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On October 04 2015 17:02 pure.Wasted wrote:
If INno wins this finals, there's a strong case that he is the most influential player of HOTS.
On October 04 2015 17:04 stuchiu wrote:
for various reasons, it wouldnt be Inno, it would be Life, Zest or soO.
On October 04 2015 17:07 pure.Wasted wrote:
For various reasons, the only one of those who I'd accept as a contender for INno's title would be Life. I'll gladly argue all about this when I'm not so distracted.
edit: added Maru.
And here we are. With Blizzcon encroaching as the final premier tournament in SC2 HotS, I wanted to figure out who the greatest Heart of the Swarm player really is. I worked with stuchiu's list. The only player possibly missing from it is Taeja, but seeing as I hold overseas tournaments in significantly lower esteem, I don't feel too bad about being lazy and cutting him out.
Let's start with the TANGIBLES.
INnoVation
Individual Leagues
- 2013 - WCS KR champion, ro4 defeat in OSL by eventual champion Maru, Code S finalist and near-winner against the most impressive Zerg of that meta. Knocked out of GSL s3 by eventual runner-up soO.
- 2014 - Code S champion against the most impressive Zerg of that meta.
- 2015 - Code S champion against the most impressive Zerg of that meta.
- He is the only HotS player to win two GSL or equivalent trophies, one of two Terrans to win a GSL or equivalent in Heart of the Swarm, and owns 3/4 GSL or equivalent Terran appearances.
- He attended 3 GSL finals and 4 KR finals total, of which he won 3.
- One overseas championship. One premier title away from a HotS Triple Crown (3rd place finish in NA).
Teamleagues
- 2013 - dominating performance for STX.
- 2014 - dominating performance for Acer in foreign leagues.
- 2015 - dominating performance for SKT. He was successfully fielded as playoffs ace vs JAGW where he defeated two opponents, and has an overall 70.83% winrate with 17/24 games won since the start of 2015, and 73.08% with 38/52 since the start of HotS.
Life
Individual Leagues
- (Late) 2014 - knocked out of GSL ro4 by eventual runner-up soO; Blizzcon champion.
- (Early) 2015 - Code S champion against the most impressive PvZer available. Knocked out of SSL ro4 by eventual runner-up Dream who has very impressive TvZ.
- He attended 1 GSL finals and 2 KR finals total (counting Blizzcon), of which he won 2.
- He is one of two unique Zerg GSL champions of HotS, one of 4 unique Zerg GSL finalists, and one of 7 Zerg finalists total.
- Four overseas championships. One premier title away from a HotS Triple Crown (runner-up finish in Europe).
Teamleagues
- 52% winrate with 22/42 games won since late 2014.
Zest
Individual Leagues
- 2014 - Code S champion against soO in soO's worst MU. Won GSL Global Championship against PartinG. Won KeSPA Cup against herO in herO's worst MU. Knocked out of GSL s3 ro4 by eventual runner-up soO in soO's worst MU. Knocked out of Hot6ix Cup ro4 by eventual runner-up MKP.
- 2015 - knocked out of GSL s3 ro8 by eventual champion INnoVation.
- He attended 1 GSL finals and 3 KR finals total, of which he won 3.
- He is of 4 unique Protoss GSL winners, 5 unique Protoss GSL finalists, and 5 Protoss GSL finalists total, in HotS.
- One overseas championship. One premier title away from a HotS Triple Crown (runner-up finish in Europe).
Teamleagues
- 60.76% (48/79) from start of HotS.
- 2014 - ultra-dominating performance for KT, especially against rivals SKT.
- 2015 - he was successfully sent out as playoffs ace vs JAGW, defeating two opponents.
soO
Individual Leagues
- 2013 - Code S finalist against Dear.
- 2014 - Code S finalist against Zest, very narrowly losing, during a Protoss-heavy meta with ZvP being soO's worst MU. Knocked out of GSL Global Championship Ro4 by Zest, same conditions as before. Code S finalist against INnoVation.
- He attended 4 GSL finals, 5 KR finals in total, of which he won 0.
- He is the only HotS player to attend 4 GSL finals, and the only one to attend three or four finals back-to-back. Not one of the 2 unique Zerg GSL winners of the HotS era; one of 4 unique Zerg GSL finalists, and 7 Zerg finalists total in HotS.
