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On August 19 2018 20:44 RealityTheGreat wrote: Naniwa...Sad... Why not mention Jim?
Because Naniwa was second only to Stephano as a foreigner in the glory days of SC2, and Jim wasn't ever even in the Top 5 (10?) of foreigners. I only wish there was a way to accurately compare Serral and Neeb to the old guard of foreigners who had played against Mvp, Nestea, MC, etc. in the GSL. If Neeb and Serral had excelled during WoL and HotS, I wonder how they'd measure up to Stephano, Naniwa, Jinro, IdrA, HuK, Thorzain, and the other old school foreigners.
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On August 20 2018 07:02 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2018 20:44 RealityTheGreat wrote: Naniwa...Sad... Why not mention Jim? Because Naniwa was second only to Stephano as a foreigner in the glory days of SC2, and Jim wasn't ever even in the Top 5 (10?) of foreigners. I only wish there was a way to accurately compare Serral and Neeb to the old guard of foreigners who had played against Mvp, Nestea, MC, etc. in the GSL. If Neeb and Serral had excelled during WoL and HotS, I wonder how they'd measure up to Stephano, Naniwa, Jinro, IdrA, HuK, Thorzain, and the other old school foreigners. In WCS America Season 1, Neeb made the ro16 and took a map off of Polt. In the ro16, he beat HuK in the loser's match and lost 1-2 against Revival in the final match. Had HotS continued longer, and if Neeb had stayed Terran, I think it's safe to say that Neeb could have become one of the best foreign Terrans.
As for Protoss, Neeb's first games were in April of 2015. Just under four months later, he beat Stardust to qualify for WCS Premier season 3. He then went out in the ro32. Now, Stardust was never a top Korean, but he did manage to win WCS EU Season 2 in 2014 as well as reach the ro8 in the prior 2015 season.
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China6282 Posts
On August 20 2018 07:22 FrkFrJss wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2018 07:02 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On August 19 2018 20:44 RealityTheGreat wrote: Naniwa...Sad... Why not mention Jim? Because Naniwa was second only to Stephano as a foreigner in the glory days of SC2, and Jim wasn't ever even in the Top 5 (10?) of foreigners. I only wish there was a way to accurately compare Serral and Neeb to the old guard of foreigners who had played against Mvp, Nestea, MC, etc. in the GSL. If Neeb and Serral had excelled during WoL and HotS, I wonder how they'd measure up to Stephano, Naniwa, Jinro, IdrA, HuK, Thorzain, and the other old school foreigners. In WCS America Season 1, Neeb made the ro16 and took a map off of Polt. In the ro16, he beat HuK in the loser's match and lost 1-2 against Revival in the final match. Had HotS continued longer, and if Neeb had stayed Terran, I think it's safe to say that Neeb could have become one of the best foreign Terrans. As for Protoss, Neeb's first games were in April of 2015. Just under four months later, he beat Stardust to qualify for WCS Premier season 3. He then went out in the ro32. Now, Stardust was never a top Korean, but he did manage to win WCS EU Season 2 in 2014 as well as reach the ro8 in the prior 2015 season. To be fair though winning 2013-2014 era NA/EU WCS almost means nothing because the gap was massive.
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Canada8772 Posts
On August 20 2018 05:25 Phredxor wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2018 01:51 D-light wrote:On August 20 2018 01:26 Nakajin wrote:On August 19 2018 20:44 RealityTheGreat wrote: Naniwa...Sad... Why not mention Jim? Did Jim ever get close to winning a big tournament? I must say I can't remember. Also it's kind of sad but Naniwa seem like a legit asshole, can't say I feel too bad for him. Not close really, but his IEM Shenzhen run could probably fit in the OP? Though I don't remember how impressive his play looked, or how crushing the defeat was. (And not going to now spend hours re-watching all the games) Irrelevant anyway as Jim isn't white.
As non-white goes Sen is always the one getting forgotten, he is the only one with Lilbow winning than a premier in Hots and the only one without a hard region lock and was one of the top foreigner for a long ass time.
