The majors of professional Brood War tournaments are often regarded as follows:
Ongamenet StarLeague MBC Game StarLeague
These two tournaments pretty much always had the highest participation rates from the professionals around at the time, as well as being one of the most watched on television, having top end prize pools, and being recognized by KeSPA as some of the most prestigious individual leagues.
Some of the greatest Brood War players of all-time are often judged by their major performances, with NaDa and Flash winning six of them each, and iloveoov and Jaedong winning five each. sAviOr's greatest legacy, aside from his zerg-versus-terran meta-game revolution, is his accumulation of four major individual tournament triumphs over the course of his career.
Unfortunately, some of the older generation of greats, BoxeR in particular, are somewhat hard done by with this particular metric, since his peak years precedes the creation of the MBC Game StarLeague in 2002 (when it went by the name of KPGA Tournaments).
However, the history of competitive Brood War goes beyond the major individual tournaments, and there were numerous tournaments, some of which had its own qualification rounds, television channels dedicated to them, and overall prize pools that sometimes rivaled the likes provided by the much more prestigious Ongamenet StarLeague.
I will attempt to rank players by their non-major tournament careers, with the inclusion criteria for the tournaments being any offline individual tournaments that had double-digit number of registered professionals participating. Further more, if the details of the tournaments are totally unavailable, I will sadly have to exclude those tournaments because there are no ways for me to verify that over ten professionals competed in that tournament.
The reason for the threshold of the tournament requiring at least ten registered professionals competing in it was because there were too many invitationals in history that were mostly non-competitive in nature and had more of a showmatch feel to it.
I will not include tournaments such as Sonic StarLeague or AfreecaTV StarLeague since these tournaments were created after the end of professional Brood War, when the vast majority of ex-professionals had moved on to other fields.
So without further ado, here are the players who had great success in non-major tournaments that had over ten professionals participating in it, ranked by the sum total cumulative number of the professional participation of all their non-major triumphs.
All these players had triple digit number of professionals participating in their successful non-major triumphs.
1. Jaedong
Champion of 2007 Seoul International e-Sports Festival: 194 professionals participating Champion of GomTV Classic S1: 147 professionals participating Champion of WCG 2008 Korea: 24 professionals participating Champion of WCG 2010 Korea: 24 professionals participating
Sum total of participating professionals from all triumphs: 389
Comments: Jaedong benefits greatly from winning two colossal tournaments in terms of scale, namely the 2007 Seoul International e-Sports Festival, and GomTV Classic S1, both of which had over 140 professionals participating in it. He is also the only two-time champion of WCG Korea, which was changed into an invitational-sort tournament for top ranked KeSPA players at the time (as opposed to the past when it was more of an open tournament).
2. YellOw
Champion of PSBmegapass Cyber Game Grand Prix: 17 professionals participating Champion of 1st GameBugs Battle: 16 professionals participating Champion of 2001 iTV Newcomers: 12 professionals participating Champion of WCG 2002 Korea: 67 professionals participating Champion of 2002-2003 KTEC KPGA Winners Championship: 10 professionals participating Champion of GhemTV FindAll Challenger Open Starleague: 72 professionals participating (qualification stage included) Champion of 5th iTV Ranking League: 99 professionals particpating (qualification stage included)
Sum total of participating professionals from all the triumphs: 293
Comments: YellOw's moniker was the "King of Special Events" for a good reason. YellOw was sickeningly prolific in small scale invitationals and less prestigious open tournaments with qualification stages that later died out due to financial struggles. Korean communities said that it was easy to distinguish which tournaments were major tournaments, and which were non-major tournaments, because YellOw would come second in all the major tournaments, and win all the non-major tournaments, often versus the very same opponents who denied him the ultimate glory in those major tournaments.
3. H.O.T-Forever
Champion of 1st Game-Q World Championship: 16 professionals participating Champion of 2001 KPGA September Tournament: 56 professionals participating Champion of 2nd GhemTV StarLeague: 82 professionals participating Champion of WCG 2003 Korea: 98 (perhaps inaccurate) professionals participating
Sum total of participating professionals from all the triumphs: 252
Comments: H.O.T-Forever was an old school zerg player whose entire tournament career precedes detailed written records on databases such as TLPD. For example, from the word of mouth, it seemed that for SBS Progamer Korea Open King of Kings, for example, there were literally hundreds of professional gamers who participated, but none of the records of it remain. However, H.O.T-Forever was the greatest zerg player from Korea before YellOw had his ascension to the top of the ladder, and had numerous tournament success in his time, although the vast majority of his success isn't celebrated to this date.