- 0 overseas championships, not close to Triple Crown.
Teamleagues
- 56% with 51/91 since start of HOTS, 63.34% with 35/55 since early 2014.
- He was sent out successfully as ace vs Maru in playoffs.
Maru
Individual Leagues
- 2013 - knocked out of ro32 by getting matched against Soulkey twice, Soulkey of course ended up going on to win the season. OSL champion against Rain. Knocked out of ro4 Code S by Dear, who went on to win the season.
- 2014 - knocked out of ro4 by Classic, who went on to win the season.
- 2015 - knocked out of Code S ro8 by Rain, who went on to win the season. Knocked out of Code S ro4 by INnoVation, who went on to win the season. Won Starleague s1.
- He is one of two Terrans to win a GSL or equivalent in Heart of the Swarm, and owns 1/4 GSL or equivalent Terran appearances.
- He attended 1 GSL finals and 2 KR finals total, of which he won 2.
- 0 overseas championships, not close to Triple Crown.
Teamleagues
-62.11% with 59/95 games won since start of Proleague. Sent out as ace vs. CJ in Playoffs, unsuccessfully.
GSL or OSL Finals
INno - 3/9
Life - 1/9
Zest - 1/9
soO - 4/9
Maru - 1/9
GSL or OSL Championships
INno - 2/9
Life - 1/9
Zest - 1/9
soO - 0/9
Maru - 1/9
Unique KR Tournaments Won
INno - 2
Life - 2
Zest - 3
soO - 1
Maru - 2
GSL Appearances
INno - 8/9
Life - 7/9
Zest - 4/9
soO - 8/9
Maru - 9/9
GSL or OSL Average Result (all results combined/number of Code S appearances)
INno - 8
Life - 15.2
Zest - 5.25
soO - 13
GSL or OSL "Consistency Rating" - Average Result adjusted for consistency over HotS ([all results combined/number of Code S appearances + 64 x number of non-appearances]/total number of HotS GSLs)
INno - 14.2
Life - 26.1
Zest - 36.7
soO - 19.1
Maru - 10.3
Overseas Championships
INno - 1
Life - 4
Zest - 1
soO - 0
Maru - 0
Triple Crown
INno - 2/3
Life - 2/3
Zest - 2/3
soO - 1/3
Maru - 1/3
Heart of the Swarm Earnings
INno - $242,000
Life - $287,000
Zest - $207,000
soO - $100,000
Maru - $136,000
Looking at individual and team accomplishments, on paper, it seems conclusive that soO is not in the running at all. He's dead last in most categories, except GSL finals appearances, GSL appearances, GSL average results adjusted for consistency, and his Proleague record, which is I guess superior to Life's, for whatever little that's worth.
The other four are more difficult to gauge. INno has been a consistent powerhouse over the longest stretch of HotS, while Life only picked up serious steam halfway through the expansion, and Zest's reign is confined almost squarely to 2014. Zest's reign in PvP and PvZ was by far the most dominant of any of these players (the runner-up being INnoVation's TvZ up until 2013 S3) and he racked up wins in every KR event imaginable in that stretch of time. Life was by far the most successful overseas, and this is reflected by his earnings. Despite being in Proleague for approximately the same amount of time, INnoVation has made a very clear mark for SKT, while Life has... not... done... that. Maru has won fewer titles than any of the others, but has by far the most impressive GSL consistency, even surpassing INnoVation. Maru might not have won a single overseas event, but he also didn't miss a single Code S or OSL.
As you can see, I devised my own formula for calculating the "GSL Consistency Rating." If a player did not get into a season of Code S at all, they're placed in a fictitious "ro64" for that season. This formula is actually very generous to Zest, because if we look into the time he spent outside of Code S, he fell well below whatever ro64 might reasonably mean. TANGTANG, anyone? Despite this, Zest is dead-as-a-doornail last in terms of consistency.
Life takes a surprisingly convincing second last in terms of consistent GSL results, right after Zest. He missed a bunch of tournaments flat out; of those that he didn't miss, his results simply weren't on par with Maru, soO, and INnoVation.