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On August 20 2018 05:25 Phredxor wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2018 01:51 D-light wrote:On August 20 2018 01:26 Nakajin wrote:On August 19 2018 20:44 RealityTheGreat wrote: Naniwa...Sad... Why not mention Jim? Did Jim ever get close to winning a big tournament? I must say I can't remember. Also it's kind of sad but Naniwa seem like a legit asshole, can't say I feel too bad for him. Not close really, but his IEM Shenzhen run could probably fit in the OP? Though I don't remember how impressive his play looked, or how crushing the defeat was. (And not going to now spend hours re-watching all the games) Irrelevant anyway as Jim isn't white.
Eh, Jim's still a foreigner... He's just not as good as other foreigners.
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On August 20 2018 07:24 digmouse wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2018 07:22 FrkFrJss wrote:On August 20 2018 07:02 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On August 19 2018 20:44 RealityTheGreat wrote: Naniwa...Sad... Why not mention Jim? Because Naniwa was second only to Stephano as a foreigner in the glory days of SC2, and Jim wasn't ever even in the Top 5 (10?) of foreigners. I only wish there was a way to accurately compare Serral and Neeb to the old guard of foreigners who had played against Mvp, Nestea, MC, etc. in the GSL. If Neeb and Serral had excelled during WoL and HotS, I wonder how they'd measure up to Stephano, Naniwa, Jinro, IdrA, HuK, Thorzain, and the other old school foreigners. In WCS America Season 1, Neeb made the ro16 and took a map off of Polt. In the ro16, he beat HuK in the loser's match and lost 1-2 against Revival in the final match. Had HotS continued longer, and if Neeb had stayed Terran, I think it's safe to say that Neeb could have become one of the best foreign Terrans. As for Protoss, Neeb's first games were in April of 2015. Just under four months later, he beat Stardust to qualify for WCS Premier season 3. He then went out in the ro32. Now, Stardust was never a top Korean, but he did manage to win WCS EU Season 2 in 2014 as well as reach the ro8 in the prior 2015 season. To be fair though winning 2013-2014 era NA/EU WCS almost means nothing because the gap was massive. True, which is why taking a game of Polt and Revival was a big thing.
Also, the post I was responding to specifically talked about the older foreign players, so the presence of a gap is irrelevant.
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On August 19 2018 16:44 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2018 16:02 digmouse wrote:On August 19 2018 13:43 argonautdice wrote: my prediction is serral won't win wcs Montreal or blizzcon but he'll do well. People arent going to bother with predicting whether he'll win Montreal. I'm pretty curious how the betting sites will set the lines for Montreal. Serral getting better-than-even odds to win it all seems like a lock—it's just a matter of HOW ridiculously favored he becomes.
Historically, players who win an event like this often have a small lull in performance. Given the state of Neeb's pvz, and the fact that he is probably practicing insanely hard since he made it to GSL, I would look at neeb for a potential upset at one of those venues.
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On August 19 2018 18:05 TheDougler wrote: In the list of foriegner heart breaks, in my mind none is more tragic than Grubby, after winning a stunning upset over the Boss Toss himself in an epic Phoenix vs Phoenix pvp, where MC dared to try to outmicro one of the best WC3 players of all time, he went up against Sting, who had made it out of his group 3-2 and a better map score than Tefel who also went 3-2, only to beat lucifron 3-2, then Yugioh the gatekeeper of Code A 3-2, then Vortix 3-2, and finally in the finals of IEM Singapore, defeated Grubby 3-2, and then disappeared into the night. Never to be heard from again.
Anyways, congrats to Serral, it was a magnificent run. I thought for sure he'd collapse after going down 0-2 against Stats.
I think Scarlett vs Trap at MLG 2014 has got to be the most heartbreaking. Scarlett was on a magical run after beating Beating DRG with protoss and Life in zvz, she was going to face Polt next in her strongest matchup, ZvT. Not too many weeks later she beat Polt like 6-1 at that weird Red Bull tournament. Eveyrthing was set, game three on Frost She has a massive worker advantage with mass muta, somehow doesn't break trap, DT's wreck two expansions and somehow Trap manages to win.
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On August 20 2018 05:46 veniss wrote: Long time lurker, first time poster.
