The Power Rank is one of TeamLiquid's most popular and storied features, stretching back almost eight years to when MBC and OGN co-ran the Korean Brood War tournament circuit. As such, it is incredibly exciting to once more bring it back, this time with a significant makeover.
As you scroll down, you might notice two things: first, the Power Rank has received a facelift (courtesy of shiroiusagi). Second, there are now two rankings, not one. The first is the ranking most of you will be familiar with, taking into account matches all over the world and judging every player with the same measuring stick. The second works much the same way as the "real" rank, but with two differences: it has only five spots, and it omits Korean players. With the addition of a miniature "foreign" Power Rank, we hope to bring some attention to these players as well, and highlight what has been going on in national/regional tournaments that may not otherwise receive as much interest.
As always, there are a few things to take into consideration while reading this Power Rank:
The Power Rank focuses most on the month pertains to, but also takes past results into account
The Power Rank takes into account both results and the difficulty of opponents faced.
A player's placement on the Power Rank does not suggest that the player is better or worse than a higher ranked player in head-to-head. This ranking is an overall appraisal of a player, not an attempt to answer the question ”Who beats who?”
1
Prev - High 1
Rain
I initially thought I was fairly lonely in my assessment of Rain, and that placing him first on this ranking would be overly generous. Then almost every person I talked to agreed that Rain is both one of the favorites to win GSL and a candidate for the ever-elusive title ”Best player in the world.”, at which point my assessment felt more validated.
Advanced comfortably from Group E, beating Rogue and Zest
Qualified for the KeSPA Cup via qualifiers, beating Curious, Hydra and a resurgent Life.
Went a combined 23-6 in July and August against almost exclusively top-level players.
Not only this, but in doing all of the above Rain looked indomitable. Much like when he originally broke out as "The Assassin" in 2012 GSL Season 4, Rain needs no curveballs or tricky plays to dismantle his opponents. He revels in standard play, feeling no need to resort to trickery or low blows. For most players, this would be a weakness, a predictability that can only cause trouble in the long run. For Rain, it's testament to his strength more than anything. Many times, his opponents will know what is coming and still be helpless to stop it. With no clearly discernable weakness but a multitude of strengths ranging from the early game to the extreme late-game, Rain might very well be the best player in the world at this very moment.
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Prev - High 2
Maru
For Maru fans, August was an unfortunate month. Not because Maru played badly – as always, he performed as we have come to expect of him – but because his reign over the international circuit that was supposed to begin with IEM Toronto was cut short. Originally supposed to play in the Open Bracket (a narrow loss to Flash in the qualifiers prevented direct seeding into the group stage), Maru instead declined participation merely days before the event, presumably to focus on the upcoming individual leagues and ensure qualification for Blizzcon via GSL and the KeSPA Cup.
Unfortunately for Maru, he was set back significantly by recurring nemesis Effort. Eliminated from the KeSPA Cup qualifiers and not participating in IEM Toronto, all we're left with is his annihilation of Group C and a relatively strong playoffs performance in SPL. Make no mistake, Maru still plays well enough to warrant being #2 on this ranking, but his lack of appearances and stray losses here and there over the summer (Nado who?) puts him short of the top spot and with a few questions that demand answers.
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Prev - High 3
Flash
With his victory at IEM Toronto and one of the best individual months in terms of results a player has ever had in Starcraft 2, Flash (suddenly) takes the giant leap from being a good (but not always great) Terran to a player at the forefront of the Korean scene. He played a key role in KT's victory over SKT, beating his long-time rival Parting in a match most put in favor of his opponents. With the momentum swinging way after KT's championships, he went on this streak. For the full list of his matches in August, click the spoiler below. + Show Spoiler +
If you said anything except "That's insane" when looking at the list above, you may not have pressed the spoiler correctly. Last fall, Flash estimated that he would need another year to reach the level of skill that made him unbeatable in Brood War. Fall is coming, and it actually looks like Flash might make that happen after all.
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Prev - High 4
TaeJa
"As summer casts its last light begins to dwindle the summer of Taeja"
Putting aside overdramatic quotes, Taeja remains one of the best players in the world. Why else would back-to-back silvers in premier tournaments seem like a disappointment? He won three championships over the course of the summer, finished second at Red Bull Detroit and fell just short of making another finals as he was eliminated by an absolutely on-fire Flash in the Ro4 of IEM Toronto, where no one else could beat him. His latest championship at IEM Shenzhen demonstrated the full range of his skills very clearly, as he took down. Life, Zest and Solar - all recognized players in Korea - to win the championship. Say what you will about the level of players Taeja faces compared to what passes for "stacked" in Korea, but there really is no denying that even when he faces a combined force like the one that assembled in Canada this weekend, Taeja will almost always delivers both the games and the results he wants to stave off retirement for another year
That said, he has also had a few bumps along the road over the last month. He suffered a puzzling 0-2 loss to Leenock at the Taiwan Open, got blindsided by Action in the KeSPA Cup qualifiers, fell flat against Polt in Detroit and struggled against Zest before finally being eliminated by Flash in Toronto. Not a shameful series of displays by any means, but a notch below what we've come to expect from the international bounty hunter.
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Prev - High 5
Zest
Zest rose to fame by walking the Royal Road in a time when the Korean scene was almost completely void of Terrans. As such, it makes sense that he would struggle most against the race he is the least experienced against. Omit Terrans from Zest's record, and he still looks much like the nigh-unbeatable player he was when he won dual titles earlier this year. Unfortunately, a multitude of Terrans are now legitimate threats. A few months ago, one might win a tournament without ever having to truly worry about facing a threatening Terran. But now the racial distribution in tournaments has evened. As long as Zest cannot overcome his PvT woes, he will continue to find himself struggling against players like Cure, Polt, Taeja or Flash.
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Prev - High 6
PartinG
While his teammate soO makes up in results what he lacks in flair, Parting sometimes seems to be his polar opposite. Even when his results take hits, Parting seems to never lose his footing completely, and always win with style. When faced with Bbyong's shenanigans in the SPL playoffs, Parting calmly picked him apart. When faced with the prospect of an early elimination from the GSL at the hands of Dear, Parting rebounded in the final match and advanced over the player that had beaten him handily a few hours prior. Making a better case for himself in the playoffs by playing a key part in SKT's victory over CJ while also advancing from his GSL group, Parting remains strong enough in all three match-ups to place him squarely in the middle of the ranking. Whether or not his unwillingness to create another absurd group via the group selections shows a lack of confidence or a greatly delayed realization that easy groups are good for you remains to be seen.
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Prev - High 7
soO
Being soO isn't easy. No one can say that he isn't good (or even the best Zerg in the world). As the only player to ever reach three consecutive GSL finals and one of few to maintain impeccable consistency over a long stretch of time, you would think that he could be higher on this list. Unfortunately for soO, he also belongs to an exclusive group of players without a gold to their name despite multiple finals appearances (four, counting the SPL finals). Further, all I see when I watch soO play is a style of Zerg completely lacking flair. Efficient, but rarely awe-inspiring. To me, soO is very reminiscent of Innovation in his prime, but he lacks the aura of complete invincibility that made Innovation the star in everyone's eyes despite his formulaic approach to the game.
soO was relatively quiet in August, advancing from his group in GSL without any major trouble barring a lost game to Trust and dropping to series online to Flash and Classic. Looking back, he also beat Sleep fairly easily in the SPL finals and looked good enough in the games leading up to the playoffs that I can't realistically dispute his place on the Zerg throne, but also tanked a few key losses to CJ in the semifinals that make me question his abilities.
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Prev - High 8
Polt
If Polt hadn't already been assigned the nickname "Captain America", I feel like he would have been promptly added to the list of Kongs (Captain Kong) for his performances this year. After narrowly barely not making the cut for Red Bull D.C three events in a row, and finishing second behind Trap at MLG Anaheim, Polt finally managed to lift a trophy in Detroit, where he absolutely crushed Taeja in the finals. Polt might be a mixed bag in terms of results, sometimes suffering puzzling losses to players like Apocalypse or Daisy when he looks otherwise solid, but with how thoroughly he dismantled the opposition in Detroit, it would be unfair not to give him recognition.
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Prev - High 9
INnoVation
Innovation may be a far cry from the merciless machine that tore through every tournament he participated in a year ago, but I must give him credit for his endless dedication to rebuilding himself. After his transfer to Acer, many thought that he would drop off and never return. With focus and hard work, Innovation has proven those people wrong. He isn't back to what he once was yet, but he has been ironing out the flaws in his play as they appear for a long time, and all that hard work is beginning to show off. And of course, the fact that the widow mine is now back to what it was when no Zerg in the world could consistently stop him has to feel good.
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Prev -High 10
Cure
Someone recently described Cure as a "Poor man's Maru", which is a very apt description. Subscribing to the same school of Terran his Jin Air teammate belongs to, Cure has recently grown to become a real threat in Korea. With no clear weakness in any match-up, he went 20-3 in matches in August and took down at least one elite player of each race. Two months ago, Cure beating Rain, Solar and Zest would have been quite the upset. Today, that is not the case. Now, he looks like someone in contention for a championship rather than one of the stragglers doing their best to make Code A. By now, we have learned that Cure has a skillset that is just as diverse as Maru's, and while he may yet lack some of the finesse that makes Maru the best Terran in the world, he looks well on his way.
Best of the Rest
by Darkhorse and peanuts
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Prev - High 1
Snute
Snute has always been a solid and respected European Zerg, but in 2014, he has become something more. Over the past several months, Snute has beaten Korean players from all regions and in all formats. He defeated Stork and TRUE at IEM Shenzen, took down MMA and Innovation in Acer Teamstory Cup, and beat both of his Korean teammates at weekend events. He is one of the few foreigners with a winning record against Korean players over the summer, and has had plenty opportunities to practice his vKorean matchup these past few months. His performance this summer alone would have landed him in the top three, but what really pushes him to the number one spot is the way he played at IEM Toronto. Advancing out of the open bracket by twice defeating CJherO, Snute had already impressed everyone heading into the group stage. There, he defeated a different and even more fearsome Protoss player in sOs to make it out of his group in first place. A foreigner in the final eight of such a stacked tournament was unexpected and frankly a little miraculous. Snute’s final series of the tournament, his quarterfinal matchup against eventual champion Flash, proved to be a heartbreaker for Snute fans as he took the first two games of the Bo5 but was reverse swept and knocked out of the tournament. However, it almost didn’t matter. Snute had already proved to himself and to the world that he was capable of taking on the best of the best from Korea, and that is why he takes the top spot on the foreigner power rank.
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Prev - High 2
Sen
Sen has long been one of the top foreigners in Starcraft, from Broodwar to SC2. However, he has also had a curse for the entirety of SC2, being unable to finish higher than 3rd place in Premier tournaments. Always leading the Taiwanese scene, the HK Attitude Zerg was constantly giving Koreans a run for their money. Sen hasn’t had much WCS success recently, and Scarlett just narrowly defeated him 3-2 in Challenger to keep him out of Premier this season, but that matters little compared to the reason that Sen is on this list. Sen has achieved something that a foreigner hadn’t done in over a year and half: he won a Premier tournament. His run at the Taiwan eSports Open was impressive, and Sen has prevented a second straight Korean shut-out of Premier events with his win. We don’t see much of Sen outside of Taiwan anymore and it may be a long time before he plays in another strong Premier event, but three weeks ago in front of his home crowd he proved himself to be one of the world’s best foreigners.
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Prev - High 3
Bunny
Bunny has been absolutely on fire over the last two months, and he shows no signs of stopping as he has earned his spot in the line of the best foreign terrans that began with Jinro. Bunny was considered to be on the rise for some time, but he didn’t truly break out until July. Faced with the toughest Challenger League opponent possible in the recent Dreamhack Champion Sacsri, Bunny stayed poised and reverse swept his way into Premier League. Bunny then attended the Gfinity G3 tournament (to qualify he beat YoDa, Patience, Sleep, and Armani) and there he truly started to impress. He bested top European talent like Snute, TLO, and StarDust, then went on to beat Hyun in the grand finals. He then finished second in the PughCraft Invitational, where he notably 3-0’d current GSL quarterfinalist Cure. Combine that with victories over Kane, Huk, Oz, and Polt to finish top twelve, and Bunny is clearly one of the best non-Koreans in the scene.
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Prev - High 4
Scarlett
After a slow start to 2014 following her second place finish at ASUS ROG Northcon, Scarlett seems to have hit her stride once again this summer. She began by capping off a win at Red Bull Battlegrounds North America in spectacular fashion by defeating Polt 6-1 in their final three sets. She followed that up with a performance at MLG Anaheim that will go down in Starcraft II history for a number of reasons. First, she Hyun, Life, puCK, Ragnarok, and DongRaeGu. Second, she finished fourth at the event, one of the best finishes by a foreigner in a Premier event this year. Finally, her race picking against DRG won her both the hearts of the fans as well as the series, and that is a game that will be remembered for a long time. Scarlett has also seemingly overcome her struggles in WCS and is now back in the round of 16 after two seasons of disappointment. The Canadian Queen of Blades seems to be back in form, and when she is, she is one of the best Zergs in the world.
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Prev - High 5
MajOr
MajOr is having himself a pretty good summer and is putting legitimate pressure on Scarlett in the race for best player in North America. He is once again in the round of 16 in WCS America, and he has been performing well outside of WCS as well. Besides winning Copa America, which has become to MajOr what IPL Fight Club was to Hyun (MajOr has won six straight Copa America events) he also beat StarDust in the Warhounds Season 4 final, carried Mexico to the finals in Nation Wars II, and holds a dominant 5-0 record against Polt over the last month. MajOr has looked head and shoulders above most of his North American competition this summer and he doesn’t show signs of slowing down. With his frighteningly good TvT and an all Terran group in the Round of 16 in WCS, MajOr looks like he has the potential to be the first North American in the quarterfinals of WCS since Scarlett in Season 2 over a year ago.
Life After a few very mediocre weeks Life has seemingly returned to form, reaching the semifinals of IEM Toronto and finishing the tournament with an impressive 14-4 record.
Solar Solar still ranks among the best Zergs in Korea and narrowly missed out on top 10 due to Cure's mad August streak (which actually saw him 2-0 Solar)
herO[jOin] I'm sorry herO, but that final game against Rain was a disappointment. Those two series you lost to Snute, as well. And don't get me started on Pigbaby and YoDa.
HyuN Like herO, Hyun didn't have it easy in August. If he had only won that last map against Sen, things might have been very different. Alas, he didn't, and the three losses against Liquid'Bunny, Billowy and Keen don't help things.
I feel Taeja is slightly, just slightly overrated, simply because he doesn't perform in Korea. Otherwise he's probably the best "foreigner" or player that doesn't play in the GSL / SPL. That is my definition of foreigner.
On September 01 2014 23:22 Incognoto wrote: I feel Taeja is slightly, just slightly overrated, simply because he doesn't perform in Korea. Otherwise he's probably the best "foreigner" or player that doesn't play in the GSL / SPL. That is my definition of foreigner.
Polt? eh, overrated.
But Polt 3 - 0'd TaeJa just 2 weeks ago in the Red Bull finals
excuse me, i may sound rude, but is this a troll list? Rain number1? really? i would understand to put Rain on top 5 - no arguments needed here- but NUMBER ONE?? this guy qualifiered for Kespa Cup through an online qualifier(wich is not the same thing compared to an offline event) and his Group in Code S wasnt the Hardest one + PvP can end either way... Flash should be higher on this rank.. he was THE BEST player in this month and why did you guys even put Maru on this list? i thought this this the power rank of august and you put a player that barely played in this month (obviously Maru is in my opinion still TOP3 terran but he really did not that much this month compared to other koreans, even Snute did more in my opinion) sorry for my bad english and i hope next time i will see a better thought power rank :/
On September 01 2014 23:23 Rikudou wrote: excuse me, i may sound rude, but is this a troll list? Rain number1? really? i would understand to put Rain on top 5 - no arguments needed here- but NUMBER ONE?? this guy qualifiered for Kespa Cup through an online qualifier(wich is not the same thing compared to an offline event) and his Group in Code S wasnt the Hardest one + PvP can end either way... Flash should be higher on this rank.. he was THE BEST player in this month and why did you guys even put Maru on this list? i thought this this the power rank of august and you put a player that barely played in this month (obviously Maru is in my opinion still TOP3 terran but he really did not that much this month compared to other koreans, even Snute did more in my opinion) sorry for my bad english and i hope next time i will see a better thought power rank :/
On September 01 2014 23:22 Incognoto wrote: I feel Taeja is slightly, just slightly overrated, simply because he doesn't perform in Korea. Otherwise he's probably the best "foreigner" or player that doesn't play in the GSL / SPL. That is my definition of foreigner.
Polt? eh, overrated.
But Polt 3 - 0'd TaeJa just 2 weeks ago in the Red Bull finals
you're right obviously
this is just how i feel
you know, feelings
polt has never impressed me, ever. i don't watch all his games, admittedly, but he's never given me a moment that left me on my butt, unlike lots of other players. so i'm inclined to call him overrated
even if that makes me flat out wrong. that's what feelings are, after all.
On September 01 2014 23:23 Rikudou wrote: excuse me, i may sound rude, but is this a troll list? Rain number1? really? i would understand to put Rain on top 5 - no arguments needed here- but NUMBER ONE?? this guy qualifiered for Kespa Cup through an online qualifier(wich is not the same thing compared to an offline event) and his Group in Code S wasnt the Hardest one + PvP can end either way... Flash should be higher on this rank.. he was THE BEST player in this month and why did you guys even put Maru on this list? i thought this this the power rank of august and you put a player that barely played in this month (obviously Maru is in my opinion still TOP3 terran but he really did not that much this month compared to other koreans, even Snute did more in my opinion) sorry for my bad english and i hope next time i will see a better thought power rank :/
On September 01 2014 23:23 Rikudou wrote: excuse me, i may sound rude, but is this a troll list? Rain number1? really? i would understand to put Rain on top 5 - no arguments needed here- but NUMBER ONE?? this guy qualifiered for Kespa Cup through an online qualifier(wich is not the same thing compared to an offline event) and his Group in Code S wasnt the Hardest one + PvP can end either way... Flash should be higher on this rank.. he was THE BEST player in this month and why did you guys even put Maru on this list? i thought this this the power rank of august and you put a player that barely played in this month (obviously Maru is in my opinion still TOP3 terran but he really did not that much this month compared to other koreans, even Snute did more in my opinion) sorry for my bad english and i hope next time i will see a better thought power rank :/
I agree with everything until Parting, who I think is too high. Anyone who's watched Rain play recently knows that rank 1 is absolutely his, until he stops looking like he can't possibly lose a game.
I agree with most of the list, albeit I'd put Flash over Maru and change the bottom five a little (soO-Cure-PartinG-Polt-INnoVation is how I'd do it), but I can see where Zealously comes from with most of his choices, which is what really matters.
PartinG and TaeJa above soO, Really?? Also Polt is number #8? Are you kidding me? It's arguable if he would even make Code A, let alone Code S.
You guys give WAY to much credit for people that play outside of Korea.
1.) Rain 2.) soO 3.) Maru 4.) Flash 5.) Zest 6.) Soulkey 7.) Cure 8.) Solar 9.) PartinG 10.) Random foreign Korean, or TeamLiquid player if you people have THAT big of a need to make a list with atleast 1 of those players I.E. TaeJa.
On September 01 2014 23:28 smashlloyd20 wrote: I think HuK deserves to be foreigner #5 over MajOr, HuK's been performing at a similar level but a lot more consistently.
100% agreed, i would prioritize VortiX over both of them though...
For the next time please switch to the old format from 10 to 1 like this: 10 9 ... 2 1 Most of the fun is gone when you start reading the power rank knowing who is #1
honestly, for august flash should've easily taken number 1 in this ranking. he had an 80% winrate over the best that the world has to give, and as much as i dislike the flash hypetrain, noone can deny that flash's august was one of the strongest months of any starcraft player in history.
How you can not agree with putting Flash as #1 is beyond me. WTF? Best winrate, brought his team to a proleaguevictory, did well in GSL and won IEM. WHAT IS HE SUPPOSED TO DO? Maybe he needs to do a handstand while playing to appease the mighty TL writers?
Looks like there was not enough drama in the last power rank, therefor this non-sense! In all seriousness, looks good. Might not have placed Maru and Parting at number 2 and 6 but i feel this PR sums it up pretty nice
On September 01 2014 23:53 Greenei wrote: How you can not agree with putting Flash as #1 is beyond me. WTF? Best winrate, brought his team to a proleaguevictory, did well in GSL and won IEM. WHAT IS HE SUPPOSED TO DO? Maybe he needs to do a handstand while playing to appease the mighty TL writers?
On September 01 2014 23:39 REyeM wrote: PartinG and TaeJa above soO? Really?? Also Polt as number #8? Are you kidding me? It's arguable if he would even make Code A, let alone Code S.
You guys give WAY to much credit for people that play outside of Korea.
1.) Rain 2.) soO 3.) Maru 4.) Flash 5.) Zest 6.) Soulkey 7.) Cure 8.) Solar 9.) PartinG 10.) Random foreign Korean, or TeamLiquid player if you people have THAT big of a need to make a list with atleast 1 of those players.
Edit: Slight adjustments
I just wonder how much Taeja has to win against Code S players before blind KeSPA fanboys like you would recognize he's one of the best in the world. It's starting to resemble religious fanaticism, the way you deny reality. It's getting creepy. Even Snute stomped all over your precious gods the past weeks.
I don't understand Innovation being there. And Cure is way overhyped for his short succes period. MC should be in there if only for beating Flash convincingly at IEM.
On September 01 2014 23:53 Greenei wrote: How you can not agree with putting Flash as #1 is beyond me. WTF? Best winrate, brought his team to a proleaguevictory, did well in GSL and won IEM. WHAT IS HE SUPPOSED TO DO? Maybe he needs to do a handstand while playing to appease the mighty TL writers?
On September 01 2014 23:39 REyeM wrote: PartinG and TaeJa above soO? Really?? Also Polt as number #8? Are you kidding me? It's arguable if he would even make Code A, let alone Code S.
You guys give WAY to much credit for people that play outside of Korea.
1.) Rain 2.) soO 3.) Maru 4.) Flash 5.) Zest 6.) Soulkey 7.) Cure 8.) Solar 9.) PartinG 10.) Random foreign Korean, or TeamLiquid player if you people have THAT big of a need to make a list with atleast 1 of those players.
Edit: Slight adjustments
I just wonder how much Taeja has to win against Code S players before blind KeSPA fanboys like you would recognize he's one of the best in the world. It's starting to resemble religious fanaticism, the way you deny reality. It's getting creepy. Even Snute stomped all over your precious gods the past weeks.
Switching to WCS KR, and making a result would be a good start, also I want to add that I don't have anything against TaeJa or TL I'm being purely objective.
On September 01 2014 23:39 REyeM wrote: PartinG and TaeJa above soO? Really?? Also Polt as number #8? Are you kidding me? It's arguable if he would even make Code A, let alone Code S.
You guys give WAY to much credit for people that play outside of Korea.
1.) Rain 2.) soO 3.) Maru 4.) Flash 5.) Zest 6.) Soulkey 7.) Cure 8.) Solar 9.) PartinG 10.) Random foreign Korean, or TeamLiquid player if you people have THAT big of a need to make a list with atleast 1 of those players.
Edit: Slight adjustments
I just wonder how much Taeja has to win against Code S players before blind KeSPA fanboys like you would recognize he's one of the best in the world. It's starting to resemble religious fanaticism, the way you deny reality. It's getting creepy. Even Snute stomped all over your precious gods the past weeks.
Switching to WCS KR, and making a result would be a good start, also I want to add that I don't have anything against TaeJa or TL I'm being purely objective.
On September 01 2014 23:53 Greenei wrote: How you can not agree with putting Flash as #1 is beyond me. WTF? Best winrate, brought his team to a proleaguevictory, did well in GSL and won IEM. WHAT IS HE SUPPOSED TO DO? Maybe he needs to do a handstand while playing to appease the mighty TL writers?
Do more than just perform good for a month or 2?
1. this is a power rank for the month of august. 2. he does well for more than one month or two already 3. Flash really should be number one this month
Obviously you never can make THE perfect list, but parting and polt seem to be very weirdly placed too
On September 01 2014 23:53 Greenei wrote: How you can not agree with putting Flash as #1 is beyond me. WTF? Best winrate, brought his team to a proleaguevictory, did well in GSL and won IEM. WHAT IS HE SUPPOSED TO DO? Maybe he needs to do a handstand while playing to appease the mighty TL writers?
Do more than just perform good for a month or 2?
Oh sorry, I didn't know this was the yearly consistency rank, instead of the Powerrank for August.
I'm surprised at Rain but that's because I don't follow KR as closely these days. Still, I was pretty sure Flash would be at #2 if not #1. Isn't Cure the guy you'd see as Cure (Speed) on FPL? He usually was a pretty good value pick for FPL.
I feel like the foreigner list won't change much, but we'll see :o
On September 01 2014 23:39 REyeM wrote: PartinG and TaeJa above soO, Really?? Also Polt is number #8? Are you kidding me? It's arguable if he would even make Code A, let alone Code S.
You guys give WAY to much credit for people that play outside of Korea.
1.) Rain 2.) soO 3.) Maru 4.) Flash 5.) Zest 6.) Soulkey 7.) Cure 8.) Solar 9.) PartinG 10.) Random foreign Korean, or TeamLiquid player if you people have THAT big of a need to make a list with atleast 1 of those players I.E. TaeJa.
Edit: Slight adjustments
According to Aligulac, TaeJa is:
5-1 vs Zest 4-3 vs Solar And 1-3 vs Flash. He did not play any other players of your list in the last two months, but regarding this results I don't see why he cannot be ahead of Solar and Zest at this point.
On September 02 2014 00:08 Ansinjunger wrote: I'm surprised at Rain but that's because I don't follow KR as closely these days. Still, I was pretty sure Flash would be at #2 if not #1. Isn't Cure the guy you'd see as Cure (Speed) on FPL? He usually was a pretty good value pick for FPL.
I feel like the foreigner list won't change much, but we'll see :o
You mean he was a valuepick for your antiteam when he was prized 7 points?
On September 01 2014 23:39 REyeM wrote: PartinG and TaeJa above soO, Really?? Also Polt is number #8? Are you kidding me? It's arguable if he would even make Code A, let alone Code S.
You guys give WAY to much credit for people that play outside of Korea.
1.) Rain 2.) soO 3.) Maru 4.) Flash 5.) Zest 6.) Soulkey 7.) Cure 8.) Solar 9.) PartinG 10.) Random foreign Korean, or TeamLiquid player if you people have THAT big of a need to make a list with atleast 1 of those players I.E. TaeJa.
Edit: Slight adjustments
According to Aligulac, TaeJa is:
5-1 vs Zest 4-3 vs Solar And 1-3 vs Flash. He did not play any other players of your list in the last two months, but regarding this results I don't see why he cannot be ahead of Solar and Zest at this point.
On September 01 2014 23:50 Tanzklaue wrote: honestly, for august flash should've easily taken number 1 in this ranking. he had an 80% winrate over the best that the world has to give, and as much as i dislike the flash hypetrain, noone can deny that flash's august was one of the strongest months of any starcraft player in history.
Unless you have been a BroodWar fan like me XD. I was a fan when he was still the Cheddar/Cheese nobody Terran lol. In this case you'll know Flash isn't riding the hype train, he's ridin' the PAIN TRAIN. Watch out folks, hide your kids, hide your spouses, "god"/Terminator/The Ultimate Weapon/Little Monster is gonna give you guys a relevation!
The power ranking is fair for Flash, after all he dominated #1 for months in BW lol... Power Ranking is mostly about consistency for #1, the ability to keep hammering it in. Rain clearly is #1 at the moment.
On September 01 2014 23:47 Big-t wrote: Hurray Power Rank!
For the next time please switch to the old format from 10 to 1 like this: 10 9 ... 2 1 Most of the fun is gone when you start reading the power rank knowing who is #1
On September 02 2014 00:12 Reaper9 wrote: The power ranking is fair for Flash, after all he dominated #1 for months in BW lol... Power Ranking is mostly about consistency for #1, the ability to keep hammering it in. Rain clearly is #1 at the moment.
Power Rank drama never ceases to entertain. Mark my words, in about 6 months, as Flash dominance is established beyond doubt, the rules will shift into Power Ranking being mostly about who's strongest this month, to add some variety to #1. X royal roads the sole major tournament of the month in Europe, all hail X as #1.
Nihil novi sub sole. If you followed BW Power Ranking, you know this is the truth.
On September 01 2014 23:39 REyeM wrote: PartinG and TaeJa above soO, Really?? Also Polt is number #8? Are you kidding me? It's arguable if he would even make Code A, let alone Code S.
You guys give WAY to much credit for people that play outside of Korea.
1.) Rain 2.) soO 3.) Maru 4.) Flash 5.) Zest 6.) Soulkey 7.) Cure 8.) Solar 9.) PartinG 10.) Random foreign Korean, or TeamLiquid player if you people have THAT big of a need to make a list with atleast 1 of those players I.E. TaeJa.
Edit: Slight adjustments
According to Aligulac, TaeJa is:
5-1 vs Zest 4-3 vs Solar And 1-3 vs Flash. He did not play any other players of your list in the last two months, but regarding this results I don't see why he cannot be ahead of Solar and Zest at this point.
Would you consider Shine to be above Soulkey?
Edit: or Polt above TaeJa?
Shine has not gotten anywhere in any tourney in the last two months, so he has no business on this list.
The people Polt has beaten to get second place in Atlanta were all non-koreans. For the run in Detroit he beat San and violett (besides Taeja), not really the strongest opponents.
Taeja on the other hand has beaten Zest and violet in Toronto and Life, MMA, Zest, Jaedong and Solar in Shenzen. I think the difference in quality of opponents should be obvious. Therefore I would not put Polt ahead of Taeja.
If you look at the quality of the opponents that Solar has beaten in the last two months, I'd say Taeja has beaten the same quality of players as Solar has. Also, Solar placed Second in one premier tournament (Shenzen) since the beginning of july while Taeja won Shenzen, was the runner-up in Detroit and got into the semif-finals in Toronto. Finally, Their winrates against koreans is very similar around 65%, with 37-22 (90-56 in Maps) for Solar vs 12-6 (31-23 in maps) for Taeja. Therefore I'd take the direct confrontation more into account.
Edit: Looking through the results, I would agree though that zest could well be ahead of Taeja in the ranking.
I don't think PartinG deserves a spot here, otherwise I pretty much agree with this ranking. PartinG hasn't performed up to his old standards in a long time. He is a great player, he consistently goes code S. Congratulations, he consistently gets code S and he consistently bombs out there, he hasn't gotten past the quarterfinals this year in Code S I think. You rate soO below him...
Hehe, besides all that stuff I really love the powerranking and I am so happy it is back, the foreigner version is also very nice. Especially now when we actually have a few skilled foreigners(What is going on!), looking forward to Bunny climbing to number 1!
Taeja, Polt and Innovation in the top 10... This must be a joke, come on guys, foreign teams doesnt mean they deserve to be overhyped like this. Taeja 4th is the biggest joke tho.
On September 02 2014 00:51 lopido wrote: Taeja, Polt and Innovation in the top 10... This must be a joke, come on guys, foreign teams doesnt mean they deserve to be overhyped like this. Taeja 4th is the biggest joke tho.
Agreed, why is TaeJa not first and why is Polt top 10. Please fix.
-.-
(INnoVation is in the RO16 of GSL btw, and TaeJa has been beating top koreans for months now)
On September 01 2014 23:39 REyeM wrote: PartinG and TaeJa above soO, Really?? Also Polt is number #8? Are you kidding me? It's arguable if he would even make Code A, let alone Code S.
You guys give WAY to much credit for people that play outside of Korea.
1.) Rain 2.) soO 3.) Maru 4.) Flash 5.) Zest 6.) Soulkey 7.) Cure 8.) Solar 9.) PartinG 10.) Random foreign Korean, or TeamLiquid player if you people have THAT big of a need to make a list with atleast 1 of those players I.E. TaeJa.
Edit: Slight adjustments
According to Aligulac, TaeJa is:
5-1 vs Zest 4-3 vs Solar And 1-3 vs Flash. He did not play any other players of your list in the last two months, but regarding this results I don't see why he cannot be ahead of Solar and Zest at this point.
Would you consider Shine to be above Soulkey?
Edit: or Polt above TaeJa?
Shine has not gotten anywhere in any tourney in the last two months, so he has no business on this list.
The people Polt has beaten to get second place in Atlanta were all non-koreans. For the run in Detroit he beat San and violett (besides Taeja), not really the strongest opponents.
Taeja on the other hand has beaten Zest and violet in Toronto and Life, MMA, Zest, Jaedong and Solar in Shenzen. I think the difference in quality of opponents should be obvious. Therefore I would not put Polt ahead of Taeja.
If you look at the quality of the opponents that Solar has beaten in the last two months, I'd say Taeja has beaten the same quality of players as Solar has. Also, Solar placed Second in one premier tournament (Shenzen) since the beginning of july while Taeja won Shenzen, was the runner-up in Detroit and got into the semif-finals in Toronto. Finally, Their winrates against koreans is very similar around 65%, with 37-22 (90-56 in Maps) for Solar vs 12-6 (31-23 in maps) for Taeja. Therefore I'd take the direct confrontation more into account.
Edit: Looking through the results, I would agree though that zest could well be ahead of Taeja in the ranking.
Fair point, I won't argue that TaeJa has a place on this list (8~15), Polt on the other hand absolutely no. As for the Shine thing I was using him as an example that even tho he dominated Soulkey for a period of time,
Also where's Classic? Most recent GSL champion doesn't even get top 10? Polt higher than classic because he won an event where he only had to play two strong opponents?
The only person I would argue that's stronger than Maru right now is Rain, but we've seen Maru handle him before when it mattered and so I believe he can do it again.
Good ranking, can't say I can argue with it too much.
On September 02 2014 00:59 Dodgin wrote: Also where's Classic? Most recent GSL champion doesn't even get top 10? Polt higher than classic because he won an event where he only had to play two strong opponents?
Don't forget the GSL Season 2 finals was in June. Since then, he is disappointing. Eliminated in Code S, lost the final match against TY in Proleague, no surprise he is not in the ranking.
On September 02 2014 00:59 Dodgin wrote: Also where's Classic? Most recent GSL champion doesn't even get top 10? Polt higher than classic because he won an event where he only had to play two strong opponents?
Don't forget the GSL Season 2 finals was in June. Since then, he is disappointing. Eliminated in Code S, lost the final match against TY in Proleague, no surprise he is not in the ranking.
According to TLPD he's barely played any games since the GSL finals(which was at the very end of June, not too long ago). Seems like a huge oversight to not include him since he doesn't get to go to EZ foreign tournaments like red bull battlegrounds.
I love power rankings, but this has to be the one I disagree the most with :[ By the way might just be me, but I was not a fan of you beginning with number 1!
Also isn't this power ranking for august? It seems a bit strange you put Maru above Flash then, when you even state yourself that Maru has not been performing that well this month.
As a TaeJa fan, I was totally behind his #1 placement a few months ago. I think he's a bit too high on the list at the moment though. I agree with #1, but I was expecting Flash to be ranked higher than Maru atm. I think he's the best terran in the world right now. Well done overall though, especially with the foreigner ranks.
On September 01 2014 23:53 Greenei wrote: How you can not agree with putting Flash as #1 is beyond me. WTF? Best winrate, brought his team to a proleaguevictory, did well in GSL and won IEM. WHAT IS HE SUPPOSED TO DO? Maybe he needs to do a handstand while playing to appease the mighty TL writers?
