|
On October 04 2015 17:02 pure.Wasted wrote: If INno wins this finals, there's a strong case that he is the most influential player of HOTS.
On October 04 2015 17:04 stuchiu wrote: for various reasons, it wouldnt be Inno, it would be Life, Zest or soO.
On October 04 2015 17:07 pure.Wasted wrote: For various reasons, the only one of those who I'd accept as a contender for INno's title would be Life. I'll gladly argue all about this when I'm not so distracted.
edit: added Maru.
And here we are. With Blizzcon encroaching as the final premier tournament in SC2 HotS, I wanted to figure out who the greatest Heart of the Swarm player really is. I worked with stuchiu's list. The only player possibly missing from it is Taeja, but seeing as I hold overseas tournaments in significantly lower esteem, I don't feel too bad about being lazy and cutting him out.
Let's start with the TANGIBLES.
INnoVation
Individual Leagues - 2013 - WCS KR champion, ro4 defeat in OSL by eventual champion Maru, Code S finalist and near-winner against the most impressive Zerg of that meta. Knocked out of GSL s3 by eventual runner-up soO. - 2014 - Code S champion against the most impressive Zerg of that meta. - 2015 - Code S champion against the most impressive Zerg of that meta. - He is the only HotS player to win two GSL or equivalent trophies, one of two Terrans to win a GSL or equivalent in Heart of the Swarm, and owns 3/4 GSL or equivalent Terran appearances. - He attended 3 GSL finals and 4 KR finals total, of which he won 3. - One overseas championship. One premier title away from a HotS Triple Crown (3rd place finish in NA).
Teamleagues - 2013 - dominating performance for STX. - 2014 - dominating performance for Acer in foreign leagues. - 2015 - dominating performance for SKT. He was successfully fielded as playoffs ace vs JAGW where he defeated two opponents, and has an overall 70.83% winrate with 17/24 games won since the start of 2015, and 73.08% with 38/52 since the start of HotS.
Life Individual Leagues - (Late) 2014 - knocked out of GSL ro4 by eventual runner-up soO; Blizzcon champion. - (Early) 2015 - Code S champion against the most impressive PvZer available. Knocked out of SSL ro4 by eventual runner-up Dream who has very impressive TvZ. - He attended 1 GSL finals and 2 KR finals total (counting Blizzcon), of which he won 2. - He is one of two unique Zerg GSL champions of HotS, one of 4 unique Zerg GSL finalists, and one of 7 Zerg finalists total. - Four overseas championships. One premier title away from a HotS Triple Crown (runner-up finish in Europe).
Teamleagues - 52% winrate with 22/42 games won since late 2014.
Zest Individual Leagues - 2014 - Code S champion against soO in soO's worst MU. Won GSL Global Championship against PartinG. Won KeSPA Cup against herO in herO's worst MU. Knocked out of GSL s3 ro4 by eventual runner-up soO in soO's worst MU. Knocked out of Hot6ix Cup ro4 by eventual runner-up MKP. - 2015 - knocked out of GSL s3 ro8 by eventual champion INnoVation. - He attended 1 GSL finals and 3 KR finals total, of which he won 3. - He is of 4 unique Protoss GSL winners, 5 unique Protoss GSL finalists, and 5 Protoss GSL finalists total, in HotS. - One overseas championship. One premier title away from a HotS Triple Crown (runner-up finish in Europe).
Teamleagues - 60.76% (48/79) from start of HotS. - 2014 - ultra-dominating performance for KT, especially against rivals SKT. - 2015 - he was successfully sent out as playoffs ace vs JAGW, defeating two opponents.
soO Individual Leagues - 2013 - Code S finalist against Dear. - 2014 - Code S finalist against Zest, very narrowly losing, during a Protoss-heavy meta with ZvP being soO's worst MU. Knocked out of GSL Global Championship Ro4 by Zest, same conditions as before. Code S finalist against INnoVation. - He attended 4 GSL finals, 5 KR finals in total, of which he won 0. - He is the only HotS player to attend 4 GSL finals, and the only one to attend three or four finals back-to-back. Not one of the 2 unique Zerg GSL winners of the HotS era; one of 4 unique Zerg GSL finalists, and 7 Zerg finalists total in HotS. - 0 overseas championships, not close to Triple Crown.
Teamleagues - 56% with 51/91 since start of HOTS, 63.34% with 35/55 since early 2014. - He was sent out successfully as ace vs Maru in playoffs.
Maru Individual Leagues - 2013 - knocked out of ro32 by getting matched against Soulkey twice, Soulkey of course ended up going on to win the season. OSL champion against Rain. Knocked out of ro4 Code S by Dear, who went on to win the season. - 2014 - knocked out of ro4 by Classic, who went on to win the season. - 2015 - knocked out of Code S ro8 by Rain, who went on to win the season. Knocked out of Code S ro4 by INnoVation, who went on to win the season. Won Starleague s1. - He is one of two Terrans to win a GSL or equivalent in Heart of the Swarm, and owns 1/4 GSL or equivalent Terran appearances. - He attended 1 GSL finals and 2 KR finals total, of which he won 2. - 0 overseas championships, not close to Triple Crown.
