| Rank |
Player |
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High |
Description |
| 1. |
Flash
(T) (stats) |
0 |
1 |
It's very telling how dominant a player is when (almost) every other player on the power rank got destroyed that player over the course of the month. Flash fits into that 'dominant' spot very well. January was a great month for Flash - he picked up an OSL win and an MSL second. Yes, Jaedong beat him in the finals but we'll discuss that a bit later. Flash continued to break records in January including becoming the first person to break 2400 elo, not an easy feat by any means!
The one blip on his record is the fact that he lost the (controversial) MSL finals to Jaedong. But let's put this into perspective. The only person in Starcraft's history to win a double title is Nada, and that was way back when MSL was still the KPGA Tour. The only other players to come close are Savior, and Nada again during IOPS OSL/YATGK MSL. The fact Flash even made it to two finals is impressive enough on its own. As a consequence, Flash did not prepare as well for the finals as Jaedong did and paid the price. However, I still firmly beleive that Flash is the better player and given the opportunity I would vote Flash again. This can be seen in Flash's winning record over Jaedong recently (4-3) including a win on Match Point after the finals. There can be little doubt that Flash is still #1 in the world. |
| 2. |
Jaedong
(Z) (stats) |
+1 |
1 |
Before the Jaedong fanboys tear me to shreds, I must give credit where it's due. Jaedong played the MSL finals superbly. Right from the opening set it was clear that Jaedong had a very clear game plan and knew exactly where to go looking for holes in Flash's game plan. From that moment, I knew Jaedong was going to take the finals. In a pm to Atrioc before the MSL finals I told him for Jaedong to win the MSL he would have to revolutionize ZvT the same way Flash has done for TvZ recently - sure enough he stepped up to the task and showed everyone that 3hatch before pool is viable. Personally, I feel that the build is unsound but given the right opponent and right context it is an exceptionally good build (so much so that he used it against Flash in their 2nd game on Match Point, and Killer used it against fOrGG on the same map). Over time we will tell if this build is actually a safe choice for Zergs. Oh and by the way, in the fourth set Flash played the same build against Kwanro meaning either he didn't prepare very well at all (freestyle finals, what?) or he really really doesn't like Fighting Spirit (he did thumb it down twice). Jaedong knowing this, knew he would play aggressive and end the map quickly and viola! Jaedong's superior preparation lead to a victory.
I don't beleive Jaedong's skills at the moment are good enough to beat Flash in an impromptu best of 5. Everyone of those games in the finals was a calculated masterpiece, but I'm not sure Jaedong could repeat those exact builds again and get the same result. Nevertheless, Jaedong has ruthlessly dominated every other player on the planet and is only #2 by a mere smidgen. |
| 3. |
Power Outage
(Z) (stats) |
- |
3 |
I'm not much for jokes, but there is a legitimate reason why Power Outage earns #3. It's not all the controversy it generate, but the fact that Jaedong and Flash are so far ahead of everyone else at the moment that it's sickening. These two are carrying on the great legacy of TvZ rivalries which include the likes of Boxer/Yellow, Nada/Gorush, Nada/Chojja, iloveoov/July, Midas/Savior and Nada/Savior. They are both revolutionizing TvZ every time they meet and that is nothing to scoff at. Take this moment to think about just how blessed we are to have two amazing players showing us some of the most beautiful Starcraft we have ever witnessed. |
| 4. |
Really
(T) (stats) |
- |
4 |
Really has been slowly creeping up my ranking all through January. It all started right at the start of the month when he became the person to break Flash's TvT streak. It was an impressive game to say the least. He followed that up quickly by taking out fantasy in another dominating game. Then, he lost to Baby - and dropped right into CBNC territory. Throughout the rest of the month he played excellent Starcraft and shot right back up into the ranks. The thing that sealed Really's high rank this month was his performance against Khan - notably his thoroughly impressive game against Jangbi on Match Point. Even though he lost the subsequent game to Stork, I would be inclined to put that down to lack of proper preparation for Judgment Day since his positioning was less than optimal throughout and he let Stork's build get away unpunished. It looked as if he didn't know Stork could 12nexus on that map! Nevertheless, Really had an amazing January and has earned every little bit of this rank. Oh and on a personal note, Really became the first player on eSTRO to get a positive career winrate this month! congrats~ |
| 5. |
Leta
(T) (stats) |
- |
1 |