In terms of tangible, quantifiable factors, I think that INnoVation comes out clearly, head-and-shoulders ahead throughout HotS, with Zest, Life, and Maru vying for second place. Zest had the hugest peak, Maru was by far the most consistent, and Life had the most success overseas.
Now for the INTANGIBLES.
I'm about to do a pitiful job of speaking on behalf of Life, Zest, and soO here, so I'd appreciate some input. This is what I have.
Unique GSL Finalists
Terran - 1
Zerg - 4
Protoss - 5
GSL Finalists Total
Terran - 3
Zerg - 7
Protoss - 5
Unique KR Finalists
Terran - 5
Zerg - 6
Protoss - 7
KR Finalists Total
Terran - 10
Zerg - 15
Protoss - 17
There's no way around the fact that Protoss has utterly dominated HotS, especially late 2013/early 2014. When we scale back from Korea as a whole and look just at GSL, it's not just Protoss that's dominant, but also specifically Terran that's underperforming. So let's say coming into this, INnoVation/Maru and Zest were on totally equal footing... you have to give INnoVation/Maru the edge based on what they had to go through to get the same results. But as we've just established, they're not coming in on equal footing at all. The discrepancy grows.
Zerg floats somewhere in the ambiguous middle.
INnoVation - pioneered and perfected parade push bio Terran, which absolutely defined and dominated TvZ throughout most of Heart of the Swarm. Pioneered the nefarious Hellbat style of TvT in early 2013. Reinvented himself and beat the best anti-Mech Zerg (ByuL) with Mech.
Life - his Zerglings have a way about them... a certain je ne sais quoi... uh... yeah.
Zest - invented macro PvP and the notion that you could consistently win the MU through skill instead of rushing DTs.
soO - best Zerg macro in the world, I think? Uh... I'm drowning here, fellas.
When you think Protoss in Korean HotS, you think Zest, Rain, herO, PartinG... maybe even Classic. When you think Zerg, you think Life, soO, ByuL. But when you think Terran, it's just two players. INnoVation and Maru. That's iconicity you can't buy.
The intangibles are a sorely incomplete picture, but I feel that Life, Zest, and Maru have some very serious catching up to do to stay in contention with INnoVation. soO's Kongular legacy clearly won't cut it.
edit: if there are any errors in my stats, I take 0% of the blame, and hold liquipedia and aligulac jointly responsible. As awesome as they are, they offer some very incomplete, and sometimes even contradictory, information, and it's entirely possible that I missed a result here or there. :C I hope I didn't!
 
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On October 06 2015 17:39 Pandemona wrote:
Don't think you can say he pioneered x or y when you don't know anything about Korean ladder. He might have been first player to use it offline in tournament x but you can never be sure.
For example the hellbat crap was beta based, as they were op every terran used hellbat drops in TvT in beta for example.
Totally agreed. I think there's a difference between inventing something and pioneering it, though. He might not have been the first, but he was both one of the very first and one of the very best. There's something to be said for executing something at peak efficiency right out of the gate.
Also why Maru not in any stats  Terran - Maru > Inno > the rest Zerg - Life > soO > ByuL > Dark > the rest Protoss - Zest > Rain > PartinG > the rest Is my HOTS rankings. Still good stats read :D ty
Maru doesn't get stats, but he does get a special mention at the end. <3
INno is my favorite player with Maru a close second. Maru is, IMHO, the most talented SC2 player. His accomplishments in HotS can't be overstated (OK maybe you did a tiny bit  ). But there's still something missing. He's not a champion yet. He's got all the makings for it, he's won extremely prestigious events or come incredibly, agonizingly close, but I really believe that mentally, he doesn't yet see himself as a champion. I think that he doesn't take the game seriously enough to define himself in that way. I feel like his wins and losses both just bounce right off him, leaving only the raw talent.
But that's just some armchair psychology. To answer your original question, before I looked into all the stats, I would have said that he's just not there yet in terms of results. He got hit unfairly hard by the WCS point system and now we'll never know what might have been. Now that I've done the stats, I feel like he could very well give soO a run for his money. At a guess, Maru would have an even better GSL consistency rating than INno, and he's racked up two GSL equivalent championships, which soO never did.
