[Korean Column] Savior, where Bonjwa Starts & Ends

On November 07 2009 19:25 QibingZero wrote:
Interesting, though I guess this just proves that the definition of bonjwa is different depending on who you ask. Personally, I thought savior's dominance was more rooted in his game management and star sense than anything else. Just about anyone who is even remotely considered bonjwa fits some of this criteria, after all.

Being a newcomer when winning a championship?

This is obvious. Boxer, GARIMTO, Nada, July, Anytime, Savior, and Jaedong have all been royal roaders. oov surfaced not only with wins, but a ridiculous style of play. Bisu came out of nowhere to win his first MSL. Flash was an unknown beating all kinds of people (including Bisu himself). Pretty much everyone who wins a starleague has made a splash on the scene - it's just a matter of whether or not they stayed.

Better than the rest of your race? Wins on unfavorable maps?

These even fit today's dominant players like Jaedong, Flash, and Bisu. All have been unquestionably the top of their race, and have found ways to reverse the trend on various maps (Jaedong and Flash on Katrina, for example). Jaedong is probably the best example here, since it's taken other zergs ages to finally catch up to where he was at, and a lot of that has to do with zergs having maps in their favor now.

Overall dominance?

Savior was at about 69% for his span of 4 starleague wins and 2 MSL silvers.

Jaedong was also at 69% from EVER2007 to Bacchus 2009 (and surprisingly higher if you were to end it at Batoo instead). That's also 4 starleague wins in almost exactly the same amount of time. He also won GOM Classic 1, WCG Korea, GOM's special match vs Bisu, and had an MSL silver.

Flash is right at 70% from Bacchus to GOM Classic 3, and over 70% if you include his current streak. Of course, this only includes one starleague win and some GOM league ownage.

Bisu was actually a bit lower at 65% for his span of 3 Starleague wins, though his were over a slightly longer period of time (a little over 2 years, while the others are all a little under 2 years). He also won GOM Classic 2 during this time and had an MSL silver.

Interesting notes:

- Savior played around half the matches the others did in the same amount of time
- Flash and Jaedong destroyed Proleague (and really still are)
- Bisu's lower win % has a lot to do with the fact he started off shaky in proleague, even though he fared very well in individual leagues

Winning multiple game matches?

Savior was 9-2 in bo5 matches during the period of dominance mentioned above.

Jaedong was 13-2, and has beaten Bisu so I'm really not sure what the poster is talking about (I counted Savior's win vs Nada in Superfight, too). Maybe he means only bo5s that took place in the MSL or OSL, because Jaedong also won a bo3 they played in the MSL.

Bisu was 13-3 (1 loss to Jaedong, 1 loss to Flash).

Flash was 9-3 (2 of those losses to Jaedong).

These are ridiculous numbers when you consider that they're happening at very much the same time as each other.

So yeah, I don't think these are the factors that made savior bonjwa. Sure, it's part stats, but it's also feeling. Feeling in the same way star sense is feeling. When Savior played, you knew he was going to somehow find victory, regardless of what his opponent was doing at the time. Despite being one of the best and closest games of all time, it somehow wasn't that surprising when Savior beat Iris during Shinhan 3. That was what he did - he found victory no matter where it was hiding.

It's that type of feeling where a player knows the game so well you sense as if he'd be no better if he were actually maphacking. Savior had it, and we've seen glimpses of that only a few times since (for me, a huge one was Jaedong's comeback vs fantasy during Batoo).

Having said that, the stats I listed above are pretty crazy, and do merit discussion if we're going to go along the path this poster would suggest.