Teamleagues -62.11% with 59/95 games won since start of Proleague. Sent out as ace vs. CJ in Playoffs, unsuccessfully.
GSL or OSL Finals INno - 3/9 Life - 1/9 Zest - 1/9 soO - 4/9 Maru - 1/9
GSL or OSL Championships INno - 2/9 Life - 1/9 Zest - 1/9 soO - 0/9 Maru - 1/9
Unique KR Tournaments Won INno - 2 Life - 2 Zest - 3 soO - 1 Maru - 2
GSL Appearances INno - 8/9 Life - 7/9 Zest - 4/9 soO - 8/9 Maru - 9/9
GSL or OSL Average Result (all results combined/number of Code S appearances) INno - 8 Life - 15.2 Zest - 5.25 soO - 13
GSL or OSL "Consistency Rating" - Average Result adjusted for consistency over HotS ([all results combined/number of Code S appearances + 64 x number of non-appearances]/total number of HotS GSLs) INno - 14.2 Life - 26.1 Zest - 36.7 soO - 19.1 Maru - 10.3
Overseas Championships INno - 1 Life - 4 Zest - 1 soO - 0 Maru - 0
Triple Crown INno - 2/3 Life - 2/3 Zest - 2/3 soO - 1/3 Maru - 1/3
Heart of the Swarm Earnings INno - $242,000 Life - $287,000 Zest - $207,000 soO - $100,000 Maru - $136,000
Looking at individual and team accomplishments, on paper, it seems conclusive that soO is not in the running at all. He's dead last in most categories, except GSL finals appearances, GSL appearances, GSL average results adjusted for consistency, and his Proleague record, which is I guess superior to Life's, for whatever little that's worth.
The other four are more difficult to gauge. INno has been a consistent powerhouse over the longest stretch of HotS, while Life only picked up serious steam halfway through the expansion, and Zest's reign is confined almost squarely to 2014. Zest's reign in PvP and PvZ was by far the most dominant of any of these players (the runner-up being INnoVation's TvZ up until 2013 S3) and he racked up wins in every KR event imaginable in that stretch of time. Life was by far the most successful overseas, and this is reflected by his earnings. Despite being in Proleague for approximately the same amount of time, INnoVation has made a very clear mark for SKT, while Life has... not... done... that. Maru has won fewer titles than any of the others, but has by far the most impressive GSL consistency, even surpassing INnoVation. Maru might not have won a single overseas event, but he also didn't miss a single Code S or OSL.
As you can see, I devised my own formula for calculating the "GSL Consistency Rating." If a player did not get into a season of Code S at all, they're placed in a fictitious "ro64" for that season. This formula is actually very generous to Zest, because if we look into the time he spent outside of Code S, he fell well below whatever ro64 might reasonably mean. TANGTANG, anyone? Despite this, Zest is dead-as-a-doornail last in terms of consistency.
Life takes a surprisingly convincing second last in terms of consistent GSL results, right after Zest. He missed a bunch of tournaments flat out; of those that he didn't miss, his results simply weren't on par with Maru, soO, and INnoVation.
In terms of tangible, quantifiable factors, I think that INnoVation comes out clearly, head-and-shoulders ahead throughout HotS, with Zest, Life, and Maru vying for second place. Zest had the hugest peak, Maru was by far the most consistent, and Life had the most success overseas.
Now for the INTANGIBLES.
I'm about to do a pitiful job of speaking on behalf of Life, Zest, and soO here, so I'd appreciate some input. This is what I have.
Unique GSL Finalists Terran - 1 Zerg - 4 Protoss - 5
GSL Finalists Total Terran - 3 Zerg - 7 Protoss - 5
Unique KR Finalists Terran - 5 Zerg - 6 Protoss - 7
KR Finalists Total Terran - 10 Zerg - 15 Protoss - 17
There's no way around the fact that Protoss has utterly dominated HotS, especially late 2013/early 2014. When we scale back from Korea as a whole and look just at GSL, it's not just Protoss that's dominant, but also specifically Terran that's underperforming. So let's say coming into this, INnoVation/Maru and Zest were on totally equal footing... you have to give INnoVation/Maru the edge based on what they had to go through to get the same results. But as we've just established, they're not coming in on equal footing at all. The discrepancy grows.
Zerg floats somewhere in the ambiguous middle.
INnoVation - pioneered and perfected parade push bio Terran, which absolutely defined and dominated TvZ throughout most of Heart of the Swarm. Pioneered the nefarious Hellbat style of TvT in early 2013. Reinvented himself and beat the best anti-Mech Zerg (ByuL) with Mech.
Life - his Zerglings have a way about them... a certain je ne sais quoi... uh... yeah.
Zest - invented macro PvP and the notion that you could consistently win the MU through skill instead of rushing DTs.
soO - best Zerg macro in the world, I think? Uh... I'm drowning here, fellas.
When you think Protoss in Korean HotS, you think Zest, Rain, herO, PartinG... maybe even Classic. When you think Zerg, you think Life, soO, ByuL. But when you think Terran, it's just two players. INnoVation and Maru. That's iconicity you can't buy.
