Tried putting the S9 MCSR ranked playoffs runners into categories based on their playstyles while waiting for semifinals, wondering what other people think:
Lowkey-esque
Players: Lowkey, Steez, NHB
Defined by mechanical excellence, but more notably a lack of hesitation when decision-making. Will go for the risky / unconventional / variance plays. Well-known for incredible top speeds in linear seeds, but the lack of hesitation often give them the advantage in messy and unclear situations as well.
Micro-Technical
Players: Silverr, Doogile, Beefsalad
The goal is to always make the correct play based on currently available information. This means being good mechanically to pull off strategies, knowing a lot of really micro time-saves on scale of in-game ticks, but also active thinking & constant adaptation. Testing & analysis outside of practice games.
Mechanical
Players: Hackingnoises, Blazemind, Nahan, HDMICables, Aquacorde
Probably the most broad category, but players defined by their excellence within individual splits, eg. bastion routing, dealing with blaze spawner, end fights. Flashy plays common but not necessary. The more linear the seed, the more these players are at an advantage
All-Rounder
Players: Infume, EDCR
Players who might not stand out mechanically, but achieve consistent fast times across the seed thanks to decision-making and being aware of their win-con (eg. when to high-roll).
RSG-Influenced
Player: Skycrab
Possesses the lack of hesitation characteristic of Lowkey-esque but with some minute differences in the timing & content of pre-crafts compared to top ranked runners. Preference for high-roll plays (eg. going for stray blazes, not breaking treasure spawner, terrain decisions) without necessarily high risk (eg. go with no food). Buff on BT seeds.
All Advancement-Influenced
Player: Feinberg
Playstyle that is overall quite similar to the all-rounder, with some affinity to some weird-looking plays (eg. long pearl-hang to second spawner) which might very well just be Feinberg's own tourney experience showing. Buff to inventory management. Debuff to zero cycle (/j).
Mongey Style (Macro-focused)
Player: BigbigMongey
????
Yeah there's no other runner at the top level who plays even remotely similar to how Mongey plays. He magics time-saves out of a hat. Looking at splits it's mostly to do with terrain navigation, but he also doesn't hesitate and look around so much like other players do when they try to navigate complex terrain. So like. Intuitive understanding of which nether trees to climb to get to the bastion faster???
No player fit into any category perfectly (except Lowkey and the style named after him I guess). For example, Aquacorde is very good mechanically, but it manifests in clean gameplay and consistency instead of flashy manouveurs. Doogile is not in the mechanical category, even though he obviously excels at the actual mechanics. Beefsalad can go into any of Micro-Technical, Mechanical, or Lowkey-esque depending on the game.
