• 7x GSL Code S titles + 8x other Liquipedia-premier titles • Recorded three of the most dominant Proleague seasons • Over ten uninterrupted years as a top-tier player
Notable Tournament Finishes:
2013 OnGameNet Starleague: 1st place
2015 IEM Taipei: 2nd place
2015 StarCraft II Starleague: 1st place
2016 World Electronic Sports Games: 2nd place
2018 World Electronic Sports Games: 1st place
2018 Code S Season 1: 1st place
2018 Code S Season 2: 1st place
2018 Code S Season 3: 1st place
2019 Code S Season 1: 1st place
2020 GSL Super Tournament #1: 1st place
2020 King of Battles #1: 1st place
2020 Code S Season 3: 2nd place
2021 Code S Season 1: 2nd place
2021 DHM Summer Season Finals: 2nd place
2021 King of Battles #2: 1st place
2021 DHM Winter Season Finals: 1st place
2021 GSL Super Tournament #3: 2nd place
2022 DHM Last Chance: 1st place
2022 DHM Valencia: 2nd place
2022 Code S Season 2: 2nd place
2022 TeamLiquid Starleague 9: 2nd place
2022 Code S Season 3: 1st place
2023 IEM Katowice: 2nd place
2023 Code S Season 1: 1st place
2023 Code S Season 2: 1st place
2024 IEM Katowice: 2nd place
Finally, we have arrived at the highest seat in the pantheon of StarCraft II. Maru reigns over all others with seven Code S championships, the only Code S/OSL/SSL triple crown in history, and one of the most outstanding Proleague careers. Maru's GSL exploits are the sort that were once thought to be impossible, setting a legendary bar for greatness in the game's most storied competition.
But beyond these tournament accolades, Maru's most astonishing feat is that he has remained in the top tier of the professional scene for over a decade. Ever since he first rose to championship contention in 2013, at no point would anyone have dared to question Maru's status as one of the best players in the world.
Through two expansions, dozens of patches, and hundreds of maps, Maru has not only remained competitive—he has thrived. Prodigious mechanics helped him achieve this incredible longevity, but he also possesses adaptability that surpasses all of his peers. He evolved his playstyle numerous times, changing from a cheesy micro specialist, to master of the mid-game onslaught, to the best late-game turtle player we've ever seen. Maru took whatever shape was ideal at any given moment, allowing him to dictate metas, improve on metas, or even invent new ones altogether.
In a list such as this, every player achieved something that makes them stand out among the rest. Mvp was the most dominant player in a single era. Rogue was the most dangerous best-of-seven player. Serral has won the most universal praise from his peers in his own time. But the most impressive and irreplicable of all those feats is Maru's decade-long run at the pinnacle of StarCraft II. As the years go on and one legend after another retires, Maru remains standing as the Greatest of All Time.
Career Overview: Alpha and the Omega
In fitting fashion for the #1 player on this list, Maru is the sole player in the top ten who competed in StarCraft II starting in the very first GSL.
Maru's talent was apparent at a very early age, as evidenced by his brief stint as an SK Telecom T1 Brood War trainee when he was just 10-years-old. While Maru did not want to commit fully at that time, the later release of StarCraft II gave Maru an opportunity to start pursuing progaming in earnest when he was thirteen.
Initially, Maru struggled to make an impact with anything but his youthful countenance, as he finished in the top 32 (out of 2010) of the first GSL Open Season held during August-October of 2010. While Maru would have opportunities to keep showing his talent as a member of PRIME in the GSTL and various other team competitions, his solo career would remain stalled until 2012. Only then would he finally escape from the depths of Code A and win Code S status, qualifying for three out of five seasons that year. Still, it was just a minor step forward for Maru, whose best Code S finish for all of Wings of Liberty would be a solitary RO16 in Season 2 of 2012.
Oh, how the kids grow up…
The release of Heart of the Swarm in early 2013 brought massive change to the StarCraft II scene, including Maru's breakout as a championship-caliber player. His first tournament in the new expansion went poorly, as he was eliminated in the RO32 of the inaugural HotS Code S. However, just a few months later in the 2013 OnGameNet Starleague, he showed the StarCraft II world an entirely new version of himself.
Neither of Maru's group stage performances were particularly convincing in terms of record, as he advanced with a 2-1 match score in both the RO32 and RO16 (the OSL sticking to its traditional 4-player round-robin format). In fact, he only recorded a 4-4 map score in the RO16, but advanced in first place due to OSL's archaic rule of using head-to-head as the first tiebreaker.
However, once he reached the playoffs, Maru went on an underdog run for the ages. His RO8 opponent was Symbol, who had been a Code S runner-up in WoL and had (partially) beaten the patchzerg allegations with a top four finish in the first HotS Code S. Maru overwhelmed his far more accomplished opponent with mass Marine-Marauder-Mine, taking the 3-1 victory.
Things got much, much harder in the RO4, as Maru faced off against the monster known as 2013 INnoVation. While Maru was in the midst of the first notable run of his career, the Machine Terran was riding high after finishing second place in Code S and winning the WCS Season 1 cross-regional final. Aside from his results, INnoVation's overpowering play made many fans consider him the clear best in the world (refer to our INnoVation GOAT article), making Maru an enormous underdog in comparison. Yet, despite garnering a mere 7% of the Liquibet votes, Maru pulled off one of the biggest upsets in early SC2 history by all-inning his way to a 4-0 sweep (the legend of Maru's proxy-Barracks began here).
Defying the odds twice had earned Maru some limited credit, but he remained the underdog headed into the finals. His opponent Rain was less than a year removed from winning the first StarCraft II OSL in WoL, and despite a slightly rocky transition to HotS, had far more cachet in the scene. This time, Maru garnered just under 30% of the Liquibet votes—his upset potential had to be respected, but he remained far from being the favorite.
The first three games seemed to expose Maru as nothing but a dastardly cheeser, with Rain winning the first two games with rock-solid macro play while giving up game three to Maru's proxy-Barracks cheese. However, Maru showed the true depth of his abilities in game four, defeating Rain straight-up in an 'honorable' macro game (though it would not totally convince fans at the time). Something about that tying victory seemed to sap all of Rain's verve, who opted to try aggressive strategies of his own in games five and six. Maru defended with aplomb both times, completing the quasi-reverse-sweep to win the first major championship of his career.
Maru showed he was no flash in the pan in the following months, as he went on to take a semifinals finish in four out of his next five competitions—including the very first WCS Global Finals at BlizzCon (losing 1-3 to Jaedong in the semis). Within a matter of months, Maru had established himself as a top player in the scene, and belatedly joined TaeJa and Life as one of the key players to watch in StarCraft's next generation.
Unsurprisingly, KeSPA came to pluck the rising star away from the ailing eSports Federation (the group of endemic SC2 teams from before the KeSPA transition), and Maru was signed by Jin Air Green Wings just before the start of the 2014 season. On the face of it, Maru's individual league results took a step back following his move, as he went RO8–RO4–RO16 in three Code S Seasons that year. While that may have had something to do with him adjusting to KeSPA's Proleague-centric environment, it should be noted that 2014 was simply a wretched year for all Terrans in Korea (Code S Season 1 had a damning 16/13/3 racial split). Besides INnoVation, who went Not-qualified–RO16–Champion in Code S that year, Maru was actually the second best Terran performer in individual leagues. Unfortunately for the fans, Maru's results weren't enough to qualify him for a return to BlizzCon, as the WCS Europe and America regions awarded equal WCS points to the GSL in the period's format.
As for the 2014 Proleague—or "PvProleague" as it was known at the time—Maru fully delivered on Jin Air's expectations with a stunning debut season where he went 30-19 in games and won the Rookie of the year award (Jin Air's collective performance in the playoffs was lackluster and they finished in 4th place). This was the height of the Blink-Stalker era, where the Mothership Core and favorable maps made most Terrans live in fear of imminent death, but Maru somehow thrived in this environment.
So how did he do it? At the time, Terrans were basically relying on two-base Tank-push all-ins if they could avoid taking early damage, because fighting against Protoss deathballs in the late-game felt just as pointless. Maru was one of the few players with the micro, macro, and multi-tasking to keep the splash-damage Exodia from coming together with his constant attacks, and maybe even win in a head-on deathball collision thanks to his tremendous combat ability.
Do you miss Proleague? I miss Proleague.
If Maru's 2014 was disappointing from a 'quick glance at the Liquipedia timeline' perspective, he came back in 2015 with a year that was just as good in terms of gameplay AND saw him fill up his tournament resume as well. His first podium finish of the year came at IEM Taipei (IEM tended to have very inconsistent roster strength at this time, but this was one of the tougher tournaments), where he barely settled for a second place finish with a 3-4 loss to Life. Maru's momentum carried on to the newly created Korean major, the StarCraft II Starleague held by SpoTV. He got off to an unassuming start after ceding first place in his RO16 group to the newly rising Terran Dream, but he showed his full quality in the playoffs. After defeating Leenock (3-0) and Stats (4-2) in the first two rounds, Maru avenged his group stage loss to Dream with a crushing 4-1 victory and claimed the second piece of the domestic 'triple crown' (OSL/Code S/SSL).
Maru slowed down in individual leagues for the rest of the year, repeating his Code S 2014 campaign with RO16-RO8-RO4 results while finishing RO8-RO16 in the next two SSL tournaments. These results were more than enough to earn him a spot at the 2015 WCS Global Finals, but his comeback tournament was a dud. Rogue, who was in the midst of his first notable run, ended up upsetting his Jin Air teammate in a 3-0 sweep.
In 2015 Proleague, Maru was yet again one of the best players in the entire competition. He finished the season with a 27-16 record that was near the top of the league, and helped Jin Air to a second place finish thanks to a strong showing from the rest of the roster in the playoffs. Even though Terran didn't struggle quite as hard as in 2014, Maru's boundary-pushing play throughout 2015 saw him earn one of his nicknames: "the fourth race."
2016 would see the game change over to Legacy of the Void, and bring with it Maru's first major setback year—at least in terms of individual tournament results. In Proleague, he actually had his best season ever, putting up a ridiculous 22-4 record as he led Jin Air to their first Proleague title in history (their only major title in anything even when you throw in six odd years of League of Legends). However, Maru struggled greatly in individual competition. Despite recording the single most dominant season in the history of SC2 Proleague, he went 1-for-5 in SSL/GSL qualification, with his one Code S appearance ending in RO16 elimination. Overall, it was a very difficult year to rate in Maru's career, where he achieved the ultimate success in one half of SC2 competition while falling utterly flat in the other.
Maru is awarded finals MVP in the final season of Proleague.
Even with Proleague dissolving and fading into history, Maru had another complicated year in 2017. Things began with a second place finish at the WESG main event in January, where Maru lost 3-4 to TY (the other best Terran in the at the time) in the finals. While it was 'only' a runner-up finish, the massive $100,000 prize still marked the single biggest payout in his career up to that point. As for domestic leagues, Maru made a modest rebound with some middle-of-the road showings, going RO8-RO4-RO32 in three seasons of Code S while finishing 7th and 6th in two seasons of SSL (which was played in a peculiar 10-player format that year).
While no one would call this a bad year, it couldn't help but feel rather lukewarm outside the massive prize money haul at WESG. Maru’s peak ability was never in doubt, but two years removed from his victory in SSL and four years removed from his win in OSL, it felt like he was underachieving compared to his clear, best-in-the-world potential. Even though he had three stellar years of Proleague to his credit, players like INnoVation, Zest, and sOs had enjoyed similar levels of teamleague success while outshining him in individual competitions. Maru was only 20-years-old as 2017 came to a close, which left him plenty of time to attain his rightful standing in StarCraft II. However, not even the most deluded Maru fan could have dreamed of what he was about to achieve.
The legendary back-to-back-to-back-to-back Code S run began in Season 1 of 2018. In a throwback to his OSL and SSL titles, Maru was somewhat shaky in the early going, coming out of both his RO32 and RO16 groups in second place. Even his RO8 match was a close call, as he narrowly beat teammate sOs by a 3-2 score (sOs was historically one of the players who has given Maru the most trouble).
Here, the Code S took an unusually long interlude for IEM Katowice and WESG, which turned out to be an important turning point in Maru's year. While his Code S games had revolved around early/mid-game play, he took this pair of mega-internationals as an opportunity to demonstrate his newfound mastery over the late-game and unique understanding of the recently patched Raven. This version of Maru looked like the most complete one ever, still fond of nasty cheeses in the early-game, still possessing unmatched mid-game aggression, and now nigh invincible in the late game due to the might of anti-armor missiles. Maru used this toolset to earn a top four finish at IEM Katowice (losing 2-3 to Rogue in the semis), and a week later, he claimed the $200,000 grand prize at WESG after storming through a playoff gauntlet of Reynor (3-0), Serral (3-0), and Dark (4-3).
This stretch of play brought us the infamous saying of "just play like Maru," with Maru looking like the only Terran who could compete at a championship level at the time. He affirmed that this was indeed the case when Code S resumed. The final two rounds saw Maru tear through both Dark (4-2) and Stats (4-2)—two of the best players of their respective races at the time—to win his first Code S title and complete the OSL/SSL/Code S triple.
While Maru had to fight hard to win his first Code S title (19-10 total map record), he was far more dominant in Code S Season 2 (even with Blizzard deploying a 'Maru patch' midway through the season to nerf anti-armor missiles). He topped both of his groups in the opening rounds, before overcoming Rogue 3-2 in a quarterfinal bout which would be his hardest series of the tournament. After that, he brutally crushed his remaining two opponents, defeating Classic 4-1 in the semis before sweeping Zest 4-0 in one of the fastest Code S finals in history (around 33 minutes of total game time).
Just by winning two Code S titles back to back, Maru reached a historic milestone. Previously, Nestea had been the only previous player to win back-to-back Code S championships, achieving that feat in the hoary era of 2011. Maru wouldn't be content with a mere tie, however, as he'd go on to seize the all-time record with an incredible three-peat.
Having finished Season 2 with a 19-4 record, Maru put in a similarly imperious performance in Code S Season 3. While he 'disappointed' by dropping a couple of maps in the group stage, he smashed GuMiho (3-0) and Zest (4-1) in the playoffs to get his tournament win-rate back over 80%. Having breezed through the event up until the finals, Maru was met with what must have felt like a surprisingly tough challenge in the form of TY. Maru actually fell to a two-game deficit against an equal master of TvT, and his aura of invincibility briefly seemed like it was in danger of shattering. However, Maru showed he could be just as clutch as he could be dominating, and he eked out a 4-3 victory with a barely successful two-base all-in in game seven.
This victory saw Maru tie or break even more GSL records, changing the entire narrative of the tournament in the process. He had tied Nestea and INnoVation for total Code S titles, and stood alone as the player with three championships won in a row. If the sole, unchallengeable symbol of GSL greatness had previously been Mvp, Maru was now within striking distance of the old legend. In this context, Maru's gold medal at the 2018 Asian Games—which was utterly perfunctory in terms of in-game challenge—had some extra symbolic value, like the bygone WCG's that anointed players like Boxer, iloveoov, Jaedong, and Mvp himself as greats of their time.
Despite his historic accomplishments in Code S, Maru's performances in other tournaments were more of a mixed bag. While he did hit paydirt in WESG, he 'only' reached the top four of IEM Katowice as mentioned above, and repeated that RO4 finish in GSL vs. The World 2018. He was also lackluster in the two GSL Super Tournaments held that year, dropping out in the RO8 both times. These would have been good, even great results for many other players. But Maru's Code S success set the bar so high that anything but a championship started to feel unacceptable.
Unfortunately for Maru, he couldn't deliver on those expectations at the 2018 WCS Global Finals. A titanic finals clash between Maru and Serral seemed obvious considering their paths to BlizzCon, but Maru failed to make his date with destiny after being stunned by sOs' black magic in the quarterfinals and giving up a 0-3 sweep.
Both in real life and in-game, sOs proved to be a tricky opponent for Maru.
That anticlimactic ending may be the lasting memory for some fans, but Maru's 2018 campaign was still unquestionably the greatest single year from a Korean-region player. He won Code S three times, won four out of nine Liquipedia-premier events he played in overall, all while posting a ridiculous 51-12 record in offline matches.
BlizzCon 2018 may have momentarily slowed the hype train around Maru, but he wasn't done setting records in the GSL competition. He picked up where he left off in 2019's Season 1, once again going down the warpath to the grand finals. This time, his playoff match-ups were all TvP, and he dispatched Dear , Trap, and Classic with brutal efficiency to win his fourth Code S championship (the Trap series was particularly ruthless, with Maru taking a 4-0 sweep in around 27 minutes of game time).
With his fourth straight Code S championship, Maru tied soO for most consecutive finals appearances in Code S, surpassed Nestea for number of Code S titles, and was now just one championship away from claiming the G5L trophy originally meant for Mvp. It would have felt like a groundbreaking moment in StarCraft II history if it didn't also feel so inevitable—any number of wins seemed possible given the way Maru was playing in Code S.
Realistically speaking, Maru had already surpassed Mvp by that point. Mvp's "4 GSL titles" actually included one of the easier GSL World Championship events, whereas Maru had won all of his titles in Code S. Even so, GomTV/AfreecaTV weren't about to retcon their own history for Maru's sake—winning the G5L was the only way he would completely and undeniably surpass Mvp as the greatest GSL player of all time.
After this torrid fifteen-month run, Maru's momentum finally gave out. In truth, some of the cracks had already started to show in the middle of his fourth Code S championship campaign, when IEM Katowice and WESG were once again held during a break in the GSL season. At WESG, Maru was held to a top four finish by eventual champion INnoVation, while at IEM Katowice 2019, he suffered an alarming RO24 elimination (losses to Trap, Leenock, and Neeb). All this came to a head in Code S Season 2, when the unprecedented winning streak abruptly ended in the RO32 with losses to Patience and INnoVation.
No dominant run lasts forever, and there was some acceptance that came along with the surprise (Patience, really?). However, with Maru having reached such a high peak in 2018, it felt like it would only be a matter of time until he came back just as strong as before, and won the G5L trophy that had been unclaimed since 2012. In the end, it was indeed a "matter of time," but that time was longer than some may have expected.
The remainder of 2019 had few results of note for Maru, with a RO4 finish in Code S Season 3 being his best mark. He was eliminated in the first round of all the "weekender"-style GSL tournaments—two Super Tournaments and GSL vs. the World—and repeated his 2018 BlizzCon disappointment with another RO8 finish in the 2019 edition of the tournament (getting swept by eventual champion Dark).
2020 turned out to be a 'great for almost anyone else, but just okay for Maru' year. He started with a solid top four finish at IEM Katowice, losing 2-3 in the semifinals to eventual champion Rogue. Curiously, Maru followed up by winning GSL Super Tournament 1—a tournament he had previously been unusually poor in—with a great run that includes wins over Stats, INnoVation, Solar and Dark. However, this did not portend a return to form in Code S, as he would be held to RO8 and RO16 finishes in the first two seasons of the year.
The third and last Code S of 2020 saw Maru return to something resembling his old self, as he made his first finals run in over year. After taking down Trap and Armani in the playoffs, Maru came face to face with TY for a rematch from their GSL finals duel in 2018. Back then, Maru bested TY to claim his third title in a row, but this time, TY gave Maru his first taste of defeat in a Code S finals. Even 2018 Maru had only been able to beat TY by the slimmest of margins, and with TY now playing the best StarCraft of his career (also having won Code S Season 1 that year), he was able to show his superiority in TvT and win 4-2.
2020 was also the year that brought us the 'pandemic era' of online-oriented StarCraft, and Maru achieved mixed results in the spate of mixed-region online events that sprung up. While he went on a TvT rampage to win one of the smaller competitions in King of Battles #1, his performance in the larger DHM Season Finals left much to be desired as he went out in the RO8 of and RO16 of the two tournaments held that year.
Maru began to bounce back in 2021, starting the year with a top four finish in the online IEM World Championship. He then went on to earn his second shot at the G5L in Code S Season 1, facing the infamously clutch Rogue in the finals. Despite Rogue's reputation, Maru seemed to have a good chance of winning due to his former teammate's worse form, and the fact that he had won their BO5 meeting in the IEM World Championship. However, BO7 Rogue proved to be an entirely different animal from BO5 Rogue, and he defeated Maru 4-1 to deny him the G5L once more.
Maru receives experimental treatment for his wrist gets a cast taken of his hand after winning the inaugural SSL.
Despite this G5L disappointment, 2021 was still a very strong overall year for Maru. Across the 12 Liquipedia-premier events he participated in that year, Maru won twice at the DHM Winter Finals and King of Battles #2, earned three runner-up finishes in Code S Season 1, DHM Summer Finals, Super Tournament #3, and finished in the semifinals of four other tournaments. Part of this rebound was due to him remastering the hyper-defensive style he utilized so well in 2018, which was notably on display when he beat Serral in the finals of King of Battles 2. Another key development during this time was that Maru's already top-tier TvT jumped another level to being almost completely unbeatable, which was helped by his top TvT rival TY beginning his military service.
Maru kept up this high level of play as StarCraft returned to largely offline competition in 2022, beginning by winning the final pandemic era offline tournament of DHM Last Chance. While he did falter immediately after, finishing in the top eight of Code S Season 1 and IEM Katowice, he rallied in the remaining tournaments of the year. In the summer, he recorded a tightly packed trio of runner-up finishes, falling just short of the championship at DHM Summer/Valencia, TeamLiquid Starleague 9, and Code S Season 2. The latter tournament marked Maru's third failure attempt to capture the G5L, which was somewhat masked by the remarkable nature of its champion herO (who broke previous assumptions about the ceiling for players returning from military service). Still, the once inevitable G5L started to feel cursed—how else could you explain herO's historic run coming at exactly that moment?
Fortunately for Maru, he wouldn't have to suffer quite as long as others who had been in his position. In Code S Season 3, Maru finally broke his streak of three runner-up finishes in Code S finals. This time, his path to the championship was very straight-forward, as if he had dispensed with all the drama in his three failed attempts. Maru finished both his RO20 and RO10 groups in first place, giving him a direct berth in the RO4 of the revised Code S format. No one could challenge Maru in the playoffs, and he defeated herO 3-1 in the semifinals before sweeping RagnaroK in the grand finals. What everyone had known since 2019 had finally been stamped with the G5L seal of approval: Maru was absolutely, undeniably the greatest GSL player of all time.
Although Maru fell victim to herO's heroics once more in the semifinals of December's DHM Atlanta, he was hardly resting on his laurels. Indeed, at the next major event of IEM Katowice 2023, he looked very much like a player who just achieved the impossible in Korea, recording a 16-3 map record on his way to the grand finals. However, in an incident that harkened back to his loss to military returnee herO in the Code S finals—only amplified a hundred times in the magnitude of its unlikeliness—Maru once again played the role of the monster to be slain at the end of a heroic saga. This time, the protagonist was Oliveira, who was merely the 21st ranked player in the world headed into the tournament. The underdog Terran from China took down the greatest Terran from Korea, denying Maru from adding the IEM World Championship to his already packed trophy case.
While Maru openly talked about how heavily that IEM loss rankled him, he got his head back in the right mental space in time for the start of the 2023 GSL Season. Code S Season 1 ended up being one of the most Terran-dominated events since the Wings of Liberty days, which made it a prime opportunity for the #1 TvT player in Maru. ByuN, GuMiho, Bunny, and Cure were all incapable of pulling an Oliveira, and Maru went on to win his second Code S championship in a row and sixth overall. As in 2018, success begat even more success for Maru, and he obtained his seventh overall title in the following Code S Season 2. This time, he took down Cure and Dark in the playoffs, completing his second three-peat of his career.
They say the human mind has trouble processing very large numbers, and something to that effect became applicable once Maru crossed the five championship line in Code S. Five was the number of Mvp, but once Maru reached titles number six or seven, it became hard to fully appreciate the magnitude of the accomplishment. Another four-in-a-row streak seemed like it might be in the cards, but just as in 2019, Maru's hot-streak ended abruptly in the group stage. In Season 3, Maru showed uncharacteristically poor play (and maladjustment to a new map pool), and went out in the first group stage to Scarlett and Solar.
Unfortunately for Maru, international tournaments didn't pan out as well following his IEM Katowice finals defeat. At the newly created super-major of Gamers8, his vaunted TvT failed him once more in the playoffs as he was eliminated by Clem in the RO8. Also, he was unusually poor at the two live EPT/DHM events held that year, dropping out of the RO12 of DreamHack Jonkoping while falling in the RO24 of DreamHack Atlanta (although, like many of the other players at that event, he had the excuse of having caught the illness that widely circulated).
Maru's 2024 began with a bittersweet rebound at IEM Katowice. He reached the grand finals for the second straight tournament in a row, something that had only been achieved by Reynor and Zest in the past. However, he followed down the silver-paved path of Zest, ending up finishing runner-up two tournaments in a row. Running into Serral in the midst of his second career peak, Maru had to surrender a 0-4 sweep in the grand finals.
As with #2 player Serral, the story for Maru is still being written. He remains a top championship contender in any tournament he enters, and there is enough time left in StarCraft II to either defend or lose his grasp on the #1 spot.
The Tools: Unstoppable Force AND Immovable Object
Originally coming to prominence as a cheesy one trick pony, Maru improved substantially over the years to become the most complete Terran of all time.
The first parts of his game to fill out were his micro and multitasking, and at the time of his OSL win in 2013, he possessed what was arguably the best micro in the game. His infantry splits were unrivaled, as was his ability to attack in multiple places at once (in an iteration of StarCraft II where this was far more difficult to do). He would invariably pick apart all but the very best defensive players in chaotic games.
The flashy nature of Maru's play made it so his strong macro play became overlooked, but that was probably because of his proximity to INnoVation during the Machine's peak years. It was easy to depict INnoVation, who seemed to cheat out infinite numbers of units to overwhelm his opponents, as the macro monster who stood in contrast to the micro-oriented Maru. In truth, Maru needed a strong macro base to make his aggressive style work—especially his famed HotS TvP where he would trade away cheap infantry against the opponent's high-tech units. I would argue that by 2015-16, his macro was already on a level that was close to INnoVation.
The final piece to the Maru puzzle was becoming the best late-game player in the world during Legacy of the Void. In stark contrast to his hyperactive HotS style, Maru learned how to set up in an impenetrable defensive stance and grind out victories in grueling battles of attrition—often starting from an extreme deficit. This style was initially brought on due to favorable maps and the patch situation in 2018, but Maru later adapted the style to changing metas and made it his signature way of playing.
And so, during Maru's runs of GSL-conquering dominance from 2018 and onward, we saw him reach that hallowed tier of near-perfection. His early-game was just as unpredictable and deadly as his earlier years—perhaps even at its peak level during the Terran proxy-meta—punishing the slightest mistake with an immediate defeat. His micro was precise as ever and he was still capable of swinging fights he had no business winning. His macro was the strongest it had ever been and his ability to control complex armies while fighting on multiple fronts ranked among the best players to ever play the game. And, if all else failed, he had an unparalleled ability to manufacture wins out of nowhere through late-game defense.
The Numbers: A Decade of Greatness
Timeline of Korean Individual League (Code S, OSL, SSLᵃ) finishes for notable players 2010 to 2023
Click to enlarge
Tournaments that did not begin in the RO32 have their starting round noted in parentheses. a: SSL 2017 was excluded due its 10-player format. b: Tournament where the round-of-16 was the starting round.
Career finishes in Korean Individual League (Code S, OSL, SSLᵃ) finishes for notable players 2010 to 2023
a: SSL 2017 was excluded due its 10 player format. b: All finishes in the lowest round of a tournament were counted in this column, INCLUDING RO16 finishes in 16 player events (see note C below). c: Typically the RO16, but also includes RO10 finishes in the GSL 2022 (20 player) format, and RO32 finishes in GSL 2010 and the GSL 2011 Super Tournament (64 player) formats. 16 player tournaments were considered to not have a second round. d: Includes RO6 finishes for Code S 2022. RO8 for all other tournaments.
As can be seen in the above chart, no one has enjoyed as much Korean Individual League success over such a long period of time as Maru. He won a Korean Individual League nine times since 2013, with his first and last wins being a decade apart. Outside of his championships, he's achieved three runner-ups and numerous RO8+ finishes. Also, he is the only player to achieve a 'triple crown' of Code S, OSL, and SSL wins.
Since Maru’s career spans from the very start of competitive StarCraft II, it's worth taking a closer look at how he performed against the best players from each era.
Korean Individual League (Code S, OSL, SSL) finishes KeSPA entry into StarCraft 2 (Code S Season 4 of 2012) to end of Heart of the Swarm (2015)
Game record listed first, match record in parentheses.
Maru first rose to become a championship caliber player in Heart of the Swarm, and during that time, he tied Classic and INnoVation for the most Korean Individual League championships with two. While he did not attain clear best-in-world status during this time, he remained in the top echelon of competition and was one of the more consistent players in earning podium finishes.
This consistency can be seen in his win-loss record, as Maru has the most match wins of anyone in this period, the second most map wins, and win rates in the close vicinity of category leaders Rain and INnoVation.
Korean Individual League (Code S, OSL, SSLᵃ) finishes 2016 to 2018
Game record listed first, match record in parentheses. a: SSL 2017 was excluded due its highly unusual 10-player format with a full-round robin followed by a gauntlet-style playoffs. b: This was the only SSL to be played in a full, double-elimination tournament format.
Early Legacy of the Void saw Dark, Stats, TY, and Rogue all came into their primes, but so did Maru! His strong play in HotS was just a precursor to his explosion in LotV, where he swept all three Code S tournaments 2018 to become the undisputed best player in Korea for the first extended period of time.
Maru's dominance during his Code S championship runs allowed him to put up ridiculous win rate numbers, although as his lower number of games played shows, that's partially because he missed several tournaments during his 2016 slump. Still, even if you watered down Maru's record with the qualifier/Code A numbers from the tournament he missed, his win rate would remain among the best in the period.
Korean Individual League (Code S, OSL, SSL) finishes 2016 to 2018
Game record listed first, match record in parentheses.
Rogue and Dark continued to be respectable rivals for Maru in the modern LotV era, with Rogue winning four Code S titles while Dark won two championships and collected numerous other high finishes. However, Maru remained on top of the mountain, matching Rogue's four Code S titles while adding three runner-up finishes on top of that. As a testament to Rogue and Dark's level of play in this period, their win rates either surpass or are close to Maru.
*****
Over the past decade, Maru has performed as well or better than elite players from ten years of StarCraft II history. Rain was on Maru’s level in 2013 and 2015, but he retired 43 months into his SC2 career. Mvp had a stranglehold over the Korean scene when in his prime, but that only lasted two years. soO, INnoVation, Zest, and sOs also experienced success over lengthy periods of time, but all four faded heavily in the later stages of their careers. Stats suffered a similar fate as his results slipped in 2018 and 2019. TY was a top three Terran in Korea from 2016 to his retirement in 2021, but he only managed to win Code S twice. Dark is another player who could have won more given his talent, but he failed to advance beyond the Round of 16 in nearly half of the seasons of Code S he played in Legacy of the Void. Rogue obviously rivals Maru when it comes to their trophy collections, but he only won those after going the first five years of his career without a major title.
Total game wins and win rates in GSL Code S Players with over 150 game wins and over 51% win rate (2010 to 2023)
Click to enlarge
If we take a step back and consider the totality of players' careers once more, we can see how far ahead Maru comes out compared to anyone who has played in Code S for an extended period of time. There are only eleven players in history who won over 150 games in Code S while also winning 51% or more of those games. Most of the players are clustered in a single zone with less than 200 total wins and sub-60% win rates, including illustrious names such as herO, Rogue, Zest, Trap, PartinG, soO, Classic, GuMiho, and herO.
While TY, INnoVation, and Dark, break apart from the pack somewhat, none of them come close to reaching Maru who had 350 wins and a 61.95% win rate as of the last completed Code S tournament (2023 Season 3). His total win count exceeds second place Dark by over 134, and seeing how the present season is going (2024 Season 1), that gap is only going to grow wider. On top of that, Maru clears everyone's win rate by at least two percentage points, with the lone exception of TY at 61.41% (TY's amazing consistency in the GSL was covered in his own article).
Even though the trophy case already shows that no one can compare to Maru when it comes to Korean competition, numbers like these help demonstrate that the gap exists in every dimension. In the past, the GSL has created awards such as the Nestea award for ten consecutive Code S qualifications and the PartinG award for ten consecutive RO16+ finishes in Code S. What would a hypothetical Maru award be for? 350 wins with a 60%+ win rate? Seven Code S titles? Ten Code S finals? Whatever mark is set, it's guaranteed to be one and done.
StarCraft II Proleague win-loss records (map score)ᵃᵇ
a: The 2011/12 season was excluded as it was played in a hybrid Brood War + SC2 format. b: Playoff statistics included. c: Excluding nine games where Classic played as Terran (2-7 record).
While Maru's domination of Korean Individual Leagues is the highlight of his career, we can't overlook how he was also one of the best Proleague players of all time. In previous articles in this series, I've emphasized how Proleague had at least equal weight to individual leagues during the KeSPA heyday, if not being even more important.
Maru joined the fray late after signing with Jin Air in 2014, and immediately made an impact as an ace-level player and won rookie of the year. Although Proleague did not give out a full-season MVP award (the closest was finals MVP and the award for most regular season wins), if such an award had existed, Maru should arguably have won in 2014 and 2016 while having a good case to win in 2015 as well. In particular, his 2016 campaign stands out as the greatest single-season performance in SC2 Proleague history, as he went 22-4 in games and posted an 85% win-rate. While a Proleague GOAT list would need an entirely separate article in itself, there's a reasonable case to take Maru #1 if one values peak performance over total production.
The Placement
It all came down to time and consistency.
Starting with #10 player Rain at the very start of this series, there's been a common factor for all the players on this list: There's a tension between the value of results accumulated over a long period versus concentrated bursts of brilliance. Some of the greats had lengthy stints in StarCraft II, with multiple, wild swings in form. Others only competed for three or four years, but remained at the highest level for nearly the entire time. How does one square such vastly different career types?
And, then there is Maru. He was the only player who posed no such dilemma whatsoever, having consistently been one of the best players in the world for over a decade. He matched up with HotS greats like Rain, soO, INnoVation, sOs, and Zest when they were at the peak of their powers, and went on to battle and surpass LotV giants such as Stats, TY, and Dark. He remains a top championship contender to this day, even after the final(?) generation of legends including Rogue, Serral, and Reynor came into their primes.
Despite the notorious grind of progaming that chews through talent, despite becoming stricken with wrist issues as his career went on, and despite experiencing meta-cycles that were extraordinarily poor for Terran, Maru not only persevered but excelled for over a decade.
All in all, there is not a single player who can rival Maru when it comes to his otherworldly longevity. Serral is the player who comes closest, as he's currently in the midst of an incredible six year run at a higher average level than Maru. Depending on how the two players perform in the coming years (hopefully), it's entirely realistic that Serral could pass Maru. But, as of now, it's too soon to pass him the GOAT baton.
Yes, there is an obvious flaw in Maru's career resume: the lack of a WCS or IEM world championship. However, should we say the 'flaw' in everyone else's resume is that they haven't won major tournaments as early as 2013 and as recently as 2023? That they weren't one of the best Proleague players in 2014 and one of the best World Team League players right now?
When Maru made his debut in the first open season of Code S at the age of 13, we all hoped for future greatness. None of us would have expected for his story and the history of professional StarCraft II to become one and the same. And, that is why Maru deserves to be called the GOAT. Expansions are released, patches are applied, and players come and go. But even as the days, months, and years have flown by, Maru has remained immutable. He is the lone constant, the Greatest of All Time.
StarCraft II games are often decided by materiel—who has more bases, who has more supply, who loses the fewest units. All of these are clear indicators for who is winning or who will win a game. But, just as he did in 2014, where Maru defied logic on his way to earning the moniker of “The Fourth Race.” Throwing unit after unit at MyuNgSiK in what seemed a suicidal effort, Maru made it work. After over 25 minutes of game time during which Maru sniped every Colossus he could get his hands on, MyuNgSiK, who seemed like he should have been able to win a million times over if he had just counterattacked, had no choice but to admit defeat.
Maru vs herO: 2015 Code S Season 1 - Round of 16 (February 27, 2015)
Chosen as the third best game of 2015 by TL.net, this game is the perfect example of the breakneck pace at which Maru loved to play StarCraft II during Heart of the Swarm. His opponent, herO, another player known for his excellent micro and ability to make the most out of a little, proved to be an excellent dance partner. herO did a fantastic job surviving attacks that would have brought any other player to their knees, sending the game hurtling toward one of the most exciting and unforgettable endings in StarCraft II history.
Maru vs Solar: IEM Katowice 2018 - Round of 4, Game 4 (March 3, 2018)
Known for the majority of his career as a micro specialist who excelled in the mid-game, Maru suddenly became the god of late-game turtling in 2018. He had the newly patched Raven to thank, which may have been the single most broken unit in the history of the game (WoL BL-Infestor only worked as a combo). IEM Katowice 2018 was one of the first big showcases for this style of play, and poor Solar served as the ballistics dummy that was disintegrated by barrage of anti-HParmor missiles.