Leta is a very talented gamer who over the past month hasn't dropped a game to a player outside of the December PR. Leta is very good at beating lesser players, and has been able to do so consistently over the past month. His routine dismantling of Saint is a very example of this (I love Leta's wraith control). The only players to take games off of Leta are Kal and Sea. These players certainly were his toughest competition over the month, and it is certainly true that Kal completely outplayed him. But the fact remains that over January, Leta played better than Kal. The problem with Leta is that he hasn't really come up against any exceptionally strong competition so for him to keep this spot next month he will need to make sure continues to beat those A Class gamers and start taking games off of S Class gamers. But of course, that will depend on Leta's draw over the next month, so we'll see how things pan out. |
| 6. |
Kal
(P) (stats) |
+4 |
3 |
Forget everything you know about Kal, because this isn't the Kal that was rocking our worlds back in Arena MSL, this is neo-Kal. For one, Kal seems incapable of playing solid PvZ - traditionally his best matchup. Even though he lost 0-4 to Jaedong over the month, every one of those games was painful. Yes Jaedong is really good, but I simply expect more from Kal in that department. Furthermore, his games against Hoejja and Shine indicate that Kal's PvZ just isn't clicking at the moment. However, Kal's PvT is stronger than ever. He dominated Hwasin at the start of the month and then outplayed Leta from a disadvantage, on a bad PvT map, to finish off the month. Every game in between is just filler since they all look similar - Kal dominating a Terran and making him look worthless.
Kal stepped up in January, as expected. But to keep moving up we need to see what his PvP looks like, and to see that he can recapture some of his former glory in PvZ. Until then he'll have to be content sitting under Leta. |
| 7. |
Kwanro[saM]
(Z) (stats) |
+1 |
7 |
If we forget about Kwanro vs Flash for a moment, Kwanro played, and beat, a whole lot of terrible opponents this month. As impressive as a 7-1 record is over January, when your opponents are players like Soo and Hydra it really makes that 7-1 stat a whole lot less impressive. Against Flash, Kwanro looked pretty helpless. He didn't even put up that good of a fight, and the one game he won was a result of early game Zerglings. It just leaves me with a giant 'meh' feeling in my mouth. So why is Kwanro still here then? Because I can't penalize Kwanro for an easy draw given he wins all his games (as he has done, except when he got sunken broken by Casy). Kwanro hasn't shown any glaring weaknesses in his games, other than his series against Flash, which further makes dropping Kwanro difficult. In the end Kwanro sits at number 7 for consistency and an MSL semifinal placing. However, if Kwanro starts to falter in February, expect him to drop right back into CBNC territory. |
| 8. |
Firebathero
(T) (stats) |
- |
4 |
Despite going 0-2, firebathero didn't have a terrible start to the month. His game against Flash was one of the few games where Flash looked troubled in TvT over the past few months. That deserves a ton of credit right there, but due to a poor December he was rather overlooked. The rest of the month was very very impressive from the Khan veteran. Since the start of the Winner's League he has gone 6-2; 3-1 against SKT (including very impressive wins of BeSt and Bisu) and 3-1 against eSTRO. It's hard to blame firebathero for losing to Really and Fantasy at the end of all of that, because he played so damn well. Look out, because firebathero is in great shape at the moment (so trade him into your FPL team if you don't have him already). |
| 9. |
Stork[gm]
(P) (stats) |
-7 |
1 |
How does the Samsung Khan Ace end up below the third best player from Khan? Easy, you play bad for a whole month. Stork's record is better than the games reflect. For instance, take Stork vs Stats on Outsider. Stats was winning for pretty much the entire game, then Stork got some lucky scarabs off which killed both of Stats' Reavers winning Stork the decisive battle. Sure, Stork won, but it was nowhere near convincing. Hence why his subsequent loss to Pure came as no surprise to me. After beating Flash on Heartbreak, you would expect that Stork would give Flash a good game right? Wrong. Stork was crushed by the first push, it was pathetic. He also took a bad beat from Hiya as well. To Stork's credit his play towards the end of the month picked up, and that's why he's still on this months ranking. Unfortunately, I don't feel that we've seen enough to give a proper assessment of how good Stork's three matchups are since firebathero has been dominating so hard. Thus Stork has been playing cleanup duty, but he's been doing it well! To stay on this ranking Stork's going to need to prove his worth if firebathero starts failing - and I really hope he can do that. |
| 10. |
HiyA[fOu]
(T) (stats) |
- |
6 |
