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The paradigm of the professional Brood War ecosystem changed in 2007, when the ProLeague schedule was roughly doubled, from taking up 3 days per week into taking up 5 days per week.
Before the start of Shinhan 2007 ProLeague Round 1, NaDa had accumulated the most number of one-versus-one ProLeague victories out of any player with 46 ProLeague victories accumulated since the inception of the ProLeague in 2003. For a player who had amassed over 500 competitibe victories during his career up until that point, the ProLeague barely had any significance in his overall professional win count.
This changed when the importance of the ProLeague was significantly boosted after 2007, and some of the most successful professional players who made their mark post-2007 had a substantial portion of professional games played on the ProLeague stage.
Take Flash, NaDa's equivalent of the modern era of professional Brood War. He finished his professional Brood War career in 2012, with roughly 500 competitive victories to his name. Almost half of those victories came from the ProLeague, with Flash having the second most ProLeague victories out of any player with 233 ProLeague one-versus-one victories.
Of course, due to individual leagues such as the Ongamenet StarLeague having a much richer heritage and higher viewership compared to the ProLeague, the spectators of professional Brood War were still very much invested in individual league excellence regardless of the changing tides of professional Brood War.
The 10-100 club represents for me the modern day professional players who somehow managed to pump out respectable results in both the individual leagues and the ProLeague, by qualifying for the final 16 spot in ten or more major individual leagues (namely the OGN StarLeague, and the MBC Game StarLeague), on top of accumulating over one-hundred ProLeague one-versus-one victories over the course of their careers.
These were the ever-consistent players who always filled up the competitive landscape with their presence, regardless of what went on. And some of these players are rightly recognized as some of the greatest players of their generation, while others are somewhat underrated due to their lack of impact, or impressionable championship runs within the individual leagues.
The 10-100 club is a very exclusive collection of players, only having eight players having the necessary credentials to join the club. The one consistent factor that co-exists amongst these eight players is these players' uncanny ability to thwart players below their level.
Some of these players managed to rise to the challenge presented by the toughest players of their era, which made them potent championship material players as well as being ever present figures within the scene, but others were simply stuck slaughtering players of mediocre levels, and due to their lack of championship material were dismissed despite having arguably more reliable newb-stomping abilities than almost anybody in the scene.
Today, I will have rank order these eight players belonging to the 10-100 club by looking into their major individual league performances, and how the nature of their professional careers influenced their perception as players.
1. Players with the most victories within major individual leagues from the round of sixteen onwards
1. Flash: 124 victories
2. Jaedong: 117 victories
3. Stork: 92 victories
4. Bisu: 78 victories
5. FanTaSy: 68 victories
6. ZerO: 40 victories
7. Kal: 37 victories
8. Sea: 16 victories
Comments: Probably the ranking of these players most in sync with their general perception as professional players, except for Bisu, who probably would be ranked third for most people. Bisu towards the latter half of his professional career struggled heavily to break past the final 16 of major individual leagues for years on end, but his excellent performances in the ProLeague, as well as his astonishing individual league form early on his professional career paints an overall perception of him that suggested he has more higher round victories than Stork, but it wasn't actually the case.
2. Players with the highest win rate within individual leagues from the round of sixteen onwards
1. Flash: 65.26%
2. Jaedong: 65.00%
3. FanTaSy: 63.55%
4. Bisu: 59.54%
5. Stork: 54.76%
6. ZerO: 53.33%
7. Kal: 48.05%
8. Sea: 34.78%
Sea's abysmal win rate once he reaches the final sixteen in the individual leagues, explains why he is not that highly rated as an overall player despite having the fifth most ProLeague victories of all-time, as well as being a consistent presence in the earlier rounds of the major individual leagues for years on end.
FanTaSy, on the other hand, was a player known for his guile in a best-of-five series, and finished his professional career on a heavy upswing, allowing him to sneak in just behind the LeeSsang duet in the rankings.
3. Players with the most victories within qualifying stages leading up to the round of sixteen
1. Sea: 132 wins
2. Stork: 118 wins
3. Bisu: 111 wins
4. Jaedong: 104 wins
5. Kal: 87 wins
6. ZerO: 79 wins
7. Flash: 64 wins
8. FanTaSy: 63 wins
Probably a badge of dishonour depending on how you view things. Having tons of victories in the lower qualifying stages such as the offline qualifiers, Survivor Tournament, or the round of 32 meant that you failed to place high enough in the previous tournament in order to be seeded above these lower rounds.