Do more than just perform good for a month or 2?
1. this is a power rank for the month of august. 2. he does well for more than one month or two already 3. Flash really should be number one this month
Obviously you never can make THE perfect list, but parting and polt seem to be very weirdly placed too
The Power Rank takes into account more than solely the month it pertains to, which is stated clearly in the OP.
On September 01 2014 23:39 REyeM wrote: PartinG and TaeJa above soO, Really?? Also Polt is number #8? Are you kidding me? It's arguable if he would even make Code A, let alone Code S.
You guys give WAY to much credit for people that play outside of Korea.
1.) Rain 2.) soO 3.) Maru 4.) Flash 5.) Zest 6.) Soulkey 7.) Cure 8.) Solar 9.) PartinG 10.) Random foreign Korean, or TeamLiquid player if you people have THAT big of a need to make a list with atleast 1 of those players I.E. TaeJa.
Edit: Slight adjustments
Taeja beat Zest twice recently, and Solar as well (I think). Idk about Taeja above soO either, but it really doesn't make sense to me how people can say Taeja isn't top ten in the world with his consistently great results....
As always, there are a few things to take into consideration while reading this Power Rank:
The Power Rank focuses most on the month pertains to, but also takes past results into account
The Power Rank takes into account both results and the difficulty of opponents faced.
A player's placement on the Power Rank does not suggest that the player is better or worse than a higher ranked player in head-to-head. This ranking is an overall appraisal of a player, not an attempt to answer the question ”Who beats who?”
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So given the above, I just cannot understand how Flash is not rank 1. I don't consider myself a Flash fanboy but given your own descriptions I don't understand how Rain usurps Flash for the month of August.
On September 01 2014 23:39 REyeM wrote: PartinG and TaeJa above soO, Really?? Also Polt is number #8? Are you kidding me? It's arguable if he would even make Code A, let alone Code S.
You guys give WAY to much credit for people that play outside of Korea.
1.) Rain 2.) soO 3.) Maru 4.) Flash 5.) Zest 6.) Soulkey 7.) Cure 8.) Solar 9.) PartinG 10.) Random foreign Korean, or TeamLiquid player if you people have THAT big of a need to make a list with atleast 1 of those players I.E. TaeJa.
Edit: Slight adjustments
Taeja beat Zest twice recently, and Solar as well (I think). Idk about Taeja above soO either, but it really doesn't make sense to me how people can say Taeja isn't top ten in the world with his consistently great results....
On September 01 2014 23:23 Rikudou wrote: and why did you guys even put Maru on this list? i thought this this the power rank of august and you put a player that barely played in this month
On September 01 2014 23:39 REyeM wrote: PartinG and TaeJa above soO? Really?? Also Polt as number #8? Are you kidding me? It's arguable if he would even make Code A, let alone Code S.
You guys give WAY to much credit for people that play outside of Korea.
1.) Rain 2.) soO 3.) Maru 4.) Flash 5.) Zest 6.) Soulkey 7.) Cure 8.) Solar 9.) PartinG 10.) Random foreign Korean, or TeamLiquid player if you people have THAT big of a need to make a list with atleast 1 of those players.
Edit: Slight adjustments
I just wonder how much Taeja has to win against Code S players before blind KeSPA fanboys like you would recognize he's one of the best in the world. It's starting to resemble religious fanaticism, the way you deny reality. It's getting creepy. Even Snute stomped all over your precious gods the past weeks.
Don't worry dude getting 3-0'ed and/or losing to foreigners gives credit to KeSPA.
On September 01 2014 23:23 Rikudou wrote: and why did you guys even put Maru on this list? i thought this this the power rank of august and you put a player that barely played in this month
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL. Oh my god. So true!!
dae read the op
As always, there are a few things to take into consideration while reading this Power Rank:
The Power Rank focuses most on the month pertains to, but also takes past results into account
The Power Rank takes into account both results and the difficulty of opponents faced.
A player's placement on the Power Rank does not suggest that the player is better or worse than a higher ranked player in head-to-head. This ranking is an overall appraisal of a player, not an attempt to answer the question ”Who beats who?”
If Flash gets #3 for having an amazing month then Cure should be higher than he is as this month was almost as crazy for him. After watching his code S games he looks... scary.
On September 01 2014 23:23 Rikudou wrote: and why did you guys even put Maru on this list? i thought this this the power rank of august and you put a player that barely played in this month
On September 01 2014 23:39 REyeM wrote: PartinG and TaeJa above soO, Really?? Also Polt is number #8? Are you kidding me? It's arguable if he would even make Code A, let alone Code S.
You guys give WAY to much credit for people that play outside of Korea.
1.) Rain 2.) soO 3.) Maru 4.) Flash 5.) Zest 6.) Soulkey 7.) Cure 8.) Solar 9.) PartinG 10.) Random foreign Korean, or TeamLiquid player if you people have THAT big of a need to make a list with atleast 1 of those players I.E. TaeJa.
Edit: Slight adjustments
Taeja beat Zest twice recently, and Solar as well (I think). Idk about Taeja above soO either, but it really doesn't make sense to me how people can say Taeja isn't top ten in the world with his consistently great results....
The summer of taeja part 3 allowed him to become the player with the most premier tourney wins ever, granted not gsl but e crushes when he wins. And may I remind u. Polt is a gsl champion, for him to not make code s is retarded
On September 02 2014 00:59 Dodgin wrote: Also where's Classic? Most recent GSL champion doesn't even get top 10? Polt higher than classic because he won an event where he only had to play two strong opponents?
Classic is one of worst gsl champs in history, down there with sniper and seed and arguably roro
On September 02 2014 00:59 Dodgin wrote: Also where's Classic? Most recent GSL champion doesn't even get top 10? Polt higher than classic because he won an event where he only had to play two strong opponents?
Classic is one of worst gsl champs in history, down there with sniper and seed and arguably roro
woah there buddy, there's no way anyone undeserving could win GSL now that Kespa has arrived and have taken over the scene. don't compare classic to those players.
On September 02 2014 00:59 Dodgin wrote: Also where's Classic? Most recent GSL champion doesn't even get top 10? Polt higher than classic because he won an event where he only had to play two strong opponents?
Don't forget the GSL Season 2 finals was in June. Since then, he is disappointing. Eliminated in Code S, lost the final match against TY in Proleague, no surprise he is not in the ranking.
According to TLPD he's barely played any games since the GSL finals(which was at the very end of June, not too long ago). Seems like a huge oversight to not include him since he doesn't get to go to EZ foreign tournaments like red bull battlegrounds.
Because Classic looked bad more than anything. I won't claim that this ranking is the best, most objective ranking of all time, but I've watched Classic play recently and I haven't been very impressed. It was an oversight not to include him in CBNC, but I wouldn't let him into this ranking when there are players performing well and getting better while he is dropping rapidly and looking bad while doing so.
So happy to see Rain #1 ^.^. I still think that Rain has shown more consistent play over a longer period of time than Flash, as has Maru, which is why I do agree with ranking these two above Flash. Anybody else would be literal heresy though.
I agree with Classic missing; I never found his play too inspiring, particularly of late. I am very happy to see Polt! It's hard not to be a Polt fan regardless of what you think of his play.
I agree with what was said earlier, Parting's presence is a little bit disconcerting, at least at the bottom; it's been a long time since I've felt super comfortable with getting behind the Conductor...
On September 01 2014 23:53 Greenei wrote: How you can not agree with putting Flash as #1 is beyond me. WTF? Best winrate, brought his team to a proleaguevictory, did well in GSL and won IEM. WHAT IS HE SUPPOSED TO DO? Maybe he needs to do a handstand while playing to appease the mighty TL writers?
Do more than just perform good for a month or 2?
1. this is a power rank for the month of august. 2. he does well for more than one month or two already 3. Flash really should be number one this month
Obviously you never can make THE perfect list, but parting and polt seem to be very weirdly placed too
The Power Rank takes into account more than solely the month it pertains to, which is stated clearly in the OP.
Yes i know, i think the list is fine overall, i just don't agree with Maru being higher than Flash and Polt being in the list at all. Other than that it is ok
You watched every game of the tournament, I take it? Because surely no one would first say that a player hasn't won anything, then attempt to wave off their ignorance by claiming that the win wasn't legitimate?
You watched every game of the tournament, I take it? Because surely no one would first say that a player hasn't won anything, then attempt to wave off their ignorance by claiming that the win wasn't legitimate?
He said he hasn't done anything noteworthy this month, which is true
You watched every game of the tournament, I take it? Because surely no one would first say that a player hasn't won anything, then attempt to wave off their ignorance by claiming that the win wasn't legitimate?
He said he hasn't done anything noteworthy this month, which is true
So, winning a tournament where he 3 - 0'd TaeJa isn't noteworthy anymore.
You watched every game of the tournament, I take it? Because surely no one would first say that a player hasn't won anything, then attempt to wave off their ignorance by claiming that the win wasn't legitimate?
He said he hasn't done anything noteworthy this month, which is true
I guess that would depend on where you are in the world, but in that case it'd be hard to make an argument for any player really being #1
You watched every game of the tournament, I take it? Because surely no one would first say that a player hasn't won anything, then attempt to wave off their ignorance by claiming that the win wasn't legitimate?
He said he hasn't done anything noteworthy this month, which is true
What's Cure and Innovation done for the past few months then? I mean, Cure was just a solid Code A player up until his climb into Code S this season. Innovation had the Destiny I win, but he's been shown to be very beatable as well.
For all the flak Polt's gotten (I'm a huge fan and I agree he's too inconsistent), he's still putting up results better than the guys below him.
You watched every game of the tournament, I take it? Because surely no one would first say that a player hasn't won anything, then attempt to wave off their ignorance by claiming that the win wasn't legitimate?
He said he hasn't done anything noteworthy this month, which is true
So, winning a tournament where he 3 - 0'd TaeJa isn't noteworthy anymore.
So beating Taeja is enough to be in a list of the 10 best players? Yeah i guess....
You watched every game of the tournament, I take it? Because surely no one would first say that a player hasn't won anything, then attempt to wave off their ignorance by claiming that the win wasn't legitimate?
He said he hasn't done anything noteworthy this month, which is true
What's Cure and Innovation done for the past few months then? I mean, Cure was just a solid Code A player up until his climb into Code S this season. Innovation had the Destiny I win, but he's been shown to be very beatable as well.
For all the flak Polt's gotten (I'm a huge fan and I agree he's too inconsistent), he's still putting up results better than the guys below him.
You watched every game of the tournament, I take it? Because surely no one would first say that a player hasn't won anything, then attempt to wave off their ignorance by claiming that the win wasn't legitimate?
He said he hasn't done anything noteworthy this month, which is true
So, winning a tournament where he 3 - 0'd TaeJa isn't noteworthy anymore.
So beating Taeja is enough to be in a list of the 10 best players? Yeah i guess....
Post is 8? Yeh sure he beat Taeja but that's about the only thing he did this month and tvt is volatile as !@#$%^&*. Let's remember that he even went 0-5 against Major, 0-2 against Major and 1-4 against Stephano. I wouldn't even put him in at top 20 at this point.
A bit of an awkward ranking for me, but upon closer inspection of the reasons given for each rank, I have to agree with some of them. Still puzzled why SoO isn't higher up.
This is a fantastic PR. I agree with all the picks, perhaps with Solar over Cure instead, but the format and presentation is perfect. Nice to see Major where he belongs!
You watched every game of the tournament, I take it? Because surely no one would first say that a player hasn't won anything, then attempt to wave off their ignorance by claiming that the win wasn't legitimate?
He said he hasn't done anything noteworthy this month, which is true
What's Cure and Innovation done for the past few months then? I mean, Cure was just a solid Code A player up until his climb into Code S this season. Innovation had the Destiny I win, but he's been shown to be very beatable as well.
For all the flak Polt's gotten (I'm a huge fan and I agree he's too inconsistent), he's still putting up results better than the guys below him.
What I mean to say is the writers implied it's a Power Ranking influenced on past consistently.
Cure has the RBBG win and I think he's a great up-and-comer... I just included that tournament into the rest of his August play (Code S). Prior to that, I don't think he'd be in anyone's top 10, no?
The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
Below are Polt's results for August. He is basically beating some of the lesser strong korean players (ryung, violet, keen, creator) while losing to top 20 Koreans and the best foreigners. Polt isn't even top 8 in Aliguac which overrates Koreans that plays mostly against foreigners.
2014-08-29 Polt KR T 1–2 P KR Zest HotS offline 2014-08-29 Polt KR T 0–2 T DK Bunny HotS offline Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Detroit hide 2014-08-24 Polt KR T 3–0 T KR TaeJa HotS offline 2014-08-24 Polt KR T 3–1 Z KR viOLet HotS offline 2014-08-24 Polt KR T 2–1 P KR San HotS offline 2014-08-23 Polt KR T 2–0 P US Bails HotS offline 2014-08-23 Polt KR T 2–0 T US Schnitzel HotS offline 2014-08-22 Polt KR T 2–0 P US KiFirE HotS offline Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Online hide 2014-08-18 Polt KR T 1–2 P KR herO HotS online 2014-08-18 Polt KR T 0–2 T KR Cure HotS online KeSPA Cup 2014 hide 2014-08-18 Polt KR T 0–2 P KR Trust HotS online 2014-08-18 Polt KR T 2–1 T KR Raynor HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Online hide 2014-08-16 Polt KR T 2–1 T KR KeeN HotS online 2014-08-16 Polt KR T 2–1 Z KR HyuN HotS online 2014-08-16 Polt KR T 2–0 T KR Ryung HotS online 2014-08-16 Polt KR T 2–0 P NL Harstem HotS online 2014-08-16 Polt KR T 2–0 T KR Journey HotS online 2014-08-15 Polt KR T 0–2 T KR Cure HotS online 2014-08-14 Polt KR T 0–2 T KR sKyHigh HotS online 2014-08-14 Polt KR T 2–0 P KR Creator HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Main Event hide 2014-08-09 Polt KR T 0–2 T KR MMA HotS offline Destiny I hide 2014-08-09 Polt KR T 1–3 T KR Apocalypse HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Main Event hide 2014-08-08 Polt KR T 0–2 Z KR Impact HotS offline 2014-08-08 Polt KR T 2–0 Z KR DongRaeGu HotS offline 2014-08-08 Polt KR T 1–2 Z KR DongRaeGu HotS offline 2014-08-08 Polt KR T 2–0 T KR MMA HotS offline Destiny I hide 2014-08-05 Polt KR T 2–0 P US Minigun HotS online 2014-08-05 Polt KR T 2–0 Z US JonSnow HotS online 2014-08-05 Polt KR T 0–2 T MX MajOr HotS online WCS 2014 Season 3 America Premier League hide 2014-08-04 Polt KR T 2–0 Z KR Jaedong HotS online 2014-08-04 Polt KR T 2–0 P CN MacSed HotS online IEM Season IX Toronto Qualifiers Americas Stage 2 hide 2014-08-03 Polt KR T 3–2 Z KR viOLet HotS online 2014-08-03 Polt KR T 2–0 T US Illusion HotS online 2014-08-03 Polt KR T 0–3 T MX MajOr HotS online 2014-08-03 Polt KR T 2–0 T US Xenocider HotS online 2014-08-03 Polt KR T 2–0 T KR EJK
Now let's compare this to a guy who (perhaps rightfully) dropped out of the top-10 list.
So this guy lost to Snute (best foreigner), but no terrible track records vs Major, Scarlett, Stephano, Bunny and other foreigners). His only losses are to top 20 koreans (Yoda, Cure, Pigbaby and Flash), and besides that, he beats all of the same medicore koreans/foreigners as Polt does and even beats Polt in the heads-up battle. He was however also capable top 30 players like Yoda, Stardust, True and Ty. Polt's best win in August was against Hyung, DRG, Taeja and San. Besides, Taeja I wouldn't rate any of those guys above Ty (whom Hero beat twice in August).
So Hero imo still had better results than Polt in August and has had much better overall results since last powerrank (he was a top 3 player a couple of months ago). My point isn't that Hero should stay at top 10, but rather how ridicilous it is that Polt is even mentioned in this article. Instead, just attribute his 3-0 win over Taeja to what it was: Volatility of early game tvt, and you can also explain his embarring losses to Major, and Majors embarrasing 0-4 loss to Supernova. Like clearly there is no way to support Polt in top 15 if it isn't for his win vs Taeja, but if you attribute TvT wins so highly, then you cannot explain why Supernova isn't in top 10 either.
2014-08-29 herO KR P 1–2 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR Revival HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 P KR StarDust HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 1–2 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 P CA desRow HotS offline Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Online hide 2014-08-18 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Cure HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 2–0 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 2–1 T KR Polt HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 0–2 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR viOLet HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Journey HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–1 Z KR Check HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–1 Z NZ Petraeus HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 P CA WhatAmI HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 Z US SLeet HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Cure HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Bbyong HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 P KR Panic HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Hack HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR TRUE HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 1–2 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 2–0 Z NZ Petraeus HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 2–0 Z US Grief HotS online IEM Season IX Toronto Qualifiers hide 2014-08-12 herO KR P 0–2 T KR Flash HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–1 T KR TY HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 0–2 P KR Pigbaby HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–0 P KR Super HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–1 T KR TY HotS online
Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
Yes Polt fits in nicely in top 10. A guy who losses to Stephano and other foreigners while Hero only losses to other top koreans. There is just no way you can explain his ranking here, you should edit it.
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
Definitely, no changes are needed! The debate is fun anyway. What's more important is... Power Rank is back! Thanks again Zealously
So many big names there.... :-O Flash and Rain, I'm happy about. Will have to look more into Maru; never fully struck me as "legendary," but that could change.
On September 02 2014 03:07 Trasko wrote: Wrong! Everything is wrong!
Hey, I can fire you whenever
On September 02 2014 03:12 cLAN.Anax wrote: So many big names there.... :-O Flash and Rain, I'm happy about. Will have to look more into Maru; never fully struck me as "legendary," but that could change.
That's a surprise, I thought the community was very unified on Maru. Have you not watched a lot of his games, or have you just not been impressed?
Don't know why Maru is ranked 2, when during the past 2 months we have seen him fail to qualify for 1. double elimination iem Shenzhen, 2. iem Toronto 3. and Kespa cup
And I don't think any zergs deserve to on this list. All the korean zergs have been struggling recently, and the top zergs, like Soulkey, soO, Solar have been very inconsistent
Flash should be #1. He has been on unstoppable since the patch
I guess my list is momentum based, and Terrans are on a roll
Honestly, i think Maru, Taeja, Parting and Rain are too high on the list, while Cure, soO and iNnoVation are too low. *runs away Anyways, its very hard to evaluate "who is the best right now?", despite recent results im pretty sure sOs, herO and Solar still know how to play and that they maybe deserve a place on the list Its not the same as " who played better this month?", something that is not as hard to answer. Not an an easy task so i call this power rank a good job. The foreign list is prolly my own list, except that i would switch Sen with Bunny
On September 01 2014 23:22 Incognoto wrote: I feel Taeja is slightly, just slightly overrated, simply because he doesn't perform in Korea. Otherwise he's probably the best "foreigner" or player that doesn't play in the GSL / SPL. That is my definition of foreigner.
Polt? eh, overrated.
But Polt 3 - 0'd TaeJa just 2 weeks ago in the Red Bull finals
you're right obviously
this is just how i feel
you know, feelings
polt has never impressed me, ever. i don't watch all his games, admittedly, but he's never given me a moment that left me on my butt, unlike lots of other players. so i'm inclined to call him overrated
even if that makes me flat out wrong. that's what feelings are, after all.
IEM cologne maybe? Where he beat both classic and Rain??
I like this ranking! You can always argue about the top 3 and change their positions around but overall it seems good and I love that Cure made top 10 and fully agree with that!
On September 02 2014 03:40 BakedButters wrote: Polt should be out and herO should be on the list. At least herO has proven himself able to beat top Koreans who reside in Korea
On September 02 2014 03:40 BakedButters wrote: Polt should be out and herO should be on the list. At least herO has proven himself able to beat top Koreans who reside in Korea
Thanks for the work in this power rank, always a pleasure to read. As it has been stated multiple times in this thread already, I'd have preferred if the positions were reversed. From 10 to 1 is more dramatic.
About the ranking, I think Polt shouldn't be in the top 10. And I love Polt, he's my favorite korean player. But his Red Bull win is probably not enough to be ahead of Cure or Solar for example. The ranking of PartinG surprises me too. Not saying that he's not good of course but he didn't make any spectacular run recently.
Those are my little concerns, otherwise I agree with everything. The top 5 foreigners is fine too.
As always, there are a few things to take into consideration while reading this Power Rank:
The Power Rank focuses most on the month pertains to, but also takes past results into account
The Power Rank takes into account both results and the difficulty of opponents faced.
A player's placement on the Power Rank does not suggest that the player is better or worse than a higher ranked player in head-to-head. This ranking is an overall appraisal of a player, not an attempt to answer the question ”Who beats who?”
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So given the above, I just cannot understand how Flash is not rank 1. I don't consider myself a Flash fanboy but given your own descriptions I don't understand how Rain usurps Flash for the month of August.
Even in Power Rank toss OP?
The point about power-ranking is to determine who likely is the best player right now. In some situations where you do not have lots of short-term, you are therefore forced to rely on older data more (in the case of Maru - where we probably wanna use data for last 3-4 months). In the case of Flash who has played lots of games agaist top quality players in July and August, we do not need to look any further back in order to determine he probably - along with Rain is the hottest player right now. Regarding Maru, there is just a tiny too uncertainty regarding his current form and he has been losing to Effort that Flash won against, and Flash won the 1on1. We know Flash is pretty !@#$%^&* good right now, and his results are probably better than Maru's results ever were. Hence, it doens't make sense to argue that Maru here was better than Flash 4 months ago and thus deserves to be higher ranked. If that's the argument of Zealously, it's a misunderstanding of the typical intention of making a powerrank.
Flash vs Rain is debateable. They are probably the two favourites going into winning the current GSL, thus it can be defended to put Rain above Flash.
On September 02 2014 03:40 BakedButters wrote: Polt should be out and herO should be on the list. At least herO has proven himself able to beat top Koreans who reside in Korea
Like Snute?
As long as Snute is out of the list, anybody that lost to him cannot get there *joking
On September 02 2014 03:40 BakedButters wrote: Polt should be out and herO should be on the list. At least herO has proven himself able to beat top Koreans who reside in Korea
Like Snute?
Snute is world class top ZvP. Polt has poor man's TvT. And can't remember last time he beat a top korean zerg or protoss
On September 02 2014 03:40 BakedButters wrote: Polt should be out and herO should be on the list. At least herO has proven himself able to beat top Koreans who reside in Korea
Like Snute?
Typically don't care about discussing power-ranks, because it can be super hard to determine who is 3rd vs 5th for instance, however, your just not making any consistent logical arguments in defending Polt. If your going to defend Heros ranking over Polt becasue Hero lost to Stephano 1-2 and 1-2, good luck defending Polt's vs Stephano, Scarlett, Bunny and Major.
Let's jus look at what you wrote here:
f Polt hadn't already been assigned the nickname "Captain America", I feel like he would have been promptly added to the list of Kongs (Captain Kong) for his performances this year. After narrowly barely not making the cut for Red Bull D.C three events in a row, and finishing second behind Trap at MLG Anaheim, Polt finally managed to lift a trophy in Detroit, where he absolutely crushed Taeja in the finals. Polt might be a mixed bag in terms of results, sometimes suffering puzzling losses to players like Apocalypse or Daisy when he looks otherwise solid, but with how thoroughly he dismantled the opposition in Detroit, it would be unfair not to give him recognition.
Thus, you mention losses to Daisy and Apocalypse and a win over Taeja, but nothing about his 0-5 loss to Major whom 1 week later went on to get owned by Supernova 0-4? Your simply just cherry-picking here which results you want to matter in the power-rank and therefore ends up with a player who in no way deserves to be on the list.
On September 01 2014 23:22 Incognoto wrote: I feel Taeja is slightly, just slightly overrated, simply because he doesn't perform in Korea. Otherwise he's probably the best "foreigner" or player that doesn't play in the GSL / SPL. That is my definition of foreigner.
Polt? eh, overrated.
But Polt 3 - 0'd TaeJa just 2 weeks ago in the Red Bull finals
and Taejas worst matchup is tvt and he doesnt know what he is doing most of the time in that matchup as it is so chancy but taeja can beat any zerg and any protoss atm. And this is with every other korean player who practices probably 3x as much as taeja does as he cant play as much as he would like due to his really bad wrists.
As always, there are a few things to take into consideration while reading this Power Rank:
The Power Rank focuses most on the month pertains to, but also takes past results into account
The Power Rank takes into account both results and the difficulty of opponents faced.
A player's placement on the Power Rank does not suggest that the player is better or worse than a higher ranked player in head-to-head. This ranking is an overall appraisal of a player, not an attempt to answer the question ”Who beats who?”
So given the above, I just cannot understand how Flash is not rank 1. I don't consider myself a Flash fanboy but given your own descriptions I don't understand how Rain usurps Flash for the month of August.
Even in Power Rank toss OP?
The point about power-ranking is to determine who likely is the best player right now. In some situations where you do not have lots of short-term, you are therefore forced to rely on older data more (in the case of Maru - where we probably wanna use data for last 3-4 months). In the case of Flash who has played lots of games agaist top quality players in July and August, we do not need to look any further back in order to determine he probably - along with Rain is the hottest player right now. Regarding Maru, there is just a tiny too uncertainty regarding his current form and he has been losing to Effort that Flash won against, and Flash won the 1on1. We know Flash is pretty !@#$%^&* good right now, and his results are probably better than Maru's results ever were. Hence, it doens't make sense to argue that Maru here was better than Flash 4 months ago and thus deserves to be higher ranked. If that's the argument of Zealously, it's a misunderstanding of the typical intention of making a powerrank.
Flash vs Rain is debateable. They are probably the two favourites going into winning the current GSL, thus it can be defended to put Rain above Flash.
Not true. Maru in the last year Best player in 2014 Proleague, if you count the playoff wins 1st WCS KR S2 (OSL) 3rd/4th WCS KR S3 3rd/4th WCS S3 Finals 3rd/4th WCS Global Finals 3rd/4th Hotsix cup Top 8 in GSL 2014 S1 3rd/4th GSL 2014 S2
Flash now won 1 IEM and is still in the Ro16 of Code S And winning OSL > winning IEM
But I agree that Maru might be a bit too high, and that Flash is in better form at the moment
On September 02 2014 03:25 Superbanana wrote: Honestly, i think Maru, Taeja, Parting and Rain are too high on the list, while Cure, soO and iNnoVation are too low. *runs away Anyways, its very hard to evaluate "who is the best right now?", despite recent results im pretty sure sOs, herO and Solar still know how to play and that they maybe deserve a place on the list Its not the same as " who played better this month?", something that is not as hard to answer. Not an an easy task so i call this power rank a good job. The foreign list is prolly my own list, except that i would switch Sen with Bunny
herO has been awful since Protoss hasn't been dominating. Innovation hasn't really shown much.
On September 01 2014 23:22 Incognoto wrote: I feel Taeja is slightly, just slightly overrated, simply because he doesn't perform in Korea. Otherwise he's probably the best "foreigner" or player that doesn't play in the GSL / SPL. That is my definition of foreigner.
Polt? eh, overrated.
But Polt 3 - 0'd TaeJa just 2 weeks ago in the Red Bull finals
and Taejas worst matchup is tvt and he doesnt know what he is doing most of the time in that matchup as it is so chancy but taeja can beat any zerg and any protoss atm. And this is with every other korean player who practices probably 3x as much as taeja does as he cant play as much as he would like due to his really bad wrists.
It's so hard to determine who is actually good in TvT. It's so much about build order advantage and huge volatility atm. When Major can beat Polt 5-0 and then next week lose to Supernova 0-4 (who is nowhere to be found on the list FYI), and Bunny can beat Polt 2-0 and then lose to Tajea 0-2.... then it's probably pretty clear you have to explain why lots of people aren't on the list if you put too much emphasize on 1-2 TvT series.
Rather, I believe in taking TvT results with a grain of salt atm and putting a large weight on TvZ and TvP results.
herO has been awful since Protoss hasn't been dominating. Innovation hasn't really shown much.
Still more consistent results than Polt as I discussed in the last page. At least he is only losing to players whom I would consider top 20 players in the world. But yeh, I don't feel Hero belongs in top 10 either, rather Polt is just so far from a top-10 place that it's absolutely absurd.
On September 02 2014 03:40 BakedButters wrote: Polt should be out and herO should be on the list. At least herO has proven himself able to beat top Koreans who reside in Korea
Like Snute?
Typically don't care about discussing power-ranks, because it can be super hard to determine who is 3rd vs 5th for instance, however, your just not making any consistent logical arguments in defending Polt. If your going to defend Heros ranking over Polt becasue Hero lost to Stephano 1-2 and 1-2, good luck defending Polt's vs Stephano, Scarlett, Bunny and Major.
The argument is that he A) won Red Bull Detroit and looked very good doing so, especially in dismantling Taeja, B) has been playing well consistently for the better part of the summer (this includes MLG, the Red Bull events and most of what I've seen of him online). My argument is that he has played well - with the exception of a number of series among many - and that I would rate him among the top threats in your average tournament. Given the volume of matches Polt plays every month, it's absurd to expect him to maintain the same consistency other players do. Losses will occur for whatever reason if you're participating in 10+ online/offline tournaments every month. That shouldn't detract from the fact that Polt has looked good for the most part of August.
On September 02 2014 03:40 BakedButters wrote: Polt should be out and herO should be on the list. At least herO has proven himself able to beat top Koreans who reside in Korea
Like Snute?
Typically don't care about discussing power-ranks, because it can be super hard to determine who is 3rd vs 5th for instance, however, your just not making any consistent logical arguments in defending Polt. If your going to defend Heros ranking over Polt becasue Hero lost to Stephano 1-2 and 1-2, good luck defending Polt's vs Stephano, Scarlett, Bunny and Major.
f Polt hadn't already been assigned the nickname "Captain America", I feel like he would have been promptly added to the list of Kongs (Captain Kong) for his performances this year. After narrowly barely not making the cut for Red Bull D.C three events in a row, and finishing second behind Trap at MLG Anaheim, Polt finally managed to lift a trophy in Detroit, where he absolutely crushed Taeja in the finals. Polt might be a mixed bag in terms of results, sometimes suffering puzzling losses to players like Apocalypse or Daisy when he looks otherwise solid, but with how thoroughly he dismantled the opposition in Detroit, it would be unfair not to give him recognition.
Thus, you mention losses to Daisy and Apocalypse and a win over Taeja, but nothing about his 0-5 loss to Major whom 1 week later went on to get owned by Supernova 0-4? Your simply just cherry-picking here which results you want to matter in the power-rank and therefore ends up with a player who in no way deserves to be on the list.
On September 02 2014 03:40 BakedButters wrote: Polt should be out and herO should be on the list. At least herO has proven himself able to beat top Koreans who reside in Korea
Like Snute?
Typically don't care about discussing power-ranks, because it can be super hard to determine who is 3rd vs 5th for instance, however, your just not making any consistent logical arguments in defending Polt. If your going to defend Heros ranking over Polt becasue Hero lost to Stephano 1-2 and 1-2, good luck defending Polt's vs Stephano, Scarlett, Bunny and Major.
f Polt hadn't already been assigned the nickname "Captain America", I feel like he would have been promptly added to the list of Kongs (Captain Kong) for his performances this year. After narrowly barely not making the cut for Red Bull D.C three events in a row, and finishing second behind Trap at MLG Anaheim, Polt finally managed to lift a trophy in Detroit, where he absolutely crushed Taeja in the finals. Polt might be a mixed bag in terms of results, sometimes suffering puzzling losses to players like Apocalypse or Daisy when he looks otherwise solid, but with how thoroughly he dismantled the opposition in Detroit, it would be unfair not to give him recognition.
Thus, you mention losses to Daisy and Apocalypse and a win over Taeja, but nothing about his 0-5 loss to Major whom 1 week later went on to get owned by Supernova 0-4? Your simply just cherry-picking here which results you want to matter in the power-rank and therefore ends up with a player who in no way deserves to be on the list.
Those matches were qualifiers + unimportant matches, and losing to Major was inconsequential because he ended up qualifying for that event anyway. If you watch Polt in Destiny I, he was obviously messing around. If you judge Maru based on qualifiers, he would be pretty bad as well.
On September 02 2014 03:25 Superbanana wrote: Honestly, i think Maru, Taeja, Parting and Rain are too high on the list, while Cure, soO and iNnoVation are too low. *runs away Anyways, its very hard to evaluate "who is the best right now?", despite recent results im pretty sure sOs, herO and Solar still know how to play and that they maybe deserve a place on the list Its not the same as " who played better this month?", something that is not as hard to answer. Not an an easy task so i call this power rank a good job. The foreign list is prolly my own list, except that i would switch Sen with Bunny
herO has been awful since Protoss hasn't been dominating. Innovation hasn't really shown much.
The end of protoss domination is quite recent, i believe that herO is a trully skilled player that might get back on track after a very short period of underwhelming results. And its true iNnovation hasn't shown much, and that alone is enough to take him out of an objective list, but that doesn't necessarily makes the list better Myself, i believe that iNnovation is top 10 in the world and actually highter than its placed on this power rank. About the other you agree? lol edit: in other words im making subjective statements about player skills
Seeing Scarlett ranked below Snute raises my hackles, but she definitely didn't perform as well at the most recent premier tournament. Just ONE SINGLE SECOND earlier to spot that nydus by Life and she would've taken it out before the queens got out to transfuse it, and from there, she was in a pretty threatening position to take the series and move on to stomp MC in the winners' match. Alas, that didn't happen, and so we're left with the power ranking that we have.
On September 02 2014 03:56 REyeM wrote: @Zealously
What is you argument for ranking PartinG higher than Dear?
I think Parting has looked better for longer, and he has the added benefit of having played an important role in SKT's playoffs campaign. Their head-to-head where Parting eventually came out on top played a role, but overall I feel that Parting is still more solid. That said, I think Dear's peak ability is higher than Parting's and that he needs a month or two to overtake him. Right now, he's still a bit unstable.
On September 02 2014 03:56 REyeM wrote: @Zealously
What is you argument for ranking PartinG higher than Dear?
I think Parting has looked better for longer, and he has the added benefit of having played an important role in SKT's playoffs campaign. Their head-to-head where Parting eventually came out on top played a role, but overall I feel that Parting is still more solid. That said, I think Dear's peak ability is higher than Parting's and that he needs a month or two to overtake him. Right now, he's still a bit unstable.
And what's your argument for not putting MKP on #1
On September 02 2014 03:40 BakedButters wrote: Polt should be out and herO should be on the list. At least herO has proven himself able to beat top Koreans who reside in Korea
Like Snute?
Typically don't care about discussing power-ranks, because it can be super hard to determine who is 3rd vs 5th for instance, however, your just not making any consistent logical arguments in defending Polt. If your going to defend Heros ranking over Polt becasue Hero lost to Stephano 1-2 and 1-2, good luck defending Polt's vs Stephano, Scarlett, Bunny and Major.