The intangibles are a sorely incomplete picture, but I feel that Life, Zest, and Maru have some very serious catching up to do to stay in contention with INnoVation. soO's Kongular legacy clearly won't cut it.
edit: if there are any errors in my stats, I take 0% of the blame, and hold liquipedia and aligulac jointly responsible. As awesome as they are, they offer some very incomplete, and sometimes even contradictory, information, and it's entirely possible that I missed a result here or there. :C I hope I didn't!
|
|
On October 06 2015 17:39 Pandemona wrote: Don't think you can say he pioneered x or y when you don't know anything about Korean ladder. He might have been first player to use it offline in tournament x but you can never be sure. For example the hellbat crap was beta based, as they were op every terran used hellbat drops in TvT in beta for example.
Totally agreed. I think there's a difference between inventing something and pioneering it, though. He might not have been the first, but he was both one of the very first and one of the very best. There's something to be said for executing something at peak efficiency right out of the gate.
Also why Maru not in any stats Terran - Maru > Inno > the rest Zerg - Life > soO > ByuL > Dark > the rest Protoss - Zest > Rain > PartinG > the rest Is my HOTS rankings. Still good stats read :D ty
Maru doesn't get stats, but he does get a special mention at the end. <3
INno is my favorite player with Maru a close second. Maru is, IMHO, the most talented SC2 player. His accomplishments in HotS can't be overstated (OK maybe you did a tiny bit ). But there's still something missing. He's not a champion yet. He's got all the makings for it, he's won extremely prestigious events or come incredibly, agonizingly close, but I really believe that mentally, he doesn't yet see himself as a champion. I think that he doesn't take the game seriously enough to define himself in that way. I feel like his wins and losses both just bounce right off him, leaving only the raw talent.
But that's just some armchair psychology. To answer your original question, before I looked into all the stats, I would have said that he's just not there yet in terms of results. He got hit unfairly hard by the WCS point system and now we'll never know what might have been. Now that I've done the stats, I feel like he could very well give soO a run for his money. At a guess, Maru would have an even better GSL consistency rating than INno, and he's racked up two GSL equivalent championships, which soO never did.
|
Arguments, stats, bla bla bla ... Innovation is simply the face of HoTS. The main reason is probably the great timing of his better periods - right at the start and right at the end (with some pretty good times in the middle that are not that important). It also actually helps him that he did not play Sc2 during most of WoL, that's another reason why he is so linked with HoTS as opposed to Maru and Life who both are old-time greats. However details are not that important, I would guess that if you would ask a "random fan" (that is not someone who routinely makes GOAT tables, rankings, point scores and what not) who would they think of first to characterise the HoTS period, Innovation would simply be the most frequent answer.
He also has another big advantage and that is his race - Terran is just the deepest most intricate and developed race that allows you to showcase so many different skills. It's a race made to create a legacy. Yeah, it's not that easy (as shown by the fact that there were really just two strongly relevant Terrans over the last three years), but when taken to the very top, it's the strongest choice.
|
HOTS GOAT
Terran: INno Honorable Mentions: Polt, TaeJa Dream Zerg: Life Honorable Mentions: soO ByuL Soulkey Protoss: sOs Honorable Mentions: PartinG, Rain, Zest
|
Always like to read these articles whether or not I agree with the conclusions
I do think Inno is the greater of HotS but not because of stats or earnings (everyone weight those differently) but just because I feel it haha. Also what opisska said.
Finally what you ans stuchiu seem to talk about in the quotes is about the most influential player, but here you are analyzing the greatest one. This two things can yield very different results I think.
|
INno, greatest of HotS? Don't make me laugh. Whenever his race - or even playstyle, if we're talking about 2013 - became terribly unfavored, he fell to the ground while one other player of his race managed to stay high. And if Bogus is no greater than Maru, how can he be the greatest of HotS? He will maybe be the face of HotS, especially if he fails in LotV. But that's another thing.
edit : also, if you don't think "Classic" when thinking "Protoss" and "Dream" and "TaeJa" when thinking "Terran", while you think "ByuL" for Zerg or "PartinG" for Protoss, you should really rethink things. I mean, Classic is a dual StarLeague champion, Dream a dual StarLeague finalist.
|
On October 07 2015 00:38 OtherWorld wrote: INno, greatest of HotS? Don't make me laugh. Whenever his race - or even playstyle, if we're talking about 2013 - became terribly unfavored, he fell to the ground while one other player of his race managed to stay high. And if Bogus is no greater than Maru, how can he be the greatest of HotS? He will maybe be the face of HotS, especially if he fails in LotV. But that's another thing.
edit : also, if you don't think "Classic" when thinking "Protoss" and "Dream" and "TaeJa" when thinking "Terran", while you think "ByuL" for Zerg or "PartinG" for Protoss, you should really rethink things. I mean, Classic is a dual StarLeague champion, Dream a dual StarLeague finalist. Classic is dual SL but sOs is dual 100k + Hot6= triple crown
|
On October 07 2015 02:02 Cricketer12 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2015 00:38 OtherWorld wrote: INno, greatest of HotS? Don't make me laugh. Whenever his race - or even playstyle, if we're talking about 2013 - became terribly unfavored, he fell to the ground while one other player of his race managed to stay high. And if Bogus is no greater than Maru, how can he be the greatest of HotS? He will maybe be the face of HotS, especially if he fails in LotV. But that's another thing.
