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Who are the Top 10 Players of 2012?

Wobbles

Wobbles

Desert ******
BRoomer
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I still don't quite understand threads like these, if only because there is no definition for "better" that people use consistently. My definition of "better" is different from somebody else's, etc.

If you want to use "better" as a measurement of probability that states where, in a major tournament with all players in attendance, a player will likely place, then you can't put somebody on the list after one major tournament. Because you can't discern probability from a single point of data. With that in mind, we can't rank Javi at all.

Is that the same as saying "Haha! Javi is terrible America #1 xD~~~"? No, it's not. It means that for all we know that was the ABSOLUTE BEST Javi has ever played in his life, and next time he won't make it out of pools. For all we know he was scrubbing bubbles that day, so he SHOULD have 4 stocked everybody. WE DON'T KNOW. You can't graph or rank probabilities and odds with a single point of data.

Personally I prefer the concept of a player tier list, because when players are close enough that the outcome of their sets are not highly likely to end one way or the other, they should just be in the same tier and call it a day. And as the distance between tiers increases, the likelihood of the higher tier player winning is increased. While you might find some style discrepancy that causes a B tier to lose to an E tier, overall the probabilities would be well represented.

Between PP and Mango, who wins more? Well, Mango's got the winning record but PP took a set off him last time they played, just like he took a set off Armada in Europe. Putting them in the same tier is therefore completely reasonable. And as HBox pushes those players to their limit (though PP appears to have a solid edge on him) he belongs in that tier as well. And it would be tier SS, which stands for SUPER STACKED because any one of those players can win the tourney on any given day. You might put PP at the bottom because of the four, his track record is the least dominant. But we still recognize he's in that echelon.

If you don't want to put M2K in that tier with them (since he's not been winning), then put him in S tier by himself, because there's nobody AFAIC who deserves to be in a tier with him, even if he isn't at SS level.

But trying to strictly number everything is silly and doesn't help much, IMO. Just use ballpark estimates, it accounts for minor discrepancies in play/bracketing. And then you don't have 20 people who are "worthy of 10th place."
 
Divinokage

Divinokage

Smash Legend
Joined
Aug 6, 2006
Messages
16,250
Location
Montreal, Quebec
Wobbles said:
I still don't quite understand threads like these, if only because there is no definition for "better" that people use consistently. My definition of "better" is different from somebody else's, etc.

If you want to use "better" as a measurement of probability that states where, in a major tournament with all players in attendance, a player will likely place, then you can't put somebody on the list after one major tournament. Because you can't discern probability from a single point of data. With that in mind, we can't rank Javi at all.

Is that the same as saying "Haha! Javi is terrible America #1 xD~~~"? No, it's not. It means that for all we know that was the ABSOLUTE BEST Javi has ever played in his life, and next time he won't make it out of pools. For all we know he was scrubbing bubbles that day, so he SHOULD have 4 stocked everybody. WE DON'T KNOW. You can't graph or rank probabilities and odds with a single point of data.

Personally I prefer the concept of a player tier list, because when players are close enough that the outcome of their sets are not highly likely to end one way or the other, they should just be in the same tier and call it a day. And as the distance between tiers increases, the likelihood of the higher tier player winning is increased. While you might find some style discrepancy that causes a B tier to lose to an E tier, overall the probabilities would be well represented.

Between PP and Mango, who wins more? Well, Mango's got the winning record but PP took a set off him last time they played, just like he took a set off Armada in Europe. Putting them in the same tier is therefore completely reasonable. And as HBox pushes those players to their limit (though PP appears to have a solid edge on him) he belongs in that tier as well. And it would be tier SS, which stands for SUPER STACKED because any one of those players can win the tourney on any given day. You might put PP at the bottom because of the four, his track record is the least dominant. But we still recognize he's in that echelon.

If you don't want to put M2K in that tier with them (since he's not been winning), then put him in S tier by himself, because there's nobody AFAIC who deserves to be in a tier with him, even if he isn't at SS level.