The argument is that he A) won Red Bull Detroit and looked very good doing so, especially in dismantling Taeja, B) has been playing well consistently for the better part of the summer (this includes MLG, the Red Bull events and most of what I've seen of him online). My argument is that he has played well - with the exception of a number of series among many - and that I would rate him among the top threats in your average tournament. Given the volume of matches Polt plays every month, it's absurd to expect him to maintain the same consistency other players do. Losses will occur for whatever reason if you're participating in 10+ online/offline tournaments every month. That shouldn't detract from the fact that Polt has looked good for the most part of August.
So if losses can occur when you play lots of games, then surprise-results can also occur? Like him beating Taeja 3-0 in the most volatile match-up? Given all his other TvT results (loss vs Bunny, Aco and Major), his result vs Taeja looked like anomaly, not his normal form.
And Tajea is the only top-10 player he won against over the last 2 months.
Further, while losses indeed can occur when you play lots of games, it's still very hard to statistically justify combined losses of 6-3 vs Scarlett, 0-5 vs Major and 4-2 vs Stephano for instance. 2-1 and 3-2 losses vs slightly supbar players can be justified, however such convincing losses cannot be explained through variance, rather you have to assume that he was just tired, but when your using this type of arguemnt specifically for Polt, then you get into lots of bias of where you can use the "tired" approach instead of just relying on a consistent approach. Further, it completely contradicts your previous argument about rewarding consistency.
Moreover, if you believe in inflating results that comes from tournament-wins, why not put Bunny above Polt? He looked convincing in Ginfinity tournament (and also beat Polt in the heads-up a couple of days ago).
But let's look at a larger sample size for Hero, Innovation and Life then, to see whether these guys have any embarrasing losses at a similar sample size. Note that all of them are ranked below Polt so you need to argue that these results are worse than that of Polt...
Below, is shown Heros results and worst seems to be a 0-2 loss vs Gumiho. That's nowhere losing 3-6 to Scarlett or 0-5 vs Major in my opinion.
2014-08-29 herO KR P 1–2 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR Revival HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 P KR StarDust HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 1–2 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 P CA desRow HotS offline Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Online hide 2014-08-18 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Cure HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 2–0 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 2–1 T KR Polt HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 0–2 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR viOLet HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Journey HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–1 Z KR Check HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–1 Z NZ Petraeus HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 P CA WhatAmI HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 Z US SLeet HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Cure HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Bbyong HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 P KR Panic HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Hack HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR TRUE HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 1–2 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 2–0 Z NZ Petraeus HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 2–0 Z US Grief HotS online IEM Season IX Toronto Qualifiers hide 2014-08-12 herO KR P 0–2 T KR Flash HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–1 T KR TY HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 0–2 P KR Pigbaby HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–0 P KR Super HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–1 T KR TY HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro4 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 0–2 P KR Trust HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro8 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 2–0 T KR sKyHigh HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro16 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR Sacsri HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro32 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 2–1 Z KR Symbol HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #1 hide 2014-07-24 herO KR P 0–2 T KR GuMiho HotS online 2014-07-24 herO KR P 2–0 T KR EJK HotS online WCS 2014 Season 3 Korea Code A hide 2014-07-24 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Reality HotS offline 2014-07-24 herO KR P 0–2 P KR Super HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Playoffs Ro4 SK Telecom T1 vs. CJ Entus hide 2014-07-22 herO KR P 0–1 P KR Rain HotS offline 2014-07-22 herO KR P 1–0 P KR PartinG HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Playoffs Ro4 SK Telecom T1 vs. CJ Entus Series #2 hide 2014-07-21 herO KR P 0–1 P KR PartinG HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Playoffs Ro4 SK Telecom T1 vs. CJ Entus Series #1 hide 2014-07-20 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR soO HotS offline 2014-07-20 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR soO HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-07-07 herO KR P 0–1 T KR Maru HotS offline 2014-06-29 herO KR P 0–1 Z KR Dark HotS offline 2014-06-23 herO KR P 0–1 Z KR ByuL HotS offline 2014-06-17 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR DongRaeGu HotS offline 2014-06-10 herO KR P 1–0 T KR Maru HotS offline 2014-06-10 herO KR P 1–0 T KR Cure HotS offline SHOUTcraft Sandisk Invitational hide 2014-06-09 herO KR P 4–2 T KR Flash HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-08 herO KR P 1–0 P KR Hurricane HotS offline SHOUTcraft Sandisk Invitational hide 2014-06-08 herO KR P 4–3 P KR Zest HotS online 2014-06-06 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR Life HotS online 2014-06-06 herO KR P 2–1 T KR INnoVation HotS online 2014-06-06 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Flash HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-02 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR Action HotS offline
Below are seen Life's results. His worst results are probably two bo3 losses to Scarlett, Gumiho and Kane, though he beat the former a short while after. But Life's results overall can definitely be explained by statistical volatility. You don't see any extremey 4-0/5-0/6-3 losses to players outside the top 20 here.
2014-08-31 Life KR Z 1–3 P KR Zest HotS offline 2014-08-30 Life KR Z 3–0 P KR First HotS offline 2014-08-29 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR MC HotS offline 2014-08-29 Life KR Z 2–1 Z CA Scarlett HotS offline 2014-08-28 Life KR Z 2–0 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-08-28 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Revival HotS offline 2014-08-28 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR StarDust HotS offline KeSPA Cup 2014 hide 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Rain HotS online 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR Bbyong HotS online 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Terminator HotS online 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Blast HotS online IEM Season IX Toronto Qualifiers hide 2014-08-12 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR TY HotS online 2014-08-12 Life KR Z 0–2 P KR Super HotS online Destiny I hide 2014-08-09 Life KR Z 0–3 T KR INnoVation HotS online 2014-08-06 Life KR Z 1–2 Z CA Kane HotS online 2014-08-06 Life KR Z 2–1 Z US Guitarcheese HotS online 2014-08-06 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR HerO HotS online Dragon Invitational #4 hide 2014-08-05 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR Center HotS online Hong Kong e-Sports Tournament #2 Qualifiers South Korea hide 2014-07-28 Life KR Z 1–2 Z KR RagnaroK HotS online 2014-07-28 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR Hack HotS online BaseTradeTV The Big One hide 2014-07-25 Life KR Z 4–0 Z KR HyuN HotS online 2014-07-25 Life KR Z 3–1 P KR JYP HotS online 2014-07-25 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR SuperNova HotS online WCS 2014 Season 3 Korea Code A hide 2014-07-24 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR Bunny HotS offline 2014-07-24 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Stats HotS offline BaseTradeTV The Big One hide 2014-07-23 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR Journey HotS online 2014-07-23 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Jaedong HotS online IEM Season IX Shenzhen hide 2014-07-18 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR TaeJa HotS offline 2014-07-18 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR MMA HotS offline 2014-07-18 Life KR Z 1–2 P CN Jim HotS offline 2014-07-17 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR Daisy HotS offline 2014-07-16 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR HerO HotS offline 2014-07-16 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Daisy HotS offline Dragon Invitational #3 hide 2014-07-14 Life KR Z 3–2 Z KR Leenock HotS online 2014-07-14 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR First HotS online 2014-07-13 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR HyuN HotS online IEM Season IX Shenzhen hide 2014-07-10 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Dear HotS online 2014-07-10 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR Arthur HotS online 2014-07-10 Life KR Z 0–2 Z KR Solar HotS online Dragon Invitational #3 hide 2014-07-08 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Impact HotS online SEAcraft Weekly #9 hide 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Pet HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR Hack HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–1 Z PH EnDerr HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–0 Z IN DemiLove HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 1–0 P AU Frustration HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 1–0 P NZ Enak HotS online TeSL TWOP 2014 Qualifer hide 2014-06-29 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Terminator HotS online 2014-06-29 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Solar HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-29 Life KR Z 1–0 T KR Flash HotS offline MLG Pro Circuit 2014 Anaheim hide 2014-06-22 Life KR Z 1–2 Z CA Scarlett HotS offline 2014-06-22 Life KR Z 2–1 T MX MajOr HotS offline 2014-06-22 Life KR Z 2–0 T US Illusion HotS offline 2014-06-21 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR Alicia HotS offline 2014-06-21 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Choya HotS offline 2014-06-21 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR Apocalypse HotS offline 2014-06-20 Life KR Z 1–2 Z KR DongRaeGu HotS offline 2014-06-20 Life KR Z 2–1 T SE ThorZaIN HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-16 Life KR Z 0–1 Z KR Solar HotS offline Dragon Invitational #2 hide 2014-06-12 Life KR Z 1–3 T KR INnoVation HotS online 2014-06-12 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Leenock HotS online 2014-06-11 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Symbol HotS online 2014-06-09 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR Center HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-09 Life KR Z 0–1 Z KR Soulkey HotS offline 2014-06-09 Life KR Z 1–0 P KR Classic HotS offline SHOUTcraft Sandisk Invitational hide 2014-06-06 Life KR Z 0–2 P KR herO HotS online 2014-06-06 Life KR Z 0–2 T KR Flash HotS online 2014-06-06 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR INnoVation HotS online WCS 2014 Season 2 Korea Code S hide 2014-06-04 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR ParalyzE HotS offline 2014-06-04 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Rain HotS offline 2014-06-04 Life KR Z 0–2 P KR ParalyzE HotS offline SHOUTcraft Clan Wars hide 2014-05-17 Life KR Z 1–0 P NL JayPower HotS online WCS 2014 Season 2 Korea Code S hide 2014-05-09 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Classic HotS offline 2014-05-09 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Rogue HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament hide 2014-05-06 Life KR Z 0–1 T KR Flash HotS offline 2014-05-04 Life KR Z 0–1 T KR Bbyong HotS offline Dreamhack 2014 Bucharest hide 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 3–0 Z KR Impact HotS offline 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR INnoVation HotS offline 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR StarDust HotS offline 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Leenock HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P FR Lilbow HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR Ryung HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P FR Lilbow HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P NL Harstem HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P RO MoonBeam HotS offline
Below are Innovations results. I guess his mos recent bo3 losses are kinda bad, but he is like 20-0 in bo3's+ vs foreigners. He lost a couple of 0-1s vs foreigners, however overall I think he is like 80%+ in bo1s vs foreigners (which therefore can be explained due to variance).
2014-08-25 INnoVation KR T 0–2 P KR Dear HotS online 2014-08-25 INnoVation KR T 0–2 Z KR RagnaroK HotS online 2014-08-24 INnoVation KR T 2–1 P KR eMotion HotS online KeSPA Cup 2014 hide 2014-08-18 INnoVation KR T 1–2 P KR PartinG HotS online 2014-08-18 INnoVation KR T 2–1 T KR TY HotS online 2014-08-18 INnoVation KR T 2–0 P AU eZra HotS online Iron Forum Night Invitational yoe Flash Wolves vs. Team Acer hide 2014-08-16 INnoVation KR T 1–0 Z KR Leenock HotS offline 2014-08-16 INnoVation KR T 0–1 Z KR Leenock HotS offline 2014-08-16 INnoVation KR T 1–0 P TW Has HotS offline Destiny I hide 2014-08-10 INnoVation KR T 5–1 P CA HuK HotS online 2014-08-10 INnoVation KR T 4–3 T KR Apocalypse HotS online 2014-08-09 INnoVation KR T 3–0 Z KR Life HotS online 2014-08-07 INnoVation KR T 1–2 P IL Adonminus HotS online 2014-08-07 INnoVation KR T 2–0 Z NZ Petraeus HotS online 2014-08-07 INnoVation KR T 2–0 Z NO Snute HotS online WCS 2014 Season 3 Korea Code S hide 2014-08-07 INnoVation KR T 2–0 P KR MyuNgSiK HotS offline 2014-08-07 INnoVation KR T 2–1 P KR ParalyzE HotS offline 2014-08-07 INnoVation KR T 1–2 P KR MyuNgSiK HotS offline Acer TeamStory Cup Season 3 Main Tournament hide 2014-07-27 INnoVation KR T 0–1 P PL MaNa HotS offline 2014-07-27 INnoVation KR T 1–0 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-07-27 INnoVation KR T 0–1 Z DE TLO HotS offline WCS 2014 Season 3 Korea Code A hide 2014-07-23 INnoVation KR T 2–0 P KR Ruin HotS offline 2014-07-23 INnoVation KR T 2–0 P KR Hurricane HotS offline IEM Season IX Shenzhen hide 2014-07-19 INnoVation KR T 0–3 Z KR Solar HotS offline 2014-07-17 INnoVation KR T 2–1 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-07-17 INnoVation KR T 2–0 Z KR TRUE HotS offline Acer TeamStory Cup Season 3 Main Tournament hide 2014-07-10 INnoVation KR T 1–0 Z SI Starbuck HotS online 2014-07-10 INnoVation KR T 1–0 P NL Sjaak HotS online 2014-07-10 INnoVation KR T 1–0 P ES Majestic HotS online 2014-07-10 INnoVation KR T 1–0 T DE HeRoMaRinE HotS online 2014-07-10 INnoVation KR T 0–1 Z SI Starbuck HotS online 2014-07-10 INnoVation KR T 0–1 Z NO Snute HotS online IEM Season IX Shenzhen hide 2014-07-10 INnoVation KR T 2–1 Z KR Solar HotS online 2014-07-10 INnoVation KR T 2–0 P KR Dear HotS online 2014-07-10 INnoVation KR T 2–0 T KR Cure HotS online Acer TeamStory Cup Season 3 Main Tournament hide 2014-07-09 INnoVation KR T 1–0 T KR Ryung HotS online 2014-07-09 INnoVation KR T 1–0 P KR Alicia HotS online 2014-07-09 INnoVation KR T 1–0 Z KR Impact HotS online 2014-07-09 INnoVation KR T 1–0 T KR Heart HotS online 2014-07-09 INnoVation KR T 1–0 P KR CranK HotS online Dragon Invitational #2 hide 2014-06-12 INnoVation KR T 3–1 Z KR Life HotS online 2014-06-12 INnoVation KR T 2–0 T KR MMA HotS online 2014-06-11 INnoVation KR T 2–0 P KR JYP HotS online 2014-06-10 INnoVation KR T 2–1 T KR TaeJa HotS online WCS 2014 Season 2 Korea Code S hide 2014-06-06 INnoVation KR T 1–2 Z KR Soulkey HotS offline 2014-06-06 INnoVation KR T 2–0 Z KR Shine HotS offline 2014-06-06 INnoVation KR T 0–2 P KR Zest HotS offline SHOUTcraft Sandisk Invitational hide 2014-06-06 INnoVation KR T 1–2 P KR herO HotS online 2014-06-06 INnoVation KR T 1–2 Z KR Life HotS online Acer TeamStory Cup Season 3 Main Tournament hide 2014-06-02 INnoVation KR T 1–0 P CN Jim HotS online 2014-06-02 INnoVation KR T 1–0 Z CN iAsonu HotS online 2014-06-02 INnoVation KR T 1–0 P CN MacSed HotS online 2014-06-02 INnoVation KR T 1–0 T CN XY HotS online 2014-06-02 INnoVation KR T 1–0 P CN Jim HotS online 2014-05-30 INnoVation KR T 1–0 T KR jjakji HotS online 2014-05-30 INnoVation KR T 1–0 T KR jjakji HotS online 2014-05-30 INnoVation KR T 1–0 Z CA Kane HotS online 2014-05-30 INnoVation KR T 1–0 P KR StarDust HotS online 2014-05-30 INnoVation KR T 1–0 Z FI Serral HotS online 2014-05-30 INnoVation KR T 1–0 Z NO Snute HotS online 2014-05-30 INnoVation KR T 1–0 P KR HerO HotS online 2014-05-30 INnoVation KR T 1–0 T KR TaeJa HotS online 2014-05-30 INnoVation KR T 1–0 Z NO Snute HotS online Dragon Invitational #1 hide 2014-05-26 INnoVation KR T 3–2 Z KR RagnaroK HotS online 2014-05-26 INnoVation KR T 2–0 Z KR HyuN HotS online 2014-05-25 INnoVation KR T 2–0 Z KR Impact HotS online 2014-05-24 INnoVation KR T 2–1 T KR Center HotS online WCS 2014 Season 2 Korea Code S hide 2014-05-23 INnoVation KR T 2–0 Z KR Leenock HotS offline 2014-05-23 INnoVation KR T 2–0 P KR Squirtle HotS offline 2014-05-23 INnoVation KR T 1–2 P KR herO HotS offline Acer TeamStory Cup Season 3 Main Tournament hide 2014-05-22 INnoVation KR T 0–1 Z KR Leenock HotS online 2014-05-22 INnoVation KR T 1–0 P KR San HotS online 2014-05-22 INnoVation KR T 0–1 P KR San HotS online 2014-05-22 INnoVation KR T 1–0 P TW Has HotS online 2014-05-22 INnoVation KR T 1–0 Z TW Ian HotS online 2014-05-15 INnoVation KR T 1–0 Z KR Impact HotS online 2014-05-15 INnoVation KR T 1–0 T KR Ryung HotS online 2014-05-15 INnoVation KR T 1–0 P KR Alicia HotS online 2014-05-15 INnoVation KR T 0–1 T KR Heart HotS online Showmatch No Dice Gaming Invitational #4 hide 2014-05-03 INnoVation KR T 4–3 Z KR Revival HotS online 2014-05-03 INnoVation KR T 3–1 Z KR Symbol HotS online 2014-05-02 INnoVation KR T 2–0 T KR jjakji HotS online 2014-05-02 INnoVation KR T 1–2 T KR TaeJa HotS online 2014-05-02 INnoVation KR T 2–1 P KR StarDust HotS online 2014-05-01 INnoVation KR T 2–0 P US puCK HotS online 2014-05-01 INnoVation KR T 2–0 Z UA Bly HotS online Acer TeamStory Cup Season 3 Main Tournament hide 2014-04-30 INnoVation KR T 1–0 T KR ForGG HotS online 2014-04-30 INnoVation KR T 1–0 T FR Dayshi HotS online 2014-04-30 INnoVation KR T 1–0 P DK BabyKnight HotS online Dreamhack 2014 Bucharest hide 2014-04-27 INnoVation KR T 1–2 Z KR Life HotS offline 2014-04-27 INnoVation KR T 2–0 T DK Bunny HotS offline 2014-04-27 INnoVation KR T 2–1 P FI Welmu HotS offline 2014-04-26 INnoVation KR T 2–0 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-04-26 INnoVation KR T 2–1 P CA HuK HotS offline 2014-04-26 INnoVation KR T 2–0 T SE MorroW HotS offline 2014-04-26 INnoVation KR T 2–0 P RO Ancestor HotS offline Acer TeamStory Cup Season 3 Main Tournament hide 2014-04-15 INnoVation KR T 0–1 Z PL Tefel HotS online Lone Star Clash 3 hide 2014-04-13 INnoVation KR T 1–2 P KR YongHwa HotS online WCS 2014 Season 2 Korea Code A hide 2014-04-09 INnoVation KR T 2–0 P KR Sora HotS offline 2014-04-09 INnoVation KR T 2–1 Z KR Dark HotS offline Acer TeamStory Cup Season 3 Main Tournament hide 2014-04-06 INnoVation KR T 1–0 Z KR Jaedong HotS online 2014-04-06 INnoVation KR T 1–0 T UK DeMusliM HotS online 2014-04-06 INnoVation KR T 1–0 T US Xenocider HotS online 2014-04-06 INnoVation KR T 1–0 Z US Suppy HotS online 2014-04-06 INnoVation KR T 1–0 Z KR Jaedong HotS online WCS 2014 Season 2 Korea Qualifier hide 2014-03-26 INnoVation KR T 2–1 T KR Sorry HotS offline 2014-03-26 INnoVation KR T 1–2 Z KR ByuL HotS offline 2014-03-26 INnoVation KR T 2–0 P KR Bulldozer HotS offline SHOUTcraft Clan Wars hide 2014-02-23 INnoVation KR T 0–1 P KR Dear HotS online IEM Season VIII Cologne hide 2014-02-16 INnoVation KR T 0–3 P KR HerO HotS offline 2014-02-15 INnoVation KR T 2–0 P KR MC HotS offline 2014-02-15 INnoVation KR T 2–0 T DE HeRoMaRinE HotS offline
Conclusion
You cannot use Polt's higher sample size to justify his very convincing losses to Major and Scarlett. No other players in top 15 (from my knowledge) has similar types of losses to lesser skilled players. And, you cannot go around cherry-picking which results you really want to matter and ignore other impressive results in similar contexts. Your just ending out maximizing bias here instead of using the most objective consistent approach possible.
The overall "story" makes a lot more sense when you rank Polt as a top 30 player and explain his win vs Taeja to the volatility of TvT
On September 02 2014 04:07 Pontius Pirate wrote: Seeing Scarlett ranked below Snute raises my hackles, but she definitely didn't perform as well at the most recent premier tournament. Just ONE SINGLE SECOND earlier to spot that nydus by Life and she would've taken it out before the queens got out to transfuse it, and from there, she was in a pretty threatening position to take the series and move on to stomp MC in the winners' match. Alas, that didn't happen, and so we're left with the power ranking that we have.
On your scenario, the placements on the power rank would probably change a little
On September 02 2014 03:56 REyeM wrote: @Zealously
What is you argument for ranking PartinG higher than Dear?
I think Parting has looked better for longer, and he has the added benefit of having played an important role in SKT's playoffs campaign. Their head-to-head where Parting eventually came out on top played a role, but overall I feel that Parting is still more solid. That said, I think Dear's peak ability is higher than Parting's and that he needs a month or two to overtake him. Right now, he's still a bit unstable.
On September 02 2014 03:40 BakedButters wrote: Polt should be out and herO should be on the list. At least herO has proven himself able to beat top Koreans who reside in Korea
Like Snute?
Typically don't care about discussing power-ranks, because it can be super hard to determine who is 3rd vs 5th for instance, however, your just not making any consistent logical arguments in defending Polt. If your going to defend Heros ranking over Polt becasue Hero lost to Stephano 1-2 and 1-2, good luck defending Polt's vs Stephano, Scarlett, Bunny and Major.
The argument is that he A) won Red Bull Detroit and looked very good doing so, especially in dismantling Taeja, B) has been playing well consistently for the better part of the summer (this includes MLG, the Red Bull events and most of what I've seen of him online). My argument is that he has played well - with the exception of a number of series among many - and that I would rate him among the top threats in your average tournament. Given the volume of matches Polt plays every month, it's absurd to expect him to maintain the same consistency other players do. Losses will occur for whatever reason if you're participating in 10+ online/offline tournaments every month. That shouldn't detract from the fact that Polt has looked good for the most part of August.
So if losses can occur when you play lots of games, then surprise-results can also occur? Like him beating Taeja 3-0 in the most volatile match-up? Given all his other TvT results (loss vs Bunny, Aco and Major), his result vs Taeja looked like anomaly, not his normal form.
And Tajea is the only top-10 player he won against over the last 2 months.
Further, while losses indeed can occur when you play lots of games, it's still very hard to statistically justify combined losses of 6-3 vs Scarlett, 0-5 vs Major and 4-2 vs Stephano for instance. 2-1 and 3-2 losses vs slightly supbar players can be justified, however such convincing losses cannot be explained through variance, rather you have to assume that he was just tired, but when your using this type of arguemnt specifically for Polt, then you get into lots of bias of where you can use the "tired" approach instead of just relying on a consistent approach. Further, it completely contradicts your previous argument about rewarding consistency.
Moreover, if you put extra emphasiz on winning tournaments, why not put Bunny above Polt? He looked convincing in Ginfinity tournament (and also beat Polt in the heads-up a couple of days ago).
But let's look at a larger sample size for Hero and Life then, to see whether these guys have any embarrasing losses at a similar sample size. Below, is shown Heros results and worst seems to be a 0-2 loss vs Gumiho. That's nowhere losing 3-6 to Scarlett or 0-5 vs Major in my opinion.
2014-08-29 herO KR P 1–2 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR Revival HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 P KR StarDust HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 1–2 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 P CA desRow HotS offline Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Online hide 2014-08-18 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Cure HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 2–0 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 2–1 T KR Polt HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 0–2 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR viOLet HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Journey HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–1 Z KR Check HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–1 Z NZ Petraeus HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 P CA WhatAmI HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 Z US SLeet HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Cure HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Bbyong HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 P KR Panic HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Hack HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR TRUE HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 1–2 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 2–0 Z NZ Petraeus HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 2–0 Z US Grief HotS online IEM Season IX Toronto Qualifiers hide 2014-08-12 herO KR P 0–2 T KR Flash HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–1 T KR TY HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 0–2 P KR Pigbaby HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–0 P KR Super HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–1 T KR TY HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro4 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 0–2 P KR Trust HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro8 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 2–0 T KR sKyHigh HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro16 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR Sacsri HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro32 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 2–1 Z KR Symbol HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #1 hide 2014-07-24 herO KR P 0–2 T KR GuMiho HotS online 2014-07-24 herO KR P 2–0 T KR EJK HotS online WCS 2014 Season 3 Korea Code A hide 2014-07-24 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Reality HotS offline 2014-07-24 herO KR P 0–2 P KR Super HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Playoffs Ro4 SK Telecom T1 vs. CJ Entus hide 2014-07-22 herO KR P 0–1 P KR Rain HotS offline 2014-07-22 herO KR P 1–0 P KR PartinG HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Playoffs Ro4 SK Telecom T1 vs. CJ Entus Series #2 hide 2014-07-21 herO KR P 0–1 P KR PartinG HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Playoffs Ro4 SK Telecom T1 vs. CJ Entus Series #1 hide 2014-07-20 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR soO HotS offline 2014-07-20 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR soO HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-07-07 herO KR P 0–1 T KR Maru HotS offline 2014-06-29 herO KR P 0–1 Z KR Dark HotS offline 2014-06-23 herO KR P 0–1 Z KR ByuL HotS offline 2014-06-17 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR DongRaeGu HotS offline 2014-06-10 herO KR P 1–0 T KR Maru HotS offline 2014-06-10 herO KR P 1–0 T KR Cure HotS offline SHOUTcraft Sandisk Invitational hide 2014-06-09 herO KR P 4–2 T KR Flash HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-08 herO KR P 1–0 P KR Hurricane HotS offline SHOUTcraft Sandisk Invitational hide 2014-06-08 herO KR P 4–3 P KR Zest HotS online 2014-06-06 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR Life HotS online 2014-06-06 herO KR P 2–1 T KR INnoVation HotS online 2014-06-06 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Flash HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-02 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR Action HotS offline
Below are seen Life's results. His worst results are probably two bo3 losses to Scarlett, Gumiho and Kane, though he beat the former a short while after. But Life's results overall can definitely be explained by statistical volatility. You don't see any extremey 4-0/5-0/6-3 losses to players outside the top 20 here.
2014-08-31 Life KR Z 1–3 P KR Zest HotS offline 2014-08-30 Life KR Z 3–0 P KR First HotS offline 2014-08-29 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR MC HotS offline 2014-08-29 Life KR Z 2–1 Z CA Scarlett HotS offline 2014-08-28 Life KR Z 2–0 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-08-28 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Revival HotS offline 2014-08-28 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR StarDust HotS offline KeSPA Cup 2014 hide 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Rain HotS online 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR Bbyong HotS online 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Terminator HotS online 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Blast HotS online IEM Season IX Toronto Qualifiers hide 2014-08-12 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR TY HotS online 2014-08-12 Life KR Z 0–2 P KR Super HotS online Destiny I hide 2014-08-09 Life KR Z 0–3 T KR INnoVation HotS online 2014-08-06 Life KR Z 1–2 Z CA Kane HotS online 2014-08-06 Life KR Z 2–1 Z US Guitarcheese HotS online 2014-08-06 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR HerO HotS online Dragon Invitational #4 hide 2014-08-05 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR Center HotS online Hong Kong e-Sports Tournament #2 Qualifiers South Korea hide 2014-07-28 Life KR Z 1–2 Z KR RagnaroK HotS online 2014-07-28 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR Hack HotS online BaseTradeTV The Big One hide 2014-07-25 Life KR Z 4–0 Z KR HyuN HotS online 2014-07-25 Life KR Z 3–1 P KR JYP HotS online 2014-07-25 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR SuperNova HotS online WCS 2014 Season 3 Korea Code A hide 2014-07-24 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR Bunny HotS offline 2014-07-24 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Stats HotS offline BaseTradeTV The Big One hide 2014-07-23 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR Journey HotS online 2014-07-23 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Jaedong HotS online IEM Season IX Shenzhen hide 2014-07-18 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR TaeJa HotS offline 2014-07-18 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR MMA HotS offline 2014-07-18 Life KR Z 1–2 P CN Jim HotS offline 2014-07-17 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR Daisy HotS offline 2014-07-16 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR HerO HotS offline 2014-07-16 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Daisy HotS offline Dragon Invitational #3 hide 2014-07-14 Life KR Z 3–2 Z KR Leenock HotS online 2014-07-14 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR First HotS online 2014-07-13 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR HyuN HotS online IEM Season IX Shenzhen hide 2014-07-10 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Dear HotS online 2014-07-10 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR Arthur HotS online 2014-07-10 Life KR Z 0–2 Z KR Solar HotS online Dragon Invitational #3 hide 2014-07-08 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Impact HotS online SEAcraft Weekly #9 hide 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Pet HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR Hack HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–1 Z PH EnDerr HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–0 Z IN DemiLove HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 1–0 P AU Frustration HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 1–0 P NZ Enak HotS online TeSL TWOP 2014 Qualifer hide 2014-06-29 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Terminator HotS online 2014-06-29 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Solar HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-29 Life KR Z 1–0 T KR Flash HotS offline MLG Pro Circuit 2014 Anaheim hide 2014-06-22 Life KR Z 1–2 Z CA Scarlett HotS offline 2014-06-22 Life KR Z 2–1 T MX MajOr HotS offline 2014-06-22 Life KR Z 2–0 T US Illusion HotS offline 2014-06-21 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR Alicia HotS offline 2014-06-21 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Choya HotS offline 2014-06-21 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR Apocalypse HotS offline 2014-06-20 Life KR Z 1–2 Z KR DongRaeGu HotS offline 2014-06-20 Life KR Z 2–1 T SE ThorZaIN HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-16 Life KR Z 0–1 Z KR Solar HotS offline Dragon Invitational #2 hide 2014-06-12 Life KR Z 1–3 T KR INnoVation HotS online 2014-06-12 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Leenock HotS online 2014-06-11 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Symbol HotS online 2014-06-09 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR Center HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-09 Life KR Z 0–1 Z KR Soulkey HotS offline 2014-06-09 Life KR Z 1–0 P KR Classic HotS offline SHOUTcraft Sandisk Invitational hide 2014-06-06 Life KR Z 0–2 P KR herO HotS online 2014-06-06 Life KR Z 0–2 T KR Flash HotS online 2014-06-06 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR INnoVation HotS online WCS 2014 Season 2 Korea Code S hide 2014-06-04 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR ParalyzE HotS offline 2014-06-04 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Rain HotS offline 2014-06-04 Life KR Z 0–2 P KR ParalyzE HotS offline SHOUTcraft Clan Wars hide 2014-05-17 Life KR Z 1–0 P NL JayPower HotS online WCS 2014 Season 2 Korea Code S hide 2014-05-09 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Classic HotS offline 2014-05-09 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Rogue HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament hide 2014-05-06 Life KR Z 0–1 T KR Flash HotS offline 2014-05-04 Life KR Z 0–1 T KR Bbyong HotS offline Dreamhack 2014 Bucharest hide 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 3–0 Z KR Impact HotS offline 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR INnoVation HotS offline 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR StarDust HotS offline 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Leenock HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P FR Lilbow HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR Ryung HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P FR Lilbow HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P NL Harstem HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P RO MoonBeam HotS offline
Conclusion
You cannot use Polt's higher sample size to justify his very convcing losses to Major and Scarlett. And, you cannot go around cherry-picking which results you really want to matter and ignore other impressive results in similar contexts. Your just ending out maximizing bias here instead of using the most objective consistent approach possible.
I'm almost sure at this point that Zealously is just trying to get his favorite players higher ranks than they deserve. Did you see that Life made 'Close but no Cigar'? What a joke that is.
On September 02 2014 03:12 cLAN.Anax wrote: So many big names there.... :-O Flash and Rain, I'm happy about. Will have to look more into Maru; never fully struck me as "legendary," but that could change.
That's a surprise, I thought the community was very unified on Maru. Have you not watched a lot of his games, or have you just not been impressed?
On September 02 2014 03:07 Trasko wrote: Wrong! Everything is wrong!
Hey, I can fire you whenever
On September 02 2014 03:12 cLAN.Anax wrote: So many big names there.... :-O Flash and Rain, I'm happy about. Will have to look more into Maru; never fully struck me as "legendary," but that could change.
That's a surprise, I thought the community was very unified on Maru. Have you not watched a lot of his games, or have you just not been impressed?
On September 02 2014 03:40 BakedButters wrote: Polt should be out and herO should be on the list. At least herO has proven himself able to beat top Koreans who reside in Korea
Like Snute?
Typically don't care about discussing power-ranks, because it can be super hard to determine who is 3rd vs 5th for instance, however, your just not making any consistent logical arguments in defending Polt. If your going to defend Heros ranking over Polt becasue Hero lost to Stephano 1-2 and 1-2, good luck defending Polt's vs Stephano, Scarlett, Bunny and Major.
The argument is that he A) won Red Bull Detroit and looked very good doing so, especially in dismantling Taeja, B) has been playing well consistently for the better part of the summer (this includes MLG, the Red Bull events and most of what I've seen of him online). My argument is that he has played well - with the exception of a number of series among many - and that I would rate him among the top threats in your average tournament. Given the volume of matches Polt plays every month, it's absurd to expect him to maintain the same consistency other players do. Losses will occur for whatever reason if you're participating in 10+ online/offline tournaments every month. That shouldn't detract from the fact that Polt has looked good for the most part of August.
So if losses can occur when you play lots of games, then surprise-results can also occur? Like him beating Taeja 3-0 in the most volatile match-up? Given all his other TvT results (loss vs Bunny, Aco and Major), his result vs Taeja looked like anomaly, not his normal form.
And Tajea is the only top-10 player he won against over the last 2 months.
Further, while losses indeed can occur when you play lots of games, it's still very hard to statistically justify combined losses of 6-3 vs Scarlett, 0-5 vs Major and 4-2 vs Stephano for instance. 2-1 and 3-2 losses vs slightly supbar players can be justified, however such convincing losses cannot be explained through variance, rather you have to assume that he was just tired, but when your using this type of arguemnt specifically for Polt, then you get into lots of bias of where you can use the "tired" approach instead of just relying on a consistent approach. Further, it completely contradicts your previous argument about rewarding consistency.
Moreover, if you put extra emphasiz on winning tournaments, why not put Bunny above Polt? He looked convincing in Ginfinity tournament (and also beat Polt in the heads-up a couple of days ago).
But let's look at a larger sample size for Hero and Life then, to see whether these guys have any embarrasing losses at a similar sample size. Below, is shown Heros results and worst seems to be a 0-2 loss vs Gumiho. That's nowhere losing 3-6 to Scarlett or 0-5 vs Major in my opinion.