Sea accustomed himself to being a newb-stomper of unprecedented levels, and amassed more victories in the lower rounds of the major individual leagues than any other player on this list.
On the other end of the spectrum, both Flash and FanTaSy have astonishingly low number of victories due to their overall lack of opportunities to accrue newb-stomping victories.
4. Players with the highest win rates within qualifying stages leading up to the round of sixteen
1. Flash: 76.19%
2. Stork: 69.01%
3. Bisu: 68.52%
4. Jaedong: 67.80%
5. Kal: 64.75%
6. ZerO: 64.75%
7. FanTaSy: 64.29%
8. Sea: 62.86%
Just because Flash didn't have a high number of victories in the lower rounds doesn't mean he wasn't deadly in the rare moments he did drop down low enough to compete in them. He boasts a win rate that rises above 75%, which is probably the core reason why Flash only missed out on joining the final 16 in the major individual leagues on only four occasions over the course of his entire professional career. This is the factoid about Flash's career that boggles my mind more than his championship count. Flash may have not been the player with the most professional accomplishments (I personally think that title goes to NaDa), but he is by far the player with the least failures out of all the greats.
Stork also boasted a ridiculously high win rate in the lower stages, which was probably the reason why he amassed more round of 16 appearances in the major individual leagues than any other player apart from NaDa.
Kal was a player who also was a very competent newb stomper, and is the only member of the Six Dragons apart from Stork and Bisu to have joined the round of 16 ten or more times. Players such as JangBi may have burned much brighter when he was actually good enough to qualify for the higher rounds, but he was quite subpar at being consistent enough to pummel past opponents of lower calibre time and time again.
5. Players with the highest portion of games played within the qualifying stages leading up to the round of 16, out of their overall number of games played within the major individual leagues
1. Sea: 82.03%
2. Kal: 64.68%
3. ZerO: 61.93%
4. Bisu: 55.29%
5. Stork: 50.44%
6. FanTaSy: 47.80%
7. Jaedong: 45.29%
8. Flash: 30.66%
Sea spent a ridiculous portion of his individual league career fending off players of relatively lower level, and this is something he has in common with the likes of Kal and ZerO, players who also consistently played the losing role to the godly players, or players in amazing form.
Flash, Jaedong, and FanTaSy are the rare type of players who spent over half of their individual league careers within the confines of the highest bracket stages (round of sixteen onwards). Flash is a mind-boggling outlier in that he spent less than a third of his individual league career boosting his numbers stomping lower level players.
6. Players with the highest discrepancy in win rate when comparing their win rates in the round of sixteen and above, and their win rate from the qualifying rounds leading up to that point
1. Sea: 28.08 percentage difference
2. Stork: 14.25 percentage difference
3. Kal: 13.65 percentage difference
4. ZerO: 11.42 percentage difference
5. Flash: 10.93 percentage difference
6. Bisu: 8.98 percentage difference
7. Jaedong: 2.80 percentage difference
8. FanTaSy: 0.74 percentage difference
FanTaSy and Sea seem to be on the opposite ends of the spectrum, with FanTaSy barely having any difference in his lower level win rate (partly due to his earlier parts of his career being not as successful despite facing lower level of players), while Sea was night-and-day when it came to newb-stomping and facing high level players.
Players who have a less of a margin in terms of how less likely they are to lose to a high level player compared to facing a lower level player, tend to be rated quite highly, which is probably why FanTaSy, Jaedong, Flash, and Bisu are all respected for this quality.
Concluding thoughts
This is probably going to be my last blog, and I wanted to highlight some of the consistent players like Sea, ZerO, and Kal, who were excellent across most platforms of competition, and had a lot of success within the ProLeague, and fared quite well in the individual leagues as long as their level of opposition weren't that difficult.
While these players were probably never destined to win, they did have a quality about them that allowed them to persist through the ages, and their newb-stomping capabilities paid dividends in the ProLeague, where you could select the battle-ground of your choice, and could play to your strenghts rather than having to rise up to the level of your challenge.
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On April 05 2019 12:04 Letmelose wrote:
This is probably going to be my last blog.
Thanks a lot, I enjoyed every each of them.
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Bisutopia19142 Posts
1. Please come back periodically, you are by far one of the most enjoyable posters I've ever read in all my years on TL.
2.
