BW Power Rank - August 2013 Text by kjwcj Graphics by fusefuse

The idea to revamp the Brood War power rank is one that has been hanging around in our staff forums for about as long as we've been doing SOSPA coverage. We always expected that at some point there would be a nice lull, a break in which we'd have no SSL, no SRT, no show matches, no king of the hills to worry about, just a week to sit back and reflect on where everyone was at. Sonic, as brilliant as he is, has not been particularly obliging in this regard and so we've finally decided to bite the bullet.



What you read below are Epoxide and I's feelings about the current hierarchy of SOSPA competitors following the end of SRT15. It features some slightly contentious picks, a smattering of thought-provoking contemplation and is based on the best consensus we could come to in terms of ranking. We plan to make this a regular feature in the future, but for the moment we hope that you'll enjoy this post in and of itself. As always with power ranks, the real fun comes once the discussion begins in the thread, so, please, if you have any minor quibbles with our reasoning or our ordering, please let us know, we'll be reading everyone's thoughts very carefully so that we can best decide how to tell you all that you're wrong and we're right.



Close But No Cigar : After a period of inactivity and some pretty average performances in recent SRTs, Mong has seen himself eclipsed by a new generation of Afreeca Terran. The ex-CJ pro is still a strong player and holds a good record against a number of SOSPA's current stars, however it's beginning to appear as if Mong's time in the limelight may have passed, with more than seven months having passed since he last made it beyond the Ro8 of a major tournament.



: As the only amateur player to have really made an impact on SOSPA competition in the last six months, ZeLoT almost scraped into our top ten solely due to the massive disadvantage he is at versus much more established pros, as well as the wonderfully entertaining games he has produced since he first came to our attention late last year. Although he has been on a little bit of downwards slide since his Ro8 appearance in SRT14, ZeLoT remains one of the strongest Zergs in the scene, quite an accomplishment for a player who never even held a semi-pro license.



: It's easy to forget how long Lazy has actually been playing in Afreeca tournaments, with his first appearance actually coming all the way back in 2011. Since then he's participated mostly in fits and starts, but a recent period of consistent play has seen him become one of the better mid-level Protoss players in SOSPA tournaments, with his top eight finish in SRT15 representing his most impressive tournament run yet.



: It has not been a good six months for Sonic's little helper and given the way things are going it's beginning to seem unlikely that we'll ever again see the kind of play that took Larva all the way to the SSL7 final late last year. With his ZvZ and ZvT always a little underwhelming and even his previously superlative ZvP beginning to fail, even making it to the elimination stage of any SOSPA tournament is going to be challenging for the once great Zerg.



: Perhaps the only player on this list who has actually shown some improvement in recent tournaments, Ample looked completely down and out in SSL8 where he was eliminated easily by the not always so strong ZvT of hero. Since then, Ample has begun to reengage in SOSPA tournaments, perhaps at the expense of his love life, and has posted improving results, cementing his previous status as a solid second-tier Terran.

The August 2013 Power Rank Tyson 10





Sky 9





Beginning his Ro32 group with a series against Sea, the reigning champion who had just recently beaten god of PvT, Movie, in the SRT14 Ro4, Sky plays his typical aggressive, annoying, abrasive style and takes a 2-1 victory making that Sea's only series loss in his last two SRT appearances. If that was where the story ended we could perhaps be seeing Sky a little further up this list; however, brilliance without madness cannot be called genius. Sky's subsequent performance in what looked like a winnable group for him can only be described as a disaster, losing won games for no apparent reason. After having won his Ro32 group over the eventual tournament champion, Sky was eliminated, finishing last in his group. Sky's position in the SOSPA hierarchy is hard to define, and if we were to re-order this list based on pure, unadulterated talent, he may find himself several positions higher. Regardless of his imperfections, Sky is a special character and while it's hard to see him reaching the heights that he did in 2012 again, he remains one of the most interesting players SOSPA has to offer.



