after adding a lot of foreign BW Tournaments of ages ago, I found myself asking some questions. I found evidence of an unexplainable factor, one I'm trying to find an answer to. So much for the introduction.
Knowing a little about questionnaire design theory, I feel like I shouldn't really explain in detail what the purpose of the following questions are - to not influence you and to receive unbiased opinions. I'll probably use it in one way or the other to expand my Brood War History blog, so it's not for nothing.
I'm going to ask you who - in your opinion - the best three Terrans in foreign history were (feel free to add current players). I'm interested in amateur players, so people who weren't going to Korea, meaning no Idra, Elky, or Assem. Afterwards tell me where you're from - roughly. That's all.
If there's enough response, I can update the blog in a few days (or whenever there are answers) and tell you what it was about.
I'm not a knowledgeable StarCraft historian, so the only one I know of is Androide. He beat Jaedong and stuff :D Slayer was also one of the best players for his time, but he was a race picker.
On June 15 2014 04:09 vOdToasT wrote: I'm not a knowledgeable StarCraft historian, so the only one I know of is Androide. He beat Jaedong and stuff :D Slayer was also one of the best players for his time, but he was a race picker.
On June 15 2014 04:09 vOdToasT wrote: I'm not a knowledgeable StarCraft historian, so the only one I know of is Androide. He beat Jaedong and stuff :D Slayer was also one of the best players for his time, but he was a race picker.
Androide & A2, the 3rd would be either Strelok or Brat_OK, and I'm leaning more towards Strelok mostly because of his 3rd place at WCG. It's hard to compare chinese players that are no Pj and Lx to foreigners, Phoenix66 and Super could definitely compete. And I don't know much about Froz besides that Americans were hyping him which doesn't have to mean much.
You better have a good reason to exlude players that turned pro. They didn't get good because they went to Korea but they got extremely good hence they went to Korea and went pro (well, applies to all the players besides Idra).
On June 15 2014 19:33 rafaliusz wrote: You better have a good reason to exlude players that turned pro.
... or what?
He'll come to your house and take no prisoners. I went for Advokate/Androide/Strelok. I forgot about Chinese Terrans. I guess Super deserved to be on there too.
A list of significantly good amateur terran players that comes to my mind: Androide, Arch, Artosis, Brat_ok, China_TTTT, hellghost, Enjoy, Lamerr, Odin, Beast, Yosh, Advokate, Strelok, sVEN, Super, NTT, Ex, Whear, CQ-2000, SuKeR, Froz, Maynard
Perhaps I could add some input on these guys.
Enjoy, Odin, Arch, SuKeR were really good and talented terran players but for not considerable amount of time imo.
ChinaTTT and Super are terrans i am not too familiar with and due to no significant WCG performances (that I know of) and not many, if at all, opportunities to play with on battle.net, cannot be in my top 3. All I remember back in I-don't know-which-year is that the top china terran was CQ-2000 and he was the shit. Perhaps MTY is a good mention too.
sVEN, NTT, Whear, froz, Maynard too oldschool for me to judge. All I know is that they were sick good but not too sure how they compare to the others in the list and for how long they played actively/seriously.
The most dominant foreigner amateur terran players over a significant period of time (judging by WCG performances (it's all we had back then) and skill level), imo, were Slavic terrans. Whether it be russians, bulgarians or ukrainians, if I had to construct a top 3 it will be surely purely slavic terrans. My single doubt for a player that is not a slavic and might be a really good fit for the top 3 is hellGhost. HG was retardedly fearsome T.
On June 15 2014 21:34 Boonbag wrote: foreign T's all sucked against zerg
no
wait what ?
arguably the last best tvzer was ret, but that's all i see there's not anyone on your list that comes anything remotely close to courage level and you say they didnt suck against z?
i believe we are talking foreigner level terrans here similarly, it could be said/argued that all foreigners suck in all mus against koreans with slight exceptions at different times but for not a significant period of time such as ret, Draco, NonY, Androide, Testie etc., if we compare top amateur players to koreans and koreans only dunno what courage level exactly is though... at different times different participants are playing and a significant amount of luck is needed to win one i believe (by a foreigner that is)
On June 15 2014 22:38 LRM)TechnicS wrote: i believe we are talking foreigner level terrans here it could be said/argued that all foreigners suck in all mus against koreans with slight exceptions at different times but for not a significant period of time such as ret, Draco, NonY, Androide, Testie etc. dunno what courage level exactly is though... at different times different participants are playing and a significant amount of luck is needed to win one i believe (by a foreigner that is)
they use to talk about courage luck not only for foreigners, i guess it was just the format coupled with its importance i disagree in saying that all mus were bad for foreigners against koreans TvT / PvT / TvP / ZvP you had pretty decent foreign players i think ZvT / TvZ / PvZ / ZvZ imo are / were much harder / problematic but ret knows all that better and could tell us best or incontrol, as he use to dominate jaedong so ez
well, as I said, there were slight exceptions at different times for amounts of time that I consider far from significant, if we are talking MUwise
I am not sure how much easily available data we have though. are we talking tournament results or practice game performance or both? 'foreign T's all sucked against zerg' is as broad of a generalisation as it can get. It certainly isn't the best starter for a valueable and purposeful discussion, as I am left guessing what exactly does that mean, but it gives a good reason for me to share some memories. I am not certain what aggregates of players we are comparing and at which times and under what circumstances. it's one thing talking KBK times, another 2003 b.net games, another PGTour/WCG games etc.
my memories involve ret performing astonishingly well in his last Courage attempt from what I remember in what was a zvz fest of a Courage for him. Draco, NonY were pretty close to winning one from what i recall. Draco had amazingly good PvT and I remember his manly tears after losing a bitter 1-2 to oov on WCG 2006 but I don't imagine that his PvP and PvZ were significantly worse. Androide had sick TvT, even compared to top koreans for about a year perhaps. Advokate executed some really nice build orders/strategies. I've had a discussion with Beast where he confessed to me that even if he didn't make some silly mistakes against Xellos on WCG 2004 semis, he wouldn't had a chance to win because they were that much better. Beast was at his peak of performance back then I believe.
perhaps ret is not our best source if we are to compare top foreigners vs top koreans players. On top of my head Testie, Mondragon and Androide are better for that matter, maybe some others too. They played with the koreans on US west for many years from what i recall and Testie had consistent sweet wins over gosu koreans on various WCG grand finals
If you're looking to add a few old tournaments to LP, I have a few on my LP page (some of which Mewka already added).
As for the poll, I guess you'll get mostly eastern European terrans. There were some older terrans that were good, but they were active at a time when people played worse, so it was easier to be at the top...
it's just that 'foreign T's all sucked against zerg' is the very least a thoughtless assumption
this assumption and the following responses involve too much broad generalizations for me. I am not really sure what you are trying to say and it requires me to keep guessing too much
nony was really good too, he won TSL 2 ($10,000) and came 2nd in his first courage tournament, it took even jaedong 3-4 times before he won his first courage so that puts the competition in a bit better prospective