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Arguments, stats, bla bla bla ... Innovation is simply the face of HoTS. The main reason is probably the great timing of his better periods - right at the start and right at the end (with some pretty good times in the middle that are not that important). It also actually helps him that he did not play Sc2 during most of WoL, that's another reason why he is so linked with HoTS as opposed to Maru and Life who both are old-time greats. However details are not that important, I would guess that if you would ask a "random fan" (that is not someone who routinely makes GOAT tables, rankings, point scores and what not) who would they think of first to characterise the HoTS period, Innovation would simply be the most frequent answer.
He also has another big advantage and that is his race - Terran is just the deepest most intricate and developed race that allows you to showcase so many different skills. It's a race made to create a legacy. Yeah, it's not that easy (as shown by the fact that there were really just two strongly relevant Terrans over the last three years), but when taken to the very top, it's the strongest choice.
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HOTS GOAT
Terran: INno Honorable Mentions: Polt, TaeJa Dream
Zerg: Life Honorable Mentions: soO ByuL Soulkey
Protoss: sOs Honorable Mentions: PartinG, Rain, Zest
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Always like to read these articles whether or not I agree with the conclusions 
I do think Inno is the greater of HotS but not because of stats or earnings (everyone weight those differently) but just because I feel it haha. Also what opisska said.
Finally what you ans stuchiu seem to talk about in the quotes is about the most influential player, but here you are analyzing the greatest one. This two things can yield very different results I think.
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INno, greatest of HotS? Don't make me laugh. Whenever his race - or even playstyle, if we're talking about 2013 - became terribly unfavored, he fell to the ground while one other player of his race managed to stay high. And if Bogus is no greater than Maru, how can he be the greatest of HotS?
He will maybe be the face of HotS, especially if he fails in LotV. But that's another thing.
edit : also, if you don't think "Classic" when thinking "Protoss" and "Dream" and "TaeJa" when thinking "Terran", while you think "ByuL" for Zerg or "PartinG" for Protoss, you should really rethink things. I mean, Classic is a dual StarLeague champion, Dream a dual StarLeague finalist.
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On October 07 2015 00:38 OtherWorld wrote:
INno, greatest of HotS? Don't make me laugh. Whenever his race - or even playstyle, if we're talking about 2013 - became terribly unfavored, he fell to the ground while one other player of his race managed to stay high. And if Bogus is no greater than Maru, how can he be the greatest of HotS?
He will maybe be the face of HotS, especially if he fails in LotV. But that's another thing.
edit : also, if you don't think "Classic" when thinking "Protoss" and "Dream" and "TaeJa" when thinking "Terran", while you think "ByuL" for Zerg or "PartinG" for Protoss, you should really rethink things. I mean, Classic is a dual StarLeague champion, Dream a dual StarLeague finalist.
Classic is dual SL but sOs is dual 100k + Hot6= triple crown
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On October 07 2015 02:02 Cricketer12 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2015 00:38 OtherWorld wrote:
INno, greatest of HotS? Don't make me laugh. Whenever his race - or even playstyle, if we're talking about 2013 - became terribly unfavored, he fell to the ground while one other player of his race managed to stay high. And if Bogus is no greater than Maru, how can he be the greatest of HotS?
He will maybe be the face of HotS, especially if he fails in LotV. But that's another thing.
edit : also, if you don't think "Classic" when thinking "Protoss" and "Dream" and "TaeJa" when thinking "Terran", while you think "ByuL" for Zerg or "PartinG" for Protoss, you should really rethink things. I mean, Classic is a dual StarLeague champion, Dream a dual StarLeague finalist. Classic is dual SL but sOs is dual 100k + Hot6= triple crown
Well yeah but he put sOs in his list didn't he? >.>
edit : haha wait no he didn't, well you're right it's another name that should have been there
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
when sos wins blizzcon he will be the 100k goat
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Fiddler's Green42661 Posts
I just use basic reasoning from this: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/482944-the-process-of-creating-the-top-15-greatest-list
Won't be as indepth as I don't have the time or inclination right now.
A fwe problems here. soO, Life and Zest did as much or more than what Inno did for Terran in innovation.
Next is that the list ignores both Maru and Taeja, both of whom have as good as or better claims to be a better Terran than Innovation in HotS.
Innovation was only dominant for the first 5 months of HotS. After that he only had two months where he was a Top 3 player (at the end of 2014 and at the end of 2015)
Life was dominant for 5 months and a month at the beginning of HotS (so Inno favored here), but Life's peak was better than Inno's.