3. Players with the most victories within qualifying stages leading up to the round of sixteen
1. Sea: 132 wins
5. Players with the highest portion of games played within the qualifying stages leading up to the round of 16, out of their overall number of games played within the major individual leagues
1. Sea: 82.03%
The amazing thing here is that these stats actually show how bad Sea was compared to the rest. The best players had the lowest amount of wins/percentage leading up to the ro16 because they didn't have to play in it. The seeding system for players that finished in the top four is why Flash doesn't have the most wins/percentage. The lower Flash's number is in these categories shows how ridiculously good and consistent he was at advancing in every tournament.
To add to controversy, I think that these stats will also upset players who dislike the seeding system. It shows the Sea had to play over 60 more games then Flash on top of play in proleague. The harder route for non-seeded players does take its toll. Then on top of that top seeds have a hand in picking their groups thus making their runs even easier. It is worth the discussion as to whether Flash would have won as many tournaments as he did if he was randomly assigned a ro32/24 group to start at instead of allowed to pick his ro16 group.
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I am sad that this could be your last blog, but thank you for so many great reads!
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I'm going to miss these blogs  .
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On April 06 2019 01:22 BisuDagger wrote:1. Please come back periodically, you are by far one of the most enjoyable posters I've ever read in all my years on TL. 2. Show nested quote +3. Players with the most victories within qualifying stages leading up to the round of sixteen
1. Sea: 132 wins
5. Players with the highest portion of games played within the qualifying stages leading up to the round of 16, out of their overall number of games played within the major individual leagues
1. Sea: 82.03% The amazing thing here is that these stats actually show how bad Sea was compared to the rest. The best players had the lowest amount of wins/percentage leading up to the ro16 because they didn't have to play in it. The seeding system for players that finished in the top four is why Flash doesn't have the most wins/percentage. The lower Flash's number is in these categories shows how ridiculously good and consistent he was at advancing in every tournament. To add to controversy, I think that these stats will also upset players who dislike the seeding system. It shows the Sea had to play over 60 more games then Flash on top of play in proleague. The harder route for non-seeded players does take its toll. Then on top of that top seeds have a hand in picking their groups thus making their runs even easier. It is worth the discussion as to whether Flash would have won as many tournaments as he did if he was randomly assigned a ro32/24 group to start at instead of allowed to pick his ro16 group.
1) I personally would interpret the highest proportion of games played above the round of sixteen as an indicator of how rare it was for somebody to botch placing high enough to get seeded. It doesn't have much to do with their overall level of achievement, rather how little they fucked things up. The players with the most prestine records aren't necessarily the players who accomplished the most.
JangBi, for example, is one of the most accomplished protoss players of the modern era (in terms of high placements, at least), but he spent 67.19% (a disproportionately high number that is only bested by Sea's astonishing figure of 82.03% out of the players I've listed) of his tournament games wasting time in the lower qualifying rounds. JangBi fumbled so many of his tournament attempts, yet is one of the fifteen professional players in all of history who managed to reach four major individual league finals. It is possible to fail a lot, and at the same time achieve a lot. JangBi's erratic form and heavy swings in motivation, which heavily reduced his reliability in terms of pumping out what may seem like "unimpressive" wins without fail, also explains why he never truly surpassed Stork as the Samsung Khan ProLeague ace.
Flash is the ultimate outlier in that he accomplished so much without having experienced the agonies of failing time and time again. It is probably the core reason why so many people regard him as the greatest, even if we only count the records from the professional era of Brood War, not because he accomplished the most (the title I firmly believe belongs to NaDa), but because his record is almost without a single blemish in terms of most regards. However, it does help that he made his mark towards the dying years of professional Brood War when the turnover rate of top players had stagnated compared to the past, and that is partly the reason why FanTaSy joins the LeeSsang duet as the only players to have played more tournament matches above the round of sixteen than below it.
2) Sea is an interesting case for me because he for me, represents how a professional Brood War career can be truly remarkably successful by almost solely basing your trade on mercilessly crushing players below your level. Sea had a sub-50% win rate in ProLeague ACE matches, and wasn't even the player who won the most ProLegue ACE victories for MBC Game HERO (that would be PuSan), the only team he managed to all-kill in the Winner's League was Air Force ACE, and his series record once he reached the latter stages of the major individual leagues was absymal.
