EPTstephano is a fluke and he cannot play in code A at his current skill level.
only people that practice in korea can play in GSL
he is there now so he will improve but don't expect anything great from him for awhile. he still has to prove he can handle the korean schedule. he came out with something new and unexpected and won a tournament for it. good for him but he is not a world class (read: gsl caliber) player. GSL players are a tier above everyone else and no one can play w/ the GSL crowd consistently without living in korea.
I thought HuK would get knocked out of GSL a long time ago but I do think he will soon be eliminated and that he will be the last foreigner to ever play successfully in the GSL. I don't think we will ever again see a non korean national in code S. Or anyone that can consistently play on their level. If we do it will be certainly be a player living in korea.
Alomst no one living outside of Korea can, has, or ever will be able to play against Korean players consistently.
Idra was at one time capable of playing in code S but does not have the mental fortitude for tournament starcraft. nothing against the guy.
Very few people on earth are capable of playing games for a living. this includes SC, poker, chess and of course real sports. it takes a warrior mentality that most people just don't have regardless of talent. They can't handle the stress of having to win to eat and I don't blame them.
Idra is one of very very few foreigners with the speed to play at the GSL level but trained in korea for so long it is hard to even call him a "foreigner" anymore. It's not a blood DNA thing that makes koreans so much better. It is cultural, that is why I barely count Idra as a foreigner.
naniwa is not a gsl caliber player and never will be. he is a fluke as are all foreigners.
The foreigners are incredibly bad. All of them are bad. Not as pathetic as we were in BW but foreigners cannot play Starcraft against Koreans and that's just all there is to it really. Most of the foreign "pros" shouldn't even call themselves that as they make no money. There is very little money in starcraft in general and 90% of people calling themselves "pros" are making less than minimum wage aka they are not pro at anything. I don't know how these terrible foreigners make any money. They are basically professional internet celebrities.
Players like Idra and iNcontroL have more in common with Athene than MVP.
Nothing against them, I'm not calling them comedians, I'm just saying they are video game entertainers and not really hardcore tournament players making a living off of tournament winnings. They get by on their well-earned celebrity. Idra was a world class player and iNcontroL is a great personality and they both have in their own way done a lot for the community. But it bothers me when they are put in the same category of "pro starcraft player" as the code S guys.
Code S players are pro in the sense that they make a living from placing high in Starcraft tournaments. Foreigners are pro in the sense that they are professional at playing starcraft. Not professional at winning in starcraft.
also forGG is currently the most talented sc2 player and will soon be the best unless another current BW pro moves over.
Former BW pros are one thing but the current ProLeague is a lot harder than when Boxer, Nada, and July played in it no offense to these great legendary players. if they would have played in the current ProLeague they probably would have risen to the occasion and been the best but we don't know that for a fact. You can only be as good as your opponents will help you train to be. They are immensely talented but are not practicing nearly as hard as they used to. Point is even at their best they were not as good as the current ProLeaguers.
People that didn't follow BW I think don't understand just how fast these players are/were. Watching forGG stream lately has been a real treat, I haven't seen speed like this in a long time. I'm just watching him cycle hotkeys and I remembered all of a sudden what real lightning style tournament starcraft is supposed to look like. None of the current SC2 players are playing this incredibly fast physical style of SC that dominates in the BW proleague today. Not trying to bring back up that obnoxious elephant in the room article but it was right, these players in sc2 are not that fast. MMA I think is the only sc2 player I've seen show the intense speed of a BW player.
tournament starcraft is 90% pure speed. it is not really a strategy game and has a lot more to do with street fighter and quake than chess and poker. the strategy is pretty simple and revolves almost entirely around the first few minutes dealing with different all in builds. also certain base trading scenarios require tough decision making. there is almost no strategy at all in a standard macro game, it is even more a pure speed game. the BW pros are incredibly fast and if/when they switch over they will show all of the remaining "tricky" (not pure apm) players what real tournament style starcraft looks like.
Thanks for reading my rant bye.
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