I didn't want to bump this too hard (or get into the millionth fruitless discussion about 'best ever'), but just a little correction:
--BA-- wasn't actually all that big on XWIS; most of the clans reputation was established from the first generation of players who were absolutely dominant on WOL (burner, breznov (the real one, not the one on here now ), downdariv, vegeta, etc.). The fact that we had the majority of top players in the game is what allowed the --BA-- name to carry on through to XWIS after the WW Forums closed (everyone went to C-S, DGNF, --BA-- forums and Om3rta forums, kind of cementing the legend) and it's from those forums that XCL / XWIS was created.
Don't get me wrong, we got our fair share of Rank 1's post-WOL, but the clan was a shadow of what it formerly was. The top-tier guys game-wide felt massively slighted by EA's complete disregard towards the community when they 1) shut down the forums, 2) stopped tending to the ladders, 3) completely stopped chat and 4) eventually shut down the server. Most of them left within a few months of the ladder pushes and blatant cheating (like pres IFVs), and didn't really care to put too much effort or time into XWIS - either because they were at that age that they just stopped really gaming competitively, or because they moved on to other titles (like WC3).
So as not to make this completely irrelevant to the OP's topic, i'd say best ever in terms of accomplishments and knowledge has to go to Tomi. But as a caveat: if you put the best ever in a series of 1v1's all at their primes (Tomi, Kane, burner, brez, downd, veg, daso, henl, and the guys today like marko, andy, latof, whoever else), i think it'd be impossible to say who actually wins, and it'd probably be somebody different every time. The peak of this game isn't as high as it is in other games, and seeing as it's been stagnant since YR's last patch over 15 years ago there really hasn't been a need to develop new strategies / tactics. Innovation ended when the patches did, unfortunately. When a game gets to that point, it becomes more and more about the tiny details, and the separation of skill becomes almost negligible.
I also saw Sammo mentioned - and although I really liked the guy, i wouldn't put him in a 'best ever' category. The dude was really good -- at a pro level -- but if youi're talking all-time best, then i'd have to say no. For perspective: i beat him ~3-4 times, as well as pretty much everyone I played the one month i took QM seriously (including awaz, who took rank 1 that month) -- all except tomi (december 06, right before i went to bootcamp). i got two names in the top 10 that month, and one of the nicks nobody knew it was me, but swore it was w0nna or sammo. And that's not to toot my own horn, but simply show that there was another level past where I would have considered us at. Whereas we were top players, the guys up above were in a class of their own.
