I was just wondering what your all-time top 10 players for each races would look like based on your personal criteria.
I'm especially interested to hear from very old school fans from way back who'd seen pro players like YellOw in their prime who can shed some light to newer fans on how great of a player he was.
My criteria weighed in Starleague playoff appearances, individual peaks, career longevity, and their significance as a player (ex. Boxer was the face of, not only BW, but e-sports in general in Korea for a very long time).
10 players for each race is a lot to ask so I will just make a list of players I did enjoy watching the most regardless their achievement, skill or whatever.
3. Effort, a beast, but I rate him lesser than July.
4. Yellow, oh yellow, if only you could be #2 on this list.
5. Savior, only rating him #5 because you know what he did. Boo.
6. ZerO, consistent during the golden years, beast nowadays.
7. GoRush, I'd love to rate him higher but I just can't, I loved him back in the day though.
8. Chojja, mr consistency, mr ultralisk. A beast, wish he stuck around for a bit longer though.
9. H.O.T-Forever, the guy who I looked up to when I started playing, surprised nobody put him on his list but I might be a little bit biased.
10. Shark, one of my MBCboys and the inventor of muta micro, very underrated imo but def in my top 10!
TERRAN 1. FlaSh, probably don't need to explain this one, do I?
2. NaDa, the genius, I also respect his careers longevity.
3. Boxer, close between him and NaDa imo.
4. iloveoov, the old man with the builds, I rate him above Fantasy cause I think he perfected more stuff and had more impact on Terran as a whole.
5. Fantasy, I think this is the right spot for him, best of the non-bonjwas.
6. Xellos, might be the old guy in me talking but he was a beast for sure.
7. Light, the 2nd best modern terran, I think he will win stuff this and next year. Sadly he rose to the top a bit too late.
8. Goodfriend, oldschool beast, very underrated imo, sadly never won a starleague but finished very consistently.
9. Mind, sadly never became as good as people hyped him up to be, but still a beast at his prime.
10. Sea, not the brightest star but in my mind definitely belongs in the top 10 of terrans.
PROTOSS 1. Bisu, nuff said.
2. Stork, I don't think I need to explain this either.
3. JangBi, wish he didn't quit, a beast, we need a toss like him today.
4. Pusan, my true love. My favourite Neo king. I love everything about his play, but the biggest thing for me is his consistency and the longevity of his career. He was never a top player but he was consistent for his team in Proleague. He plays a style that I love, abuse the map. Capable of taking games off of the big names with well planned out builds, but never being the top star or center of attention. One of the original macro tosses and just a great player. Marry me.
5. Kingdom, bring me some tea boys, the micro god. Very underrated. I remember watching Kingdom vods years later and being astonished, better than most modern tosses in my book.
6. Anytime, one of the Neo kings. A beast at his peak. I tried stealing so many builds from him but I was too noob.
7. Nal_rA, I had a hard time evaluating Nal_rA but I couldn't place him higher nor lower than this, so here is. The dreamer, a legend.
8. Reach, manlots, so handsome, so gosu. I'd marry him in a heartbeat.
9. GARIMTO, the real OG.
10. Free, the 4th best dragon at his peak imo, the missing 2 would be #11 and #12.
Terran's top 5 I think are fairly undisputable being FlaSh, NaDa, Boxer, oov, and Fantasy. Ordering is debatable between oov and Boxer. 6-10 would probably be something like Iris, Xellos, Goodfriend, Midas, Casy/Forgg. Sea is great for Proleague, but his awful individual league results are a stain on his legacy.
Zerg's top 6 will be Jaedong, savior, July, Effort, Yellow, Chojja Followed by GGplay, GoRush, Calm, Hot-Forever. Calm's ACE rating in proleague is surprisingly good.
Protoss top 4 should be undisputed, Bisu, Stork, Jangbi, NalRa. 5-10 might be Garimto, Reach, Anytime, Kingdom, Pusan, Grrr/Kal. Not sure how to judge Grr's OSL win tbh.
On September 29 2020 08:27 FlaShFTW wrote: Imo, not gonna count the post-Kespa era.
Terran's top 5 I think are fairly undisputable being FlaSh, NaDa, Boxer, oov, and Fantasy. Ordering is debatable between oov and Boxer. 6-10 would probably be something like Iris, Xellos, Goodfriend, Midas, Casy/Forgg. Sea is great for Proleague, but his awful individual league results are a stain on his legacy.
Zerg's top 6 will be Jaedong, savior, July, Effort, Yellow, Chojja Followed by GGplay, GoRush, Calm, Hot-Forever. Calm's ACE rating in proleague is surprisingly good.
Protoss top 4 should be undisputed, Bisu, Stork, Jangbi, NalRa. 5-10 might be Garimto, Reach, Anytime, Kingdom, Pusan, Grrr/Kal. Not sure how to judge Grr's OSL win tbh.
The reason why I gave more weight to Grrr's OSL run is because he was one of the first Royal Roaders as well as the only foreigner to have won a Starleague. You could downplay his Starleague win by saying that it was during the infancy of BW where players were much "worse".
I think in terms of achievements, the top 10 for each race is generally pretty clear. i think in terms of post-2007 peak skill level (I chose this period because I consider it personally to be the period when the meta looked fairly modern) though I can do a top 10 list just to add some variety to the thread while still being somewhat pertinent. I want to stress my list is not ranking by talent. I think in terms of raw talent, people like Nada or July could be in top 10, for example.
Top 10 in terms of peak skill level: 1. Flash 2. Jaedong 3. Bisu 4. Fantasy 5. Stork 6. Jangbi 7. Last 8. Effort 9. Rain 10. Queen
On September 29 2020 05:17 EndingLife wrote: No love for V-Gundam or IntoTheRain?
V-Gundam was a name I completely forgot, it is true that his endless 2 fact push vs protoss was very entertaining to watch and deserves a spot in top 10 terran just for that.