2014-08-29 herO KR P 1–2 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR Revival HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 P KR StarDust HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 1–2 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 P CA desRow HotS offline Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Online hide 2014-08-18 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Cure HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 2–0 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 2–1 T KR Polt HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 0–2 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR viOLet HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Journey HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–1 Z KR Check HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–1 Z NZ Petraeus HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 P CA WhatAmI HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 Z US SLeet HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Cure HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Bbyong HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 P KR Panic HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Hack HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR TRUE HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 1–2 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 2–0 Z NZ Petraeus HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 2–0 Z US Grief HotS online IEM Season IX Toronto Qualifiers hide 2014-08-12 herO KR P 0–2 T KR Flash HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–1 T KR TY HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 0–2 P KR Pigbaby HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–0 P KR Super HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–1 T KR TY HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro4 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 0–2 P KR Trust HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro8 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 2–0 T KR sKyHigh HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro16 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR Sacsri HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro32 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 2–1 Z KR Symbol HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #1 hide 2014-07-24 herO KR P 0–2 T KR GuMiho HotS online 2014-07-24 herO KR P 2–0 T KR EJK HotS online WCS 2014 Season 3 Korea Code A hide 2014-07-24 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Reality HotS offline 2014-07-24 herO KR P 0–2 P KR Super HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Playoffs Ro4 SK Telecom T1 vs. CJ Entus hide 2014-07-22 herO KR P 0–1 P KR Rain HotS offline 2014-07-22 herO KR P 1–0 P KR PartinG HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Playoffs Ro4 SK Telecom T1 vs. CJ Entus Series #2 hide 2014-07-21 herO KR P 0–1 P KR PartinG HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Playoffs Ro4 SK Telecom T1 vs. CJ Entus Series #1 hide 2014-07-20 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR soO HotS offline 2014-07-20 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR soO HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-07-07 herO KR P 0–1 T KR Maru HotS offline 2014-06-29 herO KR P 0–1 Z KR Dark HotS offline 2014-06-23 herO KR P 0–1 Z KR ByuL HotS offline 2014-06-17 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR DongRaeGu HotS offline 2014-06-10 herO KR P 1–0 T KR Maru HotS offline 2014-06-10 herO KR P 1–0 T KR Cure HotS offline SHOUTcraft Sandisk Invitational hide 2014-06-09 herO KR P 4–2 T KR Flash HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-08 herO KR P 1–0 P KR Hurricane HotS offline SHOUTcraft Sandisk Invitational hide 2014-06-08 herO KR P 4–3 P KR Zest HotS online 2014-06-06 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR Life HotS online 2014-06-06 herO KR P 2–1 T KR INnoVation HotS online 2014-06-06 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Flash HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-02 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR Action HotS offline
Below are seen Life's results. His worst results are probably two bo3 losses to Scarlett, Gumiho and Kane, though he beat the former a short while after. But Life's results overall can definitely be explained by statistical volatility. You don't see any extremey 4-0/5-0/6-3 losses to players outside the top 20 here.
2014-08-31 Life KR Z 1–3 P KR Zest HotS offline 2014-08-30 Life KR Z 3–0 P KR First HotS offline 2014-08-29 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR MC HotS offline 2014-08-29 Life KR Z 2–1 Z CA Scarlett HotS offline 2014-08-28 Life KR Z 2–0 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-08-28 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Revival HotS offline 2014-08-28 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR StarDust HotS offline KeSPA Cup 2014 hide 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Rain HotS online 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR Bbyong HotS online 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Terminator HotS online 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Blast HotS online IEM Season IX Toronto Qualifiers hide 2014-08-12 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR TY HotS online 2014-08-12 Life KR Z 0–2 P KR Super HotS online Destiny I hide 2014-08-09 Life KR Z 0–3 T KR INnoVation HotS online 2014-08-06 Life KR Z 1–2 Z CA Kane HotS online 2014-08-06 Life KR Z 2–1 Z US Guitarcheese HotS online 2014-08-06 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR HerO HotS online Dragon Invitational #4 hide 2014-08-05 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR Center HotS online Hong Kong e-Sports Tournament #2 Qualifiers South Korea hide 2014-07-28 Life KR Z 1–2 Z KR RagnaroK HotS online 2014-07-28 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR Hack HotS online BaseTradeTV The Big One hide 2014-07-25 Life KR Z 4–0 Z KR HyuN HotS online 2014-07-25 Life KR Z 3–1 P KR JYP HotS online 2014-07-25 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR SuperNova HotS online WCS 2014 Season 3 Korea Code A hide 2014-07-24 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR Bunny HotS offline 2014-07-24 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Stats HotS offline BaseTradeTV The Big One hide 2014-07-23 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR Journey HotS online 2014-07-23 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Jaedong HotS online IEM Season IX Shenzhen hide 2014-07-18 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR TaeJa HotS offline 2014-07-18 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR MMA HotS offline 2014-07-18 Life KR Z 1–2 P CN Jim HotS offline 2014-07-17 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR Daisy HotS offline 2014-07-16 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR HerO HotS offline 2014-07-16 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Daisy HotS offline Dragon Invitational #3 hide 2014-07-14 Life KR Z 3–2 Z KR Leenock HotS online 2014-07-14 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR First HotS online 2014-07-13 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR HyuN HotS online IEM Season IX Shenzhen hide 2014-07-10 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Dear HotS online 2014-07-10 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR Arthur HotS online 2014-07-10 Life KR Z 0–2 Z KR Solar HotS online Dragon Invitational #3 hide 2014-07-08 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Impact HotS online SEAcraft Weekly #9 hide 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Pet HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR Hack HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–1 Z PH EnDerr HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–0 Z IN DemiLove HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 1–0 P AU Frustration HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 1–0 P NZ Enak HotS online TeSL TWOP 2014 Qualifer hide 2014-06-29 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Terminator HotS online 2014-06-29 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Solar HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-29 Life KR Z 1–0 T KR Flash HotS offline MLG Pro Circuit 2014 Anaheim hide 2014-06-22 Life KR Z 1–2 Z CA Scarlett HotS offline 2014-06-22 Life KR Z 2–1 T MX MajOr HotS offline 2014-06-22 Life KR Z 2–0 T US Illusion HotS offline 2014-06-21 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR Alicia HotS offline 2014-06-21 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Choya HotS offline 2014-06-21 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR Apocalypse HotS offline 2014-06-20 Life KR Z 1–2 Z KR DongRaeGu HotS offline 2014-06-20 Life KR Z 2–1 T SE ThorZaIN HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-16 Life KR Z 0–1 Z KR Solar HotS offline Dragon Invitational #2 hide 2014-06-12 Life KR Z 1–3 T KR INnoVation HotS online 2014-06-12 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Leenock HotS online 2014-06-11 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Symbol HotS online 2014-06-09 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR Center HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-09 Life KR Z 0–1 Z KR Soulkey HotS offline 2014-06-09 Life KR Z 1–0 P KR Classic HotS offline SHOUTcraft Sandisk Invitational hide 2014-06-06 Life KR Z 0–2 P KR herO HotS online 2014-06-06 Life KR Z 0–2 T KR Flash HotS online 2014-06-06 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR INnoVation HotS online WCS 2014 Season 2 Korea Code S hide 2014-06-04 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR ParalyzE HotS offline 2014-06-04 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Rain HotS offline 2014-06-04 Life KR Z 0–2 P KR ParalyzE HotS offline SHOUTcraft Clan Wars hide 2014-05-17 Life KR Z 1–0 P NL JayPower HotS online WCS 2014 Season 2 Korea Code S hide 2014-05-09 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Classic HotS offline 2014-05-09 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Rogue HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament hide 2014-05-06 Life KR Z 0–1 T KR Flash HotS offline 2014-05-04 Life KR Z 0–1 T KR Bbyong HotS offline Dreamhack 2014 Bucharest hide 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 3–0 Z KR Impact HotS offline 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR INnoVation HotS offline 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR StarDust HotS offline 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Leenock HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P FR Lilbow HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR Ryung HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P FR Lilbow HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P NL Harstem HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P RO MoonBeam HotS offline
Conclusion
You cannot use Polt's higher sample size to justify his very convcing losses to Major and Scarlett. And, you cannot go around cherry-picking which results you really want to matter and ignore other impressive results in similar contexts. Your just ending out maximizing bias here instead of using the most objective consistent approach possible.
I'm almost sure at this point that Zealously is just trying to get his favorite players higher ranks than they deserve. Did you see that Life made 'Close but no Cigar'? What a joke that is.
Well I think it can be hard to make powerrankings. I know from experience how easy it is to weight certain results over other similar results when making subjective analyses. My track-record is terrible in predicting who is gonna be good over the next 1-2 months just by looking at gameplay. Thus, that's why I come to the conclusion that you need a more objective approach through looking at pure results in a consistent manner. In that regard, I think Hero and Life can be justified to be outside top 10, but I just don't think it can be justified to have Polt anywhere near top 10.
Chances are that he looked blindly at the win against Taeja as a "proof" of Polt being one of the best players while not really understanding how volatile TvT - in general - has been over the last couple of months and completely ignoring that Polt actually has had more "bad results" than "extraordinary strong" results.
All of his arguments in favor of the high ranking of Polt can be used the other way around. Like if he wanna explain some of Polt's bad results due to him playing in lots of tournaments, then it's also clear that he must be careful about rewarding him for tournament wins where he just beats one other top 15 player (Taeja) over the entire tournament. If on the other hand he had beat 4-5 top 20 players over the course of one tournament, I think the ranking could be justified.
Flash Rain Maru are clearly the top 3 of august - the order is debatable. After that it gets messy. Zest, soO, Cure (sick record in august vs amazing opponents) and Teaja could all take it, i would go with Zest or soO though. Polt clearly doesnt belong to the top 10, although he 3-0d Taeja - but that speaks more of Taejas TvT weakness than of Polts strengh (got 2-0d by Bunny, too - quite inconsistent). It's rather Innovation, Parting or Life after that in my books - first 2 didnt do much recently you might think, but they are still in Ro16 of code S. Life is still one of the best zergs and recently showed it, too. Stats and Soulkey might be candidates, too.
Foreigners: VortiX belongs there, although no games in august. before august, him, scarlett and snute were considered one level - how did people forget? Sen overrated imo, very inconsistent (see Acer teammatch, lost every single game). no idea how you can put him over Bunny...
Foreigner list is perfect. Some very questionable picks on the main one though. PartinG being on the list at all is very weird. This would be my top 10:
On September 02 2014 03:40 BakedButters wrote: Polt should be out and herO should be on the list. At least herO has proven himself able to beat top Koreans who reside in Korea
On September 02 2014 03:40 BakedButters wrote: Polt should be out and herO should be on the list. At least herO has proven himself able to beat top Koreans who reside in Korea
Especially Snute. Twice.
Snute is Korean. Just like Naniwa, HuK and Scarlett.
On September 02 2014 03:56 REyeM wrote: @Zealously
What is you argument for ranking PartinG higher than Dear?
I think Parting has looked better for longer, and he has the added benefit of having played an important role in SKT's playoffs campaign. Their head-to-head where Parting eventually came out on top played a role, but overall I feel that Parting is still more solid. That said, I think Dear's peak ability is higher than Parting's and that he needs a month or two to overtake him. Right now, he's still a bit unstable.
And what's your argument for not putting MKP on #1
Pretty blasphemous imo
Well first of all. He went 1-1 against Alive. Secondly his name is now MVP_MK. Show some respect.
On September 02 2014 03:40 BakedButters wrote: Polt should be out and herO should be on the list. At least herO has proven himself able to beat top Koreans who reside in Korea
Like Snute?
Typically don't care about discussing power-ranks, because it can be super hard to determine who is 3rd vs 5th for instance, however, your just not making any consistent logical arguments in defending Polt. If your going to defend Heros ranking over Polt becasue Hero lost to Stephano 1-2 and 1-2, good luck defending Polt's vs Stephano, Scarlett, Bunny and Major.
The argument is that he A) won Red Bull Detroit and looked very good doing so, especially in dismantling Taeja, B) has been playing well consistently for the better part of the summer (this includes MLG, the Red Bull events and most of what I've seen of him online). My argument is that he has played well - with the exception of a number of series among many - and that I would rate him among the top threats in your average tournament. Given the volume of matches Polt plays every month, it's absurd to expect him to maintain the same consistency other players do. Losses will occur for whatever reason if you're participating in 10+ online/offline tournaments every month. That shouldn't detract from the fact that Polt has looked good for the most part of August.
So if losses can occur when you play lots of games, then surprise-results can also occur? Like him beating Taeja 3-0 in the most volatile match-up? Given all his other TvT results (loss vs Bunny, Aco and Major), his result vs Taeja looked like anomaly, not his normal form.
And Tajea is the only top-10 player he won against over the last 2 months.
Further, while losses indeed can occur when you play lots of games, it's still very hard to statistically justify combined losses of 6-3 vs Scarlett, 0-5 vs Major and 4-2 vs Stephano for instance. 2-1 and 3-2 losses vs slightly supbar players can be justified, however such convincing losses cannot be explained through variance, rather you have to assume that he was just tired, but when your using this type of arguemnt specifically for Polt, then you get into lots of bias of where you can use the "tired" approach instead of just relying on a consistent approach. Further, it completely contradicts your previous argument about rewarding consistency.
Moreover, if you put extra emphasiz on winning tournaments, why not put Bunny above Polt? He looked convincing in Ginfinity tournament (and also beat Polt in the heads-up a couple of days ago).
But let's look at a larger sample size for Hero and Life then, to see whether these guys have any embarrasing losses at a similar sample size. Below, is shown Heros results and worst seems to be a 0-2 loss vs Gumiho. That's nowhere losing 3-6 to Scarlett or 0-5 vs Major in my opinion.
2014-08-29 herO KR P 1–2 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR Revival HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 P KR StarDust HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 1–2 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 P CA desRow HotS offline Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Online hide 2014-08-18 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Cure HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 2–0 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 2–1 T KR Polt HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 0–2 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR viOLet HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Journey HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–1 Z KR Check HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–1 Z NZ Petraeus HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 P CA WhatAmI HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 Z US SLeet HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Cure HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Bbyong HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 P KR Panic HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Hack HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR TRUE HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 1–2 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 2–0 Z NZ Petraeus HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 2–0 Z US Grief HotS online IEM Season IX Toronto Qualifiers hide 2014-08-12 herO KR P 0–2 T KR Flash HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–1 T KR TY HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 0–2 P KR Pigbaby HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–0 P KR Super HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–1 T KR TY HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro4 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 0–2 P KR Trust HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro8 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 2–0 T KR sKyHigh HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro16 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR Sacsri HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro32 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 2–1 Z KR Symbol HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #1 hide 2014-07-24 herO KR P 0–2 T KR GuMiho HotS online 2014-07-24 herO KR P 2–0 T KR EJK HotS online WCS 2014 Season 3 Korea Code A hide 2014-07-24 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Reality HotS offline 2014-07-24 herO KR P 0–2 P KR Super HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Playoffs Ro4 SK Telecom T1 vs. CJ Entus hide 2014-07-22 herO KR P 0–1 P KR Rain HotS offline 2014-07-22 herO KR P 1–0 P KR PartinG HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Playoffs Ro4 SK Telecom T1 vs. CJ Entus Series #2 hide 2014-07-21 herO KR P 0–1 P KR PartinG HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Playoffs Ro4 SK Telecom T1 vs. CJ Entus Series #1 hide 2014-07-20 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR soO HotS offline 2014-07-20 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR soO HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-07-07 herO KR P 0–1 T KR Maru HotS offline 2014-06-29 herO KR P 0–1 Z KR Dark HotS offline 2014-06-23 herO KR P 0–1 Z KR ByuL HotS offline 2014-06-17 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR DongRaeGu HotS offline 2014-06-10 herO KR P 1–0 T KR Maru HotS offline 2014-06-10 herO KR P 1–0 T KR Cure HotS offline SHOUTcraft Sandisk Invitational hide 2014-06-09 herO KR P 4–2 T KR Flash HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-08 herO KR P 1–0 P KR Hurricane HotS offline SHOUTcraft Sandisk Invitational hide 2014-06-08 herO KR P 4–3 P KR Zest HotS online 2014-06-06 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR Life HotS online 2014-06-06 herO KR P 2–1 T KR INnoVation HotS online 2014-06-06 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Flash HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-02 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR Action HotS offline
Below are seen Life's results. His worst results are probably two bo3 losses to Scarlett, Gumiho and Kane, though he beat the former a short while after. But Life's results overall can definitely be explained by statistical volatility. You don't see any extremey 4-0/5-0/6-3 losses to players outside the top 20 here.
2014-08-31 Life KR Z 1–3 P KR Zest HotS offline 2014-08-30 Life KR Z 3–0 P KR First HotS offline 2014-08-29 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR MC HotS offline 2014-08-29 Life KR Z 2–1 Z CA Scarlett HotS offline 2014-08-28 Life KR Z 2–0 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-08-28 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Revival HotS offline 2014-08-28 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR StarDust HotS offline KeSPA Cup 2014 hide 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Rain HotS online 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR Bbyong HotS online 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Terminator HotS online 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Blast HotS online IEM Season IX Toronto Qualifiers hide 2014-08-12 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR TY HotS online 2014-08-12 Life KR Z 0–2 P KR Super HotS online Destiny I hide 2014-08-09 Life KR Z 0–3 T KR INnoVation HotS online 2014-08-06 Life KR Z 1–2 Z CA Kane HotS online 2014-08-06 Life KR Z 2–1 Z US Guitarcheese HotS online 2014-08-06 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR HerO HotS online Dragon Invitational #4 hide 2014-08-05 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR Center HotS online Hong Kong e-Sports Tournament #2 Qualifiers South Korea hide 2014-07-28 Life KR Z 1–2 Z KR RagnaroK HotS online 2014-07-28 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR Hack HotS online BaseTradeTV The Big One hide 2014-07-25 Life KR Z 4–0 Z KR HyuN HotS online 2014-07-25 Life KR Z 3–1 P KR JYP HotS online 2014-07-25 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR SuperNova HotS online WCS 2014 Season 3 Korea Code A hide 2014-07-24 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR Bunny HotS offline 2014-07-24 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Stats HotS offline BaseTradeTV The Big One hide 2014-07-23 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR Journey HotS online 2014-07-23 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Jaedong HotS online IEM Season IX Shenzhen hide 2014-07-18 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR TaeJa HotS offline 2014-07-18 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR MMA HotS offline 2014-07-18 Life KR Z 1–2 P CN Jim HotS offline 2014-07-17 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR Daisy HotS offline 2014-07-16 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR HerO HotS offline 2014-07-16 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Daisy HotS offline Dragon Invitational #3 hide 2014-07-14 Life KR Z 3–2 Z KR Leenock HotS online 2014-07-14 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR First HotS online 2014-07-13 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR HyuN HotS online IEM Season IX Shenzhen hide 2014-07-10 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Dear HotS online 2014-07-10 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR Arthur HotS online 2014-07-10 Life KR Z 0–2 Z KR Solar HotS online Dragon Invitational #3 hide 2014-07-08 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Impact HotS online SEAcraft Weekly #9 hide 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Pet HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR Hack HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–1 Z PH EnDerr HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–0 Z IN DemiLove HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 1–0 P AU Frustration HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 1–0 P NZ Enak HotS online TeSL TWOP 2014 Qualifer hide 2014-06-29 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Terminator HotS online 2014-06-29 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Solar HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-29 Life KR Z 1–0 T KR Flash HotS offline MLG Pro Circuit 2014 Anaheim hide 2014-06-22 Life KR Z 1–2 Z CA Scarlett HotS offline 2014-06-22 Life KR Z 2–1 T MX MajOr HotS offline 2014-06-22 Life KR Z 2–0 T US Illusion HotS offline 2014-06-21 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR Alicia HotS offline 2014-06-21 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Choya HotS offline 2014-06-21 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR Apocalypse HotS offline 2014-06-20 Life KR Z 1–2 Z KR DongRaeGu HotS offline 2014-06-20 Life KR Z 2–1 T SE ThorZaIN HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-16 Life KR Z 0–1 Z KR Solar HotS offline Dragon Invitational #2 hide 2014-06-12 Life KR Z 1–3 T KR INnoVation HotS online 2014-06-12 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Leenock HotS online 2014-06-11 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Symbol HotS online 2014-06-09 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR Center HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-09 Life KR Z 0–1 Z KR Soulkey HotS offline 2014-06-09 Life KR Z 1–0 P KR Classic HotS offline SHOUTcraft Sandisk Invitational hide 2014-06-06 Life KR Z 0–2 P KR herO HotS online 2014-06-06 Life KR Z 0–2 T KR Flash HotS online 2014-06-06 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR INnoVation HotS online WCS 2014 Season 2 Korea Code S hide 2014-06-04 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR ParalyzE HotS offline 2014-06-04 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Rain HotS offline 2014-06-04 Life KR Z 0–2 P KR ParalyzE HotS offline SHOUTcraft Clan Wars hide 2014-05-17 Life KR Z 1–0 P NL JayPower HotS online WCS 2014 Season 2 Korea Code S hide 2014-05-09 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Classic HotS offline 2014-05-09 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Rogue HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament hide 2014-05-06 Life KR Z 0–1 T KR Flash HotS offline 2014-05-04 Life KR Z 0–1 T KR Bbyong HotS offline Dreamhack 2014 Bucharest hide 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 3–0 Z KR Impact HotS offline 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR INnoVation HotS offline 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR StarDust HotS offline 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Leenock HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P FR Lilbow HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR Ryung HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P FR Lilbow HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P NL Harstem HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P RO MoonBeam HotS offline
Conclusion
You cannot use Polt's higher sample size to justify his very convcing losses to Major and Scarlett. And, you cannot go around cherry-picking which results you really want to matter and ignore other impressive results in similar contexts. Your just ending out maximizing bias here instead of using the most objective consistent approach possible.
I'm almost sure at this point that Zealously is just trying to get his favorite players higher ranks than they deserve. Did you see that Life made 'Close but no Cigar'? What a joke that is.
In the case of Polt, I think he just looked blindly at the win against Taeja as a "proof" of Polt being one of the best players while not really understanding how volatile TvT - in general - has been over the last couple of months and completely ignoring that Polt actually has had more "bad results" than "extraordinary strong" results.
Can confirm. I didn't watch a single game of any player on this ranking!
Seriously, I do believe I've already said that I put Polt on the ranking largely because I think he has looked good for the most part over a long stretch of time. I didn't take any one win and use it as the sole justification for Polt being at #8, nor do I think I lack understanding in the TvT match-up any more than you do. I watch an absurd amount of Starcraft, and it's kind of silly that you would think I would put Polt on the PR over Life if I didn't think Polt deserved it. Now, I may be wrong in thinking Polt is a great player, but you're not going to convince me otherwise. We'll see which one of us is proven right as we move closer to Blizzcon.
On September 02 2014 03:56 REyeM wrote: @Zealously
What is you argument for ranking PartinG higher than Dear?
I think Parting has looked better for longer, and he has the added benefit of having played an important role in SKT's playoffs campaign. Their head-to-head where Parting eventually came out on top played a role, but overall I feel that Parting is still more solid. That said, I think Dear's peak ability is higher than Parting's and that he needs a month or two to overtake him. Right now, he's still a bit unstable.
And what's your argument for not putting MKP on #1
Pretty blasphemous imo
Well first of all. He went 1-1 against Alive. Secondly his name is now MVP_MK. Show some respect.
I'll show him some respect after we 3 - 0 MVP (and wreck Choya's ass) in PL
On September 02 2014 03:56 REyeM wrote: @Zealously
What is you argument for ranking PartinG higher than Dear?
I think Parting has looked better for longer, and he has the added benefit of having played an important role in SKT's playoffs campaign. Their head-to-head where Parting eventually came out on top played a role, but overall I feel that Parting is still more solid. That said, I think Dear's peak ability is higher than Parting's and that he needs a month or two to overtake him. Right now, he's still a bit unstable.
And what's your argument for not putting MKP on #1
Pretty blasphemous imo
Well first of all. He went 1-1 against Alive. Secondly his name is now MVP_MK. Show some respect.
I'll show him some respect after we 3 - 0 MVP (and wreck Choya's ass) in PL
Creator beats MKP in the first match, but MVP is able to force the ace match. Choya sends out MKP again, and Gerrard sends out Creator.
Creator rips off his mask, IT WAS BYUN ALL ALONG. Rain screams in rage and rushes the stage but is shot by Sniper, who has come to help Byun destroy evil.
Byun vs MKP is a long 2 hour game that ends in double base trades and just as Byun is about to win, the power shuts off. Kespa rewards Jaedong the win. Mass riots in Korea.
On September 02 2014 04:24 REyeM wrote: What is everyones opinion on who is #2 zerg in the world?
I'm gonna go with Liquid`Snute.
I'd say Solar is #2 with Life in very close pursuit.
Zerg is probably the least stable race to rank though. Even for soO, I think Zealously captured it perfectly. He's #1 I guess, but you just look at him and don't really get that feeling of greatness like you would from, say, Soulkey when he's playing his best. It isn't like back in WoL, where Zerg basically had 3 major eras (Nestea, DRG, and Life).
On September 02 2014 03:56 REyeM wrote: @Zealously
What is you argument for ranking PartinG higher than Dear?
I think Parting has looked better for longer, and he has the added benefit of having played an important role in SKT's playoffs campaign. Their head-to-head where Parting eventually came out on top played a role, but overall I feel that Parting is still more solid. That said, I think Dear's peak ability is higher than Parting's and that he needs a month or two to overtake him. Right now, he's still a bit unstable.
And what's your argument for not putting MKP on #1
Pretty blasphemous imo
Well first of all. He went 1-1 against Alive. Secondly his name is now MVP_MK. Show some respect.
I'll show him some respect after we 3 - 0 MVP (and wreck Choya's ass) in PL
Creator beats MKP in the first match, but MVP is able to force the ace match. Choya sends out MKP again, and Gerrard sends out Creator.
Creator rips off his mask, IT WAS BYUN ALL ALONG. Rain screams in rage and rushes the stage but is shot by Sniper, who has come to help Byun destroy evil.
Byun vs MKP is a long 2 hour game that ends in double base trades and just as Byun is about to win, the power shuts off. Kespa rewards Jaedong the win. Mass riots in Korea.
That was the most intense post I've seen on this site in a long time.
On September 02 2014 04:24 REyeM wrote: What is everyones opinion on who is #2 zerg in the world?
I'm gonna go with Liquid`Snute.
I'd say Solar is #2 with Life in very close pursuit.
Zerg is probably the least stable race to rank though. Even for soO, I think Zealously captured it perfectly. He's #1 I guess, but you just look at him and don't really get that feeling of greatness like you would from, say, Soulkey when he's playing his best. It isn't like back in WoL, where Zerg basically had 3 major eras (Nestea, DRG, and Life).
On September 02 2014 03:40 BakedButters wrote: Polt should be out and herO should be on the list. At least herO has proven himself able to beat top Koreans who reside in Korea
Like Snute?
Typically don't care about discussing power-ranks, because it can be super hard to determine who is 3rd vs 5th for instance, however, your just not making any consistent logical arguments in defending Polt. If your going to defend Heros ranking over Polt becasue Hero lost to Stephano 1-2 and 1-2, good luck defending Polt's vs Stephano, Scarlett, Bunny and Major.
The argument is that he A) won Red Bull Detroit and looked very good doing so, especially in dismantling Taeja, B) has been playing well consistently for the better part of the summer (this includes MLG, the Red Bull events and most of what I've seen of him online). My argument is that he has played well - with the exception of a number of series among many - and that I would rate him among the top threats in your average tournament. Given the volume of matches Polt plays every month, it's absurd to expect him to maintain the same consistency other players do. Losses will occur for whatever reason if you're participating in 10+ online/offline tournaments every month. That shouldn't detract from the fact that Polt has looked good for the most part of August.
So if losses can occur when you play lots of games, then surprise-results can also occur? Like him beating Taeja 3-0 in the most volatile match-up? Given all his other TvT results (loss vs Bunny, Aco and Major), his result vs Taeja looked like anomaly, not his normal form.
And Tajea is the only top-10 player he won against over the last 2 months.
Further, while losses indeed can occur when you play lots of games, it's still very hard to statistically justify combined losses of 6-3 vs Scarlett, 0-5 vs Major and 4-2 vs Stephano for instance. 2-1 and 3-2 losses vs slightly supbar players can be justified, however such convincing losses cannot be explained through variance, rather you have to assume that he was just tired, but when your using this type of arguemnt specifically for Polt, then you get into lots of bias of where you can use the "tired" approach instead of just relying on a consistent approach. Further, it completely contradicts your previous argument about rewarding consistency.
Moreover, if you put extra emphasiz on winning tournaments, why not put Bunny above Polt? He looked convincing in Ginfinity tournament (and also beat Polt in the heads-up a couple of days ago).
But let's look at a larger sample size for Hero and Life then, to see whether these guys have any embarrasing losses at a similar sample size. Below, is shown Heros results and worst seems to be a 0-2 loss vs Gumiho. That's nowhere losing 3-6 to Scarlett or 0-5 vs Major in my opinion.
2014-08-29 herO KR P 1–2 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR Revival HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 P KR StarDust HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 1–2 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-08-28 herO KR P 2–0 P CA desRow HotS offline Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Online hide 2014-08-18 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Cure HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 2–0 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 2–1 T KR Polt HotS online 2014-08-18 herO KR P 0–2 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR viOLet HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Journey HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–1 Z KR Check HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–1 Z NZ Petraeus HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 P CA WhatAmI HotS online 2014-08-17 herO KR P 2–0 Z US SLeet HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Cure HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Bbyong HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 P KR Panic HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 T KR Hack HotS online 2014-08-15 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR TRUE HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 1–2 T KR YoDa HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 2–0 Z NZ Petraeus HotS online 2014-08-14 herO KR P 2–0 Z US Grief HotS online IEM Season IX Toronto Qualifiers hide 2014-08-12 herO KR P 0–2 T KR Flash HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–1 T KR TY HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 0–2 P KR Pigbaby HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–0 P KR Super HotS online 2014-08-12 herO KR P 2–1 T KR TY HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro4 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 0–2 P KR Trust HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro8 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 2–0 T KR sKyHigh HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro16 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR Sacsri HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #3 Ro32 hide 2014-07-31 herO KR P 2–1 Z KR Symbol HotS online Red Bull Battlegrounds 2014 Global Qualifier #1 hide 2014-07-24 herO KR P 0–2 T KR GuMiho HotS online 2014-07-24 herO KR P 2–0 T KR EJK HotS online WCS 2014 Season 3 Korea Code A hide 2014-07-24 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Reality HotS offline 2014-07-24 herO KR P 0–2 P KR Super HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Playoffs Ro4 SK Telecom T1 vs. CJ Entus hide 2014-07-22 herO KR P 0–1 P KR Rain HotS offline 2014-07-22 herO KR P 1–0 P KR PartinG HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Playoffs Ro4 SK Telecom T1 vs. CJ Entus Series #2 hide 2014-07-21 herO KR P 0–1 P KR PartinG HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Playoffs Ro4 SK Telecom T1 vs. CJ Entus Series #1 hide 2014-07-20 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR soO HotS offline 2014-07-20 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR soO HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-07-07 herO KR P 0–1 T KR Maru HotS offline 2014-06-29 herO KR P 0–1 Z KR Dark HotS offline 2014-06-23 herO KR P 0–1 Z KR ByuL HotS offline 2014-06-17 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR DongRaeGu HotS offline 2014-06-10 herO KR P 1–0 T KR Maru HotS offline 2014-06-10 herO KR P 1–0 T KR Cure HotS offline SHOUTcraft Sandisk Invitational hide 2014-06-09 herO KR P 4–2 T KR Flash HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-08 herO KR P 1–0 P KR Hurricane HotS offline SHOUTcraft Sandisk Invitational hide 2014-06-08 herO KR P 4–3 P KR Zest HotS online 2014-06-06 herO KR P 2–0 Z KR Life HotS online 2014-06-06 herO KR P 2–1 T KR INnoVation HotS online 2014-06-06 herO KR P 1–2 T KR Flash HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-02 herO KR P 1–0 Z KR Action HotS offline
Below are seen Life's results. His worst results are probably two bo3 losses to Scarlett, Gumiho and Kane, though he beat the former a short while after. But Life's results overall can definitely be explained by statistical volatility. You don't see any extremey 4-0/5-0/6-3 losses to players outside the top 20 here.
2014-08-31 Life KR Z 1–3 P KR Zest HotS offline 2014-08-30 Life KR Z 3–0 P KR First HotS offline 2014-08-29 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR MC HotS offline 2014-08-29 Life KR Z 2–1 Z CA Scarlett HotS offline 2014-08-28 Life KR Z 2–0 Z NO Snute HotS offline 2014-08-28 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Revival HotS offline 2014-08-28 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR StarDust HotS offline KeSPA Cup 2014 hide 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Rain HotS online 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR Bbyong HotS online 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Terminator HotS online 2014-08-18 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Blast HotS online IEM Season IX Toronto Qualifiers hide 2014-08-12 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR TY HotS online 2014-08-12 Life KR Z 0–2 P KR Super HotS online Destiny I hide 2014-08-09 Life KR Z 0–3 T KR INnoVation HotS online 2014-08-06 Life KR Z 1–2 Z CA Kane HotS online 2014-08-06 Life KR Z 2–1 Z US Guitarcheese HotS online 2014-08-06 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR HerO HotS online Dragon Invitational #4 hide 2014-08-05 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR Center HotS online Hong Kong e-Sports Tournament #2 Qualifiers South Korea hide 2014-07-28 Life KR Z 1–2 Z KR RagnaroK HotS online 2014-07-28 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR Hack HotS online BaseTradeTV The Big One hide 2014-07-25 Life KR Z 4–0 Z KR HyuN HotS online 2014-07-25 Life KR Z 3–1 P KR JYP HotS online 2014-07-25 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR SuperNova HotS online WCS 2014 Season 3 Korea Code A hide 2014-07-24 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR Bunny HotS offline 2014-07-24 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Stats HotS offline BaseTradeTV The Big One hide 2014-07-23 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR Journey HotS online 2014-07-23 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Jaedong HotS online IEM Season IX Shenzhen hide 2014-07-18 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR TaeJa HotS offline 2014-07-18 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR MMA HotS offline 2014-07-18 Life KR Z 1–2 P CN Jim HotS offline 2014-07-17 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR Daisy HotS offline 2014-07-16 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR HerO HotS offline 2014-07-16 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Daisy HotS offline Dragon Invitational #3 hide 2014-07-14 Life KR Z 3–2 Z KR Leenock HotS online 2014-07-14 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR First HotS online 2014-07-13 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR HyuN HotS online IEM Season IX Shenzhen hide 2014-07-10 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Dear HotS online 2014-07-10 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR Arthur HotS online 2014-07-10 Life KR Z 0–2 Z KR Solar HotS online Dragon Invitational #3 hide 2014-07-08 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Impact HotS online SEAcraft Weekly #9 hide 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Pet HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR Hack HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–1 Z PH EnDerr HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 2–0 Z IN DemiLove HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 1–0 P AU Frustration HotS online 2014-06-30 Life KR Z 1–0 P NZ Enak HotS online TeSL TWOP 2014 Qualifer hide 2014-06-29 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR Terminator HotS online 2014-06-29 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Solar HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-29 Life KR Z 1–0 T KR Flash HotS offline MLG Pro Circuit 2014 Anaheim hide 2014-06-22 Life KR Z 1–2 Z CA Scarlett HotS offline 2014-06-22 Life KR Z 2–1 T MX MajOr HotS offline 2014-06-22 Life KR Z 2–0 T US Illusion HotS offline 2014-06-21 Life KR Z 2–0 P KR Alicia HotS offline 2014-06-21 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Choya HotS offline 2014-06-21 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR Apocalypse HotS offline 2014-06-20 Life KR Z 1–2 Z KR DongRaeGu HotS offline 2014-06-20 Life KR Z 2–1 T SE ThorZaIN HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-16 Life KR Z 0–1 Z KR Solar HotS offline Dragon Invitational #2 hide 2014-06-12 Life KR Z 1–3 T KR INnoVation HotS online 2014-06-12 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Leenock HotS online 2014-06-11 Life KR Z 2–0 Z KR Symbol HotS online 2014-06-09 Life KR Z 2–0 T KR Center HotS online Proleague 2014 Main Tournament Round 4 hide 2014-06-09 Life KR Z 0–1 Z KR Soulkey HotS offline 2014-06-09 Life KR Z 1–0 P KR Classic HotS offline SHOUTcraft Sandisk Invitational hide 2014-06-06 Life KR Z 0–2 P KR herO HotS online 2014-06-06 Life KR Z 0–2 T KR Flash HotS online 2014-06-06 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR INnoVation HotS online WCS 2014 Season 2 Korea Code S hide 2014-06-04 Life KR Z 1–2 P KR ParalyzE HotS offline 2014-06-04 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Rain HotS offline 2014-06-04 Life KR Z 0–2 P KR ParalyzE HotS offline SHOUTcraft Clan Wars hide 2014-05-17 Life KR Z 1–0 P NL JayPower HotS online WCS 2014 Season 2 Korea Code S hide 2014-05-09 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR Classic HotS offline 2014-05-09 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Rogue HotS offline Proleague 2014 Main Tournament hide 2014-05-06 Life KR Z 0–1 T KR Flash HotS offline 2014-05-04 Life KR Z 0–1 T KR Bbyong HotS offline Dreamhack 2014 Bucharest hide 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 3–0 Z KR Impact HotS offline 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 2–1 T KR INnoVation HotS offline 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 2–1 P KR StarDust HotS offline 2014-04-27 Life KR Z 2–1 Z KR Leenock HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P FR Lilbow HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 1–2 T KR Ryung HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P FR Lilbow HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P NL Harstem HotS offline 2014-04-26 Life KR Z 2–0 P RO MoonBeam HotS offline
Conclusion
You cannot use Polt's higher sample size to justify his very convcing losses to Major and Scarlett. And, you cannot go around cherry-picking which results you really want to matter and ignore other impressive results in similar contexts. Your just ending out maximizing bias here instead of using the most objective consistent approach possible.