However, Sea probably spent more air time winning televised matches whilst wearing the MBC Game HERO shirt than any player in history. He is ranked fifth all-time in terms of overall ProLeague matches won, and qualified for the round of sixteen 13 times over the course of his career, and within that specific context of beating lower quality opposition without fail for years on end, Sea had few equals in my opinion. If stomping poor opposition day-in-day-out, year-in-year-out, was that easy for players who had perhaps greater credentials as championship level players, they would have qualified for more round of sixteens than Sea, and they probably should have had more ProLeague victories than Sea.
Because of the extremely particular manner in which Sea was competitively remarkable, judging him as a professional player truly does depend on how heavily you weigh Sea's ease with which he wins "unimpressive" matches, and how heavily you fault him for falling so short in games that would have pushed him over the edge as a championship worthy player. In a stage where every single victory counts as the same no matter what the opponent, like the ProLeague, Sea's value rises tremendously, which is reflective of how MBC Game HERO rewarded Sea in terms of salaries. In a stage where memorable performances against great players etches into the minds of the spectators forever, Sea was forgettable and his legacy is dismissed by many fans for that reason. The best thing would be to have the best of both worlds, but that is something that is reserved for a select few.
3) While I do wish we had more tightly scheduled, no preparation, pure fundamentals based tournaments like 2007 Seoul e-Sports Festival (basically a round of 256 tournament finished within several days), I think we had a pretty healthy balance of competitive philophies between Ongament and MBC Game.
Ongamenet as a general rule of thumb always went for fresh narratives, and constantly went for soft resets between seasons by never seeding more than four players based on previous finishes. The drafting sytem was never too favourable for the seeded players either. Further more, the map pools were more experimental, which meant that previously working methods of success didn't always drag on for multiple seasons.
In contrast, MBC Game often tried to create a lasting tradition for previously successful players by handing out seeds to eight players for a lot of the seasons. I personally think they also had a tendency to prefer less experimental maps, or at least maps that stayed similar in terms of theme with the previous seasons. They also liked to throw a bone to the previously successful players by implementing a drafting system that heavily worked favour for the seeded players (which was most brutally abused for the creation of the Group of Death for the ABCMart MSL), as well as rigging the knock-out brackets (artificially shaping the brackets rather than randomizing) to maximize the potential of a blockbuster finals.
These sort of competitive edges MBC Game handed out to the already successful players is why certain players found it so much easier to have consecutive seasons as seeded players, not because they mysteriously underperformed when they competed in the OGN StarLeague, but because the OGN StarLeague was slightly closer to a true season reset than MBC Game StarLeague.
The varying conditions for success for the Ongamenet StarLeague, the MBC Game StarLeague, and the ProLeague, and the multiple levels of nuance even within each and every one of these platforms of competition is why the professional Brood War scene was so fantastic to spectate. Greatness wasn't left to chance. You needed to have it all.
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As for my future absence, I don’t think it is going to be of much purpose even if I somehow manage to find time to visit this site again. If my posts have any value, it is because I have a source of reference for almost every point I make. I interact with streamers with the intent of having a slight glimpse into how their mind for the game works, I make sure to search through countless threads on numerous sites for any further insight on the topic of discussion, as well as trying to gather as much supporting data as possible. All this will no longer be possible due to time restraints.
It’s been a fun experience for the past several years. As much as I lament the untimely death of professional Brood War, the streaming industry has opened up a lot of avenues that probably wouldn’t have presented themselves otherwise. All in all, it could have turned out so much worse, and I’m not as bitter as I once was.
Thank you all for your kind words, and I’m hopeful that others will continue to share and spread insight on the game and the scene in general. I think I’ve done the best I could, and now I’m off furthering my actual career. It’s not all bad. If I ever become as rich as I plan to be, it’ll mean I’ll be able to significantly increase my donations to Brood War streams, which hopefully would progress high level Brood War content. These people are my heroes after all.
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Best of luck to you in your career... as others have said, if you still find time to blog many of us appreciate your posts. If some sports historian in the future wants to write the history of BW, there's gonna be a lot of Letmelose in the citations.
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Letmelose, I have been a secret admirer of yours for a long time. Thank you for everything! Best of luck and have fun, whatever you do.
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Thank you so much for your contributions, letmelose... you probably have a lot more lurker admirers than you know! Best of luck in your career. Let me guess, data scientist?
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Kau
Canada3500 Posts
On April 05 2019 12:04 Letmelose wrote:
This is probably going to be my last blog.
Sad to hear. Good luck with your career and
get rich soon!
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Thanks for all your great blogs and posts, I've thoroughly enjoyed your insight and research into the professional world of starcraft. Good luck with your career.
