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1.

Stork[gm]

(P) (stats) +5 1 Before I started writing this Power Rank, I happened to take a trip back in time, scrolling through Power Ranks of months and years past. The novelty of this New Year's Power Rank is definitely not lost on me. The last time a Protoss sat atop the highest rank was May 15th, 2009. Since then, with a few exceptions, it's been... Flash and Jaedong.



But not this month. Considering the few, ahem, mishaps Progamers F and J have had in December, it's high time that we elected a new king. And by elected, I mean I decided. And by king, I mean Stork. Being one of three left in both leagues, the time is now for Stork to take his second gold... or seventeenth million silver. And he's certainly playing at a championship level. Though I'm still hesitant to say that Stork would be favored over a good PvP player, his PvZ is definitely getting closer to SvJ (that is, Stork vs Jaedong) level. And need I even talk about his PvT? As Waxangel says, "Forget JvZ, Stork vs Terran is the new vogue". Look at it this way: the only Terran that Stork has lost to this season has been Flash. Sick. Whether it be with carriers (Storkriers? Storks? Some other bird name that sounds like Carrier that can be used to make a bad pun?) or arbiters, or even simply with ground-based armies, Stork has made mincemeat out of all the Terran opposition.



For this month at least, placing Stork in the top seat is pretty unquestionable. He's got the record--13 wins and 3 losses (with one loss against Shine made inconsequential by tiebreaker domination)--and he's showing the skill needed to back it up. With both leagues open to him, let's see if everybody's favorite dinosaur can keep it up. He's even said he's going to actually cut down on the cell phone games to practice for OSL.

2.

Bisu

(P) (stats) +5 1 A few more points of trivia: as mentioned above, it's been a very long time since a Protoss was #1, and almost that long since a Protoss has been in the top two (June 12th, 2009). But it has been an eternity since Protoss have occupied both the 1 and 2 slot in the Power Rank, and it's fitting that they were, well, Stork and Bisu.



So, for the first time since December 14th, 2008, two Protoss sit in the two highest slots. Stork sits at 1, and Bisu at 2 for a pretty stellar month. Despite starting off the month with his first two losses in Proleague (against Kal and Action) for the season, Bisu has made a point of taking down everybody else he has played. I guess you could call this Bisu's month of revenge, since he smashed Iris in Proleague and 2-0ed his way out of the MSL Group of death with some immaculate play against Shine and Kal, his nemeses. While he's out of the OSL, Bisu is looking better and better for the MSL, considering that there are so many zergs left. His PvZ is looking scary indeed, since he took down ZerO and then Jaedong pretty easily, and he hasn't lost yet in PvT this season.



I'm sure some Bisu fans will be asking "well, why isn't Bisu #1 then?" Honestly, even though Bisu's had some very impressive wins, in some games I'm just not quite seeing it yet. He's definitely looking much stronger and more solid as of late, but he doesn't seem to have what Stork has right now. After all, I don't think Bisu can play cell phone games and dominate with carriers, now can he?

3.

Kal

(P) (stats) 0 3 What, another Protoss? Yes yes, last time it happened was November 10th, 2008. Incidentally, there's only been one tripling (ranks 1, 2, and 3) of both Protoss and Terran (Flash, Light, Sea on April 4th, 2010) in Power Rank so far. And surprisingly, or not-so- for me, zerg have never had the same dominance. It's been pretty much Jaedong. Sometimes with Effort, once in a while Luxury, but it's always been just Jaedong. They really weren't kidding when they said only one sits on the zerg throne.



Anyway, I originally had Jaedong at three. But when I started writing, something in the back of my mind kept kidney-punching me (try and visualize that now), so I eventually swapped out Jaedong for Kal and my head stopped hurting.



If anybody exemplifies mixed results this month, it's Goojilla. If you look at his December record, it's a paltry 9-9, a flat 50%. However, let's look past this statistic. Kal is still in both leagues, beating Flash to make it into the OSL Ro8 (where he smashed Modesty in their first game today) and taking second prize from the MSL group of death with some incredible play over Really and Shine. Honestly, if Kal had lost either his OSL game or not played so well for MSL, he'd be dropped so many ranks. But as it is, there's no denying it--Kal is one of the people to beat in the individual leagues, and is in a good position to win gold.



Despite all the individual league dominance, the #3 Kal of this month is a far cry from that of last month. Last month Kal was steady--he won in MSL, OSL, and in Proleague. This month's Kal... is not so good. He's 4-7 in Proleague. Granted, he's won two Ace matches for the team against great and Bisu, but he's also dropped one to Hydra. With ignominous losses to players like Crazy-Hydra, firebathero, Brave, and Horang2, Kal is definitely letting his team down. Honestly, if Kal were able to perform in Proleague like he does for OSL/MSL, STX would be very hard to stop.

4.

Jaedong

(Z) (stats) -2 1 The next two in line on the Power Rank are Jaedong and Flash. After much deliberation, I decided to post Jaedong at 4 over Flash. Granted, the Tyrant hasn't been playing at his best--you could say that his loss against HoGiL that shoved him out of the OSL was one of the worst showcasings of ZvZ decision-making in a long time, but in this time of confusion Jaedong is still scary. Jaedong's place over Flash is definitely one of contention, but given Flash's little slipups in the individual leagues I don't think many people are going to argue with me. Make no mistake though, Jaedong's not had the best month. He's knocked out of OSL, and in Proleague he's letting his team down (wow, can one really say that about OZ?) by not winning the crucial Ace matches. In fact, Jaedong doesn't have a single win over a strong player yet--Bisu, Light, Hydra, ZerO, Stork, and Light again again have all bested Jaedong this season.