I'm almost sure at this point that Zealously is just trying to get his favorite players higher ranks than they deserve. Did you see that Life made 'Close but no Cigar'? What a joke that is.
In the case of Polt, I think he just looked blindly at the win against Taeja as a "proof" of Polt being one of the best players while not really understanding how volatile TvT - in general - has been over the last couple of months and completely ignoring that Polt actually has had more "bad results" than "extraordinary strong" results.
Can confirm. I didn't watch a single game of any player on this ranking!
Seriously, I do believe I've already said that I put Polt on the ranking largely because I think he has looked good for the most part over a long stretch of time. I didn't take any one win and use it as the sole justification for Polt being at #8, nor do I think I lack understanding in the TvT match-up any more than you do. I watch an absurd amount of Starcraft, and it's kind of silly that you would think I would put Polt on the PR over Life if I didn't think Polt deserved it. Now, I may be wrong in thinking Polt is a great player, but you're not going to convince me otherwise. We'll see which one of us is proven right as we move closer to Blizzcon.
I didn't say you didn't watch lots of Starcraft. Rather my point is that you haven't put out any consistent justification for Polt's ranking. I know personally how extremely easy it is to get bias'ed when you don't look objectively at all of the the data, but your view gets influenced by the players you watch the most.
In previous posts, I provded provided a large sample size of results from players whom your rated below Polt and concluded that Polts results overall are less impressive. If you disagree with my assesment of the data, please explain so, but so far. your only arguments in favor of Polt over Innovaiton, Life and Hero have been:
(1) Won a tournamnet in August (2) Won 3-0 against Taeja (3) Bad results can be explained due to him being playing more games
And my counter-argument to that has been that if you value tournamnet wins extremely high then you need to justify why Bunny isn't on the list since he also has won a tournament and overall looked better over the last 1-2 months.
If you wanna put extreme emphasize on this 3-0 win against Taeja, which is his only top 15 win in August, then you can't also explain his "embarrasing" losses due to "playing lots of games". Moreover, you need to explain why his win vs Taeja was more impressive than the badness of his other most recent TvT results. If he had this super positive track-record vs top 15 players over the last 2-3 months, it would be a different story, becasue then we could argue that this is his "standard"-level. But his only top 15 win is vs Taeja.
After having analyzed the data, it's my assesment that he has a solid track-record vs players outside top 30 (with the loss vs Stephano as exception), worse than 50/50 vs players I would rank top 10-30 (here I am including top foreigners as well) as he seems to only win against Hyun. And only won against one top 10 player (Taeja).
Innovation, Hero and Life all have much more impressive results when you apply the similar methodology. Given that, I would rank Polt around top 20-30, but even that is probably an overstatement since there could be multiple other lesser known Kespa players that are a bit better - or on level - with him.
From my perspective, your applying special rules to Polt. At least you still need to come up with a methdology of what makes Polt better than Hero, Life and Innovation, because after having analyzed the data - I can't see how past results - over the 1-6 months, or w/e ime-period you use - justifies Polt as being better. It's ofc possible that I am interpreting data wrongly, but you still haven't put up any counterarguments against that (and I assume that when you make a powerrank, it's becasue your willing to discuss and defend it - or at least admit if your wrong).
Really good thread, i would personally put Flash before Maru, but thats just my opinion. And btw, is there a reason why you dont do the power ranking like the one for IEM. Its better when you start with the #10 and go down, rather than starting with the #1 and go up.
On September 02 2014 04:53 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:
On September 02 2014 04:24 REyeM wrote: What is everyones opinion on who is #2 zerg in the world?
I'm gonna go with Liquid`Snute.
I'd say Solar is #2 with Life in very close pursuit.
Zerg is probably the least stable race to rank though. Even for soO, I think Zealously captured it perfectly. He's #1 I guess, but you just look at him and don't really get that feeling of greatness like you would from, say, Soulkey when he's playing his best. It isn't like back in WoL, where Zerg basically had 3 major eras (Nestea, DRG, and Life).
On September 02 2014 03:12 cLAN.Anax wrote: So many big names there.... :-O Flash and Rain, I'm happy about. Will have to look more into Maru; never fully struck me as "legendary," but that could change.
That's a surprise, I thought the community was very unified on Maru. Have you not watched a lot of his games, or have you just not been impressed?
I haven't been following the scene closely until very recently, to be fair.... Always enjoy seeing another prominent Terran, of course.
On September 02 2014 03:07 Trasko wrote: Wrong! Everything is wrong!
Hey, I can fire you whenever
On September 02 2014 03:12 cLAN.Anax wrote: So many big names there.... :-O Flash and Rain, I'm happy about. Will have to look more into Maru; never fully struck me as "legendary," but that could change.
That's a surprise, I thought the community was very unified on Maru. Have you not watched a lot of his games, or have you just not been impressed?
I haven't been following the scene closely until very recently, to be fair.... Always enjoy seeing another prominent Terran, of course.
I'd be happy to give you a list of 10 must-watch Maru games if you want to see how pure aggression is meant to be done!
On September 02 2014 04:36 stuchiu wrote: Too bad this wasn't a PR by matchup.
I'd have put MC at #1 PvT. Not even joking.
Make your own top 5 of all 6 matchups.
PvT: MC, Zest, Parting, Rain, Stats PvP: Rain, sOs, Zest, Parting, herO PvZ: Zest, Rain, herO, San, Stardust *Avenge is the coolest PvZ though
TvT: Maru, Cure, Flash. Then who the fuck knows. Bbyong best base trader though. TvZ: Maru, Innovation, Cure, Flash, Heart/Bbyong/Taeja depending on the qualifications you base the judgement on. TvP: Cure, Flash, Maru, Taeja, Polt/Bbyong
ZvZ: soO, DRG, TRUE, Life, Solar ZvT: soO, Leenock, effort, Snute, Solar ZvP: soO, TRUE, Snute, Solar, effort.
Maybe. Soulkey is like 6th in all three matchups for Zerg though. TvT is so unexplored a matchup that I could be entirely wrong there. TvZ 5th can change depending on what you value the most/people they've played/theoretical skill.
PvT is still new with the patch/recent developments in the meta so I don't have any strong convictions on any of them.
I personally disagree with Polt and Innovation on the list. Not that they're not amazing players, but lately Innovation isn't quite what he used to be and Polt I don't think should quite make the top 10. I know if I had to assemble a team for the next proleague I'd feel a lot more comfortable with sOs and herO as well as possibly even Soulkey, Byul, Stats, and Bbyong.
The results in the past 2 months for Flash are obviously better than Rain's and Maru's. Not only that Maru got eliminated by Flash but also by Effort who got 2-0 by Flash right after...The biggest problem with Maru is the he has almost no macro. If the opponent defends his drops he's clueless on how to play late game in all match-ups.
It's okay God will forgive you dirty heathens for not realizing his rightful place at #1.
It's not just about how much he is winning, it's how he's winning. He's like Fedor purposely playing right into the opponent's strengths and then crushing it anyways for his own amusement.
On September 02 2014 05:26 Darkhorse wrote: Wow everyone wants Flash #1 already
Also can someone complain about the foreigner rank please I want to make people mad too!
Sorry man, but when I heard foreigner top 5 those were exactly who came to my mind
On September 02 2014 05:17 arcane1129 wrote: I personally disagree with Polt and Innovation on the list. Not that they're not amazing players, but lately Innovation isn't quite what he used to be and Polt I don't think should quite make the top 10. I know if I had to assemble a team for the next proleague I'd feel a lot more comfortable with sOs and herO as well as possibly even Soulkey, Byul, Stats, and Bbyong.
Good list overall. I like Power Rankings but I love end-of-the-year rankings most as they examine a body of work over a full year instead of trying to balance a month with past results.
Smart of TL to wait a month or so after TaeJa should have indisputably been No. 1 seeing as how much people are freaking out that he was even put at No. 4 here...
INnoVation has put up literally no good results in the last 2 months and he's still on the top 10 of Power Rank and top 10 on Aligulac. Almost as overrated as Maru at this point T_T
On September 02 2014 05:51 MrsrsSC2 wrote: Only negative things said about Maru and still ranked 2? Wow how can this guy become more overrated T_T
It's not negative as much as an explanation of how good he has been this year. A few bumps along the road for an otherwise incredibly consistent and skilled player bump him down to #2, but it takes more for him to drop further.
On September 02 2014 05:53 MrsrsSC2 wrote: INnoVation has put up literally no good results in the last 2 months and he's still on the top 10 of Power Rank and top 10 on Aligulac. Almost as overrated as Maru at this point T_T
Flash wins zero tournaments prior to 2.1 and is 1 for 1 since, coincidence!?!?
Very strange that Flash is not first, tbh. After his record for the last month, which most of this ranking is supposed to be based on. If you want to rank for july, then write powerranks more often!
Also it seemed like two weeks ago everyone was in agreement that Maru was the best Terran in the world D: if he had just gone to IEM and won we wouldn't have all this dissent
I like most of it. Though I don't really think inno is top 10 this year.
Hard to say who should be number one too. Rain has been pretty solid all year and is looking really sharp at the moment but he hasn't been playing a huge amount of games.
This just gets me hype for more GSL to see which of these players can do it
On September 02 2014 06:30 SniXSniPe wrote: Polt is overrated, Rain does not deserve the #1 spot, soO deserves to be much higher, etc.
#1 Flash #2 Zest #3 soO #4 Maru #5 Taeja #6 Cure #7 Rain #8 Life #9 Innovation #10 Parting
Why doesn't Rain deserve to be there? I mean i would also argue that Flash would be the better number one, but Rain pretty much would be second then. Just look at his stats man
On September 02 2014 06:30 SniXSniPe wrote: Polt is overrated, Rain does not deserve the #1 spot, soO deserves to be much higher, etc.
#1 Flash #2 Zest #3 soO #4 Maru #5 Taeja #6 Cure #7 Rain #8 Life #9 Innovation #10 Parting
Why doesn't Rain deserve to be there? I mean i would also argue that Flash would be the better number one, but Rain pretty much would be second then. Just look at his stats man
Because I'm not too impressed by who he has beaten. Sure, he has beaten Zest, but it was 2-1, and then the other was a BO1.
Besides Zest, who has he beaten in July-August that's been looking very fierce lately? Cure? He lost to him recently 2-0 despite beating him previously 2-0. If we take previous results, Rain still hasn't done enough recently to claim the #1 spot.
I don't like using BO1s to say he's looking incredible--- yes he beat herO, Bbyong and a bunch of others, but 1-0 isn't enough for me.
It was originally a top 10 and he was 7th behind these five and Vortix
btw why wasnt it kept a top 10?
It would've been very long with 20 I think. If people want the whole 10 I guess we might do that next time but I think it was an attempt to make it not quite so monstrously large
On September 02 2014 05:53 MrsrsSC2 wrote: INnoVation has put up literally no good results in the last 2 months and he's still on the top 10 of Power Rank and top 10 on Aligulac. Almost as overrated as Maru at this point T_T
Flash wins zero tournaments prior to 2.1 and is 1 for 1 since, coincidence!?!?
Possibly. but legends tend to get the benefit of the doubt.
I have a big issue with Rain as #1. I understand he's a great player playing great, but the #1 spot should be reserved for players who've won events recently. I don't believe rains won anything in a long time.
Most of the rest of the players on the list have won recently. I'd have preferred Rain anywhere but #1 until he wins something. Top spot should be earned on the big stage.
People saying that only Kespa players are top 10. We just had a foreigner bop number 1 and 2 from proleague last season. And he almost beat #4. I'm starting to think people on this forum don't watch StarCraft.
On September 02 2014 05:53 MrsrsSC2 wrote: INnoVation has put up literally no good results in the last 2 months and he's still on the top 10 of Power Rank and top 10 on Aligulac. Almost as overrated as Maru at this point T_T
Flash wins zero tournaments prior to 2.1 and is 1 for 1 since, coincidence!?!?
Possibly. but legends tend to get the benefit of the doubt.
I have a big issue with Rain as #1. I understand he's a great player playing great, but the #1 spot should be reserved for players who've won events recently. I don't believe rains won anything in a long time.
Most of the rest of the players on the list have won recently. I'd have preferred Rain anywhere but #1 until he wins something. Top spot should be earned on the big stage.
Not that many of them who you might consider for #1 have won something lately. Obviously Flash and Taeja have, but Maru, soO, Parting haven't. Polt and Inno have too but there is no way they're close to number 1 atm.
I am very surprised to see Maru at number 2. He has to be the most overhyped player in sc2. He has won one tournament around a year ago and done nothing notable since. He did better than most in the era of protoss because that is his best matchup by a long stretch. He did absolutely nothing in August, or for a few months before that. Top 10? Probably. Rank 2? Come on. There is no justification for this. He played no games cause he didn't qualify for any.
On September 02 2014 07:33 SpunXtain20 wrote: I am very surprised to see Maru at number 2. He has to be the most overhyped player in sc2. He has won one tournament around a year ago and done nothing notable since. He did better than most in the era of protoss because that is his best matchup by a long stretch. He did absolutely nothing in August, or for a few months before that. Top 10? Probably. Rank 2? Come on. There is no justification for this. He played no games cause he didn't qualify for any.
As always, there are a few things to take into consideration while reading this Power Rank:
The Power Rank focuses most on the month pertains to, but also takes past results into account
The Power Rank takes into account both results and the difficulty of opponents faced.
A player's placement on the Power Rank does not suggest that the player is better or worse than a higher ranked player in head-to-head. This ranking is an overall appraisal of a player, not an attempt to answer the question ”Who beats who?”
So given the above, I just cannot understand how Flash is not rank 1. I don't consider myself a Flash fanboy but given your own descriptions I don't understand how Rain usurps Flash for the month of August.
Even in Power Rank toss OP?
The point about power-ranking is to determine who likely is the best player right now. In some situations where you do not have lots of short-term, you are therefore forced to rely on older data more (in the case of Maru - where we probably wanna use data for last 3-4 months). In the case of Flash who has played lots of games agaist top quality players in July and August, we do not need to look any further back in order to determine he probably - along with Rain is the hottest player right now. Regarding Maru, there is just a tiny too uncertainty regarding his current form and he has been losing to Effort that Flash won against, and Flash won the 1on1. We know Flash is pretty !@#$%^&* good right now, and his results are probably better than Maru's results ever were. Hence, it doens't make sense to argue that Maru here was better than Flash 4 months ago and thus deserves to be higher ranked. If that's the argument of Zealously, it's a misunderstanding of the typical intention of making a powerrank.
Flash vs Rain is debateable. They are probably the two favourites going into winning the current GSL, thus it can be defended to put Rain above Flash.
Not true. Maru in the last year Best player in 2014 Proleague, if you count the playoff wins 1st WCS KR S2 (OSL) 3rd/4th WCS KR S3 3rd/4th WCS S3 Finals 3rd/4th WCS Global Finals 3rd/4th Hotsix cup Top 8 in GSL 2014 S1 3rd/4th GSL 2014 S2
Flash now won 1 IEM and is still in the Ro16 of Code S And winning OSL > winning IEM
But I agree that Maru might be a bit too high, and that Flash is in better form at the moment
On September 02 2014 07:33 SpunXtain20 wrote: I am very surprised to see Maru at number 2. He has to be the most overhyped player in sc2. He has won one tournament around a year ago and done nothing notable since. He did better than most in the era of protoss because that is his best matchup by a long stretch. He did absolutely nothing in August, or for a few months before that. Top 10? Probably. Rank 2? Come on. There is no justification for this. He played no games cause he didn't qualify for any.
As always, there are a few things to take into consideration while reading this Power Rank:
The Power Rank focuses most on the month pertains to, but also takes past results into account
The Power Rank takes into account both results and the difficulty of opponents faced.
A player's placement on the Power Rank does not suggest that the player is better or worse than a higher ranked player in head-to-head. This ranking is an overall appraisal of a player, not an attempt to answer the question ”Who beats who?”
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I think
So given the above, I just cannot understand how Flash is not rank 1. I don't consider myself a Flash fanboy but given your own descriptions I don't understand how Rain usurps Flash for the month of August.
Even in Power Rank toss OP?
The point about power-ranking is to determine who likely is the best player right now. In some situations where you do not have lots of short-term, you are therefore forced to rely on older data more (in the case of Maru - where we probably wanna use data for last 3-4 months). In the case of Flash who has played lots of games agaist top quality players in July and August, we do not need to look any further back in order to determine he probably - along with Rain is the hottest player right now. Regarding Maru, there is just a tiny too uncertainty regarding his current form and he has been losing to Effort that Flash won against, and Flash won the 1on1. We know Flash is pretty !@#$%^&* good right now, and his results are probably better than Maru's results ever were. Hence, it doens't make sense to argue that Maru here was better than Flash 4 months ago and thus deserves to be higher ranked. If that's the argument of Zealously, it's a misunderstanding of the typical intention of making a powerrank.
Flash vs Rain is debateable. They are probably the two favourites going into winning the current GSL, thus it can be defended to put Rain above Flash.
Not true. Maru in the last year Best player in 2014 Proleague, if you count the playoff wins 1st WCS KR S2 (OSL) 3rd/4th WCS KR S3 3rd/4th WCS S3 Finals 3rd/4th WCS Global Finals 3rd/4th Hotsix cup Top 8 in GSL 2014 S1 3rd/4th GSL 2014 S2
Flash now won 1 IEM and is still in the Ro16 of Code S And winning OSL > winning IEM
But I agree that Maru might be a bit too high, and that Flash is in better form at the moment
I think when you start quoting 2013 results to justify august 14 power rank your arguments fall down a little. But hugs
On September 02 2014 07:33 SpunXtain20 wrote: I am very surprised to see Maru at number 2. He has to be the most overhyped player in sc2. He has won one tournament around a year ago and done nothing notable since. He did better than most in the era of protoss because that is his best matchup by a long stretch. He did absolutely nothing in August, or for a few months before that. Top 10? Probably. Rank 2? Come on. There is no justification for this. He played no games cause he didn't qualify for any.
Get your facts straight please
On September 02 2014 03:50 Lorning wrote:
On September 02 2014 03:43 Hider wrote:
On September 02 2014 01:39 eeZe wrote:
As always, there are a few things to take into consideration while reading this Power Rank:
The Power Rank focuses most on the month pertains to, but also takes past results into account
The Power Rank takes into account both results and the difficulty of opponents faced.
A player's placement on the Power Rank does not suggest that the player is better or worse than a higher ranked player in head-to-head. This ranking is an overall appraisal of a player, not an attempt to answer the question ”Who beats who?”
I think
So given the above, I just cannot understand how Flash is not rank 1. I don't consider myself a Flash fanboy but given your own descriptions I don't understand how Rain usurps Flash for the month of August.
Even in Power Rank toss OP?
The point about power-ranking is to determine who likely is the best player right now. In some situations where you do not have lots of short-term, you are therefore forced to rely on older data more (in the case of Maru - where we probably wanna use data for last 3-4 months). In the case of Flash who has played lots of games agaist top quality players in July and August, we do not need to look any further back in order to determine he probably - along with Rain is the hottest player right now. Regarding Maru, there is just a tiny too uncertainty regarding his current form and he has been losing to Effort that Flash won against, and Flash won the 1on1. We know Flash is pretty !@#$%^&* good right now, and his results are probably better than Maru's results ever were. Hence, it doens't make sense to argue that Maru here was better than Flash 4 months ago and thus deserves to be higher ranked. If that's the argument of Zealously, it's a misunderstanding of the typical intention of making a powerrank.
Flash vs Rain is debateable. They are probably the two favourites going into winning the current GSL, thus it can be defended to put Rain above Flash.
Not true. Maru in the last year Best player in 2014 Proleague, if you count the playoff wins 1st WCS KR S2 (OSL) 3rd/4th WCS KR S3 3rd/4th WCS S3 Finals 3rd/4th WCS Global Finals 3rd/4th Hotsix cup Top 8 in GSL 2014 S1 3rd/4th GSL 2014 S2
Flash now won 1 IEM and is still in the Ro16 of Code S And winning OSL > winning IEM
But I agree that Maru might be a bit too high, and that Flash is in better form at the moment
I think when you start quoting 2013 results to justify august 14 power rank your arguments fall down a little. But hugs
You said he had nothing notable since his OSL win. I showed you he actually did
and Best player in 2014 Proleague, if you count the playoff wins Top 8 in GSL 2014 S1 3rd/4th GSL 2014 S2 are from 2014. And he's been the terran hope in Korea since his OSL win
On September 02 2014 07:16 MASTERCAKES wrote: People saying that only Kespa players are top 10. We just had a foreigner bop number 1 and 2 from proleague last season. And he almost beat #4. I'm starting to think people on this forum don't watch StarCraft.
Wrong he beat 2 and 3 and almost 4, maru was first not hero, but I know where you are comin from with this
On September 02 2014 05:53 MrsrsSC2 wrote: INnoVation has put up literally no good results in the last 2 months and he's still on the top 10 of Power Rank and top 10 on Aligulac. Almost as overrated as Maru at this point T_T
Flash wins zero tournaments prior to 2.1 and is 1 for 1 since, coincidence!?!?
Possibly. but legends tend to get the benefit of the doubt.
I have a big issue with Rain as #1. I understand he's a great player playing great, but the #1 spot should be reserved for players who've won events recently. I don't believe rains won anything in a long time.
Most of the rest of the players on the list have won recently. I'd have preferred Rain anywhere but #1 until he wins something. Top spot should be earned on the big stage.
Not that many of them who you might consider for #1 have won something lately. Obviously Flash and Taeja have, but Maru, soO, Parting haven't. Polt and Inno have too but there is no way they're close to number 1 atm.
Zest would be my #1 with Flash #2, Rain #3.
If its just about August then its Flash. If we take in consideration play before august then it has to be Zest. How Rain gets placed #1 is baffling. I cant put together a scenario where he gets #1 under any criteria. .
On September 02 2014 05:53 MrsrsSC2 wrote: INnoVation has put up literally no good results in the last 2 months and he's still on the top 10 of Power Rank and top 10 on Aligulac. Almost as overrated as Maru at this point T_T
Flash wins zero tournaments prior to 2.1 and is 1 for 1 since, coincidence!?!?
Possibly. but legends tend to get the benefit of the doubt.
I have a big issue with Rain as #1. I understand he's a great player playing great, but the #1 spot should be reserved for players who've won events recently. I don't believe rains won anything in a long time.
Most of the rest of the players on the list have won recently. I'd have preferred Rain anywhere but #1 until he wins something. Top spot should be earned on the big stage.
Not that many of them who you might consider for #1 have won something lately. Obviously Flash and Taeja have, but Maru, soO, Parting haven't. Polt and Inno have too but there is no way they're close to number 1 atm.
Zest would be my #1 with Flash #2, Rain #3.
If its just about August then its Flash. If we take in consideration play before august then it has to be Zest. How Rain gets placed #1 is baffling. I cant put together a scenario where he gets #1 under any criteria. .
These three are top-3, while the order is arguable. Rain is very, very good. But is he the best?
On September 02 2014 07:16 MASTERCAKES wrote: People saying that only Kespa players are top 10. We just had a foreigner bop number 1 and 2 from proleague last season. And he almost beat #4. I'm starting to think people on this forum don't watch StarCraft.
Wrong he beat 2 and 3 and almost 4, maru was first not hero, but I know where you are comin from with this
No, Maru wasn't oficially first. The playoff games don't count.
Also, sick power rank! I would probably do some little adjustments here and there, but I think this is finally a power rank I may completely stay behind!
On September 02 2014 07:16 MASTERCAKES wrote: People saying that only Kespa players are top 10. We just had a foreigner bop number 1 and 2 from proleague last season. And he almost beat #4. I'm starting to think people on this forum don't watch StarCraft.
Wrong he beat 2 and 3 and almost 4, maru was first not hero, but I know where you are comin from with this
I'm not wrong, Maru is only first according to TL ranks that include playoffs. According to the official Kespa ranks herO and SoS are 1 and 2. Which is why they got the Kespa Cup invites.
On September 02 2014 05:53 MrsrsSC2 wrote: INnoVation has put up literally no good results in the last 2 months and he's still on the top 10 of Power Rank and top 10 on Aligulac. Almost as overrated as Maru at this point T_T
Flash wins zero tournaments prior to 2.1 and is 1 for 1 since, coincidence!?!?
Possibly. but legends tend to get the benefit of the doubt.
I have a big issue with Rain as #1. I understand he's a great player playing great, but the #1 spot should be reserved for players who've won events recently. I don't believe rains won anything in a long time.
Most of the rest of the players on the list have won recently. I'd have preferred Rain anywhere but #1 until he wins something. Top spot should be earned on the big stage.
Not that many of them who you might consider for #1 have won something lately. Obviously Flash and Taeja have, but Maru, soO, Parting haven't. Polt and Inno have too but there is no way they're close to number 1 atm.
Zest would be my #1 with Flash #2, Rain #3.
If its just about August then its Flash. If we take in consideration play before august then it has to be Zest. How Rain gets placed #1 is baffling. I cant put together a scenario where he gets #1 under any criteria. .
These three are top-3, while the order is arguable. Rain is very, very good. But is he the best?
I think it comes down to one thing. With all of the other players in power rank, when I look at it, I immediately come up with at least 1 other player in the rank that would probably be (big) favourite if they played each other.
There is no one in the world though, not a single player, who would be going to play against Rain and I would say 'yeah, he is definitely favourite'.
On September 02 2014 05:53 MrsrsSC2 wrote: INnoVation has put up literally no good results in the last 2 months and he's still on the top 10 of Power Rank and top 10 on Aligulac. Almost as overrated as Maru at this point T_T
Flash wins zero tournaments prior to 2.1 and is 1 for 1 since, coincidence!?!?
Possibly. but legends tend to get the benefit of the doubt.
I have a big issue with Rain as #1. I understand he's a great player playing great, but the #1 spot should be reserved for players who've won events recently. I don't believe rains won anything in a long time.
Most of the rest of the players on the list have won recently. I'd have preferred Rain anywhere but #1 until he wins something. Top spot should be earned on the big stage.
Not that many of them who you might consider for #1 have won something lately. Obviously Flash and Taeja have, but Maru, soO, Parting haven't. Polt and Inno have too but there is no way they're close to number 1 atm.
Zest would be my #1 with Flash #2, Rain #3.
If its just about August then its Flash. If we take in consideration play before august then it has to be Zest. How Rain gets placed #1 is baffling. I cant put together a scenario where he gets #1 under any criteria. .
These three are top-3, while the order is arguable. Rain is very, very good. But is he the best?
I think it comes down to one thing. With all of the other players in power rank, when I look at it, I immediately come up with at least 1 other player in the rank that would probably be (big) favourite if they played each other.
There is no one in the world though, not a single player, who would be going to play against Rain and I would say 'yeah, he is definitely favourite'.
i can come up with several. flash, taeja, zest, maru.
even players like life or snute have a very realistic shot at taking out rain. i don't think he is the world's best palyer atm.
PartinG over soO had me a little hesitant at first but looking at soO's performance up to the PL final convinced me. I'm hoping for a Flash vs soO final this season.
On September 02 2014 05:53 MrsrsSC2 wrote: INnoVation has put up literally no good results in the last 2 months and he's still on the top 10 of Power Rank and top 10 on Aligulac. Almost as overrated as Maru at this point T_T
Flash wins zero tournaments prior to 2.1 and is 1 for 1 since, coincidence!?!?
Possibly. but legends tend to get the benefit of the doubt.
I have a big issue with Rain as #1. I understand he's a great player playing great, but the #1 spot should be reserved for players who've won events recently. I don't believe rains won anything in a long time.
Most of the rest of the players on the list have won recently. I'd have preferred Rain anywhere but #1 until he wins something. Top spot should be earned on the big stage.
Not that many of them who you might consider for #1 have won something lately. Obviously Flash and Taeja have, but Maru, soO, Parting haven't. Polt and Inno have too but there is no way they're close to number 1 atm.
Zest would be my #1 with Flash #2, Rain #3.
If its just about August then its Flash. If we take in consideration play before august then it has to be Zest. How Rain gets placed #1 is baffling. I cant put together a scenario where he gets #1 under any criteria. .
These three are top-3, while the order is arguable. Rain is very, very good. But is he the best?
I think it comes down to one thing. With all of the other players in power rank, when I look at it, I immediately come up with at least 1 other player in the rank that would probably be (big) favourite if they played each other.
There is no one in the world though, not a single player, who would be going to play against Rain and I would say 'yeah, he is definitely favourite'.
i can come up with several. flash, taeja, zest, maru.
even players like life or snute have a very realistic shot at taking out rain. i don't think he is the world's best palyer atm.
What? Are you serious? I would say that of the players you listed only flash and zest have a real shot at taking down rain but adding life and snute to the list is comical at best.
On September 02 2014 08:27 Caihead wrote: Wasn't aware Rain was doing so well.
He was kinds slumping a bit during GSL season 2, getting knocked out in his group 1-4.
However in ProLeauge he has been doing really really well, especially in playoffs, winning every game he played in.
He is also 4-1 in ace matches so you can see he has the nerves when it counts.
Season 3 in GSL he has been doing better again, he got 4-0 in his Code A group, beating Impact and Cure, and 4-1 in Code S, beating Rogue 2-0 and Zest 2-1.
And he got into KeSPA cup through one of the stronger qualifiers, going 8-2 in maps.
When he slumped, it seemed like he couldn't play all that way in the newer style of PvP, but right now he has argueably the best PvP in the world.
If you asked me a few weeks ago as to what is his weakest MU, I probably would have said PvZ, to me it didn't look as dominant and as good as his other 2 MUs, however he went 8-2 in the KeSPA qualifier, only beating Zergs and he handled basically every Zerg opponent (with the exception of some of the crazy stuff life threw against him, eventhough there too he looked like most of the time he knew what to do) really really well and dominated them easily.
His PvT as you would have guessed is really stable and well... just good :D
His results are pretty impressiv recently, however you also have to look at the games he played not only at the outcome, he ALWAYS plays macro and just dominates his opponents through better mechanics and better desicion making. Like he does normal standard stuff (if playing long macro games is what you call normal play for Protoss lol), but just does it soo good that his opponents seem helpless against it.
So while I LOVE Flash, and have been extremely impressed with him ( I would have personally put him at either second or first place but I can understand ranking Maru higher them him... somewhat atleast), ranking Rain as first place instead totally makes sense to me, not only his results but also his games especially have really really impressed me :D
Sorry, that wasn't alll directed at you, but I have also read all the previous pages with quite a few people questioning Rain as number 1, and because I was too lazy to quote all of them, I just dumped it all in here
Since the release of HotS on international tournaments not including WCS(EU,KR,US) ones that had 40000$ prize pool or more players on KeSPA teams had won 8/11.
His solid style indeed wipes out lesser players with ease, but players of equal caliber hard counter him so bad. That's why he likely won't ever win another GSL/OSL.
Meanwhile Flash has an 80% win rate and a winning record against literally every player he's played since the SPL Finals.
On September 02 2014 09:07 `sawyer wrote: Here is a fun fact:
Since the release of HotS on international tournaments not including WCS(EU,KR,US) ones that had 40000$ prize pool or more players on KeSPA teams had won 8/11.
The highly specific nature of your categories to present your results in the best possible light undermine whatever point you are trying to make. Also why are you bringing this up in this thread? Not every thread has to further the stupid "KeSPA is the best" debate. Also you are ignoring your own requirements. How in the world are you counting the Hot6ix Cup as an international tournament.
On September 02 2014 05:53 MrsrsSC2 wrote: INnoVation has put up literally no good results in the last 2 months and he's still on the top 10 of Power Rank and top 10 on Aligulac. Almost as overrated as Maru at this point T_T
Flash wins zero tournaments prior to 2.1 and is 1 for 1 since, coincidence!?!?
Possibly. but legends tend to get the benefit of the doubt.
I have a big issue with Rain as #1. I understand he's a great player playing great, but the #1 spot should be reserved for players who've won events recently. I don't believe rains won anything in a long time.
Most of the rest of the players on the list have won recently. I'd have preferred Rain anywhere but #1 until he wins something. Top spot should be earned on the big stage.
Not that many of them who you might consider for #1 have won something lately. Obviously Flash and Taeja have, but Maru, soO, Parting haven't. Polt and Inno have too but there is no way they're close to number 1 atm.
Zest would be my #1 with Flash #2, Rain #3.
If its just about August then its Flash. If we take in consideration play before august then it has to be Zest. How Rain gets placed #1 is baffling. I cant put together a scenario where he gets #1 under any criteria. .
These three are top-3, while the order is arguable. Rain is very, very good. But is he the best?
I think it comes down to one thing. With all of the other players in power rank, when I look at it, I immediately come up with at least 1 other player in the rank that would probably be (big) favourite if they played each other.
There is no one in the world though, not a single player, who would be going to play against Rain and I would say 'yeah, he is definitely favourite'.
You could say that about Flash, Taeja, and possibly even Bogus. Flash is having some sick momentum atm, and the latter two are just consistently strong players that can be formidable against any race and any opponent.
I didn't include any SKT players since Zest apparently is invulnerable against all of them except Rain (sounds silly but his stats against them are ridiculous) and Maru still can't seem to get the Soulkey off his back (except that one time in the ro8).
As much as Flash is owning right now I have to think that Rain would be the favorite if they played a live bo5, but I think Rain has always had his number.
On September 02 2014 09:28 Dodgin wrote: As much as Flash is owning right now I have to think that Rain would be the favorite if they played a live bo5, but I think Rain has always had his number.
lol I remember Best always have Flash's number in BW, then it magically disappears.
