Power Rank 01/01/2011 - Page 15

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On January 07 2011 03:50 Severedevil wrote:

Bisu's results in the Golden Age seemed comparable to Flash in 2010, but Flash carried his run through three Starleague seasons to Bisu's one.

I think Bisu could have held that level of dominance for two seasons had it not been for unmanageable ZvP maps suddenly trashing the individual leagues (Tears of the Moon, Neo Harmony). But three seasons? Probably not.

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On January 06 2011 06:48 Severedevil wrote:
I'm inclined to discount Calm's and JulyZerg's victories as lucky flukes, since Calm's only strong opponents were busy carrying their teams through Proleague Finals SuperAce Matches after Calm was already eliminated...

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On January 07 2011 14:01 Musoeun wrote:


I'm never inclined to "discount" Starleague victories on any grounds (even July's, while kind of laughable, has at least one impressive moment: he got out of an all Z group). Do we "look at the stats" and discount Jaedong's win over fantasy because the Crown Prince is a terrible TvZer (by S-class standards, anyway)? Of course, not, because we all remember how epic that final was (but I still think that, for instance, Bisu (whom fantasy knocked out) would have beaten Jaedong at that time - there are always qualifications to make). Further, Calm is one of my favorite Zerg players, so I have to defend him. I'm not saying it was the hardest starleague run ever (I have no idea what that would be: possibly Bisu's first MSL, or GGPlay's OSL win, or fOrGG's run?) but Calm:

- beat Sea and ZerO (okay, old terrible ZvZ ZerO) to 2-0 his group
- 2-0 against fOrGG
- 3-0 against EffOrt (back when EvZ was the new hot thing)
- 3-1 against Jaedong (no comment)
- and then, yes, the final farce of the 3-1 drubbing he administered to Kwanro. Calm vs Iris would have been a better match, and would probably have "legitimized" the win to a lot of people (to say nothing of the hypothetical Calm vs Bisu final, which would have been amazing), but I'd guess Calm would still have won - and Kwanro's ZvZ is not that shabby.

Yes, Calm won a lot of his games on mindgames and out-thinking; but he beat 3 of the top ZvZ players in the world (and Sea, fOrGG, and ZerO, hardly scrubs) on that run. Don't knock it!

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On January 07 2011 14:01 Musoeun wrote:


I'm never inclined to "discount" Starleague victories on any grounds (even July's, while kind of laughable, has at least one impressive moment: he got out of an all Z group). Do we "look at the stats" and discount Jaedong's win over fantasy because the Crown Prince is a terrible TvZer (by S-class standards, anyway)? Of course, not, because we all remember how epic that final was (but I still think that, for instance, Bisu (whom fantasy knocked out) would have beaten Jaedong at that time - there are always qualifications to make). Further, Calm is one of my favorite Zerg players, so I have to defend him. I'm not saying it was the hardest starleague run ever (I have no idea what that would be: possibly Bisu's first MSL, or GGPlay's OSL win, or fOrGG's run?) but Calm:

- beat Sea and ZerO (okay, old terrible ZvZ ZerO) to 2-0 his group
- 2-0 against fOrGG
- 3-0 against EffOrt (back when EvZ was the new hot thing)
- 3-1 against Jaedong (no comment)
- and then, yes, the final farce of the 3-1 drubbing he administered to Kwanro. Calm vs Iris would have been a better match, and would probably have "legitimized" the win to a lot of people (to say nothing of the hypothetical Calm vs Bisu final, which would have been amazing), but I'd guess Calm would still have won - and Kwanro's ZvZ is not that shabby.

Yes, Calm won a lot of his games on mindgames and out-thinking; but he beat 3 of the top ZvZ players in the world (and Sea, fOrGG, and ZerO, hardly scrubs) on that run. Don't knock it!

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On January 07 2011 18:28 Goragoth wrote:

I like Calm a lot and he played well during that time (his most impressive game IMO was the 12-hatch versus 4 pool win he had against Kwanro in the finals) but honestly he had a ton of luck in his run. Just listing the opponents makes it look better than it was:
- fOrGG was already pretty bad at the time, hardly a top level opponent
- EffOrt was strong a ZvZ at the time but clearly over-worked carrying his team through PL playoffs and all three games were 9 pool versus 12 hatch BO wins for Calm.
- Jaedong... People read way to much into this series. For months afterwards people were hailing Calm as ZvZ god for taking down the mighty Jaedong in a Bo5, but seriously, Jaedong looked half dead that game. He had been working himself sick trying to carry his team in the PL playoffs, playing in the MSL and going for his golden mouse in the OSL. He was literally in hospital at some point around this time because he had practised so much that he fell ill. It's impressive that he even managed to win a single game that series.

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On January 08 2011 00:11 Musoeun wrote:
In non-Calm news, looks like Kal really wasn't a solid #3, and Modesty should maybe have HoGiL's spot.

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On January 08 2011 03:25 luckybeni2 wrote:

The wierd thing was that kal played so much better than him in game 2. Game 3 was fun to watch but I would not count it against kal too much. The map is 80% z>p. It was incredible defense and he almost came out on top.

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On January 08 2011 04:27 ZZangDreamjOy wrote:

That makes absolutely no sense. You can't play better then someone and still lose.

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On January 08 2011 04:27 ZZangDreamjOy wrote:

That makes absolutely no sense. You can't play better then someone and still lose.

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On January 08 2011 04:38 Mortality wrote:


I haven't seen the game, but I'll comment that no, a player can play better and still lose. For example a player can fall behind due to build order disadvantage or cheesy play and then *almost* succeed in making a comeback. Or a glitch can occur, like a tank popping for no reason. Or a reaver can decide it doesn't want its scarabs to do any damage. Or bad luck can occur with scouting or whatever. Or the map could be imbalanced, maybe racially imbalanced, or maybe one position mines faster than the other...

Many, many factors go into a game of Starcraft and some of them can cause the better player to lose.

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On January 08 2011 04:49 Holgerius wrote:

The better player can lose, but not the one who played better (in that specific game). That is my view on things. Of course there are extreme examples that you can argue has a lot to do with luck, but typically when we talk about build order advantages and stuff it can be attributed to mind games which is a very important tool when playing SC and most definitely a skill related thing. Execution of strategies and the mechanical part of the game are not the only relevant aspects of playing good SC.

Zzangwhateverhisnameis never said ''Modesty is the better player'', he only said that Kal didn't play better than him in Game 2 and even though I didn't watch the game too closely (was multitasking at the time) I agree with him. Kal lost, Modesty played better.

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