At the time of KeSPA Cup 2016, -KeSPA was fifteen days away from dropping Proleague, and with it would go most of the sc2 divisions of teams in Korea. -Rogue was universally praised, but it was clear to everyone he hadn't yet found that next gear. His Proleague record that year was 13-9, the best of any Zerg. -Zest won three GSLs and an IEM Katowice. He also was KT's ace and captain. -Stats was Proleague's best player that year at 27-9. He all-killed SKT that year and his best matchup in Proleague was PvP.
Between Rogue (Proleague's best Zerg), Zest (4 premiere wins), Stats (Proleague's best player, Cross-Finals champion), and Trap (sOs' understudy), they combined for half as many wins as Neeb's practice partner. In the twilight of KeSPA, that the combined powers of Jin Air and KT got half as much done as a newer pick up from MVP is the chef kisses fingers gif.
So long as we don't undersell Serral's achievement, I think we can fairly knock this essay for recency bias.
I agree Neeb's win was extremely impressive, but I do feel there Serrel's win is legitimately better. Clearly Neeb won his tournament off of a better understanding of the PvP meta, iirc this was still pretty early in LotV and the PvP meta was still getting figured out and changing, Neeb played a more correct meta and the Koreans had no answer in that tournament.
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On August 20 2018 12:27 SlammerIV wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2018 05:46 veniss wrote: Long time lurker, first time poster.
At the time of KeSPA Cup 2016, -KeSPA was fifteen days away from dropping Proleague, and with it would go most of the sc2 divisions of teams in Korea. -Rogue was universally praised, but it was clear to everyone he hadn't yet found that next gear. His Proleague record that year was 13-9, the best of any Zerg. -Zest won three GSLs and an IEM Katowice. He also was KT's ace and captain. -Stats was Proleague's best player that year at 27-9. He all-killed SKT that year and his best matchup in Proleague was PvP.
Between Rogue (Proleague's best Zerg), Zest (4 premiere wins), Stats (Proleague's best player, Cross-Finals champion), and Trap (sOs' understudy), they combined for half as many wins as Neeb's practice partner. In the twilight of KeSPA, that the combined powers of Jin Air and KT got half as much done as a newer pick up from MVP is the chef kisses fingers gif.
So long as we don't undersell Serral's achievement, I think we can fairly knock this essay for recency bias. I agree Neeb's win was extremely impressive, but I do feel there Serrel's win is legitimately better. Clearly Neeb won his tournament off of a better understanding of the PvP meta, iirc this was still pretty early in LotV and the PvP meta was still getting figured out and changing, Neeb played a more correct meta and the Koreans had no answer in that tournament. Actually Stats countered Neeb's disruptor play perfectly with phoenix in their first game but somehow stopped doing so in the following 3 games.
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I hope there will be a Neeb vs Serral final at Montreal. That would be really hype and I think that Neeb's style matches well against Serral's.
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On August 20 2018 01:26 Nakajin wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2018 20:44 RealityTheGreat wrote: Naniwa...Sad... Why not mention Jim? Did Jim ever get close to winning a big tournament? I must say I can't remember. Also it's kind of sad but Naniwa seem like a legit asshole, can't say I feel too bad for him. IEM8 Shenzhen Jim defeated Life and Taeja in group,and then defeated San in Quarterfinal,Stopped by Solar.It may be the best achievement of foreign player in 2014? And it is seemed that Sen is also forgotten?Maybe his best archievement is in BL-Infector era.
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On August 20 2018 15:43 Anc13nt wrote: I hope there will be a Neeb vs Serral final at Montreal. That would be really hype and I think that Neeb's style matches well against Serral's.
I've been waiting for that to happen all year long at a WCS event. Neeb's PvZ is world class, I would bet it's top 5 at the moment, even among the Koreans. The thing with Neeb is that the longer the game goes, the stronger he becomes and the more hard it becomes to beat him. Dark knew this and cheesed him/threw weird strats at him. Serral is more standard and macro is also his strength, so it kinda plays to Neeb's strengths. Too bad Neeb runs into a Protoss and gets eliminated before that could happen.