On September 02 2014 09:28 Dodgin wrote: As much as Flash is owning right now I have to think that Rain would be the favorite if they played a live bo5, but I think Rain has always had his number.
lol I remember Best always have Flash's number in BW, then it magically disappears.
That's the problem with Flash, the second you call him he also has your number :0
On September 01 2014 23:53 Greenei wrote: How you can not agree with putting Flash as #1 is beyond me. WTF? Best winrate, brought his team to a proleaguevictory, did well in GSL and won IEM. WHAT IS HE SUPPOSED TO DO? Maybe he needs to do a handstand while playing to appease the mighty TL writers?
Do more than just perform good for a month or 2?
Oh sorry, I didn't know this was the yearly consistency rank, instead of the Powerrank for August.
"The Power Rank focuses most on the month pertains to, but also takes past results into account."
On September 02 2014 10:30 peanuts wrote: I'm fully in favor of all drama surrounding this list.
I dunno, I has its charms but after a certain point I just feel like an Agnostic debating Young-Earthers. I'm left feeling slightly confounded and wondering why I put myself through all this.
A rough time to be a zerg. Zerg have only won about 13% of premier tournaments in these past eight months of 2014, and it's not looking like that's going to change for the better. Well at least there's one in the top 10, even if he hasn't actually won a championship.
how is flash not first. its a power ranking. if maru didnt have a fortunate august it means he doesnt deserve to be above flash who had an on-fire august.
On September 01 2014 23:53 Greenei wrote: How you can not agree with putting Flash as #1 is beyond me. WTF? Best winrate, brought his team to a proleaguevictory, did well in GSL and won IEM. WHAT IS HE SUPPOSED TO DO? Maybe he needs to do a handstand while playing to appease the mighty TL writers?
Do more than just perform good for a month or 2?
Oh sorry, I didn't know this was the yearly consistency rank, instead of the Powerrank for August.
"The Power Rank focuses most on the month pertains to, but also takes past results into account."
From the OP.
Both Flash and Rain have for example a 73% winrate since April with 134 and 56 games respectively. In August Flash has a 78% winrate and Rain a 75% winrate with 61 and 20 games respectively. This means that Flash's winrate is not only slightly higher but much more supported by the number of games that he played. It's much harder to maintain a high winrate of off a lucky streak for a short amount of time. If anyone is consistent, it is Flash.
Unless you say we should go back even further. Then plz all #1 awards to Mvp kthxbye.
On September 02 2014 09:28 Dodgin wrote: As much as Flash is owning right now I have to think that Rain would be the favorite if they played a live bo5, but I think Rain has always had his number.
lol I remember Best always have Flash's number in BW, then it magically disappears.
That's the problem with Flash, the second you call him he also has your number :0
Rain and Flash clearly interchangeable between 1 and 2 so I was stunned to see Maru as #2... Also, TaeJa #4? He's a fricking good player but I don't think he's too five. PartinG #6 is also wtf. I wouldn't even think he's too 10. Polt not even top twenty! soO should be higher.
On September 02 2014 09:21 LightSpectra wrote: lol at Rain #1.
His solid style indeed wipes out lesser players with ease, but players of equal caliber hard counter him so bad. That's why he likely won't ever win another GSL/OSL.
Meanwhile Flash has an 80% win rate and a winning record against literally every player he's played since the SPL Finals.
That's actually hilarious, because he only plays against "equal caliber players" and he's been wiping the floor with them HARD
I suppose Rain paid TL writers to gain 1st place, and Maru paid even more. Flash has done all you said about Rain (Proleague, Kespa Cup qualifiers, 1st in GSL group), and he also won IEM. How the hell must he do to gain 1st spot? Will Kespa Cup and GSL be enough?
Taeja is above Zest. I can finally rest in peace. Not sure what rain is even doing in this ranking though, but then again, I don't follow him so you know… biases.
On September 02 2014 18:17 Franky92 wrote: I suppose Rain paid TL writers to gain 1st place, and Maru paid even more. Flash has done all you said about Rain (Proleague, Kespa Cup qualifiers, 1st in GSL group), and he also won IEM. How the hell must he do to gain 1st spot? Will Kespa Cup and GSL be enough?
Sure, I reckon winning one of them would be enough. What I'd like to see from Flash in order for him to reach #1 is consistency. He was a beast in August, but so was Rain (to a slightly lesser extent), and Rain has been in great form for much longer.
On September 02 2014 18:17 Franky92 wrote: I suppose Rain paid TL writers to gain 1st place, and Maru paid even more. Flash has done all you said about Rain (Proleague, Kespa Cup qualifiers, 1st in GSL group), and he also won IEM. How the hell must he do to gain 1st spot? Will Kespa Cup and GSL be enough?
Sure, I reckon winning one of them would be enough. What I'd like to see from Flash in order for him to reach #1 is consistency. He was a beast in August, but so was Rain (to a slightly lesser extent), and Rain has been in great form for much longer.
Assuming the powerranks here are intended to show which players are most likely to perform the best over the next 1-2 months, I believe you are using consistency in the wrong way.
You should only look at data from several months ago, if the quality of the data you have over the most recent 1-2 months isn't good enough. For instance if sample size is too small or he has played against inferior opponents. In the case of Flash that isn't the case. All you need to know about Flash's current strenght is in his results since July, and they are insane. On top of that you could discuss whether he is gimmicky and can be figured out.... which everyone probably can agree isn't the case.
Thus, there is just no need to put weight on some of his losses in January or w/e, because everything points to him being a much better player today than back then.
Rate how based on how strong he currently looks and assess whether that is good enough to outperform Rain or vice versa. Don't rate on how he good he used to be when we can be almost certain that his skill level has changed.
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
Yes, but you gotta outline what you want powerranks to answer. Is it who is the most likely player to perform the best in the near future?
Or is it, who was the best player over the last 6 months?
Typically powerranks attempt to answer the 1st question, becasue that is indeed the most interesting one while the latter is one that simply can be solved much better through statistical analysis than subjective discussions.
From my perspective, it looks like start by the methdology before having outlined the problem statement, and thus you end up with a product where your not really answering anything at all.
So my advice to your next powerrank: Start by clearly stating what the powerrank is supposed to answer, and then spend a bit of time explaining the factors you take into account in order to answer the question.
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
I would put sOs above Polt in any ranking. Both Polt and sOs had a disappointing result at IEM Toronto but if you put Polt and sOs in another tournament, it's more likely that sOs would get further. Not to mention that sOs has the highest win rate in Proleague, among the top 20 players with the most games played. I'm certain if Polt were somehow part of the Ro16 group selection stage of the GSL, most players would rather have Polt in their group than sOs.
Polt has not performed well playing against mediocre competition in the last several months (his win over Taeja was his biggest accomplishment). Similarly, I wouldn't rank Hyun, MC, or Stardust above sOs either.
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
Yes, but you gotta outline what you want powerranks to answer. Is it who is the most likely player to perform the best in the near future?
Or is it, who was the best player over the last 6 months?
Typically powerranks attempt to answer the 1st question, becasue that is indeed the most interesting one while the latter is one that simply can be solved much better through statistical analysis than subjective discussions.
From my perspective, it looks like start by the methdology before having outlined the problem statement, and thus you end up with a product where your not really answering anything at all.
So my advice to your next powerrank: Start by clearly stating what the powerrank is supposed to answer, and then spend a bit of time explaining the factors you take into account in order to answer the question.
i dont understand why people say this in every power rank thread??? it seems like its just the people who disagree with the ranking who decide they have to nitpick the way the article was made. why do they "have to outline anything"? why can't they just lay down some loose rules, rank players and let the discussion fly? this is esports, not academia, the whole point of this is to stir good natured debate, not to be annoying pedants about the technical specifications for the list.... do some of you just have OCD and need everything to follow some kind of precisely-defined axiom?
On September 02 2014 19:15 lastride wrote: How can maru be higher than flash? This goes against all logic. Seriously what the..?
The Power Rank focuses most on the month pertains to, but also takes past results into account The Power Rank takes into account both results and the difficulty of opponents faced. A player's placement on the Power Rank does not suggest that the player is better or worse than a higher ranked player in head-to-head. This ranking is an overall appraisal of a player, not an attempt to answer the question ”Who beats who?”
i dont understand why people say this in every power rank thread??? it seems like its just the people who disagree with the ranking who decide they have to nitpick the way the article was made. why do they "have to outline anything"? why can't they just lay down some loose rules, rank players and let the discussion fly? this is esports, not academia, the whole point of this is to stir good natured debate, not to be annoying pedants about the technical specifications for the list.... do some of you just have OCD and need everything to follow some kind of precisely-defined axiom?
People don't say this in every thread, and its not even about who's rank 1 or who's rank 2, becasue my post didn't comment on that at all - and I couldn't care less.
My point is that if one doesn't attempt to answer a question, then you end up with these types of discussions where people have no idea what they are disagreeing on, which makes for terrible discussions.
LIke let's take your logic to the extreme: I am gonna make a poweranking where I say I take into account both historical results and short-term results:
Like wtf are you supposed to answer with these rankings? It just follows random weights of historical results, and clearly it doesn't attempt to predict who is likely to be do well over the next couple of months.
Point is, if you want a serious debate you gotta go a bit more smart on being very precise on what the discussion is supposed to be about. If you just want random flaming wars, you can make these random rankings that doesn't attempt to answer any question.
I very much disagree in that its important to make a rank of who did the best over the past 6 months - because that's not what a powerrank typically is and raw statistics does a better job here - however if that is what the author wanted to do, then he should have made that extremely clear. Had he done that, I would have thought the powerrank was pointless, but I wouldn't have commented on it.
On September 02 2014 19:15 lastride wrote: How can maru be higher than flash? This goes against all logic. Seriously what the..?
The Power Rank focuses most on the month pertains to, but also takes past results into account The Power Rank takes into account both results and the difficulty of opponents faced. A player's placement on the Power Rank does not suggest that the player is better or worse than a higher ranked player in head-to-head. This ranking is an overall appraisal of a player, not an attempt to answer the question ”Who beats who?”
Yeah, easiest way to see it is to say that a Power Ranking is inertial in nature. You don't fall off of or climb to the top in one shot. It's obvious that Flash has more momentum than Maru at the moment, so if this trends continues, surely eventually Flash will be higher on that list. But not yet.
On September 02 2014 19:15 lastride wrote: How can maru be higher than flash? This goes against all logic. Seriously what the..?
The Power Rank focuses most on the month pertains to, but also takes past results into account The Power Rank takes into account both results and the difficulty of opponents faced. A player's placement on the Power Rank does not suggest that the player is better or worse than a higher ranked player in head-to-head. This ranking is an overall appraisal of a player, not an attempt to answer the question ”Who beats who?”
Yeah, easiest way to see it is to say that a Power Ranking is inertial in nature. You don't fall off of or climb to the top in one shot. It's obvious that Flash has more momentum than Maru at the moment, so if this trends continues, surely eventually Flash will be higher on that list. But not yet.
The issue is still why it does take results from 6 months into account. What is that supposed to accomplish?
I believe the implementation of past results is due to OP being intuitively knowing that past results does matter in some situations when you want to predict the future. For instance, we know Maru is still a world-class player even if he hasn't had results in August Thus, he made up a general rule where past results always were supposed to matter (maybe he also wanted to make a random of who was the best players over the last 6 months - it's not really clear what exactly he wants to answer).
However, what he instead should have done - assuming he wanted to maximize predicting power - was to try and understand when past results should be considered and when not. Previously I outlined that when the quality of results over the last 1-2 months is extremely high (such as in the case of Flash) you can completely ignore results that goes much further back than that.
So Flash should be assessed based on his results since July only and Maru should be assessed on a longer-time frame.
So ok, this is my lats post, but I wanted to say that overall Zealously still is doing a great job here. He is definitely still a ton better than the average power-ranker in the media. I just hope he can improve on a couple of areas going forward.
On September 02 2014 20:22 Hider wrote: So ok, this is my lats post, but I wanted to say that overall Zealously still is doing a great job here. He is definitely still a ton better than the average power-ranker in the media. I just hope he can improve on a couple of areas going forward.
On September 02 2014 04:27 KalWarkov wrote: Flash Rain Maru are clearly the top 3 of august - the order is debatable. After that it gets messy. Zest, soO, Cure (sick record in august vs amazing opponents) and Teaja could all take it, i would go with Zest or soO though. Polt clearly doesnt belong to the top 10, although he 3-0d Taeja - but that speaks more of Taejas TvT weakness than of Polts strengh (got 2-0d by Bunny, too - quite inconsistent). It's rather Innovation, Parting or Life after that in my books - first 2 didnt do much recently you might think, but they are still in Ro16 of code S. Life is still one of the best zergs and recently showed it, too. Stats and Soulkey might be candidates, too.
Foreigners: VortiX belongs there, although no games in august. before august, him, scarlett and snute were considered one level - how did people forget? Sen overrated imo, very inconsistent (see Acer teammatch, lost every single game). no idea how you can put him over Bunny...
On September 02 2014 04:27 KalWarkov wrote: Flash Rain Maru are clearly the top 3 of august - the order is debatable. After that it gets messy. Zest, soO, Cure (sick record in august vs amazing opponents) and Teaja could all take it, i would go with Zest or soO though. Polt clearly doesnt belong to the top 10, although he 3-0d Taeja - but that speaks more of Taejas TvT weakness than of Polts strengh (got 2-0d by Bunny, too - quite inconsistent). It's rather Innovation, Parting or Life after that in my books - first 2 didnt do much recently you might think, but they are still in Ro16 of code S. Life is still one of the best zergs and recently showed it, too. Stats and Soulkey might be candidates, too.
Foreigners: VortiX belongs there, although no games in august. before august, him, scarlett and snute were considered one level - how did people forget? Sen overrated imo, very inconsistent (see Acer teammatch, lost every single game). no idea how you can put him over Bunny...
Can't agree more !
i know my shit, im doing rankings since i was born
On September 02 2014 18:17 Franky92 wrote: I suppose Rain paid TL writers to gain 1st place, and Maru paid even more. Flash has done all you said about Rain (Proleague, Kespa Cup qualifiers, 1st in GSL group), and he also won IEM. How the hell must he do to gain 1st spot? Will Kespa Cup and GSL be enough?
Sure, I reckon winning one of them would be enough. What I'd like to see from Flash in order for him to reach #1 is consistency. He was a beast in August, but so was Rain (to a slightly lesser extent), and Rain has been in great form for much longer.
On September 02 2014 20:22 Hider wrote: So ok, this is my lats post, but I wanted to say that overall Zealously still is doing a great job here. He is definitely still a ton better than the average power-ranker in the media. I just hope he can improve on a couple of areas going forward.
Thank you for your feedback.
Yeah this is totally right, don't get me wrong with the nitpicking i do, overall i agree with you, but it is fun to argue a bit about certain aspects
On September 02 2014 20:15 fenix404 wrote: flash is 48-13, let's take that in...
Here's my opinion on Flashs position. Let's say Snute wins the final game and defeats Flash 3-2. I feel that a lot of people would think that holding the #3 position would be too high and it would be very likely he'd end up lower. Can one map really hold that much influence on his overall strength? I think that would still be the case if he had lost to Taeja or Zest. Interestingly, if you make the assumption he loses one of those series his overall statistics still look mighty impressive. But because he didn't lift the trophy peoples perception of his strength changes.
I think that's the issue that's at hand here. Rain/maru have been fairly out of the spotlight in August while Flash's latest accomplishment (and a significant one at that) was literally last weekend. I think that lack of attention is the greatest reason why people have a problem with Flash at 3 and not 1. In reality all three are extremely close at the moment -- to illustrate, maru and flash are 2-2 in the last 5 weeks (2-1 to flash and 1-0 to maru) -- and as such good arguments can be made for any permutation of the three.
Lastly let's remember what the power rank is really about; it's about working out a list of players you hope to god aren't in your side of the bracket, the players that make their contemporaries hearts sink when they get paired together, the players who are most likely to win Bo5/Bo7's against anyone else in the world. Results play a significant role in working that stuff out, but that doesn't mean staying out of the spotlight and playing less games for a bit means you're any less dangerous.
On September 01 2014 23:53 Greenei wrote: How you can not agree with putting Flash as #1 is beyond me. WTF? Best winrate, brought his team to a proleaguevictory, did well in GSL and won IEM. WHAT IS HE SUPPOSED TO DO? Maybe he needs to do a handstand while playing to appease the mighty TL writers?
Do more than just perform good for a month or 2?
I like such comments on a _monthly_ power rank. This list is weird.
On September 02 2014 20:15 fenix404 wrote: flash is 48-13, let's take that in...
Here's my opinion on Flashs position. Let's say Snute wins the final game and defeats Flash 3-2. I feel that a lot of people would think that holding the #3 position would be too high and it would be very likely he'd end up lower. Can one map really hold that much influence on his overall strength? I think that would still be the case if he had lost to Taeja or Zest. Interestingly, if you make the assumption he loses one of those series his overall statistics still look mighty impressive. But because he didn't lift the trophy peoples perception of his strength changes.
I think that's the issue that's at hand here. Rain/maru have been fairly out of the spotlight in August while Flash's latest accomplishment (and a significant one at that) was literally last weekend. I think that lack of attention is the greatest reason why people have a problem with Flash at 3 and not 1. In reality all three are extremely close at the moment -- to illustrate, maru and flash are 2-2 in the last 5 weeks (2-1 to flash and 1-0 to maru) -- and as such good arguments can be made for any permutation of the three.
Lastly let's remember what the power rank is really about; it's about working out a list of players you hope to god aren't in your side of the bracket, the players that make their contemporaries hearts sink when they get paired together, the players who are most likely to win Bo5/Bo7's against anyone else in the world. Results play a significant role in working that stuff out, but that doesn't mean staying out of the spotlight and playing less games for a bit means you're any less dangerous.
I disagree, that one map really had that much influence as it was the difference between a mediocre placement +losing to a foreigner, and winning the entire thing. if he lost to taeja or zest he would still have a somewhat respectable result, and while that would probably weigh in his rankings, it definitely wouldn't as much as the series against snute.
Not bad rankings but Flash is without a doubt playing better than Maru. Also it bears mentioning Polt recently lost a best of 7 to Stephano. (I'm not joking about this.) He's playing great, especially given that he's in school, but he doesn't belong anywhere near the top 10. I just refuse to believe that if Polt were in Korea he could even hope to regularly qualify for the GSL, let alone advance deep into the tournament or manage a +.500 record in Proleague. Cure also is playing significantly better than Polt.
Flash is the #1 player right now. This weekends tournament had that feel of BW all over again where players would just collapse against him and make mistakes they dont usually make. Only other person that could do that to people was Jaedong in BW.
The list of players on his streak is insane and the fact he even avenged the only 2 series loses vs MC and Zest makes it indisputable.
The monthly power rank really doesn't make any sense in the current SC2 scene. For every player it is basically about "were there any significant events in the area where I get to play". The fact that people view Flash's 3rd place as low is the ultimate testament to that. OK, great, so he won a tourney on the last weekend of the month and thus we are going to instantly forget that he has been a complete failure in individual tourneys until now? Or is it just because he used to be really good in a game that requires a significantly different skillset?
On September 02 2014 21:46 opisska wrote: The monthly power rank really doesn't make any sense in the current SC2 scene. For every player it is basically about "were there any significant events in the area where I get to play". The fact that people view Flash's 3rd place as low is the ultimate testament to that. OK, great, so he won a tourney on the last weekend of the month and thus we are going to instantly forget that he has been a complete failure in individual tourneys until now? Or is it just because he used to be really good in a game that requires a significantly different skillset?
You don't get it that it is a monthy power rank either, right? In this month, he was the best player.
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
On September 02 2014 18:17 Franky92 wrote: I suppose Rain paid TL writers to gain 1st place, and Maru paid even more. Flash has done all you said about Rain (Proleague, Kespa Cup qualifiers, 1st in GSL group), and he also won IEM. How the hell must he do to gain 1st spot? Will Kespa Cup and GSL be enough?
Sure, I reckon winning one of them would be enough. What I'd like to see from Flash in order for him to reach #1 is consistency. He was a beast in August, but so was Rain (to a slightly lesser extent), and Rain has been in great form for much longer.
Rain has been in great form for much longer? Based on what? What has he won? What result does he have? What does "A lot longer" mean? From that line of thinking Zest has far better results for a lot longer. What is the time frame for this statement? 2 months? 3? 6?
My criticism is only designed to flsh out a more thorough methodology for the list. There's a lot of ambiguity regarding it like "A lot longer" - which is an almost useless statement. Maybe a set of guidelines for the time frame considered would be helpful. It would bring more clarity for the TL community regarding the decision making.
And don't flame me for criticism. Healthy criticism can help make improvements if everyone doesn't get too defensive about it.
"but in doing all of the above Rain looked indomitable" Statements like this appear over the top for a guy who hasn't won anything in a couple years. Maybe MVP could have been considered indomitable in his hay day, but certainly not Rain. And Flash has been most indomitable the last 6 weeks.
The GSL group ceremonies also sum up what people are thinking of Flash right now. Not even the cocky Parting was willing to pick Flash and so he ended up being the last guy selected. No one wants to play this guy right now.
On September 02 2014 18:17 Franky92 wrote: I suppose Rain paid TL writers to gain 1st place, and Maru paid even more. Flash has done all you said about Rain (Proleague, Kespa Cup qualifiers, 1st in GSL group), and he also won IEM. How the hell must he do to gain 1st spot? Will Kespa Cup and GSL be enough?
Sure, I reckon winning one of them would be enough. What I'd like to see from Flash in order for him to reach #1 is consistency. He was a beast in August, but so was Rain (to a slightly lesser extent), and Rain has been in great form for much longer.
Rain has been in great form for much longer? Based on what? What has he won? What result does he have? What does "A lot longer" mean? From that line of thinking Zest has far better results for a lot longer. What is the time frame for this statement? 2 months? 3? 6?
My criticism is only designed to flsh out a more thorough methodology for the list. There's a lot of ambiguity regarding it like "A lot longer" - which is an almost useless statement. Maybe a set of guidelines for the time frame considered would be helpful. It would bring more clarity for the TL community regarding the decision making.
And don't flame me for criticism. Healthy criticism can help make improvements if everyone doesn't get too defensive about it.
"but in doing all of the above Rain looked indomitable" Statements like this appear over the top for a guy who hasn't won anything in a couple years. Maybe MVP could have been considered indomitable in his hay day, but certainly not Rain. And Flash has been most indomitable the last 6 weeks.
Watch some of Rain's recent games and you'll understand.
On September 02 2014 18:17 Franky92 wrote: I suppose Rain paid TL writers to gain 1st place, and Maru paid even more. Flash has done all you said about Rain (Proleague, Kespa Cup qualifiers, 1st in GSL group), and he also won IEM. How the hell must he do to gain 1st spot? Will Kespa Cup and GSL be enough?
Sure, I reckon winning one of them would be enough. What I'd like to see from Flash in order for him to reach #1 is consistency. He was a beast in August, but so was Rain (to a slightly lesser extent), and Rain has been in great form for much longer.
Rain has been in great form for much longer? Based on what? What has he won? What result does he have? What does "A lot longer" mean? From that line of thinking Zest has far better results for a lot longer. What is the time frame for this statement? 2 months? 3? 6?
My criticism is only designed to flsh out a more thorough methodology for the list. There's a lot of ambiguity regarding it like "A lot longer" - which is an almost useless statement. Maybe a set of guidelines for the time frame considered would be helpful. It would bring more clarity for the TL community regarding the decision making.
And don't flame me for criticism. Healthy criticism can help make improvements if everyone doesn't get too defensive about it.
"but in doing all of the above Rain looked indomitable" Statements like this appear over the top for a guy who hasn't won anything in a couple years. Maybe MVP could have been considered indomitable in his hay day, but certainly not Rain. And Flash has been most indomitable the last 6 weeks.
Watch some of Rain's recent games and you'll understand.
ehhh. I think my post came off too negative. Not my intent.
Rain needs to win something that's all. Nothing besides winning a big tournament will change my opinion.
On September 02 2014 21:46 opisska wrote: The monthly power rank really doesn't make any sense in the current SC2 scene. For every player it is basically about "were there any significant events in the area where I get to play". The fact that people view Flash's 3rd place as low is the ultimate testament to that. OK, great, so he won a tourney on the last weekend of the month and thus we are going to instantly forget that he has been a complete failure in individual tourneys until now? Or is it just because he used to be really good in a game that requires a significantly different skillset?
You don't get it that it is a monthy power rank either, right? In this month, he was the best player.
Maybe you shouldn't call people out on "not getting something" when you obviously fail in reading comprehension. I said that the monthly power rank does not make sense, not that this is not the right monthly power rank. The question of "who was the best player this month" is nonsensical, that is the problem. A month is just too short of a time with 3 WCS seasons a year. One month you will judge people on results from random tournaments, which depend mainly on who had enough sponsorship to go there, whereas the other month you have GSL finals ...
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
Making the high position for a player who won one single tournament in his whole career even more absurd.
On September 02 2014 21:46 opisska wrote: The monthly power rank really doesn't make any sense in the current SC2 scene. For every player it is basically about "were there any significant events in the area where I get to play". The fact that people view Flash's 3rd place as low is the ultimate testament to that. OK, great, so he won a tourney on the last weekend of the month and thus we are going to instantly forget that he has been a complete failure in individual tourneys until now? Or is it just because he used to be really good in a game that requires a significantly different skillset?
You don't get it that it is a monthy power rank either, right? In this month, he was the best player.
Maybe you shouldn't call people out on "not getting something" when you obviously fail in reading comprehension. I said that the monthly power rank does not make sense, not that this is not the right monthly power rank. The question of "who was the best player this month" is nonsensical, that is the problem. A month is just too short of a time with 3 WCS seasons a year. One month you will judge people on results from random tournaments, which depend mainly on who had enough sponsorship to go there, whereas the other month you have GSL finals ...
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
Making the high position for a player who won one single tournament in his whole career even more absurd.
On September 02 2014 21:46 opisska wrote: The monthly power rank really doesn't make any sense in the current SC2 scene. For every player it is basically about "were there any significant events in the area where I get to play". The fact that people view Flash's 3rd place as low is the ultimate testament to that. OK, great, so he won a tourney on the last weekend of the month and thus we are going to instantly forget that he has been a complete failure in individual tourneys until now? Or is it just because he used to be really good in a game that requires a significantly different skillset?
You don't get it that it is a monthy power rank either, right? In this month, he was the best player.
Maybe you shouldn't call people out on "not getting something" when you obviously fail in reading comprehension. I said that the monthly power rank does not make sense, not that this is not the right monthly power rank. The question of "who was the best player this month" is nonsensical, that is the problem. A month is just too short of a time with 3 WCS seasons a year. One month you will judge people on results from random tournaments, which depend mainly on who had enough sponsorship to go there, whereas the other month you have GSL finals ...
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
Making the high position for a player who won one single tournament in his whole career even more absurd.
It isn't only about winning a tournament. You can (theoretically) be the best player in the wolrd with a 90% winrate overall and never win a single tournament. Would you say this player doesn't deserve to be number one regardless?
On September 02 2014 21:46 opisska wrote: The monthly power rank really doesn't make any sense in the current SC2 scene. For every player it is basically about "were there any significant events in the area where I get to play". The fact that people view Flash's 3rd place as low is the ultimate testament to that. OK, great, so he won a tourney on the last weekend of the month and thus we are going to instantly forget that he has been a complete failure in individual tourneys until now? Or is it just because he used to be really good in a game that requires a significantly different skillset?
You don't get it that it is a monthy power rank either, right? In this month, he was the best player.
Maybe you shouldn't call people out on "not getting something" when you obviously fail in reading comprehension. I said that the monthly power rank does not make sense, not that this is not the right monthly power rank. The question of "who was the best player this month" is nonsensical, that is the problem. A month is just too short of a time with 3 WCS seasons a year. One month you will judge people on results from random tournaments, which depend mainly on who had enough sponsorship to go there, whereas the other month you have GSL finals ...
On September 02 2014 21:52 Zealously wrote:
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
Making the high position for a player who won one single tournament in his whole career even more absurd.
It isn't only about winning a tournament. You can (theoretically) be the best player in the wolrd with a 90% winrate overall and never win a single tournament. Would you say this player doesn't deserve to be number one regardless?
Sure I would. This game is played in tournaments. Winning them (or, in general, placing as high as possible) is the sole point of the competition. That's where you get money, that's where you get recognition. All the other metrics such as winrates, various "mathematically sophisticated" rankings and whatnot are just half made up by bored fans with nothing better to do and half excuses by people who are unhappy with actual tournament results - and, admittedly also slightly useful, but also often vastly misleading, as a tool to navigate our complex world with more than one tournament.
It is the same as with the arguments like "he looked so dominant in the games". That's not how SC2 works. This is not ice skating, you don't get points for style from a biased jury. You either win or lose and it is completely irrelevant how that happened (unless you cheated, of course). I hate the "everybody is a winner in some way" attitude. If you lose, you lose, there is no redemption - that's the beauty of true competition.
On September 02 2014 21:46 opisska wrote: The monthly power rank really doesn't make any sense in the current SC2 scene. For every player it is basically about "were there any significant events in the area where I get to play". The fact that people view Flash's 3rd place as low is the ultimate testament to that. OK, great, so he won a tourney on the last weekend of the month and thus we are going to instantly forget that he has been a complete failure in individual tourneys until now? Or is it just because he used to be really good in a game that requires a significantly different skillset?
You don't get it that it is a monthy power rank either, right? In this month, he was the best player.
Maybe you shouldn't call people out on "not getting something" when you obviously fail in reading comprehension. I said that the monthly power rank does not make sense, not that this is not the right monthly power rank. The question of "who was the best player this month" is nonsensical, that is the problem. A month is just too short of a time with 3 WCS seasons a year. One month you will judge people on results from random tournaments, which depend mainly on who had enough sponsorship to go there, whereas the other month you have GSL finals ...
On September 02 2014 21:52 Zealously wrote:
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
Making the high position for a player who won one single tournament in his whole career even more absurd.
It isn't only about winning a tournament. You can (theoretically) be the best player in the wolrd with a 90% winrate overall and never win a single tournament. Would you say this player doesn't deserve to be number one regardless?
I don't think so. It's like a basketball team winning 90% of its regular season games then losing in the second round of the playoffs. Sorry, the playoffs are far more important. Doesn't matter if u win 90% of your games if u don't win the games that matter most.
Tournaments determine the best players. Not statistics on Aligulac.
Rain might not even make it out of his Code S group, I still think he is overrated. I love my SKT players, and Rain is a very solid player, but you guys keep saying look at his recent results... well yeah lets look:
In the past two months, the three best players he probably beat are: Life, Zest, and Cure
He lost to Cure 2-0 before, and beat Zest 2-1.
Well, who else did he beat? He didn't beat Flash, soO, sOs, herO, Soulkey, Maru, Parting, etc... none of these players in a bo3+.
In other words, he hasn't really beaten too many of the big hitters. Yes, he is winning a lot, but even against dull competition it is expected. He doesn't look invulnerable, and I really think he will finish at best 2nd in his group two days from now.
On September 02 2014 20:15 fenix404 wrote: flash is 48-13, let's take that in...
Here's my opinion on Flashs position. Let's say Snute wins the final game and defeats Flash 3-2. I feel that a lot of people would think that holding the #3 position would be too high and it would be very likely he'd end up lower. Can one map really hold that much influence on his overall strength? I think that would still be the case if he had lost to Taeja or Zest. Interestingly, if you make the assumption he loses one of those series his overall statistics still look mighty impressive. But because he didn't lift the trophy peoples perception of his strength changes.
I think that's the issue that's at hand here. Rain/maru have been fairly out of the spotlight in August while Flash's latest accomplishment (and a significant one at that) was literally last weekend. I think that lack of attention is the greatest reason why people have a problem with Flash at 3 and not 1. In reality all three are extremely close at the moment -- to illustrate, maru and flash are 2-2 in the last 5 weeks (2-1 to flash and 1-0 to maru) -- and as such good arguments can be made for any permutation of the three.
Lastly let's remember what the power rank is really about; it's about working out a list of players you hope to god aren't in your side of the bracket, the players that make their contemporaries hearts sink when they get paired together, the players who are most likely to win Bo5/Bo7's against anyone else in the world. Results play a significant role in working that stuff out, but that doesn't mean staying out of the spotlight and playing less games for a bit means you're any less dangerous.
PowerRank should be based on the last 6 months of performance, with more emphasis towards recent tournament success, but not entirely based on recent tournament success.
There is no doubt that during the Ro16 selections, the players would have picked Polt any day over sOs because Polt is easier than sOs (assuming Polt was part of the Ro16 selections). sOs has the highest win rate in Proleague for players that play a significant number of games (ie. he has the top win rate amongst the top 20 played players).
Zealously puts Polt at 8 but Polt has only played mediocre against mediocre competition in the last 6 months. If sOs was put in every tournament Polt was put in over the last 6 months, I think sOs would have had more success than Polt.
I would even say Solar is better than Polt. For the limited foreign tournaments Solar has played in the last several months, he has performed practically in each tournament he has traveled to. Can't say the same thing about Polt.
On September 02 2014 21:46 opisska wrote: The monthly power rank really doesn't make any sense in the current SC2 scene. For every player it is basically about "were there any significant events in the area where I get to play". The fact that people view Flash's 3rd place as low is the ultimate testament to that. OK, great, so he won a tourney on the last weekend of the month and thus we are going to instantly forget that he has been a complete failure in individual tourneys until now? Or is it just because he used to be really good in a game that requires a significantly different skillset?
You don't get it that it is a monthy power rank either, right? In this month, he was the best player.
Maybe you shouldn't call people out on "not getting something" when you obviously fail in reading comprehension. I said that the monthly power rank does not make sense, not that this is not the right monthly power rank. The question of "who was the best player this month" is nonsensical, that is the problem. A month is just too short of a time with 3 WCS seasons a year. One month you will judge people on results from random tournaments, which depend mainly on who had enough sponsorship to go there, whereas the other month you have GSL finals ...
On September 02 2014 21:52 Zealously wrote:
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
Making the high position for a player who won one single tournament in his whole career even more absurd.
It isn't only about winning a tournament. You can (theoretically) be the best player in the wolrd with a 90% winrate overall and never win a single tournament. Would you say this player doesn't deserve to be number one regardless?
Sure I would. This game is played in tournaments. Winning them (or, in general, placing as high as possible) is the sole point of the competition. That's where you get money, that's where you get recognition. All the other metrics such as winrates, various "mathematically sophisticated" rankings and whatnot are just half made up by bored fans with nothing better to do and half excuses by people who are unhappy with actual tournament results - and, admittedly also slightly useful, but also often vastly misleading, as a tool to navigate our complex world with more than one tournament.
It is the same as with the arguments like "he looked so dominant in the games". That's not how SC2 works. This is not ice skating, you don't get points for style from a biased jury. You either win or lose and it is completely irrelevant how that happened (unless you cheated, of course). I hate the "everybody is a winner in some way" attitude. If you lose, you lose, there is no redemption - that's the beauty of true competition.
Well yeah i don't agree with that at all. If some player would manage to get a ridicoulus win% but would never (or rarely, whatever) win a tournament he still would be the best imo. Constistency > a lucky run.
Obviously this example is totally unrealistic, but i think it gets the point across.