edit : also, if you don't think "Classic" when thinking "Protoss" and "Dream" and "TaeJa" when thinking "Terran", while you think "ByuL" for Zerg or "PartinG" for Protoss, you should really rethink things. I mean, Classic is a dual StarLeague champion, Dream a dual StarLeague finalist. Classic is dual SL but sOs is dual 100k + Hot6= triple crown Well yeah but he put sOs in his list didn't he? >.> edit : haha wait no he didn't, well you're right it's another name that should have been there
|
1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22271 Posts
when sos wins blizzcon he will be the 100k goat
|
Fiddler's Green42661 Posts
I just use basic reasoning from this: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/482944-the-process-of-creating-the-top-15-greatest-list
Won't be as indepth as I don't have the time or inclination right now.
A fwe problems here. soO, Life and Zest did as much or more than what Inno did for Terran in innovation.
Next is that the list ignores both Maru and Taeja, both of whom have as good as or better claims to be a better Terran than Innovation in HotS.
Innovation was only dominant for the first 5 months of HotS. After that he only had two months where he was a Top 3 player (at the end of 2014 and at the end of 2015)
Life was dominant for 5 months and a month at the beginning of HotS (so Inno favored here), but Life's peak was better than Inno's.
Zest was dominant for an year. So was soO. They both beat Inno in peak dominance and consistency.
Maru and Taeja have been top 3 (Maru for 1 year from OSL to mid 2014 and then again for the first half of 2015, Taeja for 1.75 years straight till Blizzcon 2014). They both beat Inno in terms of consistent peak performance.
Also bluntly, you state that we should count down Zest as HotS was Protoss dominant. All of Innovation's wins come from a Terran dominated meta(Beginning of HotS, the Thor buff/WM rebuff and the creation of mech now). If you discount that against Zest, you must discount that against Inno.
So yea, I dont see how Inno could ever be the best HotS player.
|
On October 07 2015 02:25 stuchiu wrote:I just use basic reasoning from this: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/482944-the-process-of-creating-the-top-15-greatest-listWon't be as indepth as I don't have the time or inclination right now. A fwe problems here. soO, Life and Zest did as much or more than what Inno did for Terran in innovation. Next is that the list ignores both Maru and Taeja, both of whom have as good as or better claims to be a better Terran than Innovation in HotS. Innovation was only dominant for the first 5 months of HotS. After that he only had two months where he was a Top 3 player (at the end of 2014 and at the end of 2015) Life was dominant for 5 months and a month at the beginning of HotS (so Inno favored here), but Life's peak was better than Inno's. Zest was dominant for an year. So was soO. They both beat Inno in peak dominance and consistency. Maru and Taeja have been top 3 (Maru for 1 year from OSL to mid 2014 and then again for the first half of 2015, Taeja for 1.75 years straight till Blizzcon 2014). They both beat Inno in terms of consistent peak performance. Also bluntly, you state that we should count down Zest as HotS was Protoss dominant. All of Innovation's wins come from a Terran dominated meta(Beginning of HotS, the Thor buff/WM rebuff and the creation of mech now). If you discount that against Zest, you must discount that against Inno. So yea, I dont see how Inno could ever be the best HotS player. I'm guessing you ignore sOs cause he just shatters everyone in terms of everything
|
Fiddler's Green42661 Posts
To be honest, there are a lot of people you have to consider for a list like this.
|
On October 07 2015 02:25 stuchiu wrote: Next is that the list ignores both Maru and Taeja, both of whom have as good as or better claims to be a better Terran than Innovation in HotS.
Neither Taeja nor Maru ever made it to the finals of the most prestigious tournament in the world, the GSL Code S, never mind winning it. How can that not count as a huge blow against them?
It's one thing to look at tennis and say "Federer is the greatest player in the world except when he plays Nadal," it's another to look at SC2 and say "Taeja is the best player in the world except any time he plays anybody at all in GSL... or SSL... or Blizzcon... basically, he's only the best player in the world at Dreamhack, when the other Koreans are all jet-lagged and were playing Proleague the night before."
Taeja's success comes entirely from overseas tournaments. We all know that a foreign premier is not the same as a Korean premier, but what's the metric? Is one KR event worth 1.5 foreign ones? 2? 3? There's just no way to objectively compare Taeja's stats to the other players.
Imagine we took an NFL QB and put him back in college football, then looked at his stats after his team had won the season. Did his team win because he's the best QB on planet Earth, or because he's a very big fish in a very small pond? If he never goes back to the big leagues, we'll never know. Taeja did go back, and he failed miserably.
Zest was dominant for an year. So was soO. They both beat Inno in peak dominance and consistency.