Zest was dominant for an year. So was soO. They both beat Inno in peak dominance and consistency.
Maru and Taeja have been top 3 (Maru for 1 year from OSL to mid 2014 and then again for the first half of 2015, Taeja for 1.75 years straight till Blizzcon 2014). They both beat Inno in terms of consistent peak performance.
Also bluntly, you state that we should count down Zest as HotS was Protoss dominant. All of Innovation's wins come from a Terran dominated meta(Beginning of HotS, the Thor buff/WM rebuff and the creation of mech now). If you discount that against Zest, you must discount that against Inno.
So yea, I dont see how Inno could ever be the best HotS player.
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On October 07 2015 02:25 stuchiu wrote:I just use basic reasoning from this: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/482944-the-process-of-creating-the-top-15-greatest-listWon't be as indepth as I don't have the time or inclination right now. A fwe problems here. soO, Life and Zest did as much or more than what Inno did for Terran in innovation. Next is that the list ignores both Maru and Taeja, both of whom have as good as or better claims to be a better Terran than Innovation in HotS. Innovation was only dominant for the first 5 months of HotS. After that he only had two months where he was a Top 3 player (at the end of 2014 and at the end of 2015) Life was dominant for 5 months and a month at the beginning of HotS (so Inno favored here), but Life's peak was better than Inno's. Zest was dominant for an year. So was soO. They both beat Inno in peak dominance and consistency. Maru and Taeja have been top 3 (Maru for 1 year from OSL to mid 2014 and then again for the first half of 2015, Taeja for 1.75 years straight till Blizzcon 2014). They both beat Inno in terms of consistent peak performance. Also bluntly, you state that we should count down Zest as HotS was Protoss dominant. All of Innovation's wins come from a Terran dominated meta(Beginning of HotS, the Thor buff/WM rebuff and the creation of mech now). If you discount that against Zest, you must discount that against Inno. So yea, I dont see how Inno could ever be the best HotS player.
I'm guessing you ignore sOs cause he just shatters everyone in terms of everything
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Fiddler's Green42661 Posts
To be honest, there are a lot of people you have to consider for a list like this.
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On October 07 2015 02:25 stuchiu wrote:
Next is that the list ignores both Maru and Taeja, both of whom have as good as or better claims to be a better Terran than Innovation in HotS.
Neither Taeja nor Maru ever made it to the finals of the most prestigious tournament in the world, the GSL Code S, never mind winning it. How can that not count as a huge blow against them?
It's one thing to look at tennis and say "Federer is the greatest player in the world except when he plays Nadal," it's another to look at SC2 and say "Taeja is the best player in the world except any time he plays anybody at all in GSL... or SSL... or Blizzcon... basically, he's only the best player in the world at Dreamhack, when the other Koreans are all jet-lagged and were playing Proleague the night before."
Taeja's success comes entirely from overseas tournaments. We all know that a foreign premier is not the same as a Korean premier, but what's the metric? Is one KR event worth 1.5 foreign ones? 2? 3? There's just no way to objectively compare Taeja's stats to the other players.
Imagine we took an NFL QB and put him back in college football, then looked at his stats after his team had won the season. Did his team win because he's the best QB on planet Earth, or because he's a very big fish in a very small pond? If he never goes back to the big leagues, we'll never know. Taeja did go back, and he failed miserably.
Zest was dominant for an year. So was soO. They both beat Inno in peak dominance and consistency.
How can you say that Zest beat INno for consistency when INno made 7 out of 8 possible GSLs and Zest only made 4? Zest's peak lasted longer, sure, but both before and after his peak, he barely existed at all as an entity in Korean individual leagues. Whereas INno's relevance was only ever questionable during 1 out of the 3 seasons of Protoss dominance, the one time he didn't make it out of Code A.
Also bluntly, you state that we should count down Zest as HotS was Protoss dominant. All of Innovation's wins come from a Terran dominated meta(Beginning of HotS, the Thor buff/WM rebuff and the creation of mech now). If you discount that against Zest, you must discount that against Inno.
You're really going to put early 2014 on the same level of imbalance as early 2013 and say that INno and Zest deserve the same points "docked off"?