4. NaDa
Champion of 3rd iTV Ranking League: 35 professionals participating (qualification stage included) Champion of 4th iTV Ranking League: 67 professionals participating (qualification stage included) Champion of 3rd GhemTV StarLeague: 100 professionals participating (qualification stage included) Champion of KT-KTF 2003-2004 Premier League: 20 professionals participating Champion of Shinhan Masters: 11 professionals participating (Pre-Masters included)
Sum total of participating professionals from all the triumphs: 233
Comments: NaDa has won almost everything there is to win during his time as a professional, but interestingly enough, never had much luck in WCG Korea, which resulted in arguably the most accomplished professional Brood War player of all-time failing to qualify for any of the WCG main stages.
5. Bisu
Champion of GomTV Classic S2: 176 professionals participating Champion of WCG 2009 Korea: 24 professionals participating
Sum total of participating professionals from all the triumphs: 200
Comments: Bisu was not only the most decorated protoss player in the major individual leagues, he also happened to have great success outside of it, his greatest non-major triumph being GomTV Classic S2, which was the largest in scale out of all the GomTV Classics (in terms of player participation, because teams like SK Telecom T1 didn't allow their players to compete in the other GomTV Classics).
6. July
Champion of 7th iTV Ranking League: 105 professionals participating (qualification stage included) Champion of KT-KTF 2004-2005 Premier League: 51 professionals participating (qualification stage included)
Sum total of participating professionals from all the triumphs: 156
Comments: July, during the earliest stages of his career was monstrous in any tournaments he happened to enter, and won two fairly large scale tournaments, both of which had an open qualification of sorts.
7. Flash
Champion of GomTV Invitational: 16 professionals participating Champion of GomTV Classic S3: 123 professionals participating
Sum total of participating professionals from all triumphs: 139
Comments: Flash competed in an era when all the non-major tournaments were starting to fade away, with basically only WCG Korea and GomTV Classics being the main sources of non-major tournament glory. While Flash never had much success in WCG Korea, outside of his second place finish in 2010, he was incredibly successful in tournaments hosted by GomTV.
8. XellOs
Champion of 1st PgR21.com Tournament: 16 professionals participating Champion of WCG 2005 Korea: 101 professionals participating
Sum total of participating professionals from all the triumphs: 117
Comments: XellOs was a beastly terran gamer whose legacy is somewhat hard done by if you limit the frame to major tournaments only. XellOs was one of the few players to represent Korea multiple times in WCG main stages, and won what was probably (if my calculations are correct) the most stacked WCG qualification rounds all time.
9. BoxeR
Champion of ZZGame.com Invitational: 29 professionals participating Champion of 3rd Game-Q StarLeague: 16 professionals participating Champion of WCG Korea 2001: 66 professionals participating
Sum total of participating professionals from all the triumphs: 111
Comments: BoxeR's records in tournaments from 1999 to 2000 are not well recorded, but his stellar tournament performances in 2001 are well documented. During his peak year of 2001, BoxeR was winning a large share of the large tournaments he entered, raking in prize money like no other player of that era.
10. TheMarine
Champion of 2000 Kamex e-Sports Championship: 34 professionals participating Champion of 2001 iTV All-Star 8 Exhibition: 10 professionals participating Champion of 2001 KBK Jeju International Game Festival: 64 professionals participating
Sum total of participating professionals from all the triumphs: 108
Comments: TheMarine was an old school terran player whose past tournament record, especially ones hosted by KBK, are not fully chronicled. However, he wasn't the 2nd ranked KeSPA player for 10 consecutive months without a good reason. TheMarine was a decorated rival of BoxeR's, who tended to excel in short offline tournaments held over a couple of days, instead of the more extensive televised leagues that was filmed over a couple of months. He was supremely gifted in terms of sound orthodox play, but struggled to replicate his short tournament form for televised matches.
Closing Thoughts
While it is extremely difficult to accurately assess the competitive results of various players in non-major tournaments, I thought that one way to measure it would be the cumulative player participation count, instead of ranking it by prize money earned, since prize pool varied greatly depending on the era, and because hyped up one-versus-one showmatches like SuperFight, or GomTV Classic Special Match often had superior prize pools to actually competitive tournaments with greater number of high calibre players.
This ranking would partly explain why old school players such as H.O.T-Forever and TheMarine are viewed in such high regard, despite not having the greatest accolades in major individual leagues. There's more to TheMarine than a player who reached two semi-finals within the major individual leagues, but his entire career narrative isn't captured by major individual leagues alone. For the more modern day players, the ProLeague provided another platform to prove a player's competitive worth, but TheMarine played in an era where his merit could be proved elsewhere, but many people tend to only recognize his major tournament performances.
There has been a lot of tournaments that happened after the professional scene had been extinguished, but I thought it would be best to separate the results from these two scenes (professional and streaming scene), since there are obviously confounding factors, such as the timing of the retirement from Starcraft 2 heavily influencing the number of tournaments a player could attend for the streaming era of Brood War.
This ranking also contains a pretty comprehensive list of all the non-major tournaments that had heavy participation from most of the professional players. There weren't a lot of non-major tournaments that had triple digit numbers of professional gamers participating throughout all of history. 3rd GhemTV StarLeague, 7th iTV Ranking League, WCG 2005 Korea, Seoul e-Sports Festival, and all three GomTV Classics were the rare exceptions that had a large enough scale to include over 100 registered professionals competing within it.