Pusan





HiyA 7





Shuttle





sSak 5





The story repeated itself in SRT14 where he 2-0'd his group yet again but got knocked out in the quarterfinals by hero 2-3 very unexpectedly. Guess what? In SRT15 sSak 2-0'd both his groups, again. This time sSak had to face what appeared to be an easy opponent; Hint. In an extremely close series sSak managed to close it out 3-2. On his side of the bracket either Movie or Pusan awaited. What looked like yet another end to Movie was abrupted by the Spirit Toss. Pusan beats Movie and is the one that has to face sSak. With sSak's TvP looking extremely shaken the doubts on sSak winning against Pusan were high. To prove himself worthy, sSak crushed Pusan 3-0 which put him in the final against Sea. sSak got dominated by Sea 0-3, but there is no shame in losing to Sea right now. sSak is the type of player that I feel can win against anyone, but lose to the most ridiculous opponents. He finally made it all the way to the final, next time maybe it's time to win.



hero





Movie 3





Sea

Sea has been on an absolute tear recently. Winning the two most recent tournaments; SRT14 and SRT15. One against Killer and the other one was the biggest SRT yet. Sea has the best TvZ and TvT in the scene, without a doubt. Both match-ups around the 70% mark. Sea is the only Terran that has recently been able to go toe-to-toe with Killer. Sea is 2-0 in best-of-series against Killer, winning both series barely 3-2 in the final of April 17th-19th Super Match and SRT14. Killer didn't even participate in SRT15, without Killer, Sea would be the indisputable #1. So why is Killer ranked higher than Sea? The answer is quite simple. Killer looks invincible against pretty much any opponent he faces, and Sea doesn't.



The chink in Sea's armour is TvP. Before this season of SRT Sea had under 50% in TvP. After losing against Sky 1-2 in the group stages he has gone on a seven game win-streak against Protoss, beating ErOs_Lucifer 1-0, Lazy 2-0, Tyson 1-0, and Lazy 3-0 again. Finally putting him over 50%, and the first time Sea's TvP looks good since before MBCGame HERO disbanded. Even though that's certainly impressive numbers, the opponents he faced are hardly considered top-tier PvT'ers. What gives me more hope is that Sea won 3-1 against Movie in SRT14. So far Sea's improvement in TvP might even be a fluke. I'm not yet convinced that Sea miraculously went from atrocious to brilliant in TvP, in under one month. But if this keeps up, we are definitely going to see a change at the top.



Killer 1





ZvT has been Killer's only major failing stretching back all the way to his time as a progamer under the tutelage of Jaedong and it has also been the one match-up that during his SOSPA career has simply be "good enough" rather than the "ridiculously good" as he has been in ZvP and ZvZ. Dropped games against the likes of KangTaeWan and Shinee have lead to Killer's almost embarrassing 64% winrate in ZvT, the kind of record that most players would jump at but which is almost a full 10% lower than his other two. The impending threat of Sea was fully realised for the first time in the final of SRT14, with Killer's loss representing his first ever elimination from a SOSPA tournament, ruining his previous perfect record of winning every tournament he entered. However one loss in an online tournament is not enough to dethrone a double SSL champion, and with Killer having returned in SRT16 to compete against the reigning champion Sea, things could be very different this time next month.