2013 GSL s1 - 7 Protoss, 11 Terrans, 14 Zerg - TvZ finals (INno vs Soulkey)
2013 OSL s2 - 11 Protoss, 10 Terrans, 9 Zerg - TvP finals (Maru vs Rain)
2013 WCS Korea Finals - 3 Protoss, 5 Terrans, 8 Zerg - TvP (INno vs sOs)
2013 WCS Korea Finals s2 - 7 Protoss, 7 Terran, 2 Zerg - TvZ (Bomber vs Jaedong)
For a grand total of - 29% Protoss, 34% Terran, 36% Zerg.
This is called Terran "dominance"? More Zerg than Terrans in premier KR events? There was not a single tournament in which there were more Terrans than any other race. The most you can say is that Terran never distinctly underperformed. The gap between Zerg and Protoss performance is 7%. Some might actually call these numbers roughly balanced.
Now let's look at Blink era.
2014 GSL s1 - 16 Protoss, 3 Terrans, 13 Zerg - PvZ finals (Zest vs soO)
2014 GSL s2 - 14 Protoss, 4 Terrans, 14 Zerg - PvZ finals (Classic vs soO)
2014 GSL Global Championship - 5 Protoss, 5 Terran, 6 Zerg - PvP finals (Zest vs PartinG)
2014 GSL s3 - 16 Protoss, 7 Terrans, 9 Zerg - TvZ finals (INnoVation vs soO) (This is not carryover numbers from s2; 13 Protoss qualified from Code A, 6 Terrans, and 5 Zerg)
For a grand total of - 46% Protoss, 17% Terran, 38% Zerg.
Do I need to explain how these numbers differ from those numbers? Two tournaments with more Protoss than any other race. PvP finals. There's no fluctuation here - in 3/4 tournaments, Terran is absurdly worse represented than Protoss, and in 2/4 tournaments, absurdly worse represented than Zerg, as well. The gap between Protoss and Terran performance is 29%.
Now you say Terran is favored again, in the present meta?
2014 GSL s3 - 12 Protoss, 11 Terran, 9 Zerg in Ro32. 7 Protoss, 5 Terran, 4 Zerg in Ro16 (-42% P, -55% T, -44% Z). 3 Protoss, 3 Terran, 2 Zerg in Ro8 (-67% P, -40% T, -50% Z). 1 Protoss, 2 Terran, 1 Zerg in Ro4. TvZ finals.
And again, we look at the numbers and we see a roughly even split... that actually favors Protoss through qualifiers, Ro32, and Ro16, favors Zerg over Terran in Ro16, and only begins to favor Terran once we get into the very low single digit results. Again, numbers that should be interpreted as "roughly balanced" are somehow supposed to be proof that Terran is dominant.
KeSPA Cup s2 - 4 Protoss, 5 Terran, 7 Zerg in Ro16. ZvZ finals.
Combine all of this with the fact that only a single Terran ever made it to a GSL Code S finals in HotS, while 5 different Protoss and 4 different Zerg accomplished this remarkable feat. I honestly don't understand where you could possibly be coming from to suggest that over the long haul of HotS the balance more or less evened out.
Now...
This isn't to say that Zest's accomplishments are meaningless. People still give MVP all the props in the world despite the power of Terran in early WOL (I wasn't around back then, so I have no real opinion about MVP). It's up to us to decide how to weigh the balance and the metas against or for the players' achievements. What I see is that of the four players listed here, INnoVation was the only one to be a consistent championship contender anytime the game approached a 30/30/30 split in Korea during Heart of the Swarm.
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For me INnoVation and Life are the only ones in contention for HotS GOAT and I'm leaning slightly on INnoVation as he has the best chance of winning BlizzCon. Life has been consistent for the most parts of HotS and when he started dominating he looked unbeatable. The SH patch hit him very hard and he couldn't adapt to the new meta. I still think if anyone can beat INno, its Life.
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I dont watch much TvP so I dont know how good INnoVation's TvP is. Can he beat the likes of herO, Rain, sOs?