But trying to strictly number everything is silly and doesn't help much, IMO. Just use ballpark estimates, it accounts for minor discrepancies in play/bracketing. And then you don't have 20 people who are "worthy of 10th place."
Click to expand...
Ya but it's not only tournament results, I mean you can't be blind to think that he got lucky or anything like that. A lot of top players played him and me as well for quite a few matches, his skill is definitely up there.
 
-ACE-

-ACE-

Gotem City Vigilante
Joined
Sep 25, 2007
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The back country, GA
He's not being blind kage, he's being smart. He is one of the few people on this site that actually take information for what it really is and doesn't immediately jump to several conclusions based on it. He is saying we don't know (when it comes to javi, for example) where certain players should be ranked due to limited data.

Soooooooo many people take the results of a single tournament to heart. Take the sets for what they are. 2 people meet in bracket, and countless factors influence who comes out on top in the end. Sure tourney results are essentially the only quantitative evidence we have, but it does not necessarily tell you who is the overally better player.

That being said, this is the "best" players of 2012. Since it is only this year you sort of have to weigh tourney results a little bit more imo, since we have limited data and this ranking doesn't mean anything to begin with.
 
-ACE-

-ACE-

Gotem City Vigilante
Joined
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Messages
11,534
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The back country, GA
You have a good idea as to what his skill level is as we all do. But in reality we don't know enough for any type of real conclusion. Had you retired after beating Mango, there would be several people out there saying you could beat him if you came back because they've seen you destroy him twice in bracket. Not a perfect comparison but similar.
 
Wobbles

Wobbles

Desert ******
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Messages
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Gilbert, AZ
Like I said, I'm not making any claims regarding his skill level because 1) I didn't play him 2) we have one point of data.

I'm not trying to somehow drag any appropriate congratulations away from him either. Skill is related to a lot of things, and ranking is related to a lot of things. As somebody pointed out, I've beaten M2K the past two times we played. Does that put me on the same plane of skill? It doesn't. We don't have the same reference of who Javi is likely to win/lose to because we lack data. Breadth of dominance is one of the things you consider when ranking a player. Beating PP is crazy good (I STILL CAN'T DO IT ;_; ) but for all we know, Javi is more MY level--he can do well in that upper tier of players, has good odds against one of those upper upper tiers, but then can't hang with the rest and will sporadically lose to others around his level/beneath him. Am I saying this is true, one way or the other? No, I'm not. I'm saying I don't know, because we have ONE POINT OF DATA. For all you know his style is incredibly hard to deal with, but one dimensional and he lacks long-term adaptability. For all you know he has incredible long-term adaptability, and would be winning all our tournaments and is secretly the best.

You don't know if the slope is trending up or down or if it's flat, because you have one point to judge from.

Our community unevenly applies standards across players. It's incredibly whack. HBox **** on people for years before they finally started calling him "good." They asserted that people just weren't used to a Puff that played that gay, even as he won tournament after tournament, and actually GOT BETTER. Even MANGO underrated him, and while people assumed he had him figured out, he lost to him at APEX this year. The guy is GOOD. Why did it take people so long to figure it out?

The same people, by the way, who instantly dropped Axe in the top 10 because HOLY **** PIKACHU, while a significantly smaller percentage of people attributed the possibility to matchup inexperience on the part of other players. Right now, as he is, Axe does not deserve top 10 because he allows tournament pressure and the pressure to perform (as he perceives it, from his friends and the people who love watching him play) to destabilize him in the middle of games. He doesn't fully adjust to new recovery patterns and tendencies against higher level players in time, and drops crucial edgeguards--which he can't afford to do, particularly against Fox/Falco as Pikachu. If he overcomes these barriers, then he will definitely be up there. In the mean time we can recognize that he's incredibly baller, but has significant weaknesses.

And the same **** with Javi; one major tournament on the world stage, instantly top 10? IT'S NOT STATISTICALLY SOUND. Likewise! Incredibly baller! Not quite perfect! WHY IS THIS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
 
Boat Mode

Boat Mode

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Sep 14, 2006
Messages
257
Location
Long Island, NY
Damn Haggar going in on Mango

Call this bias, it would be funnier w/ a touch less flopmerican ****. Some of it is pretty funny though.
 
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