Maru vs Cure: 2023 Code S Season 1 - Grand Finals, Game 6 (May 18, 2018)
The 2020's saw Maru become an utterly unstoppable force in TvT, belonging in an entire separate tier from his fellow Terrans. While there are many great games to pick from in his TvT catalog, this finals showdown against Cure is a particularly good demonstration of Maru's situational awareness, quick decision-making, and overall understanding of late-game win conditions in the match-up.
Written by: Mizenhauer Editors: CosmicSpiral, Wax Statistics and records: Aligulac.com, Liquipedia, Code S Stats Images and Photos: Blizzard (photography by Helena Kristiansson), Jin Air Green Wings, Kevin Chang (aka silverfire), AfreecaTV.
Agree with this. Serral is good but you can't call him the goat if he refuses to play in Code S, the hardest tournament. Reynor, neeb and other foreigners who had success in weekend tournaments show how much of a different beast this is. Grats to Maru and well deserved #1.
Thank you for the wonderful articles ! They have been a joy to read and the research going into it is very nice. But also Serral got robbed + L + ratio + koreaboo
On March 16 2024 07:31 PtitDrogo wrote: Thank you for the wonderful articles ! They have been a joy to read and the research going into it is very nice. But also Serral got robbed + L + ratio + koreaboo
On March 16 2024 07:29 CicadaSC wrote: Agree with this. Serral is good but you can't call him the goat if he refuses to play in Code S, the hardest tournament. Reynor, neeb and other foreigners who had success in weekend tournaments show how much of a different beast this is. Grats to Maru and well deserved #1.
It's really close between the two. If my original split between Greatest and Greatest Career was more like 60/40 (it was 45/55 in favor of the latter) to the former then Serral gets first. Even then, I waffled between Maru and Serral a few times before settling on my final order.
It’s obvious that Maru is the goat, despite Terran being weaker than Zerg In a perfectly balanced game all along, Maru would have been immortal in so many tournaments The god of StarCraft 2
OH HELL YEAH MARU IS #1 haven't read the article yet, but when you consider he was in GSL #1, won his first tournament in 2013 (with two ENORMOUS upsets beating innovation AND rain), and then he was one of the best in korea for 5 whole years before he DOMINATED GSL and won other huge tournaments. yes, serral has been in contention for best player in the world at any given moment since 2018, but so has maru, and maru's career had highlights before serral's name was known.
There's strong arguments for both and I felt that whoever I would see in first place once these last articles came out would be well deserving of it. Thanks for all the work you put in Mizen, really enjoyed reading them
How do you even put maru at #1 after he got SMASHED 4-0 by serral, with 250k on the line? Like how can you think he is better? Is it because he won the Global Starvation League so many times, when all other players were done competeing there???
That image showing notable programer GSL placements is strangely depressing - not a single notable Korean pro emerged since 2014, 10 years ago.
Maru is at a deserved number one. Longevity over peak, especially when earlier eras had much more competition. I find it hard to respect the past 5 years where it's been the same players facing each other over and over again, with predictable results.
- 10+ years of being a champion, longer than anyone else - The biggest outlier of any player within their race, and the best performing player during bad balance - The best Proleague player - The best Starleague player by a gargantuan margin - More ro4+ finishes in World Championships than anyone else
Maru has as many Starleague trophies as 7 of the other 9 players on this list, Rain, TY, sOs, soO, Zest, INnoVation, and Serral, COMBINED.
Even for the only weak point in his legacy (no World Championship), he still has more ro4s at them than any other player. Which is an achievement in itself.
If you put recency bias aside, it was never really a question that Maru would be number 1. Serral is the best weekender player of all time, but of the 3 competitive formats (Starleague, Teamleague, Weekender) Maru was the best in two of them, and still has historic achievements in the 3rd. Serral has the best better career winrates, but Maru has equally untouchable stats in Proleague and Starleagues. Not to mention more volume overall. And Serral never had to fight the balance of the game, let alone beat it like Maru did.
Side note: he also probably has the longest highlight real of any player. You could make an entire playlist of games where he wouldn't have been judged for typing GG in the first 5 minutes but decided to win anyway.
If you've been around a minute and understood tendencies on TL, especially from some of the most fervent posters, this placement was never in doubt. Not that I agree, but congrats to Maru, a supreme and transcendent player.
Everyone and their dog knows that Serral is just straight up a better player, but this placement will generate much more clicks for the website, so it is a wise decision.
Well deserved Greatest of All Time title for Maru. If PvT would have been in equal (im)balance state as PvZ during most of LotV, he'd have had even better results - which is ridiculous. I'd put Serral as Best of All Time though. Noone has ever played SC2 like big-time Serral.
Thanks Mizenhauer for this wonderful series. When will we have a GFOATES one? + Show Spoiler +
what a clown joke list, lost all respect even without winning katowice , serral was nr 1 since years, and its not even close clear case of overrating gsl ( a local small tournament where you dont even have to face serral )
in this resume he almost only talks about gsl all the other even bigger global tournaments where you actualy have to face all the players are of course worth significant less
marus performance globaly , his winrates on the international stage are pathetic compared to serral if you ask 10 pro player 9/10 would say serral is the goat if you do sports betting on sc2 tournaments there are a few sides , dont know if i am allowed to mention those here, i cant remember any tournament since 2018 where you did get less money if you put your money on serral winning than on maru, those betting sides live to make money , they dont throw money away serral alligulac elo rating , is so for ahead , he is in his own league its of the chart like if magnus carson would have even 100 more elo than the rest maru has multiple clear leakes in his game , serral does not lambo and other have explained them multiple times you could go on and on , but actualy since its not even close you dont have to
I've been a big fan of Maru since 2012 or something, watching him lose in Code A all the time just building a bunch of marines, microing them perfectly, and then running out of steam in the mid-game. Seeing him evolve over time, adding amazing macro and defensive positioning to his play, and then go absolutely nuts in 2018 with the proxy meta is the defining story of my history with Starcraft II. Even though the results might seem boring in retrospect, each of his 4-straight GSL wins was fun in its own right, especially how he mixed up his style in between seasons, IIRC barely proxying at all in the 4th one. I think Maru's ability to thrive during eras when Terran was really, really struggling, earning the "fourth race" distinction and prompting the suggestion to "just play like Maru" is one of his most impressive attributes. Add the excitement level of his micro feats, plus his longevity, and it's easy to see why he's on the top of the list. But I can see the argument both ways, as Serral has definitely been the better player for the last several years. I don't think the debate will ever be resolved, but this list definitely provided an interesting perspective.
Thanks for all the articles! They've been great to read and a fun trip down memory lane through all 14 years of this game's history.
lol, even a Maru fanboy like myself didnt see this coming. But somebody need to translate this and send this to Maru and he will win everything for the rest of 2024, maybe.
Well deserved. Even though Serral's dominating Kato win made me question if Maru still deserves this title as that's gotten further away I still think it's him. Maru has 5 full more years as a top SC2 player than Serral. Maru has also very clearly exceeded in spite of his race at times. Zerg has never been underpowered since Serral became a top player. I'd argue that for the majority of time he was active prior to 2023 it was straight up the strongest race by a significant margin. Even in 2023 Zerg was still equal to Terran and far ahead of Toss. Their worst year was being equal to T and far ahead of P. Meanwhile Terran has had multiple periods where they were clearly the worst performing race and those were some of Maru's most impressive results.
On March 16 2024 08:33 Itsxjoeyy wrote: This whole list just became invalidated.
I'm sure everyone that's outraged also spent hundreds of hours researching and writing to prove that this list is indeed heresy! And that their list wouldn't get discarded by people who base their opinion on what a few personalities have been saying for the past couple years! No sir!
VERY FEW have the passion to spend that much time on something many will dismiss at a glance.
How often do we get in-depth sc2 history content these days? Agree or disagree, have some respect. And if you're not gonna read because you don't like the placing, keep your petty comments to yourselves. Least you can do.
But anyway Dark should be in there, like OBVIOUSLY
On March 16 2024 09:48 Waxangel wrote: As they say, reasonable minds can disagree
This. I'm kinda screaming false dichotomy at this point. Maru can be GCOAT (greatest career of all time) with Serral GOAT.
Well done to both of you for a great series with such a high standard of writing, and well done to Maru, Serral, and the others for being in our hearts and weaving our dreams for so long.
I'll say this once more, and probably again forever.
If you ignore every tournament in SC2s 14 year history where Serral didn't play, then Serral is the GOAT.
If you include every tournament and take SC2 at it's highest level and most competitive (Starleagues, Proleague, World Championships), then Maru outshines everyone else.
I'd like to point out what might be an inconsistency: if longevity is so important as to determine #1 vs #2, then surely Dark (who has had 9 contender-level years performing at an above 62.5% vKor winrate level, second only to Maru's 11) and is also a world champion, should be somewhere ?
Well deserved for maru being #1, but more importantly well researched and presented arguments. Regardless of disagreements, there aren't many people who have taken the time and effort to research and present such gigantic amount of information in a digestible manner
First and foremost. Thanks for all the hard work, Miz !! It has been a very fun ride reading all of these, and prolly will be coming back to these later on as well. Very well done !
Although I strongly disagree about Dark:s absence from the list AND obviously the numbers 1 and 2 should be other way around, cant be too mad about it. Maru is an outstanding player and has been on top for a long time.
On March 16 2024 09:43 weyoun wrote: what a clown joke list, lost all respect even without winning katowice , serral was nr 1 since years, and its not even close clear case of overrating gsl ( a local small tournament where you dont even have to face serral )
in this resume he almost only talks about gsl all the other even bigger global tournaments where you actualy have to face all the players are of course worth significant less
marus performance globaly , his winrates on the international stage are pathetic compared to serral if you ask 10 pro player 9/10 would say serral is the goat if you do sports betting on sc2 tournaments there are a few sides , dont know if i am allowed to mention those here, i cant remember any tournament since 2018 where you did get less money if you put your money on serral winning than on maru, those betting sides live to make money , they dont throw money away serral alligulac elo rating , is so for ahead , he is in his own league its of the chart like if magnus carson would have even 100 more elo than the rest maru has multiple clear leakes in his game , serral does not lambo and other have explained them multiple times you could go on and on , but actualy since its not even close you dont have to
These are some good heuristics, Serral is just the better player, he just doesn't play on KR, or the domination would be even worse.
On March 16 2024 09:38 Xamo wrote: Well deserved Greatest of All Time title for Maru. If PvT would have been in equal (im)balance state as PvZ during most of LotV, he'd have had even better results - which is ridiculous. I'd put Serral as Best of All Time though. Noone has ever played SC2 like big-time Serral.
Thanks Mizenhauer for this wonderful series. When will we have a GFOATES one? + Show Spoiler +
Greatest Foreigner Of All Time Excluding Serral
GFOATES at this point is easily Reynor without contest. Actually has one World Champion and two runner ups, plus many other premier titles. That's miles ahead of anything Stephano, Neeb and Clem has achieved.
This list was extremely well researched and I'm very impressed with the amount of work that went into it. And I want to make it clear that I have absolutely nothing against Mizenhauer, but over the few weeks it may come off that way, because I am going to have passionate responses to this list. And once again, this does not mean that I have anything against Mizenhauer as a person or that I don't respect the work that went into this. I'm just posting this here for the record
you just awarded the GOAT status to a player with no world championship titles based on GSL alone (while having most of his GSL wins to dwindling competition in Korea) and put him in front of a player that beat him 80% of the time. My only comment is: LMAO
Those who fixates over "Serral can't be GOAT because he has no Code S" are just holding onto last straw which they know, deep in their heart, is a hollow and fragile one.
Serral holds a lopsided h2h record against all the top players in GSL, including dominating by far the best GSL player that is Maru. It's the GSL title itself that has a asterisk now, because these players had it easy by not needing to play the best player in the world, not the other way around. Serral doesn't need to play GSL to prove himself.
If a South American country wins the World Cup multiple times over European countries in dominant fashion, it'd be hilarious to argue that the they are still not the best team in the world because they never competes in UEFA Euro.
Maru ranks higher on GOAT list because he has a longer career and competes on top level much longer than Serral. Not because he has more Code S and Serral doesn't. If we are just comparing LotV achievement, then Serral is easily the LotV GOAT.
if it wasnt for the last two years id agree with this ranking, i too feel bad that a sport dominated by korea for decades has to hand the goat crown to a foreigner, but it's impossible to not give this to serral after the last few years. it's not even close right now how much better serral is than maru,
it's a shame we banned life, who had the most potential out of any player in sc2 history. he was 2017 serral if serral was also 14 at the time. talent unlike anything i've ever seen..
On March 16 2024 10:48 Ronski wrote: It's nice when Maru can't beat Serral in SC2 he can at least get some recognition in the forums for his regional achievements.
its the greatest OF ALL TIME. not who is in the best condition now or these days. peak maru was GOAT and he's been at the top level for much much longer.
On March 16 2024 09:48 Waxangel wrote: As they say, reasonable minds can disagree
This. I'm kinda screaming false dichotomy at this point. Maru can be GCOAT (greatest career of all time) with Serral GOAT.
Well done to both of you for a great series with such a high standard of writing, and well done to Maru, Serral, and the others for being in our hearts and weaving our dreams for so long.
GOAT does mean who had the best career, not just the highest peak, nor the longest career, nor the most championship. Its about all of those factors combined and weighted.
Yay!! It's official: Maru is the certified GOAT. Now we never have to argue about this again!
On March 16 2024 09:43 weyoun wrote: what a clown joke list, lost all respect even without winning katowice , serral was nr 1 since years, and its not even close clear case of overrating gsl ( a local small tournament where you dont even have to face serral )
in this resume he almost only talks about gsl all the other even bigger global tournaments where you actualy have to face all the players are of course worth significant less
marus performance globaly , his winrates on the international stage are pathetic compared to serral if you ask 10 pro player 9/10 would say serral is the goat if you do sports betting on sc2 tournaments there are a few sides , dont know if i am allowed to mention those here, i cant remember any tournament since 2018 where you did get less money if you put your money on serral winning than on maru, those betting sides live to make money , they dont throw money away serral alligulac elo rating , is so for ahead , he is in his own league its of the chart like if magnus carson would have even 100 more elo than the rest maru has multiple clear leakes in his game , serral does not lambo and other have explained them multiple times you could go on and on , but actualy since its not even close you dont have to
great post, there were like 12 things that cracked me up here
Yet another day of me being unsurprised by the amount of people on the Internet who lack even basic understanding of logic such as the difference between “greatest” and “best recently”.
Anyway proper salute to Miz, you have done the hardest work and it’s been an absolute pleasure following along these articles. Can’t wait for the “honorable mentions” part, I want to see Stats and Dark.
On March 16 2024 09:48 Waxangel wrote: As they say, reasonable minds can disagree
This. I'm kinda screaming false dichotomy at this point. Maru can be GCOAT (greatest career of all time) with Serral GOAT.
Well done to both of you for a great series with such a high standard of writing, and well done to Maru, Serral, and the others for being in our hearts and weaving our dreams for so long.
GOAT does mean who had the best career, not just the highest peak, nor the longest career, nor the most championship. Its about all of those factors combined and weighted.
This is self-evidently true. And unlike factual results, the weightings are subjective, as Miz himself says. So ?
On March 16 2024 09:21 Fango wrote: - 10+ years of being a champion, longer than anyone else - The biggest outlier of any player within their race, and the best performing player during bad balance - The best Proleague player - The best Starleague player by a gargantuan margin - More ro4+ finishes in World Championships than anyone else
Maru has as many Starleague trophies as 7 of the other 9 players on this list, Rain, TY, sOs, soO, Zest, INnoVation, and Serral, COMBINED.
Even for the only weak point in his legacy (no World Championship), he still has more ro4s at them than any other player. Which is an achievement in itself.
If you put recency bias aside, it was never really a question that Maru would be number 1. Serral is the best weekender player of all time, but of the 3 competitive formats (Starleague, Teamleague, Weekender) Maru was the best in two of them, and still has historic achievements in the 3rd. Serral has the best better career winrates, but Maru has equally untouchable stats in Proleague and Starleagues. Not to mention more volume overall. And Serral never had to fight the balance of the game, let alone beat it like Maru did.
Side note: he also probably has the longest highlight real of any player. You could make an entire playlist of games where he wouldn't have been judged for typing GG in the first 5 minutes but decided to win anyway.
I liken Maru to Federer and Serral to Djokovic. Yes Serral more than often not beats Maru, just as Djokovic more than often not beat Federer, but Maru has won almost as much as Serral and many in an era when the competition and game itself was at an all time high. There is also the 'Zerg Caveat' (Zerg being the race with the most broken units; banelings + cracklings). Maru just like Federer however has had the longest time at number 1 also. I can see arguments for either being number 1. GREAT write ups! Much appreciated!
I love the bitter rivalry between Serral and Maru fans. Unlike the rivalry between the actual players, it never disappoints.
I've constructed the story in my head so that it all revolves around our one true king, Sos. He denied the narrative conclusion to Maru's 2018 by pushing him down a well, then immediately jumping after him, leaving Serral to be crowned greatest player in the world essentially by default and the entire StarCraft community was blueballed as a result. In his last and greatest act of StarCraft 2 trolling, trickster god Sos "u mad, bro"ed the world, and GOAT arguments are just a reminder that yes, we mad.
That's how I'm choosing to remember it, and not a one of you can stop me.
it kinda feels like feeding a troll when even responding to this ranking, but I think it's already becoming clear that it's going to be very hard to find people to agree with this list, but perhaps that's what the goal was, to create discussion.
On March 16 2024 11:38 AxiomB wrote: I liken Maru to Federer and Serral to Djokovic. Yes Serral more than often not beats Maru, just as Djokovic more than often not beat Federer, but Maru has won almost as much as Serral and many in an era when the competition and game itself was at an all time high. There is also the 'Zerg Caveat' (Zerg being the race with the most broken units; banelings + cracklings). Maru just like Federer however has had the longest time at number 1 also. I can see arguments for either being number 1. GREAT write ups! Much appreciated!
This is an excellent analogy and i agree with the sentiment (as well as Z having advantages that T and P do not) however Djokovic has spent more time than anyone as world No.1. And it is significantly more than Fed who has spent the 2nd longest time as No.1. Federer and Nadal would be a better comparison but that would have to ignore the existence of Djokovic
On March 16 2024 11:41 Fanatic-Templar wrote: I love the bitter rivalry between Serral and Maru fans. Unlike the rivalry between the actual players, it never disappoints.
I've constructed the story in my head so that it all revolves around our one true king, Sos. He denied the narrative conclusion to Maru's 2018 by pushing him down a well, then immediately jumping after him, leaving Serral to be crowned greatest player in the world essentially by default and the entire StarCraft community was blueballed as a result. In his last and greatest act of StarCraft 2 trolling, trickster god Sos "u mad, bro"ed the world, and GOAT arguments are just a reminder that yes, we mad.
That's how I'm choosing to remember it, and not a one of you can stop me.
Don't forget WESG the next year when Serral and Maru were on opposite sides of the Ro4 and the entire scene was on the edge of their seats waiting for the greatest grand finals of all time, only to have INnoVation beat them both. And to think people say Rogue is the anti-hero!
First of all: Thank you Mizenhauer for the entire work, definetly a mammoth of a project.
That being said - yeah, no. Maru being the #1 while never being the #1 at any given time is just weird. He never was THE player, at no time at all. And please don't invoke the "recency bias" (love how we pretend like six years are "recent" btw...). If you remove recency, Marus resume becomes even more bleak. Probably not even a Top 5 player in HotS, always at best number #2 in LotV just doesn't equal "Greatest Of All Time". And then missing the by far hardest competition to win, the World Championship title (or atleast a win at Katowice) just tops it off.
Maru is good. Scratch good, great. But the Greatest? Nope. Marus battle is with Rogue over 2nd place, that's how far off he is from No. 1 right now tbh
On March 16 2024 13:16 Balnazza wrote: First of all: Thank you Mizenhauer for the entire work, definetly a mammoth of a project.
That being said - yeah, no. Maru being the #1 while never being the #1 at any given time is just weird. He never was THE player, at no time at all. And please don't invoke the "recency bias" (love how we pretend like six years are "recent" btw...). If you remove recency, Marus resume becomes even more bleak. Probably not even a Top 5 player in HotS, always at best number #2 in LotV just doesn't equal "Greatest Of All Time". And then missing the by far hardest competition to win, the World Championship title (or atleast a win at Katowice) just tops it off.
Maru is good. Scratch good, great. But the Greatest? Nope. Marus battle is with Rogue over 2nd place, that's how far off he is from No. 1 right now tbh
Maru was definitely number 1 for at least short times in 2013, 2015 and 2016. Along with the entire first half if not 7-8 months of 2018 and around Aug 2021-Jan 2022. His results during each of those stretches were the clear best even over Serral. Also between late 2022-early 2023 he was at least tied with Serral for #1. Aside from those times as the overall number 1 he's also been the best Terran almost forever while I'd argue Serral was occasionally surpassed by Rogue (2017- mid 2018 and end of 2021)/Reynor(many random blips)/Dark(second half of 2019).
It is unacceptable. Not only switching the places of Serral and Maru, but also neglecting Drak as well. When this list first came out, I thought it was fair and interesting. However, it is almost a joke now.
On March 16 2024 09:04 Branch.AUT wrote: How do you even put maru at #1 after he got SMASHED 4-0 by serral, with 250k on the line? Like how can you think he is better? Is it because he won the Global Starvation League so many times, when all other players were done competeing there???
First comment I saw. Hits the nail on the head for me.
I understand it is close between the two, but after that smackdown, this is just very unfortunate timing and also ill-advised from my point of view. That is the problem with GOAT-lists, they can change rather rapidly if several people are neck-and-neck.
Obviously, the hate is coming your way no matter who you put first.
The amount of work put into this list is still fantastic and I learned quite a bit. Good work!
Thank you so much for writing this series Mizenhauer. While I may disagree with some of the individual rankings (including these last 2), the actual writing was great. It definitely shows in the writing how closely you rate Serral and Maru, and I respect that you put Maru 1st, despite my disagreement.
Great write ups. I'm a big Maru fan. I also think you're sort of wrong, but only a little bit. I'd feel better about Maru being #1 if more of his dominance came in a period where players were hyper competitive. Unfortunately for most of this list, their dominance is largely in LotV, when there were way fewer players, and a way less competitive environment. Serral and Maru are pretty comparable, and Maru has the advantage of having good placements in KR leagues in HotS/early LoV, but both of them had their big breakthroughs in mid-late LotV, the weakest eras. I don't even care about Maru's last two GSL wins, they are equivalent to some weekend tournaments Taeja won back in the day to me. But Serral at least has been DEFINITIVELY the best for multiple years now, and its hard to contest with that. I have literally bet on Serral winning the global finals 6 years in a row now. I don't even care about Serral, but I can't argue with results!
I think Mvp, Innovation, Life were some of the few players that I felt were truly dominant during a truly competitive era. I really think Life would've been the GOAT if he didn't do that one thing he did. Hell, for all we know, some of the losses he does have could've just been thrown games. He might've been even better at the game than he appeared! Too bad huh? Innovation probably had the most meaningful dominance, winning a korean-heavy premiere every single year between 2013 and 2017. His biggest earning tournament was also one of his less impressive ones, winning a WECG for $150k in 2019, only needing to beat Serral, Maru, and Lambo.
Overall, I think a game like SC2, where expansions and everything change the game so much, are really hard to quantify and compare competitors for a "Greatest of All Time". It's not like BW, which has remained a mostly unchanged, gradually evolving game over 15 years. SC2 was a frequently changing, rapidly evolving game over 15 years, with competitiveness changing ontop of the game itself. How does one compare late LotV to peak HotS to early WoL? I think it's really challenging.
Thanks for all the write-ups though Miz. I think you did a good job. Also, please retcon Dark into the list, because he obviously should be there...... If not, then put Innovation as #1 please.
While I do think they are close enough that it's fair to have some criteria where Maru is the GOAT, I don't really get how ranking MVP over INnoVation and Dark being snubbed is consistent with this. All signs pointed to Serral at the top because if Maru's career is enough to surpass the periods of domination by Serral, then INno's career should top MVP's. Dark should be highly rated and at the veeeery minimum ahead of Rain.
On March 16 2024 13:16 Balnazza wrote: First of all: Thank you Mizenhauer for the entire work, definetly a mammoth of a project.
That being said - yeah, no. Maru being the #1 while never being the #1 at any given time is just weird. He never was THE player, at no time at all. And please don't invoke the "recency bias" (love how we pretend like six years are "recent" btw...). If you remove recency, Marus resume becomes even more bleak. Probably not even a Top 5 player in HotS, always at best number #2 in LotV just doesn't equal "Greatest Of All Time". And then missing the by far hardest competition to win, the World Championship title (or atleast a win at Katowice) just tops it off.
Maru is good. Scratch good, great. But the Greatest? Nope. Marus battle is with Rogue over 2nd place, that's how far off he is from No. 1 right now tbh
Maru was definitely number 1 for at least short times in 2013, 2015 and 2016. Along with the entire first half if not 7-8 months of 2018 and around Aug 2021-Jan 2022. His results during each of those stretches were the clear best even over Serral. Also between late 2022-early 2023 he was at least tied with Serral for #1. Aside from those times as the overall number 1 he's also been the best Terran almost forever while I'd argue Serral was occasionally surpassed by Rogue (2017- mid 2018 and end of 2021)/Reynor(many random blips)/Dark(second half of 2019).
Of course I mean more substantial amounts of time. You could argue Clem was the best player in the world right after winning ESL Winter, but that's not saying much. 2018 is a bit sad for Maru, since he clearly was in probably the best shape of his career and dominated Korea, but there was always that asterisk "is he better than Serral?" Of course Serral had the same asterisk, probably even bigger. But one of them won the biggest tournament of the year, the other one crashed in it, so that answered itself. I give him the 2021-22 span of like half a year of dominance...which then, as always with Maru, ended abruptly with an underwhelming World Championship. Late 2022-23...he was definetly up there, but I wouldn't see that as "clear #1".
On March 16 2024 11:38 AxiomB wrote: I liken Maru to Federer and Serral to Djokovic. Yes Serral more than often not beats Maru, just as Djokovic more than often not beat Federer, but Maru has won almost as much as Serral and many in an era when the competition and game itself was at an all time high. There is also the 'Zerg Caveat' (Zerg being the race with the most broken units; banelings + cracklings). Maru just like Federer however has had the longest time at number 1 also. I can see arguments for either being number 1. GREAT write ups! Much appreciated!
This is an excellent analogy and i agree with the sentiment (as well as Z having advantages that T and P do not) however Djokovic has spent more time than anyone as world No.1. And it is significantly more than Fed who has spent the 2nd longest time as No.1. Federer and Nadal would be a better comparison but that would have to ignore the existence of Djokovic
On March 16 2024 13:16 Balnazza wrote: First of all: Thank you Mizenhauer for the entire work, definetly a mammoth of a project.
That being said - yeah, no. Maru being the #1 while never being the #1 at any given time is just weird. He never was THE player, at no time at all. And please don't invoke the "recency bias" (love how we pretend like six years are "recent" btw...). If you remove recency, Marus resume becomes even more bleak. Probably not even a Top 5 player in HotS, always at best number #2 in LotV just doesn't equal "Greatest Of All Time". And then missing the by far hardest competition to win, the World Championship title (or atleast a win at Katowice) just tops it off.
Maru is good. Scratch good, great. But the Greatest? Nope. Marus battle is with Rogue over 2nd place, that's how far off he is from No. 1 right now tbh
Maru was definitely number 1 for at least short times in 2013, 2015 and 2016. Along with the entire first half if not 7-8 months of 2018 and around Aug 2021-Jan 2022. His results during each of those stretches were the clear best even over Serral. Also between late 2022-early 2023 he was at least tied with Serral for #1. Aside from those times as the overall number 1 he's also been the best Terran almost forever while I'd argue Serral was occasionally surpassed by Rogue (2017- mid 2018 and end of 2021)/Reynor(many random blips)/Dark(second half of 2019).
Of course I mean more substantial amounts of time. You could argue Clem was the best player in the world right after winning ESL Winter, but that's not saying much. 2018 is a bit sad for Maru, since he clearly was in probably the best shape of his career and dominated Korea, but there was always that asterisk "is he better than Serral?" Of course Serral had the same asterisk, probably even bigger. But one of them won the biggest tournament of the year, the other one crashed in it, so that answered itself. I give him the 2021-22 span of like half a year of dominance...which then, as always with Maru, ended abruptly with an underwhelming World Championship. Late 2022-23...he was definetly up there, but I wouldn't see that as "clear #1".
Winning 1 event like Clem did isn't comparable to the periods I listed. In all of those periods Maru placed higher than Serral multiple times in a row and/or was dominant in GSL while Serral was struggling in other events. He beat Serral 3-0 in March 2018 with six figures on the line. Rogue won Katowice which is harder than Blizzcon. Maru clearly performed better for at least the first half of that year there was no question. Serral also lost to Scarlett, Elazer, and Soo in the first half of 2018. He wasn't a best in the world candidate until he won GSLvTW which wasn't until August.
From around Oct ish 2022 to April ish 2023 he finished equal or better than Serral in every event they both played in of which I believe there were 4 of them, ESL winter, Katowice, pigsty, and champions cup and he won both GSLs in that timespan as well. Since they never actually hit each other and Maru didn't win an international I didn't say clear #1 but I think he has to be at least considered tied with him for that 5-6 month stretch.
Very well researched series - an accomplishment in itself, and a definitive piece articulating SC2 history.
Well-reasoned (and might I say courageous) decision to place Maru ahead of Serral. While Serral has gradually gained the upper-hand in head-to-head results vs. Maru, the question is "who is the GOAT" rather than "who is most likely to win today". The fact that Maru has overcome, to me, clear disadvantages in TvZ in recent years, to still win so much against the top Zergs is a clear indication of his greatness. Other points are already well articulated in the article.
To anyone who understands Terran play, it's hard to imagine any human being being able to take Terran to greater heights. As Maru ages and his wrists burn out, he inevitably slows down, but he is still able to give us the best, most entertaining games to enjoy.
Imagine a world where Maru never played SC2 - we would've lost so many legendary and memorable moments.
It is a very close call, but over the course of the list I gravitated towards Maru stronger and stronger - I had some discussion with other people as well who started from the same point of view as I did ("Serral, no doubt") and most of them could see the point of Maru being active and a very strong player since 2010.
When I first started watching and playing SC2 in 2010 at age 14, Maru was already there. He was just a small name and only famous for being so so young, but he climbed up and won championships in Korea within fierce competition years before Serral became a dominant force.
While the sheer dominance, accomplishments and aura of Serral all make for a very compelling GOAT argument, I think it can go really either way. I don't have a problem with Maru being first, I wouldn't have a problem with Serral being first.
The argument about Serral having such a strong win record against him sounds a bit to me like "Bayern beat Barcelona 8:2. they are the bigger club" When infact, Barcas history runs much deeper and you would hardly argue that Barca is a bigger club in the history of football, even if for the past 10 years or so, Bayern has been stronger (and also been historically a force to be reckoned with).
On March 16 2024 11:38 AxiomB wrote: I liken Maru to Federer and Serral to Djokovic. Yes Serral more than often not beats Maru, just as Djokovic more than often not beat Federer, but Maru has won almost as much as Serral and many in an era when the competition and game itself was at an all time high. There is also the 'Zerg Caveat' (Zerg being the race with the most broken units; banelings + cracklings). Maru just like Federer however has had the longest time at number 1 also. I can see arguments for either being number 1. GREAT write ups! Much appreciated!
This is an excellent analogy and i agree with the sentiment (as well as Z having advantages that T and P do not) however Djokovic has spent more time than anyone as world No.1. And it is significantly more than Fed who has spent the 2nd longest time as No.1. Federer and Nadal would be a better comparison but that would have to ignore the existence of Djokovic
Forgive me, Djoko has more weeks at number 1, but not consecutive, Fed is number 1 for 237 consecutive weeks as world No. 1
I think the comparison is still holds though right?? Serral is Djoko and Maru is Federer <3
Good analogy. Sadly, some of Serral's online fans certainly present themselves in a manner similar to some of Djokovic's... more vocal... fans, making the analogy even more accurate.
On March 16 2024 11:38 AxiomB wrote: I liken Maru to Federer and Serral to Djokovic. Yes Serral more than often not beats Maru, just as Djokovic more than often not beat Federer, but Maru has won almost as much as Serral and many in an era when the competition and game itself was at an all time high. There is also the 'Zerg Caveat' (Zerg being the race with the most broken units; banelings + cracklings). Maru just like Federer however has had the longest time at number 1 also. I can see arguments for either being number 1. GREAT write ups! Much appreciated!
This is an excellent analogy and i agree with the sentiment (as well as Z having advantages that T and P do not) however Djokovic has spent more time than anyone as world No.1. And it is significantly more than Fed who has spent the 2nd longest time as No.1. Federer and Nadal would be a better comparison but that would have to ignore the existence of Djokovic
Forgive me, Djoko has more weeks at number 1, but not consecutive, Fed is number 1 for 237 consecutive weeks as world No. 1
I think the comparison is still holds though right?? Serral is Djoko and Maru is Federer <3
Good analogy. Sadly, some of Serral's online fans certainly present themselves in a manner similar to some of Djokovic's... more vocal... fans, making the analogy even more accurate.
You can also switch Serral fans to Maru fans and it is still true.
Imagine crowning someone goat who is only good in domestic tournaments Yes he is by a very far margin the Goat of KR But as soon as he leaves home soil, he just colapses to a point where there is an entire thread to him choking in high stakes matches
On March 16 2024 17:43 ramask2 wrote: I enjoyed reading the articles more or less, but I still don't get why Dark doesn't get a spot in the top 10.
I would go for Serral, but not having Dark in top 10 is the bigger scandal 😛
Like I respect the author for trying to set up a clear criteria for their top 10, but if Dark, one of the most dominant players ever isn't in them, maybe it's worth looking over the criteria again. Just my opinion though. I still enjoyed reading the discussions that come from this list.
On March 16 2024 17:43 ramask2 wrote: I enjoyed reading the articles more or less, but I still don't get why Dark doesn't get a spot in the top 10.
I would go for Serral, but not having Dark in top 10 is the bigger scandal 😛
Dark, Reynor and Byun are pretty much in the same category. Got World Championship Blizzcon titles of their own merit and won many other respective titles, but seemed not enough to fit themselves in top 10 ranking.
very good series of article. I don't agree with everything, but I get the points and understand them. It's amazingly close between Rogue / Maru / Serral, and as you explain quite well greatly depends on what you value more - you can make a very serious and valid case for any of the three. Anyway, thanks for the good reads, and can't wait to read the Dark blog
On March 16 2024 17:43 ramask2 wrote: I enjoyed reading the articles more or less, but I still don't get why Dark doesn't get a spot in the top 10.
I would go for Serral, but not having Dark in top 10 is the bigger scandal 😛
Dark, Reynor and Byun are pretty much in the same category. Got World Championship Blizzcon titles of their own merit and won many other respective titles, but seemed not enough to fit themselves in top 10 ranking.
But you have to know that Dark's grades and career length are stronger than Ty's
On March 16 2024 09:04 Branch.AUT wrote: How do you even put maru at #1 after he got SMASHED 4-0 by serral, with 250k on the line? Like how can you think he is better? Is it because he won the Global Starvation League so many times, when all other players were done competeing there???
Your wording is too harsh, but what you say is very similar to what I also think. I feel that too much importance has been given to longevity in choosing maru as nr. 1. I can't honestly remember the last time serral has been beaten by maru
On March 16 2024 17:43 ramask2 wrote: I enjoyed reading the articles more or less, but I still don't get why Dark doesn't get a spot in the top 10.
I would go for Serral, but not having Dark in top 10 is the bigger scandal 😛
Dark, Reynor and Byun are pretty much in the same category. Got World Championship Blizzcon titles of their own merit and won many other respective titles, but seemed not enough to fit themselves in top 10 ranking.
By many other titles re Byun do you mean no Premier titles outside of one patch?
Although tbh the Assembly he won post-military probably was Premier tier despite lacking the designation
I think its important to keep in mind that even though Maru has been playing since the very beginning (2010), his GSL wins are all in the last 5-6 years; way after the most competitive GSL eras. He never won when gsl was competitive. He won like 5 GSL in a row, but could never win a world championship or even struggle in most world events.
I think it should instead tell us something about the competitiveness of GSL in the last few years. I mean most of those players would stand 0 chance against Serral. If he wanted to he easily could have won a GSL.
You had 13 years to win a world championship, and never could win one. You never won a GSL during the Peak GSL days. Yet youre the number one player of all time? Maybe if he always smashed Serral every time they played it would maybe be believable...
