Power Rank - September 2014 Text by Zealously Graphics by shiroiusagi Power Rank -September- unfortunate drop-offs and look like they won't be returning to the top of the world for some time. With Blizzcon approaching and SPL not back until next year, things are about to quiet down significantly, and there is no telling what form some players will be in now that there are no more leagues to play in.



Things were significantly less interesting on the foreigner front, with very few upsets taking place in the realm of the non-Koreans. WCS EU and NA played out roughly in accordance with last month's Power Rank. For this reason, the Best of the Rest list is both brief and mostly unchanged this time around.



With that said, onto the Power Rank! As always, there are a few things to think about when reading this:



The Power Rank focuses most on the month pertains to, but also takes past results into account



The Power Rank takes into account both results, the difficulty of opponents faced, and how good a player looked - both in victory and defeat.



A player's placement on the Power Rank does not suggest that the player is better or worse than a higher ranked player in head-to-head. This ranking is an overall appraisal of a player, not an attempt to answer the question ”Who beats who?”

Some months are more chaotic than others. September was one such month, with almost every player suffering agonizing defeat at one point or another. Although August had, for the most part, a fairly clear-cut list of players making waves, September saw all kinds of players jump up and down between championships and awkward eliminations. A few players retained their consistency, and you'll find them at the "top" of the ranking (now sorted from 10-1 instead of 1-10 in accordance with popular demand). Others had...drop-offs and look like they won't be returning to the top of the world for some time. With Blizzcon approaching and SPL not back until next year, things are about to quiet down significantly, and there is no telling what form some players will be in now that there are no more leagues to play in.Things were significantly less interesting on the foreigner front, with very few upsets taking place in the realm of the non-Koreans. WCS EU and NA played out roughly in accordance with last month's Power Rank. For this reason, the Best of the Rest list is both brief and mostly unchanged this time around.With that said, onto the Power Rank! As always, there are a few things to think about when reading this:







10 Prev 4High 4 Taeja Right up until late August, Taeja looked like one of the best players in the world (as usual). Elimination from WCS America (as usual) changed that and raised a lot of questions about where Taeja is at the moment. Beating Jaedong and losing narrowly to Hyun in the Winners' Match made it seem like he would still inevitably make it to the quarterfinals, until he found himself dismantled by Pigbaby (as usual). Three series in all of September isn't enough for me to kick Taeja out of the Power Rank completely with how he looked for most of the year, but I'm cautiously pessimistic about his chances with Blizzcon approaching.





9 Prev 1 High 1 Rain After an impeccable August, Rain had a serious drop-off in September. Eliminated from all three tournaments he played in (KeSPA Cup against Bomber, WECG against Yonghwa and GSL against Zest) last month and looking very off in the process isn't a very convincing way to begin one's stint as a free agent. None of Rain's losses would be significant enough on their own, but a player priding himself on consistency over long stretches of time and impeccable safe play in all situations to crash like that is both disappointing and worrying.





8 Prev - High 8 herO herO really is quite an unfortunate individual. After his two IEM championships, he has seen his fair share of defeats. The most notable was IEM Katowice and the $0 he received for second place, but the dual losses in KeSPA Cup and Dreamhack Stockholm must have stung as well. In both tournaments, herO defeated players that seemed like legitimate championship contenders before losing out in somewhat brutal fashion. Beating Sorry, Bomber and Flash would be an impressive weekend for anyone, if only the KeSPA Cup hadn't concluded with herO being absolutely destroyed by Zest. Wins against Sacsri, Hyun and Life would have been impressive if herO hadn't been shut down by the fourth Korean Zerg he had to face in Solar.



It's hard to say that herO did anything but well in September, but it's also hard to say that he deserves being placed any higher than eighth place among players who either came off championships or had individual leagues to play in.





7 Prev 3 High 3 Flash Like Rain, Flash had a rough time making it through the month of September. After racking up the most impressive 1-month stretch of any player, perhaps ever, he evened out the scores by suffering elimination from the GSL at the hands of soO and DRG, dropping out of the KeSPA Cup against herO (albeit in the semifinals) and experiencing slight turbulence against players he would have stomped all over in August - Yonghwa and Heart.



Flash will be able to live on the merits of his August streak and the fact that he now has a premier championship to his name for months, but as Flash's momentum drops off, so does my faith in his abilities.