One question though. These are tournaments that these progamers placed first in, right? Should second and third place in these respective tournaments also count as minor success? Placing in the top four should be considered pretty good, right?
On August 10 2018 16:09 29 fps wrote: Great write up as always.
One question though. These are tournaments that these progamers placed first in, right? Should second and third place in these respective tournaments also count as minor success? Placing in the top four should be considered pretty good, right?
When it comes to weighing the various placements within a well remembered tournament, there are references to make to prevent everything becoming personal judgement calls. For example, the prize pool distribution of Ongamenet StarLeagues are very well documented, as well as the amount of KeSPA ranking points that were awarded for every round a player progressed. These work as useful metrics of how various placements were regarded at the time.
However, with these non-major tournaments, the exact prize pool distribution, and how many points (if any) KeSPA rewarded for various placements, are essentially unknown for the vast majority of the cases. Since there are hardly any points of reference, it often becomes the case that I personally have to come up with value systems for various results from scratch if I want to quantify various placements from various tournaments each with their own unique set of circumstances that prevented them from being seen as a major tournament.
This is a far from a perfect list, but it is a list that takes into account an objective metric (number of professionals participating for a tournament that was won by a certain player) that is relatively free from personal bias. I personally would love to take into account all the various placements, but then the list basically becomes a subjective opinion on my part on how much each tournament performance was worth in the grand scope of things. How much points should I hand over to July for placing 4th in GomTV Classic S3? Is it worth more than Stork placing 2nd in WCG 2009 Korea that very same year? Neither tournaments were recognized as official tournaments by KeSPA, so should they count for less than GoRush coming 2nd in KT-KTF 2004/2005 Premier League because KeSPA allocated ranking points for that? It essentially becomes a judgement call with barely any points of reference.
It is a problem that needs a lot more time and thought on my part to solve.
gives credit for non 1st place finishes, and probably gives a decent measure of how much these tournaments 'mattered' to the players
the Korean fan version of BW history (MSL-OSL only) is deeply flawed, and I think prize money actually provides a decent measure of the importance for certain tournaments (minus WCG anyway)
On August 10 2018 16:09 29 fps wrote: Great write up as always.
One question though. These are tournaments that these progamers placed first in, right? Should second and third place in these respective tournaments also count as minor success? Placing in the top four should be considered pretty good, right?
When it comes to weighing the various placements within a well remembered tournament, there are references to make to prevent everything becoming personal judgement calls. For example, the prize pool distribution of Ongamenet StarLeagues are very well documented, as well as the amount of KeSPA ranking points that were awarded for every round a player progressed. These work as useful metrics of how various placements were regarded at the time.
However, with these non-major tournaments, the exact prize pool distribution, and how many points (if any) KeSPA rewarded for various placements, are essentially unknown for the vast majority of the cases. Since there are hardly any points of reference, it often becomes the case that I personally have to come up with value systems for various results from scratch if I want to quantify various placements from various tournaments each with their own unique set of circumstances that prevented them from being seen as a major tournament.
This is a far from a perfect list, but it is a list that takes into account an objective metric (number of professionals participating for a tournament that was won by a certain player) that is relatively free from personal bias. I personally would love to take into account all the various placements, but then the list basically becomes a subjective opinion on my part on how much each tournament performance was worth in the grand scope of things. How much points should I hand over to July for placing 4th in GomTV Classic S3? Is it worth more than Stork placing 2nd in WCG 2009 Korea that very same year? Neither tournaments were recognized as official tournaments by KeSPA, so should they count for less than GoRush coming 2nd in KT-KTF 2004/2005 Premier League because KeSPA allocated ranking points for that? It essentially becomes a judgement call with barely any points of reference.
It is a problem that needs a lot more time and thought on my part to solve.
On August 10 2018 22:34 Waxangel wrote: why not rank by prize money won :O?
gives credit for non 1st place finishes, and probably gives a decent measure of how much these tournaments 'mattered' to the players
the Korean fan version of BW history (MSL-OSL only) is deeply flawed, and I think prize money actually provides a decent measure of the importance for certain tournaments (minus WCG anyway)
For a multitude of reasons.
1) The money invested within a tournament/industry does not correspond well with the overall competitiveness in my opinion
What distinguishes OGN StarLeagues and MBC Game StarLeagues from the other tournaments is not their estavagant prize pools, although they tended to be top tier. It was always the number of professionals participating competing within in it (higher participation rates compared to competing tournaments regardless of the era). Almost every year in professional Brood War had a tournament that overwhelmed the major tournaments in terms of prize pool towards the first placed player, but these prize pools didn't reflect the competitive merit of these tournaments.
