Liereyy, Hera, Vinchester and Sitaux are the ones here part of this new generation of experts, yes.It seems to me, especially with the list you just provided yourself, that it is not, in fact, Viper who is the outliner, but actually Hera and Liereyy are simply the only ones of a "new" generation who are frequently making it to the finals of S-Tier tournaments. Don't quote me if I'm way off, but isn't the average Age of the KotD Players who made the group stage somwhere around 30 - smack dab in the middle of the generation you mentioned?
Sure, lately it seems like it's Viper vs Hera and Liereyy, but the younger generation had to put in years worth of hard work to make it to this point, which, if anything, is a compliment to the game, a sign that age doesn't actually decide if you're able to enjoy it. Or become and remain good at it.
Don't get me wrong, I, too, don't want Viper to go away any time soon, and hope he'll remain a top contender for years to come. But my wish would be simply more players managing to place at the very top. I'm not saying it's boring, but if all of us here were to guess the Top 4 players in KotD, the lists would likely be 90% identical. That's why DauT winning Wololo 3 was such an event.
That's why I kind of hope we'll see a Winner we won't necessarily expect.
DauT is the only one part of the old generation (until Capoch and Chris rise to the top again hehe).
The rest is part of "Viper" generation.
I agree with you on the fact that it'd be more fun to have more players at the very very top. For a while now we had Viper and Liereyy, just a step behind Hera, Yo, MbL, DauT, JorDan.
It indeed shows how hard it is to rise to the top level, especially when you're not living from the game and have another job: that's why I'm impressed by MbL's level.