The idea to revamp the Brood War power rank is one that has been hanging around in our staff forums for about as long as we've been doing SOSPA coverage. We always expected that at some point there would be a nice lull, a break in which we'd have no SSL, no SRT, no show matches, no king of the hills to worry about, just a week to sit back and reflect on where everyone was at. Sonic, as brilliant as he is, has not been particularly obliging in this regard and so we've finally decided to bite the bullet.What you read below are Epoxide and I's feelings about the current hierarchy of SOSPA competitors following the end of SRT15. It features some slightly contentious picks, a smattering of thought-provoking contemplation and is based on the best consensus we could come to in terms of ranking. We plan to make this a regular feature in the future, but for the moment we hope that you'll enjoy this post in and of itself. As always with power ranks, the real fun comes once the discussion begins in the thread, so, please, if you have any minor quibbles with our reasoning or our ordering, please let us know, we'll be reading everyone's thoughts very carefully so that we can best decide how to tell you all that you're wrong and we're right. Mong : After a period of inactivity and some pretty average performances in recent SRTs, Mong has seen himself eclipsed by a new generation of Afreeca Terran. The ex-CJ pro is still a strong player and holds a good record against a number of SOSPA's current stars, however it's beginning to appear as if Mong's time in the limelight may have passed, with more than seven months having passed since he last made it beyond the Ro8 of a major tournament. ZeLoT : As the only amateur player to have really made an impact on SOSPA competition in the last six months, ZeLoT almost scraped into our top ten solely due to the massive disadvantage he is at versus much more established pros, as well as the wonderfully entertaining games he has produced since he first came to our attention late last year. Although he has been on a little bit of downwards slide since his Ro8 appearance in SRT14, ZeLoT remains one of the strongest Zergs in the scene, quite an accomplishment for a player who never even held a semi-pro license. Lazy : It's easy to forget how long Lazy has actually been playing in Afreeca tournaments, with his first appearance actually coming all the way back in 2011. Since then he's participated mostly in fits and starts, but a recent period of consistent play has seen him become one of the better mid-level Protoss players in SOSPA tournaments, with his top eight finish in SRT15 representing his most impressive tournament run yet. Larva : It has not been a good six months for Sonic's little helper and given the way things are going it's beginning to seem unlikely that we'll ever again see the kind of play that took Larva all the way to the SSL7 final late last year. With his ZvZ and ZvT always a little underwhelming and even his previously superlative ZvP beginning to fail, even making it to the elimination stage of any SOSPA tournament is going to be challenging for the once great Zerg. Ample : Perhaps the only player on this list who has actually shown some improvement in recent tournaments, Ample looked completely down and out in SSL8 where he was eliminated easily by the not always so strong ZvT of hero. Since then, Ample has begun to reengage in SOSPA tournaments, perhaps at the expense of his love life, and has posted improving results, cementing his previous status as a solid second-tier Terran.During his career as a progamer, Tyson was no one's favourite player. He was not quite good enough for the glory-hunting Bisu fans, not quite cute enough for the pic-hoarding Stork fans and not quite weird enough for the bermuda-recalling Jaehoon fans. It's easy to imagine how all this could have changed for Tyson when he arrived on Afreeca late last year. However solid he has been since then, the retired MBC progamer has continued to be just a pretty good Protoss player who really likes DTs and will almost certainly never win a tournament. The charming thing about Tyson is that he doesn't really seem to care and that of all the ex-pro players that we've seen arrive on Afreeca he seems to be the one who has changed the least since his KeSPA days. Through his years of experience, Tyson has managed to turn mediocrity into an art-form, and for that, we award him tenth place.Regardless of how obnoxious he is, how many semi-final matches he fails to show up with or the number of times he throws away a series through sheer childish arrogance, Sky remains one of the all time greats of Afreeca competition. A number of disagreements with Sonic over various things, all of which were almost certainly Sky's fault, have seen the former Hwaseung player miss a number of tournaments this year. But even after a long period of inactivity Sky has still shown the ability to absolutely demolish anyone put in front of him, when he is so inclined. Sky's recent participation in SRT15 summed up everything you'd ever need to know about his playstyle and his personality.Beginning his Ro32 group with a series against Sea, the reigning champion who had just recently beaten god of PvT, Movie, in the SRT14 Ro4, Sky plays his typical aggressive, annoying, abrasive style and takes a 2-1 victory making that Sea's only series loss in his last two SRT appearances. If that was where the story ended we could perhaps be seeing