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If one were to look at TLPD right now, they would witness an unprecedented statistic: There are currently four players with an ELO over 2300. Of course these 4 players are the infamous Taek-Bang Lessang.
as of the time of writting, they sit at: Flash 2388 points Bisu 2329 points Jaedong 2326 points Stork 2306 points
Perhaps even more impressive is that the 5th highest ranked player right now, Hydra, is "only" at 2221 points, a whole 85 points away from stork. Clearly these 4 aren't just a step above the competition, but miles ahead of everyone else right now (or at least 85 ELO points ahead).
Now the reason I made a new thread for this instead of just posting this in the very old but still relevant ELO peaks thread is that I realized recently that these 4 have more or less been dominating the scene since 2007 (technically since Bisu defeated Savior in the MSL, nearly four years ago now), with at least 1 of these four at the top for different periods since. In StarCraft time, this is a HUGE amount of time, and these 4 have had an unprecedented reign of dominance on the scene. Has any group of progamers ever come close to not only dominating as hard as these guys, but dominating as long and as consistently? Since the beginning of 2007, there have been 11 OSLs and 11 MSLs and only 4 OSLs and 2 MSLs didnt feature at least one of Taek-Bang Leessang in the finals, not to mention that jaedong, bisu, and flash each won a GOM classic when it was basically a 3rd starleague (and I'll bet you 100 million esport bucks that a member of Taek-Bang Lessang takes will take both starleagues this season as well). And to keep things interesting, CJ winning the Winner's League finals in 2009 was the ONLY time a team that didnt feature a member of Taek-Bang Leessang won a team league.
I remember reading something about 2(?, maybe just 1) earlier generations of "four kings" that ruled the game for a long period of time. I think the original was boxer, reach, yellow, and either GARIMTO or NaDa. The next was I think oov, july, nal_ra, and i dont know. I looked and looked but couldnt find the FE that mentioned it :\. Either way I'm pretty sure that these groups of players weren't nearly as long-lasting or as dominant as the current kings of the game.
What's so amazing to me and IMO worth making a thread about is how these 4 just wont go away. Even after nearly 4 years of dominance, they (collectively) have arguably never been more ahead of the rest of the competition as they are right now. Usually a player rises to the top, stays for a while, and gently fades away. Believe it or not, there was a time when these four were all rookies themselves that came to replace the greats of old. What is almost scary for the state of starcraft is how no one else even looks CLOSE to being ready to replace one of these 4 one day. Even trying to think of a newcomer who might one day turn on fire and win a league is highly uncredible. Baby is good but he is still miles and miles behind flash (and it's not like he's that much younger than flash anyway). Shuttle is no better comparatively than he was 2 years ago. EffOrt retired but was never really going to be able to fill in JD's shoes anyway. There are many others who at one time or another looked like they might one day have a CHANCE of being the next big thing for their race, but to me at least it's never seemed so unlikely or so far off as it does right now.
The implications of their almost assured continued dominance is both exciting and terrifying. Since SC2 came out there have been even fewer rookies coming into the ranks, which means that the "far" future of BW seems very uncertain. Assuming the amount of rookies joining the scene starts to pick back up as SC2's popularity in Korea declines, Taek-Bang Leessang will inevitably start to decline in comparable skill, get old, join ACE, and I guess move on. But the time that it will take for a plethora of new rookies to actually exceed their skill AND have the youth advantage will be huge. Assuming that the current crop of "younger" progamers (such as soulkey, snow, hydra, etc) dont have what it takes to topple Taek-Bang Leessang (which im going to wager they DONT), it could be a long while before Taek-Bang Leessang is eventually overthrown and a new set of kings come to replace them.
Although it's almost scary to think that Taek-Bang Leessang might lead to a decline in BW viewership via constant domination, and that the chances of a new player winning a title seems to decrease every year, I really want a, all Taek-Bang Leessang semifinals in a starleague. Not since the Bacchus 2008 has there been the entire Taek-Bang Leessang in the Ro8 of a starleague. It is such a huge shame that flash and bisu were both outed of the starleagues so early this season, as perhaps this is the best time of all for Taek-Bang Leessang to square off in the same league. Perhaps the greatest thing for Taek-Bang Leessang AND the BW scene at large is for all four members to maintain their momentum going into the next round of starleagues, and finally (provided the brackets work out) give the fans a double Taek-Bang Leessang dominated semifinals.
+ Show Spoiler + Or at least someone should through a Taek-Bang Leessang-only invitational tournament. It's been forever since there's been any sort of special league. also hopefully stork/jaedong wont totally fail in the next 2 weeks and completely make me look like an idiot writing this lol
edit- basically im not too good at writing my thoughts down but let's basically discuss how dominate Taek-Bang Leessang is compared to past players, if they really have been this dominate for this long or are I am giving Taek-Bang too much credit despite sucking for most of 2010, if im buying into the hype too much, if new players will ever replace them at the top, and what their impending continued dominance might mean for the future of the BW scene (aka if they keep being the best for another few years, will that totally kill the BW scene or not?).
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Both Stork and Bisu had long periods when they were far away from the top. Only recently did they resurge. It's really only been Flash and Jaedong consistently at the pinnacle of progaming for the past two years.
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EffOrt was showing a lot of promise just before he retired. It makes me sad that you say he would never have been able to fill Jaedong's shoes.