Depending on some sources, BoxeR won ₩30,000,000 (compared to ₩20,000,000 won from winning the OGN StarLeague in 2000) for winning KIGL Kings of Kings, a tournament that seems to be (from the articles that covered it) a small scale invitational that invited good performers from previous KIGL tournaments. Over the course of the year, it was KIMDONGWOO that won the most number of games in tournaments hosted by KIGL, not BoxeR. Did BoxeR win the most competitive tournament in 2000? I personally don't think so, he wasn't even the best player over the course of the year within the KIGL tournaments from a purely competitive stand-point.
NaDa won ₩32,500,000 from KT-KTF 2003/2004 Premier League (compared to ₩20,000,000 won from winning the OGN StarLeague in 2004), an invitational tournament that had both the highest recorded television ratings for the finals, as well as being the most financially lucrative tournament of the time. However, the lucrative nature of this particular tournament did not reflect its competitive nature, since it excluded the hottest commodities at the time in the form of iloveoov and Nal_rA, players who were not invited at the start of the tournament due to their lack of popularity.
YellOw won ₩22,000,000 (compared to ₩20,000,000 won from winning the OGN StarLeague in 2005), for winning Snickers All Stars, an invitational comprising of eight players. I personally don't get how winning versus eight players picked mostly on their brand value makes his tournament win have more competitive merit than champions of the OGN StarLeagues, which had literally hundreds of players participating in it.
In 2006, sAviOr won ₩20,000,000 for winning against NaDa in the 3rd SuperFight, in what was essentially a glorified best-of-five showmatch. iloveoov won the same amount earlier that year for winning Shinhan 2005/2006 OGN StarLeague.
In 2009, Flash won ₩55,000,000 (compared to ₩40,000,000 won from winning the OGN StarLeague in 2009), for winning GomTV Classic S3, a tournament that had around half the participation rate from professionals due to teams such as SK Telecom T1, MBC Game HERO, HITE Sparkyz, Air Force ACE, and eSTRO pulling their players from the tournament. That means some of the very best players of 2009, including Bisu, who was the reigning champion of GomTV Classic, were missing in action.
There are so many examples of competitive tournaments that clearly lacked the competitive merit of more established tournaments like the OGN StarLeague, but had superior financial backing for a short period of time. Small scale showmatches and invitationals that mainly drew popular players for the ratings were especially cost-effective from a sheer prize pool point of view, but were not exactly in posession of the kind of competitive merit I was looking for.
2) Prize pool varies more than overall player participation over time
This is an issue that makes player comparison across different eras more troublesome, unless you adopt the mentality that more money invested in the scene equals more competition, which I hopefully showed above was not the case. While the overall participation rate varies slightly across different eras, huge tournaments always had triple digit participation numbers from professional gamers regardless of the era.
However, the same cannot be said for the prize pool, which was multitude of times lower in some eras than more lucrative eras of professional Brood War. When BoxeR won Coca-Cola OGN StarLeague in 2001, he won ₩10,000,000, despite it widely being regarded as one of the most prestigious and competitive tournaments of his time (in terms of most metrics including participation rates, viewership, overall prize pool, points given out by KeSPA rankings, heritage, and legacy). Compare that to almost any meaningless showmatches in a more profitable era of professional Brood War, and it really does reflect how much the scene changed over time. Surely BoxeR winning versus hundreds of top tier peers in late 2001, means more competitively than Jaedong winning a glorified best-of-five showmatch versus Bisu for ₩10,000,000 in early 2009.
3) It creates a bad precedent where personal financial success, instead of competitive success matters the most
The most lucrative method of milking a professional Brood War career is not the same as the path of competitive excellence. For example, Bisu was somebody who I thought was held back competitively due to his smart life decisions. Bisu joined SK Telecom T1, a team that had the greatest financial backing of any organization at the time. Instead of attempting excellence across all platforms of competition, he raked in tons of company money by performing well in the ProLeague.
For Bisu, it was smarter to all-kill Air Force ACE, and get that sweet incentive money from SK Telecom T1, than go all-out for the individual leagues, which he had no guarantee of winning even if he tried his absolute hardest. So Bisu dodged Flash most of the time SK Telecom T1 faced KT Rolster, and sent BeSt most of the time, and instead padded his ProLegue statistics stomping lesser players on maps he was comfortable on, and prioritized everything to maximize his salary from SK Telecom T1, which resulted in Bisu earning more but being competitively limited compared to the past, which resulted in Bisu failing to reach the quarter-finals of any major tournament for three consecutive years.
As a person who would divide his practice time purely from financial cost-effectiveness point of view, Bisu was bang on the money, but for me personally, his smart life decisions meant nothing to me, and wanted Bisu to have that competitive drive to be the best, instead earning the best. I'm not here to watch someone maximize their income potential from the Brood War scene, otherwise Bisu negotiating his contract with SK Telecom T1 would tickle my fancy more than his competitive matches versus the likes of Flash and Stork, which had minimal influence on his overall income potential in the grand scope of things.
