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1.

Flash

(T) (stats) +1 1 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first Power Rank of the last year of our lives. I hope you are as excited to read [and debate over] this as I am to write it, and hopefully through proper nagging the mighty R1CH will place the Power Rank back on the right sidebar. Until then, comment here if you'd like, or in the discussion thread. Let's kick off the New Year right. To make up for the lack of Power Ranks in the past few months, this one will be a bit longer and [hopefully] more in-depth.



Oh, and one final note before I get started. Due to a combination of business and lack-of-Brood War, I am not as immersed in the current season as I would like to be. Should you see something glaringly wrong, please let me know - I am in no way averse to making changes.



Now, on to Flash. I admit, there are months where I just don't enjoy writing about him. This is one of them. There's not much real contention for the #1 spot this month. JangBi hasn't won an OSL this month [and hasn't really impressed me that much], Bisu is losing, Jaedong is looking a tad weak in ZvP, and Stork's losses at the end of the round hurt him a bit. Really, the only competition for the top slot comes from Fantasy and Stats, and Flash has the advantage over both of them in record. In terms of "intangibles" I'd say Fantasy is close to being on par with Flash, but Flash definitely trumps Stats in this division. As one of two notable undefeated players in the first round [with over two games played], Flash has been... himself. I don't see anything wrong with him, yet at the same time there has been nothing extraordinary. Of course, this is partially circumstantial. Due to SKT winning 3-1 over KT, we were denied a Flash-Fantasy match, and with the exception of Light, none of Flash's opponents have been exemplary. Of course, this in no way negatively affects Flash. I'm just glad his surgery went well, and hopefully he can start demonstrating what makes him the best in the upcoming OSL.

2.

Stats

(P) (stats) +5 2 No chin, no problem. With the first round concluded, Stats proves he's the real deal. Excellent record, clean decision-making, and entertaining moves. His execution might have been a tad off, but when's the last time you saw such efficient use of Dark Archons in professional PvP? And what about mass Archon/Reaver against Zerg coupled with ridiculous amounts of storm? While we're working with relatively scant data here, I am not seeing any noticeable signs of weakness in any of Stats' matchups. Partially due to excellent storming, his PvZ is looking especially strong, his PvP is innovative [too little data to work with at the moment], and his PvT has produced exhilarating games. In my opinion, Stats vs Bogus is quite possibly the best game of the round. If you haven't watched it yet, I highly recommend you do so. Beautiful play from both players, and though the game swings back and forth the winner finishes with convincing execution. Furthermore, it is because of Stats that KT Rolster went from last place in the standings to a solid second, just after CJ. While KT is still struggling to find a consistent third win, Stats' play has gone a long way in helping out the team perhaps most adversely affected by the removal of the Ace match.



Of course, Stats isn't perfect--still far from it. For example, while his atmosphere-searing storms against soO's superior forces made the win well-deserved, Stats owes as much to soO's poor play after taking a strong early advantage as he does to his own good play. And against Sea, incredibly poor micro caused Stats to fall irreversibly behind in a relatively even game.



But it's okay guys. After all, this is but Stats' first year at Hogwarts.

3.

Fantasy

(T) (stats) 0 1 Deciding between Fantasy and Stats for the #2 spot was incredibly tough, as in I spent two hours on this part alone. The two boast comparable stats, have played similarly exciting games and had similarly unexciting stomps, and both players still have their little foibles. In the end, what tipped the scales in Stat's favor is something I cannot fully explain. It's partially a question of "who contributed more to the team?" as well as "whose play did I respect more?" As for the first, Stats definitely helped KT more than Fantasy helped SKT. While this can be attributed to SKT having a deeper lineup, allowing Fantasy to be saved for the fifth slot (and oftentimes not appearing), what it boils down to is that Stats was able to prove more than Fantasy for this Power Rank. He was able to demonstrate that he can help carry KT. It is in no way a bad mark against Fantasy, only a positive check for Stats. Similarly, I give more props to Stats for his play because his opponents put up better fights. Against Fantasy, Movie and Canata just rolled over and died, and while ZerO's initial ling bust was pretty tricky he failed with mutalisks and lurkers afterward, allowing Fantasy to take an easy victory. Once again, this is not bad for Fantasy, only good for Stats.