Even with all these shortcomings though, I do not feel that Jaedong's time has come. When the other great players started slumping, they pretty much just started losing. To every random scrub. Jaedong is still dominating and dismantling said scrubs. Jaedong still has his death stare. Jaedong still makes Protoss players not Bisu or Stork wet their pants. Jaedong is still in MSL, and he is still the favorite to win. Even though I am very impressed by the play of those ranked above Jaedong this month, I believe that the Legend Killer will be back.

5.

Flash

(T) (stats) -4 1 Flash is 18-2 in Proleague with his only losses coming at the hands of Light and BeSt. Sadly, for the next month or so, Proleague will be Flash's only bragging point. Flash's eliminatation in both the OSL and MSL has already been discussed to death by everybody still following Brood War, and since I've still got the rest of the PR, a long CBNC list, and a brand new shoutouts list to make, I'm going to save a few keystrokes by not talking about it too much. Simply put, Flash didn't play like Flash. I don't know if it's fatigue from overwork, overconfidence/arrogance, or perhaps a secret girlfriend (Nicole~) somewhere, or a combination of the three, but Flash's eliminations are still pretty shocking, and they're powerful enough to demote him down to #5. And the last time Flash wasn't 1 or 2 was October of 2009. Kid's been crazy.



There was speculation that Flash would go into some huge slump after MSL, and his near-loss to Really had people clamoring. However, Flash is still Flash. He took out Leta pretty easily, and even though there was a moment of doubt BackHo fell to the Little Monster as well. Honestly, if Flash continues to dominate, he will make his way back up the Power Rank. I wonder if this is going to help KT at all?



Oh, and since I haven't mentioned it anywhere else: bonjwa. That is all.

6.

Hydra

(Z) (stats) +2 2 Statistically, it's preposterous that Hydra is six. Mirroring Bisu's performance in Round 1, Hydra is undefeated in Proleague for Round 2 with three Ace wins for a nice overall record of 10-0. He smashed through his MSL group by crushing Calm and eating Killer, and even though he's out of the OSL it's not much of his own fault--after all, Modesty is good at ZvZ and Fantasy is, uh, silly. After those two losses, you'd have to travel back to Kwanro to find the last time Hydra lost. And even that was in a Best of 3. Hydra's definitely a different player than the one we all think about. Seriously, if you'd ask me what I remember most about Hydra, it's his 38 drones getting carved up by BeSt's single dark templar in playoffs last year. This Hydra seems more like the EffOrt of old, but his games are still uninspiring. Solid, yes, very solid (Hydra pretty much doesn't cheese? Except for that one game against Fantasy...), but nothing exceptional. Will Hydra continue to power up? I think we're all hesitant to call him truly "great" just yet, but given his currently meteoric rise, I wouldn't be surprised if Hydra became one of the best in the scene in a short period of time.

7.

Inter.Calm

(Z) (stats) - 2 I'm going to admit, I had Calm here at 7 even before his loss to Mind today in the OSL. That loss made me happy, since it's now much easier to justify this position. Calm's also had a pretty good month. He's still in both leagues (albeit down 0-1 in the OSL now) and is doing well in Proleague (6-1 for the month), but there is nothing there that makes me fear Calm. For the most part, his inability to win against tough opponents (Mind, Hydra, Jaedong, Light, Flash and Bisu) shows that while he's better than the rest, he's still not in the same league as the strong.



I could be totally wrong about Calm though. In the next month, he could smash Mind in the remaining two games with some incredible cerebral play, and I do think he will win against Ssak's subpar TvZ... though one can never forget iloveoov lurking in the shadows banana trees. But will that happen? I don't think so. To me, and hopefully to you, Calm is where he belongs, at lucky number 7.

8.

Shine[Kal]

(Z) (stats) -4 4 Here's where some of you may disagree with me, as is always the case with the enigmatic Shine. Shine's huge momentum from the earlier part of the season seems to have mostly fizzled out. After riding a huge winstreak all the way into the middle of December, he lost his chance at tying/breaking GoRush's record-setting streak by losing to teammate Mind. Since then, he's gone 4-6--not the best way to finish out the year. In those six losses, Shine finds himself out of both leagues. Though he did play very well in his MSL group, he just didn't play well enough to beat a very prepared Bisu (that defense was perfect) and his lategame couldn't stand up to Kal's storms. Perhaps this Power rank shall be the last to have Shine on it for a while, though with the scene today who can say what's going to happen. Shine's still done very well for himself and the team by going 12-3 in Proleague (6-1 in December), and now that he's out of the leagues perhaps he'll shift his attention over there now. Expect to see more well-timed rushes against hapless Protoss in the future.

9.

by.great

(Z) (stats) - 8 In all the confusion of these past few months, a few players have been kind of forgotten. One of them was by.great, but no longer. While he hasn't been a Proleague star (11-9 isn't an exemplary score by any means) nor a feared individual league champion, he's been slowly and steadily putting together wins. In December, he's started to pull his Proleague score up, going 6-3 (arguably should be 7-2 but he got a bit arrogant against Midas... I blame the map), losing to only the toughest competition. Yes, he's out of OSL because of random 1-hit wonder Afrotoss, but he caused the second-biggest sensation in the MSL with his lategame ZvZ dismantling of Neo.G_Soulkey. Since I'm shameless, read about it here if you already haven't. While I don't see great getting too far in MSL or becoming a Proleague superstar, his solid (and inspiring) play this month earns him a low slot on the Power Rank.