I could go on, but these would be some of the reasons.
On August 10 2018 16:09 29 fps wrote: Great write up as always.
One question though. These are tournaments that these progamers placed first in, right? Should second and third place in these respective tournaments also count as minor success? Placing in the top four should be considered pretty good, right?
When it comes to weighing the various placements within a well remembered tournament, there are references to make to prevent everything becoming personal judgement calls. For example, the prize pool distribution of Ongamenet StarLeagues are very well documented, as well as the amount of KeSPA ranking points that were awarded for every round a player progressed. These work as useful metrics of how various placements were regarded at the time.
However, with these non-major tournaments, the exact prize pool distribution, and how many points (if any) KeSPA rewarded for various placements, are essentially unknown for the vast majority of the cases. Since there are hardly any points of reference, it often becomes the case that I personally have to come up with value systems for various results from scratch if I want to quantify various placements from various tournaments each with their own unique set of circumstances that prevented them from being seen as a major tournament.
This is a far from a perfect list, but it is a list that takes into account an objective metric (number of professionals participating for a tournament that was won by a certain player) that is relatively free from personal bias. I personally would love to take into account all the various placements, but then the list basically becomes a subjective opinion on my part on how much each tournament performance was worth in the grand scope of things. How much points should I hand over to July for placing 4th in GomTV Classic S3? Is it worth more than Stork placing 2nd in WCG 2009 Korea that very same year? Neither tournaments were recognized as official tournaments by KeSPA, so should they count for less than GoRush coming 2nd in KT-KTF 2004/2005 Premier League because KeSPA allocated ranking points for that? It essentially becomes a judgement call with barely any points of reference.
It is a problem that needs a lot more time and thought on my part to solve.
What about a straight up point system?
Something like 1st = 8, 2nd = 4, 3rd/4th = 2.
Maybe a similar one exists already.
Yes, the most famous example would be the KeSPA rankings, where players were given points depending on their placing on various tournaments.
However, the problem arises because the algorithm used was never fully explained or broken down, and outside of measuring the worth of well established competitive platforms like the OGN StarLeague, MBC Game StarLeague, and the ProLeague, it was essentially useless.
Flash got more KeSPA ranking points for winning a single match versus washed up Air Force ACE players for a ProLeague match than he got for winning GomTV Classic S2.
I could pretend to know how to weigh different tournaments across time, but the problem arises when I personally struggle to stay consistent in terms of measuring the competitive worth of these non-major tournaments.
For example, a tournament like the OGN StarLeague ticks all the boxes,
1) Good participation rate from the active professionals of the time. 2) Good overall prize pool, although the OGN StarLeague rarely had the actual highest prize pool available for the champion outside of 2006. 3) Appreciation from KeSPA, which meant large amounts of KeSPA ranking points for the high placements. 4) Appreciation from the fandom, which meant OGN StarLeagues often had the best viewership. 5) Ongoing legacy that dates back to 1999, and extends all the way to the very end in 2012.
It is substantially easier to rank the various OGN StarLeague placements across time in a simple manner like you suggested above. In fact, I have used such a metric (16 points for the championship, 8 points for 2nd place, 4 points for reaching the semi-finals, and so on and so forth) multiple times to rank performances within major individual leagues.
However, it becomes harder to rank non-major tournaments. I'll take GomTV Classic S3 and WCG 2009 Korea as an example of two non-major tournaments that were both concluded in August 2009. Going over the metrics one by one:
1) Participation rate
WCG 2009 Korea invited 24 of the top ranked KeSPA players at the time. GomTV Classic S3 had an open tournament available for all professionals, but several teams chose not to send their players.
A tournament like the OGN StarLeague never had a problem with scale or having key players missing. How do I weigh the value of players such as Bisu or Leta, who were missing in action from GomTV Classic S3, but were ranked high enough to get invited for WCG 2009 Korea? Are they worth five random professionals? Are they worth ten random professionals? What about decent, but not too highly ranked players like sKyHigh or herO, who participated in GomTV Classic S3 but not WCG 2009 Korea, how many of them would fill the holes created by the likes of Bisu?
2) Overall prize pool
WCG 2009 Korea (with a measly prize pool of ₩5,000,000) was basically a gateway for WCG 2009, a tournament that was much more lucrative than the qualification stage despite being much less competitive overall. In comparison GomTV Classic S3 had insane overall prize pools that rivaled the major individual leagues of the time.
3) Appreciation from KeSPA
Neither tournaments were recognized as official tournaments from KeSPA, meaning that a single win versus a washed up Air Force ACE player in a ProLeague match would reward players in terms of KeSPA ranking points than winning these tournaments.
4) Appreciation from the fans
GomTV Classic S3 didn't have a broadcasting station, while Ongament broadcasted WCG 2009 Korea. Korean communities were not as engaged with GomTV Classic S3, while the English commentary meant that non-Korean communities were much more receptive to the tournament, especially since non-Korean communities were not affected by the lack of television coverage, and were dependent on internet streaming and video releases anyhow.