Sky a little further up this list; however, brilliance without madness cannot be called genius. Sky's subsequent performance in what looked like a winnable group for him can only be described as a disaster, losing won games for no apparent reason. After having won his Ro32 group over the eventual tournament champion, Sky was eliminated, finishing last in his group. Sky's position in the SOSPA hierarchy is hard to define, and if we were to re-order this list based on pure, unadulterated talent, he may find himself several positions higher. Regardless of his imperfections, Sky is a special character and while it's hard to see him reaching the heights that he did in 2012 again, he remains one of the most interesting players SOSPA has to offer.For the last four tournaments now, everyone has been saying that this is Pusan's last tournament before he goes to the army. But the old man just keeps on playing, and the results finally come in. Ever since his fourth place in SSL7 in over nine months ago he has struggled. In SSL8 he made it to the Ro16 before getting knocked out 0-2 in his group. SRT13 and SRT14 weren't any better as he got knocked out in the first group stage of both tournaments 0-2 and 1-2 respectively. What looked like a sad ending turned into hope as he was signed for SRT15. Pusan 2-0'd a group that looked too hard for him to get out of. In the round of 16 he managed to get out 2-1 in convincing fashion, only losing one game to sSak, 2-0'ing both Shout and Ample. In the quarterfinals Movie was waiting. After going down two games, Pusan looked completely off and out of there. Pusan miraculously won three games in a row and made it to the semifinal again after nine months. Unfortunately he got 0-3'd by sSak and 0-2'd by hero. With some more Spirit, Pusan can make another beautiful run.Had we begun doing SOSPA power ranks in 2011, HiyA might have held the rank one position for a year. His decision making and execution during that time was such that even when he failed to win a single tournament, it still seemed almost impossible to argue against him as Afreeca's clear number one. Since then, the bar has been raised several times over and although he has remained extremely competitive, HiyA's number one status has long since gone. At the time of writing, HiyA hasn't featured in a final since SSL8 and hasn't competed in the elimination bracket of an SRT since March. Through our coverage of HiyA's escapades in various SOSPA competitions, we've occasionally made attempts to speculate about what is going to happen with HiyA in the future and with little success. It will take a great deal for us to again see HiyA threatening the kind of positions that are occupied by his Terran colleagues Sea and sSak, but you should never write off the Hollywood Fishiking.Being second best is rarely something that competitive people enjoy, but it's a role that Shuttle has made home ever since Movie played his first SOSPA game in October 2012. The former STX captain is a regular participant in the latter stages of SRTs and has proved an obstacle for all of Afreeca's best players over the course of the last six months. His PvT win-rate is exceptional, approaching 75% and consisting almost exclusively of games versus the very best Terran opposition. It's actually ridiculous that Shuttle is so far down this list given the level of play he's capable of and the win-rates he holds versus a number of the players above him. Why is it, then, that we continually refer to Shuttle as being second best to Movie, a player who has worse win-rates in PvT and PvP and who has very recently lost to players that Shuttle easily dominates? The answer is difficult to come up with, but ultimately boils down to one thing: two SRT titles. As good as Shuttle has been, he seems destined to remain Movie's deputy, with the former OSL finalist's recent dip in form still masked in these rankings by his possession of those two, back to back SRT victories.Ever since his arrival after the mysterious announcement that a former pro would be replacing Sky in SSL8, he has been expected to crush face as he is the most recent retired progamer. Initially he did just that. He 2-0'd both his groups, consisting of HiyA, Cola, and Sea as well as HiyA, Mong, and Lazy. He went 3-1 against Larva in the quarterfinals, but his run ended abruptly when he faced Killer in the semifinals. Killer schooled sSak with a quick 3-0. In the 3rd/4th place match it didn't look much better, what was supposed to be an easy 2-0 against hero became a nail-biting 2-1. In SRT13 he yet again 2-0'd his group, going 1-0 against Pusan, and 2-0 against Shuttle. Showing off good TvP that seemed to be every SOSPA Terran's weakness. In the quarterfinals he faced Movie and got crushed 1-3.The story repeated itself in SRT14 where he 2-0'd his group yet again but got knocked out in the quarterfinals by hero 2-3 very unexpectedly. Guess what? In SRT15 sSak 2-0'd both his groups, again. This time sSak had to face what appeared to be an easy opponent; Hint. In an extremely close series sSak managed to close it out 3-2. On his side of the bracket either Movie or Pusan awaited. What looked like yet another end to Movie was abrupted by the Spirit Toss. Pusan beats Movie and is the one that has to face sSak. With sSak's TvP looking extremely shaken the doubts on sSak winning against Pusan were high. To prove himself worthy, sSak crushed Pusan 3-0 which put him in the final against Sea. sSak got dominated