Starcraft

[ImperialSun]

I have to ask, why? I'm not sure how you could possibly say that after he went 1-2 against PartinG, a recent world champion at the time, with a legitimate win (expanded and used micro-intensive multitasking). Being GM doesn't mean you're at the pinnacle of Starcraft and earning tournament winnings left and right, just that you're capable of beating >99% of players. Even ignoring WCS, this still seems to fit CombatEX pretty well. He had a good understanding of the game and able to beat the vast majority of starcraft players. Did he win any major tournaments? No, but the same can be said of most of the North American GM league. And actually, most of NA GM can't say they made it to WCS and took a win off a Korean progamer. So...

I'm guessing you're probably remembering the CombatEX of old which is the same trap most people end up following into. In starcraft 1 he was a bad player who win traded. In the first year of starcraft 2 he continued his bad behavior and his cheesy play (cannon rushes, proxy 2 gates, 4g gate). Later he toned down his bm and also quit stream sniping. What is more relevant though to your point that he shouldn't have been in GM is that he also started taking the game more seriously and focused on improving his macro style. If you watch some of his videos on youtube or his stream videos you'll see that he preferred macro games and had beaten plenty of GMs with macro. Did he mix in some cheese here and there? Sure. But that's actually a mark of a good player and something which people who win major tournaments do too. If you watch GSL and/or MLG you'll see that many top tier champions do cheeses and allins every so often to throw off their opponents in addition to macro games. In fact, this ties into one of the main criticisms people had of IdrA back when he was better. He always macroed to the point that he became too predictable and commentators called him out for it as more people began abusing this fact that he would never cheese (later IdrA did start to mix in some cheeses). Point being, CombatEX didn't deserve GM back when he stream cheated and cheesed all the time, but he dramatically changed his playstyle when he came back to the game after his 4 month break.

It gets tiresome seeing people getting stuck in one mindset. I'm not talking about you personally, but it's something I've seen far too often (and not just with CombatEX, but also with things in general). Times change. People change. As for the "asking for forgiveness" issue, I can see how you can say CombatEX's change in behavior was "too little, too late". But gameplay ability and redemption are two separate things. He may have been beyond redemption as far as the starcraft community goes, but that doesn't change the fact that he improved his gameplay ability dramatically.