Power Rank 04/14/2012 - Page 2

On April 15 2012 05:58 MountainDewJunkie wrote:
CH was statistically the best zerg this season, and did great during the playoffs as well. He should be ranked. I love Horang2, but why is he even ranked?

Also, disappointed that you've fallen into the, "sure, I'm ranking him this high by name alone, but look at what he did yesterday!" hole that so many PR writers have before. I thought this was a good opportunity to point out that Flash is probably the (second) best player overall, but that he is still human, and give him a more fitting rank for just this one month. But losing to M18M, Dear, and then twice in the PL finals is only detrimental enough to knock him down to #2. Pretty unbelievable, really. Just because you admit what your doing in the PR doesn't mean your excused your choices. What good is a PR where you punish/reward certain players for their record, as you should (Bisu, Hoejja, Stork), but defend certain players because of your personal performance in spite of ACTUAL performance (Flash, Horang2)?

Please re-examine your definition of what a PR should be. Should the PR be a ranking of the best players today, the best players overall, or a ranking of the best-performing players this last month? Be consistent, with whatever you choose, but avoid the fandom.

On April 15 2012 07:03 Monsen wrote:
No objections to the placements here, but when you put someone at #2, you probably shouldn't call him "the best player in the world".

On April 15 2012 07:06 VGhost wrote:


Horang2 surprised me a little, and I think replacing him with CH makes more sense in this case... but I'm not sure what you're getting at. Every single one of Flash's losses have been either in one matchup (TvP) or to fantasy (once). He's the near-undisputed best player in the world - let's say fantasy may have had a better ranking period, but would you take him over Flash in a Bo5? Maybe - I'd give him probably a 35-40% chance to win right now - but that's fine: fantasy is #1 this month.

Who would you put above Flash? Stork? Close - a clear #3 - not seeing it, especially after their last game. Bisu? Sure, Bisu won one game over Flash (on a heavily Protoss-favored map, with cheese), but he lost in the OSL prelims to RorO. (One of the other players who beat Flash? - yeah, no. M18M is a PvT specialist and barely plays; Dear ditto although he plays regularly; neither is a threat to upset in the OSL, let alone win the thing.) Any other ranked players? Jaedong's been inconsistent; Soulkey has an uninspiring record; Leta or Stats are clearly not in the discussion.

Basically what I'm saying is, if you want to take Flash lower than #2, you have to offer a convincing argument that he's worse than #2 - which is difficult, as you could still make a reasonable argument for him as #1, bad day vs SKT and TvP issues notwithstanding.

You have more of a case with Horang2, but I think he's getting the credit for beating Flash. Even once. Sure, like I said above, CH makes more sense to me overall, but Horang2 is reasonable: he's had a good season, made the OSL, and took a game off Flash in playoffs. It's hardly unjustifiable.

On April 15 2012 06:40 fezvez wrote:
I am an idiot, so I can't find the link to the actual PR... Can someone help me?

On April 15 2012 07:03 Monsen wrote:
No objections to the placements here, but when you put someone at #2, you probably shouldn't call him "the best player in the world".

On April 15 2012 11:04 Mortality wrote:


@MountainDewJunkie uhm what? PR has been pretty consistent, at least with regards to each writer. Different writers have slightly different takes on how the ranking should look, but that's to be expected.

Everything VGhost said about Flash needs to be heard. If a tournament of all progamers in the world happened tomorrow who is the most likely player to walk out on top? If not Flash then Fantasy and nobody else comes close. Every player is going to have bumps on the road and every player is going to have lucky streaks. Power Rank weeds that out by looking at the quality of the performances and the variables in play.

Horang2 you can argue. From a results perspective, of course Crazy-Hydra was better and so was Soo for that matter (because a hydra bust still counts as a W, even when that's all you can do :p), but from a game play perspective I give the edge to Horang2. Crazy-Hydra looks solid, but his highs aren't as high and he hasn't been forced to play as prominent a role on his team. Horang2 was handed a significantly bigger responsibility. That kind of intangible must be taken into account.







Fantasy has done enough to challenge Flash's spot as #1 in the world, but he hasn't done enough to prove that Flash isn't #1 in the world. So I'm okay with it.

On April 15 2012 18:55 rslee wrote:


I think what MountainDewJunkie is getting at lies with his last statement. To be honest, from when I started reading PR which was about 1 year ago, I always thought was strictly related to how players performed in the last month or months that the current PR is representing. Obviously Flash is the best player in the world right now but I were someone who just started watching broodwar starting at the 3rd round, with absolutely no knowledge of progamers beforehand, I wouldn't be able to guess that Flash was THE undisputed best player with no one that comes to close.

Before that, yes it was obvious to see. But a 5-5 record doesn't show that. Maybe I misunderstood what Power Rank meant because I honestly disagreed with this one a little bit because I THOUGHT it was strictly based on information from the months that it represents. In other words, if I JUST opened my eyes to pro-BW a month ago.

And to clear up, I'm not bashing flamewheel or downplaying his PR write-up in anyway. I'm thinking it's me who has to come into a PR with a different mindset.

On April 15 2012 11:04 Mortality wrote:



Fantasy has done enough to challenge Flash's spot as #1 in the world, but he hasn't done enough to prove that Flash isn't #1 in the world. So I'm okay with it.

On April 16 2012 01:06 Monsen wrote:


So you're saying they're both #1?
Maybe it's just semantics here, but isn't there supposed to be only one "best" player?

Now, I'm not trying to stir up pointless shit, especially before flamewheel has a chance to reply, but as far as I understand it, the Powerrank is about who is the strongest (i.e. powerful) player right now. And while it's supposed to reflect on the players "power" at the present, it is most certainly informed by performance over a longer period of time (that's why we have to wait for soooo long at times <3 ).
In conclusion, if Flash is still the worlds "best" (most powerful) player he should be at #1.

Maybe it's just flamewheels way of saying that the two "F"s are so close that it doesn't really matter and both could be considered "best".

On April 16 2012 03:15 Mortality wrote:


No, I'm not saying they are both #1, I am saying that "best in the world" is indeterminable, which is different. .

On April 16 2012 17:00 Monsen wrote:


"Flash is still the best player in the world." Seems pretty determined to me. Thus my confusion about wording vs placement.

On April 17 2012 01:30 Mortality wrote:


I think you're pulling hairs.