Either way, four solid wins and one loss against a TvT-rampaging Last is a perfectably acceptable way to start the season out for Fantasy. Disregarding his decision to walk his army into Last's tank line [that drop did way more damage than it should have, but Fantasy was still behind], Fantasy has had very solid decision-making and has shown impressive crisis/micro management. Before the near-disconnect in the game against Reality it seemed that Fantasy had all but lost: he was 20 supply down and in a terrible position. Yet through careful positioning he was able to pick off enough of Reality's tanks in order to stabilize and eventually turn the game around. A slightly less notable but nonetheless impressive demonstration of micromanagement Fantasy executed in this opening round of SPL was his marine split against ZerO, where three lurkers gave their lives for only one marine.



As for the rest, it's hard to say based on this limited data. As we all know, Fantasy is prone to trolling and being a somewhat streaky player. I never like hyping Fantasy too much before he hits individual leagues, though I'd say he's in for a pretty good season. His TvT is still second-best after Flash's, his TvP is still top-notch, and from the looks of it [though we really only have that one game against ZerO to judge] his bionic control has improved during the off-season.

4.

BaBy

(T) (stats) - 4 Preseason, there was a lot of hype flying about over the newly-formed Team 8, with a good amount of it focused upon the strong lineup that T8 would be fielding. Of these, it was my personal opinion at the start of the season that Killer would be the strongest/most reliable player on Team 8. After all, Jaedong's non-ZvT was still looking shaky, BaBy was playing okay but not excellently, and Sea was just "stable". It is not too much of a surprise to me that I was wrong; what's more surprising is the manner in which I was incorrect. As of right now, I believe it is BaBy, not Jaedong and not Killer, who is the strongest player on Team 8. It seems experience has granted him the ability to play more consistently at a higher level: last season BaBy [or should I get used to calling him Ty?] would one day demonstrate ridiculous multitasking, and the next would fall apart immediately upon being pressured. This season, the pressure is still there but BaBy's response is much better. In his game against Leta, I was under the impression that BaBy had lost after he lifted his barracks for some reason, allowing Leta's marines in his base. While he defended that well, Leta's transition into paper airplanes put Leta further ahead, until BaBy wiped out Leta's wraith fleet with valkyries. And then BaBy went to town capitalizing on that advantage, and Leta did not stand a chance. His hidden expos were scouted, drops terrorized Leta's main, and overhead an invisible fleet of death destroyed everything. Overall, quite an entertaining way for BaBy to get revenge against Leta for last season's mass starport shenanigans.



Of course, I still believe BaBy to be an offensively-geared player, one who would rather utilize his high APM and multitasking abilities to control the situation through aggression than manage crisis after crisis. His games against soO, Wooki, and Light emphasize BaBy's aggressive nature perfectly. Against n.Die_soO, BaBy was able to crush his Zerg opponent through perfectly-timed drops and impeccable army micro in massive battles. Speaking of perfect timing, against Wooki BaBy's perfect attack on the stargates came at the worst possible time for Wooki, prompting him to tap out. And against Light, BaBy's clutch move to block the construction of a comsat at Light's natural made his Wraith fleet even stronger when it started hitting Light's base.



As with Fantasy, the one blemish that mars Ty's otherwise perfect record comes from Last. And I'm not going to fault BaBy for that, as Last's build was obviously very well-prepared and razor-sharp. I give a similar prognosis to BaBy as I did to Fantasy: I think BaBy is in for an excellent season, and he will become a very reliable player for Team 8.



I really just wish T8 could pull together to find three wins at a time.

5.

Jaedong

(Z) (stats) +3 1 Is the king of Zerg back? Starting the season with a disappointing loss to BeSt [though Bisu BeSt played quite well and at that time T8 had had virtually zero practice time] but quickly recovering, Jaedong has shown that he is at least at the same point he was at the end of last season.



...Though, that wasn't a very good place for Jaedong, was it? His ZvZ was shaky, his ZvP suspect. However, his ZvT was stronger than ever: lseason, Jaedong ended with an incredible 27-9 (75%) record over top-notch Terran competition. And while he has not yet had too many opportunities to demonstrate his prowess versus Terran this season, his single vT game hus far against Mind should be enough to remind you that the Dong does not mess around when it comes to slaughtering humans. In an absolutely dominating fashion, Jaedong easily held off Mind's MnM/valkyrie force [admittedly, Mind could have done much more] and wiped the floor with Terran blood after hive tech kicked in. And then he followed that up by walking over M18M, who still only is mediocre. His next game against free was also... sloppy. While Jaedong made some excellent templar and shuttle snipes, it still doesn't absolve him of his shortcomings. The initial corsair versus mutalisk/scourge battle was poorly fought; likewise, Jaedong microed poorly during the early hydralisk versus templar engagements. This resulted in Jaedong being down 30 supply at one point, but due to the aforementioned sniping as well as free having terrible army composition [though that's because he expected Jaedong to switch to lurkers instead of constantly mutalisk switching] Jaedong took the game. All in all, a very good comeback by Jaedong... though still very, very sloppy.