And the Zerg OP argument is non sense. Zerg hasnt been OP for at least a couple years, and Serral is more dominant than ever. They other zergs dont even do that good, and Ladder zerg population is at lowest ever in masters/gm. (To give context, Zerg was 40% of GM for most of HoTS, and for good first few years of LOTV. Once battery and Serral showed, up, Zerg population nose dived. Yet, the more they nerf zergs, the stronger Serral is anyways, because hes improving faster than the other guys.
In the last 14 years, there was multiple moments where terran was OP. Wasnt enough to make him win a world championhship, wasnt enough to win a GSl before last few years.
GSL has been really weak for at least 3 years. How many GSL would Maru have won if Serral played in every GSL? Probably not quite as many.
You can feel the Korean bias here Maru has no world championship and won only one offline international tournament in 10 years (WESG) GSL is weak since 3 years so his 7 GSL claim has a bit of an *
But it's not even the worst thing in the list Smh a player who won multiple GSL, a WC and +1 million $ of cash prize isn't in the top 10...
On March 16 2024 18:44 Snakestyle1 wrote: I think its important to keep in mind that even though Maru has been playing since the very beginning (2010), his GSL wins are all in the last 5-6 years; way after the most competitive GSL eras. He never won when gsl was competitive. He won like 5 GSL in a row, but could never win a world championship or even struggle in most world events.
The weak point of your argument is that if GSL is weak, then the rest of tournaments are also weak, Korean decline is SC2 goes hand in hand with an overall decline in player depth and competitiveness in international tournaments. So weighting down Maru results in recent years comes with the price of weighting down Serral's entire carrer as well.
On March 16 2024 14:53 kaos00 wrote: While I do think they are close enough that it's fair to have some criteria where Maru is the GOAT, I don't really get how ranking MVP over INnoVation and Dark being snubbed is consistent with this. All signs pointed to Serral at the top because if Maru's career is enough to surpass the periods of domination by Serral, then INno's career should top MVP's. Dark should be highly rated and at the veeeery minimum ahead of Rain.
This ranking feels icky.
It's based on a lot of feels that is clear, Mvp period of domination also came before Kespa, when kespa came over Mvp fled Korea then quit when hots launched.
On March 16 2024 18:44 Snakestyle1 wrote: I think its important to keep in mind that even though Maru has been playing since the very beginning (2010), his GSL wins are all in the last 5-6 years; way after the most competitive GSL eras. He never won when gsl was competitive. He won like 5 GSL in a row, but could never win a world championship or even struggle in most world events.
The weak point of your argument is that if GSL is weak, then the rest of tournaments are also weak, Korean decline is SC2 goes hand in hand with an overall decline in player depth and competitiveness in international tournaments. So weighting down Maru results in recent years comes with the price of weighting down Serral's entire carrer as well.
The thing is: I hope we all don't rate GSL so high because "the koreans play there", but because "it was an incredibly staked tournament". I still wouldn't put GSL over any WCS titles, but I atleast can see the appeal. However, in recent years GSL falls behind the World Championship considerably because "the best players play there" just wasn't true anymore - it was missing Serral, Reynor and recently Clem. Still a staked tournament, but there should be a shift in priority for sure. Especially considering Miz at some point said something along the line of "maybe koreans performed worse in those international tournaments Serral won because of GSL"...if Maru and co. really lose big tournaments now because they focused on their regional tournament that maybe should be a Liquipedia-Major instead of a Premier by now considering how low the prizepool is...yikes.
GSL has been really weak for at least 3 years. How many GSL would Maru have won if Serral played in every GSL? Probably not quite as many.
This is a legendary if nuanced point. We are always double-counting Serral's lack of GSLs, because Maru, Rogue etc won those.
If Serral had played in Code S since 2018, not only would he probably have won about 4, that means it'd be one less at least for each of Maru, Rogue, and Dark, thus making them look worse (and not just Serral better).
On March 16 2024 14:53 kaos00 wrote: While I do think they are close enough that it's fair to have some criteria where Maru is the GOAT, I don't really get how ranking MVP over INnoVation and Dark being snubbed is consistent with this. All signs pointed to Serral at the top because if Maru's career is enough to surpass the periods of domination by Serral, then INno's career should top MVP's. Dark should be highly rated and at the veeeery minimum ahead of Rain.
This ranking feels icky.
It's based on a lot of feels that is clear, Mvp period of domination also came before Kespa, when kespa came over Mvp fled Korea then quit when hots launched.
Mvp winrate vs Kor: 76.0% in 2011 and that's it (he didn't even have a winning record the next year) Dark winrate vs Kor: 74.1% 2019 72.7% 2021 71.6% 2018 69.3% 2023 67.9% 2022 66.7% 2020 64.4% 2015 64.1% 2017 63.4% 2014
For color you're a tournament win contender above 62.5% and world champion material above 67% with that metric. Which is borne out by Dark's two world championship finals.
Look, it's okay to have opinions in a personal ranking like this, and I respect the amount of effort and research goes behind it, especially enjoyed the career recap portion. But the biggest problem of the list is lack of consistency in its criteria. Miz clearly did extensive research and listed all kinds of graphs of tournament results, win rates against peers and Proleague records for each player, but he didn't quite explain the process of how he weights and values everything in the end.
In the Mvp article, he said he put Mvp over Innovation because Mvp is more dominant during his prime (only one year), and he values it over Innovation's much longer and successful career. Then in Maru article, he admits Maru is not as dominant as Serral but praised his "otherworldly longevity", and just lightly brushed off the fact that the supposedly GOAT doesn't have a single WC title by just saying "but longevity!"
If you value peak over longevity, then Serral should definitely above Maru. If you value longevity over peak, then there's no way in hell Mvp is above Innovation and Dark is below the likes of TY, Rain, sOs, soO. It feels like he's just in the middle and decide which one he values more depends on the player.
If the list is #1 Maru, #2 Serral, #4 Innovation, #5 Dark, #6 Mvp then yeah I understand it, you are looking at big picture and take whole career into consideration. If it's Miz's list but with Serral on top, then I understand he values the peak performance and domination. But the current ranking is just perplexing.
On March 16 2024 22:17 KingzTig wrote: No way Dark isn't on that list. I personally think rain shouldn't be on it and reshuffle some position around, Dark is definitely top 3
Dark can't be top 3 because Rogue exists.
Dark is top 10 IMO but he's nowhere near top 3. The resumes that Maru, Rogue and Serral have put them far ahead of anyone else.
On March 16 2024 22:39 Nasigil wrote: Look, it's okay to have opinions in a personal ranking like this, and I respect the amount of effort and research goes behind it, especially enjoyed the career recap portion. But the biggest problem of the list is lack of consistency in its criteria. Miz clearly did extensive research and listed all kinds of graphs of tournament results, win rates against peers and Proleague records for each player, but he didn't quite explain the process of how he weights and values everything in the end.
In the Mvp article, he said he put Mvp over Innovation because Mvp is more dominant during his prime (only one year), and he values it over Innovation's much longer and successful career. Then in Maru article, he admits Maru is not as dominant as Serral but praised his "otherworldly longevity", and just lightly brushed off the fact that the supposedly GOAT doesn't have a single WC title by just saying "but longevity!"
If you value peak over longevity, then Serral should definitely above Maru. If you value longevity over peak, then there's no way in hell Mvp is above Innovation and Dark is below the likes of TY, Rain, sOs, soO. It feels like he's just in the middle and decide which one he values more depends on the player.
If the list is #1 Maru, #2 Serral, #4 Innovation, #5 Dark, #6 Mvp then yeah I understand it, you are looking at big picture and take whole career into consideration. If it's Miz's list but with Serral on top, then I understand he values the peak performance and domination. But the current ranking is just perplexing.
That's the strange thing about this ranking, it doesn't explain exactly how it came to be ranked
GSL has been really weak for at least 3 years. How many GSL would Maru have won if Serral played in every GSL? Probably not quite as many.
This is a legendary if nuanced point. We are always double-counting Serral's lack of GSLs, because Maru, Rogue etc won those.
If Serral had played in Code S since 2018, not only would he probably have won about 4, that means it'd be one less at least for each of Maru, Rogue, and Dark, thus making them look worse (and not just Serral better).
You shouldn't just assert hypotheticals that never happened and use them to adjust your perspective of what actually did happen. It would go both ways: If Serral didn't play in most of the tournaments he won, then he would be ranked worse than #2... but that doesn't mean he should actually be ranked worse than #2. The fact of the matter is that Serral won zero Code S tournaments, and that may mean something to some people who value Code S tournaments.
On March 16 2024 07:31 PtitDrogo wrote: Thank you for the wonderful articles ! They have been a joy to read and the research going into it is very nice. But also Serral got robbed + L + ratio + koreaboo
On March 16 2024 09:04 Branch.AUT wrote: How do you even put maru at #1 after he got SMASHED 4-0 by serral, with 250k on the line? Like how can you think he is better? Is it because he won the Global Starvation League so many times, when all other players were done competeing there???
GSL has been really weak for at least 3 years. How many GSL would Maru have won if Serral played in every GSL? Probably not quite as many.
This is a legendary if nuanced point. We are always double-counting Serral's lack of GSLs, because Maru, Rogue etc won those.
If Serral had played in Code S since 2018, not only would he probably have won about 4, that means it'd be one less at least for each of Maru, Rogue, and Dark, thus making them look worse (and not just Serral better).
You can't just assert hypotheticals that never happened and use them to adjust our perspective of what actually did happen. It would go both ways: If Serral didn't play in most of the tournaments he won, then he would be ranked worse than #2... but that doesn't mean he should actually be ranked worse than #2. The fact of the matter is that Serral won zero Code S tournaments, and that may mean something to some people.
No - I agree with that - but this goes to show that top Koreans look better post 2018 because Serral didn't play in GSL. Which is a reasonable/rational (if not factual) weaker form of the extreme 'it's the opposite, GSL was bad as soon as Serral wasn't it' silliness I sometimes see here.
This list is officially wrong. I asked Claude.ai (from Anthropic) Who is the greatest Starcraft II player of all times ?.
'Determining the greatest Starcraft II player of all time is somewhat subjective and can be debated. However, many people consider Lee "Flash" Young Ho to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Starcraft II player in history.
Flash, from South Korea, has had an incredibly dominant and consistent career in Starcraft II, particularly in the early 2010s. Some of his notable achievements include:
Winning the 2010 MLG Global Invitational Winning the 2011 MLG Global Invitational Winning the 2012 MLG Fall Championship Multiple GSL (Global Starcraft II League) titles Winning the 2012 KeSPA Cup Numerous other tournament victories and top placements Flash was known for his unparalleled macro management skills, strategic brilliance, and ability to seemingly always be one step ahead of his opponents. His dominance was so pronounced that he earned the nickname "God" among the Starcraft II community.'
On March 16 2024 23:31 MyLovelyLurker wrote: This list is officially wrong. I asked Claude.ai (from Anthropic) Who is the greatest Starcraft II player of all times ?.
'Determining the greatest Starcraft II player of all time is somewhat subjective and can be debated. However, many people consider Lee "Flash" Young Ho to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Starcraft II player in history.
Flash, from South Korea, has had an incredibly dominant and consistent career in Starcraft II, particularly in the early 2010s. Some of his notable achievements include:
Winning the 2010 MLG Global Invitational Winning the 2011 MLG Global Invitational Winning the 2012 MLG Fall Championship Multiple GSL (Global Starcraft II League) titles Winning the 2012 KeSPA Cup Numerous other tournament victories and top placements Flash was known for his unparalleled macro management skills, strategic brilliance, and ability to seemingly always be one step ahead of his opponents. His dominance was so pronounced that he earned the nickname "God" among the Starcraft II community.'
I asked perplexity the same thing (here) and it decided on maru/rogue/serral, however the funniest part of it was it pulled data from esports-betting-bro which ranked serral as #1.
If there's one thing you can trust when ranking odds, it's definitely a betting website.
On March 16 2024 23:31 MyLovelyLurker wrote: This list is officially wrong. I asked Claude.ai (from Anthropic) Who is the greatest Starcraft II player of all times ?.
'Determining the greatest Starcraft II player of all time is somewhat subjective and can be debated. However, many people consider Lee "Flash" Young Ho to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Starcraft II player in history.
Flash, from South Korea, has had an incredibly dominant and consistent career in Starcraft II, particularly in the early 2010s. Some of his notable achievements include:
Winning the 2010 MLG Global Invitational Winning the 2011 MLG Global Invitational Winning the 2012 MLG Fall Championship Multiple GSL (Global Starcraft II League) titles Winning the 2012 KeSPA Cup Numerous other tournament victories and top placements Flash was known for his unparalleled macro management skills, strategic brilliance, and ability to seemingly always be one step ahead of his opponents. His dominance was so pronounced that he earned the nickname "God" among the Starcraft II community.'
I asked perplexity the same thing (here) and it decided on maru/rogue/serral, however the funniest part of it was it pulled data from esports-betting-bro which ranked serral as #1.
If there's one thing you can trust when ranking odds, it's definitely a betting website.
Interesting list from esports-betting-bro. It has Dark at #4. Granted skews too much towards LotV, as shown by my compatriot Clem in #10 (I love Clem, but no, not yet).
Guys, this article is not called "strongest players now" or even "strongest players ever". It's "greatest players of all time" article and it's a subjective opinion - just like yours. You cannot objectively compare a player with 14 years long career and one with just 6-7 years long career, who played in different eras with very different competition level.
Just take this for what it is - a personal opinion of author. Don't be as pathetic as people who think there are two sorts of opinions - theirs and the wrong ones.
On March 16 2024 23:45 ZeroByte13 wrote: Guys, this article is not called "strongest players now" or even "strongest players ever". It's "greatest players of all time" article and it's a subjective opinion - just like yours. You cannot objectively compare a player with 14 years long career and one with just 6-7 years long career, who played in different eras with very different competition level.
Just take this for what it is - a personal opinion of author. Don't be as pathetic as people who think there are two sorts of opinions - theirs and the wrong ones.
Yes, it is an opinion. And other people tell their opinion and try to argue Mizs opinion - because that is how that whole discussion and debate thingy works. What do you expect people to do? Just write "okay cool" and be done with it? Or is that already too much and the right thing to do would have been to not write any comments at all?
Serral, Maru, and Rogue are clearly the three best of all time and I think any order among them can be justified. If Serral wins another Katowice/world championship or Maru wins one that would definitively settle the debate for me.
Curious to see the blogpost on Dark and why he got excluded!
There are different ways to argue. "This is robbery!" and such is IMO a kinda childish way to do it. What I'd expect is for people to be adults, respect each other opinions and not think their opinions are objectively better.
On March 17 2024 00:07 ZeroByte13 wrote: There are different ways to argue. "This is robbery!" and such is IMO a kinda childish way to do it. What I'd expect is for people to be adults, respect each other opinions and not think their opinions are objectively better.
Indeed
‘Wise up’ as we say over here. Hey there might be some disagreements but it’s a great series that had a lot of effort put into it
Can't imagine it any other way. I think serral is a great player and maybe if his legend started half a decade earlier I could be convinced that he's #1, but watching Maru grow from literally a little kid to where he's at 10 years later is remarkable.
Tbh very good list, amazing work, amazing articles, good job and thanks. And about Maru №1, GSL is like Champions League of sc2, you can't be called GOAT if you're not playing there, so totally deserved
On March 16 2024 23:31 MyLovelyLurker wrote: This list is officially wrong. I asked Claude.ai (from Anthropic) Who is the greatest Starcraft II player of all times ?.
'Determining the greatest Starcraft II player of all time is somewhat subjective and can be debated. However, many people consider Lee "Flash" Young Ho to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Starcraft II player in history.
Flash, from South Korea, has had an incredibly dominant and consistent career in Starcraft II, particularly in the early 2010s. Some of his notable achievements include:
Winning the 2010 MLG Global Invitational Winning the 2011 MLG Global Invitational Winning the 2012 MLG Fall Championship Multiple GSL (Global Starcraft II League) titles Winning the 2012 KeSPA Cup Numerous other tournament victories and top placements Flash was known for his unparalleled macro management skills, strategic brilliance, and ability to seemingly always be one step ahead of his opponents. His dominance was so pronounced that he earned the nickname "God" among the Starcraft II community.'
I asked perplexity the same thing (here) and it decided on maru/rogue/serral, however the funniest part of it was it pulled data from esports-betting-bro which ranked serral as #1.
If there's one thing you can trust when ranking odds, it's definitely a betting website.
I asked ChatGPT 4:
Determining the best StarCraft II player of all time can be quite subjective, as it depends on various criteria such as tournament wins, consistency over time, influence on the game, and individual skill level. However, a few names frequently come up in discussions around this topic:
1. **Joona "Serral" Sotala** - The Finnish Zerg player is often considered one of the best, if not the best, StarCraft II players of all time. Serral made history by winning the 2018 World Championship Series (WCS) Global Finals, becoming the first non-Korean player to do so. His dominance in both international and regional competitions over several years has solidified his status as a legend in the scene.
2. **Lee "Life" Seung Hyun** - Despite his career being cut short due to a lifetime ban for match-fixing, Life was known for his incredible talent and innovative playstyle. He won numerous major tournaments, including the 2014 BlizzCon World Championships, and was considered by many as one of the greatest talents the game has ever seen.
3. **Joo "Zest" Sung Wook** - Zest has been one of the most consistent and successful Protoss players throughout the history of StarCraft II. He has won numerous premier tournaments and has been a top competitor in both Korean and international events for many years.
4. **Eo "soO" Yoon Su** - soO is renowned for his consistency at the highest level of competition. He has finished as the runner-up in numerous World Championship Series events and major Korean tournaments, earning him a reputation as one of the best Zerg players ever, despite the heartbreak of coming in second so often.
5. **Lee "INnoVation" Shin Hyung** - INnoVation is often cited as one of the best Terran players of all time, known for his robotic consistency and exceptional macro play. He has won multiple premier tournaments throughout his career and has been a staple of the competitive scene for many years.
These players are often celebrated for their skill, achievements, and contributions to the StarCraft II community. The best player among them depends on the criteria you value most, such as peak performance, consistency, longevity, or impact on the game.
^I'm ok with that answer
Edit: when I asked for top 10 goat pretenders it was: Serral > Life > INnoVation > Zest > soO > Maru > TaeJa > Rogue > Dark > TY
First of all, since I have not yet said it: Major props to Miz for crafting this series! The amount of data that has been studied is amazing, and the writing is nothing short of superb. Reading the articles has been a joy. The series also has done the service of generating more discussion about SC2 on this site than anything else in the past years, haha.
That said, I will also happily contribute to the many voices bringing out why, in my view, placing Maru above Serral is a misjudgment.
On March 17 2024 02:09 StaNi wrote: GSL is like Champions League of sc2
This analogy is flawed even if you are the most blazing Korean elitist.
The Champions League is literally the league where the best-performing teams from different regions play it out. So its counterpart in SC2 is not the GSL, but the World Championship cycle, embodied for example in BlizzCon or the Katowice events. And Serral has won three of them, Maru zero.
On March 17 2024 03:08 Antithesis wrote: First of all, since I have not yet said it: Major props to Miz for crafting this series! The amount of data that has been studied is amazing, and the writing is nothing short of superb. Reading the articles has been a joy. The series also has done the service of generating more discussion about SC2 on this site than anything else in the past years, haha.
That said, I will also happily contribute to the many voices bringing out why, in my view, placing Maru above Serral is a misjudgment.
On March 17 2024 02:09 StaNi wrote: GSL is like Champions League of sc2
This analogy is flawed even if you are the most blazing Korean elitist.
The Champions League is literally the league where the best-performing teams from different regions play it out. So its counterpart in SC2 is not the GSL, but the World Championship cycle, embodied for example in BlizzCon or the Katowice events. And Serral has won three of them, Maru zero.
I agree the WC is more like the champions League literally, but obviously throughout the vast majority of sc2 winning blizzcon (and now katowice) was significantly easier than winning gsl because of how qualification worked.
On March 17 2024 03:08 Antithesis wrote: First of all, since I have not yet said it: Major props to Miz for crafting this series! The amount of data that has been studied is amazing, and the writing is nothing short of superb. Reading the articles has been a joy. The series also has done the service of generating more discussion about SC2 on this site than anything else in the past years, haha.
That said, I will also happily contribute to the many voices bringing out why, in my view, placing Maru above Serral is a misjudgment.
On March 17 2024 02:09 StaNi wrote: GSL is like Champions League of sc2
This analogy is flawed even if you are the most blazing Korean elitist.
The Champions League is literally the league where the best-performing teams from different regions play it out. So its counterpart in SC2 is not the GSL, but the World Championship cycle, embodied for example in BlizzCon or the Katowice events. And Serral has won three of them, Maru zero.
^that. The more reasonable analogy would be: can you be basketball goat without conquering NBA? Somewhat stretched analogy: can you be tennis goat without winning all 4 slams?
By the way, since I've not said it yet, amazing job Miz. Thanks for embarking on this colossal endeavor.
I may put my thoughts together in a blog about the whole thing and how one ranks greatness, I find the difference (and the resemblance) between what my own personal top 10 would be fascinating while having a very different way to approach what makes a player great in my mind.
Fwiw I think Maru is the most talented player to touch the game. As Miz outlined he went from cheeser/micro player to late game turtling. He has some of the best proleague stats ever, which I think people these days generally don't give as much credit to team leagues in general which is sad. That's where they got their salaries from and obviously the most important competition to their sponsors. Not to mention Maru and other good players are getting sniped and prepared for each week in Proleague.
To be as good as he is for so long just shows his dedication. When some of the current pros were either not playing or not playing at the top level he was winning tournaments. Being willing to practice for a decade plus is insane. Maru is going to likely play in the first and final GSL seasons.
Recency bias hurts Maru's case but over the course of sc2 I don't really think there is anyone else who could be goat. Royal roaded 2 star leagues, his GSL records and pro league career.
On March 17 2024 03:08 Antithesis wrote: First of all, since I have not yet said it: Major props to Miz for crafting this series! The amount of data that has been studied is amazing, and the writing is nothing short of superb. Reading the articles has been a joy. The series also has done the service of generating more discussion about SC2 on this site than anything else in the past years, haha.
That said, I will also happily contribute to the many voices bringing out why, in my view, placing Maru above Serral is a misjudgment.
On March 17 2024 02:09 StaNi wrote: GSL is like Champions League of sc2
This analogy is flawed even if you are the most blazing Korean elitist.
The Champions League is literally the league where the best-performing teams from different regions play it out. So its counterpart in SC2 is not the GSL, but the World Championship cycle, embodied for example in BlizzCon or the Katowice events. And Serral has won three of them, Maru zero.
^that. The more reasonable analogy would be: can you be basketball goat without conquering NBA? Somewhat stretched analogy: can you be tennis goat without winning all 4 slams?
I think a better analogy is in NCAA Football. Playing for and setting records for an elite program is a better accomplishment than lighting it up for Hawaii or Western Kentucky.
It can't be argued that Maru has the league pedigree in his favor and people value that differently. I think a lot of that group doesn't counter-balance that with he extra resources and structure that helped Maru develop his talents so well... and well in this analogy, it is like Serral actually won the championship with Western Kentucky and that would be a GOAT accomplishment.
On March 16 2024 18:44 Snakestyle1 wrote: I think its important to keep in mind that even though Maru has been playing since the very beginning (2010), his GSL wins are all in the last 5-6 years; way after the most competitive GSL eras. He never won when gsl was competitive. He won like 5 GSL in a row, but could never win a world championship or even struggle in most world events.
The weak point of your argument is that if GSL is weak, then the rest of tournaments are also weak, Korean decline is SC2 goes hand in hand with an overall decline in player depth and competitiveness in international tournaments. So weighting down Maru results in recent years comes with the price of weighting down Serral's entire carrer as well.
The thing is: I hope we all don't rate GSL so high because "the koreans play there", but because "it was an incredibly staked tournament". I still wouldn't put GSL over any WCS titles, but I atleast can see the appeal. However, in recent years GSL falls behind the World Championship considerably because "the best players play there" just wasn't true anymore - it was missing Serral, Reynor and recently Clem. Still a staked tournament, but there should be a shift in priority for sure. Especially considering Miz at some point said something along the line of "maybe koreans performed worse in those international tournaments Serral won because of GSL"...if Maru and co. really lose big tournaments now because they focused on their regional tournament that maybe should be a Liquipedia-Major instead of a Premier by now considering how low the prizepool is...yikes.
You forgot that Reynor played at GSL. And yes, nobody is saying that Maru and co lose big tourneys now because they focus on regional ones, dont know why you make that point.
The REAL GOAT: More Kespa Cups than Maru and Serral COMBINED.... hard to debate with that.
Maru, Serral and herO are great, but did they walk the royal road beating a GSL semi-finalist, a WCS finalist, a WCS champion, a 2 time MLG + 1-time Dreamhack champion, the pvp skill-god, a WCG finalist, an 11-time premier champion, a 14-time IPL fight club champion and a Red Bull legend?
while I think it wouldn't have been unfair for author to just put serral and maru at both #1 to avoid the shitfest right now on comment section, how come a lot of SC2 community isn't really taking BW-approach on these rankings where they discount results post-teamhouse era?
The same thing applies in BW; the general knowledge, meta and skill level rose a lot compared to Proleague era where game is nearly incomparable and everything is measured down to seconds nowadays, with meta evolving to counter the meta constantly every few weeks due to condensed progamer circle and sharing of knowledge
However, everyone recognizes that the amount of competition/cycle/dedicated coaching or sniping builds are incomparable compared to proleague era as of now, as amount of resources dedicated to each player and level of competition is just way less now, so results post-teamhouse era are counted with grain of salt even if the "now" player would wipe floor with "past" player; after all, the peak competition and mechanical skill was back in proleague era.
Flash mentioned that if "modern" player were timetravelled back into past, they would win most of the game vs past player due to just difference in knowledge/skill. But the past player would just adapt due to being used to the amount of competition and sheer mechanical skill during that era, so you cannot compare past achievements with current.
after proleague went down, a lot of SC2 Korean pro players are not under same amount of pressure/passion for game after and are really in no way in their peak. The amount of progamers lessened a lot, and there are a whole lot less expectations placed on them. It's not really fair to compare peak competition era to post 2017 era really just due to sheer difference in environment where SC2 doesn't really offer an attractive environment for Korean progamers to keep going.
On March 17 2024 04:39 jinjin5000 wrote: while I think it wouldn't have been unfair for author to just put serral and maru at both #1 to avoid the shitfest right now on comment section, how come a lot of SC2 community isn't really taking BW-approach on these rankings where they discount results post-teamhouse era?
The same thing applies in BW; the general knowledge, meta and skill level rose a lot compared to Proleague era where game is nearly incomparable and everything is measured down to seconds nowadays, with meta evolving to counter the meta constantly every few weeks due to condensed progamer circle and sharing of knowledge
However, everyone recognizes that the amount of competition/cycle/dedicated coaching or sniping builds are incomparable compared to proleague era as of now, as amount of resources dedicated to each player and level of competition is just way less now, so results post-teamhouse era are counted with grain of salt even if the "now" player would wipe floor with "past" player; after all, the peak competition and mechanical skill was back in proleague era.
Flash mentioned that if "modern" player were timetravelled back into past, they would win most of the game vs past player due to just difference in knowledge/skill. But the past player would just adapt due to being used to the amount of competition and sheer mechanical skill during that era, so you cannot compare past achievements with current.
after proleague went down, a lot of SC2 Korean pro players are not under same amount of pressure/passion for game after and are really in no way in their peak. The amount of progamers lessened a lot, and there are a whole lot less expectations placed on them. It's not really fair to compare peak competition era to post 2017 era really just due to sheer difference in environment where SC2 doesn't really offer an attractive environment for Korean progamers to keep going.
The two aren't comparable. Sure teahouses and proleague stopped and a lot of progamer retired, there's no denying the field became a lot is tinner. But SC2 competition was (and arguably still is) very much alive.
Post 2017 is also when there was the most amount of money, to earn. Maru, Dark and Rogue became millionaires in their post-Kespa days, it's not BW where's there barely 100k$ a year up for grabs. We talk about retirement, but there is way less retirement post-2017 compared to the 2011-2016 period, on the contrary, we see players stick with SC2 all the way to military for the first time since it finally makes sense to have it as a long time commitment.
On March 17 2024 04:39 jinjin5000 wrote: while I think it wouldn't have been unfair for author to just put serral and maru at both #1 to avoid the shitfest right now on comment section, how come a lot of SC2 community isn't really taking BW-approach on these rankings where they discount results post-teamhouse era?
The same thing applies in BW; the general knowledge, meta and skill level rose a lot compared to Proleague era where game is nearly incomparable and everything is measured down to seconds nowadays, with meta evolving to counter the meta constantly every few weeks due to condensed progamer circle and sharing of knowledge
However, everyone recognizes that the amount of competition/cycle/dedicated coaching or sniping builds are incomparable compared to proleague era as of now, as amount of resources dedicated to each player and level of competition is just way less now, so results post-teamhouse era are counted with grain of salt even if the "now" player would wipe floor with "past" player; after all, the peak competition and mechanical skill was back in proleague era.
Flash mentioned that if "modern" player were timetravelled back into past, they would win most of the game vs past player due to just difference in knowledge/skill. But the past player would just adapt due to being used to the amount of competition and sheer mechanical skill during that era, so you cannot compare past achievements with current.
after proleague went down, a lot of SC2 Korean pro players are not under same amount of pressure/passion for game after and are really in no way in their peak. The amount of progamers lessened a lot, and there are a whole lot less expectations placed on them. It's not really fair to compare peak competition era to post 2017 era really just due to sheer difference in environment where SC2 doesn't really offer an attractive environment for Korean progamers to keep going.
The two aren't comparable. Sure teahouses and proleague stopped and a lot of progamer retired, there's no denying the field became a lot is tinner. But SC2 competition was (and arguably still is) very much alive.
Post 2017 is also when there was the most amount of money, to earn. Maru, Dark and Rogue became millionaires in their post-Kespa days, it's not BW where's there barely 100k$ a year up for grabs. We talk about retirement, but there is way less retirement post-2017 compared to the 2011-2016 period, on the contrary, we see players stick with SC2 all the way to military for the first time since it finally makes sense to have it as a long time commitment.
Well tbf, for BW side, there's still incentive for them to keep up competition on streaming (even if it transitioned into personality streams) in forms of major proleague and 1v1 spons which make up sizable part of the income. You can say its bit comparative in that department where both games have forms of serious competition/playing for prize money which are very comparable to sc2 levels on those alone.
A lot of SC2 progamesr had to pick up online cups or side tournaments to keep going and had their own self-practice environment so i think its fairly comparable to BW situation really. They are no longer at their peak nor incentives.
LONG time reader. Had to create an account because how ridiculous this is.
GSL hasn't had the best player in the world play in it since 2018........ it's 2024. There have been 18 GSL's in that time. Maru won 7. Doesn't seem like the most prestigious wins if the best player in the world wasn't in the tournament.
There were two GSL vs the World in that time. I'm sure the guy who went 2 for 2 on those wouldn't have been able to win one or two of those 18 GSL's if he had decided he wanted to play in them.
Ask the pros who'd they'd rather play against in the final of the world championship for a few hundred thousand dollars? Good luck finding one that says they'd rather play serral.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I remember that Miz said this ranking does not take Kato 2024 into account and its result would not affect the ranking even if it were taken into account. I take it that mentioning of Kato 2024 in both the Serral and Maru articles is just for the sake of completeness.
This means even if Serral wins Kato 2024 and Maru fails to come out of his group, Miz would still rank Maru above Serral. That is to say, one more world champion does not close the gap between the two (pre Kato 2024). Yet he said Maru only comes out on top on a very small margin.
Another glaring issue is the exclusion of Dark. In this very article, there is a graph showing that Dark is the best GSL player in terms of match win rates between 2019 and 2023 and another showing that Dark has won the second most code S matches with the third highest win rate. How does one look at these stats and leave Dark out of the top 10?
I'm fine with the placement of Serral and Maru either way but these inconsistencies make me question whether the methodology is applied consistently and fairly more than anything else.
Btw, I always thought the fact that Byun has always been advocating for Serral's goat status is valuable evidence. He is a Korean Terran so unlikely bias to non-Korean or Zerg. He has been playing since the first GSL alongside Maru so he definitely knows about the competitiveness of tournaments across era. He has played both Serral, Maru and other top Zergs countless times so he has good knowledge of the skill level of his opponents. He is even a very close friend of Maru!
Yet, he has long been saying that Serral is the goat. I think this fact alone says a lot.
On March 17 2024 05:02 ktll4c91 wrote: I'm fine with the placement of Serral and Maru either way but these inconsistencies make me question whether the methodology is applied consistently and fairly more than anything else.
I agree, and several others have pointed out the same inconsistency.
In fact, Mizenhauer himself has stated that in order to place Maru above Serral, being the Greatest had to be valued at as low as 45%, while the Greatest Career had to be valued at as high as 55%:
On March 16 2024 07:29 CicadaSC wrote: Agree with this. Serral is good but you can't call him the goat if he refuses to play in Code S, the hardest tournament. Reynor, neeb and other foreigners who had success in weekend tournaments show how much of a different beast this is. Grats to Maru and well deserved #1.
It's really close between the two. If my original split between Greatest and Greatest Career was more like 60/40 (it was 45/55 in favor of the latter) to the former then Serral gets first. Even then, I waffled between Maru and Serral a few times before settling on my final order.
However, if these weightings are applied consistently, then it is difficult to see how Dark can be left out of the Top 10, while, for example, MVP is #4.
On March 17 2024 05:01 Cactus66 wrote: LONG time reader. Had to create an account because how ridiculous this is.
GSL hasn't had the best player in the world play in it since 2018........ it's 2024. There have been 18 GSL's in that time. Maru won 7. Doesn't seem like the most prestigious wins if the best player in the world wasn't in the tournament.
There were two GSL vs the World in that time. I'm sure the guy who went 2 for 2 on those wouldn't have been able to win one or two of those 18 GSL's if he had decided he wanted to play in them.
Ask the pros who'd they'd rather play against in the final of the world championship for a few hundred thousand dollars? Good luck finding one that says they'd rather play serral.
Serral has not been the continuous best since 2018. There have definitely been times where Maru, Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Trap surpassed him and outperformed him for multiple tournaments in a row.
Ragnarok and Solar would definitely choose Serral. Ragnarok has not won a series against Maru and Solar beats him sometimes but never when it really matters. Clem has a higher winrate against Serral than Maru but in their current forms he would still probably choose Maru. I'm sure there are a handful of others as well. Regardless its not purely about current skill but alltime skill. Sure most would choose Maru now but from 2010-mid 2018 it's not even a question that they would choose Serral. Even since 2018 there have been a few periods where Serral would be chosen as well. Throughout the games life Maru would be the harder one to beat in around 10/14 years.
On March 17 2024 04:39 jinjin5000 wrote: while I think it wouldn't have been unfair for author to just put serral and maru at both #1 to avoid the shitfest right now on comment section, how come a lot of SC2 community isn't really taking BW-approach on these rankings where they discount results post-teamhouse era?
The same thing applies in BW; the general knowledge, meta and skill level rose a lot compared to Proleague era where game is nearly incomparable and everything is measured down to seconds nowadays, with meta evolving to counter the meta constantly every few weeks due to condensed progamer circle and sharing of knowledge
However, everyone recognizes that the amount of competition/cycle/dedicated coaching or sniping builds are incomparable compared to proleague era as of now, as amount of resources dedicated to each player and level of competition is just way less now, so results post-teamhouse era are counted with grain of salt even if the "now" player would wipe floor with "past" player; after all, the peak competition and mechanical skill was back in proleague era.
Flash mentioned that if "modern" player were timetravelled back into past, they would win most of the game vs past player due to just difference in knowledge/skill. But the past player would just adapt due to being used to the amount of competition and sheer mechanical skill during that era, so you cannot compare past achievements with current.
after proleague went down, a lot of SC2 Korean pro players are not under same amount of pressure/passion for game after and are really in no way in their peak. The amount of progamers lessened a lot, and there are a whole lot less expectations placed on them. It's not really fair to compare peak competition era to post 2017 era really just due to sheer difference in environment where SC2 doesn't really offer an attractive environment for Korean progamers to keep going.
The two aren't comparable. Sure teahouses and proleague stopped and a lot of progamer retired, there's no denying the field became a lot is tinner. But SC2 competition was (and arguably still is) very much alive.
Post 2017 is also when there was the most amount of money, to earn. Maru, Dark and Rogue became millionaires in their post-Kespa days, it's not BW where's there barely 100k$ a year up for grabs. We talk about retirement, but there is way less retirement post-2017 compared to the 2011-2016 period, on the contrary, we see players stick with SC2 all the way to military for the first time since it finally makes sense to have it as a long time commitment.
Well tbf, for BW side, there's still incentive for them to keep up competition on streaming (even if it transitioned into personality streams) in forms of major proleague and 1v1 spons which make up sizable part of the income. You can say its bit comparative in that department where both games have forms of serious competition/playing for prize money.
I can't say I'm very versed into the streamer-proleague world of BW, but my understanding is that it's more players and streamers playing showmatches so that everyone make money after after a couple weeks/months, am I far off?