5) Ongoing legacy
WCG Korea is a tournament that dates back to 2000, and took place every year until 2010, which makes it the longest lasting individual league outside of OGN StarLeague and MBC Game StarLeague. GomTV Classic took place in 2008, but was not well received by the Korean scene mainly due to bullshit political reasons, and discontinued their efforts after 2009.
As you can see, unlike the OGN StarLeague, which ticks all the boxes, both of these tournaments were lacking in some ways. I don't want to follow the KeSPA system, since it is only useful for ranking results within the OGN StarLeague, MBC Game StarLeague, and the ProLeague. I don't want to rank it by the prize pool, because prize pool rarely coincides with actual competitive merit. I don't want to rank it by the overall participation rate, but it is a metric I value over the overall prize pool. Generally speaking, if there are over one hundred players participating, it is a worthwhile tournament from a purely competitive perspective, even if the likes of Bisu and Leta were missing in action.
So I don't know how getting first in WCG 2009 Korea should be rated compared to getting first in GomTV Classic S3. Surely Bisu would find himself hard done by, as a player who eliminated Flash in both GomTV Classic S2 and WCG 2009 Korea and ended up winning both, if Flash's victory in GomTV Classic S3 was judged solely by its prize pool, and deemed to be worth eleven times more valuable than Bisu's victory for WCG 2009 Korea, simply because SK Telecom T1 chose not to send their players for GomTV Classic S3.
At the same time, I don't think GomTV Classic S3 was worth five times more competitive than WCG 2009 Korea (123 professionals to 24 professionals), but the the ratio is more acceptable to me than the disparity in the prize pool earned.
If I make everything worth the same, we would end up with situations where winning random invitationals has the same competitive worth as competitions that had hundreds of active professionals competing. That doesn't feel right to me either.
Before getting into the specifics of the various placements, it would be pertinent to come up with a value system of ranking the various tournaments into a tier system, a really bad example of which I will give below:
A-tier tournament: OGN StarLeague, MBC Game StarLeague
1st place: 16 points 2nd place 8 points Round of four: 4 points Round of eight: 2 points Round of sixteen: 1 point
B-tier tournament: Tournaments that were comparable to major tournaments in a lot of respects such as 3rd GhemTV StarLeague, and KT-KTF 2004/2005 Premier League that had all the top performing active professionals participating
1st place: 8 points 2nd place 4 points Round of four: 2 points Round of eight: 1 point
C-tier tournament: Tournaments that had decent enough merit to have many top professionals participating such as Seoul e-Sports Festival, WCG Korea, and GomTV Classics
1st place: 4 points 2nd place 2 points Round of four: 1 points
D-tier tournament: Showmatches, small scale invitationals such as Snickers All Stars, SuperFight, and GomTV Invitational
1st place: 2 points 2nd place 1 point
This is a rough tier system I came with up right now, but I don't think it is ready to be implemented. The ranking based on participation numbers alone gave an imperfect view, but it was an objective metric that was far superior to financial earnings in terms of showing overall competitive merit in my opinion. The point system based on a tier-system of tournaments would probably give a more detailed and nuanced perspective on the competitive merit of various players over the years, but it would be plagued by my personal judgement on various tournaments over the years, and I don't want to commit to such an endeavour as of yet, although I did attempt a badly executed effort in one of my past blogs. That blog is plagued with errors and biases, and I don't fully agree with its results looking back, and I'm sure I'll mess up badly if I attempt one right now as well.
By implementing a point system like you suggested, it essentially becomes about how I personally rate all the individual league results over the years, instead of suggesting an objective metric that could somewhat measure the competitive worth of all these non-major tournaments. I could try it, but I don't think I'll be happy with its quality as my subjective stance on the matter.
I try to come up with as many objective quantification of various metrics of competitive Brood War as I possibly can, so that my perspective on the competitive aspect of professional Brood War can be more complete. I have prematurely attempted various topics that have a more subjective angle, but to be honest I'm most comfortable building up various objective quanitification so that my subjective view on professional Brood War can become less impression-driven, and more data driven. So don't think of this blog as my personal take on non-major tournament rankings, but my personal selection of what I perceive to be the best objective quantifier (as flawed as it may be) of this particular topic that I have found thus far.
NaDa is my alltime favorite player no one knows how he was so good to win more than any other player shame he retired when he did cause it would have been a blast to watch him in the 2008-2011 era.
On August 11 2018 09:13 funnybananaman wrote: NaDa is my alltime favorite player no one knows how he was so good to win more than any other player shame he retired when he did cause it would have been a blast to watch him in the 2008-2011 era.
Partly because he had mechanics that was years ahead of his time. It allowed him to pull off the impossible even in the bleakest of situations, such as killing an entire control group of lurkers with just a single control group of marines.