The #10 spot was actually fought over quite hard this month. In the end it came down to Hiya vs Calm - and Hiya just managed to nudge ahead. Hiya really doesn't receive enough credit on these forums. He was the most popular anti-team pick for last seasons FPL and consequently he screwed a lot of people over. In January Hiya played some impressive games and took some impressive scalps - like Stork, Jangbi and Violet. Since Jaedong was preparing so hard for the MSL Finals, Hiya took over Ace duty for Hwaseung, and did a very respectable job. Sure he lost to Zero, but due to both sides playing aggressive it was a very very intense game and a hard fought loss on his behalf. You also can't really blame him for losing to Hoejja the other day either - all in Drone counters are an unexpected (but surprisingly viable) to 8rax scv all-ins. That was not a conventional game of Starcraft by any measure. Thus for a solid performance over January Hiya breaks into the PR, just. |
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
CBNC:
Calm - strictly speaking he gets the 10th rank since Power Outage doesn't really count. But there were some really painful games played by calm this month. Such as his game against Yellow and Mind. If you recall what I said last month about Calm and that he needed to prove himself and prove that he had fixed the holes in his game to stay in the ranks. He failed at that - he went 6-6 overall with a number of those wins being poor, and a number of the losses being humiliating (e.g. vs Flash later on in the month, not in the OSL). That is why Calm, or rather Clam, did not feature this month.
Movie - Movie got to the OSL finals by playing well in December. He did not play well in January (and neither did Shine for that matter). Movie was unable to refine his play sufficiently and as a result has a negative record for the month (even if you remove his losses against Flash). Movie has great potential, and once he refines his game he will burst back into the ranks. At the end of the day, I can't give Movie a place on the ranks just because he made the OSL finals, even though other players were eliminated earlier - they improved and their skill has shone through in other areas. Movie has been unable to transfer his success to PL/WL and hence unless he refines his play I don't expect him to do well in the next OSL.
Guemchi - Not much to say. 6-0 in Winners League is pretty damned impressive. Keep it up and you'll get on the ranks but at the moment it's a bit premature.
Zero - Zero's play slipped during January and due to a rough December I couldn't justify keeping him on the ranks. He's here because he can still take games off the very best, but he's a little too inconsistent for top 10 at the moment. I'm confident that over February, however, he will be able to remedy the situation and winning games in the WL (no more losses to Gorush okay -.-)
pre-emptive rebuttal:
Bisu - Bisu may be the greatest player in the world, but if he's not performing I'm not going to cut him any slack 'just because' he's Bisu. Bisu went 2-2 in January, lost Ace duties to Best/Fantasy and just hasn't shown any signs of being the best anymore. Honestly, Best has played a lot better than Bisu over the past month (just compare their games against FBH even), and Best was sooo close to making CBNC this month. I'm sorry Bisu fans, but he's going to need to do a lot more work before he'll get back into the ranks.
Shine - Shine had a bad month. In December he was connecting, in January he struck out, and struck out badddd. There isn't much to say here other than go watch the games, since Shine just didn't perform to the same level he did in December.
Best/Fantasy - both players are almost there, but they lack consistency. Fantasy looked really promising, but yesterdays games really shook my confidence in him. Best looked good as well, but he simply lost too many games to 'average' opponents (in unspectacular fashion) over January.
Apologies for being a few hours early 
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Some bugs in the PR - hopefully a coder can work out whats going on lol
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Yes, I called it! 
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Sea no CBNC ? 
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Wow, an EARLY powerrank? Nice!
Edit: Is there a way to fix the names in the sidebar? It looks kinda weird and spaced out between some of the names.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On January 31 2010 19:48 Damian wrote:Sea no CBNC ? Sea went 3-2 over the month, but he's playing the role of cleanup for MBC so its difficult to tell where his skill lives exactly. Him, Light and Best make up my CBCBNC list haha
On January 31 2010 19:49 De4ngus wrote:
Edit: Is there a way to fix the names in the sidebar? It looks kinda weird and spaced out between some of the names. I'm having a coder look into it
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I'm expecting some controversy over Stork's placement, haha.
I'm also happy to see really grasp a high ranking as an eStro fan, even if it seems a little high in my objective perspective (3rd best player in the world at the moment?), simply because he hasn't made a significant mark in an individual league yet. However, his raw skill clearly shows through his Winner's League performance and he'll definitely be a threat in the next OSL/MSL.
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Your rankings are so unexpected.
You seem to be a strictly monthly player with little reliance on statistics.