6 Prev 10 High 6 Cure Cure had a great showing at his first ever overseas tournament, making it to the finals of Red Bull Washington before being promptly shut down by Bomber. On his way there, qualifiers and all, Cure put together one of the most impressive runs anyone has ever in what was essentially "one" tournament. However, the one-two punch in his gut of losing to both Bomber and Innovation in high-stakes offline matches hurt his credibility somewhat, and the follow-up of triple losses to Sora, Stats and Dear unfortunately destroyed the image of Cure as the player on his way to one-upping Maru.





5 Prev - High 5 Solar With his championship at Dreamhack Stockholm, Solar joins a growing line of players having beaten soO in a finals setting. The finals, but also the tournament as a whole, was a good representation of where Solar stands right now. He's unappreciated, being regarded as not much more than "one among many" in the stacked line-up that gathered in Stockholm.

He's smart, often coming out on top of situations where other Zergs might fail because he thinks one step further. He lacks a distinct weakness, having ironed out the flaws in his ZvZ that haunted him a few months earlier and maintaining his calm under pressure. His quarterfinals defeat against Cure in the GSL was a setback, but it's hard to deny that Solar is worthy of being called a top Zerg at this point in time.





4 Prev - High 4 Bomber If this were a ranking of the players best giving their sponsors back for helping them out, Bomber would be the undisputed #1 (watch him chug an entire can of Red Bull after winning Red Bull's tournament and name a sponsor that wouldn't love him). Bomber played in three tournaments in September, and walked out either happy with his results or a winner all three times. He won Red Bull Washington in mostly convincing by going a combined 11-2 against Cure, Trap, DRG and Polt, with the only losses coming from Polt. This would be impressive enough on its own, but it's also worth mentioning that Bomber had flown over to Korea a week earlier to crush Rain in the KeSPA Cup.



Bomber's knack for doing what he wants rather than abide by the restraints of the metagame carried him through against the SKT Protoss, who was helpless to stop his SCV pulls and unorthodox builds. He did go on to lose to herO with a 1-3 scoreline, but the championship he secured a mere week later more than made up for that loss. With the caliber of opponents he faced in Washington and Seoul, his advancement from the WCS AM Ro16 seems like a mere footnote, despite the fact that he defeated both Jim and Check to make it through.









3 Prev 9 High 3 Innovation Not long ago, Innovation once again making the GSL finals would have been a far-fetched and strange prediction to make. Although the Acer Terran made waves in the foreign scene partly by dominating team leagues and partly by beheading foreigners everywhere as if he were a malfunctioning and angry guillotine, Innovation rarely looked like the player we watched with awe as he destroyed the Korean scene in mid-2013. The capacity for unrelenting aggression was there, but not the power that allowed him to bypass the normal rules of play and beat anyone with strategies and builds his opponents knew were coming.



Innovation still isn't that. But despite the flaws in his play that still occasionally force him out of tournaments early and see him drop against "weaker" players, Innovation is back in the GSL finals. In the grand scheme of things, he deserves a certain amount of respect for reaching the top after falling from it once. In his victories against DRG and Cure he displayed both dominance and perseverence, and it seems like Innovation has traded the dominant but flawed player he once was for another - less dominant, granted - more complete form. Don't be surprised when he beats soO in the finals.





2 Prev 7 High 2 soO Outside finals, soO is the best player in the world. He has done his very best to prove this for a long time, just as I have done my best to deny it, but by now it is essentially undeniable. Throughout the four GSLs he has made the finals in and the Dreamhack where he looked like a champion right up until he lost the finals, there have been very few times when soO has not looked nearly invincible.



But for a player who so epitomizes standard and essentially flawless solid play, it is always difficult to break through into the public eye and receive the recognition one deserves. And despite soO's occasional CatZ-driven games with proxery hatcheries and nydus plays, the SKT Zerg never seems to really shine and display the kind of blazing skill that brought our eyes to Life or Maru in 2012 and 2013, respectively. soO injects flawlessly, plays his games out in the strongest style of macro Zerg there is, and wins because he has no weaknesses. He doesn't need the flair.



Outside finals, there is no player on the planet better than soO. But unfortunately, Starcraft is a game played when it matters. It's in the finals the true champions are separated from those who would stumble on the finish line, where the Nesteas rise above the Incas. soO may be nearly invincible most of the time, but he has a crippling weakness in his mindset and his mentality that makes it impossible for me to call him the undisputed best in all scenarios. He isn't at #2 because I want to mock his misfortune or make a Kong joke, but because he's a player who more than anyone else collapses when it truly matters. Until that changes, soO can never be the player.