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Fiddler's Green42661 Posts
Yes, HotS in the beginning was Terran favored. Hellbat drops, MMMM (which was nerfed) for 6 months. Protoss was imbalanced for the blink era (which lasted from depending who you ask anywhere from end of 2013 to haflway of 2014). Inno's GSL 2014 run was off the back of the thor buff/WM rebuff and that Protoss/Zerg didnt have time to adapt. This season, Innovation's run was generally unaffected by mech being stronger than Zerg until the finals (where it could be said that he would have won anyway because ByuL is a Kong).
I'm not talking about overall HotS balance, but their specific careers and where their achivements were placed.
Also Innovation has never had Taeja's success in the international bracket. He won GSL, then got beat by Tajea three times at DH, WCS Season 2 Finals and Blizzcon.
Basically I just use this reasoning here: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/482944-the-process-of-creating-the-top-15-greatest-list
I don't think we'll agree on this as our criteria are too different.
As for the other guy, Inno can beat all of those Protoss players, especially Zest.
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On October 07 2015 05:49 stuchiu wrote:
Yes, HotS in the beginning was Terran favored. Hellbat drops, MMMM (which was nerfed) for 6 months. Protoss was imbalanced for the blink era (which lasted from depending who you ask anywhere from end of 2013 to haflway of 2014). Inno's GSL 2014 run was off the back of the thor buff/WM rebuff and that Protoss/Zerg didnt have time to adapt. This season, Innovation's run was generally unaffected by mech being stronger than Zerg until the finals (where it could be said that he would have won anyway because ByuL is a Kong).
I can't help being confused as to why when Terran is disfavored, the numbers tell the entire story as clear as can possibly be, but when Terran is favored, the numbers lie through their Arabic little numeral teeth and show us a balanced racial split.
The only way I see for you to be right is that I've somehow been cherry-picking my stats to suit my preconceptions, but I don't... think... that... I've done that? Literally the only thing I can find that points to Terran being favored in 2013, statistically, is that one Terran was present at all four finals. But at that point, we're talking about individuals and handfuls of games. That's an infinitesimal sample size to draw balance conclusions from. I think that racial progression from Code A to Code S ro34 to ro16 is a starkly more informative ratio.
Even if we agree that this is meaningful, on what basis do you then decree it more meaningful than Zerg being more represented at every KR event in that era? They weren't being seeded into these events, they were qualifying. I could see how this implies that Protoss was disfavored, but not that Terran was favored.
Also Innovation has never had Taeja's success in the international bracket. He won GSL, then got beat by Tajea three times at DH, WCS Season 2 Finals and Blizzcon.
Two points:
1.) You're welcome to hold the international bracket in such high esteem, and that will certainly skew your conclusions in a different direction than mine. To me, foreign tournaments are not quite meaningless, but on the way there. They heavily disfavor Korean Koreans because of the travel involved, their busy teamleague schedule, and the fact that they just don't care about them that much compared to GSL/Proleague.
2.) Head-to-head isn't really that important. Federer is considered the best tennis player in the world, but he can't beat Nadal to save his life. And Taeja vs INno at Blizzcon was a very dubious match fraught with technical difficulty after technical difficulty, so I don't know how much stock I put into the result.
I've read this before. I absolutely agree with you about context being paramount. e.g. in the OP, I count Blizzcon as a KR event because 1) it's full of Koreans, and 2) they obviously do care about doing well there.
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A couple questions: why is the focus exclusively on the GSL? Why not factor in the OSL and the SSL? I honestly don't see that much difference between them, but maybe there's something I'm missing. Also, why no $O$?
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On October 07 2015 11:26 feanaro wrote:
A couple questions: why is the focus exclusively on the GSL? Why not factor in the OSL and the SSL? I honestly don't see that much difference between them, but maybe there's something I'm missing.
Not exclusive - you'll find stats in the OP for both how many KR finals any player attended, total, and how many unique KR events they won. Also the racial stats take every KR event into account.
But I do focus on the GSL, mostly for psychological reasons. That's the most prestigious tournament. It stands to reason that players will feel more pressure to perform there than in any other league, and will do everything in their power to bring their A game. Consequently, I feel that makes the GSL results the most meaningful. To illustrate crudely: if we took all Koreans, put guns to their heads, and said "win or die," who would win? Probably those who won GSL.
I think in the future the SSL may become as important. It just needs time to build some tradition.
Let me know if you find this a compelling rationale or not. 
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EPT