On September 02 2014 21:46 opisska wrote: The monthly power rank really doesn't make any sense in the current SC2 scene. For every player it is basically about "were there any significant events in the area where I get to play". The fact that people view Flash's 3rd place as low is the ultimate testament to that. OK, great, so he won a tourney on the last weekend of the month and thus we are going to instantly forget that he has been a complete failure in individual tourneys until now? Or is it just because he used to be really good in a game that requires a significantly different skillset?
You don't get it that it is a monthy power rank either, right? In this month, he was the best player.
Maybe you shouldn't call people out on "not getting something" when you obviously fail in reading comprehension. I said that the monthly power rank does not make sense, not that this is not the right monthly power rank. The question of "who was the best player this month" is nonsensical, that is the problem. A month is just too short of a time with 3 WCS seasons a year. One month you will judge people on results from random tournaments, which depend mainly on who had enough sponsorship to go there, whereas the other month you have GSL finals ...
On September 02 2014 21:52 Zealously wrote:
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
Making the high position for a player who won one single tournament in his whole career even more absurd.
It isn't only about winning a tournament. You can (theoretically) be the best player in the wolrd with a 90% winrate overall and never win a single tournament. Would you say this player doesn't deserve to be number one regardless?
Sure I would. This game is played in tournaments. Winning them (or, in general, placing as high as possible) is the sole point of the competition. That's where you get money, that's where you get recognition. All the other metrics such as winrates, various "mathematically sophisticated" rankings and whatnot are just half made up by bored fans with nothing better to do and half excuses by people who are unhappy with actual tournament results - and, admittedly also slightly useful, but also often vastly misleading, as a tool to navigate our complex world with more than one tournament.
It is the same as with the arguments like "he looked so dominant in the games". That's not how SC2 works. This is not ice skating, you don't get points for style from a biased jury. You either win or lose and it is completely irrelevant how that happened (unless you cheated, of course). I hate the "everybody is a winner in some way" attitude. If you lose, you lose, there is no redemption - that's the beauty of true competition.
Well yeah i don't agree with that at all. If some player would manage to get a ridicoulus win% but would never (or rarely, whatever) win a tournament he still would be the best imo. Constistency > a lucky run.
Obviously this example is totally unrealistic, but i think it gets the point across.
Then why even have tournaments? Why have playoffs at all in any sport? Just for the fans?
On September 02 2014 21:46 opisska wrote: The monthly power rank really doesn't make any sense in the current SC2 scene. For every player it is basically about "were there any significant events in the area where I get to play". The fact that people view Flash's 3rd place as low is the ultimate testament to that. OK, great, so he won a tourney on the last weekend of the month and thus we are going to instantly forget that he has been a complete failure in individual tourneys until now? Or is it just because he used to be really good in a game that requires a significantly different skillset?
You don't get it that it is a monthy power rank either, right? In this month, he was the best player.
Maybe you shouldn't call people out on "not getting something" when you obviously fail in reading comprehension. I said that the monthly power rank does not make sense, not that this is not the right monthly power rank. The question of "who was the best player this month" is nonsensical, that is the problem. A month is just too short of a time with 3 WCS seasons a year. One month you will judge people on results from random tournaments, which depend mainly on who had enough sponsorship to go there, whereas the other month you have GSL finals ...
On September 02 2014 21:52 Zealously wrote:
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
Making the high position for a player who won one single tournament in his whole career even more absurd.
It isn't only about winning a tournament. You can (theoretically) be the best player in the wolrd with a 90% winrate overall and never win a single tournament. Would you say this player doesn't deserve to be number one regardless?
Sure I would. This game is played in tournaments. Winning them (or, in general, placing as high as possible) is the sole point of the competition. That's where you get money, that's where you get recognition. All the other metrics such as winrates, various "mathematically sophisticated" rankings and whatnot are just half made up by bored fans with nothing better to do and half excuses by people who are unhappy with actual tournament results - and, admittedly also slightly useful, but also often vastly misleading, as a tool to navigate our complex world with more than one tournament.
It is the same as with the arguments like "he looked so dominant in the games". That's not how SC2 works. This is not ice skating, you don't get points for style from a biased jury. You either win or lose and it is completely irrelevant how that happened (unless you cheated, of course). I hate the "everybody is a winner in some way" attitude. If you lose, you lose, there is no redemption - that's the beauty of true competition.
Well yeah i don't agree with that at all. If some player would manage to get a ridicoulus win% but would never (or rarely, whatever) win a tournament he still would be the best imo. Constistency > a lucky run.
Obviously this example is totally unrealistic, but i think it gets the point across.
Then why even have tournaments? Why have playoffs at all in any sport? Just for the fans?
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Even in my example you obviously need tournaments, otherwise there is no competition and no stats And yeah i never understood having playoffs with a league format, but whatever americans...
On September 02 2014 21:46 opisska wrote: The monthly power rank really doesn't make any sense in the current SC2 scene. For every player it is basically about "were there any significant events in the area where I get to play". The fact that people view Flash's 3rd place as low is the ultimate testament to that. OK, great, so he won a tourney on the last weekend of the month and thus we are going to instantly forget that he has been a complete failure in individual tourneys until now? Or is it just because he used to be really good in a game that requires a significantly different skillset?
You don't get it that it is a monthy power rank either, right? In this month, he was the best player.
Maybe you shouldn't call people out on "not getting something" when you obviously fail in reading comprehension. I said that the monthly power rank does not make sense, not that this is not the right monthly power rank. The question of "who was the best player this month" is nonsensical, that is the problem. A month is just too short of a time with 3 WCS seasons a year. One month you will judge people on results from random tournaments, which depend mainly on who had enough sponsorship to go there, whereas the other month you have GSL finals ...
On September 02 2014 21:52 Zealously wrote:
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
Making the high position for a player who won one single tournament in his whole career even more absurd.
It isn't only about winning a tournament. You can (theoretically) be the best player in the wolrd with a 90% winrate overall and never win a single tournament. Would you say this player doesn't deserve to be number one regardless?
Sure I would. This game is played in tournaments. Winning them (or, in general, placing as high as possible) is the sole point of the competition. That's where you get money, that's where you get recognition. All the other metrics such as winrates, various "mathematically sophisticated" rankings and whatnot are just half made up by bored fans with nothing better to do and half excuses by people who are unhappy with actual tournament results - and, admittedly also slightly useful, but also often vastly misleading, as a tool to navigate our complex world with more than one tournament.
It is the same as with the arguments like "he looked so dominant in the games". That's not how SC2 works. This is not ice skating, you don't get points for style from a biased jury. You either win or lose and it is completely irrelevant how that happened (unless you cheated, of course). I hate the "everybody is a winner in some way" attitude. If you lose, you lose, there is no redemption - that's the beauty of true competition.
Well yeah i don't agree with that at all. If some player would manage to get a ridicoulus win% but would never (or rarely, whatever) win a tournament he still would be the best imo. Constistency > a lucky run.
Obviously this example is totally unrealistic, but i think it gets the point across.
Then why even have tournaments? Why have playoffs at all in any sport? Just for the fans?
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Even in my example you obviously need tournaments, otherwise there is no competition and no stats And yeah i never understood having playoffs with a league format, but whatever americans...
I've heard this view before. Why even have playoffs. I understand your argument now.
Mostly if a league format was used with no playoff, say in basketball for example there often times is no resolution of who exactly is the best team/player. If the top 2 placing teams only play twice in a season, split the games, but one team ended the season with an overall record slightly better, are they really the better team? Can you say for sure? Actually there's no way to determine. Maybe the first placing team was from a weaker division, who the hell knows. So tournaments were invented. Lets have the best teams play off to determine the best team and remove doubt. Tournaments decide.
Thats my problem with the power rank. Its ambiguous. Based on statistics Flash is the worlds best player so says Aligulac. But who says there methodology is correct? From Aligulac's point of view Rain going 7-0 in seven virtually meaningless best of ones is better than Flash going 4-1 versus Zest in a championship final. And Flashes recent play is for only a handful of weeks, what time length must be taken into consideration for determining the best players?
The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
In a sport similar to Starcraft in structure, tennis, you don't ever have to win tournaments to be the best in the world/have the highest ratings. Being in Ro4s, and finals all the time is often enough, if you are consistent enough that you are in there a lot. Historically, it is often the case that all 4 grand slams are won by different people.
SO basically what I wanted to say is that if a guy gets Ro4 GSL all three tournaments, consistently places high in online qualifiers and has amazing winrate in Proleague, he probably is better then a guy who randomly won Red Bull Battlegrounds (of course, then the question is, if the guy that won Red Bull doesn't have similar record in those other leageus etc).
That would also be my case for Flash being #1 right now - Rain and Flash have similar stats, similar opponents, they are practically similar in everything but one thing - Flash competed in IEM (Rain didn't) and Flash won IEM. Therefore, I think currently he is SLIGHTLY better off then Rain.
On September 02 2014 21:46 opisska wrote: The monthly power rank really doesn't make any sense in the current SC2 scene. For every player it is basically about "were there any significant events in the area where I get to play". The fact that people view Flash's 3rd place as low is the ultimate testament to that. OK, great, so he won a tourney on the last weekend of the month and thus we are going to instantly forget that he has been a complete failure in individual tourneys until now? Or is it just because he used to be really good in a game that requires a significantly different skillset?
You don't get it that it is a monthy power rank either, right? In this month, he was the best player.
Maybe you shouldn't call people out on "not getting something" when you obviously fail in reading comprehension. I said that the monthly power rank does not make sense, not that this is not the right monthly power rank. The question of "who was the best player this month" is nonsensical, that is the problem. A month is just too short of a time with 3 WCS seasons a year. One month you will judge people on results from random tournaments, which depend mainly on who had enough sponsorship to go there, whereas the other month you have GSL finals ...
On September 02 2014 21:52 Zealously wrote:
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
Making the high position for a player who won one single tournament in his whole career even more absurd.
It isn't only about winning a tournament. You can (theoretically) be the best player in the wolrd with a 90% winrate overall and never win a single tournament. Would you say this player doesn't deserve to be number one regardless?
Sure I would. This game is played in tournaments. Winning them (or, in general, placing as high as possible) is the sole point of the competition. That's where you get money, that's where you get recognition. All the other metrics such as winrates, various "mathematically sophisticated" rankings and whatnot are just half made up by bored fans with nothing better to do and half excuses by people who are unhappy with actual tournament results - and, admittedly also slightly useful, but also often vastly misleading, as a tool to navigate our complex world with more than one tournament.
It is the same as with the arguments like "he looked so dominant in the games". That's not how SC2 works. This is not ice skating, you don't get points for style from a biased jury. You either win or lose and it is completely irrelevant how that happened (unless you cheated, of course). I hate the "everybody is a winner in some way" attitude. If you lose, you lose, there is no redemption - that's the beauty of true competition.
Well yeah i don't agree with that at all. If some player would manage to get a ridicoulus win% but would never (or rarely, whatever) win a tournament he still would be the best imo. Constistency > a lucky run.
Obviously this example is totally unrealistic, but i think it gets the point across.
Then why even have tournaments? Why have playoffs at all in any sport? Just for the fans?
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Even in my example you obviously need tournaments, otherwise there is no competition and no stats And yeah i never understood having playoffs with a league format, but whatever americans...
I've heard this view before. Why even have playoffs. I understand your argument now.
Mostly if a league format was used with no playoff, say in basketball for example there often times is no resolution of who exactly is the best team/player. If the top 2 placing teams only play twice in a season, split the games, but one team ended the season with an overall record slightly better, are they really the better team? Can you say for sure? Actually there's no way to determine. Maybe the first placing team was from a weaker division, who the hell knows. So tournaments were invented. Lets have the best teams play off to determine the best team and remove doubt. Tournaments decide.
Thats my problem with the power rank. Its ambiguous. Based on statistics Flash is the worlds best player so says Aligulac. But who says there methodology is correct? From Aligulac's point of view Rain going 7-0 in seven virtually meaningless best of ones is better than Flash going 4-1 versus Zest in a championship final. And Flashes recent play is for only a handful of weeks, what time length must be taken into consideration for determining the best players?
The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
The best way to determine "who is better" is to have a BO5 or BO7 series where both players are given optimal training conditions and plenty of time to prepare. Obviously this doesn't always happen which is why there's inconsistency.
On September 02 2014 21:46 opisska wrote: The monthly power rank really doesn't make any sense in the current SC2 scene. For every player it is basically about "were there any significant events in the area where I get to play". The fact that people view Flash's 3rd place as low is the ultimate testament to that. OK, great, so he won a tourney on the last weekend of the month and thus we are going to instantly forget that he has been a complete failure in individual tourneys until now? Or is it just because he used to be really good in a game that requires a significantly different skillset?
You don't get it that it is a monthy power rank either, right? In this month, he was the best player.
Maybe you shouldn't call people out on "not getting something" when you obviously fail in reading comprehension. I said that the monthly power rank does not make sense, not that this is not the right monthly power rank. The question of "who was the best player this month" is nonsensical, that is the problem. A month is just too short of a time with 3 WCS seasons a year. One month you will judge people on results from random tournaments, which depend mainly on who had enough sponsorship to go there, whereas the other month you have GSL finals ...
On September 02 2014 21:52 Zealously wrote:
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
Making the high position for a player who won one single tournament in his whole career even more absurd.
It isn't only about winning a tournament. You can (theoretically) be the best player in the wolrd with a 90% winrate overall and never win a single tournament. Would you say this player doesn't deserve to be number one regardless?
Sure I would. This game is played in tournaments. Winning them (or, in general, placing as high as possible) is the sole point of the competition. That's where you get money, that's where you get recognition. All the other metrics such as winrates, various "mathematically sophisticated" rankings and whatnot are just half made up by bored fans with nothing better to do and half excuses by people who are unhappy with actual tournament results - and, admittedly also slightly useful, but also often vastly misleading, as a tool to navigate our complex world with more than one tournament.
It is the same as with the arguments like "he looked so dominant in the games". That's not how SC2 works. This is not ice skating, you don't get points for style from a biased jury. You either win or lose and it is completely irrelevant how that happened (unless you cheated, of course). I hate the "everybody is a winner in some way" attitude. If you lose, you lose, there is no redemption - that's the beauty of true competition.
Well yeah i don't agree with that at all. If some player would manage to get a ridicoulus win% but would never (or rarely, whatever) win a tournament he still would be the best imo. Constistency > a lucky run.
Obviously this example is totally unrealistic, but i think it gets the point across.
Then why even have tournaments? Why have playoffs at all in any sport? Just for the fans?
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Even in my example you obviously need tournaments, otherwise there is no competition and no stats And yeah i never understood having playoffs with a league format, but whatever americans...
The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
On September 02 2014 21:46 opisska wrote: The monthly power rank really doesn't make any sense in the current SC2 scene. For every player it is basically about "were there any significant events in the area where I get to play". The fact that people view Flash's 3rd place as low is the ultimate testament to that. OK, great, so he won a tourney on the last weekend of the month and thus we are going to instantly forget that he has been a complete failure in individual tourneys until now? Or is it just because he used to be really good in a game that requires a significantly different skillset?
You don't get it that it is a monthy power rank either, right? In this month, he was the best player.
Maybe you shouldn't call people out on "not getting something" when you obviously fail in reading comprehension. I said that the monthly power rank does not make sense, not that this is not the right monthly power rank. The question of "who was the best player this month" is nonsensical, that is the problem. A month is just too short of a time with 3 WCS seasons a year. One month you will judge people on results from random tournaments, which depend mainly on who had enough sponsorship to go there, whereas the other month you have GSL finals ...
On September 02 2014 21:52 Zealously wrote:
On September 02 2014 02:59 Zealously wrote: The fact that this is the first Power Rank since December made me hesitant to just cut off at August 1 and exclusively count results from August. Since this ranking is the first in a while, I put slightly more emphasis on consistency and past results. That said, I would not make any major changes even if I didn't.
Making the high position for a player who won one single tournament in his whole career even more absurd.
It isn't only about winning a tournament. You can (theoretically) be the best player in the wolrd with a 90% winrate overall and never win a single tournament. Would you say this player doesn't deserve to be number one regardless?
Sure I would. This game is played in tournaments. Winning them (or, in general, placing as high as possible) is the sole point of the competition. That's where you get money, that's where you get recognition. All the other metrics such as winrates, various "mathematically sophisticated" rankings and whatnot are just half made up by bored fans with nothing better to do and half excuses by people who are unhappy with actual tournament results - and, admittedly also slightly useful, but also often vastly misleading, as a tool to navigate our complex world with more than one tournament.
It is the same as with the arguments like "he looked so dominant in the games". That's not how SC2 works. This is not ice skating, you don't get points for style from a biased jury. You either win or lose and it is completely irrelevant how that happened (unless you cheated, of course). I hate the "everybody is a winner in some way" attitude. If you lose, you lose, there is no redemption - that's the beauty of true competition.
Well yeah i don't agree with that at all. If some player would manage to get a ridicoulus win% but would never (or rarely, whatever) win a tournament he still would be the best imo. Constistency > a lucky run.
Obviously this example is totally unrealistic, but i think it gets the point across.
Then why even have tournaments? Why have playoffs at all in any sport? Just for the fans?
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Even in my example you obviously need tournaments, otherwise there is no competition and no stats And yeah i never understood having playoffs with a league format, but whatever americans...
The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
You don't get it that it is a monthy power rank either, right? In this month, he was the best player.
Maybe you shouldn't call people out on "not getting something" when you obviously fail in reading comprehension. I said that the monthly power rank does not make sense, not that this is not the right monthly power rank. The question of "who was the best player this month" is nonsensical, that is the problem. A month is just too short of a time with 3 WCS seasons a year. One month you will judge people on results from random tournaments, which depend mainly on who had enough sponsorship to go there, whereas the other month you have GSL finals ...
On September 02 2014 21:52 Zealously wrote: [quote]
Making the high position for a player who won one single tournament in his whole career even more absurd.
It isn't only about winning a tournament. You can (theoretically) be the best player in the wolrd with a 90% winrate overall and never win a single tournament. Would you say this player doesn't deserve to be number one regardless?
Sure I would. This game is played in tournaments. Winning them (or, in general, placing as high as possible) is the sole point of the competition. That's where you get money, that's where you get recognition. All the other metrics such as winrates, various "mathematically sophisticated" rankings and whatnot are just half made up by bored fans with nothing better to do and half excuses by people who are unhappy with actual tournament results - and, admittedly also slightly useful, but also often vastly misleading, as a tool to navigate our complex world with more than one tournament.
It is the same as with the arguments like "he looked so dominant in the games". That's not how SC2 works. This is not ice skating, you don't get points for style from a biased jury. You either win or lose and it is completely irrelevant how that happened (unless you cheated, of course). I hate the "everybody is a winner in some way" attitude. If you lose, you lose, there is no redemption - that's the beauty of true competition.
Well yeah i don't agree with that at all. If some player would manage to get a ridicoulus win% but would never (or rarely, whatever) win a tournament he still would be the best imo. Constistency > a lucky run.
Obviously this example is totally unrealistic, but i think it gets the point across.
Then why even have tournaments? Why have playoffs at all in any sport? Just for the fans?
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Even in my example you obviously need tournaments, otherwise there is no competition and no stats And yeah i never understood having playoffs with a league format, but whatever americans...
The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
No it's not lol. Imagine that Flash plays against Impact in some online qualifier and Impact beats him 3-1. Would you really say Impact is better then Flash? (And I am only bringing out Impact because I am just watching StarHangshow and they talk about him there).
You don't get it that it is a monthy power rank either, right? In this month, he was the best player.
Maybe you shouldn't call people out on "not getting something" when you obviously fail in reading comprehension. I said that the monthly power rank does not make sense, not that this is not the right monthly power rank. The question of "who was the best player this month" is nonsensical, that is the problem. A month is just too short of a time with 3 WCS seasons a year. One month you will judge people on results from random tournaments, which depend mainly on who had enough sponsorship to go there, whereas the other month you have GSL finals ...
On September 02 2014 21:52 Zealously wrote: [quote]
Making the high position for a player who won one single tournament in his whole career even more absurd.
It isn't only about winning a tournament. You can (theoretically) be the best player in the wolrd with a 90% winrate overall and never win a single tournament. Would you say this player doesn't deserve to be number one regardless?
Sure I would. This game is played in tournaments. Winning them (or, in general, placing as high as possible) is the sole point of the competition. That's where you get money, that's where you get recognition. All the other metrics such as winrates, various "mathematically sophisticated" rankings and whatnot are just half made up by bored fans with nothing better to do and half excuses by people who are unhappy with actual tournament results - and, admittedly also slightly useful, but also often vastly misleading, as a tool to navigate our complex world with more than one tournament.
It is the same as with the arguments like "he looked so dominant in the games". That's not how SC2 works. This is not ice skating, you don't get points for style from a biased jury. You either win or lose and it is completely irrelevant how that happened (unless you cheated, of course). I hate the "everybody is a winner in some way" attitude. If you lose, you lose, there is no redemption - that's the beauty of true competition.
Well yeah i don't agree with that at all. If some player would manage to get a ridicoulus win% but would never (or rarely, whatever) win a tournament he still would be the best imo. Constistency > a lucky run.
Obviously this example is totally unrealistic, but i think it gets the point across.
Then why even have tournaments? Why have playoffs at all in any sport? Just for the fans?
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Even in my example you obviously need tournaments, otherwise there is no competition and no stats And yeah i never understood having playoffs with a league format, but whatever americans...
The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Maybe you shouldn't call people out on "not getting something" when you obviously fail in reading comprehension. I said that the monthly power rank does not make sense, not that this is not the right monthly power rank. The question of "who was the best player this month" is nonsensical, that is the problem. A month is just too short of a time with 3 WCS seasons a year. One month you will judge people on results from random tournaments, which depend mainly on who had enough sponsorship to go there, whereas the other month you have GSL finals ...
[quote]
Making the high position for a player who won one single tournament in his whole career even more absurd.
It isn't only about winning a tournament. You can (theoretically) be the best player in the wolrd with a 90% winrate overall and never win a single tournament. Would you say this player doesn't deserve to be number one regardless?
Sure I would. This game is played in tournaments. Winning them (or, in general, placing as high as possible) is the sole point of the competition. That's where you get money, that's where you get recognition. All the other metrics such as winrates, various "mathematically sophisticated" rankings and whatnot are just half made up by bored fans with nothing better to do and half excuses by people who are unhappy with actual tournament results - and, admittedly also slightly useful, but also often vastly misleading, as a tool to navigate our complex world with more than one tournament.
It is the same as with the arguments like "he looked so dominant in the games". That's not how SC2 works. This is not ice skating, you don't get points for style from a biased jury. You either win or lose and it is completely irrelevant how that happened (unless you cheated, of course). I hate the "everybody is a winner in some way" attitude. If you lose, you lose, there is no redemption - that's the beauty of true competition.
Well yeah i don't agree with that at all. If some player would manage to get a ridicoulus win% but would never (or rarely, whatever) win a tournament he still would be the best imo. Constistency > a lucky run.
Obviously this example is totally unrealistic, but i think it gets the point across.
Then why even have tournaments? Why have playoffs at all in any sport? Just for the fans?
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Even in my example you obviously need tournaments, otherwise there is no competition and no stats And yeah i never understood having playoffs with a league format, but whatever americans...
The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
On September 02 2014 23:19 The_Red_Viper wrote: [quote] It isn't only about winning a tournament. You can (theoretically) be the best player in the wolrd with a 90% winrate overall and never win a single tournament. Would you say this player doesn't deserve to be number one regardless?
Sure I would. This game is played in tournaments. Winning them (or, in general, placing as high as possible) is the sole point of the competition. That's where you get money, that's where you get recognition. All the other metrics such as winrates, various "mathematically sophisticated" rankings and whatnot are just half made up by bored fans with nothing better to do and half excuses by people who are unhappy with actual tournament results - and, admittedly also slightly useful, but also often vastly misleading, as a tool to navigate our complex world with more than one tournament.
It is the same as with the arguments like "he looked so dominant in the games". That's not how SC2 works. This is not ice skating, you don't get points for style from a biased jury. You either win or lose and it is completely irrelevant how that happened (unless you cheated, of course). I hate the "everybody is a winner in some way" attitude. If you lose, you lose, there is no redemption - that's the beauty of true competition.
Well yeah i don't agree with that at all. If some player would manage to get a ridicoulus win% but would never (or rarely, whatever) win a tournament he still would be the best imo. Constistency > a lucky run.
Obviously this example is totally unrealistic, but i think it gets the point across.
Then why even have tournaments? Why have playoffs at all in any sport? Just for the fans?
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Even in my example you obviously need tournaments, otherwise there is no competition and no stats And yeah i never understood having playoffs with a league format, but whatever americans...
The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
Sure I would. This game is played in tournaments. Winning them (or, in general, placing as high as possible) is the sole point of the competition. That's where you get money, that's where you get recognition. All the other metrics such as winrates, various "mathematically sophisticated" rankings and whatnot are just half made up by bored fans with nothing better to do and half excuses by people who are unhappy with actual tournament results - and, admittedly also slightly useful, but also often vastly misleading, as a tool to navigate our complex world with more than one tournament.
It is the same as with the arguments like "he looked so dominant in the games". That's not how SC2 works. This is not ice skating, you don't get points for style from a biased jury. You either win or lose and it is completely irrelevant how that happened (unless you cheated, of course). I hate the "everybody is a winner in some way" attitude. If you lose, you lose, there is no redemption - that's the beauty of true competition.
Well yeah i don't agree with that at all. If some player would manage to get a ridicoulus win% but would never (or rarely, whatever) win a tournament he still would be the best imo. Constistency > a lucky run.
Obviously this example is totally unrealistic, but i think it gets the point across.
Then why even have tournaments? Why have playoffs at all in any sport? Just for the fans?
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Even in my example you obviously need tournaments, otherwise there is no competition and no stats And yeah i never understood having playoffs with a league format, but whatever americans...
The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats. Fortunately there are many opportunities for us to see these guys play vs one another in the future, I won't know who's better until then.
If u want my opinion, I'd say Zest is currently the best player in the world with Flash second, maybe Soo third, then Rain. But the next few months it will all shake itself out anyway. Lets hope they all make it to Blizzcon and i can watch with my popcorn
On September 03 2014 00:31 The_Red_Viper wrote: [quote]
Well yeah i don't agree with that at all. If some player would manage to get a ridicoulus win% but would never (or rarely, whatever) win a tournament he still would be the best imo. Constistency > a lucky run.
Obviously this example is totally unrealistic, but i think it gets the point across.
Then why even have tournaments? Why have playoffs at all in any sport? Just for the fans?
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Even in my example you obviously need tournaments, otherwise there is no competition and no stats And yeah i never understood having playoffs with a league format, but whatever americans...
The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
On September 02 2014 20:15 fenix404 wrote: flash is 48-13, let's take that in...
Here's my opinion on Flashs position. Let's say Snute wins the final game and defeats Flash 3-2. I feel that a lot of people would think that holding the #3 position would be too high and it would be very likely he'd end up lower. Can one map really hold that much influence on his overall strength? I think that would still be the case if he had lost to Taeja or Zest. Interestingly, if you make the assumption he loses one of those series his overall statistics still look mighty impressive. But because he didn't lift the trophy peoples perception of his strength changes.
I think that's the issue that's at hand here. Rain/maru have been fairly out of the spotlight in August while Flash's latest accomplishment (and a significant one at that) was literally last weekend. I think that lack of attention is the greatest reason why people have a problem with Flash at 3 and not 1. In reality all three are extremely close at the moment -- to illustrate, maru and flash are 2-2 in the last 5 weeks (2-1 to flash and 1-0 to maru) -- and as such good arguments can be made for any permutation of the three.
Lastly let's remember what the power rank is really about; it's about working out a list of players you hope to god aren't in your side of the bracket, the players that make their contemporaries hearts sink when they get paired together, the players who are most likely to win Bo5/Bo7's against anyone else in the world. Results play a significant role in working that stuff out, but that doesn't mean staying out of the spotlight and playing less games for a bit means you're any less dangerous.
PowerRank should be based on the last 6 months of performance, with more emphasis towards recent tournament success, but not entirely based on recent tournament success.
There is no doubt that during the Ro16 selections, the players would have picked Polt any day over sOs because Polt is easier than sOs (assuming Polt was part of the Ro16 selections). sOs has the highest win rate in Proleague for players that play a significant number of games (ie. he has the top win rate amongst the top 20 played players).
Zealously puts Polt at 8 but Polt has only played mediocre against mediocre competition in the last 6 months. If sOs was put in every tournament Polt was put in over the last 6 months, I think sOs would have had more success than Polt.
I would even say Solar is better than Polt. For the limited foreign tournaments Solar has played in the last several months, he has performed practically in each tournament he has traveled to. Can't say the same thing about Polt.
We said the same thing about Innovation and he hasn't won anything oversea yet. Would Zest have won Redbull if he were in Polt's bracket? Probably not because Taeja.
On September 03 2014 00:38 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] Then why even have tournaments? Why have playoffs at all in any sport? Just for the fans?
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Even in my example you obviously need tournaments, otherwise there is no competition and no stats And yeah i never understood having playoffs with a league format, but whatever americans...
The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
On September 03 2014 00:38 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] Then why even have tournaments? Why have playoffs at all in any sport? Just for the fans?
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Even in my example you obviously need tournaments, otherwise there is no competition and no stats And yeah i never understood having playoffs with a league format, but whatever americans...
The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
HerO is 3-0 vs herO. Head to head ftw.
There's a ton of examples like this. Remember Shine's crazy record against Soulkey?
On September 03 2014 00:38 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] Then why even have tournaments? Why have playoffs at all in any sport? Just for the fans?
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Even in my example you obviously need tournaments, otherwise there is no competition and no stats And yeah i never understood having playoffs with a league format, but whatever americans...
The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
On September 03 2014 01:02 The_Red_Viper wrote: [quote] I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Even in my example you obviously need tournaments, otherwise there is no competition and no stats And yeah i never understood having playoffs with a league format, but whatever americans...
The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper.
Damn, Rain must be a god for winning an OSL, nailing SKT's ace matches and going undefeated through to Proleague playoffs!
On September 03 2014 01:02 The_Red_Viper wrote: [quote] I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Even in my example you obviously need tournaments, otherwise there is no competition and no stats And yeah i never understood having playoffs with a league format, but whatever americans...
The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 01:02 The_Red_Viper wrote: [quote] I am not quite sure what you are trying to say. Even in my example you obviously need tournaments, otherwise there is no competition and no stats And yeah i never understood having playoffs with a league format, but whatever americans...
The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis". Championships and ace matches play an important role, but they do not decide everything.
On September 03 2014 01:25 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 01:25 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] The only way to settle matters is have them play off in a best-of. It settles everything which is why tournaments exist. We don't have to guess who the best player is, we just watched it.
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that. I don't care who wins the most games on a regular basis. Some games are way more important than others. Game 7 of the GSL finals is worth 100 or a thousand best of three qualifying matches. All games are not created equal.
On September 03 2014 02:45 Zealously wrote: [quote]
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 03:41 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:31 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:25 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:21 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:20 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:13 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 02:54 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 02:45 Zealously wrote: [quote]
That only determines which of the players is best in head-to-head. You can lose the head-to-head and still be the better player in the two remaining match-ups (and perhaps even against other players in the same match-up). Head-to-head and overall skill are two different things in a game like Starcraft and need to be kept apart.
So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that.
It's not stats. "Number of tournament wins" is also a statistic. What I'm talking about is skill. How good is a player? How well can he play and which players can he beat? Surely you see that winning an easy tournament is not the same as reaching the Ro4 in an extremely stacked tournament, and that the second is a greater achievement - in terms of difficulty - than the first?
On September 03 2014 02:54 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 03:41 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:31 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:25 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:21 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:20 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:13 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 02:54 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that.
It's not stats. "Number of tournament wins" is also a statistic. What I'm talking about is skill. How good is a player? How well can he play and which players can he beat? Surely you see that winning an easy tournament is not the same as reaching the Ro4 in an extremely stacked tournament, and that the second is a greater achievement - in terms of difficulty - than the first?
Heres my point. If Flash beats rain in two best of three qualifiers, 2-1. Then Rain beats Flash in the GSL finals 4-2.
Statistically they're 6-6 versus each other. Aligulac would say they are equal. But they aren't even close. Rain is way way ahead because he won the GSL. Flash didn't. At the end of the day the stats don't tell the story, the title does. The title means far more than the stats.
On September 03 2014 02:54 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 03:41 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:31 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:25 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:21 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:20 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:13 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 02:54 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] So if Flash and Rain playoff in a best of, the result is not indicative of who the best player is?
I must be on mars...
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that.
It's not stats. "Number of tournament wins" is also a statistic. What I'm talking about is skill. How good is a player? How well can he play and which players can he beat? Surely you see that winning an easy tournament is not the same as reaching the Ro4 in an extremely stacked tournament, and that the second is a greater achievement - in terms of difficulty - than the first?
While i agree with pretty much everything you said so far, what do you mean with "skill" ? The only real measurement of skill we have is winning/losing, if you want to compare players they obviously should face the same competition.
On September 03 2014 03:13 Zealously wrote: [quote]
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 03:41 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:31 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:25 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:21 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:20 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:13 Zealously wrote: [quote]
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that.
It's not stats. "Number of tournament wins" is also a statistic. What I'm talking about is skill. How good is a player? How well can he play and which players can he beat? Surely you see that winning an easy tournament is not the same as reaching the Ro4 in an extremely stacked tournament, and that the second is a greater achievement - in terms of difficulty - than the first?
Heres my point. If Flash beats rain in two best of three qualifiers, 2-1. Then Rain beats Flash in the GSL finals 4-2.
Statistically they're 6-6 versus each other. Aligulac would say they are equal. But they aren't even close. Rain is way way ahead because he won the GSL. Flash didn't. At the end of the day the stats don't tell the story, the title does. The title means far more than the stats.
I completely disagree with this view of the game. Under that scenario, you say they aren't even close. Sorry but I call bullshit. They are close, their skill level is so close that on any other day, any other circumstance this match could end exactly the other way around. And while yes, in this scenario, Flash would probably be #1 and Rain #2 in Power Rank, it would be just by a small margin and the next week/month it could be the other way around!
On September 03 2014 03:13 Zealously wrote: [quote]
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 03:41 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:31 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:25 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:21 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:20 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:13 Zealously wrote: [quote]
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that.
It's not stats. "Number of tournament wins" is also a statistic. What I'm talking about is skill. How good is a player? How well can he play and which players can he beat? Surely you see that winning an easy tournament is not the same as reaching the Ro4 in an extremely stacked tournament, and that the second is a greater achievement - in terms of difficulty - than the first?
While i agree with pretty much everything you said so far, what do you mean with "skill" ? The only real measurement of skill we have is winning/losing, if you want to compare players they obviously should face the same competition.
Level of play and opponents beat. I think it's possible to tell that a player is good without said player winning much. Fionn predicted Bogus being great when he had a horrible PL record, long before he became Innovation and absurdly good.
On September 03 2014 03:20 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] Whoever won the !@#$%^&* tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 03:41 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:31 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:25 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:21 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:20 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] Whoever won the !@#$%^&* tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that.
It's not stats. "Number of tournament wins" is also a statistic. What I'm talking about is skill. How good is a player? How well can he play and which players can he beat? Surely you see that winning an easy tournament is not the same as reaching the Ro4 in an extremely stacked tournament, and that the second is a greater achievement - in terms of difficulty - than the first?
Heres my point. If Flash beats rain in two best of three qualifiers, 2-1. Then Rain beats Flash in the GSL finals 4-2.