by Sea 0-3, but there is no shame in losing to Sea right now. sSak is the type of player that I feel can win against anyone, but lose to the most ridiculous opponents. He finally made it all the way to the final, next time maybe it's time to win.hero has always been considered a monster in ZvP. Ever since hero arrived in the SOSPA scene his ZvP has been growing and is now at almost 73%. Currently I don't consider any Protoss in the SOSPA scene a favourite against him. I would dare to consider it even better than Killer's at this point. In the other match-ups hero has always been mediocre or just blatantly bad. His ZvZ has always hovered around 50%, and he usually beats inferior opponents but loses to anyone respectable. With how few good Zerg there are at the moment that is not something hero has to worry about. What he needs (or needed) to worry about is his ZvT. hero has not faired well against Terran for a very very long time, losing miserably to anyone that is half-decent at the match-up. I had hero written off completely against sSak in the 3rd/4th place match in SSL8, but even though he lost, he managed to win a game and not look too bad in the ones he lost. He redeemed himself even further when he managed to win against sSak 3-2 in the quarterfinals of SRT14. In SRT15 he unfortunately lost to both sSak and Sea 0-2 and 1-3. He did however not look as weak as he used to, despite the crushing figures. If hero can improve his ZvT even further, there isn't much that stops him from making a final.Movie has been knocked out twice by opponents he should have beaten in the two most recent SRT's. Movie was expected to win against the horrible TvP of Sea, and the inferior PvP of Pusan, but he didn't. Even so Movie has won two of the fourth most recent SRT's and gotten to the semifinals and quarterfinals respectively. Movie is still the #1 Protoss in the SOSPA scene, and for good reasons. His PvT is his strongest match-up with over 66% win-rate, closely followed by his PvZ at almost 58%. The only three opponents I can see consistently beat Movie is Killer, hero, and PvP. That says a lot about Movie and how good he actually is. Another title for Movie is to be expected but things have to go a bit his way, unlike for Killer and Sea. He is further from Killer and Sea's level than he is from hero and sSak. If the disappointing results keep coming, Movie's position might be in danger.Sea has been on an absolute tear recently. Winning the two most recent tournaments; SRT14 and SRT15. One against Killer and the other one was the biggest SRT yet. Sea has the best TvZ and TvT in the scene, without a doubt. Both match-ups around the 70% mark. Sea is the only Terran that has recently been able to go toe-to-toe with Killer. Sea is 2-0 in best-of-series against Killer, winning both series barely 3-2 in the final of April 17th-19th Super Match and SRT14. Killer didn't even participate in SRT15, without Killer, Sea would be the indisputable #1. So why is Killer ranked higher than Sea? The answer is quite simple. Killer looks invincible against pretty much any opponent he faces, and Sea doesn't.The chink in Sea's armour is TvP. Before this season of SRT Sea had under 50% in TvP. After losing against Sky 1-2 in the group stages he has gone on a seven game win-streak against Protoss, beating ErOs_Lucifer 1-0, Lazy 2-0, Tyson 1-0, and Lazy 3-0 again. Finally putting him over 50%, and the first time Sea's TvP looks good since before MBCGame HERO disbanded. Even though that's certainly impressive numbers, the opponents he faced are hardly considered top-tier PvT'ers. What gives me more hope is that Sea won 3-1 against Movie in SRT14. So far Sea's improvement in TvP might even be a fluke. I'm not yet convinced that Sea miraculously went from atrocious to brilliant in TvP, in under one month. But if this keeps up, we are definitely going to see a change at the top.Killer's status as the number one player on Afreeca has never been in more danger than it is at this moment in time. Ever since his first appearance in SOSPA competition, the ex Hwaseung Zerg has been the undisputed king, taking two consecutive SSL victories and going on incredible winning streaks in ZvZ and ZvP that lasted over a period of months. Even with his lower levels of activity outside of SSL seasons, Killer's level of play is not the thing that might see him topple. In fact, Killer remains comfortably ahead of every single player in the SOSPA scene, every single player except Sea.ZvT has been Killer's only major failing stretching back all the way to his time as a progamer under the tutelage of Jaedong and it has also been the one match-up that during his SOSPA career has simply be "good enough" rather than the "ridiculously good" as he has been in ZvP and ZvZ. Dropped games against the likes of KangTaeWan and Shinee have lead to Killer's almost embarrassing 64% winrate in ZvT, the kind of record that most players would jump at but which is almost a full 10% lower than his other two. The impending threat of Sea was fully realised for the first time in the final of SRT14, with Killer's loss representing his first ever elimination from a SOSPA tournament, ruining his previous perfect record of winning every tournament he entered. However one loss in an online tournament is not enough to dethrone a double SSL champion, and with Killer having returned in SRT16 to compete against the reigning champion Sea, things could be very different this time next month. Writer