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Its an hour before  San's round of 8 match against  sC, and its got me thinking about his reputation. Tastosis has repeatedly called him one of the worst players in code S or A, as well as things like "the guy who cant get past the 8 minute mark", but are now humbly eating their words. However, they have been treating his performance this season as some kind of Incredible Miracle(pardon the pun), that he has improved immensely. I have always enjoyed his play and felt even before this season he deserved more respect, so here i will go back and examine how he earned this reputation.
Season 1: Top 16 finish
Unfortunately this is the only season i did not purchase the season ticket so i cant really comment on these games.
RO64: Defeats TorcH 2-1
RO32: Defeats  Maru 2-0
RO16: Loses to InCa 0-2
TorcH and Maru are obviously not considered top players, if i recall correctly InCa was considered One of the top protosses in Korea. So a decent enough showing, nothing special.
Season 2: Top 32 finish
RO64: Defeats Hyperdub 2-1
Defeats a 2 port banshee allin fairly easily in game 1.
very impressive hold of another 1 base banshee allin in, followed by a 2 base timing attack which looked like it might have been successful and in fact San dropped a manner Nexus only to have a few banshees clean up his army, leaving San to wish he dropped that nexus at a 3rd somewhere.
Game 3, holds a proxy rax allin, defends for 10 minutes including some quick feedbacks on 2 full medivacs and proceeds to push through the middle of Scrap Station for an easy victory.
At this point San's play has looked fairly solid. Heavy emphasis on scouting, solid allin defense. His urgency to win off 2 bases is a bit of a red flag, however at this time that was a common knock against most top Korean players. Tastosis seems quite impressed with him and it looks like his reputation is at its peak.
RO32: Loses to Check 0-2
game 1 is the infamous forge expand into blocking his own expansion. An embarrassing blunder, costs him the game, but not reallu a huge indicator of skill. I remember falling out of my chair when zerglings ran into Jinros main on Jungle Basin, but these things happen from time to time.
game 2 is another forge expand; Check roach allins and due to San making the mistake of having his 3 cannons and stargate all on 1 pylon, has all his buildings unpowered and he GG's. He is then roasted by tastosis for having a stupid strat, however if he plays safe and gets a 2nd pylon out there he easily holds the roach rush and wins the game.
Either way, silly mistakes cost him both games and it is fair that his reputation suffers a significant blow.
Season 3: Eliminated in prelims by Kyrix.
Season 4: This is where i truly felt bad for San, and it seems his reputation as a jobber was cemented, unfairly IMO.
Game 1: InCa sends one of his first probes on Metalopolis gets to San's base first, gets it into his smoke and proxys a forge and gateway. really nothing anyone can do against this, a pretty filthy cheese that would not work if InCa found him 3rd and probably not if he found him 2nd.
Game 2: a PvP versus defending champion MC, a daunting task for anyone. San opens void ray, MC opens with blink stalkers. The result is quite predictable.
San reputation sinks even lower, and he is expected to be dispatched into code A with the rest of the "snarfs".
Up/Down Match: Defeats LegalMind 2-1
3 games, 6 4 gates, fairly uneventful.
Notable Artosis quotes: "The loser of this goes to code A, and theres a good chance will drop out of code A."
"Heres a sentence,  Tasteless, i never thought that i would ever say: SanZenith, goes on to Code S!"
and of course: "If SanZenith makes it out of this group i will swallow a sword."
Here is the point where despite winning, my favorite Korean player's respect-o-meter was pointed at empty. But i feel he was as much a victim of bad luck and bad seeding as he was his own mistakes. I'm not going to claim i was picking him to win a championship, but i feel Artosis and others were underestimating him immensely, and i'm just glad to finally see his true skill show through this season, and Artosis has been forced to eat his words(and a swirly sword - we're all waiting Dan).
Im sure i sound like a fanboy... ive just always been a fan of a good underdog story. And seeing this guy getting cheesed time and time again has made me a huge fan. Hearing his comments that he is not a pro-gamer, just a dude who loves to play SC2 and wants to just take one more shot before joining the army has caused me to root for him even more and its been a ton of fun to watch his incredible run this season.
San fighting!!!
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I know im new here and not sure if this is the right place. Sorry if this is the wrong area, just wanted to show a little love for my boy San!
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San has for sure proven himself this season. Really unexpected but fun to see players just rise from the ashes like that.
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yea, i always loved this guy's style. i didn't know about the negative press from the talking heads but he always entertained and inspired me. SAN fighting.