Statistically they're 6-6 versus each other. Aligulac would say they are equal. But they aren't even close. Rain is way way ahead because he won the GSL. Flash didn't. At the end of the day the stats don't tell the story, the title does. The title means far more than the stats.
I completely disagree with this view of the game. Under that scenario, you say they aren't even close. Sorry but I call bullshit. They are close, their skill level is so close that on any other day, any other circumstance this match could end exactly the other way around. And while yes, in this scenario, Flash would probably be #1 and Rain #2 in Power Rank, it would be just by a small margin and the next week/month it could be the other way around!
Title shouldn't matter more IMO. A win is a win, and sometimes you happen to have the margins on your side and you win a couple of more games than usual and end up with a title. That doesn't mean your neccesarily the best player in the world though.
On September 03 2014 03:20 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 03:41 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:31 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:25 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:21 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:20 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that.
It's not stats. "Number of tournament wins" is also a statistic. What I'm talking about is skill. How good is a player? How well can he play and which players can he beat? Surely you see that winning an easy tournament is not the same as reaching the Ro4 in an extremely stacked tournament, and that the second is a greater achievement - in terms of difficulty - than the first?
While i agree with pretty much everything you said so far, what do you mean with "skill" ? The only real measurement of skill we have is winning/losing, if you want to compare players they obviously should face the same competition.
Level of play and opponents beat. I think it's possible to tell that a player is good without said player winning much. Fionn predicted Bogus being great when he had a horrible PL record, long before he became Innovation and absurdly good.
Well that's more like potential imo, if you don't win the games you play you aren't good enough at that time. But sometimes people talk about "skill" like it would be something like art, not really measurable. I don't agree with that though, if you lose you were worse, simple as that (even though i rage too when my favorite player loses to some "protoss bs" or something like that^^)
On September 03 2014 03:21 Zealously wrote: [quote]
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 03:41 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:31 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:25 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:21 Zealously wrote: [quote]
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that.
It's not stats. "Number of tournament wins" is also a statistic. What I'm talking about is skill. How good is a player? How well can he play and which players can he beat? Surely you see that winning an easy tournament is not the same as reaching the Ro4 in an extremely stacked tournament, and that the second is a greater achievement - in terms of difficulty - than the first?
While i agree with pretty much everything you said so far, what do you mean with "skill" ? The only real measurement of skill we have is winning/losing, if you want to compare players they obviously should face the same competition.
Level of play and opponents beat. I think it's possible to tell that a player is good without said player winning much. Fionn predicted Bogus being great when he had a horrible PL record, long before he became Innovation and absurdly good.
Well that's more like potential imo, if you don't win the games you play you aren't good enough at that time. But sometimes people talk about "skill" like it would be something like art, not really measurable. I don't agree with that though, if you lose you were worse, simple as that (even though i rage too when my favorite player loses to some "protoss bs" or something like that^^)
I don't think it's as easy as that. As you said, skill is very hard to describe. Some think of it as a pure mechanical thing (maybe including things like positioning etc) - in that case it is very possible for more skilled player to lose due to things like mind games. Some argue, that strategy, mind games, things like that are also part of the skill. On the other hand, those are also things that can be influenced by an outsider - if your coach tells you to 2 rax because after studying 40 replays of your opponent he found out they don't scout one specific location on the map - it is a strategy, maybe even mind game. But it is your own skill? So yeah, I don't think it's as easy as 'the player who won is the more skilled player'.
On September 03 2014 03:13 Zealously wrote: [quote]
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 03:41 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:31 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:25 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:21 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:20 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:13 Zealously wrote: [quote]
Flash beats Rain, loses to Solar, Bbyong, and sOs.
Rain loses to Flash, beats Solar, Bbyong and sOs.
Who is the best player?
Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that.
It's not stats. "Number of tournament wins" is also a statistic. What I'm talking about is skill. How good is a player? How well can he play and which players can he beat? Surely you see that winning an easy tournament is not the same as reaching the Ro4 in an extremely stacked tournament, and that the second is a greater achievement - in terms of difficulty - than the first?
Heres my point. If Flash beats rain in two best of three qualifiers, 2-1. Then Rain beats Flash in the GSL finals 4-2.
Statistically they're 6-6 versus each other. Aligulac would say they are equal. But they aren't even close. Rain is way way ahead because he won the GSL. Flash didn't. At the end of the day the stats don't tell the story, the title does. The title means far more than the stats.
On September 03 2014 03:20 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 03:41 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:31 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:25 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:21 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:20 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] Whoever won the damn tournament.
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that.
It's not stats. "Number of tournament wins" is also a statistic. What I'm talking about is skill. How good is a player? How well can he play and which players can he beat? Surely you see that winning an easy tournament is not the same as reaching the Ro4 in an extremely stacked tournament, and that the second is a greater achievement - in terms of difficulty - than the first?
Heres my point. If Flash beats rain in two best of three qualifiers, 2-1. Then Rain beats Flash in the GSL finals 4-2.
Statistically they're 6-6 versus each other. Aligulac would say they are equal. But they aren't even close. Rain is way way ahead because he won the GSL. Flash didn't. At the end of the day the stats don't tell the story, the title does. The title means far more than the stats.
On September 03 2014 03:21 Zealously wrote: [quote]
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 03:41 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:31 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:25 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:21 Zealously wrote: [quote]
Both were eliminated in the Ro4. Come on, don't dodge. Who's better?
We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that.
It's not stats. "Number of tournament wins" is also a statistic. What I'm talking about is skill. How good is a player? How well can he play and which players can he beat? Surely you see that winning an easy tournament is not the same as reaching the Ro4 in an extremely stacked tournament, and that the second is a greater achievement - in terms of difficulty - than the first?
Heres my point. If Flash beats rain in two best of three qualifiers, 2-1. Then Rain beats Flash in the GSL finals 4-2.
Statistically they're 6-6 versus each other. Aligulac would say they are equal. But they aren't even close. Rain is way way ahead because he won the GSL. Flash didn't. At the end of the day the stats don't tell the story, the title does. The title means far more than the stats.
Classic better player than soO?
Depends on how you define better.
If you were to make a Power Rank, would you place Classic above soO?
On September 03 2014 03:25 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 03:41 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:31 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:25 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that.
It's not stats. "Number of tournament wins" is also a statistic. What I'm talking about is skill. How good is a player? How well can he play and which players can he beat? Surely you see that winning an easy tournament is not the same as reaching the Ro4 in an extremely stacked tournament, and that the second is a greater achievement - in terms of difficulty - than the first?
While i agree with pretty much everything you said so far, what do you mean with "skill" ? The only real measurement of skill we have is winning/losing, if you want to compare players they obviously should face the same competition.
Level of play and opponents beat. I think it's possible to tell that a player is good without said player winning much. Fionn predicted Bogus being great when he had a horrible PL record, long before he became Innovation and absurdly good.
Well that's more like potential imo, if you don't win the games you play you aren't good enough at that time. But sometimes people talk about "skill" like it would be something like art, not really measurable. I don't agree with that though, if you lose you were worse, simple as that (even though i rage too when my favorite player loses to some "protoss bs" or something like that^^)
I don't think it's as easy as that. As you said, skill is very hard to describe. Some think of it as a pure mechanical thing (maybe including things like positioning etc) - in that case it is very possible for more skilled player to lose due to things like mind games. Some argue, that strategy, mind games, things like that are also part of the skill. On the other hand, those are also things that can be influenced by an outsider - if your coach tells you to 2 rax because after studying 40 replays of your opponent he found out they don't scout one specific location on the map - it is a strategy, maybe even mind game. But it is your own skill? So yeah, I don't think it's as easy as 'the player who won is the more skilled player'.
Well that are fair points, but imo win/loss is the best we have to determine the skill of someone. I mean you can look at MKP's splits all day long and say he has the best micro ever, if he loses the game regardless it doesn't really matter. Same can be said about literally every other part of the game. Maybe player X would win every game after 15 mins, if he dies to every timing attack that hits before that it is useless. etc So at the end of the day i think win% (if we have a comparable competition) is the best we have.
On September 03 2014 03:25 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 03:41 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:31 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:25 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that.
It's not stats. "Number of tournament wins" is also a statistic. What I'm talking about is skill. How good is a player? How well can he play and which players can he beat? Surely you see that winning an easy tournament is not the same as reaching the Ro4 in an extremely stacked tournament, and that the second is a greater achievement - in terms of difficulty - than the first?
Heres my point. If Flash beats rain in two best of three qualifiers, 2-1. Then Rain beats Flash in the GSL finals 4-2.
Statistically they're 6-6 versus each other. Aligulac would say they are equal. But they aren't even close. Rain is way way ahead because he won the GSL. Flash didn't. At the end of the day the stats don't tell the story, the title does. The title means far more than the stats.
Classic better player than soO?
Depends on how you define better.
If you were to make a Power Rank, would you place Classic above soO?
On September 03 2014 03:25 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 03:41 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:31 Zealously wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:25 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] We have to wait till the next tournament and see. Still undecided. Until they play, I don't know. It's just an opinion based on stats.
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that.
It's not stats. "Number of tournament wins" is also a statistic. What I'm talking about is skill. How good is a player? How well can he play and which players can he beat? Surely you see that winning an easy tournament is not the same as reaching the Ro4 in an extremely stacked tournament, and that the second is a greater achievement - in terms of difficulty - than the first?
Heres my point. If Flash beats rain in two best of three qualifiers, 2-1. Then Rain beats Flash in the GSL finals 4-2.
Statistically they're 6-6 versus each other. Aligulac would say they are equal. But they aren't even close. Rain is way way ahead because he won the GSL. Flash didn't. At the end of the day the stats don't tell the story, the title does. The title means far more than the stats.
Classic better player than soO?
Depends on how you define better.
If you were to make a Power Rank, would you place Classic above soO?
I wouldn't no. In the last 6 months SOO has 3 GSL finals and a victory. Who in the last 6 months can match that. Maybe Zest. Think Zest would still be my number 1. But its close among a number of people.
On September 03 2014 03:31 Zealously wrote: [quote]
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 03:41 viperattack999 wrote:
On September 03 2014 03:31 Zealously wrote: [quote]
I don't understand why you think head-to-head decides which player is better overall. Head-to-head is played in one single match-up with two styles clashing. Some players' styles suck against others' (see Life vs Soulkey, GSL S5 2012 Ro16), that doesn't necessarily the losing player is worse overall, or even in the match-up.
Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that.
It's not stats. "Number of tournament wins" is also a statistic. What I'm talking about is skill. How good is a player? How well can he play and which players can he beat? Surely you see that winning an easy tournament is not the same as reaching the Ro4 in an extremely stacked tournament, and that the second is a greater achievement - in terms of difficulty - than the first?
Heres my point. If Flash beats rain in two best of three qualifiers, 2-1. Then Rain beats Flash in the GSL finals 4-2.
Statistically they're 6-6 versus each other. Aligulac would say they are equal. But they aren't even close. Rain is way way ahead because he won the GSL. Flash didn't. At the end of the day the stats don't tell the story, the title does. The title means far more than the stats.
Classic better player than soO?
Depends on how you define better.
If you were to make a Power Rank, would you place Classic above soO?
I wouldn't no. In the last 6 months SOO has 3 GSL finals and a victory. Who in the last 6 months can match that. Maybe Zest. Think Zest would still be my number 1. But its close among a number of people.
But if I've understood what you've said previously, shouldn't Taeja and Flash both come out ahead of Zest because they beat him where it mattered?
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 03:41 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that.
It's not stats. "Number of tournament wins" is also a statistic. What I'm talking about is skill. How good is a player? How well can he play and which players can he beat? Surely you see that winning an easy tournament is not the same as reaching the Ro4 in an extremely stacked tournament, and that the second is a greater achievement - in terms of difficulty - than the first?
Heres my point. If Flash beats rain in two best of three qualifiers, 2-1. Then Rain beats Flash in the GSL finals 4-2.
Statistically they're 6-6 versus each other. Aligulac would say they are equal. But they aren't even close. Rain is way way ahead because he won the GSL. Flash didn't. At the end of the day the stats don't tell the story, the title does. The title means far more than the stats.
Classic better player than soO?
Depends on how you define better.
If you were to make a Power Rank, would you place Classic above soO?
I wouldn't no. In the last 6 months SOO has 3 GSL finals and a victory. Who in the last 6 months can match that. Maybe Zest. Think Zest would still be my number 1. But its close among a number of people.
But if I've understood what you've said previously, shouldn't Taeja and Flash both come out ahead of Zest because they beat him where it mattered?
Also, soO has no victories.
If only considering the last 30 days then yes. But I think that's way too short. Maybe 6 months with recent data carrying more weight. Then the collective body of results over that time gives a better picture.
Maybe a monthly write up on each player and how things played out based on the month with a more stable longer term power rank.
If I were to write up for Rain I'd say he's on the verge of breaking out and threatening top spot but we need some tournament results before such a move is made.
The power rank can't be reduced to any single metric, else it would be a formula you could program. As I always understood it the power rank was this:
On September 02 2014 21:14 Plexa wrote: [Lastly let's remember what the power rank is really about; it's about working out a list of players you hope to god aren't in your side of the bracket, the players that make their contemporaries hearts sink when they get paired together
It's a "Holy crap that guy is scary" list that a single writer and student of the game compiles after consulting various TL staff and contributors. How players win games matters, what stage the player is on winning those games matters, head to heads matter, weekend tournaments and well prepared matches matter. It all matters because it all effects one guys opinion.
Isn't it entirely the player's fault that he uses a "style" that is weak against certain strategies?
Sure, but that doesn't mean Shine is a better player than Soulkey.
On September 03 2014 03:41 viperattack999 wrote: [quote] Because it's the purest form of competition we have. A player can be a beast in the team house, even in on-line tournaments, (example: DonRaeGoo before he made a name in GSL), but proving yourself on the big stage is different. It's where champions are made. Not on a calculator. There's no accounting for the pressure of being on stage where its all on the line. No statistics in the world can prepare a player for that.
We're not computers. We're human. And coping under pressure is a big part of being a champion. Champions are not decided on paper. The best mechanics in the world don't matter a row of beans if your too nervous to make the tough decisions under pressure.
I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore. You started by saying that head-to-head decides who the best player is, but now you're talking about something else. Of course we're human and of course coping with pressure is an important part of winning tournaments, but that still doesn't mean that player A beating player B in head-to-head makes player A better than player B versus players C, D, E and so on. Perhaps it might in some sports (Tennis, I guess), but with how different styles and match-ups are in SC2, there is no way that beating one player makes you better than that player in every aspect.
That's what the Power Rank is. Not "Which player would beat the next player head-to-head", but "Which player would beat the most players on a regular basis".
I don't know what to say. Championships matter, statistics are nice to look at, and are interesting, but to say stats trump winning tournaments ...
I have no answer to that.
It's not stats. "Number of tournament wins" is also a statistic. What I'm talking about is skill. How good is a player? How well can he play and which players can he beat? Surely you see that winning an easy tournament is not the same as reaching the Ro4 in an extremely stacked tournament, and that the second is a greater achievement - in terms of difficulty - than the first?
Heres my point. If Flash beats rain in two best of three qualifiers, 2-1. Then Rain beats Flash in the GSL finals 4-2.
Statistically they're 6-6 versus each other. Aligulac would say they are equal. But they aren't even close. Rain is way way ahead because he won the GSL. Flash didn't. At the end of the day the stats don't tell the story, the title does. The title means far more than the stats.
Classic better player than soO?
Depends on how you define better.
If you were to make a Power Rank, would you place Classic above soO?
I wouldn't no. In the last 6 months SOO has 3 GSL finals and a victory. Who in the last 6 months can match that. Maybe Zest. Think Zest would still be my number 1. But its close among a number of people.
But if I've understood what you've said previously, shouldn't Taeja and Flash both come out ahead of Zest because they beat him where it mattered?
Also, soO has no victories.
Yup that's exactly what I was getting at.
obviously winning head to head in big matches is important but it's still only one part pf everything that needs to be taken into account for a power ranking. I'm a massive FlaSh fanboi but even I can see why Rain is up there.
Sen!!!! I feel like Jim should be 5th/6th (or the list of "runner-ups")... just because Jim has made it clear that he could play with the koreans as well as sen, and definitely shown the sc2 community that, even though, the chinese scene may be less open, it doesnt give us the right to think there's no one there that could prove to b as much of a threat as someone like Sen.
Because I can see what you wrote, I'd just like to clarify something for future reference. This ranking does not pretend to be the end-all of rankings everywhere. In the end, it is a subjective ranking made by a person (aided by others, granted) that watches and studies a lot of Starcraft. Controversial picks on shaky grounds have been made in Power Ranks in the past, and that's fine and well because in the end, the ranking is still made largely by the writer and based in that writer's opinions on the players. I won't make any off-the-wall stupid picks, but interpretation and weighting of results is unique to the writer and has, as far as I know, always been so.
On September 03 2014 07:20 Advantageous wrote: Sen!!!! I feel like Jim should be 5th/6th (or the list of "runner-ups")... just because Jim has made it clear that he could play with the koreans as well as sen, and definitely shown the sc2 community that, even though, the chinese scene may be less open, it doesnt give us the right to think there's no one there that could prove to b as much of a threat as someone like Sen.
The foreign ranking was originally a top 10, in which Jim was placed 7th (just behind Vortix). I shortened it to a 5-man ranking because I felt it would be too clunky to have two full rankings piled on top of each other. I should probably have clarified this earlier. This was the original ranking:
10. hero - only losses are to top Koreans 9. Innovation - regaining form, code s 16 8. Cure - hot month of august, gaining form 7. PartinG - balanced, has that "it" factor where he can all-kill in SPL or 4-0 a GSL group and no one would be that surprised 6. SoO - strong BoXs vs top Koreans. falls flat in the clutch and without time to prepare 5. Taeja - it's summer, he won 3 tourneys, altho they were foreign, altho he beat some decent competition 4. Maru - very balanced player with good consistency 3. Zest - 2 GSLs, a silver in IEM Toronto, and #1 in the Asian qualifier: very strong recent results in player leagues, but in PvT, his over-reliance on blink into colossus is getting figured out and delaying upgrades so long is unsustainable 2. FlaSh - kinda obvious 1. Rain - less momentum, but similar results over a much longer time frame
On September 02 2014 03:25 Superbanana wrote: Honestly, i think Maru, Taeja, Parting and Rain are too high on the list, while Cure, soO and iNnoVation are too low. *runs away Anyways, its very hard to evaluate "who is the best right now?", despite recent results im pretty sure sOs, herO and Solar still know how to play and that they maybe deserve a place on the list Its not the same as " who played better this month?", something that is not as hard to answer. Not an an easy task so i call this power rank a good job. The foreign list is prolly my own list, except that i would switch Sen with Bunny
herO has been awful since Protoss hasn't been dominating. Innovation hasn't really shown much.
The end of protoss domination is quite recent, i believe that herO is a trully skilled player that might get back on track after a very short period of underwhelming results. And its true iNnovation hasn't shown much, and that alone is enough to take him out of an objective list, but that doesn't necessarily makes the list better Myself, i believe that iNnovation is top 10 in the world and actually highter than its placed on this power rank. About the other you agree? lol edit: in other words im making subjective statements about player skills
And now i have an objective reason to believe Parting and Maru are too high and iNnoVation is too low Wait and see, iNnoVation will get a kespa team and have great results in GSL and proleague from now on.
I seem to remember this one guy who won a global tournament full of Koreans in August. Oh and I think he also made GSL round of 8 last night. No? Doesn't ring a bell?
On September 06 2014 12:46 neoghaleon55 wrote: I seem to remember this one guy who won a global tournament full of Koreans in August. Oh and I think he also made GSL round of 8 last night. No? Doesn't ring a bell?
Maybe if he beats Flash or makes code S for something like 13 seasons in a row people will start to realize he's still a beast.
On September 06 2014 12:46 neoghaleon55 wrote: I seem to remember this one guy who won a global tournament full of Koreans in August. Oh and I think he also made GSL round of 8 last night. No? Doesn't ring a bell?
Maybe if he beats Flash or makes code S for something like 13 seasons in a row people will start to realize he's still a beast.
Lol, you've also at least got to win an international tournament like Polt
On September 06 2014 12:46 neoghaleon55 wrote: I seem to remember this one guy who won a global tournament full of Koreans in August. Oh and I think he also made GSL round of 8 last night. No? Doesn't ring a bell?
In order for Zealously to take into account DRG's success in the round of 16 he would have had to use his time machine. That's against both current international law and the zvardrian understanding of 3005.
On September 06 2014 12:46 neoghaleon55 wrote: I seem to remember this one guy who won a global tournament full of Koreans in August. Oh and I think he also made GSL round of 8 last night. No? Doesn't ring a bell?
I'm sorry neo, I promise I'll put SlumpRaeGu on the next PR <3
On September 06 2014 20:47 bo1b wrote: Fuck no, he's not good enough yet.
neo does have a valid point. Combining his August performances with a quarterfinal appearance gives him a better case than most players that ended up just outside the Top 10. We'll see what happens in the Ro8, but I could definitely see it if he doesn't crash completely.
On September 06 2014 20:47 bo1b wrote: Fuck no, he's not good enough yet.
neo does have a valid point. Combining his August performances with a quarterfinal appearance gives him a better case than most players that ended up just outside the Top 10. We'll see what happens in the Ro8, but I could definitely see it if he doesn't crash completely.
On September 06 2014 20:47 bo1b wrote: Fuck no, he's not good enough yet.
neo does have a valid point. Combining his August performances with a quarterfinal appearance gives him a better case than most players that ended up just outside the Top 10. We'll see what happens in the Ro8, but I could definitely see it if he doesn't crash completely.
Eh, theres got to be something more to a top 10 player in the world then good results. The games last night weren't indicative of top 10 performance imo
On September 06 2014 22:37 Loccstana wrote: Dont worry Flash will win Kespa Cup, Dreamhack, and then the Blizzcon finals. Here is my prediction of Flash's bracket at Kespa Cup:
Eh, theres got to be something more to a top 10 player in the world then good results. The games last night weren't indicative of top 10 performance imo
And this is 100% true. Flash vs Donraegu was not code s level play.
On September 06 2014 20:47 bo1b wrote: Fuck no, he's not good enough yet.
neo does have a valid point. Combining his August performances with a quarterfinal appearance gives him a better case than most players that ended up just outside the Top 10. We'll see what happens in the Ro8, but I could definitely see it if he doesn't crash completely.
Eh, theres got to be something more to a top 10 player in the world then good results. The games last night weren't indicative of top 10 performance imo
can i use this one on ladder? "there's more to being a good player than results" as i gg out while being 7gated
On September 06 2014 20:47 bo1b wrote: Fuck no, he's not good enough yet.
neo does have a valid point. Combining his August performances with a quarterfinal appearance gives him a better case than most players that ended up just outside the Top 10. We'll see what happens in the Ro8, but I could definitely see it if he doesn't crash completely.
Eh, theres got to be something more to a top 10 player in the world then good results. The games last night weren't indicative of top 10 performance imo
can i use this one on ladder? "there's more to being a good player than results" as i gg out while being 7gated
hehe yeah i agree. Results are everything when speaking about the best players. With that i mean overall resutls, not if you win one tournament and have medicore results the rest of the time. It doesn't simply matter how you win the games, as long as you do it consistently you are a good player.
On September 06 2014 20:47 bo1b wrote: Fuck no, he's not good enough yet.
neo does have a valid point. Combining his August performances with a quarterfinal appearance gives him a better case than most players that ended up just outside the Top 10. We'll see what happens in the Ro8, but I could definitely see it if he doesn't crash completely.
Eh, theres got to be something more to a top 10 player in the world then good results. The games last night weren't indicative of top 10 performance imo
can i use this one on ladder? "there's more to being a good player than results" as i gg out while being 7gated
hehe yeah i agree. Results are everything when speaking about the best players. With that i mean overall resutls, not if you win one tournament and have medicore results the rest of the time. It doesn't simply matter how you win the games, as long as you do it consistently you are a good player.
I don't think that's true either. Obviously you deserve a lot of credit if you win a lot, but it's hardly unheard of to say that one player (Innovation after his 3-4 GSL finals loss) is better than the player (Soulkey) that beat him. That doesn't make sense if we only take results into account.
On September 06 2014 20:47 bo1b wrote: Fuck no, he's not good enough yet.
neo does have a valid point. Combining his August performances with a quarterfinal appearance gives him a better case than most players that ended up just outside the Top 10. We'll see what happens in the Ro8, but I could definitely see it if he doesn't crash completely.
Eh, theres got to be something more to a top 10 player in the world then good results. The games last night weren't indicative of top 10 performance imo
can i use this one on ladder? "there's more to being a good player than results" as i gg out while being 7gated
No you can't, I'm the only person who has ever thought of that so I own it, and if you use it I'll sue.
On September 06 2014 20:47 bo1b wrote: Fuck no, he's not good enough yet.
neo does have a valid point. Combining his August performances with a quarterfinal appearance gives him a better case than most players that ended up just outside the Top 10. We'll see what happens in the Ro8, but I could definitely see it if he doesn't crash completely.
Eh, theres got to be something more to a top 10 player in the world then good results. The games last night weren't indicative of top 10 performance imo
can i use this one on ladder? "there's more to being a good player than results" as i gg out while being 7gated
hehe yeah i agree. Results are everything when speaking about the best players. With that i mean overall resutls, not if you win one tournament and have medicore results the rest of the time. It doesn't simply matter how you win the games, as long as you do it consistently you are a good player.
I don't think that's true either. Obviously you deserve a lot of credit if you win a lot, but it's hardly unheard of to say that one player (Innovation after his 3-4 GSL finals loss) is better than the player (Soulkey) that beat him. That doesn't make sense if we only take results into account.
Yeah sure, that's why i said overall results. One tournament doesn't make or break a player in my opinion. I just don't believe in this idea to watch the games and define the skill of the player that way. If he loses a lot he isn't on the lvl, simple as that. Theoretical construct: If someone would win 70% of his games with canon rushes, he would still be a very good player imo. (obviously he needs to do that on the highest lvl of competition). The game defines the rules, it doesn't matter what style the player uses to win with. We maybe could say he doesn't use a style which requires a lot of apm, but that isn't everything in the game. (and we probably would be right in saying that the style is boring to watch, but that is something different entirely)
On September 06 2014 20:47 bo1b wrote: Fuck no, he's not good enough yet.
neo does have a valid point. Combining his August performances with a quarterfinal appearance gives him a better case than most players that ended up just outside the Top 10. We'll see what happens in the Ro8, but I could definitely see it if he doesn't crash completely.
Eh, theres got to be something more to a top 10 player in the world then good results. The games last night weren't indicative of top 10 performance imo
can i use this one on ladder? "there's more to being a good player than results" as i gg out while being 7gated
hehe yeah i agree. Results are everything when speaking about the best players. With that i mean overall resutls, not if you win one tournament and have medicore results the rest of the time. It doesn't simply matter how you win the games, as long as you do it consistently you are a good player.
I don't think that's true either. Obviously you deserve a lot of credit if you win a lot, but it's hardly unheard of to say that one player (Innovation after his 3-4 GSL finals loss) is better than the player (Soulkey) that beat him. That doesn't make sense if we only take results into account.
Yeah sure, that's why i said overall results. One tournament doesn't make or break a player in my opinion. I just don't believe in this idea to watch the games and define the skill of the player that way. If he loses a lot with it he isn't on the lvl, simple as that. Theoretical construct: If someone would win 70% of his games with canon rushes, he would still be a very good play imo. (obviously he needs to do that on the highest lvl of competition). The game defines the rules, it doesn't matter what style the player uses to win with. We maybe could say he doesn't use a style which requires a lot of apm, but that isn't everything in the game. (and we probably would be right in saying that the style is boring to watch, but that is something different entirely)
I agree, But I still can't stand all the cheesy play. I feel robbed of entertainment as a fan.
On September 06 2014 20:47 bo1b wrote: !@#$%^&* no, he's not good enough yet.
neo does have a valid point. Combining his August performances with a quarterfinal appearance gives him a better case than most players that ended up just outside the Top 10. We'll see what happens in the Ro8, but I could definitely see it if he doesn't crash completely.
Eh, theres got to be something more to a top 10 player in the world then good results. The games last night weren't indicative of top 10 performance imo
can i use this one on ladder? "there's more to being a good player than results" as i gg out while being 7gated
hehe yeah i agree. Results are everything when speaking about the best players. With that i mean overall resutls, not if you win one tournament and have medicore results the rest of the time. It doesn't simply matter how you win the games, as long as you do it consistently you are a good player.
I don't think that's true either. Obviously you deserve a lot of credit if you win a lot, but it's hardly unheard of to say that one player (Innovation after his 3-4 GSL finals loss) is better than the player (Soulkey) that beat him. That doesn't make sense if we only take results into account.
Yeah sure, that's why i said overall results. One tournament doesn't make or break a player in my opinion. I just don't believe in this idea to watch the games and define the skill of the player that way. If he loses a lot he isn't on the lvl, simple as that. Theoretical construct: If someone would win 70% of his games with canon rushes, he would still be a very good player imo. (obviously he needs to do that on the highest lvl of competition). The game defines the rules, it doesn't matter what style the player uses to win with. We maybe could say he doesn't use a style which requires a lot of apm, but that isn't everything in the game. (and we probably would be right in saying that the style is boring to watch, but that is something different entirely)
It's definitely extremely dangeous to rely too much on subjective game-analysis to determine who is the best player. Your so easily getting biased depending on whether the player plays an entertaining playstyle or not, or whether your more exposed to that player.
I think, however subjective game analysis can be helpful in some situations, but it's important that you start up with the quantiative analysis first. Look at all the data, all the results and get a sense of an overal ranking based on ojbective numbers. I would probably divide win/rates based on enemy-skill. E.g. win/rate against top15 players, against rank 16-40 players and 40+. If a player has a below 50% win/rates vs top-15 player, but around 50% win/rates vs rank 16-40, he should probably be placed in the latter category.
Then in order to determine more specific ranks (e.g. whther he should be placed 5th or 7th), you can look a bit closer at the game he has played. For instance, it can be kinda deceiving to just look at Polt's 3-0 win over Taeja. Did he win becasue he genuinly was a better player or was it more of a "volatile" win? If the latter is the case, then that result should have less of an impact on the overall ranking. Thus use subjective analysis in order to determine whether 1 or 2 wins (or losses) can be attributed to short-term variance or whether they actually provide a strong indication of the players skills.
On September 06 2014 20:47 bo1b wrote: Fuck no, he's not good enough yet.
All I have seen you post is shit about DRG. Did he do something to you?
I'm a big fan of him, past the point where all I do is ignore his faults in game. If you think me pointing out that the last few games have been mediocre from what he needs to be in the top 10 then tbh you're blind. Tbh, I don't think I've missed a broad casted game he's played, maybe ever. That includes the replays he gave us when teamliquid had that interview with korea series going.
So no, I'm a fan, and no, I don't just post shit about him.
This list is an interesting read but it is too subjective. According to Aligulac Maru is only the 25th best player, not the second best player in the world.
On September 09 2014 01:53 MockHamill wrote: This list is an interesting read but it is too subjective. According to Aligulac Maru is only the 25th best player, not the second best player in the world.
And Aligulac is wrong.
Edit: to clarify, the "correct" answer is likely somwhere in between. But to say that there are 24 players in the world that are better than Maru (and that YoDa and Bunny are among them) is very silly.
On September 09 2014 01:53 MockHamill wrote: This list is an interesting read but it is too subjective. According to Aligulac Maru is only the 25th best player, not the second best player in the world.
And Aligulac is wrong.
Edit: to clarify, the "correct" answer is likely somwhere in between. But to say that there are 24 players in the world that are better than Maru (and that YoDa and Bunny are among them) is very silly.
Yeah, in particular Aligulac seems to really underrate soO as well
Am I the only one who disagrees with Rain being number 1? He's not bad, it's just I don't believe he's nearly the best player in the world right now. He just hasn't won anything major in a long time.
On September 09 2014 01:53 MockHamill wrote: This list is an interesting read but it is too subjective. According to Aligulac Maru is only the 25th best player, not the second best player in the world.
Aligulac favors players that play against weaker players.
On September 09 2014 02:21 Brutaxilos wrote: Am I the only one who disagrees with Rain being number 1? He's not bad, it's just I don't believe he's nearly the best player in the world right now. He just hasn't won anything major in a long time.
If you read back through the thread you will find tons of people who disagree with Rain being #1. SOLIDARITY
On September 09 2014 02:21 Ursad0n wrote: Life will always be number 1 on my personal ranking!
You have good taste
On September 09 2014 02:21 Brutaxilos wrote: Am I the only one who disagrees with Rain being number 1? He's not bad, it's just I don't believe he's nearly the best player in the world right now. He just hasn't won anything major in a long time.
You're not the only one, but I'll ask you the same question I've asked everyone else: how much have you seen of Rain recently?
On September 09 2014 01:53 MockHamill wrote: This list is an interesting read but it is too subjective. According to Aligulac Maru is only the 25th best player, not the second best player in the world.
Aligulac favors players that play against weaker players.
It's exactly why Ourk and KingKong are ranked so highly
On September 09 2014 02:21 Brutaxilos wrote: Am I the only one who disagrees with Rain being number 1? He's not bad, it's just I don't believe he's nearly the best player in the world right now. He just hasn't won anything major in a long time.
You're not the only one, but I'll ask you the same question I've asked everyone else: how much have you seen of Rain recently?
That line could be from a shady merchant on the street selling some miracle tonic! Sorry it jumped me and wanted out.
On September 09 2014 02:21 Brutaxilos wrote: Am I the only one who disagrees with Rain being number 1? He's not bad, it's just I don't believe he's nearly the best player in the world right now. He just hasn't won anything major in a long time.
You're not the only one, but I'll ask you the same question I've asked everyone else: how much have you seen of Rain recently?
I'm curious if there's a ranking anywhere of the best players in the world with a longer time frame in mind. It'd be nice if TL had this as well as the Power Rank. That way fans could see the reasoning behind the power rank in context of the longer term results.
For example: Zest currently holds best in the world honer, but Rain is #1 on Power Rank based on recent beastly results (Show results).
I could be persuaded Rain is playing the best starcraft in the world ATM, but not that he's the Best In The World. Best In the World being a longer term ranking. The distinction being time frame.
Plus TL is one of the few organisations in the world with the credibility to declare a world #1.
Can anyone do their own power rankings? I mean sure mine will just be a giant picture of Life but it would be nice to have something to do on the first of every month
As a general comment to those talking about head-to-head results. Look at this power ranking. Even though Soukey won the head to head and the GSL he didn't win number one in the power rank, you can then read the next 44 pages of people whining about that decision, just like any power ranking.
They should have put Snute in Polt's spot, would have loved to see the rage from Kespa fanboys at how a foreigner could possibly be a top 10 player in the world
On September 09 2014 07:35 Dodgin wrote: They should have put Snute in Polt's spot, would have loved to see the rage from Kespa fanboys at how a foreigner could possibly be a top 10 player in the world
On September 09 2014 07:35 Dodgin wrote: They should have put Snute in Polt's spot, would have loved to see the rage from Kespa fanboys at how a foreigner could possibly be a top 10 player in the world
On September 09 2014 07:17 NexUmbra wrote: As a general comment to those talking about head-to-head results. Look at this power ranking. Even though Soukey won the head to head and the GSL he didn't win number one in the power rank, you can then read the next 44 pages of people whining about that decision, just like any power ranking.
Yeh, I don't understand how TL authors can voluntary make articles and read all the retarded comments like "X won against Y and therefore it's a proof that X is better than Y".