I think from the outside looking in, it can be easy to think SC2 players don't practice since it's way less visible than before, but I'd be curious to know if practice time truly fell off by that much. For example, just a couple of years back in 2021, Zest played almost 900 professional matches on top of a shit-ton of ladder, that's some Kespa-level workload if I've ever seen one.
On March 17 2024 05:01 Cactus66 wrote: LONG time reader. Had to create an account because how ridiculous this is.
GSL hasn't had the best player in the world play in it since 2018........ it's 2024. There have been 18 GSL's in that time. Maru won 7. Doesn't seem like the most prestigious wins if the best player in the world wasn't in the tournament.
There were two GSL vs the World in that time. I'm sure the guy who went 2 for 2 on those wouldn't have been able to win one or two of those 18 GSL's if he had decided he wanted to play in them.
Ask the pros who'd they'd rather play against in the final of the world championship for a few hundred thousand dollars? Good luck finding one that says they'd rather play serral.
Serral has not been the continuous best since 2018. There have definitely been times where Maru, Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Trap surpassed him and outperformed him for multiple tournaments in a row.
Ragnarok and Solar would definitely choose Serral. Ragnarok has not won a series against Maru and Solar beats him sometimes but never when it really matters. Clem has a higher winrate against Serral than Maru but in their current forms he would still probably choose Maru. I'm sure there are a handful of others as well. Regardless its not purely about current skill but alltime skill. Sure most would choose Maru now but from 2010-mid 2018 it's not even a question that they would choose Serral. Even since 2018 there have been a few periods where Serral would be chosen as well. Throughout the games life Maru would be the harder one to beat in around 10/14 years.
Serral has absolutely been the best player since 2018. If you went back in time and inserted a premier tournament at any point in time from 2018-2024 he would be the betting favourite to win the tournament. Did he win every tournament and series? Of course not.
On March 17 2024 04:39 jinjin5000 wrote: while I think it wouldn't have been unfair for author to just put serral and maru at both #1 to avoid the shitfest right now on comment section, how come a lot of SC2 community isn't really taking BW-approach on these rankings where they discount results post-teamhouse era?
The same thing applies in BW; the general knowledge, meta and skill level rose a lot compared to Proleague era where game is nearly incomparable and everything is measured down to seconds nowadays, with meta evolving to counter the meta constantly every few weeks due to condensed progamer circle and sharing of knowledge
However, everyone recognizes that the amount of competition/cycle/dedicated coaching or sniping builds are incomparable compared to proleague era as of now, as amount of resources dedicated to each player and level of competition is just way less now, so results post-teamhouse era are counted with grain of salt even if the "now" player would wipe floor with "past" player; after all, the peak competition and mechanical skill was back in proleague era.
Flash mentioned that if "modern" player were timetravelled back into past, they would win most of the game vs past player due to just difference in knowledge/skill. But the past player would just adapt due to being used to the amount of competition and sheer mechanical skill during that era, so you cannot compare past achievements with current.
after proleague went down, a lot of SC2 Korean pro players are not under same amount of pressure/passion for game after and are really in no way in their peak. The amount of progamers lessened a lot, and there are a whole lot less expectations placed on them. It's not really fair to compare peak competition era to post 2017 era really just due to sheer difference in environment where SC2 doesn't really offer an attractive environment for Korean progamers to keep going.
The two aren't comparable. Sure teahouses and proleague stopped and a lot of progamer retired, there's no denying the field became a lot is tinner. But SC2 competition was (and arguably still is) very much alive.
Post 2017 is also when there was the most amount of money, to earn. Maru, Dark and Rogue became millionaires in their post-Kespa days, it's not BW where's there barely 100k$ a year up for grabs. We talk about retirement, but there is way less retirement post-2017 compared to the 2011-2016 period, on the contrary, we see players stick with SC2 all the way to military for the first time since it finally makes sense to have it as a long time commitment.
Well tbf, for BW side, there's still incentive for them to keep up competition on streaming (even if it transitioned into personality streams) in forms of major proleague and 1v1 spons which make up sizable part of the income. You can say its bit comparative in that department where both games have forms of serious competition/playing for prize money.
I can't say I'm very versed into the streamer-proleague world of BW, but my understanding is that it's more players and streamers playing showmatches so that everyone make money after after a couple weeks/months, am I far off?
I think from the outside looking in, it can be easy to think SC2 players don't practice since it's way less visible than before, but I'd be curious to know if practice time truly fell off by that much. For example, just a couple of years back in 2021, Zest played almost 900 professional matches on top of a shit-ton of ladder, that's some Kespa-level workload if I've ever seen one.
I think its quite similar in sense that both sides are playing competitive games but w/o teamhouse infrastructure supporting them and both scenes don't have new blood coming in, lessening the overall competition/pressure. Both games have very limited pro-player pool exacerbating to this issue.
SC2, you have online tournaments and foreign tournaments, but you no longer have the benefit of teamhouse support with dedicated coaching team and competition level as well as facing opponents who prepared specifically vs them with teamhouse support behind them.
BW, you have progamers splitting between competitive 1v1, proleague format and streaming/non-competitive content. They also no longer have dedicated team behind them keeping their shape up, but is compensated by faster revolving meta due to sharing knowledge and all, but its quite clear that they are not at their peak mechanically wise.
Even with number of games, it's quite comparable with someone like light in BW roughly playing 1527 competitive spon games last 1 year with 580 games of it being major proleague, not counting their practice games.
I think both scenes have quite comparable levels of competitive games going on, with BW having bit less since they also split time to focusing on streaming content and SC2 progamers not streaming much at all, but self-employment/motivation thing applies to both imo, as well as limited competitiveness in scene and player pool.
nowadays both SC2 and SC1 progamers use customs using their own connections/friends to practice their own preparation for tournaments when they are preparing seriously off-stream, and both sides use ladder as filler in-between which isn't the best practice environment compared to dedicated customs/teamhouse environment where there were dedicated b/c teamers as well as A-teamers to grind customs with at pro-level skill. It's only natural the skill level won't keep up with your own effort from peak.
On March 17 2024 05:01 Cactus66 wrote: LONG time reader. Had to create an account because how ridiculous this is.
GSL hasn't had the best player in the world play in it since 2018........ it's 2024. There have been 18 GSL's in that time. Maru won 7. Doesn't seem like the most prestigious wins if the best player in the world wasn't in the tournament.
There were two GSL vs the World in that time. I'm sure the guy who went 2 for 2 on those wouldn't have been able to win one or two of those 18 GSL's if he had decided he wanted to play in them.
Ask the pros who'd they'd rather play against in the final of the world championship for a few hundred thousand dollars? Good luck finding one that says they'd rather play serral.
Serral has not been the continuous best since 2018. There have definitely been times where Maru, Dark, Rogue, Reynor, and Trap surpassed him and outperformed him for multiple tournaments in a row.
Ragnarok and Solar would definitely choose Serral. Ragnarok has not won a series against Maru and Solar beats him sometimes but never when it really matters. Clem has a higher winrate against Serral than Maru but in their current forms he would still probably choose Maru. I'm sure there are a handful of others as well. Regardless its not purely about current skill but alltime skill. Sure most would choose Maru now but from 2010-mid 2018 it's not even a question that they would choose Serral. Even since 2018 there have been a few periods where Serral would be chosen as well. Throughout the games life Maru would be the harder one to beat in around 10/14 years.
Serral has absolutely been the best player since 2018. If you went back in time and inserted a premier tournament at any point in time from 2018-2024 he would be the betting favourite to win the tournament. Did he win every tournament and series? Of course not.
Maru out placed him in something like 6 tournaments in a row during late 2021 and won 2 head to head matches. Trap had a similar run during late 2020 early 2021 once again including beating him head to head a couple times and out placing him several events in a row. Reynor also did the same in early to mid 2021. Rogue is a streaky player so he didn't have any sustained success over him for multiple events in a row but did have peaks where he looked clearly better.
Serral was on average the best from 2018 to now. That's a true statement. Saying he was the best without any exceptions from 2018 to now is just blind bias.
On March 17 2024 04:39 jinjin5000 wrote: while I think it wouldn't have been unfair for author to just put serral and maru at both #1 to avoid the shitfest right now on comment section, how come a lot of SC2 community isn't really taking BW-approach on these rankings where they discount results post-teamhouse era?
The same thing applies in BW; the general knowledge, meta and skill level rose a lot compared to Proleague era where game is nearly incomparable and everything is measured down to seconds nowadays, with meta evolving to counter the meta constantly every few weeks due to condensed progamer circle and sharing of knowledge
However, everyone recognizes that the amount of competition/cycle/dedicated coaching or sniping builds are incomparable compared to proleague era as of now, as amount of resources dedicated to each player and level of competition is just way less now, so results post-teamhouse era are counted with grain of salt even if the "now" player would wipe floor with "past" player; after all, the peak competition and mechanical skill was back in proleague era.
Flash mentioned that if "modern" player were timetravelled back into past, they would win most of the game vs past player due to just difference in knowledge/skill. But the past player would just adapt due to being used to the amount of competition and sheer mechanical skill during that era, so you cannot compare past achievements with current.
after proleague went down, a lot of SC2 Korean pro players are not under same amount of pressure/passion for game after and are really in no way in their peak. The amount of progamers lessened a lot, and there are a whole lot less expectations placed on them. It's not really fair to compare peak competition era to post 2017 era really just due to sheer difference in environment where SC2 doesn't really offer an attractive environment for Korean progamers to keep going.
The two aren't comparable. Sure teahouses and proleague stopped and a lot of progamer retired, there's no denying the field became a lot is tinner. But SC2 competition was (and arguably still is) very much alive.
Post 2017 is also when there was the most amount of money, to earn. Maru, Dark and Rogue became millionaires in their post-Kespa days, it's not BW where's there barely 100k$ a year up for grabs. We talk about retirement, but there is way less retirement post-2017 compared to the 2011-2016 period, on the contrary, we see players stick with SC2 all the way to military for the first time since it finally makes sense to have it as a long time commitment.
Well tbf, for BW side, there's still incentive for them to keep up competition on streaming (even if it transitioned into personality streams) in forms of major proleague and 1v1 spons which make up sizable part of the income. You can say its bit comparative in that department where both games have forms of serious competition/playing for prize money.
I can't say I'm very versed into the streamer-proleague world of BW, but my understanding is that it's more players and streamers playing showmatches so that everyone make money after after a couple weeks/months, am I far off?
I think from the outside looking in, it can be easy to think SC2 players don't practice since it's way less visible than before, but I'd be curious to know if practice time truly fell off by that much. For example, just a couple of years back in 2021, Zest played almost 900 professional matches on top of a shit-ton of ladder, that's some Kespa-level workload if I've ever seen one.
I think its quite similar in sense that both sides are playing competitive games but w/o teamhouse infrastructure supporting them and both scenes don't have new blood coming in, lessening the overall competition/pressure. Both games have very limited pro-player pool exacerbating to this issue.
SC2, you have online tournaments and foreign tournaments, but you no longer have the benefit of teamhouse support with dedicated coaching team and competition level as well as facing opponents who prepared specifically vs them with teamhouse support behind them.
BW, you have progamers splitting between competitive 1v1, proleague format and streaming/non-competitive content. They also no longer have dedicated team behind them keeping their shape up, but is compensated by faster revolving meta due to sharing knowledge and all, but its quite clear that they are not at their peak mechanically wise.
Even with number of games, it's quite comparable with someone like light in BW roughly playing 1527 competitive spon games last 1 year with 580 games of it being major proleague, not counting their practice games.
I think both scenes have quite comparable levels of competitive games going on, with BW having bit less since they also split time to focusing on streaming content and SC2 progamers not streaming much at all, but self-employment/motivation thing applies to both imo, as well as limited competitiveness in scene and player pool.
both SC2 and SC1 progamers use customs using their own connections/friends to practice their own preparation for tournaments when they are preparing seriously off-stream, and both sides use ladder as filler in-between which isn't the best practice environment comapred to dedicated customs/teamhouse environment
Good points, I get where you are coming from. I'm still not ready at all to discard post 2016 results though. I think it's because in SC2, even at the peak of the Kespa, we've always had players compete and get to a very high level outside of teamhouses while in BW everything was funneled into the Kespa system so the demarcation is bigger.
I'm not saying there isn't a big pre-post Kespa shutdown, but for me, it was just a transformation of the environment players had to adapt to rather than the end of the competitive era.
farming gsl without serral in it makes him #1, apparently.
no dark. no reynor. literally won millions. instead we have rain, soo, sos. someone tell the creator of this that 2011-2015 is just as long of a time period as 2020-2024.
absolute joke of a list, absolutely lacking knowledge of results and meaning.
On March 17 2024 06:22 KalWarkov wrote: farming gsl without serral in it makes him #1, apparently.
no dark. no reynor. literally won millions. instead we have rain, soo, sos. someone tell the creator of this that 2011-2015 is just as long of a time period as 2020-2024.
absolute joke of a list, absolutely lacking knowledge of results and meaning.
Dark is -clearly- top 6.
How sOs being in there is that surprising, given his WC record? Rain being there is the only « hot » choice imo, since Dark indeed has a strong case
soO being #7 isn’t that surprising imo, he had a lot of 2nd place in the strongest era and a WC win. INno behind mvp is imo the most shocking thing in this ranking
On March 17 2024 06:22 KalWarkov wrote: farming gsl without serral in it makes him #1, apparently.
no dark. no reynor. literally won millions. instead we have rain, soo, sos. someone tell the creator of this that 2011-2015 is just as long of a time period as 2020-2024.
absolute joke of a list, absolutely lacking knowledge of results and meaning.
Dark is -clearly- top 6.
How sOs being in there is that surprising, given his WC record? Rain being there is the only « hot » choice imo, since Dark indeed has a strong case
soO being #7 isn’t that surprising imo, he had a lot of 2nd place in the strongest era and a WC win. INno behind mvp is imo the most shocking thing in this ranking
If it was me I think I'd have Rain-TY-soO out and like Dark-MC and MMA in, but there are always heartbreakes every way we choose.
On March 17 2024 06:04 PixelNite wrote: Thank you Mizenhauer for the great series of articles ! Please tell me there is a follow up, I want more ..
He said there would be blog posts about players that were left out, most notably Dark, so keep an eye out for those
I want honorable mentions on Dark, Byun, Reynor, Trap, Stats, herO, Classic, Gumiho, Parting and Olivera who didn't make into the top 10 ranking. They should be within top 20. I personally exclude those who retired at pre-LOTV eras.
My ranking in ascending order: Dark, Reynor, Byun, Stats, herO, Trap...
On March 17 2024 06:22 KalWarkov wrote: farming gsl without serral in it makes him #1, apparently.
no dark. no reynor. literally won millions. instead we have rain, soo, sos. someone tell the creator of this that 2011-2015 is just as long of a time period as 2020-2024.
absolute joke of a list, absolutely lacking knowledge of results and meaning.
Dark is -clearly- top 6.
It's the same amount of time but with 150 less fulltime pros, almost no new blood, and most top Koreans being in and out military service.
I am quite surprised that people are this upset with the list. Sure, I knew most foreigners were biased towards Serral, but even I as a Maru fan, would be ok with any of Maru, Serral or Rogue at #1 since they clearly have the best case among every player.
It’s already an incredible achievement to be considered #2 goat despite only being « relevant » since 2017, to be frank.
Most people on Reddit and Twitter are upset that Serral isn’t #1, only some people here on tl are upset that Dark isn’t there (which is imo the really surprising thing, alongside Rain at #10)
Even though I would have been fine with Maru being #3 or #2, I am quite happy that he managed to get 1st here Most people in the foreign scene will think Serral is GOAT and this list won’t change that, but maybe Maru will reflect back on his career in ten years and won’t be as hard on himself as he seems to be
Truly the player who gave me the most emotions in StarCraft, heck in any esport game. What a blessing to have been able to see him play in so many tournaments
I consider myself incredibly lucky to have got his autograph
Maru has a decade of tournament wins including OSLs and GSLs, as well as across different expansions. He is the goat because he was the best across different eras
On March 17 2024 05:01 Cactus66 wrote: LONG time reader. Had to create an account because how ridiculous this is.
GSL hasn't had the best player in the world play in it since 2018........ it's 2024. There have been 18 GSL's in that time. Maru won 7. Doesn't seem like the most prestigious wins if the best player in the world wasn't in the tournament.
There were two GSL vs the World in that time. I'm sure the guy who went 2 for 2 on those wouldn't have been able to win one or two of those 18 GSL's if he had decided he wanted to play in them.
Ask the pros who'd they'd rather play against in the final of the world championship for a few hundred thousand dollars? Good luck finding one that says they'd rather play serral.
So you're saying the reason Maru can't the Goat is because he isn't the best right now? I swear people don't know what Goat stands for
On March 17 2024 05:01 Cactus66 wrote: LONG time reader. Had to create an account because how ridiculous this is.
GSL hasn't had the best player in the world play in it since 2018........ it's 2024. There have been 18 GSL's in that time. Maru won 7. Doesn't seem like the most prestigious wins if the best player in the world wasn't in the tournament.
There were two GSL vs the World in that time. I'm sure the guy who went 2 for 2 on those wouldn't have been able to win one or two of those 18 GSL's if he had decided he wanted to play in them.
Ask the pros who'd they'd rather play against in the final of the world championship for a few hundred thousand dollars? Good luck finding one that says they'd rather play serral.
So you're saying the reason Maru can't the Goat is because he isn't the best right now? I swear people don't know what Goat stands for
Maru's never been better than serral's current form.
Which means he's not the greatest of all time, no?
On March 17 2024 05:01 Cactus66 wrote: LONG time reader. Had to create an account because how ridiculous this is.
GSL hasn't had the best player in the world play in it since 2018........ it's 2024. There have been 18 GSL's in that time. Maru won 7. Doesn't seem like the most prestigious wins if the best player in the world wasn't in the tournament.
There were two GSL vs the World in that time. I'm sure the guy who went 2 for 2 on those wouldn't have been able to win one or two of those 18 GSL's if he had decided he wanted to play in them.
Ask the pros who'd they'd rather play against in the final of the world championship for a few hundred thousand dollars? Good luck finding one that says they'd rather play serral.
So you're saying the reason Maru can't the Goat is because he isn't the best right now? I swear people don't know what Goat stands for
Maru's never been better than serral's current form.
Which means he's not the greatest of all time, no?
I'm eager to hear how you compare player skill across different eras
On March 17 2024 08:01 Poopi wrote: I am quite surprised that people are this upset with the list. Sure, I knew most foreigners were biased towards Serral, but even I as a Maru fan, would be ok with any of Maru, Serral or Rogue at #1 since they clearly have the best case among every player.
It’s already an incredible achievement to be considered #2 goat despite only being « relevant » since 2017, to be frank.
Most people on Reddit and Twitter are upset that Serral isn’t #1, only some people here on tl are upset that Dark isn’t there (which is imo the really surprising thing, alongside Rain at #10)
Even though I would have been fine with Maru being #3 or #2, I am quite happy that he managed to get 1st here Most people in the foreign scene will think Serral is GOAT and this list won’t change that, but maybe Maru will reflect back on his career in ten years and won’t be as hard on himself as he seems to be
Truly the player who gave me the most emotions in StarCraft, heck in any esport game. What a blessing to have been able to see him play in so many tournaments
I consider myself incredibly lucky to have got his autograph
One does one venture into a GOAT debate without brining upon himself the fury of thousands I imagine.
I wish people would take more time to read the articles and watch the games. It's truly some fine work we got, I mean the man dug us a photo of Serral in a tuxedo-sailor hat attire!
There's no nead for all this name calling and whatnot, especially on Reddit. If you don't agree with the final listing, at least we have some good articles about fine players. The ones about Mvp and Inno were my favorite personnaly.
On March 17 2024 06:22 KalWarkov wrote: farming gsl without serral in it makes him #1, apparently.
no dark. no reynor. literally won millions. instead we have rain, soo, sos. someone tell the creator of this that 2011-2015 is just as long of a time period as 2020-2024.
absolute joke of a list, absolutely lacking knowledge of results and meaning.
Dark is -clearly- top 6.
It's the same amount of time but with 150 less fulltime pros, almost no new blood, and most top Koreans being in and out military service.
I don't understand why people refuse to acknowledge this fact.
The game's esports scene is a shadow of what it used to be. Maru would have made the GOAT list even before he started winning his 4 GSL titles in a row because he had a terrific career even back in the earlier days. The fact he's as dominant as he is now AND he had such a good career in the earlier and more competitive eras of the game is why he gets the nod. It's not hard to figure out.
On March 17 2024 05:01 Cactus66 wrote: LONG time reader. Had to create an account because how ridiculous this is.
GSL hasn't had the best player in the world play in it since 2018........ it's 2024. There have been 18 GSL's in that time. Maru won 7. Doesn't seem like the most prestigious wins if the best player in the world wasn't in the tournament.
There were two GSL vs the World in that time. I'm sure the guy who went 2 for 2 on those wouldn't have been able to win one or two of those 18 GSL's if he had decided he wanted to play in them.
Ask the pros who'd they'd rather play against in the final of the world championship for a few hundred thousand dollars? Good luck finding one that says they'd rather play serral.
So you're saying the reason Maru can't the Goat is because he isn't the best right now? I swear people don't know what Goat stands for
Maru's never been better than serral's current form.
Which means he's not the greatest of all time, no?
That's not how GOAT lists work.
That's like saying Nikola Jokic is the greatest basketball player of all time because he's the best now and has the best all time advanced stats.
Maru could have retired the day before Serral went full time (end of 2017 I think?) and would have probably still made this list.
If Rain and TY made it, then Maru from 2013-2017 definitely would have.
A lot of this discussion just makes me believe that pre-2018 Maru was extremely underrated by the community. It checks out because he never played internationally like INno or Taeja did, and most people didn't watch Proleague.
On March 17 2024 09:24 Fango wrote: Maru could have retired the day before Serral went full time (end of 2017 I think?) and would have probably still made this list.
If Rain and TY made it, then Maru from 2013-2017 definitely would have.
A lot of this discussion just makes me believe that pre-2018 Maru was extremely underrated by the community. It checks out because he never played internationally like INno or Taeja did, and most people didn't watch Proleague.
You can easily do the opposite: People tend to completly overrate pre-2018 Maru because of hindsight. He would have quite the trouble to be in a Top 10 GOAT-list pre-2018, mostly carried by his hard to quantify Proleague-results. If you look at the WCS Korea standings 2016 and '17, Maru wasn't even in the Top 10 (he actually wasn't in the Top 20 in '16). So there is quite the dip in results at the beginning of LotV. And yes, I double-checked that because honestly, I couldn't believe it. I knew he missed a couple of BlizzCons but I didn't think it was that bad.
On March 17 2024 09:24 Fango wrote: Maru could have retired the day before Serral went full time (end of 2017 I think?) and would have probably still made this list.
If Rain and TY made it, then Maru from 2013-2017 definitely would have.
A lot of this discussion just makes me believe that pre-2018 Maru was extremely underrated by the community. It checks out because he never played internationally like INno or Taeja did, and most people didn't watch Proleague.
You can easily do the opposite: People tend to completly overrate pre-2018 Maru because of hindsight. He would have quite the trouble to be in a Top 10 GOAT-list pre-2018, mostly carried by his hard to quantify Proleague-results. If you look at the WCS Korea standings 2016 and '17, Maru wasn't even in the Top 10 (he actually wasn't in the Top 20 in '16). So there is quite the dip in results at the beginning of LotV. And yes, I double-checked that because honestly, I couldn't believe it. I knew he missed a couple of BlizzCons but I didn't think it was that bad.
It goes back again to how he never played in international events. It was pretty hard to make those Blizzcons off GSL and Proleague. While viOLet and duckdeok could get in farming europe. It wasn't like modern sc2 where those international events were the peak of sc2, Proleague was literally what player's were paid for.
I broke it down in one of the previous threads but Maru was genuinely the best Starleague player in HotS. He was tied with INno and Classic for wins, but outperformed both of them in double or more seasons, and had better winrates than both of them. Not to mention his ridiculous Proleague runs (which I agree is had to quantify, but like the dude almost broke Flash's record 2010 winrate)
If Rain makes the top 10 for 2012-15, and TY makes it for 2017-2022, then Maru simply has to make it for 2013-16. I wouldn't be alone in saying that either, as he even made the TL community GOAT top 10 that coincidently was done around the exact time we're talking about.
On March 17 2024 05:01 Cactus66 wrote: LONG time reader. Had to create an account because how ridiculous this is.
GSL hasn't had the best player in the world play in it since 2018........ it's 2024. There have been 18 GSL's in that time. Maru won 7. Doesn't seem like the most prestigious wins if the best player in the world wasn't in the tournament.
There were two GSL vs the World in that time. I'm sure the guy who went 2 for 2 on those wouldn't have been able to win one or two of those 18 GSL's if he had decided he wanted to play in them.
Ask the pros who'd they'd rather play against in the final of the world championship for a few hundred thousand dollars? Good luck finding one that says they'd rather play serral.
So you're saying the reason Maru can't the Goat is because he isn't the best right now? I swear people don't know what Goat stands for
I didn't say "right now."
The hypothetical question is correct for the following scenarios which is why it's so obvious -right now -career peak -career average level -generally any year between 2018-2024
Can anyone provide another example of an individual sport/activity/skill/etc. that someone is considered the greatest ever to perform BLANK and has never won a world championship in BLANK?
One must applaud Miz's work even when not agreeing with the conclusion(s). I can grudgingly accept Maru as #1 from pre-Katowice 2024 perspective, but not after that anymore. However, biggest issue for me is absence of Dark from the list, that invalidates a lot of objectivity and integrity of application of chosen evaluation criteria.. Also, would've been fair to list Serral's achievements using same format than what was used for every other player, instead of just putting a link to liquidpedia. Maybe that was too impressive and too much consuming to get compiled and published, maybe even too revealing in a sense...
Good thing is that for few years activity in levels of debate haven't been this 'healthy' around SC2, and if this kind series of articles create renewed interest to the game and brings new blood within the community, who can really complain.
Opinion piece is opinion piece, each have their own. That's how I take it.
On March 17 2024 09:24 Fango wrote: Maru could have retired the day before Serral went full time (end of 2017 I think?) and would have probably still made this list.
If Rain and TY made it, then Maru from 2013-2017 definitely would have.
A lot of this discussion just makes me believe that pre-2018 Maru was extremely underrated by the community. It checks out because he never played internationally like INno or Taeja did, and most people didn't watch Proleague.
You can easily do the opposite: People tend to completly overrate pre-2018 Maru because of hindsight. He would have quite the trouble to be in a Top 10 GOAT-list pre-2018, mostly carried by his hard to quantify Proleague-results. If you look at the WCS Korea standings 2016 and '17, Maru wasn't even in the Top 10 (he actually wasn't in the Top 20 in '16). So there is quite the dip in results at the beginning of LotV. And yes, I double-checked that because honestly, I couldn't believe it. I knew he missed a couple of BlizzCons but I didn't think it was that bad.
It goes back again to how he never played in international events. It was pretty hard to make those Blizzcons off GSL and Proleague. While viOLet and duckdeok could get in farming europe. It wasn't like modern sc2 where those international events were the peak of sc2, Proleague was literally what player's were paid for.
I broke it down in one of the previous threads but Maru was genuinely the best Starleague player in HotS. He was tied with INno and Classic for wins, but outperformed both of them in double or more seasons, and had better winrates than both of them. Not to mention his ridiculous Proleague runs (which I agree is had to quantify, but like the dude almost broke Flash's record 2010 winrate)
If Rain makes the top 10 for 2012-15, and TY makes it for 2017-2022, then Maru simply has to make it for 2013-16. I wouldn't be alone in saying that either, as he even made the TL community GOAT top 10 that coincidently was done around the exact time we're talking about.
I'm specifically talking about the Korean Standings. In 2016/17 region lock was already in place, so only very few koreans managed to qualify for BlizzCon through the Global Standings. And what are you on about with the "he didn't play international events"? Okay, 2016 was really hard to qualify because it had so few korean tournaments (though Maru managed to miss both SSLs that year), but in 2017 he was in every event but one that gave out points - he just didn't perform well enough.
I have to read that breakdown then, but I wouldn't put him "clearly above" the other two. I just gave the WCS points for the HotS-BlizzCons a quick look and I think Innovation outperformed Maru in two out of three or something like that? Sure, not only Starleague, but also not super-international heavy either. As for Proleague: It really depends how high you want to rate it. But for me it is always a bit weird how much people give it weight considering it is literally a Bo1. If any other big tournament would use Bo1, you would probably discard it as "too random". Not to mention the influence your team-situation can have on the entire thing. WTL for example feels much more comparable, considering that most teams usually use the same 3-player-core. While Maru had ample opportunity to play for Jin Air, players like Innovation usually got rotated around more or even missed matches because of the system.
Lastly, the thread you posted: Sure, Maru made it (though I think that was right after he won WESG and that probably gave it a huge push). But he was ridiculously behind Innovation - at the beginning of 2018. If he was "the best Starleague player in HotS", wouldn't that have to be much closer?
On March 17 2024 11:58 Cactus66 wrote: Can anyone provide another example of an individual sport/activity/skill/etc. that someone is considered the greatest ever to perform BLANK and has never won a world championship in BLANK?
I kinda wish the Serral and Maru articles were combined since they were released at the same time. Everyone is talking about the same things, but the discussion is split into two separate threads >.>
Team house era sc2 doesn’t look like high quality gameplay compared to now, because the mechanics of players have improved so much. But when players are practicing 10 to 16 hours a day, it is incredibly hard to compete unless you’re doing that yourself. I believe during the Proleague time where teams required players to practice an outrageous amount, should be weighted.
No European could win in team house era because of a few reasons. It is expensive to replicate the team house structure outside of South Korea. You have to practice with the best, Korean teams had the structure and the best players at the time. It is no surprise Serral emerged dominate after the era of team leagues. While Maru was winning tournaments then, and continued to add trophies after too
On March 17 2024 14:50 Mutaller wrote: Team house era sc2 doesn’t look like high quality gameplay compared to now, because the mechanics of players have improved so much. But when players are practicing 10 to 16 hours a day, it is incredibly hard to compete unless you’re doing that yourself. I believe during the Proleague time where teams required players to practice an outrageous amount, should be weighted.
No European could win in team house era because of a few reasons. It is expensive to replicate the team house structure outside of South Korea. You have to practice with the best, Korean teams had the structure and the best players at the time. It is no surprise Serral emerged dominate after the era of team leagues. While Maru was winning tournaments then, and continued to add trophies after too
Except Serral didn't "emerge" because team houses went away. It was because he finished school and chose to go full time. And he still became the best, despite not being immersed in Korean SC2 which was still by far the most competitive environment when he rose to dominance. So I don't think you can say with any certainty that he wouldn't have been just as good even if team houses were still widespread, since his dominance was unrelated to being in the best training environment. We can't even be positive that team houses were the best training environment since ByuN won back to back GSL and World Championship while being teamless, and TaeJa frequently dominated top Koreans that were living in teamhouses in weekenders which are the biggest test of raw skill (not planning). Just because the best players were picked up by teams that had team houses doesn't mean their success came from team houses. Correlation =/= causation.
Maru has never won the Kawotice and WCS championships.
2018 iem: Maru was reverse-swept by Rogue 3:2 in the semifinals.
2018 wcs: Maru suffered a shocking defeat of 0-3 against sOs in the quarterfinals, which could be considered the second biggest upset in StarCraft 2 history (The first biggest upset was in the 2023 katowice finals).
2019 iem: Maru was knocked out in the group stage.
2019 wcs: Maru was eliminated by Dark 3-0 in the quarterfinals
2020 iem: Maru lost 2-3 to Rogue in the semifinals.
2021 iem: Maru was reverse-swept by Reynor 3:2 in the semifinals.
2022 iem: this time, Maru finally met Serral. Without surprise, Maru was eliminated by Serral with a score of 3-1.
2023 iem: Maru suffered the biggest upset in history, being defeated with ease 4-1 by Oliveria in the finals. Oliveria became the biggest dark horse in StarCraft 2 history, while Maru became a mere backdrop.
2023 gamer8: Maru was eliminated by Clem in the quarterfinals with a score of 3-1.
2024 iem: Maru faced Serral in the finals and was easily swept 4-0 by Serral
If the opponent is Serral, then Maru would be easily defeated.
If the opponent is Reynor or Rogue, then Maru would be reversed.
If the opponent is Terran such as Clem or Oliveria, Maru still loses in the same-race matchup.
On March 17 2024 17:29 Delish wrote: Maru has never won the Kawotice and WCS championships.
2018 iem: Maru was reverse-swept by Rogue 3:2 in the semifinals.
2018 wcs: Maru suffered a shocking defeat of 0-3 against sOs in the quarterfinals, which could be considered the second biggest upset in StarCraft 2 history (The first biggest upset was in the 2023 katowice finals).
2019 iem: Maru was knocked out in the group stage.
2019 wcs: Maru was eliminated by Dark 3-0 in the quarterfinals
2020 iem: Maru lost 2-3 to Rogue in the semifinals.
2021 iem: Maru was reverse-swept by Reynor 3:2 in the semifinals.
2022 iem: this time, Maru finally met Serral. Without surprise, Maru was eliminated by Serral with a score of 3-1.
2023 iem: Maru suffered the biggest upset in history, being defeated with ease 4-1 by Oliveria in the finals. Oliveria became the biggest dark horse in StarCraft 2 history, while Maru became a mere backdrop.
2023 gamer8: Maru was eliminated by Clem in the quarterfinals with a score of 3-1.
2024 iem: Maru faced Serral in the finals and was easily swept 4-0 by Serral
If the opponent is Serral, then Maru would be easily defeated.
If the opponent is Reynor or Rogue, then Maru would be reversed.
If the opponent is Terran such as Clem or Oliveria, Maru still loses in the same-race matchup.
On March 17 2024 17:29 Delish wrote: Maru has never won the Kawotice and WCS championships.
2018 iem: Maru was reverse-swept by Rogue 3:2 in the semifinals.
2018 wcs: Maru suffered a shocking defeat of 0-3 against sOs in the quarterfinals, which could be considered the second biggest upset in StarCraft 2 history (The first biggest upset was in the 2023 katowice finals).
2019 iem: Maru was knocked out in the group stage.
2019 wcs: Maru was eliminated by Dark 3-0 in the quarterfinals
2020 iem: Maru lost 2-3 to Rogue in the semifinals.
2021 iem: Maru was reverse-swept by Reynor 3:2 in the semifinals.
2022 iem: this time, Maru finally met Serral. Without surprise, Maru was eliminated by Serral with a score of 3-1.
2023 iem: Maru suffered the biggest upset in history, being defeated with ease 4-1 by Oliveria in the finals. Oliveria became the biggest dark horse in StarCraft 2 history, while Maru became a mere backdrop.
2023 gamer8: Maru was eliminated by Clem in the quarterfinals with a score of 3-1.
2024 iem: Maru faced Serral in the finals and was easily swept 4-0 by Serral
If the opponent is Serral, then Maru would be easily defeated.
If the opponent is Reynor or Rogue, then Maru would be reversed.
If the opponent is Terran such as Clem or Oliveria, Maru still loses in the same-race matchup.
Why should Maru be ranked as the number one GOAT?
Maru can never surpass Serral, not even Rogue.
because 2013 proleague bro
This is the biggest joke I've ever heard, it's ridiculous that an OSL champion is worth so much. Maru is like LeBron, really don't want to touch the first person in history. You people are playing double standards shamelessly.
the statistic that would really interest me is how much % of the people complaing about Maru at #1 have actually read the article.
Even if you think Serral is ahead I think Miz gives pretty convincing arguments. At least more convincing than "2013 proleague bro" or "Serral has won 0 GSL bro"
I don't think either opinion of Maru or Serral at the top would be outrageously wrong
On March 17 2024 04:39 jinjin5000 wrote: while I think it wouldn't have been unfair for author to just put serral and maru at both #1 to avoid the shitfest right now on comment section, how come a lot of SC2 community isn't really taking BW-approach on these rankings where they discount results post-teamhouse era?
The same thing applies in BW; the general knowledge, meta and skill level rose a lot compared to Proleague era where game is nearly incomparable and everything is measured down to seconds nowadays, with meta evolving to counter the meta constantly every few weeks due to condensed progamer circle and sharing of knowledge
However, everyone recognizes that the amount of competition/cycle/dedicated coaching or sniping builds are incomparable compared to proleague era as of now, as amount of resources dedicated to each player and level of competition is just way less now, so results post-teamhouse era are counted with grain of salt even if the "now" player would wipe floor with "past" player; after all, the peak competition and mechanical skill was back in proleague era.
Flash mentioned that if "modern" player were timetravelled back into past, they would win most of the game vs past player due to just difference in knowledge/skill. But the past player would just adapt due to being used to the amount of competition and sheer mechanical skill during that era, so you cannot compare past achievements with current.
after proleague went down, a lot of SC2 Korean pro players are not under same amount of pressure/passion for game after and are really in no way in their peak. The amount of progamers lessened a lot, and there are a whole lot less expectations placed on them. It's not really fair to compare peak competition era to post 2017 era really just due to sheer difference in environment where SC2 doesn't really offer an attractive environment for Korean progamers to keep going.