How can you say that Zest beat INno for consistency when INno made 7 out of 8 possible GSLs and Zest only made 4? Zest's peak lasted longer, sure, but both before and after his peak, he barely existed at all as an entity in Korean individual leagues. Whereas INno's relevance was only ever questionable during 1 out of the 3 seasons of Protoss dominance, the one time he didn't make it out of Code A.
Also bluntly, you state that we should count down Zest as HotS was Protoss dominant. All of Innovation's wins come from a Terran dominated meta(Beginning of HotS, the Thor buff/WM rebuff and the creation of mech now). If you discount that against Zest, you must discount that against Inno.
You're really going to put early 2014 on the same level of imbalance as early 2013 and say that INno and Zest deserve the same points "docked off"?
2013 GSL s1 - 7 Protoss, 11 Terrans, 14 Zerg - TvZ finals (INno vs Soulkey) 2013 OSL s2 - 11 Protoss, 10 Terrans, 9 Zerg - TvP finals (Maru vs Rain) 2013 WCS Korea Finals - 3 Protoss, 5 Terrans, 8 Zerg - TvP (INno vs sOs) 2013 WCS Korea Finals s2 - 7 Protoss, 7 Terran, 2 Zerg - TvZ (Bomber vs Jaedong)
For a grand total of - 29% Protoss, 34% Terran, 36% Zerg.
This is called Terran "dominance"? More Zerg than Terrans in premier KR events? There was not a single tournament in which there were more Terrans than any other race. The most you can say is that Terran never distinctly underperformed. The gap between Zerg and Protoss performance is 7%. Some might actually call these numbers roughly balanced.
Now let's look at Blink era.
2014 GSL s1 - 16 Protoss, 3 Terrans, 13 Zerg - PvZ finals (Zest vs soO) 2014 GSL s2 - 14 Protoss, 4 Terrans, 14 Zerg - PvZ finals (Classic vs soO) 2014 GSL Global Championship - 5 Protoss, 5 Terran, 6 Zerg - PvP finals (Zest vs PartinG) 2014 GSL s3 - 16 Protoss, 7 Terrans, 9 Zerg - TvZ finals (INnoVation vs soO) (This is not carryover numbers from s2; 13 Protoss qualified from Code A, 6 Terrans, and 5 Zerg)
For a grand total of - 46% Protoss, 17% Terran, 38% Zerg.
Do I need to explain how these numbers differ from those numbers? Two tournaments with more Protoss than any other race. PvP finals. There's no fluctuation here - in 3/4 tournaments, Terran is absurdly worse represented than Protoss, and in 2/4 tournaments, absurdly worse represented than Zerg, as well. The gap between Protoss and Terran performance is 29%.
Now you say Terran is favored again, in the present meta?
2014 GSL s3 - 12 Protoss, 11 Terran, 9 Zerg in Ro32. 7 Protoss, 5 Terran, 4 Zerg in Ro16 (-42% P, -55% T, -44% Z). 3 Protoss, 3 Terran, 2 Zerg in Ro8 (-67% P, -40% T, -50% Z). 1 Protoss, 2 Terran, 1 Zerg in Ro4. TvZ finals.
And again, we look at the numbers and we see a roughly even split... that actually favors Protoss through qualifiers, Ro32, and Ro16, favors Zerg over Terran in Ro16, and only begins to favor Terran once we get into the very low single digit results. Again, numbers that should be interpreted as "roughly balanced" are somehow supposed to be proof that Terran is dominant.
KeSPA Cup s2 - 4 Protoss, 5 Terran, 7 Zerg in Ro16. ZvZ finals.
Combine all of this with the fact that only a single Terran ever made it to a GSL Code S finals in HotS, while 5 different Protoss and 4 different Zerg accomplished this remarkable feat. I honestly don't understand where you could possibly be coming from to suggest that over the long haul of HotS the balance more or less evened out.
Now...
This isn't to say that Zest's accomplishments are meaningless. People still give MVP all the props in the world despite the power of Terran in early WOL (I wasn't around back then, so I have no real opinion about MVP). It's up to us to decide how to weigh the balance and the metas against or for the players' achievements. What I see is that of the four players listed here, INnoVation was the only one to be a consistent championship contender anytime the game approached a 30/30/30 split in Korea during Heart of the Swarm.
|
For me INnoVation and Life are the only ones in contention for HotS GOAT and I'm leaning slightly on INnoVation as he has the best chance of winning BlizzCon. Life has been consistent for the most parts of HotS and when he started dominating he looked unbeatable. The SH patch hit him very hard and he couldn't adapt to the new meta. I still think if anyone can beat INno, its Life.
|
I dont watch much TvP so I dont know how good INnoVation's TvP is. Can he beat the likes of herO, Rain, sOs?
|
Fiddler's Green42661 Posts
Yes, HotS in the beginning was Terran favored. Hellbat drops, MMMM (which was nerfed) for 6 months. Protoss was imbalanced for the blink era (which lasted from depending who you ask anywhere from end of 2013 to haflway of 2014). Inno's GSL 2014 run was off the back of the thor buff/WM rebuff and that Protoss/Zerg didnt have time to adapt. This season, Innovation's run was generally unaffected by mech being stronger than Zerg until the finals (where it could be said that he would have won anyway because ByuL is a Kong).