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6 months ago noone would have expected Stork to be on the verge of winning 2 starleague golds. Things change in BW when players start to pick up momentum/motivation. Snow, Soulkey and Hydra are only into their 2nd full proleague season. There are even some really promising talents emerging from this season's Dream League. You're trying to predict the future 2-3 yrs down the road when even guessing what will happen 3 months from now is difficult.
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EffOrt would be up there now... iam pretty sure.. the last games we saw of him were freaking awesome good.
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Personally i also hope that TaekBangLeeSsang will make a ro4 appearance collectively in the next starleagues, chances are though, they won't : (((
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the only One i would say that would destroy the Taekbangleessang would be the Terrorist
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The next foursome that Korean netizens are trying to hype is "김장임박", or "Kim-Jang-Im-Bak".
Kim - Kim Min Chul (Neo.G_Soulkey) Jang - Jang yoOn Chul (Snow) IM - IM Tae Gyoo (Brave) Bak - Park Dae Ho (TurN)
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ALLEYCAT BLUES48897 Posts
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hydra snow (both of these guys show great potential in my mind) and like bogus or turn (i could see them getting dramatically better at some point)
thats what i can see. brave not so much... ^
However Yes it is SO CRAZY that they have proved over and over again that they are really masters at this game.
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Canada5565 Posts
Omg...you just made me think of something. I remember in past interviews (around WCG?) Flash and Jaedong (and maybe Bisu) saying "it would be amazing if we were on the same team etc. but it would never happen."
What if they all decided to join ACE at the same time...!!!
(and obviously it would be even better if Stork joined then as well, but I don't know his relationship with everyone else...Bisu isn't quite friends with JD/Flash either afaik, but Flash/JD "send each other encouraging texts" and whatnot)
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On January 25 2011 17:55 Xxio wrote: Omg...you just made me think of something. I remember in past interviews (around WCG?) Flash and Jaedong (and maybe Bisu) saying "it would be amazing if we were on the same team etc. but it would never happen."
What if they all decided to join ACE at the same time...!!!
(and obviously it would be even better if Stork joined then as well, but I don't know his relationship with everyone else...Bisu isn't quite friends with JD/Flash either afaik, but Flash/JD "send each other encouraging texts" and whatnot) Flash is only 18. While I certainly hope BW is still around for another 5+ years, it will be quite a while before he joins ACE.
Anyway, having them on the same team would be really boring. If a (theoretical) team is made up of nothing but team aces, for one they wouldn't all shine beucase the spotlight will have to be shared (especially with the WL format), and it would also make their games vs lesser players a lot more boring since it would mean the team's losing percentages would be very low.
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On January 25 2011 17:28 Ryo wrote: 6 months ago noone would have expected Stork to be on the verge of winning 2 starleague golds. Things change in BW when players start to pick up momentum/motivation. Snow, Soulkey and Hydra are only into their 2nd full proleague season. There are even some really promising talents emerging from this season's Dream League. You're trying to predict the future 2-3 yrs down the road when even guessing what will happen 3 months from now is difficult.
i beg to differ, im always expecting Stork to make it at least to the Ro4 if not finals in all individual leagues
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On January 25 2011 17:39 doothegee wrote:The next foursome that Korean netizens are trying to hype is "김장임박", or "Kim-Jang-Im-Bak". Kim - Kim Min Chul ( Neo.G_Soulkey) Jang - Jang yoOn Chul ( Snow) IM - IM Tae Gyoo ( Brave) Bak - Park Dae Ho ( TurN)
I love these little insights into the korean community.
Why is Turn 'Bak'?
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yeah I'd love it if they pull a Lebron/Wade/Bosh and decided to join ACE at the same time.
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On January 25 2011 18:02 nodule wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 17:39 doothegee wrote:The next foursome that Korean netizens are trying to hype is "김장임박", or "Kim-Jang-Im-Bak". Kim - Kim Min Chul ( Neo.G_Soulkey) Jang - Jang yoOn Chul ( Snow) IM - IM Tae Gyoo ( Brave) Bak - Park Dae Ho ( TurN) I love these little insights into the korean community. Why is Turn 'Bak'?
박 = Park. though its spelling is technically Pak/Bak. Just like Lee is spelled 이 = Ee.
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NO. Let me fix that for you... There
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On January 25 2011 17:55 Xxio wrote: Omg...you just made me think of something. I remember in past interviews (around WCG?) Flash and Jaedong (and maybe Bisu) saying "it would be amazing if we were on the same team etc. but it would never happen."
What if they all decided to join ACE at the same time...!!!
(and obviously it would be even better if Stork joined then as well, but I don't know his relationship with everyone else...Bisu isn't quite friends with JD/Flash either afaik, but Flash/JD "send each other encouraging texts" and whatnot) I'm pretty sure what they say would be something like it would be pretty boring if Flash, Jaedong, Bisu, and Stork were all on the same team since it would mean that it is practically impossible for that team to loose and would greatly lower the quality of the game.
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On January 25 2011 17:39 doothegee wrote:The next foursome that Korean netizens are trying to hype is "김장임박", or "Kim-Jang-Im-Bak". Kim - Kim Min Chul ( Neo.G_Soulkey) Jang - Jang yoOn Chul ( Snow) IM - IM Tae Gyoo ( Brave) Bak - Park Dae Ho ( TurN) I haven't seen enough of Turn to make a judgment but By.Sun > Brave. However none of them compare to Hydra atm. I think Hydra is ready to win a starleague this season, if not next season.
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