The two aren't comparable. Sure teahouses and proleague stopped and a lot of progamer retired, there's no denying the field became a lot is tinner. But SC2 competition was (and arguably still is) very much alive.
Post 2017 is also when there was the most amount of money, to earn. Maru, Dark and Rogue became millionaires in their post-Kespa days, it's not BW where's there barely 100k$ a year up for grabs. We talk about retirement, but there is way less retirement post-2017 compared to the 2011-2016 period, on the contrary, we see players stick with SC2 all the way to military for the first time since it finally makes sense to have it as a long time commitment.
Well tbf, for BW side, there's still incentive for them to keep up competition on streaming (even if it transitioned into personality streams) in forms of major proleague and 1v1 spons which make up sizable part of the income. You can say its bit comparative in that department where both games have forms of serious competition/playing for prize money.
I can't say I'm very versed into the streamer-proleague world of BW, but my understanding is that it's more players and streamers playing showmatches so that everyone make money after after a couple weeks/months, am I far off?
I think from the outside looking in, it can be easy to think SC2 players don't practice since it's way less visible than before, but I'd be curious to know if practice time truly fell off by that much. For example, just a couple of years back in 2021, Zest played almost 900 professional matches on top of a shit-ton of ladder, that's some Kespa-level workload if I've ever seen one.
I think its quite similar in sense that both sides are playing competitive games but w/o teamhouse infrastructure supporting them and both scenes don't have new blood coming in, lessening the overall competition/pressure. Both games have very limited pro-player pool exacerbating to this issue.
SC2, you have online tournaments and foreign tournaments, but you no longer have the benefit of teamhouse support with dedicated coaching team and competition level as well as facing opponents who prepared specifically vs them with teamhouse support behind them.
BW, you have progamers splitting between competitive 1v1, proleague format and streaming/non-competitive content. They also no longer have dedicated team behind them keeping their shape up, but is compensated by faster revolving meta due to sharing knowledge and all, but its quite clear that they are not at their peak mechanically wise.
Even with number of games, it's quite comparable with someone like light in BW roughly playing 1527 competitive spon games last 1 year with 580 games of it being major proleague, not counting their practice games.
I think both scenes have quite comparable levels of competitive games going on, with BW having bit less since they also split time to focusing on streaming content and SC2 progamers not streaming much at all, but self-employment/motivation thing applies to both imo, as well as limited competitiveness in scene and player pool.
both SC2 and SC1 progamers use customs using their own connections/friends to practice their own preparation for tournaments when they are preparing seriously off-stream, and both sides use ladder as filler in-between which isn't the best practice environment comapred to dedicated customs/teamhouse environment
Good points, I get where you are coming from. I'm still not ready at all to discard post 2016 results though. I think it's because in SC2, even at the peak of the Kespa, we've always had players compete and get to a very high level outside of teamhouses while in BW everything was funneled into the Kespa system so the demarcation is bigger.
I'm not saying there isn't a big pre-post Kespa shutdown, but for me, it was just a transformation of the environment players had to adapt to rather than the end of the competitive era.
Transformation of environment impacts the overall competitiveness a lot though. Just after shutdown around 2017/18 was very competitive times but the environment eventually became too thin of playerpool/not enough competition really.
As for prizepool being large, BW has same thing oing where progamers are earning more than they did during progaming days by a large margin. Here's example of just Major Proleague earnings from daily viewer funded tournament setting + Show Spoiler +
There's 20+ people earning 6figure+ in BW during year of 2023 from just major proleague alone. And that's without their other streaming/1v1 spons/other stuff.
but amount of money/fans doesn't really mean the competitiveness rose up though. It's still basically similar set of players with very slow cycle of "new" players coming in. I don't think it's in any way comparable to proleague days when there were constant influx of new pool and constant fight to stay on top of their team. As streamers/freelance, you just don't have that environment anymore and are more prone to losing that edge really. Also lack of complete support counts too.
On March 17 2024 05:01 Cactus66 wrote: LONG time reader. Had to create an account because how ridiculous this is.
GSL hasn't had the best player in the world play in it since 2018........ it's 2024. There have been 18 GSL's in that time. Maru won 7. Doesn't seem like the most prestigious wins if the best player in the world wasn't in the tournament.
There were two GSL vs the World in that time. I'm sure the guy who went 2 for 2 on those wouldn't have been able to win one or two of those 18 GSL's if he had decided he wanted to play in them.
Ask the pros who'd they'd rather play against in the final of the world championship for a few hundred thousand dollars? Good luck finding one that says they'd rather play serral.
So you're saying the reason Maru can't the Goat is because he isn't the best right now? I swear people don't know what Goat stands for
Maru's never been better than serral's current form.
Which means he's not the greatest of all time, no?
I'm eager to hear how you compare player skill across different eras
One way would be to look at aligulac rating and difference margin when at #1 to #2and rest. That's a factor used in chess. Fischer exploded with greatest margin ever, Kasparov maintained significant margin across long period of time. Carlson margin is relatively small at times but it was disrupted by introduction of superhuman computers analysis. Sc2 is still in disrupted.
On March 17 2024 05:01 Cactus66 wrote: LONG time reader. Had to create an account because how ridiculous this is.
GSL hasn't had the best player in the world play in it since 2018........ it's 2024. There have been 18 GSL's in that time. Maru won 7. Doesn't seem like the most prestigious wins if the best player in the world wasn't in the tournament.
There were two GSL vs the World in that time. I'm sure the guy who went 2 for 2 on those wouldn't have been able to win one or two of those 18 GSL's if he had decided he wanted to play in them.
Ask the pros who'd they'd rather play against in the final of the world championship for a few hundred thousand dollars? Good luck finding one that says they'd rather play serral.
So you're saying the reason Maru can't the Goat is because he isn't the best right now? I swear people don't know what Goat stands for
Maru's never been better than serral's current form.
Which means he's not the greatest of all time, no?
I'm eager to hear how you compare player skill across different eras
One way would be to look at aligulac rating and difference margin when at #1 to #2and rest. That's a factor used in chess. Fischer exploded with greatest margin ever, Kasparov maintained significant margin across long period of time. Carlson margin is relatively small at times but it was disrupted by introduction of superhuman computers analysis. Sc2 is still in disrupted.
Many flaws with this approach, aligulac is a questionable rating system with many flaws and it also doesn't consider the strength of the era. A scene with 150 fulltime pros and 15 championship contenders is way easier to dominate than a scene with 30 fulltime pros and 5 championship contenders
On March 17 2024 11:58 Cactus66 wrote: Can anyone provide another example of an individual sport/activity/skill/etc. that someone is considered the greatest ever to perform BLANK and has never won a world championship in BLANK?
Donald Bradman
Also Tennis. Obviously there's no world championship but neither Federer nor Djokovic has won Olympics. Of course if you consider end year finals as WC... But nobody does. Of course the problem is that I think Federer was the first goat contender to even really care about Olympics. And arguably grand slam are more prestigious.
Of course it is hard to point out too many other examples because most sports are organized with either WC or Olympics at the center. Małysz for example is considered in the GOAT conversation for ski jumping but he hasn't won Olympics gold. He did win World championship events. But of course most sports have central international body that organizes the sport in such a way. StarCraft is peculiar because Korea is obviously source for most top talent and they're centered around themselves (GSL)
On March 17 2024 05:01 Cactus66 wrote: LONG time reader. Had to create an account because how ridiculous this is.
GSL hasn't had the best player in the world play in it since 2018........ it's 2024. There have been 18 GSL's in that time. Maru won 7. Doesn't seem like the most prestigious wins if the best player in the world wasn't in the tournament.
There were two GSL vs the World in that time. I'm sure the guy who went 2 for 2 on those wouldn't have been able to win one or two of those 18 GSL's if he had decided he wanted to play in them.
Ask the pros who'd they'd rather play against in the final of the world championship for a few hundred thousand dollars? Good luck finding one that says they'd rather play serral.
So you're saying the reason Maru can't the Goat is because he isn't the best right now? I swear people don't know what Goat stands for
Maru's never been better than serral's current form.
Which means he's not the greatest of all time, no?
I'm eager to hear how you compare player skill across different eras
One way would be to look at aligulac rating and difference margin when at #1 to #2and rest. That's a factor used in chess. Fischer exploded with greatest margin ever, Kasparov maintained significant margin across long period of time. Carlson margin is relatively small at times but it was disrupted by introduction of superhuman computers analysis. Sc2 is still in disrupted.
Many flaws with this approach, aligulac is a questionable rating system with many flaws and it also doesn't consider the strength of the era. A scene with 150 fulltime pros and 15 championship contenders is way easier to dominate than a scene with 30 fulltime pros and 5 championship contenders
Still there are other players trying to dominate so the margin to number 2, 3 etc can be useful. You obviously don't compare absolute numbers between eras. And aligulac was the only model that tried to rebalance rating to take into account the overrating of foreigners and did it pretty well. ELO used in tlpd failed completely.
On March 17 2024 04:39 jinjin5000 wrote: while I think it wouldn't have been unfair for author to just put serral and maru at both #1 to avoid the shitfest right now on comment section, how come a lot of SC2 community isn't really taking BW-approach on these rankings where they discount results post-teamhouse era?
The same thing applies in BW; the general knowledge, meta and skill level rose a lot compared to Proleague era where game is nearly incomparable and everything is measured down to seconds nowadays, with meta evolving to counter the meta constantly every few weeks due to condensed progamer circle and sharing of knowledge
However, everyone recognizes that the amount of competition/cycle/dedicated coaching or sniping builds are incomparable compared to proleague era as of now, as amount of resources dedicated to each player and level of competition is just way less now, so results post-teamhouse era are counted with grain of salt even if the "now" player would wipe floor with "past" player; after all, the peak competition and mechanical skill was back in proleague era.
Flash mentioned that if "modern" player were timetravelled back into past, they would win most of the game vs past player due to just difference in knowledge/skill. But the past player would just adapt due to being used to the amount of competition and sheer mechanical skill during that era, so you cannot compare past achievements with current.
after proleague went down, a lot of SC2 Korean pro players are not under same amount of pressure/passion for game after and are really in no way in their peak. The amount of progamers lessened a lot, and there are a whole lot less expectations placed on them. It's not really fair to compare peak competition era to post 2017 era really just due to sheer difference in environment where SC2 doesn't really offer an attractive environment for Korean progamers to keep going.
Because most SC2 foreigners didn't care about watching Proleague, biasing their view?
On March 17 2024 04:39 jinjin5000 wrote: while I think it wouldn't have been unfair for author to just put serral and maru at both #1 to avoid the shitfest right now on comment section, how come a lot of SC2 community isn't really taking BW-approach on these rankings where they discount results post-teamhouse era?
The same thing applies in BW; the general knowledge, meta and skill level rose a lot compared to Proleague era where game is nearly incomparable and everything is measured down to seconds nowadays, with meta evolving to counter the meta constantly every few weeks due to condensed progamer circle and sharing of knowledge
However, everyone recognizes that the amount of competition/cycle/dedicated coaching or sniping builds are incomparable compared to proleague era as of now, as amount of resources dedicated to each player and level of competition is just way less now, so results post-teamhouse era are counted with grain of salt even if the "now" player would wipe floor with "past" player; after all, the peak competition and mechanical skill was back in proleague era.
Flash mentioned that if "modern" player were timetravelled back into past, they would win most of the game vs past player due to just difference in knowledge/skill. But the past player would just adapt due to being used to the amount of competition and sheer mechanical skill during that era, so you cannot compare past achievements with current.
after proleague went down, a lot of SC2 Korean pro players are not under same amount of pressure/passion for game after and are really in no way in their peak. The amount of progamers lessened a lot, and there are a whole lot less expectations placed on them. It's not really fair to compare peak competition era to post 2017 era really just due to sheer difference in environment where SC2 doesn't really offer an attractive environment for Korean progamers to keep going.
The two aren't comparable. Sure teahouses and proleague stopped and a lot of progamer retired, there's no denying the field became a lot is tinner. But SC2 competition was (and arguably still is) very much alive.
Post 2017 is also when there was the most amount of money, to earn. Maru, Dark and Rogue became millionaires in their post-Kespa days, it's not BW where's there barely 100k$ a year up for grabs. We talk about retirement, but there is way less retirement post-2017 compared to the 2011-2016 period, on the contrary, we see players stick with SC2 all the way to military for the first time since it finally makes sense to have it as a long time commitment.
There's a lot of money in BW modern Proleague earnings which isn't reflected in a glance at Liquipedia. Significantly more than ASL.
For instance Mini (#1 Proleague earner so far in 2024) has earned KRW 53 805 000 so far in 2024 from Proleague wins alone - 40K USD for one player alone from 3 and a half months of competing. As jinjin said in his post, plenty of players earn more yearly than the entire BW prizepool mentioned in Liquipedia for said year.
On March 17 2024 03:08 Antithesis wrote: First of all, since I have not yet said it: Major props to Miz for crafting this series! The amount of data that has been studied is amazing, and the writing is nothing short of superb. Reading the articles has been a joy. The series also has done the service of generating more discussion about SC2 on this site than anything else in the past years, haha.
That said, I will also happily contribute to the many voices bringing out why, in my view, placing Maru above Serral is a misjudgment.
On March 17 2024 02:09 StaNi wrote: GSL is like Champions League of sc2
This analogy is flawed even if you are the most blazing Korean elitist.
The Champions League is literally the league where the best-performing teams from different regions play it out. So its counterpart in SC2 is not the GSL, but the World Championship cycle, embodied for example in BlizzCon or the Katowice events. And Serral has won three of them, Maru zero.
This is incorrect. Champions League features teams from the European region, not every region, and clubs within the European region are the strongest, so the most apt analogy is GSL. Blizzcon and other “world championship” events are much more like football’s equivalent of the World Cup, which similarly features regional quotas irrespective of how strong those regions are. The reason the analogy is not great is that in football, it is basically the case that all of the greatest teams are European club teams (because all the best players in the world go to Europe to play), whereas in SCII post-2018 at least 1 but arguably 3 top players (Serral, Clem, and Reynor) were not regularly competing in GSL. This makes GSL kinda like the Champions League if it somehow excluded like Real Madrid, Liverpool, and Bayern Munich or something (pick your 3 fav top European clubs). There are a bunch of other reasons the analogy isn’t super clean and I’m not sure it’s even that useful, but when you have non-top players players regularly top four’ing “world championships” and top players regularly not qualifying due to region lock, there’s a question for sure.
On March 17 2024 11:58 Cactus66 wrote: Can anyone provide another example of an individual sport/activity/skill/etc. that someone is considered the greatest ever to perform BLANK and has never won a world championship in BLANK?
Donald Bradman
What does an American know about cricket? C'mon cuzzy. He said individual, not team. Cricket is 11 v 11. And there wasn't a WC event during Bradman's era (I'm fairly certain). Apart from that, i like the answer
On March 17 2024 11:58 Cactus66 wrote: Can anyone provide another example of an individual sport/activity/skill/etc. that someone is considered the greatest ever to perform BLANK and has never won a world championship in BLANK?
I doubt it, but this is what happens when you try to do these things primarily off of statistics/numbers. You lose out on these narratively powerful points.
On March 17 2024 05:01 Cactus66 wrote: LONG time reader. Had to create an account because how ridiculous this is.
GSL hasn't had the best player in the world play in it since 2018........ it's 2024. There have been 18 GSL's in that time. Maru won 7. Doesn't seem like the most prestigious wins if the best player in the world wasn't in the tournament.
There were two GSL vs the World in that time. I'm sure the guy who went 2 for 2 on those wouldn't have been able to win one or two of those 18 GSL's if he had decided he wanted to play in them.
Ask the pros who'd they'd rather play against in the final of the world championship for a few hundred thousand dollars? Good luck finding one that says they'd rather play serral.
So you're saying the reason Maru can't the Goat is because he isn't the best right now? I swear people don't know what Goat stands for
Maru's never been better than serral's current form.
Which means he's not the greatest of all time, no?
I'm eager to hear how you compare player skill across different eras
One way would be to look at aligulac rating and difference margin when at #1 to #2and rest. That's a factor used in chess. Fischer exploded with greatest margin ever, Kasparov maintained significant margin across long period of time. Carlson margin is relatively small at times but it was disrupted by introduction of superhuman computers analysis. Sc2 is still in disrupted.
This would be more useful if there were a stable ELO system in SCII. But it’s an interesting thought experiment nonetheless. There are a bunch of things about the analogy to chess that are interesting beyond the fact that they are both 1v1 competitive strategy games, to include that both haven’t always had “world championships” that necessarily reflect the greatest competition or best players.
On March 16 2024 11:38 AxiomB wrote: I liken Maru to Federer and Serral to Djokovic. Yes Serral more than often not beats Maru, just as Djokovic more than often not beat Federer, but Maru has won almost as much as Serral and many in an era when the competition and game itself was at an all time high. There is also the 'Zerg Caveat' (Zerg being the race with the most broken units; banelings + cracklings). Maru just like Federer however has had the longest time at number 1 also. I can see arguments for either being number 1. GREAT write ups! Much appreciated!
This is an excellent analogy and i agree with the sentiment (as well as Z having advantages that T and P do not) however Djokovic has spent more time than anyone as world No.1. And it is significantly more than Fed who has spent the 2nd longest time as No.1. Federer and Nadal would be a better comparison but that would have to ignore the existence of Djokovic
Forgive me, Djoko has more weeks at number 1, but not consecutive, Fed is number 1 for 237 consecutive weeks as world No. 1
I think the comparison is still holds though right?? Serral is Djoko and Maru is Federer <3
True, true. However, I do think that the Serral/Maru debate is much closer than the Djokovic/Federer one. This might be the only meaningful record that Federer will hold over Djokovic when all is said and done. That's why I thought Federer/Nadal was the better comparison as there are more advantages/disadvantages shared. I'm a Nadal fanboy but at this point I think Djokovic holds the GOAT status unquestionably. Hoping my boy overcomes his injuries and wins a couple more French Opens before he succumbs to age
let's be real serral holds the goat title unquestionably also. Mizenhauser is just one person and the vast majority of people that follow the game would pick serral. There's no doubt in my mind about that.
On March 17 2024 21:54 Comedy wrote: let's be real serral holds the goat title unquestionably also. Mizenhauser is just one person and the vast majority of people that follow the game would pick serral. There's no doubt in my mind about that.
There is a reason why appeals to popularity is a fallacy
On March 17 2024 21:54 Comedy wrote: let's be real serral holds the goat title unquestionably also. Mizenhauser is just one person and the vast majority of people that follow the game would pick serral. There's no doubt in my mind about that.
Just because a majority of people say something doesn't make it right. The majority, as you say, has a triple bias of 1) recency, 2) liking macro games over anything else, which Serral is indeed the best at and had a favourable meta for it throughout his career, 3) foreign bias.
As for the thread and this general ranking, I have no horse in this race and don't care either way, but I do find amusing how the value of Blizzcon and IEM Katowice skyrocketed in the eyes of fans once foreigners started winning them. No one was calling sOs the GOAT at the end of HotS despite winning 2 Blizzcons and an IEM, and in fact I doubt "the majority of people" would have had him in the top 10.
One last point I'll make: let's create an imaginary Broodwar player, who happened to win every single ASL in the last 6 years. Yes, I'm exaggerating on purpose. But surely no one in their right mind would call them the GOAT, with most Broodwar players having retired, some being part-time, etc. Unless that imaginary player was white, perhaps?...
Obviously correct that Maru is number 1, 90% of all pro sc2 players had already retired in 2016-2017 so the competition was nonexistent after that point
On March 17 2024 21:54 Comedy wrote: let's be real serral holds the goat title unquestionably also. Mizenhauser is just one person and the vast majority of people that follow the game would pick serral. There's no doubt in my mind about that.
Only the foreign + recency biased people think Serral is the obvious goat to be frank. If you truly followed StarCraft 2 from the beginnings, and aren’t just mindlessly watching the StarCraft YouTubers that are super foreign biased, seeing Maru at #1 instead of Serral isn’t particularly weird. Sure, Maru isn’t the obvious #1 for everyone (for me it is, because I consider Rogue and Serral to have benefited from Zerg being super strong), but he is one of the contenders for this spot (alongside Serral and Rogue).
I built a very quick basic model with just two variables: 1. average ranking based on yearly winrate for the years a player was active and winning; 2. simple longevity penalty based on number of active winning years (out of 13).
Maru and Serral top this ranking, being #1 and #2 flipped depending on how much you weigh #2 (somewhere around 0.6 weight for the longevity penalty factor is where the flip occurs). This is pretty much exactly what Miz was alluding to, saying that the order flips based on importance of longevity.
This is a quick back-of-the-envelope model that has its problems as in it doesn't account for clutch tournament wins (cough Rogue cough) but makes a lot of sense for top 2.
The elephant in the room of course is it ranks Dark as highly as #4 or #5.
On March 17 2024 21:54 Comedy wrote: let's be real serral holds the goat title unquestionably also. Mizenhauser is just one person and the vast majority of people that follow the game would pick serral. There's no doubt in my mind about that.
Just because a majority of people say something doesn't make it right. The majority, as you say, has a triple bias of 1) recency, 2) liking macro games over anything else, which Serral is indeed the best at and had a favourable meta for it throughout his career, 3) foreign bias.
As for the thread and this general ranking, I have no horse in this race and don't care either way, but I do find amusing how the value of Blizzcon and IEM Katowice skyrocketed in the eyes of fans once foreigners started winning them. No one was calling sOs the GOAT at the end of HotS despite winning 2 Blizzcons and an IEM, and in fact I doubt "the majority of people" would have had him in the top 10.
One last point I'll make: let's create an imaginary Broodwar player, who happened to win every single ASL in the last 6 years. Yes, I'm exaggerating on purpose. But surely no one in their right mind would call them the GOAT, with most Broodwar players having retired, some being part-time, etc. Unless that imaginary player was white, perhaps?...
the fact you bring up sos just shows that all you people do is look at results and don't look at the games.
you could see with your own eyes how sos won those tournaments. by coming up with clever cheeses and beating people better than him at micro/macro/multitask with specially crafted cheeses.
Everyone can also see with their own eyes how serral plays. He wins tournaments by being better at every aspect of the game than his opponent. Scouting/Macro/Micro/Multitask/Builds.
It's easy for anyone who actually plays and watches the game to tell he is the goat, that's why picking maru is so controversial to begin with and you see all actual progamers and casters on twitter expressing themselves in disagreement with this list Lol.
If a brood war player won the last 6 ASL's and was dominant in daily proleague and spoon matches with a 80% winrate he would seriously open up the goat conversation if he looked like he was more dominant than flash. Brood war players are getting better still, just like SC2 players. The fact that Serral didn't dominate during the kespa era is only because he was a teenager that was in highschool. If he had reached his 2018 level just a few years prior (if he was born earlier), he would dominate that era too.
On March 17 2024 21:54 Comedy wrote: let's be real serral holds the goat title unquestionably also. Mizenhauser is just one person and the vast majority of people that follow the game would pick serral. There's no doubt in my mind about that.
Just because a majority of people say something doesn't make it right. The majority, as you say, has a triple bias of 1) recency, 2) liking macro games over anything else, which Serral is indeed the best at and had a favourable meta for it throughout his career, 3) foreign bias.
As for the thread and this general ranking, I have no horse in this race and don't care either way, but I do find amusing how the value of Blizzcon and IEM Katowice skyrocketed in the eyes of fans once foreigners started winning them. No one was calling sOs the GOAT at the end of HotS despite winning 2 Blizzcons and an IEM, and in fact I doubt "the majority of people" would have had him in the top 10.
One last point I'll make: let's create an imaginary Broodwar player, who happened to win every single ASL in the last 6 years. Yes, I'm exaggerating on purpose. But surely no one in their right mind would call them the GOAT, with most Broodwar players having retired, some being part-time, etc. Unless that imaginary player was white, perhaps?...
the fact you bring up sos just shows that all you people do is look at results and don't look at the games.
you could see with your own eyes how sos won those tournaments. by coming up with clever cheeses and beating people better than him at micro/macro/multitask with specially crafted cheeses.
Everyone can also see with their own eyes how serral plays. He wins tournaments by being better at every aspect of the game than his opponent. Scouting/Macro/Micro/Multitask/Builds.
It's easy for anyone who actually plays and watches the game to tell he is the goat, that's why picking maru is so controversial to begin with and you see all actual progamers and casters on twitter expressing themselves in disagreement with this list Lol.
If a brood war player won the last 6 ASL's and was dominant in daily proleague and spoon matches with a 80% winrate he would seriously open up the goat conversation if he looked like he was more dominant than flash. Brood war players are getting better still, just like SC2 players. The fact that Serral didn't dominate during the kespa era is only because he was a pre-teen that was in highschool. If he had reached his 2018 level just a few years prior (if he was born earlier), he would dominate that era too.
Telling me I only looks at wins is laughable. I picked him only to demonstrate the odd rise in value of these championships in people's eyes, nothing else, since some people are saying Maru isn't the GOAT solely because he hasn't won one. But you illustrated my point perfectly. You value Serral's playstyle and say this is what makes him the GOAT, because he is the best mechanical player. I can argue just as easily that Maru is the GOAT because he was a top player in almost every era, with different metas, unlike Serral who has been riding the huge maps, massive economy since 2017. You say SC2 players are getting better, and I would bet the underlying reason is because games are longer and more multitask heavy. But thinking this is solely on players getting better and not because of 12 worker start and massive maps a fallacy. And I, on the other hand, will argue that SC2 has only gotten worse, because the strategic aspect of the game has pretty much entirely disappeared (which is part of the reason for sOs' decline). Even proxy 2 rax has entirely disqppeared.
On March 17 2024 23:33 MyLovelyLurker wrote: I built a very quick basic model with just two variables: 1. average ranking based on yearly winrate for the years a player was active and winning; 2. simple longevity penalty based on number of active winning years (out of 13).
Maru and Serral top this ranking, being #1 and #2 flipped depending on how much you weigh #2 (somewhere around 0.6 weight for the longevity penalty factor is where the flip occurs). This is pretty much exactly what Miz was alluding to, saying that the order flips based on importance of longevity.
[...]
The elephant in the room of course is it ranks Dark as highly as #4 or #5.
Yes, I also think that this is the most interesting open question.
As noted earlier, Mizenhauer himself has stated that in order to place Maru above Serral, being the Greatest had to be valued at as low as 45%, while the Greatest Career had to be valued at as high as 55%:
On March 16 2024 07:29 CicadaSC wrote: Agree with this. Serral is good but you can't call him the goat if he refuses to play in Code S, the hardest tournament. Reynor, neeb and other foreigners who had success in weekend tournaments show how much of a different beast this is. Grats to Maru and well deserved #1.
It's really close between the two. If my original split between Greatest and Greatest Career was more like 60/40 (it was 45/55 in favor of the latter) to the former then Serral gets first. Even then, I waffled between Maru and Serral a few times before settling on my final order.
Personally, I do not agree with these weightings, but these are Mizenhauer's personal preferences and therefore not up to debate.
But what is up to debate is that if these weightings are applied consistently, then it is difficult to see how Dark can be left out of the Top 10, while, for example, MVP is #4. MVP has been dominant only during the earliest era of the game, but apparently this has been valued so highly that, even when weighted only at 45%, it still puts him on #4.
Dark, in contrast, has had a far longer and richer career, but somehow this career, even when weighted at 55%, is still not enough to even put him in the Top 10.
I am really curious about the reasoning behind this.
On March 17 2024 21:54 Comedy wrote: let's be real serral holds the goat title unquestionably also. Mizenhauser is just one person and the vast majority of people that follow the game would pick serral. There's no doubt in my mind about that.
Just because a majority of people say something doesn't make it right. The majority, as you say, has a triple bias of 1) recency, 2) liking macro games over anything else, which Serral is indeed the best at and had a favourable meta for it throughout his career, 3) foreign bias.
As for the thread and this general ranking, I have no horse in this race and don't care either way, but I do find amusing how the value of Blizzcon and IEM Katowice skyrocketed in the eyes of fans once foreigners started winning them. No one was calling sOs the GOAT at the end of HotS despite winning 2 Blizzcons and an IEM, and in fact I doubt "the majority of people" would have had him in the top 10.
One last point I'll make: let's create an imaginary Broodwar player, who happened to win every single ASL in the last 6 years. Yes, I'm exaggerating on purpose. But surely no one in their right mind would call them the GOAT, with most Broodwar players having retired, some being part-time, etc. Unless that imaginary player was white, perhaps?...
the fact you bring up sos just shows that all you people do is look at results and don't look at the games.
you could see with your own eyes how sos won those tournaments. by coming up with clever cheeses and beating people better than him at micro/macro/multitask with specially crafted cheeses.
Everyone can also see with their own eyes how serral plays. He wins tournaments by being better at every aspect of the game than his opponent. Scouting/Macro/Micro/Multitask/Builds.
It's easy for anyone who actually plays and watches the game to tell he is the goat, that's why picking maru is so controversial to begin with and you see all actual progamers and casters on twitter expressing themselves in disagreement with this list Lol.
If a brood war player won the last 6 ASL's and was dominant in daily proleague and spoon matches with a 80% winrate he would seriously open up the goat conversation if he looked like he was more dominant than flash. Brood war players are getting better still, just like SC2 players. The fact that Serral didn't dominate during the kespa era is only because he was a teenager that was in highschool. If he had reached his 2018 level just a few years prior (if he was born earlier), he would dominate that era too.
Nah it's easy for anyone watching and playing the game to tell that Maru is the Goat, foreign progamers and casters just want to back their favorite player because he's a foreigner, they were calling Serral the Goat in 2019 when he wasn't even top 10 which proves their extreme bias.
On March 17 2024 21:54 Comedy wrote: let's be real serral holds the goat title unquestionably also. Mizenhauser is just one person and the vast majority of people that follow the game would pick serral. There's no doubt in my mind about that.
Just because a majority of people say something doesn't make it right. The majority, as you say, has a triple bias of 1) recency, 2) liking macro games over anything else, which Serral is indeed the best at and had a favourable meta for it throughout his career, 3) foreign bias.
As for the thread and this general ranking, I have no horse in this race and don't care either way, but I do find amusing how the value of Blizzcon and IEM Katowice skyrocketed in the eyes of fans once foreigners started winning them. No one was calling sOs the GOAT at the end of HotS despite winning 2 Blizzcons and an IEM, and in fact I doubt "the majority of people" would have had him in the top 10.
One last point I'll make: let's create an imaginary Broodwar player, who happened to win every single ASL in the last 6 years. Yes, I'm exaggerating on purpose. But surely no one in their right mind would call them the GOAT, with most Broodwar players having retired, some being part-time, etc. Unless that imaginary player was white, perhaps?...
the fact you bring up sos just shows that all you people do is look at results and don't look at the games.
you could see with your own eyes how sos won those tournaments. by coming up with clever cheeses and beating people better than him at micro/macro/multitask with specially crafted cheeses.
Everyone can also see with their own eyes how serral plays. He wins tournaments by being better at every aspect of the game than his opponent. Scouting/Macro/Micro/Multitask/Builds.
It's easy for anyone who actually plays and watches the game to tell he is the goat, that's why picking maru is so controversial to begin with and you see all actual progamers and casters on twitter expressing themselves in disagreement with this list Lol.
If a brood war player won the last 6 ASL's and was dominant in daily proleague and spoon matches with a 80% winrate he would seriously open up the goat conversation if he looked like he was more dominant than flash. Brood war players are getting better still, just like SC2 players. The fact that Serral didn't dominate during the kespa era is only because he was a teenager that was in highschool. If he had reached his 2018 level just a few years prior (if he was born earlier), he would dominate that era too.
Nah it's easy for anyone watching and playing the game to tell that Maru is the Goat, foreign progamers and casters just want to back their favorite player because he's a foreigner, they were calling Serral the Goat in 2019 when he wasn't even top 10 which proves their extreme bias.
I've already explained this to you before. If an unknown player showed up next week in an ESL open cup and showcased better play than serral, reynor, clem, maru, etc. You could say, that's the best player I've ever seen. And he had 0 tournament wins. Tournament wins are just a product of skill and time. If that unknown player kept up that level of play that was the best that's ever been seen, he'd have all the tournament wins to go along with it in a couple of years. So nothing wrong with calling serral the best player in 2019 (he was the world champ already at that time after winning blizzcon and every single wcs event in 2018).
On March 17 2024 21:54 Comedy wrote: let's be real serral holds the goat title unquestionably also. Mizenhauser is just one person and the vast majority of people that follow the game would pick serral. There's no doubt in my mind about that.
Just because a majority of people say something doesn't make it right. The majority, as you say, has a triple bias of 1) recency, 2) liking macro games over anything else, which Serral is indeed the best at and had a favourable meta for it throughout his career, 3) foreign bias.
As for the thread and this general ranking, I have no horse in this race and don't care either way, but I do find amusing how the value of Blizzcon and IEM Katowice skyrocketed in the eyes of fans once foreigners started winning them. No one was calling sOs the GOAT at the end of HotS despite winning 2 Blizzcons and an IEM, and in fact I doubt "the majority of people" would have had him in the top 10.
One last point I'll make: let's create an imaginary Broodwar player, who happened to win every single ASL in the last 6 years. Yes, I'm exaggerating on purpose. But surely no one in their right mind would call them the GOAT, with most Broodwar players having retired, some being part-time, etc. Unless that imaginary player was white, perhaps?...
the fact you bring up sos just shows that all you people do is look at results and don't look at the games.
you could see with your own eyes how sos won those tournaments. by coming up with clever cheeses and beating people better than him at micro/macro/multitask with specially crafted cheeses.
Everyone can also see with their own eyes how serral plays. He wins tournaments by being better at every aspect of the game than his opponent. Scouting/Macro/Micro/Multitask/Builds.
It's easy for anyone who actually plays and watches the game to tell he is the goat, that's why picking maru is so controversial to begin with and you see all actual progamers and casters on twitter expressing themselves in disagreement with this list Lol.
If a brood war player won the last 6 ASL's and was dominant in daily proleague and spoon matches with a 80% winrate he would seriously open up the goat conversation if he looked like he was more dominant than flash. Brood war players are getting better still, just like SC2 players. The fact that Serral didn't dominate during the kespa era is only because he was a teenager that was in highschool. If he had reached his 2018 level just a few years prior (if he was born earlier), he would dominate that era too.
Nah it's easy for anyone watching and playing the game to tell that Maru is the Goat, foreign progamers and casters just want to back their favorite player because he's a foreigner, they were calling Serral the Goat in 2019 when he wasn't even top 10 which proves their extreme bias.
I've already explained this to you before. If an unknown player showed up next week in an ESL open cup and showcased better play than serral, reynor, clem, maru, etc. You could say, that's the best player I've ever seen. And he had 0 tournament wins. Tournament wins are just a product of skill and time. If that unknown player kept up that level of play that was the best that's ever been seen, he'd have all the tournament wins to go along with it in a couple of years. So nothing wrong with calling serral the best player in 2019.
Greatest != best
Also it's impossible to compare skill level across different eras in completely different versions of the game
On March 17 2024 21:54 Comedy wrote: let's be real serral holds the goat title unquestionably also. Mizenhauser is just one person and the vast majority of people that follow the game would pick serral. There's no doubt in my mind about that.
Just because a majority of people say something doesn't make it right. The majority, as you say, has a triple bias of 1) recency, 2) liking macro games over anything else, which Serral is indeed the best at and had a favourable meta for it throughout his career, 3) foreign bias.
As for the thread and this general ranking, I have no horse in this race and don't care either way, but I do find amusing how the value of Blizzcon and IEM Katowice skyrocketed in the eyes of fans once foreigners started winning them. No one was calling sOs the GOAT at the end of HotS despite winning 2 Blizzcons and an IEM, and in fact I doubt "the majority of people" would have had him in the top 10.
One last point I'll make: let's create an imaginary Broodwar player, who happened to win every single ASL in the last 6 years. Yes, I'm exaggerating on purpose. But surely no one in their right mind would call them the GOAT, with most Broodwar players having retired, some being part-time, etc. Unless that imaginary player was white, perhaps?...
the fact you bring up sos just shows that all you people do is look at results and don't look at the games.
you could see with your own eyes how sos won those tournaments. by coming up with clever cheeses and beating people better than him at micro/macro/multitask with specially crafted cheeses.
Everyone can also see with their own eyes how serral plays. He wins tournaments by being better at every aspect of the game than his opponent. Scouting/Macro/Micro/Multitask/Builds.
It's easy for anyone who actually plays and watches the game to tell he is the goat, that's why picking maru is so controversial to begin with and you see all actual progamers and casters on twitter expressing themselves in disagreement with this list Lol.
If a brood war player won the last 6 ASL's and was dominant in daily proleague and spoon matches with a 80% winrate he would seriously open up the goat conversation if he looked like he was more dominant than flash. Brood war players are getting better still, just like SC2 players. The fact that Serral didn't dominate during the kespa era is only because he was a teenager that was in highschool. If he had reached his 2018 level just a few years prior (if he was born earlier), he would dominate that era too.
