It is pretty late and I am very sleepy so I'll try to make this as brief as possible.
Grubby Interview
I was watching this interview of Grubby at MLG earlier today(above). Grubby talked (starting about 7:10)about how our brains all have the capacity to improve rapidly but only do so based on "the competition out there". Combined with the fact that I felt pretty average during MLG Dallas, and one of our best players in Pig exposing exactly how bad we are on his blog the other day, I feel like we really need a kick up our butt.
I know it isn't our fault that we are extremely jeopardised by our population/internet/E-Sport infrastructure and development. But the reality is that we are pretty behind in skill level compared to NA and Europe, and especially Korea. I know this isn't going to change anytime soon and I'm really not interested in people telling me reasons of why we suck, because I've heard our excuses one million times, legit or not. I'm saying **** em, we need to realise just how bad (I'm using the word comparatively, don't get offended) we are, and that it is time to really push ourselves and each other against the very best, and against the odds.
I'm talking about anaylsing replays like Rossi, grinding at the toughest league like mG/Ninja, play-out scrappy games like YYJ/Tgun, developing strategies like myself, study your opponents like Targa, analysing your own weaknesses like Mafia, learn/practice good/efficient habits/mechanics and removing bad habits from your game like Pig. PLAY STARCRAFT ON YOUR BIRTHDAY LIKE IAGUZ
My personal subjective opinion of where the StarCraft II skill hierarchy is at it's current state:
S Class players:
GSL Code S players
Majority of the Kespa players
Some strong Korean players that are currently not in GSL Code S
Stephano
S/A Class player line - Naniwa/Scarlett
A Class players:
Top tier foreigner players
Majority of professional players in team houses either in Code A or Code B.
MoonGlade/Targa
Korean GMs
A/B Class player line - Mafia/Pig
B Class players:
Top tier SEA players (I put myself here)
High Korean Masters (At least top 200)
2nd Tier foreigner players
NA GMs
C Class players:
SEA GMs
Mid-High NA Masters
Competition in StarCraft II is amazingly steep and fluctuant - Players are jumping up and down classes constantly. e.g. MoonGlade completely separated himself from the rest of SEA in between the time of WCS and MLG to move up to a A Class player. Even if your Life, MVP or Rain, you still need to watch your back, because the competition is constantly pushing everyone to get better and better. Let us SEAsians constantly remind each other how low we reside in the hierarchy in-order to drive each other to get better and better. There is no time for ego and wasting time being mad from losing to something/someone you obviously aren't prepared enough for. No more excuses such as "I'm talented but I just don't play" "He/I hit his/my skill-ceiling". SIMPLY NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
I know the biggest issue here is time. But if want to get better, we can't be wasting any, because the Koreans are improving at a rate of 10 hours/7 days a week.
I'm actually much of a fan of positive reinforcement rather than negative reinforcement(by calling ourselves shit). But we need to get our heads out of our asses and not be content from how good we think we are. Let's not get left behind!
Rayray
P.S For all you unemployed StarCraft II players out there - If my tax dollars is paying for your fortnightly CENTRELINK CHEQUE and 4AM TUESDAY GARBAGE COLLECTION, the least you can do is... GET BETTER AT THIS GAME! Thank you
Well if you talking ALL-TIME then no one is better then Legionnaire here, this is why I included "current-state". Regardless I have no intention of debating this any further with you, this wasn't what the blog was about. Stick to the main topic.
Really interesting post Light, though it is obviously aimed at those already in GM or Masters. I wonder if part of the problem is the difficulty in having SEA players get to tournaments?
I mean I've certainly started to play more. at the moment I play between 10-15 games per day. But I hope to increase that soon. I don't think I'll ever make it to the Lvl of SEA GMs but I can always dream.
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Every zerg who goes SH must die ~ Nemesis
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