I'm not talking about overall HotS balance, but their specific careers and where their achivements were placed.
Also Innovation has never had Taeja's success in the international bracket. He won GSL, then got beat by Tajea three times at DH, WCS Season 2 Finals and Blizzcon.
Basically I just use this reasoning here: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/482944-the-process-of-creating-the-top-15-greatest-list
I don't think we'll agree on this as our criteria are too different.
As for the other guy, Inno can beat all of those Protoss players, especially Zest.
|
On October 07 2015 05:49 stuchiu wrote: Yes, HotS in the beginning was Terran favored. Hellbat drops, MMMM (which was nerfed) for 6 months. Protoss was imbalanced for the blink era (which lasted from depending who you ask anywhere from end of 2013 to haflway of 2014). Inno's GSL 2014 run was off the back of the thor buff/WM rebuff and that Protoss/Zerg didnt have time to adapt. This season, Innovation's run was generally unaffected by mech being stronger than Zerg until the finals (where it could be said that he would have won anyway because ByuL is a Kong).
I can't help being confused as to why when Terran is disfavored, the numbers tell the entire story as clear as can possibly be, but when Terran is favored, the numbers lie through their Arabic little numeral teeth and show us a balanced racial split.
The only way I see for you to be right is that I've somehow been cherry-picking my stats to suit my preconceptions, but I don't... think... that... I've done that? Literally the only thing I can find that points to Terran being favored in 2013, statistically, is that one Terran was present at all four finals. But at that point, we're talking about individuals and handfuls of games. That's an infinitesimal sample size to draw balance conclusions from. I think that racial progression from Code A to Code S ro34 to ro16 is a starkly more informative ratio.
Even if we agree that this is meaningful, on what basis do you then decree it more meaningful than Zerg being more represented at every KR event in that era? They weren't being seeded into these events, they were qualifying. I could see how this implies that Protoss was disfavored, but not that Terran was favored.
Also Innovation has never had Taeja's success in the international bracket. He won GSL, then got beat by Tajea three times at DH, WCS Season 2 Finals and Blizzcon.
Two points:
1.) You're welcome to hold the international bracket in such high esteem, and that will certainly skew your conclusions in a different direction than mine. To me, foreign tournaments are not quite meaningless, but on the way there. They heavily disfavor Korean Koreans because of the travel involved, their busy teamleague schedule, and the fact that they just don't care about them that much compared to GSL/Proleague.
2.) Head-to-head isn't really that important. Federer is considered the best tennis player in the world, but he can't beat Nadal to save his life. And Taeja vs INno at Blizzcon was a very dubious match fraught with technical difficulty after technical difficulty, so I don't know how much stock I put into the result.
I've read this before. I absolutely agree with you about context being paramount. e.g. in the OP, I count Blizzcon as a KR event because 1) it's full of Koreans, and 2) they obviously do care about doing well there.
|
A couple questions: why is the focus exclusively on the GSL? Why not factor in the OSL and the SSL? I honestly don't see that much difference between them, but maybe there's something I'm missing. Also, why no $O$?
|
On October 07 2015 11:26 feanaro wrote: A couple questions: why is the focus exclusively on the GSL? Why not factor in the OSL and the SSL? I honestly don't see that much difference between them, but maybe there's something I'm missing.
Not exclusive - you'll find stats in the OP for both how many KR finals any player attended, total, and how many unique KR events they won. Also the racial stats take every KR event into account.
But I do focus on the GSL, mostly for psychological reasons. That's the most prestigious tournament. It stands to reason that players will feel more pressure to perform there than in any other league, and will do everything in their power to bring their A game. Consequently, I feel that makes the GSL results the most meaningful. To illustrate crudely: if we took all Koreans, put guns to their heads, and said "win or die," who would win? Probably those who won GSL.
I think in the future the SSL may become as important. It just needs time to build some tradition.
Let me know if you find this a compelling rationale or not.
|
On October 07 2015 12:46 pure.Wasted wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2015 11:26 feanaro wrote: A couple questions: why is the focus exclusively on the GSL? Why not factor in the OSL and the SSL? I honestly don't see that much difference between them, but maybe there's something I'm missing. Not exclusive - you'll find stats in the OP for both how many KR finals any player attended, total, and how many unique KR events they won. Also the racial stats take every KR event into account. But I do focus on the GSL, mostly for psychological reasons. That's the most prestigious tournament. It stands to reason that players will feel more pressure to perform there than in any other league, and will do everything in their power to bring their A game. Consequently, I feel that makes the GSL results the most meaningful. To illustrate crudely: if we took all Koreans, put guns to their heads, and said "win or die," who would win? Probably those who won GSL. I think in the future the SSL may become as important. It just needs time to build some tradition. Let me know if you find this a compelling rationale or not.