Gah! I can't post. I keep receiving the "Wrong Input!" screen, asdlkfajl!@!#
Finally!
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On January 31 2010 19:54 InFdude wrote:
You are going to get flamed soooo bad by stork fans.
he is 4-3 after all =/
On January 31 2010 19:59 Avidkeystamper wrote:
Your rankings are so unexpected.
You seem to be a strictly monthly player with little reliance on statistics.
I'm not strictly monthly, but anything before december I've completely 'forgotten' about. I tend to only go to the month before to decide between two players who played really well over the month. I beleive stats are a good starting point, indeed if you go by stats Stork leaves the PR, Kwanro sits around # 4-5 and so on. They can't tell you a complete story, so you have to watch all the games to know what those statistics mean. For instance, Storks win over Stats was garbage whereas Kals win over Leta was incredible.
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You forgot the point that the maps are imbalanced when discussing an impromptu Bo5. This map pool was just as bad as Shinhan 3. The other point is that Bo5s are never impromptu so its irrelevant, Fantasy was a strong series player because of his preparation, that was the part that mattered and JD had way better prep during that finals considering both of them had the same preparation time with JD having a one day advantage. Btw the 3hat before pool on match point was only reactionary, a 9drone scout was sent before hand both by Killer + JD.
Also Plexa might you enlighten me on how and in what way are JD and Flash revolutionizing TvZ? I am just asking this question, the builds JD used in the finals are in no way viable in a standard situation and Flash has simply been playing textbook TvZ to perfection the past season with only better placement + better hard counters to guards and better MnM micro vs Mutas, with perfect macro with minimal unit loss. I dont see any revolution, simply godlike play here.
Overall its a fine power rank, and you did very well with it and all the positions are agreeable and the PO was a nice touch. It's really hard to do the bottom spots when there simply isnt much going on.
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pripple
Finland1714 Posts
finally Really gets some recognition! 2nd best terran in the world at the moment for sure!
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Good, guaranteed-to-be-controversial power rank as usual  But I beleive there are some spelling errors.
FBH fighting!
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I agree with the ranking 100%, but why do you say Jaedong wont have a chance against Flash in a bo5?
He out thought him once, why not a 2nd time?
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On January 31 2010 19:54 InFdude wrote:
You are going to get flamed soooo bad by stork fans.
As a Stork fan, I'm going to say this. I don't mind Stork's placement if all other placements place heavy emphasis on this month's play(such as FBH coming out of nowhere for #8 and Really at #4).
Personally, as long as the ranking is consistent with a certain set of standard, I'm fine. And if the emphasis is heavy for this month, then Stork's rank seems appropriate.
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On January 31 2010 20:53 SuperArc wrote:
I agree with the ranking 100%, but why do you say Jaedong wont have a chance against Flash in a bo5?
He out thought him once, why not a 2nd time?
The key word is "impromptu". Plexa thinks that if someone were to come up to Flash/Jaedong and told them they were playing a Bo5 -right now-, Flash would be the favorite due to the wave of raw ability he's riding on. Given how ridiculously Flash has been playing lately and how strong Jaedong's builds had to be in the MSL finals, i'm inclined to agree.
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I don't disagree, but if 50% of these players really are top 10 right now then there's really a lack of good players. I mean just listen to the names... Really, Leta, Kwanro, HiyA. Guys like that didn't use to be top 10 (except for Kwanro who cheesed his way on a couple of PRs with what I personally never agreed with ).
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On January 31 2010 21:05 Niton wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2010 20:53 SuperArc wrote:
I agree with the ranking 100%, but why do you say Jaedong wont have a chance against Flash in a bo5?
He out thought him once, why not a 2nd time? The key word is "impromptu". Plexa thinks that if someone were to come up to Flash/Jaedong and told them they were playing a Bo5 -right now-, Flash would be the favorite due to the wave of raw ability he's riding on. Given how ridiculously Flash has been playing lately and how strong Jaedong's builds had to be in the MSL finals, i'm inclined to agree.
apart from game 4 where Jaedong foresaw Flash's 8rax, why is three hatch before pool not viable against rax expand? Even Xiaoxi managed to pull it off against Idra. And 12pool lair is always executable too.
They were not once in a lifetime BOs. I am pretty sure we're gonna see more three hatch before pool games in the future. 12 hatch 11 pool is just too weak.
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I'm expecting good things from Really, his play has been so good lately.
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EPT
