FINALS
A Statistical Review
With the recent excitement of the tournament league finale among the loyal Broodwar fans, I’ve taken liberty to compile some numerical data on the history of the OSL and MSL finals. The data I used is all available on TLPD and Liquipedia. I’ve made no analysis on them; I just chewed up, digested, and crapped out some statistics and player achievements as far as the finals go. Both leagues were considered; I have also included Progamer Korea Open and the KPGA Tours.
There isn’t much of actual content in this thread, unfortunately. I also do not know how to display tables and I even failed at lining up data in columns, since multiple spaces don’t register; so I just posted images. Please bear with the ugliness. Any mistakes you see or suggestions you may have, I will be glad if you bring them up. I intend to update, modify, and expand this page in the future… seeing as we have Bigfile being nice to us BW fans. Unless, of course, this thread gets closed.
Enjoy.
.............................................................General Results.............................................................
Table 1: Number of final appearances by race. Number of first and second place finishes by race.
Table 2: Win percentages in the finals by race in the 3 match-ups.
Table 3: Number of mirror matches by race.
Table 4: Number of finals by match results.
Table 5: Terran winner. Match results by match-up.
Table 6: Zerg winner. Match results by match-up.
Table 7: Protoss winner. Match results by match-up.
Match results we have never seen in the finals yet:
T (3:0) T
T (3:1) T
Z (3:0) T
Z (3:2) P
P (3:1) Z
P (3:0) P
Match results we have seen in the finals too many times:
T (3:0) Z
T (3:2) Z
Z (3:1) P
........................................................Player Specific Results........................................................
Table 8: Finals appearance and place by players. [ordered by appearance>wins>alphabetical]
Graph 1: Chronology of final appearances by players. [only players with 4 or more appearances shown]
Table(s) 9: Final match results by players. [only players with 4 or more appearances shown]
Notable Players in the Finals
If you have been following Starcraft since its dawn, then you have seen Nada competing in individual league finals all too many times. Participating in an unbelievable 10 final matches over his career, and winning 6 of them, Nada has solidified his position as a Starcraft legend.
Nada and Boxer also hold the record for the amount of time passing between their first final appearances (June 22nd, 2002 and May 5th, 2001 respectively) and last final appearances (February 24th, 2007 and November 5th, 2005 respectively). Nada extended his individual league domination over 4 years and 8 months, while Boxer displayed individual league prowess over a period of 4 years and 6 months. Note: this does not include their participation in the leagues before or after those points – just the final appearances are considered.
iloveoov has never lost in an OSL/MSL final. As the creator of numerous terran opening builds, the strategic genius and macro monster has always come out on top out of the 5 finals he participated in. This player wins the tournament not when his opponent types in ‘gg’ for the third time that night – but when iloveoov qualifies for the finals.
Yellow has never won in an OSL/MSL final. Although Yellow was the zerg player at the time, he never managed to pull it together out of the 5 attempts at gold he has made, earning him the nickname ‘King of Silver’. So if you ever find yourself qualifying for an individual league final and Yellow is your opponent – kick back, relax, visit Thailand; Yellow will likely roll over for you on the night of the finals.
Everyone by now knows this; Flash has appeared in an unbelievable 6 individual league finals in a row (both MSL and OSL thrice), winning 4 of them. Such a feat has never been accomplished – and he will likely extend his dominance in this regard in the near future.
Flash and Jaedong hold the record for the fiercest rivalry in all of Broodwar. These players have played each other in the finals of OSL/MSL 4 times.
Edit 30/5/2010 - Updated MSL inconsistency