So after four games, at the very least I was assured that Jaedong had not slipped any further. But, like the rest of you, I was worried when it became apparent that Jaedong and RorO would be facing off. And when RorO started off with 9pool against Jaedong's 12hatch, my brow furrowed even more.



And then JvZ happened. Jaedong held off RorO's zergling assault with a well-placed sunken, and then after being forced to retreat into his main broke RorO's contain with a scintillating drone drill. RorO maintained the gas advantage, which translated into a mutalisk advantage...



But you can't beat JvZ. With 2009-esque micro, Jaedong won the air battle and went up in supply, and eventually RorO was forced out of the game. It seemed the magic was back! Following up on that spectacular ZvZ victory, in his game against Modesty, Jaedong managed to kill all of Modesty's drones with excellent zergling control before Modesty's mutalisk numbers became too strong.



I said it above but I'll reiterate here: thus far I believe BaBy has been a stronger force for T8 than Jaedong has. I would really like to see Jaedong step his game up in ZvP and ZvZ, and to continue dominating ZvT. His losses against free and Snow [though admittedly, that was a well-executed timing attack by Snow] as well as sloppy play against free show that he's stil not on top of vP, and there have been far too few games vZ for me to convince myself that JvZ is back. Looks like we'll just have to see.



Oh also, happy 400 wins Jaedong!





6.

Stork[gm]

(P) (stats) - 1 'Twas tough choosing between Stork and Jaedong for the fifth and sixth spots due to their similar "statistics". They have the same record (5-2), seem weaker in one matchup [Stork in PvZ and Jaedong in ZvP], and demonstrate similarly impressive showings of micromangement. In the end, I placed Jaedong over Stork for two main reasons. First, in the same sense that Stats proved more than Fantasy this round, Jaedong proved more than Stork. He showed that JvZ could be possibly be making a resurgence and that his ZvT is still quite sharp. On the other hand, Stork has shown that he is good at capitalizing on build order advantages in PvP and landing good [lucky?] scarabs in order to further those advantages. Second, I am still thoroughly unimpressed by Stork's PvZ, which has traditionally been his weakest matchup. While he seemed to roll over ZerO with good storms and lurker field-breaking, I attribute that win more to ZerO's "coconut tree reaction time" and his seeming lack of a plan. And seriously, you'd think that after getting all-in'd so many times by Zerg Stork would shape up. But no, Crazy-Hydra channels his inner Kwanro and eats Stork with zerglings. Of course, Stork's PvZ is by no means terrible. He responded to hero's 3hatch hydra -> expand in the correct fashion, and by recognizing the bluff in a timely fashion was able to take hero's natural by storm [pun intended] with beautiful Templar usage.



I still feel it seems like I'm being irrationally harsh on Stork. True, he started the season out with a 5-0 and looked very impressive doing so, but if it weren't for the fact that he lost his two most crucial recent games [causing KHAN to get 0-3'd by both ACE and KT] he'd be quite a bit higher on this Power Rank. I talked about his PvZ briefly above and his PvT is, as of yet, untested this season, so let's go over his recent PvP games.



I attribute Stork's victory over Movie to a build order advantage coupled with a few lucky scarab shots. While that game was quite action-packed and entertaining [poor probes...] it was sloppy on Stork's part. Movie consistently made better engagements, yet because Stork did so much damage early [once again, partially thanks to luck and build order advantage] on Movie didn't have the economy to overpower Stork. Similarly, against Bisu, Stork had the build order advantage, choosing to go 3gate against Bisu's core-expand. Bisu fended off the attack quite well [despite randomly losing a dragoon] but still was not in an advantageous position. And just like against Movie, a few scarab daebaks helped to further Stork's advantage. He did an excellent job in stopping Bisu's reaver counter-drop. Bisu decided to be silly and try to break out of the contain without his reavers, which handed Stork the win.