Nah it's easy for anyone watching and playing the game to tell that Maru is the Goat, foreign progamers and casters just want to back their favorite player because he's a foreigner, they were calling Serral the Goat in 2019 when he wasn't even top 10 which proves their extreme bias.
No offense, but you are basically saying "it is easy to see that Maru is the Goat and everyone who disagrees with me is either in on a PR conspiracy or has no knowledge about the game". Slightly arrogant, don't you think?
On March 17 2024 21:54 Comedy wrote: let's be real serral holds the goat title unquestionably also. Mizenhauser is just one person and the vast majority of people that follow the game would pick serral. There's no doubt in my mind about that.
Just because a majority of people say something doesn't make it right. The majority, as you say, has a triple bias of 1) recency, 2) liking macro games over anything else, which Serral is indeed the best at and had a favourable meta for it throughout his career, 3) foreign bias.
As for the thread and this general ranking, I have no horse in this race and don't care either way, but I do find amusing how the value of Blizzcon and IEM Katowice skyrocketed in the eyes of fans once foreigners started winning them. No one was calling sOs the GOAT at the end of HotS despite winning 2 Blizzcons and an IEM, and in fact I doubt "the majority of people" would have had him in the top 10.
One last point I'll make: let's create an imaginary Broodwar player, who happened to win every single ASL in the last 6 years. Yes, I'm exaggerating on purpose. But surely no one in their right mind would call them the GOAT, with most Broodwar players having retired, some being part-time, etc. Unless that imaginary player was white, perhaps?...
the fact you bring up sos just shows that all you people do is look at results and don't look at the games.
you could see with your own eyes how sos won those tournaments. by coming up with clever cheeses and beating people better than him at micro/macro/multitask with specially crafted cheeses.
Everyone can also see with their own eyes how serral plays. He wins tournaments by being better at every aspect of the game than his opponent. Scouting/Macro/Micro/Multitask/Builds.
It's easy for anyone who actually plays and watches the game to tell he is the goat, that's why picking maru is so controversial to begin with and you see all actual progamers and casters on twitter expressing themselves in disagreement with this list Lol.
If a brood war player won the last 6 ASL's and was dominant in daily proleague and spoon matches with a 80% winrate he would seriously open up the goat conversation if he looked like he was more dominant than flash. Brood war players are getting better still, just like SC2 players. The fact that Serral didn't dominate during the kespa era is only because he was a teenager that was in highschool. If he had reached his 2018 level just a few years prior (if he was born earlier), he would dominate that era too.
Nah it's easy for anyone watching and playing the game to tell that Maru is the Goat, foreign progamers and casters just want to back their favorite player because he's a foreigner, they were calling Serral the Goat in 2019 when he wasn't even top 10 which proves their extreme bias.
No offense, but you are basically saying "it is easy to see that Maru is the Goat and everyone who disagrees with me is either in on a PR conspiracy or has no knowledge about the game". Slightly arrogant, don't you think?
Not sure if you have no sarcasm sensor or you didn't read the post I responded to but I just mirrored his post about Serral to show him how stupid it sounds. But glad you agree that it sounds stupid
Oh god. remembering casters calling Serral in the GOAT in 2019 and how forced it was. It was impossible to watch his matches that year because of how biased the casts were. Even when he lost to Stats or soO or Zest or whoever you'd hear nothing about them in the audio feed.
I don't know if they were all told to force the narrative or if foreigners are all just Serral fanatics, but it was damn sure hard to watch
Here are some ideas to test if one race is indeed more powerful than others/reduce the impact of race balance from results: 1. build the most capable AI bots by race (no APM limit etc.) and let them fight each other 2. make all pro players play random
Not saying this will happen but tell me you don't want to watch Maru play Zerg against Serral's Terran?
By the way I read somewhere that Serral was originally a Terran player but quickly switched to Zerg, does anyone know if this is true?
On March 18 2024 01:09 Fango wrote: Oh god. remembering casters calling Serral in the GOAT in 2019 and how forced it was. It was impossible to watch his matches that year because of how biased the casts were. Even when he lost to Stats or soO or Zest or whoever you'd hear nothing about them in the audio feed.
I don't know if they were all told to force the narrative or if foreigners are all just Serral fanatics, but it was damn sure hard to watch
Most foreign casters were probably so tired of having their hopes crushed over and over again (since some casters were ex pro) by KR players, that seeing a foreigner go toe to toe / beat the best KR was a miracle and they became zealots in the Serral church from the get go
On the other hand skill wise Serral was known as a beast even earlier, and he showed the potential to do great things, but if potential alone was sufficient, Creator might have become the best protoss ever, similarly to Maru for Terran, but he didn’t
On March 17 2024 21:54 Comedy wrote: let's be real serral holds the goat title unquestionably also. Mizenhauser is just one person and the vast majority of people that follow the game would pick serral. There's no doubt in my mind about that.
Just because a majority of people say something doesn't make it right. The majority, as you say, has a triple bias of 1) recency, 2) liking macro games over anything else, which Serral is indeed the best at and had a favourable meta for it throughout his career, 3) foreign bias.
As for the thread and this general ranking, I have no horse in this race and don't care either way, but I do find amusing how the value of Blizzcon and IEM Katowice skyrocketed in the eyes of fans once foreigners started winning them. No one was calling sOs the GOAT at the end of HotS despite winning 2 Blizzcons and an IEM, and in fact I doubt "the majority of people" would have had him in the top 10.
One last point I'll make: let's create an imaginary Broodwar player, who happened to win every single ASL in the last 6 years. Yes, I'm exaggerating on purpose. But surely no one in their right mind would call them the GOAT, with most Broodwar players having retired, some being part-time, etc. Unless that imaginary player was white, perhaps?...
the fact you bring up sos just shows that all you people do is look at results and don't look at the games.
you could see with your own eyes how sos won those tournaments. by coming up with clever cheeses and beating people better than him at micro/macro/multitask with specially crafted cheeses.
Everyone can also see with their own eyes how serral plays. He wins tournaments by being better at every aspect of the game than his opponent. Scouting/Macro/Micro/Multitask/Builds.
It's easy for anyone who actually plays and watches the game to tell he is the goat, that's why picking maru is so controversial to begin with and you see all actual progamers and casters on twitter expressing themselves in disagreement with this list Lol.
If a brood war player won the last 6 ASL's and was dominant in daily proleague and spoon matches with a 80% winrate he would seriously open up the goat conversation if he looked like he was more dominant than flash. Brood war players are getting better still, just like SC2 players. The fact that Serral didn't dominate during the kespa era is only because he was a teenager that was in highschool. If he had reached his 2018 level just a few years prior (if he was born earlier), he would dominate that era too.
Nah it's easy for anyone watching and playing the game to tell that Maru is the Goat, foreign progamers and casters just want to back their favorite player because he's a foreigner, they were calling Serral the Goat in 2019 when he wasn't even top 10 which proves their extreme bias.
No offense, but you are basically saying "it is easy to see that Maru is the Goat and everyone who disagrees with me is either in on a PR conspiracy or has no knowledge about the game". Slightly arrogant, don't you think?
Not sure if you have no sarcasm sensor or you didn't read the post I responded to but I just mirrored his post about Serral to show him how stupid it sounds. But glad you agree that it sounds stupid
Nope, didn't see the post you answered to. Sorry then, but glad we agree.
On March 18 2024 01:09 Fango wrote: Oh god. remembering casters calling Serral in the GOAT in 2019 and how forced it was. It was impossible to watch his matches that year because of how biased the casts were. Even when he lost to Stats or soO or Zest or whoever you'd hear nothing about them in the audio feed.
I don't know if they were all told to force the narrative or if foreigners are all just Serral fanatics, but it was damn sure hard to watch
I concurred with this statement. The results of Serral obsessed fans nowadays were exactly the product from the excessive proclamation of Serral being GOAT from the casters multiple times, while at the same time patronizing players whoever he was always matched with in the tournaments like Rogue and Dark notably before the tournaments even started.
On March 17 2024 23:33 MyLovelyLurker wrote: I built a very quick basic model with just two variables: 1. average ranking based on yearly winrate for the years a player was active and winning; 2. simple longevity penalty based on number of active winning years (out of 13).
Maru and Serral top this ranking, being #1 and #2 flipped depending on how much you weigh #2 (somewhere around 0.6 weight for the longevity penalty factor is where the flip occurs). This is pretty much exactly what Miz was alluding to, saying that the order flips based on importance of longevity.
[...]
The elephant in the room of course is it ranks Dark as highly as #4 or #5.
Yes, I also think that this is the most interesting open question.
As noted earlier, Mizenhauer himself has stated that in order to place Maru above Serral, being the Greatest had to be valued at as low as 45%, while the Greatest Career had to be valued at as high as 55%:
On March 16 2024 07:29 CicadaSC wrote: Agree with this. Serral is good but you can't call him the goat if he refuses to play in Code S, the hardest tournament. Reynor, neeb and other foreigners who had success in weekend tournaments show how much of a different beast this is. Grats to Maru and well deserved #1.
It's really close between the two. If my original split between Greatest and Greatest Career was more like 60/40 (it was 45/55 in favor of the latter) to the former then Serral gets first. Even then, I waffled between Maru and Serral a few times before settling on my final order.
Personally, I do not agree with these weightings, but these are Mizenhauer's personal preferences and therefore not up to debate.
But what is up to debate is that if these weightings are applied consistently, then it is difficult to see how Dark can be left out of the Top 10, while, for example, MVP is #4. MVP has been dominant only during the earliest era of the game, but apparently this has been valued so highly that, even when weighted only at 45%, it still puts him on #4.
Dark, in contrast, has had a far longer and richer career, but somehow this career, even when weighted at 55%, is still not enough to even put him in the Top 10.
I am really curious about the reasoning behind this.
Same for me, MVP being valued over Innovation, Maru longevity over Serral level of dominance, and Dark not anywhere on this list...
I'm totally ok with different opinions and understand lists are subjective, but when one dismisses others for "revisionist history" and talks with a tone that others do not have as strong of a grasp of the "data" as they have, it sounds to me like they're implying they are heavily basing their ranking on statistics and objective criteria. And if that's the case then these inconsistencies call into question the whole integrity of the list and ranking methodology, unfortunately no matter how nice the articles are to read. If the articles want to just focus on who the writer personally finds the greatest in their eyes, then I think overfocusing on all the data and statistics may have ran against what the articles might have been trying to express, unfortunately. Because once you get into all of that, then that becomes a very core part of the discussion surrounding the articles, when maybe the goal was just to celebrate these players.
On a semi-related note, I went back to review Taeja's list of achievements from 2013-2015 in the MVP article, because I wanted to examine how true people's memories were regarding Taeja mainly fighting "B tier Koreans" and "Code A players" at those tournaments and not having hard competition. When i looked at his Premiere wins in those periods, I actually found that he defeated players like Innovation, Jaedong, Flash, Life, sOs, and MMA many times at those weekend tournaments that supposedly the top Koreans didn't care enough about. Often, great players including some of the ones i listed would drown at those weekend tournaments. Of course this doesn't count the losses he may have gotten vs other good players at the tournaments he lost - but he won a large amount of the tournies he competed in, and the main point is that his wins did not have easy competition, he had to beat the best HotS players of the time, one time he beat Life twice in the same tournament (because of double elim).
I personally feel there's a case for Taeja outranking some of the people at the bottom of the list, if MVP's short dominance got him as high as #4. Wrist/neck issues aside (we can't excuse players based on health, just results), MVP fled Korea and his results also started dropping after his peak, his dominance wasn't as big as people remember. Players like Nestea and MC were still contenders and won tournaments during MVP's window of GSL wins, and players like MMA even overtook MVP briefly at times.
I guess where I'm going with this is just, i got the sense that a player's peak is the most important, and feel that goes against Maru being #1 despite his Proleague and whatever success. I'm with the people that are saying Maru did not feel like a GOAT contender before 2018. Of course his 4x GSL wins in 2018 is crazy and SC2 did not decline much at the time - it was only 2 years after Proleague, and years before GSL really started to downsize a ton recently. But the thing is, those 4x GSL still happened after the Kespa period, which these articles value very highly. Serral's dominance started around the same time in 2018, it was mainly only in EU sure but he did win GSL vs the World in 2018 vs Stats and he won WCS as well in 2018 vs Stats (who had the best LotV results in the first years), the same year as Maru. I don't think there's a significant difference in timing here. So the only thing left really is just valuing Maru's Proleague strength over Serral's much stronger 2018+ dominance than Maru.
People try to discount Serral by saying he hasn't proven himself in GSL - he doesn't need to when he's won GSL vs the World 2 times out of 2 attempts, vs top GSL players. And he doesn't need to when he wins WCs over top Koreans. There is simply no way you should penalize Serral for not collecting a Code S trophy when it isn't even the highest competition. And trying to value Code S (especially 2018+) more than a WC is just crazy to me, a WC has way more prize money and in the tournament structure it's the WORLD championship. It's also a bit unfair to penalize people for lacking results during a certain era, especially if that player was simply really young and not realistic to expect him to be able to compete at the top at like age 13-14. What you have to look at is the performances they DO show, and then extrapolate what their ability would have allowed them to do compared to other players if all players could magically compete in the same eras together. Serral has shown no evidence that he'd randomly do poorly in GSL vs others, all the evidence points to him 1) being able to defeat all the top Koreans in the biggest tournaments and 2) being able to defeat all the top Koreans on Korean soil in a Korean tournament with GSL branding 2 for 2.
The articles seem to value this kind of dominance and "class" as a form of proof of ability over different periods, especially with MVP. But it's not applied consistently. Maru is rewarded for the long list of results, Dark is left out of the list completely, MVP is rewarded for having a high peak despite actually sticking around long enough to rack up bad results that taints the ability to say his level of dominance could continue (but let's just ignore that part and pretend he retired when he was #1), and Serral is penalized for not competing in an era that he was born too late to compete in.
I also call into question the statement that the recent Katowice wouldn't be enough to affect the ranking. If Serral winning 4-0 over Maru and starting on a new streak of dominance even greater than his peak in 2018, with a winrate greater than any other player has shown in SC2, isn't enough to change the ranking then damn. Because if showing those great feats isn't enough, then idk what is. I guess if the Kespa period is over then no one can ever surpass Maru which just feels icky to me.
On March 17 2024 21:54 Comedy wrote: let's be real serral holds the goat title unquestionably also. Mizenhauser is just one person and the vast majority of people that follow the game would pick serral. There's no doubt in my mind about that.
Just because a majority of people say something doesn't make it right. The majority, as you say, has a triple bias of 1) recency, 2) liking macro games over anything else, which Serral is indeed the best at and had a favourable meta for it throughout his career, 3) foreign bias.
As for the thread and this general ranking, I have no horse in this race and don't care either way, but I do find amusing how the value of Blizzcon and IEM Katowice skyrocketed in the eyes of fans once foreigners started winning them. No one was calling sOs the GOAT at the end of HotS despite winning 2 Blizzcons and an IEM, and in fact I doubt "the majority of people" would have had him in the top 10.
One last point I'll make: let's create an imaginary Broodwar player, who happened to win every single ASL in the last 6 years. Yes, I'm exaggerating on purpose. But surely no one in their right mind would call them the GOAT, with most Broodwar players having retired, some being part-time, etc. Unless that imaginary player was white, perhaps?...
the fact you bring up sos just shows that all you people do is look at results and don't look at the games.
you could see with your own eyes how sos won those tournaments. by coming up with clever cheeses and beating people better than him at micro/macro/multitask with specially crafted cheeses.
Everyone can also see with their own eyes how serral plays. He wins tournaments by being better at every aspect of the game than his opponent. Scouting/Macro/Micro/Multitask/Builds.
It's easy for anyone who actually plays and watches the game to tell he is the goat, that's why picking maru is so controversial to begin with and you see all actual progamers and casters on twitter expressing themselves in disagreement with this list Lol.
If a brood war player won the last 6 ASL's and was dominant in daily proleague and spoon matches with a 80% winrate he would seriously open up the goat conversation if he looked like he was more dominant than flash. Brood war players are getting better still, just like SC2 players. The fact that Serral didn't dominate during the kespa era is only because he was a teenager that was in highschool. If he had reached his 2018 level just a few years prior (if he was born earlier), he would dominate that era too.
Nah it's easy for anyone watching and playing the game to tell that Maru is the Goat, foreign progamers and casters just want to back their favorite player because he's a foreigner, they were calling Serral the Goat in 2019 when he wasn't even top 10 which proves their extreme bias.
No offense, but you are basically saying "it is easy to see that Maru is the Goat and everyone who disagrees with me is either in on a PR conspiracy or has no knowledge about the game". Slightly arrogant, don't you think?
Not sure if you have no sarcasm sensor or you didn't read the post I responded to but I just mirrored his post about Serral to show him how stupid it sounds. But glad you agree that it sounds stupid
Nope, didn't see the post you answered to. Sorry then, but glad we agree.
On March 18 2024 01:09 Fango wrote: Oh god. remembering casters calling Serral in the GOAT in 2019 and how forced it was. It was impossible to watch his matches that year because of how biased the casts were. Even when he lost to Stats or soO or Zest or whoever you'd hear nothing about them in the audio feed.
I don't know if they were all told to force the narrative or if foreigners are all just Serral fanatics, but it was damn sure hard to watch
Most foreign casters were probably so tired of having their hopes crushed over and over again (since some casters were ex pro) by KR players, that seeing a foreigner go toe to toe / beat the best KR was a miracle and they became zealots in the Serral church from the get go
On the other hand skill wise Serral was known as a beast even earlier, and he showed the potential to do great things, but if potential alone was sufficient, Creator might have become the best protoss ever, similarly to Maru for Terran, but he didn’t
I think it's fair to say a lot of casters/behind-the-scenes people were thrilled to have Serral as the world champion because he became by far the most popular player with fans. Go talk about random people into gaming about Starcraft 2 outside of the original WOL guys like MC or Idra, Serral will be the only guy they might know. If you get someone very big into other esport Maru might ring a bell, Rogue is just another faceless Korean.
It pains me to say it, but frankly, I don't think we'd still have SC2 esport if it wasn't for Serral (or someone else) beating the Koreans, a lot of people got back into esport to watch him beat the Koreans. Especially when the vast majority of the casters had their livelihood tied to the WCS circuit and the foreign scene, I think it's only natural that they embarked into the foreigner vs Korean narrative and were very glad to see ''their team'' win.
I think it's a shame. there used to be a lot more camaraderie between the Korean and Foreign scenes, foreigners used to go live in the Korean teamhouses, Koreans went across the globe, we had teamhouses/colocation in the US, Germany, Switzerland, etc. Casual fans knew the Koreans, they adopted some as their favorites (Polt, MC, MMA, HerO etc...)
Kespa and the region locked killed it all. By 2018, we were back to being taken aback when Solar could speak decent English. It felt like all the casters were pals with the foreigners and strangers like you and me with the Koreans, meanwhile you had guys Maru showing up to tournaments not knowing who bloody Showtime was.
The online turn brought back a little more interaction between the two solitude, but it will always be one of Starcraft 2 biggest missed opportunity imo.
I come from KR. You don't know anything about the respect among pro players. And maru cannot be better than serral. Messi didn't participate in Eurocup made him a worse player??? No way. 1.Serral 2.Rogue 3.Maru 4.sos 5.Dark 6.Reynor 7.Innovation 8.Byun 9.Stats 10.Zest
On March 18 2024 02:25 Cyril446 wrote: I come from KR. You don't know anything about the respect among pro players. And maru cannot be better than serral. Messi didn't participate in Eurocup made him a worse player??? No way. 1.Serral 2.Rogue 3.Maru 4.sos 5.Dark 6.Reynor 7.Innovation 8.Byun 9.Stats 10.Zest
I love this list, fresh take! I love sOs so seeing him valued at #4 is amazing. And it doesn't seem biased since you ranked Reynor so highly, even above Innovation.
I was always curious about Byun though - I see many people mention him, but in my memory didn't he only win 1 GSL and 1 WCS and then... not much else? I'd probably swap MVP in for Byun, and I'd say that list is quite solid.
I feel Stats getting 2nd places at WCS counts for a lot despite not winning one himself - especially if Serral is the one he lost to. (That's also a reason i often lean towards ranking Stats above Zest on my list, after remembering that him not winning a WC is due to losing to Serral at least one of the times).
On March 18 2024 02:25 Cyril446 wrote: I come from KR. You don't know anything about the respect among pro players. And maru cannot be better than serral. Messi didn't participate in Eurocup made him a worse player??? No way. 1.Serral 2.Rogue 3.Maru 4.sos 5.Dark 6.Reynor 7.Innovation 8.Byun 9.Stats 10.Zest
Anyone with a clue about SC2 knows Maru is the goat, whether you believe Serral is better than Maru or not is irrelevant ,Maru's achievements are way bigger and more difficult to achieve. You also have Serral dominating in a era where Zerg was extremely strong and received heavy nerfs, while what Serral has done is super impressive its just not on the same level
I think it's fair to say a lot of casters/behind-the-scenes people were thrilled to have Serral as the world champion because he became by far the most popular player with fans. Go talk about random people into gaming about Starcraft 2 outside of the original WOL guys like MC or Idra, Serral will be the only guy they might know. If you get someone very big into other esport Maru might ring a bell, Rogue is just another faceless Korean.
Huh? Perhaps you mean among English-speaking fans?
Even then, which SC2 fan wouldn't know Maru? And Rogue "just another faceless Korean"?
On March 18 2024 02:25 Cyril446 wrote: I come from KR. You don't know anything about the respect among pro players. And maru cannot be better than serral. Messi didn't participate in Eurocup made him a worse player??? No way. 1.Serral 2.Rogue 3.Maru 4.sos 5.Dark 6.Reynor 7.Innovation 8.Byun 9.Stats 10.Zest
Innovation was considered the best Terran at times. Dark and Reynor have never been considered the best Zerg, ever.
On March 18 2024 02:25 Cyril446 wrote: I come from KR. You don't know anything about the respect among pro players. And maru cannot be better than serral. Messi didn't participate in Eurocup made him a worse player??? No way. 1.Serral 2.Rogue 3.Maru 4.sos 5.Dark 6.Reynor 7.Innovation 8.Byun 9.Stats 10.Zest
Innovation was considered the best Terran at times. Dark and Reynor have never been considered the best Zerg, ever.
On March 18 2024 02:25 Cyril446 wrote: I come from KR. You don't know anything about the respect among pro players. And maru cannot be better than serral. Messi didn't participate in Eurocup made him a worse player??? No way. 1.Serral 2.Rogue 3.Maru 4.sos 5.Dark 6.Reynor 7.Innovation 8.Byun 9.Stats 10.Zest
No way Reynor and ByuN belong there, they aren't even top 15
On March 18 2024 01:09 Fango wrote: Oh god. remembering casters calling Serral in the GOAT in 2019 and how forced it was. It was impossible to watch his matches that year because of how biased the casts were. Even when he lost to Stats or soO or Zest or whoever you'd hear nothing about them in the audio feed.
I don't know if they were all told to force the narrative or if foreigners are all just Serral fanatics, but it was damn sure hard to watch
Most foreign casters were probably so tired of having their hopes crushed over and over again (since some casters were ex pro) by KR players, that seeing a foreigner go toe to toe / beat the best KR was a miracle and they became zealots in the Serral church from the get go
On the other hand skill wise Serral was known as a beast even earlier, and he showed the potential to do great things, but if potential alone was sufficient, Creator might have become the best protoss ever, similarly to Maru for Terran, but he didn’t
I think it's fair to say a lot of casters/behind-the-scenes people were thrilled to have Serral as the world champion because he became by far the most popular player with fans. Go talk about random people into gaming about Starcraft 2 outside of the original WOL guys like MC or Idra, Serral will be the only guy they might know. If you get someone very big into other esport Maru might ring a bell, Rogue is just another faceless Korean.
Serral was definitely the best thing to happen to sc2 esports, but that doesn't make casters unbearable hype any more bearable.
Even now, despite all the insane stats and unique achievements that Maru has, and Miz saying the split is tight and down to strength vs career and longevity, there are guys casters like Catz and Steadfast complaining on reddit saying there's literally no way it can't be Serral. They didn't even read the articles
On March 18 2024 02:25 Cyril446 wrote: I come from KR. You don't know anything about the respect among pro players. And maru cannot be better than serral. Messi didn't participate in Eurocup made him a worse player??? No way. 1.Serral 2.Rogue 3.Maru 4.sos 5.Dark 6.Reynor 7.Innovation 8.Byun 9.Stats 10.Zest
Innovation was considered the best Terran at times. Dark and Reynor have never been considered the best Zerg, ever.
On March 18 2024 01:09 Fango wrote: Oh god. remembering casters calling Serral in the GOAT in 2019 and how forced it was. It was impossible to watch his matches that year because of how biased the casts were. Even when he lost to Stats or soO or Zest or whoever you'd hear nothing about them in the audio feed.
I don't know if they were all told to force the narrative or if foreigners are all just Serral fanatics, but it was damn sure hard to watch
Most foreign casters were probably so tired of having their hopes crushed over and over again (since some casters were ex pro) by KR players, that seeing a foreigner go toe to toe / beat the best KR was a miracle and they became zealots in the Serral church from the get go
On the other hand skill wise Serral was known as a beast even earlier, and he showed the potential to do great things, but if potential alone was sufficient, Creator might have become the best protoss ever, similarly to Maru for Terran, but he didn’t
I think it's fair to say a lot of casters/behind-the-scenes people were thrilled to have Serral as the world champion because he became by far the most popular player with fans. Go talk about random people into gaming about Starcraft 2 outside of the original WOL guys like MC or Idra, Serral will be the only guy they might know. If you get someone very big into other esport Maru might ring a bell, Rogue is just another faceless Korean.
It pains me to say it, but frankly, I don't think we'd still have SC2 esport if it wasn't for Serral (or someone else) beating the Koreans, a lot of people got back into esport to watch him beat the Koreans. Especially when the vast majority of the casters had their livelihood tied to the WCS circuit and the foreign scene, I think it's only natural that they embarked into the foreigner vs Korean narrative and were very glad to see ''their team'' win.
I think it's a shame. there used to be a lot more camaraderie between the Korean and Foreign scenes, foreigners used to go live in the Korean teamhouses, Koreans went across the globe, we had teamhouses/colocation in the US, Germany, Switzerland, etc. Casual fans knew the Koreans, they adopted some as their favorites (Polt, MC, MMA, HerO etc...)
Kespa and the region locked killed it all. By 2018, we were back to being taken aback when Solar could speak decent English. It felt like all the casters were pals with the foreigners and strangers like you and me with the Koreans, meanwhile you had guys Maru showing up to tournaments not knowing who bloody Showtime was.
The online turn brought back a little more interaction between the two solitude, but it will always be one of Starcraft 2 biggest missed opportunity imo.
This quite a bit of offtopic, but I find the topic rather interesting (and failed multiple times to write a post about it myself in the past).
First of all: I 100% agree with the "without Serral (or someone else) there wouldn't be SC2". For one, I am one of those people. When Snute retired in I believe 2017, I basically quit watching SC2. I'm the kind of fan who likes to have emotional stakes (aka. fandom I guess) in the things he watches. But without SKT in Proleague and my favorite player (who was one of the few foreigners who could atleast go toe-to-toe with the non-GSL koreans) it quickly became extremly boring to watch SC2. Yay, another korean who couldn't even bother to speak english enough for an interview won, woohoo...(yes, I will always be salty about that!) So I didn't fully follow Serrals rise through 2018. Only when I watched BlizzCon and the entire "dude, some foreigner might actually win"-buzz came around I tuned in. Never left since then, it actually became more interesting over time with more and more foreigners breaking into that magical circle.
Another aspect you mention was the former "comradery" between foreigners and koreans. I don't have any insights behind the curtains, so of course this is just a viewers opinion, but personally I wouldn't exactly call it "comradery". It was more like giving out breadcrumbs. "Yes, of course the foreigners are allowed to play, but please don't bother the big kids after Ro32 okay?". I definetly remember discussions that basically went like "why are you even watching WCS Europe? I ONLY watch GSL, y'know, real Starcraft!" Usually the same kind of people who today have an existential crisis every time Serral wipes the floor with koreans...
Anyway, what fascinates me is that this entire concept of "korean elitism" (from non-koreans) is really foreign (no pun intended) for me. I switched to SC2 from Warcraft 3, where there was a clear rivalry between the "foreigners" and the Koreans and later on Chinese. And I just say "foreigners" to stay consistent, we didn't call them that, they were simply "Europeans" and "Americans". Unlike in SC2 of course, it not only was a real rivalry, with top players in both camps, but also a clear cut between the two. International events were rare, so there was a "natural region-lock", enforced by lag and prizepools so low no one would travel the world for that. Interestingly, when the koreans swapped into the teamleagues, they were usually well-received by the europeans, considering that they played for european teams. But when it came to international tournaments, generally the "foreigners" would stick together and cheer 'against' the koreans. You just wanted Grubby, ToD and co. to win against Moon, Lyn and co. Guess you can imagine my surprise when I "switched over" to SC2 with the same mindset and not only had to realize quickly that there was no rivalry possible at all, but you also kind of got stamped as a "2nd rate fan" if you didn't watch the korean tournaments and Proleague.
Sorry, long comment and maybe not the most coherent, but basically: When you say the "comradery" got destroyed, I can see your point. But personally, I definetly enjoy the actual "rivalry" between the foreigners and koreans a lot more, it just makes for a better narrative then "the koreans pummel the rest of the world over and over, but they are extremly nice about it!"
(And just for safety: This entire thing is about competitive rivalry and has nothing to do with actualy 'race'...)
On March 18 2024 02:25 Cyril446 wrote: I come from KR. You don't know anything about the respect among pro players. And maru cannot be better than serral. Messi didn't participate in Eurocup made him a worse player??? No way. 1.Serral 2.Rogue 3.Maru 4.sos 5.Dark 6.Reynor 7.Innovation 8.Byun 9.Stats 10.Zest
Innovation was considered the best Terran at times. Dark and Reynor have never been considered the best Zerg, ever.
2016 Dark was safely the best Zerg, though?
2019 Dark deserves the best Zerg title over Serral as well. Blizzcon/Code S/Super Tournament vs GSL vs the World/HSC/region locked tournaments. Seems clear that goes to Dark by Serral fans own criteria even since Blizzcon has been held to such a stupidly high level ever since Serral won it. Dark also finished one round higher at Katowice.
Yay, another korean who couldn't even bother to speak english enough for an interview won, woohoo...(yes, I will always be salty about that!)
Did the foreign players learn to speak Korean?
I won't have that discussion again, knowing I'm somewhat the only person bothered by it, so I accept that. But I still will say that this is an extremly stupid comment that completly misses the core of the argument.
On March 18 2024 01:09 Fango wrote: Oh god. remembering casters calling Serral in the GOAT in 2019 and how forced it was. It was impossible to watch his matches that year because of how biased the casts were. Even when he lost to Stats or soO or Zest or whoever you'd hear nothing about them in the audio feed.
I don't know if they were all told to force the narrative or if foreigners are all just Serral fanatics, but it was damn sure hard to watch
Most foreign casters were probably so tired of having their hopes crushed over and over again (since some casters were ex pro) by KR players, that seeing a foreigner go toe to toe / beat the best KR was a miracle and they became zealots in the Serral church from the get go
On the other hand skill wise Serral was known as a beast even earlier, and he showed the potential to do great things, but if potential alone was sufficient, Creator might have become the best protoss ever, similarly to Maru for Terran, but he didn’t
I think it's fair to say a lot of casters/behind-the-scenes people were thrilled to have Serral as the world champion because he became by far the most popular player with fans. Go talk about random people into gaming about Starcraft 2 outside of the original WOL guys like MC or Idra, Serral will be the only guy they might know. If you get someone very big into other esport Maru might ring a bell, Rogue is just another faceless Korean.
It pains me to say it, but frankly, I don't think we'd still have SC2 esport if it wasn't for Serral (or someone else) beating the Koreans, a lot of people got back into esport to watch him beat the Koreans. Especially when the vast majority of the casters had their livelihood tied to the WCS circuit and the foreign scene, I think it's only natural that they embarked into the foreigner vs Korean narrative and were very glad to see ''their team'' win.
I think it's a shame. there used to be a lot more camaraderie between the Korean and Foreign scenes, foreigners used to go live in the Korean teamhouses, Koreans went across the globe, we had teamhouses/colocation in the US, Germany, Switzerland, etc. Casual fans knew the Koreans, they adopted some as their favorites (Polt, MC, MMA, HerO etc...)
Kespa and the region locked killed it all. By 2018, we were back to being taken aback when Solar could speak decent English. It felt like all the casters were pals with the foreigners and strangers like you and me with the Koreans, meanwhile you had guys Maru showing up to tournaments not knowing who bloody Showtime was.
The online turn brought back a little more interaction between the two solitude, but it will always be one of Starcraft 2 biggest missed opportunity imo.
This quite a bit of offtopic, but I find the topic rather interesting (and failed multiple times to write a post about it myself in the past).
First of all: I 100% agree with the "without Serral (or someone else) there wouldn't be SC2". For one, I am one of those people. When Snute retired in I believe 2017, I basically quit watching SC2. I'm the kind of fan who likes to have emotional stakes (aka. fandom I guess) in the things he watches. But without SKT in Proleague and my favorite player (who was one of the few foreigners who could atleast go toe-to-toe with the non-GSL koreans) it quickly became extremly boring to watch SC2. Yay, another korean who couldn't even bother to speak english enough for an interview won, woohoo...(yes, I will always be salty about that!) So I didn't fully follow Serrals rise through 2018. Only when I watched BlizzCon and the entire "dude, some foreigner might actually win"-buzz came around I tuned in. Never left since then, it actually became more interesting over time with more and more foreigners breaking into that magical circle.
Another aspect you mention was the former "comradery" between foreigners and koreans. I don't have any insights behind the curtains, so of course this is just a viewers opinion, but personally I wouldn't exactly call it "comradery". It was more like giving out breadcrumbs. "Yes, of course the foreigners are allowed to play, but please don't bother the big kids after Ro32 okay?". I definetly remember discussions that basically went like "why are you even watching WCS Europe? I ONLY watch GSL, y'know, real Starcraft!" Usually the same kind of people who today have an existential crisis every time Serral wipes the floor with koreans...
Anyway, what fascinates me is that this entire concept of "korean elitism" (from non-koreans) is really foreign (no pun intended) for me. I switched to SC2 from Warcraft 3, where there was a clear rivalry between the "foreigners" and the Koreans and later on Chinese. And I just say "foreigners" to stay consistent, we didn't call them that, they were simply "Europeans" and "Americans". Unlike in SC2 of course, it not only was a real rivalry, with top players in both camps, but also a clear cut between the two. International events were rare, so there was a "natural region-lock", enforced by lag and prizepools so low no one would travel the world for that. Interestingly, when the koreans swapped into the teamleagues, they were usually well-received by the europeans, considering that they played for european teams. But when it came to international tournaments, generally the "foreigners" would stick together and cheer 'against' the koreans. You just wanted Grubby, ToD and co. to win against Moon, Lyn and co. Guess you can imagine my surprise when I "switched over" to SC2 with the same mindset and not only had to realize quickly that there was no rivalry possible at all, but you also kind of got stamped as a "2nd rate fan" if you didn't watch the korean tournaments and Proleague.
Sorry, long comment and maybe not the most coherent, but basically: When you say the "comradery" got destroyed, I can see your point. But personally, I definetly enjoy the actual "rivalry" between the foreigners and koreans a lot more, it just makes for a better narrative then "the koreans pummel the rest of the world over and over, but they are extremly nice about it!"
(And just for safety: This entire thing is about competitive rivalry and has nothing to do with actualy 'race'...)
Maybe ''comradery'' is not the right word, there was a rivalry between foreigners and Koreans and some very real tension between the interests of both as you said.
But what I meant is that people seemed to know each other, Polt might have been Korean, but he was also ''Captain America'', MC was the star of every stream, joking around with casters and players the way Reynor or Harstem do these days. Jaedong might not have been able to speak three words of English back to back, but you still knew he was Geoff guy all the way. Overall, it felt like we were moving in a good direction where we could appreciate players as people rather than nationality. Sometimes I'm not sure a lot of people are fans of Maru, herO, Dark, Cure, etc... feels like a lot of people just want Koreans to win (or to lose).
I agree that there were a lot of pompous Korean elitists back in the day.
On March 18 2024 02:09 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: The articles seem to value this kind of dominance and "class" as a form of proof of ability over different periods, especially with MVP. But it's not applied consistently. Maru is rewarded for the long list of results, Dark is left out of the list completely, MVP is rewarded for having a high peak despite actually sticking around long enough to rack up bad results that taints the ability to say his level of dominance could continue (but let's just ignore that part and pretend he retired when he was #1), and Serral is penalized for not competing in an era that he was born too late to compete in.