Legend has it that when NaDa as an amateur player basically swept the entire online ladders at the time such as Game-i and Gamebugs servers, professional gamers at the time who had yet to see him compete offline thought he was a hacker, but once they saw him play live they all immediately acknowledged him for what he was, not a hacker like they once thought. That was how impressive it was to watch NaDa manipulate his mouse and keyboard live.
On August 13 2018 07:24 BisuDagger wrote: If we count the sonic era then killer, sea, bisu, and hero stand out the most
Stand out enough to make massive impact on the original list? I highly doubt it. Especially once you follow my criteria, and gather the accumulative number of participants as the metric for the ranking.
Inclusion criteria for the tournaments being any offline individual tournaments that had double-digit number of registered professionals participating.
There's a reason why I didn't include random Blizzcon, SuperFight, or IEF tournaments that had minimal number of professionals competing, most of whom were invited based on their popularity, or personal schedule, instead of competitive merit.
The vast majority of Bisu's triumphs in the post-KeSPA era such as 2014 PLU Starcraft Sino-Korean Carnival or G-Star 2014 Special Match had less than ten ex-professionals participating. TEMPTS StarLeague was an online tournament hosted by Terror[fOu]. The only tournament won by Bisu, that would have passed the inclusion criteria set above, would have been the 7th Sonic StarLeague, which had 32 ex-professionals participating.
Even if I was to be lenient, I would expect high end double digit numbers, with none of the names you've mentioned breaking the triple digit barrier purely from post-KeSPA tournaments.
In fact, unless I am mistaken, there has never an offline tournament that had over 100 ex-professionals participating after the professional scene came to an end. Even the 4th season of the ASL, which had a ridiculous prize pool, and thus had a total of 98 professionals competing. Although I'll have to double check, I don't think even Flash makes it all the way to the top spot even if I take into consideration all his post-KeSPA triumphs, because his other ASL season victories (aside from ASL Season 4) had roughly 40 to 60 ex-professionals participating.
Further more, the professional liscence loses its value somewhat in the post-KeSPA era. There's a huge difference between a liscence that needs constant active work to escape it becoming defunct, and any past liscence becoming a good enough standard for me to check the box as an ex-professional participating. Surely, you would agree that Starcraft 2 professionals such as soO participating in the ASL qualifiers were doing it for the fun of it, rather than being done out of duty and an undying thirst to qualify even if you are somewhat lacking in skill or experience. When soO was a Brood War professional, he participated in each and every qualifier with his life on the line, even if he was mediocre in terms of skill compared to the very best.
To put things into perspective, even the godlike players like Jaedong, Bisu, and Stork had times when they failed to make it out of the qualification stages after they were widely recognized as some of the strongest players around during the professional era of Brood War. Stork, despite being a shadow of his former self, with a 42.7% win rate in online sponsored matches since May 2017, still qualifies for every single ASL season that he participated in.
I could combine the records of the two separate eras, but it just doesn't feel right to me.
My personal take on the matter is, players such as Killer, and herO are stand out members in another era of competitive Brood War, while the likes of Flash and Bisu are amazing players who managed to flourish in two eras of competitive Brood War. No matter how great Killer was when Sonic was hosting all his StarLeagues, it doesn't change the fact that his professional career was never that awe-inspiring, and in the same vein, Jaedong's exceptional professional success doesn't change the fact that his post-KeSPA competitive career has been somewhat pedestrian in nature.
On August 13 2018 07:24 BisuDagger wrote: If we count the sonic era then killer, sea, bisu, and hero stand out the most
I would add Mind there, even with his current decline. He won Kongdoo league and many minor tournaments. And shaped tvz and tvp alot 2014-2015. It is just so painfull to see how far he has fallen ,☹️.
On August 13 2018 07:24 BisuDagger wrote: If we count the sonic era then killer, sea, bisu, and hero stand out the most
I would add Mind there, even with his current decline. He won Kongdoo league and many minor tournaments. And shaped tvz and tvp alot 2014-2015. It is just so painfull to see how far he has fallen ,☹️.
Sure, Mind won a couple of online tournaments and a decently significant offline tournament in Kongdoo HungryApp Starz League after his retirement from professional play, but like I mentioned before, the sheer difference in scale between a major tournament during the KeSPA era, and what people could muster in the streaming era was simply night and day.
This is the entire field Mind had to go through in order to win his first and only MBC Game StarLeague championship:
Mind was one of the 22 contestants to go through the offline qualifiers out of a total of 163 participants.
He then competed against 22 professionals who were already seeded into the Survivor Tournament, alongside the other 22 professionals who battled their way through the offline qualifiers.
He then joined the 10 professionals who were already seeded into the GomTV MSL Season 3, alongside the 22 other players who made it past the Survivor Tournament.
Mind ended up as the eventual champion in a tournament that had a total of 195 participants.
