[nirvAnA]

The Initial Seedings

When the 2012 MLG vs Proleague Invitational was first announced I remember thinking to myself.. how come KesPA players are being given half the seeds! Thats not justified I felt it was too biased as they haven't really proved themselves yet etc but it was named the MLG vs Proleague invitational after all...

I haven't been following this tournament at all so when I looked at the results on liquipedia I had the shock of my life. The top tier of the foreign world and some of the best Koreans were all holding negative records. So not only did the seeding turned out to be "justified", in fact the Kespa players should have been awarded more seeds!

For those unfamiliar with the system, it goes like this. Every player in the Proleague conference will play every player in the Major League Gaming conference. Meaning Kespa players vs best of NA/EU/KR and not against each other. If they played each other you could argue that the skill level / winners of the kespa groups might be different as their players could have been less skilled, but this was not the case as they played cross division.

In other words, an individual MLG players performance would indicate his ratio vs the "average kespa player" and vice versa.

Statistics as of 14th October

(Just updated with most recent statistics from MLG's page)

• NA Players: 12/12 players Negative win ratios. Idra/Sheth is at the bottom with a record of 3-33
• EU Players: 5/6 players Negative win ratios. Socke is at the bottom with a record of 3-32
• KR/TW Players: 6/6 No Positive win ratios. MC is the best with a neutral record of 18-18. Oz, Alicia, aLive and PuMa the two time NASL champion is last with a 15-21 Record. Unbelievable!

Now the for the most alarming statistic.

• Kespa players: 23/24 players have Positive win ratios. Rain Flash and Baby lead the table with records of 22-2, 21-3, 21-3. No one has a negative ratio, the weakest link is Jaehoon who has a neutral record of 18-18.

Click to enlarge. Source: Liquipedia MLG vs Proleague Invitational

Detailed Results

Other things to consider:

• Lag / playing times of the matches
• All top kespa players were there but a few top "MLG" players not there (Stephano, MVP, Scarlett etc)
• Walkovers? Not sure if some wins were counted from that.

Conclusion

My first conclusion is the Kespa players have already eclipsed the top tier of the foreign world and GSL world. Maybe its still too early to tell but this looks like a sign of things to come, especially with SKT rain leading the charge getting in the semis of both the OSL and GSL. It looks like the Kespa players are inevitability going to replace the most elite players in the world sans a few of the best GSL players. I was quite skeptical this would happen, or at least not happen so fast. Especially since you always hear cries that SC1 players > War3 players but that was proven otherwise (at least outside of Korea). Add also the fact the GSL stars had a 1.5 year headstart.

The reign of Kespa has begun.

The next issue is what is going to happen to all the existing stars of today? Or aspiring pro-gamers, both Korean and international? Being a pro-gamer is going to be soooo much harder now. Because of them the competition and relative skill level has went through the roof. Also, after listening to grubby cast WCS Asia I feel he can earn 10x the amount he does and be set for the rest of his life being the best caster in the world. Whereas if he continues to compete vs the best of Korea its going to be such an uphill battle like it is for every top tier foreign pro except Stephano But obviously he does not play for money he plays for passion. But theres passion in commentating too!

Its going to be sad to see the stars of today inevitable fade out and by replaced by this wave of koreans kespa players. Or maybe the new stars will shine even brighter and be better idols. I did not follow the SC1 pro scene much but theres obviously friction between the two groups of players. I felt the dishwashing ceremony by Flying after beating MVP and PartinG (a reference to how previous GSL star players were Team B dishwishers) was more disrespectful than funny.

+ [Dishwashing ceremony] +

Anyway these are my thoughts on the results, interested to hear what you guys think.

Quick Comments

	Dox:	thread title :P
	iM tgun:	Sensationalist thread titling, reddit mode activated
	crAzerk:	@tgun in case u missed it, dox's comment was referring to the original title of 'has the reign of kespa has begun?'