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Letmelose, i can honestly say that reading your blogs has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for all the work you've put in on them.
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I'll put the major tournament records of the above eight players for clarity's sake, ranked by their overall number of victories earned from the round of sixteen onwards:
1. Flash
Tournament record from the round of sixteen onwards: 124-66 (65.26%)
Tournament record leading up to the round of sixteen: 64-20 (76.19%)
2. Jaedong
Tournament record from the round of sixteen onwards: 117-63 (65.00%)
Tournament record leading up to the round of sixteen: 104-45 (67.80%)
3. Stork
Tournament record from the round of sixteen onwards: 92-76 (54.76%)
Tournament record leading up to the round of sixteen: 118-53 (69.01%)
4. Bisu
Tournament record from the round of sixteen onwards: 78-53 (59.54%)
Tournament record leading up to the round of sixteen: 111-51 (68.52%)
5. FanTaSy
Tournament record from the round of sixteen onwards: 68-39 (63.55%)
Tournament record leading up to the round of sixteen: 63-35 (64.29%)
6. ZerO
Tournament record from the round of sixteen onwards: 40-35 (53.33%)
Tournament record leading up to the round of sixteen: 79-43 (64.75%)
7. Kal
Tournament record from the round of sixteen onwards: 37-40 (48.05%)
Tournament record leading up to the round of sixteen: 87-54 (61.70%)
8. Sea
Tournament record from the round of sixteen onwards: 16-30 (34.78%)
Tournament record leading up to the round of sixteen: 132-78 (62.86%)
Now, all of these players who were part of the 10-100 club have tournament records below the round of sixteen that surpasses 60% (which I roughly translated as being newb-stomping abilities). It is a major reason why they took part in so many tournaments (regardless of whether they were impressive in any of them), and never found much difficulty racking up free wins within the ProLeague.
That may not be an impressive quality to some, but this particular trait was what separated these sorts of players from the more inconsistent players who could not be fully relied upon to crush players below their level with any consistency.
For example, BeSt was a player of unique strengths, which if unleashed could be used to defeat great players, but at the same time he did not possess the consistently beat players below his level to the level of players belonging to the 10-100 club. This is his major tournament record from his professional years:
Tournament record from the round of sixteen onwards: 22-18 (55.00%)
Tournament record leading up to the round of sixteen: 64-53 (54.70%)
People's perception of BeSt as a professional was mostly shaped by his more memorable matches played from the round of sixteen onwards, which can be translated as being "did he win while I was watching the games", but in my opinion, they should also realize BeSt spent 74.52% of his tournament matches below the round of sixteen struggling to achieve a 55% win rate against lower level players for the vast majority of his professional career. It is why BeSt, despite being a member of the much respected Six Dragons, only qualified for the round of sixteen for the major individual leagues five times. Yes, he made those five times count more than the likes of Sea ever did, but his lack of consistency is what prevented him from joining the 10-100 club.
The greatest players had the best of both worlds, but for this particular blog, I wanted to highlight the players who added incredible stability to their professional careers by being able to crush players below their levels with ease rarely seen by others.
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On April 05 2019 12:04 Letmelose wrote:
This is probably going to be my last blog
I admit that I didn't read all your blogs (mostly because I'm not the sort of guy who is interested in statistics), but for some reason, this makes me feel sad. Your blogs were top notch and TL needs more BW bloggers.
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TLADT24920 Posts
Just wanted to chime in and say that I too enjoyed your blogs. The kespa era is somewhat foreign to me in the sense that I was not around to experience all the highs and lows and watching a series so much later takes away the magic of the moment etc... Anyways, good luck in what you end up doing and don't forget to drop by when you get some time.
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Belgium9943 Posts
Very nice blog, sad to see it stop. Thanks for your contributions!
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Bisutopia19142 Posts
On April 09 2019 03:22 BigFan wrote:
Just wanted to chime in and say that I too enjoyed your blogs. The kespa era is somewhat foreign to me in the sense that I was not around to experience all the highs and lows and watching a series so much later takes away the magic of the moment etc... Anyways, good luck in what you end up doing and don't forget to drop by when you get some time. It's like how certain movies stand the test of time and other don't. On the ClassicVods channel I was watching Flash defeat Movie in the OSL. His tears, his mom's tear, and the way his teammates storm the stage still overwhelms me. I still need to watch Nada's final run too after his father passed. I'm sure the feeling at the end of that is amazing too.
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EPT