It just seems weird that the tournaments would have similar formats, almost identical player bases, and yet one is significantly more important that the other. I guess the GSL has a higher prize pool, but it still seems odd. It also screws Maru over pretty hard since he has 2 starleague titles, but neither are GSLs. It might also skew some of your stats regarding which races have the most titles and slots at finals. In particular, in makes INnoVation look good (maybe too good?) because it ignores Maru's dual titles and Dream's dual finals appearances to make him the sole terran representative.
|
On October 07 2015 13:01 feanaro wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2015 12:46 pure.Wasted wrote:On October 07 2015 11:26 feanaro wrote: A couple questions: why is the focus exclusively on the GSL? Why not factor in the OSL and the SSL? I honestly don't see that much difference between them, but maybe there's something I'm missing. Not exclusive - you'll find stats in the OP for both how many KR finals any player attended, total, and how many unique KR events they won. Also the racial stats take every KR event into account. But I do focus on the GSL, mostly for psychological reasons. That's the most prestigious tournament. It stands to reason that players will feel more pressure to perform there than in any other league, and will do everything in their power to bring their A game. Consequently, I feel that makes the GSL results the most meaningful. To illustrate crudely: if we took all Koreans, put guns to their heads, and said "win or die," who would win? Probably those who won GSL. I think in the future the SSL may become as important. It just needs time to build some tradition. Let me know if you find this a compelling rationale or not. It just seems weird that the tournaments would have similar formats, almost identical player bases, and yet one is significantly more important that the other. I guess the GSL has a higher prize pool, but it still seems odd. It also screws Maru over pretty hard since he has 2 starleague titles, but neither are GSLs.
That doesn't screw Maru over at all. :D What screws Maru over is that I didn't pick him as a contender at all, and didn't look into his stats whatsoever. D:
Full disclosure: I wrote up an explanation of why I don't think Maru would have racked up enough points to change my mind, then I thought, the world's been unfair enough to Maru already what with Blizzcon 2014... and the rest of 2014... Why don't I actually do the work and see what treating the SSL and OSL as totally equal to GSL gives us?
And then I realized that the SSL, like the GSL Global Tournament or the WCS Season Finals, has no Ro32. You just can't compare a result in a tournament with Ro32 against a tournament with no Ro32. There's no way.
Still, let's say we count the OSL as a GSL. That gives Maru the incredible GSL consistency rating of 10.32 (INno gets a 14.2), but winning an SSL, just like INnoVation winning 2013 WCS finals s1, is not as impressive because they didn't have to get through as many opponents. So if we count OSL, Maru is still at only 1 "GSL or GSL equivalent" while INNo is at 2. Maru has "1.5" finals appearances, while INno has "3.5."
So based on numbers alone, I don't see that Maru beats INno. As far as the intangible stuff goes, I think they're pretty evenly matched. Both great in TvT and another MU, both eventually overcame their struggles in the third MU to become competent at a championship level. Both started as fairly one-dimensional players (INno macro, Maru cheesy) but totally outgrew those labels. INno's weakness as a human in a booth playing a game was his tendency to get flustered and totally shut down when shit got chaotic, but he outgrew that, too. Maru I feel is less ambitious, I don't think that he feels the need to be dominant against his competitors, to make them look like fools and make himself look like a god among men. Furthermore, I think this hurts him competitively. But I'm not gonna give INno an edge based on some armchair psych.
Maybe if Lilbow destroys Life and then destroys Zest who destroyed INnoVation, and Maru godmodes Blizzcon, that combined with Maru's consistency will be enough to push him over the edge? Maaybe. I'll gladly give Maru the edge over any other player with a similar number of tournament wins and finals appearances - by a mile - but we're comparing him to INno, and at that point you just have to start winning championships.
Still, I'm glad I crunched the numbers on Maru. I hope you enjoyed the read, if not the conclusion.
It might also skew some of your stats regarding which races have the most titles and slots at finals. In particular, in makes INnoVation look good (maybe too good?) because it ignores Maru's dual titles and Dream's dual finals appearances to make him the sole terran representative.
Well, immediately following that stat, I do note that 5 different Terran players made it to a Korean finals during HotS (INno, Maru, Dream, MMA, and Bomber) and that a Korean Terran was present in the finals of 10 events (of which INno's appearances account for 40%).
Still, I edited all of Maru's information into the OP where applicable, counting the OSL as a GSL equivalent tournament. The SSL counts only as a generic Korean tournament, same as INno's WCS finals, Life's Blizzcon, or Zest's GSLGC.
|
Any post that contains the word "Taeja" is automatically irrelevant to the topic.
|
On October 07 2015 20:59 opisska wrote: Any post that contains the word "Taeja" is automatically irrelevant to the topic. Seriously? Just because he didnt win in Korea? Yes he didnt do that, but can Korea Champs do what he has done? No fucking way
|
There is no definitive to who is worthy because each player
Innovation Life Zest Soo Maru
mentioned by OP has had inconsistency through each year.
if this was question of skill it would be easy because there is assumption that skill level increases with time, but question of greatness over HOTS period there is no one person/face who is most visible throughout years.
it is also telling that names such as classic, hero, sos, stats and gumiho are not mention.
|
On October 08 2015 12:37 Cricketer12 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2015 20:59 opisska wrote: Any post that contains the word "Taeja" is automatically irrelevant to the topic. Seriously? Just because he didnt win in Korea? Yes he didnt do that, but can Korea Champs do what he has done? No fucking way
taeja was strong in beginning, but it has been long time since he has shown his ID.
this is question of consistent over time.
|
I think you have to give it to Bogus with his most recent win.