Through this, I don't think Stork's PvP has been phenomenal. It's been "good enough" [which is still quite good] to make use of an advantage, yet when an opponent steps up his game as Kal did, Stork seems flustered. Granted, Kal played exceptionally well in his game against Stork with his famous red shuttle micromanagement, but I think this just goes to show that Stork is somewhat riding "coinflip" advantages and his opponent's mistakes.



Stork's micro is still solid though. In his game against Tyson he had amazing micromanagement during battles, and he had impressive storms against ZerO and hero [insert joke about Hercules and comment about storms in PvZ seeming way more epic this season] to seal the deal. And despite the negativity found in this post about Stork, I still think he has played fantastically this first round. After all, in the end winning the game is what matters; some ways may be more impressive or clean than others, but Stork got the job done.

7.

Neo.G_SoulKey

(Z) (stats) - 3 I was talking with konadora last night about how I thought Soulkey had played well, but hadn't faced oponents of high enough caliber. Then I decided to actually look at TLPD, and realized how wrong I was. Soulkey has had some great games against tough opponents. RorO, Bogus, By.Sun, and Killer might not be "S-Class" but they are certainly recognizable names in the Proleague world. When I talked about Stats versus Bogus being my favorite game of the round thus far, Soulkey versus Bogus [I'm telling you, Bogus produces awesome games] is a close second. As far as ZvMech goes, you could write a textbook out of this game. Soulkey does everything right, from protecting drones early on from vultures to not making ultralisks [I'm looking at you, Kwanro] to sniping two spinning armories as Bogus is moving out. While Neo.G_Soulkey is often overlooked, do not forget that he is one of the top ZvT players in the scene. Furthermore, in his game against Sun Soulkey is down in supply but has a better economy come the midgame. He does a very nice job of neutralizing drops and prevents Sun from using his army advantage, allowing him to macro up and starve Sun to death with an incredibly deep lurker contain. Soulkey's zvP improved over the past season, and his match against Sun shows it was definitely not a fluke.



Soulkey still has his problems though. His ZvZ, despite being strong statistically (23-13), still seems weak. Of course, since I see Soulkey as a very macro-oriented player [prefers lategame] this fits perfectly. In the first round, Soulkey faced off against RorO, Killer, and Hydra. In all these games, Soulkey played poorly. Against RorO, he did very little damage with his zerglings and lost one of his free mutas, allowing RorO to supply block him and take a huge supply advantage. Of course, due to RorO flying his muta flock into a gaggle of scourge Soulkey was able to equalize supply and win the game. Against Hydra, Soulkey wasn't so lucky. Poor micro from Soulkey allowed Hydra to snipe drones with zerglings early on, and that snowballed out of control. In his win against Killer, I attribute it more to Killer failing [though Soulkey's hidden zerglings were put to great effect] than Soulkey doing something spectacular. Further fitting with my conception of Soulkey as a progamer that doesn't have exemplary micromanagement is the Soulkey vs firebathero game. It seemed Soulkey wanted to end the game early with a zergling bust, but after firebathero held it off Soulkey was in trouble--it didn't seem like he had a backup plan. firebathero continuallly destroying Soulkey's third meant that Soulkey was fighting a very uphill battle as firebathero teched. I still have to give Kim Min Chul props for breaking the initial contain, but when FBH pushed out with vessels and tanks while Soulkey was still on lair tech, the game was over.



Soulkey started out much like Stork. Very strong start [on paper], then took some losses as the round ended. His ZvT is excellent [even though he lost to firebathero, FBH was playing exceptionally well in that game], and his ZvP looks promising. As for his ZvZ, like I said above: if it gets the job done that's what matters. I think he has grounds for improvement especially in the mirror matchup, but I'm pretty satisfied with his Round 1 results.

8.

Bisu

(P) (stats) -2 1 It's weird. By no means is Bisu performing poorly. Yet, compared with past season's R1 performance I can't help but feel something is missing. Of course, the results he's posted are indicative of what I feel about Bisu "as a whole", though let's look a bit deeper.