1 Prev 5 High 1 Zest In many ways, Zest is everything that soO isn't. Indomitable when it matters most, clutch in situations where others might choke but first and foremost a champion. Following up his second place at IEM Toronto with a run through the KeSPA Cup - defeating WCS NA champion Pigbaby, 2013 WCS Champion sOs, GSL S2 champion Classic and two-time IEM champion herO - Zest quickly dispelled doubts in his abilities. Although he lost the face-off against Flash in Toronto, him playing against a teammate (who is supposedly unbeatable in in-house TvP) in his worst match-up makes me willing to chalk that up to teamkill magic and the momentum Flash had going.



Perhaps most impressive of all was Zest's absolute annihilation of Rain. I'm not just talking about one top-tier Protoss beating another top-tier Protoss through slightly better planning and fortunate engagements, either. The quarterfinals between Zest and the SKT ace was a display in how to dominate PvP. With the exception of a few short moments, Rain never looked like he was going to take the series, and Zest drove that point home as thoroughly as possible.



Zest did meet his eventual demise against soO in the semifinals, dropping from a 3-1 lead to a shocking 3-4 elimination. This means that the #1 and #2 spots of this month are, for the most part, toss-ups. Zest comes out ahead due to his championship and the absolute dominance he displayed in dispatching five of the world's premier Protoss players, but he doesn't sit safely on the throne.





Best of the Rest by peanuts



1 Prev - High 1 Snute Yes, Snute is still the best foreigner in the world. With a 2nd place finish at WEC late last month, Snute showed yet again that he was capable of taking the best players in the world to task. Though he’s had a slight dropoff recently, his overall form is still at the top of foreigners. A Ro4 finish at DH Moscow brought him ever closer to his goal of finally taking home his second Premier title. However, Snute does find himself in a precarious position for the best foreigner. After a subpar finish at DH Stockholm, Snute is now dependent on others’ failures to guarantee his spot at Blizzcon.







2 Prev - High 2 Bunny Yep, the other Liquid boy takes second place this time around. The Danish Terran continues to show strong results across tournaments, continuously delivering results in an environment where most of his peers fail to do so, both online and offline. Taking 1st place in his Ro16 group, Bunny finds himself flying the foreigner flag in WCS EU, preparing to face San - one of the toughest opponents possible - in the Ro8. The Liquid Terran also had a decent-but-not-great finish at DH Stockholm, landing in the Ro16 where he put up a good fight before being eliminated by the eventual champion, Solar.









3 Prev 4 High 3 Scarlett The Canadian Zerg has finally left Korea to begin playing in tournaments again. After an unsuccessful run at IEM Toronto, Scarlett has come back swinging. In WCS, she would 2-0 her group, advancing to the Ro8. In her match against Violet, she would 2-0 the Immigrant Zerg in a display of brilliant ZvZ, a return to form in what was once her best matchup. At RedBull DC, the streak of high level play would continue. After a tense, janky set against PartinG, featuring some of the strangest builds seen in Starcraft, she would go on to face Cure and Polt. Though she lost 2-1 to both players, all 6 games were intense macro fests that showed her skill and future potential. The only way Scarlett can get to Blizzcon is to win it all in WCS, which would make her the first foreigner to win a WCS season. This is do or die for the Acer Zerg.









4 Prev 1 High 1 Sen After winning Taiwan Open, one of the most stacked tournaments ever to be won by a non-Korean player, placing 3rd/4th in GPL is certainly a step down. It's difficult to argue that Sen isn't still one of the best foreigners, but in the absence of real results in September and given the inherent lack of visibility the Taiwanese and Chinese scenes suffer from it's also difficult to make a fair argument for Sen above any of the above three. Putting Sen at 4th here is largely a nod to the three players placed above him for performing well recently, but don't be surprised to see Sen back on top when he gets another chance to show off his skills to the world.









5 Prev - High 5 Huk After years of “decent” play, it seems that the one time foreign hope is starting to get back into shape. HuK’s recent run began in the summer at MLG Anaheim, where he finished 9th-12th in one of the most stacked events of the year. From there, he went to a Ro4 finish at RB Atlanta, where he took down Canadian brethren Hendralisk and the Chinese Zerg Toodming. Though he would fall out from IEM Toronto early, his 2-1 over Leenock and an astounding 2-0 victory over Jaedong showed that the EG Protoss still had the fire in him. Finding himself in the Ro8 of WCS AM, HuK is out to make his way into the top of the foreign scene once again.





Administrator Break the chains