This is the entire field Mind had to go through in order to win Kongdoo HungryApp Starz League:
16 ex-professionals were invited with Mind being placed immediately in the round of 16 as with all the other ex-professionals who were invited. As much as it was one of the biggest deal at the time, compared to the plethora of Brood War tournaments with more coverage, more viewership, bigger prize pool, and most importantly (for me at least) bigger field of competition, I think it was just one of many invitationals that took place in history, the significance of which is slightly blown out of proportion due to the total vacancy of large scale major Brood War tournaments during that time-frame.
On August 13 2018 23:41 whaski wrote: Oh I was solely arguing with Bisudagger about post-kespa competition. Do you know why Mind fell so hard from form? Same happened during Kespa-era...
His wrists are totally fucked.
Mind to me is the type that needs to play well in order to win. It gives off the illusion that he is competitively better than he actually can offer in terms of results, because he is so viscerally pleasing to watch when he actually plays well. These types of gamers are more prone to fluctuations in form or injury, because they haven't mastered the art of winning without having to performing well. GuemChi would be the my choice of a player who looks like he can't play worth a damn, yet can win regardless.
On August 13 2018 23:41 whaski wrote: Oh I was solely arguing with Bisudagger about post-kespa competition. Do you know why Mind fell so hard from form? Same happened during Kespa-era...
His wrists are totally fucked.
Mind to me is the type that needs to play well in order to win. It gives off the illusion that he is competitively better than he actually can offer in terms of results, because he is so viscerally pleasing to watch when he actually plays well. These types of gamers are more prone to fluctuations in form or injury, because they haven't mastered the art of winning without having to performing well. GuemChi would be the my choice of a player who looks like he can't play worth a damn, yet can win regardless.
That is really depressing to hear. It really seemed, that Mind was a player who thrived on wonky maps and given time to prepare. Thaks for information.
On August 17 2018 01:27 FlaShFTW wrote: Didn't FlaSh win 2010 WCG? Over Kal?
He most certainly did, but I didn't include any WCG main stage victories for any of the players for the following reasons:
1) WCG main stage had participation from three registered professional players, maybe a couple more at best if you include non-Korean professionals such as Grrrr... or PJ. Like I mentioned above, the bare minimum requirement for me personally was ten professionals participating.
2) I did not count WCG main stage as being the final competitive stages for WCG Korea, since the level of competition unquestionably goes down after WCG Korea comes to a close. It would be as if OGN StarLeague had the group stages, and the pool of competition for the bracket stages becoming much inferior in comparison. It just doesn't make sense from a competitive point of view.
3) WCG main stage, in my eyes, was the reward, rather than the competitive stakes scaling even higher for performing well in WCG Korea. If the top placing players from the MBC Game StarLeague were invited into a random Courage Tournament with a ridiculously high prize pool, I wouldn't have included that Courage Tournament victory no matter how much viewership it had, or many non-registered top amateur players the professional players bitch slapped on their way to victory.
4) It is true that top amateur players can take games off, or even eliminate professional players occasionally, and that was especially true during the earlier days of professional Brood War, but notice I didn't include any random events that mostly comprised of amateur players. I attended Ajou University, and we used to have a Brood War festival where XellOs and GoRush (professional players who were also Ajou University students) played with fellow students. The top placing student was given to opportunity to play versus GoRush in 2005 and 2006, and in 2006, the random student managed to defeat GoRush with a well executed cheese, but I'm not going to take that into consideration, as if GoRush came second in massive amateur tournament that had hundreds of Ajou University students competing in it.
All things considered, WCG main stage was an epic event, but in terms of prize pool, even IEF 2010 had a bigger prize pool than WCG 2010 main stage, with similar participation rates from professional players. The only distinction was that WCG 2010 main stage invited players out of competitive merit, while IEF 2010 invited players based on their popularity and personal scheduling. The competitive merit comes from WCG Korea, not the main stage itself, the nature of which wasn't all that different from a variety of international tournaments that had a mixture of top non-Korean players and a handful of Korean players.
Competitive merit is always going to take priority over how the tournament itself was marketed. Otherwise I can argue that YellOw won the biggest competition of all time in KT Kings of Kings, the competition that invited the top placing seeds from Hanbit OGN StarLeague, Coca-Cola OGN StarLeague, and SKY 2001 OGN StarLeague, meaning that it was marketed as the culmination of a year's worth of OGN StarLeagues. In reality, it was just a run-of-the-mill seven man invitational.
In the same vein, the GomTV special showmatch between Jaedong and Bisu, was celebrated as the culmination of GomTV Classic S1 and S2, but Jaedong's single best-of-five victory over Bisu was in my eyes, many order of times less impressive than Bisu's triumph over 175 other professionals participating in GomTV Classic S2, despite the two regular seasons of GomTV Classics, technically speaking, being the qualification rounds for the best-of-five showmatch that took place.
Competitive excellence is the only metric I am interested in measuring, and I think participation numbers from registered professional gamers is a superior objective quantification of that metric, over stuff like viewership, or prize pool.
EPT