I also call into question the statement that the recent Katowice wouldn't be enough to affect the ranking. If Serral winning 4-0 over Maru and starting on a new streak of dominance even greater than his peak in 2018, with a winrate greater than any other player has shown in SC2, isn't enough to change the ranking then damn. Because if showing those great feats isn't enough, then idk what is. I guess if the Kespa period is over then no one can ever surpass Maru which just feels icky to me.
Thank you. You put my thoughts perfectly on this post. MVP and Dark dont really add up to that logic. MVP was at the 4th spot with 1 year of domination. Serral has basically dominated 6 years, but he is number 2 ?? Dark has been very consistent like 10 years, but he isnt on the list. It doesnt make sense.
Also every time Serral wins something and this (forever going) debate starts again, the opposite side finds a "new" reason why;
- This tournament wasnt prestigious enough - This tournament didnt have enough good players - In this tournament Korean players xxxx and yyy werent really trying because of.... - In this tournament the Koreans were in an disadvantage because.... - Its a weekender, not GSL. - Serral always has the easiest groups/opposition - The maps are bad for every other race - Zerg is OP - Starcraft is dead allready, this doesnt count - Maru didnt win, so it doesnt count - Infestors are OP (nobody in the scene has brought that up before that one map)
etc. etc. etc.....
Maru has been a very good player and has a way longer career than Serral. The scene was diminishing since maybe 2017 ? Okay. So Maru has had 10 years of opportunities to win world championships. If and when this diminishing of the scene- statement is true, wouldnt that mean that its same time easier to win the WC ? Since the same people many times also think that GSL is more difficult to win than World Championships, why hasnt Maru never won that ? He has had roughly double the amount of time to win that than Serral. He obviously can win in Korea. Also he should care about that, since the biggest money has always been there.
And this lazy "Its not GSL"-reasoning popping up again and again. Do you ever watch these games ? Does somebody realistically still think, that Serral couldnt win GSL with these results ? He has around 70-80% winrate against every player in the world, including Maru.
four archetypes of comments: agree with maru > serral, great list disagree with maru > serral, pay respects to Mizenhauer for all the work put into this list and a well-written piece regardless disagree with maru > serral, this list is trash, everything is invalidated, joke of a writing money man sos the goat
i feel for you mr miz, ignore the third group; we think your work is great <3
@Yoshi Kirishima: great post, puts a lot of my feelings around the list into words better than I would have. I quite strongly disagree with the end result of Maru 1 over Serral 2 (I don't think it's even that close after the last year, Serral has been the most dominant force the scene has seen, and has kept that up with only small blips for years), but Dark's omission in light of the long career reasoning for Maru is, I think, the most egregious issue. A few things just don't quite add up.
The articles are fantastically written and researched, but the rankings are sus. It feels a lot like a `top players the author wanted to write about', and the series and its impact are worse for the ranking aspect.
On March 18 2024 02:09 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: The articles seem to value this kind of dominance and "class" as a form of proof of ability over different periods, especially with MVP. But it's not applied consistently. Maru is rewarded for the long list of results, Dark is left out of the list completely, MVP is rewarded for having a high peak despite actually sticking around long enough to rack up bad results that taints the ability to say his level of dominance could continue (but let's just ignore that part and pretend he retired when he was #1), and Serral is penalized for not competing in an era that he was born too late to compete in.
I also call into question the statement that the recent Katowice wouldn't be enough to affect the ranking. If Serral winning 4-0 over Maru and starting on a new streak of dominance even greater than his peak in 2018, with a winrate greater than any other player has shown in SC2, isn't enough to change the ranking then damn. Because if showing those great feats isn't enough, then idk what is. I guess if the Kespa period is over then no one can ever surpass Maru which just feels icky to me.
On March 18 2024 04:10 Starcloud wrote: Thank you. You put my thoughts perfectly on this post. MVP and Dark dont really add up to that logic. MVP was at the 4th spot with 1 year of domination. Serral has basically dominated 6 years, but he is number 2 ?? Dark has been very consistent like 10 years, but he isnt on the list. It doesnt make sense.
Yes. This is what I think as well.
In fact, I have arrived at the impression that the extensive presentation of statistics in the articles is slightly misleading, because we are not told about the most important part: Exactly how have all these numbers been integrated and aggregated into the final ranking?
The glimpses into the aggregation process mentioned by Mizenhauer until now do not suffice to account for the results, especially the 45% Greatest vs. 55% Greatest Career weightings, because these appear to be inconsistent with the omission of Dark and the high placement of MVP.
To be clear: I think it would be perfectly understandable and fair if Mizenhauer stated: "There is no systematic data aggregation procedure; the overall results are based on subjective overall impressions that vary from player to player."
However, the appearance of a statistical basis plus the lack of details plus the apparent inconsistencies in the actual rankings do not seem to fit together. I'd be happly to learn from Mizenhauer how they add up, of course.
On March 18 2024 02:09 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: The articles seem to value this kind of dominance and "class" as a form of proof of ability over different periods, especially with MVP. But it's not applied consistently. Maru is rewarded for the long list of results, Dark is left out of the list completely, MVP is rewarded for having a high peak despite actually sticking around long enough to rack up bad results that taints the ability to say his level of dominance could continue (but let's just ignore that part and pretend he retired when he was #1), and Serral is penalized for not competing in an era that he was born too late to compete in.
I also call into question the statement that the recent Katowice wouldn't be enough to affect the ranking. If Serral winning 4-0 over Maru and starting on a new streak of dominance even greater than his peak in 2018, with a winrate greater than any other player has shown in SC2, isn't enough to change the ranking then damn. Because if showing those great feats isn't enough, then idk what is. I guess if the Kespa period is over then no one can ever surpass Maru which just feels icky to me.
Thank you. You put my thoughts perfectly on this post. MVP and Dark dont really add up to that logic. MVP was at the 4th spot with 1 year of domination. Serral has basically dominated 6 years, but he is number 2 ?? Dark has been very consistent like 10 years, but he isnt on the list. It doesnt make sense.
Also every time Serral wins something and this (forever going) debate starts again, the opposite side finds a "new" reason why;
- This tournament wasnt prestigious enough - This tournament didnt have enough good players - In this tournament Korean players xxxx and yyy werent really trying because of.... - In this tournament the Koreans were in an disadvantage because.... - Its a weekender, not GSL. - Serral always has the easiest groups/opposition - The maps are bad for every other race - Zerg is OP - Starcraft is dead allready, this doesnt count - Maru didnt win, so it doesnt count - Infestors are OP (nobody in the scene has brought that up before that one map)
etc. etc. etc.....
Those points are just quotes of salty Maru fanboys (or serral haters) trying to discredit Serrals wins. Those kind of comments exist the same way the other way around and have no influence on Miz' ranking. For the rest of your post Miz has acknowledged that Maru has no world championship and provided imo convincing arguments why he's still at #1 if you would read the article
Crazy time to post this. Serral has been dominating the game completely the last four years Maru is #4 on http://aligulac.com/ Serral has 71,6% over all winrate and comparably Maru has 65.3%
On top of this Serral pretty much runs over Maru. The last result was 4-0 in the finals where they met
From 2017 Katowice has been the hardest tournament by far. Code S gsl used to be the top tournament in ancient times but if you look at the players there now there are just a handful that can even take single games off of Serral.
It's incredible how storied Maru's career is when you consider his ro4 finishes don't even make the "notable finishes" section at the top, and his ro4 record alone would make for one of the greatest players of all time (maybe #20 on the list )
On March 17 2024 15:36 Delish wrote: serral > maru
rogue > maru
maru can lose oliveria in IEM katowice final
maru sucks
You're talking about a tournament where Serral was eliminated in the quarterfinals, and Maru got second place. Somehow in your mind this is evidence that "serral > maru".
On March 18 2024 02:25 Cyril446 wrote: I come from KR. You don't know anything about the respect among pro players. And maru cannot be better than serral. Messi didn't participate in Eurocup made him a worse player??? No way. 1.Serral 2.Rogue 3.Maru 4.sos 5.Dark 6.Reynor 7.Innovation 8.Byun 9.Stats 10.Zest
I love this list, fresh take! I love sOs so seeing him valued at #4 is amazing. And it doesn't seem biased since you ranked Reynor so highly, even above Innovation.
I was always curious about Byun though - I see many people mention him, but in my memory didn't he only win 1 GSL and 1 WCS and then... not much else? I'd probably swap MVP in for Byun, and I'd say that list is quite solid.
I feel Stats getting 2nd places at WCS counts for a lot despite not winning one himself - especially if Serral is the one he lost to. (That's also a reason i often lean towards ranking Stats above Zest on my list, after remembering that him not winning a WC is due to losing to Serral at least one of the times).
It’s got a huge weighting for World Champs
Now it wouldn’t personally be how I’d weight things, but it is at least a consistent standard on first glance! Sheer quality of play, consistency and volume of achievement over time, I rate weekenders pretty high if the field is good, I know some place them way below WCs and GSLs, I wouldn’t stick them on the same tier but not a million miles off.
Byun, not for me. Perhaps it was because I was on hiatus and wasn’t actually there for the fantastic storyline and hype, but he’d be floating around the top 15/20 for me. Only really was winning things in one particular meta, and other players don’t have that strike against them.
Good last post btw! I’d probably place Taeja above Byun certainly, top 4, perhaps even 3 Terran behind Maru, Inno and (possibly, undecided!) Mvp. Zero clue where I’d stick him in a ranking across all races though
I don't even follow SC2 but not having Dark on this list is absolutely illegal and borderline criminal! He's WCS World Champion, WCS Global Finals runner up, 3x GSL champion, SSL and many more can't even count. I can't take this list seriously...
Yay, another korean who couldn't even bother to speak english enough for an interview won, woohoo...(yes, I will always be salty about that!)
Did the foreign players learn to speak Korean?
I won't have that discussion again, knowing I'm somewhat the only person bothered by it, so I accept that. But I still will say that this is an extremly stupid comment that completly misses the core of the argument.
I'm glad you realize you're the only person bothered by the fact that pro gamers from another country don't speak your favored language.
I'll leave it to the readers to decide which comment is extremely stupid.
Yay, another korean who couldn't even bother to speak english enough for an interview won, woohoo...(yes, I will always be salty about that!)
Did the foreign players learn to speak Korean?
I won't have that discussion again, knowing I'm somewhat the only person bothered by it, so I accept that. But I still will say that this is an extremly stupid comment that completly misses the core of the argument.
I'm glad you realize you're the only person bothered by the fact that pro gamers from another country don't speak your favored language.
I'll leave it to the readers to decide which comment is extremely stupid.
Are progamers atypical in Korea to have so few of their number speak any English (at least confident enough to do so publicly)?
Always something I’d pondered, albeit not anything that annoys or frustrates me at all.
I guess a language barrier and translation you do miss some emotional nuance, but if folks gave better interviews that would help. Not just Koreans mind.
Hey I get they’re pro gamers, not media personalities I’m watching for their playing chops.
On March 18 2024 02:25 Cyril446 wrote: I come from KR. You don't know anything about the respect among pro players. And maru cannot be better than serral. Messi didn't participate in Eurocup made him a worse player??? No way. 1.Serral 2.Rogue 3.Maru 4.sos 5.Dark 6.Reynor 7.Innovation 8.Byun 9.Stats 10.Zest
I love this list, fresh take! I love sOs so seeing him valued at #4 is amazing. And it doesn't seem biased since you ranked Reynor so highly, even above Innovation.
I was always curious about Byun though - I see many people mention him, but in my memory didn't he only win 1 GSL and 1 WCS and then... not much else? I'd probably swap MVP in for Byun, and I'd say that list is quite solid.
I feel Stats getting 2nd places at WCS counts for a lot despite not winning one himself - especially if Serral is the one he lost to. (That's also a reason i often lean towards ranking Stats above Zest on my list, after remembering that him not winning a WC is due to losing to Serral at least one of the times).
It’s got a huge weighting for World Champs
Now it wouldn’t personally be how I’d weight things, but it is at least a consistent standard on first glance! Sheer quality of play, consistency and volume of achievement over time, I rate weekenders pretty high if the field is good, I know some place them way below WCs and GSLs, I wouldn’t stick them on the same tier but not a million miles off.
Byun, not for me. Perhaps it was because I was on hiatus and wasn’t actually there for the fantastic storyline and hype, but he’d be floating around the top 15/20 for me. Only really was winning things in one particular meta, and other players don’t have that strike against them.
Good last post btw! I’d probably place Taeja above Byun certainly, top 4, perhaps even 3 Terran behind Maru, Inno and (possibly, undecided!) Mvp. Zero clue where I’d stick him in a ranking across all races though
Ooh damn you're right the WCS weighting makes it make so much sense, i can't believe i didn't notice it haha. The 2 money men Rogue and sOs in the top 4 and Reynor close behind them.
Yeah maybe I don't really get the Byun hype either, i feel like winning even just 1 WCS isn't near enough to be top 15, maybe top 20 (there are other world championship winners that no one would even think is close to top 20), and pairing it with 1 single GSL win over 10+ years of competing also doesn't impress me too much. I'd personally put the likes of Nestea and probably Terrans like MMA and Polt above him.
Also thanks haha. I felt i was just saying things many other people were already saying, minus the random shilling for Taeja. I would definitely put Taeja in my top 4 Terrans too, it's close between him and MVP. It's been a long time and i didn't watch HotS as closely as I did WoL, else maybe it'd be much easier to go by feeling. It was kinda crazy to me realizing that players like Innovation and Life would commonly drown in pools at premiere weekender tournaments. That competition seems way harder than modern Code S or a typical modern weekender, as sad as that sounds. So for Taeja to have not drowned and won so many just rose my opinion of him even higher than where my memory put him.
On March 18 2024 13:50 WombaT wrote: Are progamers atypical in Korea to have so few of their number speak any English (at least confident enough to do so publicly)?
Always something I’d pondered, albeit not anything that annoys or frustrates me at all.
I guess a language barrier and translation you do miss some emotional nuance, but if folks gave better interviews that would help. Not just Koreans mind.
Hey I get they’re pro gamers, not media personalities I’m watching for their playing chops.
I've only traveled to Korea but in general most common folks in East Asia (China, Japan, Korea) don't speak much English. The languages are just too different.
For pro gamers who grew up in team houses, they probably didn't spend much attention in English classes so I imagine they're below an already-low-bar average
If you watch Crank's interviews with some of them (there's a recent series where he interviewed Maru, Hero, Dark, and Gumi), their personalities come out a lot more, so the language barrier is very real. Add to that the common challenge of public speaking and it's rare for the Korean pros to vocally impress on stage. But like you said most of us are not there to hear a motivation speech
Maru is #1 and apparently some people don't realize how competitive proleague was and how op zerg has been in LOTV. Maru is called the 4th race for reasons.
On March 18 2024 01:09 Fango wrote: Oh god. remembering casters calling Serral in the GOAT in 2019 and how forced it was. It was impossible to watch his matches that year because of how biased the casts were. Even when he lost to Stats or soO or Zest or whoever you'd hear nothing about them in the audio feed.
I don't know if they were all told to force the narrative or if foreigners are all just Serral fanatics, but it was damn sure hard to watch
Most foreign casters were probably so tired of having their hopes crushed over and over again (since some casters were ex pro) by KR players, that seeing a foreigner go toe to toe / beat the best KR was a miracle and they became zealots in the Serral church from the get go
On the other hand skill wise Serral was known as a beast even earlier, and he showed the potential to do great things, but if potential alone was sufficient, Creator might have become the best protoss ever, similarly to Maru for Terran, but he didn’t
I think it's fair to say a lot of casters/behind-the-scenes people were thrilled to have Serral as the world champion because he became by far the most popular player with fans. Go talk about random people into gaming about Starcraft 2 outside of the original WOL guys like MC or Idra, Serral will be the only guy they might know. If you get someone very big into other esport Maru might ring a bell, Rogue is just another faceless Korean.
It pains me to say it, but frankly, I don't think we'd still have SC2 esport if it wasn't for Serral (or someone else) beating the Koreans, a lot of people got back into esport to watch him beat the Koreans. Especially when the vast majority of the casters had their livelihood tied to the WCS circuit and the foreign scene, I think it's only natural that they embarked into the foreigner vs Korean narrative and were very glad to see ''their team'' win.
I think it's a shame. there used to be a lot more camaraderie between the Korean and Foreign scenes, foreigners used to go live in the Korean teamhouses, Koreans went across the globe, we had teamhouses/colocation in the US, Germany, Switzerland, etc. Casual fans knew the Koreans, they adopted some as their favorites (Polt, MC, MMA, HerO etc...)
Kespa and the region locked killed it all. By 2018, we were back to being taken aback when Solar could speak decent English. It felt like all the casters were pals with the foreigners and strangers like you and me with the Koreans, meanwhile you had guys Maru showing up to tournaments not knowing who bloody Showtime was.
The online turn brought back a little more interaction between the two solitude, but it will always be one of Starcraft 2 biggest missed opportunity imo.
This quite a bit of offtopic, but I find the topic rather interesting (and failed multiple times to write a post about it myself in the past).
First of all: I 100% agree with the "without Serral (or someone else) there wouldn't be SC2". For one, I am one of those people. When Snute retired in I believe 2017, I basically quit watching SC2. I'm the kind of fan who likes to have emotional stakes (aka. fandom I guess) in the things he watches. But without SKT in Proleague and my favorite player (who was one of the few foreigners who could atleast go toe-to-toe with the non-GSL koreans) it quickly became extremly boring to watch SC2. Yay, another korean who couldn't even bother to speak english enough for an interview won, woohoo...(yes, I will always be salty about that!) So I didn't fully follow Serrals rise through 2018. Only when I watched BlizzCon and the entire "dude, some foreigner might actually win"-buzz came around I tuned in. Never left since then, it actually became more interesting over time with more and more foreigners breaking into that magical circle.
Another aspect you mention was the former "comradery" between foreigners and koreans. I don't have any insights behind the curtains, so of course this is just a viewers opinion, but personally I wouldn't exactly call it "comradery". It was more like giving out breadcrumbs. "Yes, of course the foreigners are allowed to play, but please don't bother the big kids after Ro32 okay?". I definetly remember discussions that basically went like "why are you even watching WCS Europe? I ONLY watch GSL, y'know, real Starcraft!" Usually the same kind of people who today have an existential crisis every time Serral wipes the floor with koreans...
Anyway, what fascinates me is that this entire concept of "korean elitism" (from non-koreans) is really foreign (no pun intended) for me. I switched to SC2 from Warcraft 3, where there was a clear rivalry between the "foreigners" and the Koreans and later on Chinese. And I just say "foreigners" to stay consistent, we didn't call them that, they were simply "Europeans" and "Americans". Unlike in SC2 of course, it not only was a real rivalry, with top players in both camps, but also a clear cut between the two. International events were rare, so there was a "natural region-lock", enforced by lag and prizepools so low no one would travel the world for that. Interestingly, when the koreans swapped into the teamleagues, they were usually well-received by the europeans, considering that they played for european teams. But when it came to international tournaments, generally the "foreigners" would stick together and cheer 'against' the koreans. You just wanted Grubby, ToD and co. to win against Moon, Lyn and co. Guess you can imagine my surprise when I "switched over" to SC2 with the same mindset and not only had to realize quickly that there was no rivalry possible at all, but you also kind of got stamped as a "2nd rate fan" if you didn't watch the korean tournaments and Proleague.
Sorry, long comment and maybe not the most coherent, but basically: When you say the "comradery" got destroyed, I can see your point. But personally, I definetly enjoy the actual "rivalry" between the foreigners and koreans a lot more, it just makes for a better narrative then "the koreans pummel the rest of the world over and over, but they are extremly nice about it!"
(And just for safety: This entire thing is about competitive rivalry and has nothing to do with actualy 'race'...)
Maybe ''comradery'' is not the right word, there was a rivalry between foreigners and Koreans and some very real tension between the interests of both as you said.
But what I meant is that people seemed to know each other, Polt might have been Korean, but he was also ''Captain America'', MC was the star of every stream, joking around with casters and players the way Reynor or Harstem do these days. Jaedong might not have been able to speak three words of English back to back, but you still knew he was Geoff guy all the way. Overall, it felt like we were moving in a good direction where we could appreciate players as people rather than nationality. Sometimes I'm not sure a lot of people are fans of Maru, herO, Dark, Cure, etc... feels like a lot of people just want Koreans to win (or to lose).
I agree that there were a lot of pompous Korean elitists back in the day.
It's not "pompous elitists" if its true. Korea dominated back in the day. Thus, the players who dominate the Korean scene were the best of the best.
These days, its a much different scene. But we're talking Greatest of ALL TIME. This includes Maru's long and storied string of victories dating back to 2013 when the Korean scene had yet to feel the full brunt of the regional-welfare for Foreign players.
Some people are mad now. IDGAF. It is what it is. In an open, "free-trade", environment, Korea dominated and big bro had to step in to help. I'm not against it. But let's not pretend that Koreans did not kick a ton of ass.
ps. The foreign scene had a TON of respect for players like Huk, and even the Grack, who could go toe to toe with the Koreans (at times).
On March 18 2024 01:09 Fango wrote: Oh god. remembering casters calling Serral in the GOAT in 2019 and how forced it was. It was impossible to watch his matches that year because of how biased the casts were. Even when he lost to Stats or soO or Zest or whoever you'd hear nothing about them in the audio feed.
I don't know if they were all told to force the narrative or if foreigners are all just Serral fanatics, but it was damn sure hard to watch
Same here. I find it incredibly annoying as well. It's also funny to see how those pros/casters/fanboys get outraged by this article and call people koreaboos given their own foreigner-biased perspectives.
On March 18 2024 01:09 Fango wrote: Oh god. remembering casters calling Serral in the GOAT in 2019 and how forced it was. It was impossible to watch his matches that year because of how biased the casts were. Even when he lost to Stats or soO or Zest or whoever you'd hear nothing about them in the audio feed.
I don't know if they were all told to force the narrative or if foreigners are all just Serral fanatics, but it was damn sure hard to watch
Most foreign casters were probably so tired of having their hopes crushed over and over again (since some casters were ex pro) by KR players, that seeing a foreigner go toe to toe / beat the best KR was a miracle and they became zealots in the Serral church from the get go
On the other hand skill wise Serral was known as a beast even earlier, and he showed the potential to do great things, but if potential alone was sufficient, Creator might have become the best protoss ever, similarly to Maru for Terran, but he didn’t
I think it's fair to say a lot of casters/behind-the-scenes people were thrilled to have Serral as the world champion because he became by far the most popular player with fans. Go talk about random people into gaming about Starcraft 2 outside of the original WOL guys like MC or Idra, Serral will be the only guy they might know. If you get someone very big into other esport Maru might ring a bell, Rogue is just another faceless Korean.
It pains me to say it, but frankly, I don't think we'd still have SC2 esport if it wasn't for Serral (or someone else) beating the Koreans, a lot of people got back into esport to watch him beat the Koreans. Especially when the vast majority of the casters had their livelihood tied to the WCS circuit and the foreign scene, I think it's only natural that they embarked into the foreigner vs Korean narrative and were very glad to see ''their team'' win.
I think it's a shame. there used to be a lot more camaraderie between the Korean and Foreign scenes, foreigners used to go live in the Korean teamhouses, Koreans went across the globe, we had teamhouses/colocation in the US, Germany, Switzerland, etc. Casual fans knew the Koreans, they adopted some as their favorites (Polt, MC, MMA, HerO etc...)
Kespa and the region locked killed it all. By 2018, we were back to being taken aback when Solar could speak decent English. It felt like all the casters were pals with the foreigners and strangers like you and me with the Koreans, meanwhile you had guys Maru showing up to tournaments not knowing who bloody Showtime was.
The online turn brought back a little more interaction between the two solitude, but it will always be one of Starcraft 2 biggest missed opportunity imo.
This quite a bit of offtopic, but I find the topic rather interesting (and failed multiple times to write a post about it myself in the past).
First of all: I 100% agree with the "without Serral (or someone else) there wouldn't be SC2". For one, I am one of those people. When Snute retired in I believe 2017, I basically quit watching SC2. I'm the kind of fan who likes to have emotional stakes (aka. fandom I guess) in the things he watches. But without SKT in Proleague and my favorite player (who was one of the few foreigners who could atleast go toe-to-toe with the non-GSL koreans) it quickly became extremly boring to watch SC2. Yay, another korean who couldn't even bother to speak english enough for an interview won, woohoo...(yes, I will always be salty about that!) So I didn't fully follow Serrals rise through 2018. Only when I watched BlizzCon and the entire "dude, some foreigner might actually win"-buzz came around I tuned in. Never left since then, it actually became more interesting over time with more and more foreigners breaking into that magical circle.
Another aspect you mention was the former "comradery" between foreigners and koreans. I don't have any insights behind the curtains, so of course this is just a viewers opinion, but personally I wouldn't exactly call it "comradery". It was more like giving out breadcrumbs. "Yes, of course the foreigners are allowed to play, but please don't bother the big kids after Ro32 okay?". I definetly remember discussions that basically went like "why are you even watching WCS Europe? I ONLY watch GSL, y'know, real Starcraft!" Usually the same kind of people who today have an existential crisis every time Serral wipes the floor with koreans...
Anyway, what fascinates me is that this entire concept of "korean elitism" (from non-koreans) is really foreign (no pun intended) for me. I switched to SC2 from Warcraft 3, where there was a clear rivalry between the "foreigners" and the Koreans and later on Chinese. And I just say "foreigners" to stay consistent, we didn't call them that, they were simply "Europeans" and "Americans". Unlike in SC2 of course, it not only was a real rivalry, with top players in both camps, but also a clear cut between the two. International events were rare, so there was a "natural region-lock", enforced by lag and prizepools so low no one would travel the world for that. Interestingly, when the koreans swapped into the teamleagues, they were usually well-received by the europeans, considering that they played for european teams. But when it came to international tournaments, generally the "foreigners" would stick together and cheer 'against' the koreans. You just wanted Grubby, ToD and co. to win against Moon, Lyn and co. Guess you can imagine my surprise when I "switched over" to SC2 with the same mindset and not only had to realize quickly that there was no rivalry possible at all, but you also kind of got stamped as a "2nd rate fan" if you didn't watch the korean tournaments and Proleague.
Sorry, long comment and maybe not the most coherent, but basically: When you say the "comradery" got destroyed, I can see your point. But personally, I definetly enjoy the actual "rivalry" between the foreigners and koreans a lot more, it just makes for a better narrative then "the koreans pummel the rest of the world over and over, but they are extremly nice about it!"
(And just for safety: This entire thing is about competitive rivalry and has nothing to do with actualy 'race'...)
Maybe ''comradery'' is not the right word, there was a rivalry between foreigners and Koreans and some very real tension between the interests of both as you said.
But what I meant is that people seemed to know each other, Polt might have been Korean, but he was also ''Captain America'', MC was the star of every stream, joking around with casters and players the way Reynor or Harstem do these days. Jaedong might not have been able to speak three words of English back to back, but you still knew he was Geoff guy all the way. Overall, it felt like we were moving in a good direction where we could appreciate players as people rather than nationality. Sometimes I'm not sure a lot of people are fans of Maru, herO, Dark, Cure, etc... feels like a lot of people just want Koreans to win (or to lose).
I agree that there were a lot of pompous Korean elitists back in the day.
It's not "pompous elitists" if its true. Korea dominated back in the day. Thus, the players who dominate the Korean scene were the best of the best.
These days, its a much different scene. But we're talking Greatest of ALL TIME. This includes Maru's long and storied string of victories dating back to 2013 when the Korean scene had yet to feel the full brunt of the regional-welfare for Foreign players.
Some people are mad now. IDGAF. It is what it is. In an open, "free-trade", environment, Korea dominated and big bro had to step in to help. I'm not against it. But let's not pretend that Koreans did not kick a ton of ass.
ps. The foreign scene had a TON of respect for players like Huk and even the Grack who could go toe to toe with the Koreans (at times).
Yup.
Newer generations of viewers have a recency bias. If you only watch games from recent years and believe the game is balanced, you can easily get passionate in believing that Serral is the greatest. For those who watched SC2 from the beginning, regardless of your opinion on who the GOAT is, you should at least acknowledge it's a very difficult call. For people like myself who believe the game is Zerg favored, we believe the ranking decision is more than justified.
Of course, naming the GOAT in any sport NEVER results in a consensus, and I imagine Miz prepared himself for the controversy a heavy-weight piece like this is bound to arouse. If you are knowledgeable about the game, ready to do research, can reason well, obviously you're free to present your own alternative theory.
At the end of the day, as a fan I want to watch exciting games by great players on a level playing field that is fair to the participants and entertaining for the audience. Let me witness mesmerizing action that stretches my imagination on what humans can do. Let the players be empowered but not carried by the tools at their disposal. And let the audience retain their own views about who the GOAT is.
On March 18 2024 14:40 dedede wrote: Maru is #1 and apparently some people don't realize how competitive proleague was and how op zerg has been in LOTV. Maru is called the 4th race for reasons.
The funny thing is that foreign biased people on Twitter / Reddit don’t care that Rogue is #3 behind Maru, despite having a better resume depending on how you weight WC win vs 2nd place. They only care that Serral is behind Maru, while Serral wasn’t good enough to play the best players in the world for more than half of the game life
Rogue got « robbed » as much as Serral in terms of WCs wins vs no WCs wins (albeit WESG is the same prizepool as a WC) but it’s a KR player so nobody bat an eye
Very entertaining and we'll written article series, big thank you for Miz!
I'm from Finland, and a huge Serral fanboy ("boy", dammit, I'm 44 yrs old nerdy father) who's been following and playing SC thru it's whole history on and off. Who has zero disagreements with the article series. Just maybe different points of view.
Goat discussions in sports are tricky ones, just based on who weighs more what. Said here probably numerous times already.
Like Miz wrote (and I hope more Serral fans that got probably upset should pay attention to) that Serral is probably, and seen as most of his peers, closest to the most perfect player who's touched the game. I think so also, and ofcourse that's also debatable, different races make things nonlinear to judge and blablabla. Just valuing most the general concensus among those who understand the most of everything involved there.
So just by going with that, head to head results, and most importantly - my own fanbias, of course, Serral is no. 1, easily.
But most importantly, at the same time, I totally understand and zero disagree that Maru is no. 1 here. Seen thru the achievements and overall way longer history of greatness etc, I think also that he's well deserving no. 1. A player who's in the pantheon of the very few in the game. AND whose matches I'm every time most excited to watch!
Thanks to everyone involved still making content like this and keeping the game somewhat alive, that's meaning everyone still playing the game. So thank YOU.
On March 18 2024 14:40 dedede wrote: Maru is #1 and apparently some people don't realize how competitive proleague was and how op zerg has been in LOTV. Maru is called the 4th race for reasons.
The funny thing is that foreign biased people on Twitter / Reddit don’t care that Rogue is #3 behind Maru, despite having a better resume depending on how you weight WC win vs 2nd place. They only care that Serral is behind Maru, while Serral wasn’t good enough to play the best players in the world for more than half of the game life
Rogue got « robbed » as much as Serral in terms of WCs wins vs no WCs wins (albeit WESG is the same prizepool as a WC) but it’s a KR player so nobody bat an eye
Exactly. If serral were korean, he would never receive as much hype from casters and fanboys. The fact that many foreign biased casters called serral goat in 2019 will never not annoy me, especially considering that zerg has been op since 2017.
I can be "ok" with some fanboys being biased, but casters/commentators being biased is just a blatant lack of professionalism.
On March 18 2024 14:40 dedede wrote: Maru is called the 4th race for reasons.
sounds like "hype from casters and fanboys" too?
and the pseudo argument "zerg is op since 2017" is not really true. just look at GSL 2016 until now Zerg was never overrepresentative. on the contrary, there are quarterfinals without zergs. Compared to Terran. Zergs were overrepresentative in WCS, funnily enough neeb (toss) dominated here until serral took over in 2018.
On March 18 2024 15:46 Poopi wrote: Maru is #1 and apparently some people don't realize how competitive proleague was and how op zerg has been in LOTV. Maru is called the 4th race for reasons. The funny thing is that foreign biased people on Twitter / Reddit don’t care that Rogue is #3 behind Maru, despite having a better resume depending on how you weight WC win vs 2nd place. They only care that Serral is behind Maru, while Serral wasn’t good enough to play the best players in the world for more than half of the game life
Rogue got « robbed » as much as Serral in terms of WCs wins vs no WCs wins (albeit WESG is the same prizepool as a WC) but it’s a KR player so nobody bat an eye
Why should we care about Rogue that much ? You seriously claim that he should be ahead of Serral ? Or even Maru for that matter ? He is a very good player, but never has he been dominating or feeling like he is "invincible" or even best in the world. Yes, he is the most clutch player in the big tournament finals, but thats it. Its no small feat of course, but thats why he is nr. 3. Its maybe the best "reviewed" player on this whole list and is on the exact spot that 95% of people would put him on.
On March 18 2024 17:52 dedede wrote: Exactly. If serral were korean, he would never receive as much hype from casters and fanboys. The fact that many foreign biased casters called serral goat in 2019 will never not annoy me, especially considering that zerg has been op since 2017.
I can be "ok" with some fanboys being biased, but casters/commentators being biased is just a blatant lack of professionalism.
Thats just BS and assumptions. Why wouldnt foreign people cheer for foreign players ? Koreans were dominating this game like 8 years straight. Even so badly that the game needed to make areal restrictions to get a foreinger to win any trophies. Then became Serral, who basically changed the scene forever. Of course casters were hyped about that. He has been the top dog almost constantly for 6 years since then. He is favourite to win every tournament he enters and he has winning % of 70-80 against all players in the world. Were the GOAT-talks premature at 2018-2019 ? Yeah, propably they were. But everybody with two working eyes and a brain could see that if this continues, he will be the GOAT. In addition that same talk started even then among all other pros, Koreans included. Is all that stupid as well ? You guys were whining from the start that even he wasnt good enough for whatever reason from 2018 and still the excuses continue.
On March 18 2024 07:51 Coucou wrote: Crazy time to post this. Serral has been dominating the game completely the last four years Maru is #4 on http://aligulac.com/ Serral has 71,6% over all winrate and comparably Maru has 65.3%
On top of this Serral pretty much runs over Maru. The last result was 4-0 in the finals where they met
From 2017 Katowice has been the hardest tournament by far. Code S gsl used to be the top tournament in ancient times but if you look at the players there now there are just a handful that can even take single games off of Serral.
Serral is clearly currently the goat of sc2
Why should recent results be valued higher in an all time list. Maru also 3-0ed Serral multiple times
On March 18 2024 14:40 dedede wrote: Maru is #1 and apparently some people don't realize how competitive proleague was and how op zerg has been in LOTV. Maru is called the 4th race for reasons.
The funny thing is that foreign biased people on Twitter / Reddit don’t care that Rogue is #3 behind Maru, despite having a better resume depending on how you weight WC win vs 2nd place. They only care that Serral is behind Maru, while Serral wasn’t good enough to play the best players in the world for more than half of the game life
Rogue got « robbed » as much as Serral in terms of WCs wins vs no WCs wins (albeit WESG is the same prizepool as a WC) but it’s a KR player so nobody bat an eye
Exactly. If serral were korean, he would never receive as much hype from casters and fanboys. The fact that many foreign biased casters called serral goat in 2019 will never not annoy me, especially considering that zerg has been op since 2017.
I can be "ok" with some fanboys being biased, but casters/commentators being biased is just a blatant lack of professionalism.
Yeah the only reason some people are in "outrage" is because he's a foreigner. That's a fact. If Serral was korean some people would still consider him the Goat (because he definitely has a case) but they wouldn't be so fanboyish/immature about it. Especially not casters, there's no way Catz and Steadfast would make the posts they did in favor of korean xx being the Goat
On March 18 2024 07:51 Coucou wrote: Crazy time to post this. Serral has been dominating the game completely the last four years Maru is #4 on http://aligulac.com/ Serral has 71,6% over all winrate and comparably Maru has 65.3%
On top of this Serral pretty much runs over Maru. The last result was 4-0 in the finals where they met
From 2017 Katowice has been the hardest tournament by far. Code S gsl used to be the top tournament in ancient times but if you look at the players there now there are just a handful that can even take single games off of Serral.
Serral is clearly currently the goat of sc2
Why should recent results be valued higher in an all time list. Maru also 3-0ed Serral multiple times
I mean sure but you get to the point where Serral’s been at this level or close for 6, closing 7 years and it gets increasingly dubious to classify that as recency bias on the ‘recency’ aspect
The articles have been great fun to read - informative, interesting, well-written, albeit with one glaring strangeness, now that everything's concluded. Where is Dark? I feel like some manner of elaboration is owed to the fans who rightly notice how he eclipses several players in this list by the list's own - fun, but also outright mercurial - standards of 'greatness'. What happened? Is it not a little weird how a player widely speculated to be in the higher half of the list (before the release of the last few articles) ended up not making it at all? Hope there will be honorable mentions!