- Won 2/3 gsl finals he's been in (and came very close to a 3rd)
- Won an IEM
- Won a WCS Seasonal
- Consistently strong in just about every category of tournament, even in online qualifiers.
Zest, Life, Maru, herO, and perhaps sOs are the only real contenders left to take the throne at Blizzcon.
I like TaeJa but he doesn't belong here at all since he's been coasting through 2015 while everyone else mentioned has actually done something this year.
|
On October 08 2015 12:37 Cricketer12 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2015 20:59 opisska wrote: Any post that contains the word "Taeja" is automatically irrelevant to the topic. Seriously? Just because he didnt win in Korea? Yes he didnt do that, but can Korea Champs do what he has done? No fucking way
Yes, exactly because of that. People (and by people, I mean first and foremst stuchiu, because he uses by far the most charactaers to do that) constantly arguing that foreign tournaments should be taken seriously is getting annoying. "Korea Champs" probably can't "do what he has done", because the year has only 365 days and the sacrifices they would have to do for that would probably have a negative effect on their Korean performance and they would no longer be "Korea Champs". However I strongly believe that if basically anyone who has been even mentioned in this thread focused on foreigner tournaments - that is prepared for the possible strong oponents in detail, took their time to travel in advance and be well rested etc.. they could win exactly as much as Taeja or even more. Just look at the IEM WCs: I don't think that's much of a coincidence that when $100k (or $68k) is on the line, it's suddenly not Taeja's day. And I really hate the argument of "look at how great Koreans this foreiger tourney had, it's like it was a Korean tourney" - if you look at Korean tourneys, you will see a lot of fluctuations in participants, because the real strength of Korea is the absurd depth of the pool of very good players and while the individual performances vary a lot, the overall level is somewhere completely different - as demonstrated for example by the sole fact that no foreigner has broken into a Korean league for years, while the coveted foreign "almost as Korean" tournaments see a foreigner run at least ftom time to time.
|
On October 08 2015 19:21 opisska wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2015 12:37 Cricketer12 wrote:On October 07 2015 20:59 opisska wrote: Any post that contains the word "Taeja" is automatically irrelevant to the topic. Seriously? Just because he didnt win in Korea? Yes he didnt do that, but can Korea Champs do what he has done? No fucking way Yes, exactly because of that. People (and by people, I mean first and foremst stuchiu, because he uses by far the most charactaers to do that) constantly arguing that foreign tournaments should be taken seriously is getting annoying. "Korea Champs" probably can't "do what he has done", because the year has only 365 days and the sacrifices they would have to do for that would probably have a negative effect on their Korean performance and they would no longer be "Korea Champs". However I strongly believe that if basically anyone who has been even mentioned in this thread focused on foreigner tournaments - that is prepared for the possible strong oponents in detail, took their time to travel in advance and be well rested etc.. they could win exactly as much as Taeja or even more. Just look at the IEM WCs: I don't think that's much of a coincidence that when $100k (or $68k) is on the line, it's suddenly not Taeja's day. And I really hate the argument of "look at how great Koreans this foreiger tourney had, it's like it was a Korean tourney" - if you look at Korean tourneys, you will see a lot of fluctuations in participants, because the real strength of Korea is the absurd depth of the pool of very good players and while the individual performances vary a lot, the overall level is somewhere completely different - as demonstrated for example by the sole fact that no foreigner has broken into a Korean league for years, while the coveted foreign "almost as Korean" tournaments see a foreigner run at least ftom time to time.
no, korean champs cant't win every foreigner tournament if they wanted to. INnoVation tried it, you don't remember? He switched to acer and attended plenty foreign tournaments but didn't win a single one, losing multiple times to taeja. i guess people will never agree on this discussion because they rate foreign tournaments differently but what taeja has achieved in HotS (8 premier tournaments + ro4 in blizzcon and wcs season finals) is impressive enough that he should at least be in the discussion. Saying otherwise is simply ignorant.
by the way, his games against soO, Rain and INnoVation are to this day the highest level of skill i've ever seen in sc2 but this is subjective.
Also why is everyone hating on taeja so much? Players like bomber, polt and post-2010 MC also had mostly success at foreign tournaments but they get never flamed for that.
|
On October 09 2015 04:18 Charoisaur wrote:
Also why is everyone hating on taeja so much? Players like bomber, polt and post-2010 MC also had mostly success at foreign tournaments but they get never flamed for that.
Those also don't get consider for the top of a GOAT list very often. Nobody (or almost nobody) here is hating on Taeja, every anti-Taeja post is just simply a reaction to the insane amount by which is he being overrated on TL. I personally I always liked him and some of his games were absolutely awesome (vs. Inno on Newkirk anyone?) but that doesn't mean I am gonna blidly accept this mythology of great foreign tourneys.
|
|
|
|