Obviously, it doesn't get any more top-notch than Bisu's PvZ. Despite a poor start against Action [Action outmicros Bisu both on the ground and in the air] Bisu manages to equalize the situation [Action had four bases pretty much well-established and Bisu didn't even have a third] with strategically-timed attacks. Of course, Bisu's win is due in part to Action deciding to just not make any units for an impossibly long period of time, but it was still excellent decision-making by Bisu in an exciting, close game. Against great, Bisu correctly responded to great's aggression economic expansion by waiting for proper upgrade timing and then simply just killing him in one fell swoop. And against EffOrt, Bisu's micromanagement with zealots early on put him vastly ahead in supply (75-50), and that advantage snowballed. The pre-defiler timing attack was just icing on the cake. Sloppy play from EffOrt, but exceptional play from Bisu.



Now, when looking at Bisu's PvT there are fewer games to consider. And by "games" I mean "one game against Bogus". Whilst rewatching this game, I berated Bisu a bit for doing nothing to slow down Bogus' push and for messing up his zealot bombs, but Oystein says it best. Bisu was at a severe disadvantage from being blindly countered, and Bogus microed extremely well. Likewise, in his game against free Bisu found himself at a disadvantage. Bisu played safe, and free played to maximize economic potential, leading to a lopsided engagement that free took advantage of.



If there's anything reprehensible about Bisu's PvP, it occurred in his game against Stork. After being contained, Bisu simultaneously tried to break out while harassing with his shuttle/reaver. While I normally applaud multitasking attempts, in this case Bisu needed his forces concentrated in order to make a legitimate attempt at pushing Stork away. Instead, not only did he not break out but also he had his shuttle turned away. If it's any consolation, Bisu played really well against Jaehoon. Good dragoon micro and good game sense with observers to spot Dark Templar allowed him to outplay Jaehoon.



...But you'd expect that anyway, right? In any sense, to wrap up this part, Bisu had a "solid" round. It wasn't great [especially by his standards], but it wasn't terrible. Even though Brood War is a very developed game, there is still chance inherent in the build orders. For the most part, Bisu happened to be on the receiving end, so I can't fault him too much for that. However, even though he did nothing "wrong" others did things right, so I can't justify placing Bisu high. After all, Ma Jae Yoon proved to us that the truly elite will persevere and rise above all challenges.

9.

Hydra

(Z) (stats) -5 2 Before I get started talking about Hydra, I want to say that this new season has not given us much to work with for him. His games have either been one-sided or silly/confusing [hello HoeJJa], and none of them have been too "high-level" yet. Consider Hydra's game against Brave. Though the KHAN rookie is touted as a "vZ specialist with 60% winrate" he simply died to hydras. Hydra didn't do anything special, and Brave just pretty much just killed himself.



And that is the one non-ZvZ game Hydra this round. The rest of the games... Well, last season it seemed we appointed Hydra as the new king of ZvZ. It seems that the CJ coach believes in that: five of six matches Hydra has played thus far have been vZ. Of those five, I see mixed results. Before I elaborate, I'll summarize: Hydra has the best mutalisk/scourge control in ZvZ and his zergling control is improving, though I find his strategic/tactical sense still lacking somewhat [not very good at being inventive]. in his games against Modesty Medesty and ggaemo, Hydra pulled off amazingly wicked mutalisk micro. In the game against Modesty where Hydra lost the first mutalisk battle and was hard-pressed to defend his control was sensational. Hydra was able to hold off Modesty's vastly superior mutalisk force in order to utilize his economy advantage to pull himself back into the game. Furthermore, Hydra's games against Soulkey and HoeJJa showcase that his zergling control is improving. Both games he was able to press an advantage through winning the zergling battles. In both games, the extra zerglings killed gas drones, leading to a better air force for Hydra. Against Soulkey, this was enough to end the game. And against HoeJJa... well, I'm still confused about that one. Poor micro on Hydra's side led to HoeJJa gaining the upper hand, and eventually after mutas were traded away HoeJJa was left with more zerglings. Said zerglings decimated Hydra's remaining drones, leading to a loss for Hydra. And against Killer, Hydra tried an interesting strategy (3hatch with burrow), but honestly I don't think it was the correct choice. Of course, credit has to be given to Killer for his excellent defense with the sunken, but still I disagree with Hydra's tactics in that game.Trying to draw one overall conclusion for Hydra based on Round 1 is hard. I still think he is the strongest in ZvZ right now in standard play--it's quite hard to best his control. However, his lack of ZvP and ZvT games [once again, the one against Brave is hard to judge because Brave just completely failed] makes it quite difficult to say where Hydra stands with his non-mirror matchups. Only time will tell.