garimto went ahead and used it. There are parallels to draw from the Maynard-Grrrr combo to Sven-Slayer. Like Maynard, Sven had warcraft2 experience and was a dominating player in the early stages of Starcraft. Furthermore, as Maynard influenced Grrrr, Sven formed Slayer from very early stages; sensing his potential, recruiting him to the aBs team (which consisted of the best norwegian players) and practicing with him in person exchanging thoughts and strategies - though Sven was most often the creative one. Like Grrrr won OSL - Slayer won KBK which is an incredible achievement. I'd actually consider KBK a bigger achievement because absolutely any player in the world could play in it and you would be flown to Korea to play in the playoffs - a 256 player single elimination tournament (BO3s in the semi and final). Just as Maynard, Sven didnt have any major achievements and also had short stints were he wasnt playing competitvely, but when he became strongly active again in 2001/2002 he was one of few players (and most likely the only terran) capable of beating SaFT in a BO5 (in the final of the scandinavian allstartour in 2002) and dominated several known korean progamers in online tournaments and practice games. Known for his deadly micro in BW he transitioned his skills into the newly released warcraft3 and played competitively on the highest level before losing interest after a few months. Back to the rest of the top 10: In terms of absolute skill Id put PJ, Lx, Sen, Draco, ret, Idra and Nony high, and in terms of longevity theres little doubt that PJ wins that. Mondragon, Advokate, Draco and Fisheye are also notable ones. In particular Yosh and also ret could have probably been close to them if they didnt take long breaks from playing. Some of the rest of my choices for top 10 are certainly arguable and I will give some reasoning for picking SaFT, Blackman and Androide. PJ and Mondragon are there mostly for their longevity and I wont write about them - they're understandably quite known by everyone due to their recent activity. My reason for having SaFT so high was that in his prime he would beat Boxer several times who was the best player in the world at that time. He also dominated the WGTour ladder with like 90-8 in stats. Dont believe me ? Check this link http://web.archive.org/web/20020405173616/sc.wgtour.com/ladder/profile_player.php?id=4904 (it takes a while before it loads). He was extremely consistent and quite possibly the best PvTer in the world in 2001/2002 including progamers. His PvP wasnt lagging far behind and his PvZ had 40 minute slugfests against the best zerg in korea then - ChoJJa. Blackman is so high because his heavy macro oriented style pioneered Zerg in his prime. He was also one of few zerg players being fast enough to manage Zerg on island maps - where most other zergs would complain about imbalance. You would have tons of players copying him in 2003, and the wgtour ladder was flooded with zerg players after his 3rd place at WCG in 2002. Tomson (a quite famous polish player) switched from playing terran, copied Blackmans 1hatch,2hatch,3hatch8patrol9patrol0patrol hotkey system and became very successful in later years, reaching the final in the scandalous WDTour which progamer Oversky won with maphack. Blackman didnt qualify for the WCG again before in 2005 (Poland had an incredible amount of good players 2003-2005, only Sweden in 2001 is comparable) and still managed to show good play albeit not as dominant as before because his early game was average. Androide is so high because his 2nd place at WCG in 2005 came at a point where progamers were rapidly surpassing foreigners skillwise, and when he knocked out Silent_Control in a dominanting style right after Control had beaten Xellos in a BO3 it looked very much like a foreigner could win WCG. Foru was very lucky to win that tournament losing to Slash and Blackman (who utterly crushed him) in the groups, and then barely squeezing out 2-1 vs Sen and then 2-1 vs Storm (chinese zerg). Unfortunatly his best matchup was PvT and he ended up beating Androide fairly easy in the final. Since that PJ was the only foreigner entering the final in WCG but very few had faith in him as he was up against Stork in Stork in what was Storks ace MU. Androide thus represented the last realistic hope that a foreigner could win WCG. PJ and LX have killed most korean progamers in tournaments in modern times(post 2005, covered in my blog) but they've also played in more tournaments containing progamers. Damn. Didnt intend for this post to become this big. Anyways that's my thoughts on this subject. | ||
dRaW
Canada5744 Posts
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