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In comparison, Serral faced elite players in all three matchups (INnoVation, Dark and Stats represent a top three Korean Terran, top two Korean Zerg, and the best Korean Protoss), and absolutely demolished two of them Only half serious here, but dark and inno also represent ro16 players in code s :D (in inno's case top3 korean terran might not even be true, he should stop playing lol)
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On August 19 2018 16:44 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2018 16:02 digmouse wrote:On August 19 2018 13:43 argonautdice wrote: my prediction is serral won't win wcs Montreal or blizzcon but he'll do well. People arent going to bother with predicting whether he'll win Montreal. I'm pretty curious how the betting sites will set the lines for Montreal. Serral getting better-than-even odds to win it all seems like a lock—it's just a matter of HOW ridiculously favored he becomes.
For WCS EU challenger it was 75%. The next one was uThermal with 7.7% LUL.
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On August 19 2018 11:19 TeamLiquid ESPORTS wrote: he ended up winning the championship with a victory against Trap, a player firmly mired in Korea's middle-class I feel this speaks too lowly of Trap. Since that KeSPa Cup he has been ro16 every season in GSL, never finishing worse than 3rd in his group. That basically makes him consistently top 12 World for 2 years. But I get it the point. Just seems a bit forced. Everyone knows Neeb wasn't challenged by a top tier Terran, but beating Rogue too. Rogue looked like he was slumping, but maybe Neeb made him look like he was slumping. Rogue was still top 4 zerg at the time.
Anyway, not trying to say Serral's achievement wasn't more impressive.
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Serral also beat Maru in the team match. If you consider Stats to be the best Protoss player in the world, then technically, Serral beat the best Terran in the world and the best Protoss in the world.
I consider Dark to be the second best Zerg in Korea, after Rogue. So Serral also beat the second best Zerg in Korea.
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On August 20 2018 19:46 Kommander wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2018 15:43 Anc13nt wrote: I hope there will be a Neeb vs Serral final at Montreal. That would be really hype and I think that Neeb's style matches well against Serral's. The thing with Neeb is that the longer the game goes, the stronger he becomes and the more hard it becomes to beat him. Dark knew this and cheesed him/threw weird strats at him. Serral is more standard and macro is also his strength, so it kinda plays to Neeb's strengths. The thing with Serral on the other hand is that he's said and shown that he does actually do quite a bit of preparation for his series. So Serral might very well go with a similar strategy as Dark did against neeb, at least to some degree. Would certainly be interesting to see how the match would go.
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On August 20 2018 12:27 SlammerIV wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2018 05:46 veniss wrote: Long time lurker, first time poster.
At the time of KeSPA Cup 2016, -KeSPA was fifteen days away from dropping Proleague, and with it would go most of the sc2 divisions of teams in Korea. -Rogue was universally praised, but it was clear to everyone he hadn't yet found that next gear. His Proleague record that year was 13-9, the best of any Zerg. -Zest won three GSLs and an IEM Katowice. He also was KT's ace and captain. -Stats was Proleague's best player that year at 27-9. He all-killed SKT that year and his best matchup in Proleague was PvP.
Between Rogue (Proleague's best Zerg), Zest (4 premiere wins), Stats (Proleague's best player, Cross-Finals champion), and Trap (sOs' understudy), they combined for half as many wins as Neeb's practice partner. In the twilight of KeSPA, that the combined powers of Jin Air and KT got half as much done as a newer pick up from MVP is the chef kisses fingers gif.
So long as we don't undersell Serral's achievement, I think we can fairly knock this essay for recency bias. I agree Neeb's win was extremely impressive, but I do feel there Serrel's win is legitimately better. Clearly Neeb won his tournament off of a better understanding of the PvP meta, iirc this was still pretty early in LotV and the PvP meta was still getting figured out and changing, Neeb played a more correct meta and the Koreans had no answer in that tournament.
At bottom, I think we value different things. Neeb either invented or refined the PvP meta so well (I recall he and Puck really liked disruptors and both players made a grip of them back in the day) Neeb rode it to #1 on the KR server and a foreigner's first SC2 win on Korean soil. He was so dominant then that he achieved a thing that never happened before.
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