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san really showing that he deserved his spot in code S unlike many other players from this season
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Nice to see some true fans out there. Can really sense that you're a huge fan of the guy! Not like most fans who are bandwagoners.
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I agree with you, largely. The games against Inca in GSL 1 were some of the best of the season.
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I kinda agree, Tastetosis has a habit of really bashing some players. In this case they got it wrong and atleast they openly admit it.
I didn't think thaqt much of San, thought he was ok with some dumb losses but that all changed during this GSL. If he ever decides to join a team after militairy he could become very strong 
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Respect to OP for realizing potential when he saw it. I don't watch the non-big names closely enough to see things with as much clarity as you have obviously.
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Why make the thread now though? Why not make it back when you thought he was underrated darkhorse?
The problem is that blunders just stand out to most people, and give Tastosis something or someone to make fun of. Especially when you block your own Nexus with a pylon, it is hard not to laugh and call him a jabber.
Just think If MVP did what he did this season vs July in the first GSL open, everyone would of made fun of him too even though he is one of the top players on the ladder and in Korea. He would of been called a jabber, and next season Tastosis probably would of had to eat their words too. This is what happens when there are BO3, tons of tiny mistakes can actually be game changing and make you look like crap even if you are one of the best.
Anyway, I don't think everyone thought he was horrible, just that San was the underdog out of all the people who are in Code S. I think he has a good shot getting into the finals, and hopes he doesn't pylon block himself ever again.
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Well, no one qualifies for the 3 Open GSLs without having some skill. He had some shaky moments in the booth, but he has always been alright and severely underestimated. The "self manner cannon" against Check was pretty funny though. Against MC he opens with VR but then moves his stalkers out (a big mistake). However, those glaring mistakes, while it cost him games, are not too difficult to fix.
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great thing about competition is that results speak volumes more than words. So despite what the commentators may say about you, if you have what it takes, the world will see.
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"If SanZenith makes it out of this group i will swallow a sword."
so ... how bout that Tasteless? ... lol
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Oh yeah, hes a fucking gun. I think anyone who blocks their own nexus with a cannon or makes some of the other mindless mistakes has to be suffering from stage fright or Neurological 3rd party interference of some sort.
I know his original plan was just to ride out the remaining time he had left, make the best of it, and go do his 2 years in the service. Now I am wondering with the recent success is he going to as for a continuance of the service which would be interesting to see if he has plateaued or if he can continue to grow.
It is just hard to root for any of the remaining protoss because we all know MC is going to the finals and if I have to sit through a PvP in the finals I'm going to blow my head off.
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So lets see.. you admit season one was unremarkable (in the players beaten).
Then there was the win over hyperdub. Decent, not great imo. You on the other hand seem to have drawn a lot of conclusions from one bo3. Then there's the Check games.
"Either way, silly mistakes cost him both games and it is fair that his reputation suffers a significant blow." Your words. Add a "as it should" to the end of that and we're fine.
No season 3, season4 quick exit. Then legalmind. "3 games, 6 4 gates, fairly uneventful."
So before this season he clearly did nothing to earn respect? My issue is the word "finally" in your title. Seems so misplaced. Like he's been doing well for a year but just hasn't gotten any respect. In fact he's only been doing really well lately. And he's been getting respect lately. What's this thread about again?:\
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This thread is about how much shit he was getting for being a trash player when he was merely mediocre 
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On March 10 2011 17:54 kOre wrote:
"If SanZenith makes it out of this group i will swallow a sword."
so ... how bout that Tasteless? ... lol
Twas Artosis :p
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San still doesn't get a bit of respect from me. HongUn and Anypro are the same. All these guys either cheesed their way to victories and/or looked funny against semi-competent or better players. And they all made to ro8 code s this season for god knows what reason. Actually, for that same reason, most of the semi-competent or below players (MC, July and maybe Nada are out ofc) are in ro8. And they played good games actually. I don't know what the hell is going on in here.
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On March 10 2011 18:25 Djagulingu wrote:
San still doesn't get a bit of respect from me. HongUn and Anypro are the same. All these guys either cheesed their way to victories and/or looked funny against semi-competent or better players. And they all made to ro8 code s this season for god knows what reason. Actually, for that same reason, most of the semi-competent or below players (MC, July and maybe Nada are out ofc) are in ro8. And they played good games actually. I don't know what the hell is going on in here.
Did you even watch his games against Nestea and Check? San beat them convincingly in straight up macro games, not through cheese. If straight up macro games aren't indicators of skill, then I don't don't know what is.
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im personally not impressed with San at all, his accomplishments are undeniable in GSL, but his play doesnt look particulary good or clean
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EPT