Agree to disagree on the final placements. Nice reads regardless! Curious to see the final piece "The GOAT list and how I accidentally forgot about Dark" and maybe a disclaimer how Maru's longevity is valued this high but then MVP is #4 and Dark is out
On March 18 2024 14:40 dedede wrote: Maru is #1 and apparently some people don't realize how competitive proleague was and how op zerg has been in LOTV. Maru is called the 4th race for reasons.
The funny thing is that foreign biased people on Twitter / Reddit don’t care that Rogue is #3 behind Maru, despite having a better resume depending on how you weight WC win vs 2nd place. They only care that Serral is behind Maru, while Serral wasn’t good enough to play the best players in the world for more than half of the game life
Rogue got « robbed » as much as Serral in terms of WCs wins vs no WCs wins (albeit WESG is the same prizepool as a WC) but it’s a KR player so nobody bat an eye
Exactly. If serral were korean, he would never receive as much hype from casters and fanboys. The fact that many foreign biased casters called serral goat in 2019 will never not annoy me, especially considering that zerg has been op since 2017.
I can be "ok" with some fanboys being biased, but casters/commentators being biased is just a blatant lack of professionalism.
Yeah the only reason some people are in "outrage" is because he's a foreigner. That's a fact. If Serral was korean some people would still consider him the Goat (because he definitely has a case) but they wouldn't be so fanboyish/immature about it. Especially not casters, there's no way Catz and Steadfast would make the posts they did in favor of korean xx being the Goat
there has never been a korean with the same dominance as serral, consistently 7.3k mmr while the 2nd and 3rd best players are sitting at 7k, a favorite vs anyone he faces
the only guy who had comparable periods where he felt untouchable was maybe innovation, but he fumbled so many times and then lost to weak players or just didnt practice for a few months, for whatever reason lost his aura
serral has been consistently dominant for 6 years, with really high peaks, but even during his 'lows', he still looks like the best player in the world
This feels like putting NaDa over Flash because NaDa was around for longer, whereas this is just wrong. Serral is the strongest and has an aura of invincibility that no other player has.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
On March 18 2024 14:40 dedede wrote: Maru is #1 and apparently some people don't realize how competitive proleague was and how op zerg has been in LOTV. Maru is called the 4th race for reasons.
The funny thing is that foreign biased people on Twitter / Reddit don’t care that Rogue is #3 behind Maru, despite having a better resume depending on how you weight WC win vs 2nd place. They only care that Serral is behind Maru, while Serral wasn’t good enough to play the best players in the world for more than half of the game life
Rogue got « robbed » as much as Serral in terms of WCs wins vs no WCs wins (albeit WESG is the same prizepool as a WC) but it’s a KR player so nobody bat an eye
Exactly. If serral were korean, he would never receive as much hype from casters and fanboys. The fact that many foreign biased casters called serral goat in 2019 will never not annoy me, especially considering that zerg has been op since 2017.
I can be "ok" with some fanboys being biased, but casters/commentators being biased is just a blatant lack of professionalism.
Yeah the only reason some people are in "outrage" is because he's a foreigner. That's a fact. If Serral was korean some people would still consider him the Goat (because he definitely has a case) but they wouldn't be so fanboyish/immature about it. Especially not casters, there's no way Catz and Steadfast would make the posts they did in favor of korean xx being the Goat
there has never been a korean with the same dominance as serral, consistently 7.3k mmr while the 2nd and 3rd best players are sitting at 7k, a favorite vs anyone he faces
the only guy who had comparable periods where he felt untouchable was maybe innovation, but he fumbled so many times and then lost to weak players or just didnt practice for a few months, for whatever reason lost his aura
serral has been consistently dominant for 6 years, with really high peaks, but even during his 'lows', he still looks like the best player in the world
Exactly, the question wouldn't even get asked if a Korean had reached the finals of more than every 2nd big tournament he participated in and won more than every 3rd for the last 6 years.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
hhh,However, in the eyes of many people, MARU can hardly be considered a GOAT without a world champion
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
Do you know? in china Many people think that Serral is the highest mountain in SC2 and Maru is the longest river in SC2, and many people think they should be tied for first place
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
You should know that two years ago, Serral also defeated Dark, Rogue, Reynor,No one can guarantee that they will remain number one in the world for a long time in all their confrontations, even if it is MARU
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
Well it basically boils down to this; Do you favour more the longer and succesful career, or do you value the shorter, but more dominant one ? Miz favours the longer career and Kespa era. I can accept that. But how on earth does that compare to Dark not being in the top 10 ? Same as how is MVP on the 4th place ? The logic in that doesnt add up.
Also, if we look Marus notable tournament finishes from the start of this post, we can see that most of his notable results come after 2018, from which Serral has also been on his peak. Of course Maru has had other success before that too (Pro League), but still the majority of his trophycase including GSL victories have come from the start of 2018. But of course, Maru has had a longer career and has been in a top for a long time. So the career longevity on top goes to Maru.
Now we come to the second point, which is GSL vs World Championships + of course other success in weekenders. Propably we can agree that the first 4 GSL:s were still very competetive and those were very impressive wins. The other 3, while of course being nice wins, cant be accounted with same prestige as those original 4. Serral has 3 WC:s which have had top competition also. Additionally Serral has won a lot more weekenders, which have had variable difficulty of opponents compared to Maru. Of course Maru hasnt had opportunity to participate in them all in the first place, but thats just how the rules have been. Anyhow I think we can generally say that Serral has been more succesful in the tournaments.
Then lastly, the third point. The amount of dominance and winning % in general. Also you can take in account the matches between these candidates as part of the evidence. And this point goes to Serral since all the data has been presented here and in general Serral has been the most dominant player for last 6 years. Of course there are little breaks on that timeline, but still that is something that nobody has done before. He has been the favourite to win every tournament he enters since 2019, and thats just impressive in itself.
Of course there are nuances and preferences that each individual can value differently. But it starts to be harder and harder to make a solid case for the claim that Maru is the GOAT, especially as he seems to get stomped by Serral in most of the tournaments. And what WombaT said earlier; All the time here people here accuse others for recency bias, although Serral has been at the top for 6 years. Its getting old already (pun intended).
On March 19 2024 01:09 Starcloud wrote: Of course there are nuances and preferences that each individual can value differently. But it starts to be harder and harder to make a solid case for the claim that Maru is the GOAT, especially as he seems to get stomped by Serral in most of the tournaments. And what WombaT said earlier; All the time here people here accuse others for recency bias, although Serral has been at the top for 6 years. Its getting old already (pun intended).
People say recency bias because there are even sc2 casters saying Serral is number 1 because he beat Maru at IEM. It's like they didn't watch sc2 before 2018.
People are also saying Maru has few achievements before then, which just shows they're reading Liquipedia results and never watched Proleague or Korean sc2 during Kespa. Because Maru was literally the best Starleague player of HotS when SC2 was as it's deepest competitively, and is probably the best Proleague player SC2 ever had.
He also won the MVP of the most recent World Team League, 10 years after first Proleague award). People not caring about longevity is one thing, but you can't deny that other people might appreciate it more.
Serral has his case of being the most dominant and best international player, but Maru has his case to be the best Teamleague and Starleague player, having the greatest longevity, and the best wins against bad balance. To say he doesn't have a solid case at all is silly.
On March 18 2024 17:52 dedede wrote: Exactly. If serral were korean, he would never receive as much hype from casters and fanboys. The fact that many foreign biased casters called serral goat in 2019 will never not annoy me, especially considering that zerg has been op since 2017.
I can be "ok" with some fanboys being biased, but casters/commentators being biased is just a blatant lack of professionalism.
If Serral were Korean, I'd actually lower his GOAT status because it would mean he was unable to win a GSL in his last decade of playing lol. And if that were the case, it'd lower his seed into tournaments and make all his runs harder.
Since he's not, I still think he has a vaild case for #1.
On March 19 2024 01:09 Starcloud wrote: Of course there are nuances and preferences that each individual can value differently. But it starts to be harder and harder to make a solid case for the claim that Maru is the GOAT, especially as he seems to get stomped by Serral in most of the tournaments. And what WombaT said earlier; All the time here people here accuse others for recency bias, although Serral has been at the top for 6 years. Its getting old already (pun intended).
People say recency bias because there are even sc2 casters saying Serral is number 1 because he beat Maru at IEM. It's like they didn't watch sc2 before 2018.
People are also saying Maru has few achievements before then, which just shows they're reading Liquipedia results and never watched Proleague or Korean sc2 during Kespa. Because Maru was literally the best Starleague player of HotS when SC2 was as it's deepest competitively, and is probably the best Proleague player SC2 ever had.
He also won the MVP of the most recent World Team League, 10 years after first Proleague award). People not caring about longevity is one thing, but you can't deny that other people might appreciate it more.
Serral has his case of being the most dominant and best international player, but Maru has his case to be the best Teamleague and Starleague player, having the greatest longevity, and the best wins against bad balance. To say he doesn't have a solid case at all is silly.
If other people appreciate longevity more, then MVP should not be #4 above Innovation and Dark should not be excluded from a top 10. There's no way to justify putting Maru above Serral if you're going to put MVP above Innovation and Dark. That's why people are saying this list's ranking is bogus. Swap Innovation to above MVP, and put Dark next to Inno/MVP (above or below is fine), and then you can put Maru at #1.
It's really not fair to accuse people of not watching SC2, as if they aren't allowed to have their own opinions. People on TL are clearly putting much more value into Starleagues and Proleagues, but others put less. If a caster feels that Serral's play is great and that beating Maru in a WC has some strong metaphorical meaning, then that's valid. A lot of people see it the same way too. SC2 is on its twilight years now, and we had a relatively strong Maru (coming off 2 GSL wins in 2023) vs a Serral starting a new peak (the most dominant we've ever seen in any SC2 era). Maru got 4-0'd and went home with $80k less.
Even if Maru performed really well in HotS, perhaps better than if a hypothetical Serral tried to compete in KR during HotS, Serral is just outperforming Maru 2018+ for 6 years now. In the now, in the most recent and current era of SC2, Serral is above Maru. You can call it recency bias, but I'd just say that it's reasonable to look at the newest state of things. If a player who continues competing gets eclipsed by another player, then that player has surpassed them. We can look back at the past results before they were surpassed, but the current day is more indicative of the future. Unlike physical sports where your age plays a huge part in your capability, thankfully in this case we don't have to worry about that, as Serral and Maru are nearly the same age anyways.
On March 19 2024 01:09 Starcloud wrote: Of course there are nuances and preferences that each individual can value differently. But it starts to be harder and harder to make a solid case for the claim that Maru is the GOAT, especially as he seems to get stomped by Serral in most of the tournaments. And what WombaT said earlier; All the time here people here accuse others for recency bias, although Serral has been at the top for 6 years. Its getting old already (pun intended).
People say recency bias because there are even sc2 casters saying Serral is number 1 because he beat Maru at IEM. It's like they didn't watch sc2 before 2018.
People are also saying Maru has few achievements before then, which just shows they're reading Liquipedia results and never watched Proleague or Korean sc2 during Kespa. Because Maru was literally the best Starleague player of HotS when SC2 was as it's deepest competitively, and is probably the best Proleague player SC2 ever had.
He also won the MVP of the most recent World Team League, 10 years after first Proleague award). People not caring about longevity is one thing, but you can't deny that other people might appreciate it more.
Serral has his case of being the most dominant and best international player, but Maru has his case to be the best Teamleague and Starleague player, having the greatest longevity, and the best wins against bad balance. To say he doesn't have a solid case at all is silly.
If other people appreciate longevity more, then MVP should not be #4 above Innovation and Dark should not be excluded from a top 10. There's no way to justify putting Maru above Serral if you're going to put MVP above Innovation and Dark. That's why people are saying this list's ranking is bogus. Swap Innovation to above MVP, and put Dark next to Inno/MVP (above or below is fine), and then you can put Maru at #1.
It's really not fair to accuse people of not watching SC2, as if they aren't allowed to have their own opinions. People on TL are clearly putting much more value into Starleagues and Proleagues, but others put less. If a caster feels that Serral's play is great and that beating Maru in a WC has some strong metaphorical meaning, then that's valid. A lot of people see it the same way too. SC2 is on its twilight years now, and we had a relatively strong Maru (coming off 2 GSL wins in 2023) vs a Serral starting a new peak (the most dominant we've ever seen in any SC2 era). Maru got 4-0'd and went home with $80k less.
Even if Maru performed really well in HotS, perhaps better than if a hypothetical Serral tried to compete in KR during HotS, Serral is just outperforming Maru 2018+ for 6 years now. In the now, in the most recent and current era of SC2, Serral is above Maru. You can call it recency bias, but I'd just say that it's reasonable to look at the newest state of things. If a player who continues competing gets eclipsed by another player, then that player has surpassed them. We can look back at the past results before they were surpassed, but the current day is more indicative of the future. Unlike physical sports where your age plays a huge part in your capability, thankfully in this case we don't have to worry about that, as Serral and Maru are nearly the same age anyways.
Well, yeah I agree, there are inconsistencies with the list, you can extend that to TY being above Rain but Dark being below soO. But why the outrage only now when Serral gets placed below another player? We all know why, because he's a foreigner.
People are certainly allowed to have their opinion and Serral being #1 is an absolute legitimate opinion, but calling the list "embarassing" or saying there's no way Maru is above Serral is stupid. If someone doesn't see how both players have a good claim to be #1 then yeah, I think they are biased and/or are not watching sc2
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
He isn’t always the best player, it mostly depends on which Maru shows up. But since Maru is getting a bit old he sometimes slip up a bit. Peak / prime Maru is the best player to have touched the game though, he is basically playing above the human skill ceiling at times it feels like
On March 19 2024 01:09 Starcloud wrote: Of course there are nuances and preferences that each individual can value differently. But it starts to be harder and harder to make a solid case for the claim that Maru is the GOAT, especially as he seems to get stomped by Serral in most of the tournaments. And what WombaT said earlier; All the time here people here accuse others for recency bias, although Serral has been at the top for 6 years. Its getting old already (pun intended).
People say recency bias because there are even sc2 casters saying Serral is number 1 because he beat Maru at IEM. It's like they didn't watch sc2 before 2018.
People are also saying Maru has few achievements before then, which just shows they're reading Liquipedia results and never watched Proleague or Korean sc2 during Kespa. Because Maru was literally the best Starleague player of HotS when SC2 was as it's deepest competitively, and is probably the best Proleague player SC2 ever had.
He also won the MVP of the most recent World Team League, 10 years after first Proleague award). People not caring about longevity is one thing, but you can't deny that other people might appreciate it more.
Serral has his case of being the most dominant and best international player, but Maru has his case to be the best Teamleague and Starleague player, having the greatest longevity, and the best wins against bad balance. To say he doesn't have a solid case at all is silly.
If other people appreciate longevity more, then MVP should not be #4 above Innovation and Dark should not be excluded from a top 10. There's no way to justify putting Maru above Serral if you're going to put MVP above Innovation and Dark. That's why people are saying this list's ranking is bogus. Swap Innovation to above MVP, and put Dark next to Inno/MVP (above or below is fine), and then you can put Maru at #1.
It's really not fair to accuse people of not watching SC2, as if they aren't allowed to have their own opinions. People on TL are clearly putting much more value into Starleagues and Proleagues, but others put less. If a caster feels that Serral's play is great and that beating Maru in a WC has some strong metaphorical meaning, then that's valid. A lot of people see it the same way too. SC2 is on its twilight years now, and we had a relatively strong Maru (coming off 2 GSL wins in 2023) vs a Serral starting a new peak (the most dominant we've ever seen in any SC2 era). Maru got 4-0'd and went home with $80k less.
Even if Maru performed really well in HotS, perhaps better than if a hypothetical Serral tried to compete in KR during HotS, Serral is just outperforming Maru 2018+ for 6 years now. In the now, in the most recent and current era of SC2, Serral is above Maru. You can call it recency bias, but I'd just say that it's reasonable to look at the newest state of things. If a player who continues competing gets eclipsed by another player, then that player has surpassed them. We can look back at the past results before they were surpassed, but the current day is more indicative of the future. Unlike physical sports where your age plays a huge part in your capability, thankfully in this case we don't have to worry about that, as Serral and Maru are nearly the same age anyways.
Well, yeah I agree, there are inconsistencies with the list, you can extend that to TY being above Rain but Dark being below soO. But why the outrage only now when Serral gets placed below another player? We all know why, because he's a foreigner.
Hey now, I was outraged about INno's placement and Dark's exclusion long before #1 and #2 came out!
On March 18 2024 14:40 dedede wrote: Maru is called the 4th race for reasons.
sounds like "hype from casters and fanboys" too?
and the pseudo argument "zerg is op since 2017" is not really true. just look at GSL 2016 until now Zerg was never overrepresentative. on the contrary, there are quarterfinals without zergs. Compared to Terran. Zergs were overrepresentative in WCS, funnily enough neeb (toss) dominated here until serral took over in 2018.
Nah it's not hype from casters, it's hype from my own 2018/2019 GSL watching experience.
"Zerg has been op since 2017" is as true as the fact zergs winning 9 out of 11 WCS/IEM Katowice since 2017, I can be even bothered bring up 2019 the year of zerg and how many ZvZ finals there were: Since 2017 WCS Zerg x3 (rogue/serral/dark) IEM Katowice Zerg x6 (rogue/soo/reynor/serral) Terran x2 (TY/oli)
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
He isn’t always the best player, it mostly depends on which Maru shows up. But since Maru is getting a bit old he sometimes slip up a bit. Peak / prime Maru is the best player to have touched the game though, he is basically playing above the human skill ceiling at times it feels like
What do you make of Maru's statement at 2023 Katowice that he was playing the best he's ever played?
This is a very recent argument I've started to read on the forums - that Maru is somehow past his prime. The guy is literally continuing to dominate Korea and "fail" (for his high standards) at international tournaments - he's been doing that for 6 years now. If Maru, who continues to wreck face against everyone not named Serral, is past his prime, so is Serral, because in 2018 Serral literally didn't lose to anyone for a year.
Interesting that actually winning the most world championships and by far the most premier events, and having the most dominant win record and head-to-head stats vs every player overall, isn't actually enough to be the greatest.
Also the reasoning that accomplishing far more than others have managed, and doing it in LESS time time than the others managed to achieve their more meagre accomplishments, is counted as a black mark against Serral is... also interesting. If only Serral had accomplished all of his superior achievements over a 12 year period rather than just a 7 year one, THEN his uncontestable combined world championships and premier events tally could actually be counted and finally he could be annointed as the true GOAT. Sad.
I will admit Maru has been in the scene longer, and thus 'wins' according to the singular rationale of the article writer.
I will also admit that Maru is definitely the best at winning regional tournaments where Serral is not eligible to participate.
I believe those are the only two metrics where Maru actually beats Serral, and so on that basis, all hail Maru the GOAT!
there has never been a korean with the same dominance as serral, consistently 7.3k mmr while the 2nd and 3rd best players are sitting at 7k, a favorite vs anyone he faces
the only guy who had comparable periods where he felt untouchable was maybe innovation, but he fumbled so many times and then lost to weak players or just didnt practice for a few months, for whatever reason lost his aura
serral has been consistently dominant for 6 years, with really high peaks, but even during his 'lows', he still looks like the best player in the world
Ladder doesn't mean anything in the GOAT discussion. In 2023's ladder season 3, the second highest MMR belonged to Elazer. And for what it's worth (nothing), Maru currently has a higher MMR than Serral as of posting.
Also you act as if Serral wins every tournament. Last year's Katowice, where Maru got second place, Serral was eliminated in the ro8.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
He isn’t always the best player, it mostly depends on which Maru shows up. But since Maru is getting a bit old he sometimes slip up a bit. Peak / prime Maru is the best player to have touched the game though, he is basically playing above the human skill ceiling at times it feels like
What do you make of Maru's statement at 2023 Katowice that he was playing the best he's ever played?
This is a very recent argument I've started to read on the forums - that Maru is somehow past his prime. The guy is literally continuing to dominate Korea and "fail" (for his high standards) at international tournaments - he's been doing that for 6 years now.
In the recent interview with Crank Maru said it makes no difference to him if the tournament is in korea or not - his form only depends on the condition of his shoulder issues.
Under this assumption both can be true, that Maru sometimes plays the best he's ever played and othertimes slips up more then when he was younger and had less issues with his shoulder
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
He isn’t always the best player, it mostly depends on which Maru shows up. But since Maru is getting a bit old he sometimes slip up a bit. Peak / prime Maru is the best player to have touched the game though, he is basically playing above the human skill ceiling at times it feels like
What do you make of Maru's statement at 2023 Katowice that he was playing the best he's ever played?
This is a very recent argument I've started to read on the forums - that Maru is somehow past his prime. The guy is literally continuing to dominate Korea and "fail" (for his high standards) at international tournaments - he's been doing that for 6 years now. If Maru, who continues to wreck face against everyone not named Serral, is past his prime, so is Serral, because in 2018 Serral literally didn't lose to anyone for a year.
He is still playing scaringly well (his game on radhuset station vs Serral was some dark magic Terran play), I was mostly talking about mechanical skill, not overall skill. He has gained experience since HotS in several departments, but there is the shoulder issue as mentioned above, and a very slight decay mechanically at this age (which might or might not be preventable, athletes nowadays last longer than in the past, I am pretty sure esport athletes will follow a similar path)
So he is not as consistent as in his prime in maintaining top skill across a tournament
Serral on the other hand is the best at playing near his best consistently
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
He isn’t always the best player, it mostly depends on which Maru shows up. But since Maru is getting a bit old he sometimes slip up a bit. Peak / prime Maru is the best player to have touched the game though, he is basically playing above the human skill ceiling at times it feels like
Weird. I checked the same source you did and it said "Prime Serral is a nearly unbeatable force of nature, best who ever touched the game by a mile and that is without ever being trained in a korean teamhouse". You did check "my own unprovable opinion" aswell, didn't you?
And I know, you will say "yeah, but Zerg is OP" and then proof that Zerg is OP by saying "because Maru can't win". And why can Maru not win? Because of Zerg OP, duh. Which is a perfect circlejerk no doubt, but it hardly holds up in this shitty thing called reality mate...
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
He isn’t always the best player, it mostly depends on which Maru shows up. But since Maru is getting a bit old he sometimes slip up a bit. Peak / prime Maru is the best player to have touched the game though, he is basically playing above the human skill ceiling at times it feels like
What do you make of Maru's statement at 2023 Katowice that he was playing the best he's ever played?
This is a very recent argument I've started to read on the forums - that Maru is somehow past his prime. The guy is literally continuing to dominate Korea and "fail" (for his high standards) at international tournaments - he's been doing that for 6 years now.
In the recent interview with Crank Maru said it makes no difference to him if the tournament is in korea or not - his form only depends on the condition of his shoulder issues.
Under this assumption both can be true, that Maru sometimes plays the best he's ever played and othertimes slips up more then when he was younger and had less issues with his shoulder
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
He isn’t always the best player, it mostly depends on which Maru shows up. But since Maru is getting a bit old he sometimes slip up a bit. Peak / prime Maru is the best player to have touched the game though, he is basically playing above the human skill ceiling at times it feels like
What do you make of Maru's statement at 2023 Katowice that he was playing the best he's ever played?
This is a very recent argument I've started to read on the forums - that Maru is somehow past his prime. The guy is literally continuing to dominate Korea and "fail" (for his high standards) at international tournaments - he's been doing that for 6 years now. If Maru, who continues to wreck face against everyone not named Serral, is past his prime, so is Serral, because in 2018 Serral literally didn't lose to anyone for a year.
He is still playing scaringly well (his game on radhuset station vs Serral was some dark magic Terran play), I was mostly talking about mechanical skill, not overall skill. He has gained experience since HotS in several departments, but there is the shoulder issue as mentioned above, and a very slight decay mechanically at this age (which might or might not be preventable, athletes nowadays last longer than in the past, I am pretty sure esport athletes will follow a similar path)
So he is not as consistent as in his prime in maintaining top skill across a tournament
Serral on the other hand is the best at playing near his best consistently
Interesting point, but has he ever said that his shoulder issues are getting worse with time or are you both just assuming that? Because my point is that if Maru had gone on to win Katowice 2024 I'm pretty sure we'd be clearly calling him still in his peak years, so you can't say he's past his prime just because he lost to Serral. There's no reason to actually think he's past his prime. His performances the last year are not really any different than any years before. It's the same pattern.
It's the same Maru as forever. He wins in Korea and does extraordinarily well (but does not win) internationally.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
He isn’t always the best player, it mostly depends on which Maru shows up. But since Maru is getting a bit old he sometimes slip up a bit. Peak / prime Maru is the best player to have touched the game though, he is basically playing above the human skill ceiling at times it feels like
What do you make of Maru's statement at 2023 Katowice that he was playing the best he's ever played?
This is a very recent argument I've started to read on the forums - that Maru is somehow past his prime. The guy is literally continuing to dominate Korea and "fail" (for his high standards) at international tournaments - he's been doing that for 6 years now.
In the recent interview with Crank Maru said it makes no difference to him if the tournament is in korea or not - his form only depends on the condition of his shoulder issues.
Under this assumption both can be true, that Maru sometimes plays the best he's ever played and othertimes slips up more then when he was younger and had less issues with his shoulder
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
He isn’t always the best player, it mostly depends on which Maru shows up. But since Maru is getting a bit old he sometimes slip up a bit. Peak / prime Maru is the best player to have touched the game though, he is basically playing above the human skill ceiling at times it feels like
What do you make of Maru's statement at 2023 Katowice that he was playing the best he's ever played?
This is a very recent argument I've started to read on the forums - that Maru is somehow past his prime. The guy is literally continuing to dominate Korea and "fail" (for his high standards) at international tournaments - he's been doing that for 6 years now. If Maru, who continues to wreck face against everyone not named Serral, is past his prime, so is Serral, because in 2018 Serral literally didn't lose to anyone for a year.
He is still playing scaringly well (his game on radhuset station vs Serral was some dark magic Terran play), I was mostly talking about mechanical skill, not overall skill. He has gained experience since HotS in several departments, but there is the shoulder issue as mentioned above, and a very slight decay mechanically at this age (which might or might not be preventable, athletes nowadays last longer than in the past, I am pretty sure esport athletes will follow a similar path)
So he is not as consistent as in his prime in maintaining top skill across a tournament
Serral on the other hand is the best at playing near his best consistently
Interesting point, but has he ever said that his shoulder issues are getting worse with time or are you both just assuming that? Because my point is that if Maru had gone on to win Katowice 2024 I'm pretty sure we'd be clearly calling him still in his peak years, so you can't say he's past his prime just because he lost to Serral. There's no reason to actually think he's past his prime. His performances the last year are not really any different than any years before. It's the same pattern.
It's the same Maru as forever. He wins in Korea and does extraordinarily well (but does not win) internationally.
Yeah, in 2020/21 (I think) he said that his shoulder issues have gotten worse and he was seeking treatment for them and that's why he dropped out of a couple tournaments during that time
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
He isn’t always the best player, it mostly depends on which Maru shows up. But since Maru is getting a bit old he sometimes slip up a bit. Peak / prime Maru is the best player to have touched the game though, he is basically playing above the human skill ceiling at times it feels like
What do you make of Maru's statement at 2023 Katowice that he was playing the best he's ever played?
This is a very recent argument I've started to read on the forums - that Maru is somehow past his prime. The guy is literally continuing to dominate Korea and "fail" (for his high standards) at international tournaments - he's been doing that for 6 years now.
In the recent interview with Crank Maru said it makes no difference to him if the tournament is in korea or not - his form only depends on the condition of his shoulder issues.
Under this assumption both can be true, that Maru sometimes plays the best he's ever played and othertimes slips up more then when he was younger and had less issues with his shoulder
On March 19 2024 03:53 Poopi wrote:
On March 19 2024 03:42 Pandain wrote:
On March 19 2024 03:00 Poopi wrote:
On March 19 2024 00:45 goldensail wrote:
On March 18 2024 23:45 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
He isn’t always the best player, it mostly depends on which Maru shows up. But since Maru is getting a bit old he sometimes slip up a bit. Peak / prime Maru is the best player to have touched the game though, he is basically playing above the human skill ceiling at times it feels like
What do you make of Maru's statement at 2023 Katowice that he was playing the best he's ever played?
This is a very recent argument I've started to read on the forums - that Maru is somehow past his prime. The guy is literally continuing to dominate Korea and "fail" (for his high standards) at international tournaments - he's been doing that for 6 years now. If Maru, who continues to wreck face against everyone not named Serral, is past his prime, so is Serral, because in 2018 Serral literally didn't lose to anyone for a year.
He is still playing scaringly well (his game on radhuset station vs Serral was some dark magic Terran play), I was mostly talking about mechanical skill, not overall skill. He has gained experience since HotS in several departments, but there is the shoulder issue as mentioned above, and a very slight decay mechanically at this age (which might or might not be preventable, athletes nowadays last longer than in the past, I am pretty sure esport athletes will follow a similar path)
So he is not as consistent as in his prime in maintaining top skill across a tournament
Serral on the other hand is the best at playing near his best consistently
Interesting point, but has he ever said that his shoulder issues are getting worse with time or are you both just assuming that? Because my point is that if Maru had gone on to win Katowice 2024 I'm pretty sure we'd be clearly calling him still in his peak years, so you can't say he's past his prime just because he lost to Serral. There's no reason to actually think he's past his prime. His performances the last year are not really any different than any years before. It's the same pattern.
It's the same Maru as forever. He wins in Korea and does extraordinarily well (but does not win) internationally.
Yeah, in 2020/21 (I think) he said that his shoulder issues have gotten worse and he was seeking treatment for them and that's why he dropped out of a couple tournaments during that time
Super fair, but again I'll highlight that I'm not actually sure his performances are any worse (or better) than they've been historically.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
He isn’t always the best player, it mostly depends on which Maru shows up. But since Maru is getting a bit old he sometimes slip up a bit. Peak / prime Maru is the best player to have touched the game though, he is basically playing above the human skill ceiling at times it feels like
What do you make of Maru's statement at 2023 Katowice that he was playing the best he's ever played?
This is a very recent argument I've started to read on the forums - that Maru is somehow past his prime. The guy is literally continuing to dominate Korea and "fail" (for his high standards) at international tournaments - he's been doing that for 6 years now.
In the recent interview with Crank Maru said it makes no difference to him if the tournament is in korea or not - his form only depends on the condition of his shoulder issues.
Under this assumption both can be true, that Maru sometimes plays the best he's ever played and othertimes slips up more then when he was younger and had less issues with his shoulder
On March 19 2024 03:53 Poopi wrote:
On March 19 2024 03:42 Pandain wrote:
On March 19 2024 03:00 Poopi wrote:
On March 19 2024 00:45 goldensail wrote:
On March 18 2024 23:45 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
He isn’t always the best player, it mostly depends on which Maru shows up. But since Maru is getting a bit old he sometimes slip up a bit. Peak / prime Maru is the best player to have touched the game though, he is basically playing above the human skill ceiling at times it feels like
What do you make of Maru's statement at 2023 Katowice that he was playing the best he's ever played?
This is a very recent argument I've started to read on the forums - that Maru is somehow past his prime. The guy is literally continuing to dominate Korea and "fail" (for his high standards) at international tournaments - he's been doing that for 6 years now. If Maru, who continues to wreck face against everyone not named Serral, is past his prime, so is Serral, because in 2018 Serral literally didn't lose to anyone for a year.
He is still playing scaringly well (his game on radhuset station vs Serral was some dark magic Terran play), I was mostly talking about mechanical skill, not overall skill. He has gained experience since HotS in several departments, but there is the shoulder issue as mentioned above, and a very slight decay mechanically at this age (which might or might not be preventable, athletes nowadays last longer than in the past, I am pretty sure esport athletes will follow a similar path)
So he is not as consistent as in his prime in maintaining top skill across a tournament
Serral on the other hand is the best at playing near his best consistently
Interesting point, but has he ever said that his shoulder issues are getting worse with time or are you both just assuming that? Because my point is that if Maru had gone on to win Katowice 2024 I'm pretty sure we'd be clearly calling him still in his peak years, so you can't say he's past his prime just because he lost to Serral. There's no reason to actually think he's past his prime. His performances the last year are not really any different than any years before. It's the same pattern.
It's the same Maru as forever. He wins in Korea and does extraordinarily well (but does not win) internationally.
Yeah, in 2020/21 (I think) he said that his shoulder issues have gotten worse and he was seeking treatment for them and that's why he dropped out of a couple tournaments during that time
Super fair, but again I'll highlight that I'm not actually sure his performances are any worse (or better) than they've been historically.
That might just be because the competition has gotten worse though. There are way less championship-tier players in korea so it's just easier to get results. Dark also said he's playing worse than he used to despite continuing to be a top 3 korean.
If everyone is playing worse you get the same results despite playing worse
I appreciate anyone with the passion for the game to put a lot of work into a project such as this, and reading the recaps was enjoyable individually for nostalgia, so I hate to speak negatively on this. With that said, I still just don't see any consistent criteria into how the ranking was decided, with some obvious contradictions throughout, which makes it hard to take seriously. I'm fine with differing opinions as long as things remain consistent, but this just isn't it. This is unfortunate because instead of feeling a sense of wonder going through the list, I'm ultimately just left with a sour taste in my mouth.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
He isn’t always the best player, it mostly depends on which Maru shows up. But since Maru is getting a bit old he sometimes slip up a bit. Peak / prime Maru is the best player to have touched the game though, he is basically playing above the human skill ceiling at times it feels like
What do you make of Maru's statement at 2023 Katowice that he was playing the best he's ever played?
This is a very recent argument I've started to read on the forums - that Maru is somehow past his prime. The guy is literally continuing to dominate Korea and "fail" (for his high standards) at international tournaments - he's been doing that for 6 years now. If Maru, who continues to wreck face against everyone not named Serral, is past his prime, so is Serral, because in 2018 Serral literally didn't lose to anyone for a year.
He is still playing scaringly well (his game on radhuset station vs Serral was some dark magic Terran play), I was mostly talking about mechanical skill, not overall skill. He has gained experience since HotS in several departments, but there is the shoulder issue as mentioned above, and a very slight decay mechanically at this age (which might or might not be preventable, athletes nowadays last longer than in the past, I am pretty sure esport athletes will follow a similar path)
So he is not as consistent as in his prime in maintaining top skill across a tournament
Serral on the other hand is the best at playing near his best consistently
Actually rewatched the VoD earlier, plan to actually get the replays and properly have a sit down. The level of both players is absolutely insane in that set, every trick in the Zerg book almost, employed with regularity and Maru somehow batting them off. By and large both almost insta-pulling workers when harassed, as things are going on in 3/4 other places. The kind of thing that even other top players start to let slip in such a relentless showdown.
It’s a shame the map is well, ‘not ideal’ for Terran which leaves something of a sour taste, and going pick first over veto first is daft.
If you had a 7 game slugfest of that calibre, wow the long awaited Serral versus Maru final might have lived up to the hype!
I think Serral is a bit more consistent in bringing something close to his A-game in recent times, but I also think part of his success is just scraping wins even when he is off. And when he does have someone beat him it’s rarely by more than a set. It gives you a hell of a platform to consistently place, and also that little mental edge over your opponent who likely knows they’ve got to play their absolute best to even have a chance, and still might lose.
Maru just doesn’t seem to have that ability to really dig it out when he’s not able to straight-up outplay his opponent at times in the last couple of years at least. It’s like when it comes down to a game of nerves, he’s the first to blink.
Perhaps the physical issues blend in, impact how he can sustain himself, or even just the doubt they can induce, but Maru’s issue in these big WCs for quite a while now has been mental IMO. And not in the sense of choking or making big mechanical mistakes, but making bad decisions. Be those BO choices, or tactical errors that he just doesn’t make when he’s really on it.
Note - I’m talking relative to Maru’s level, and talking arguably the two GOAT candidates and their relative claims. It’s a much harsher lens, obviously Maru has plenty of clutch performances and times he outthought as well as outfought his opponents over the years.
It also might be the injuries that catch up on day 3 of these big tournaments from stress/playing a lot or simply yeah he's a bit inconsistent. There have been multiple tournaments where Maru is on fire, gets to the ro4 or whatever the case is, and then the next day you get the Maru who just can't seem to play up to his standard. Its almost like Space Jam when the monstars takes the players talent lol.
He's said himself recently there's days where he just doesn't feel fast or his hands don't listen to his brain.
On March 19 2024 01:09 Starcloud wrote: Of course there are nuances and preferences that each individual can value differently. But it starts to be harder and harder to make a solid case for the claim that Maru is the GOAT, especially as he seems to get stomped by Serral in most of the tournaments. And what WombaT said earlier; All the time here people here accuse others for recency bias, although Serral has been at the top for 6 years. Its getting old already (pun intended).
People say recency bias because there are even sc2 casters saying Serral is number 1 because he beat Maru at IEM. It's like they didn't watch sc2 before 2018.
People are also saying Maru has few achievements before then, which just shows they're reading Liquipedia results and never watched Proleague or Korean sc2 during Kespa. Because Maru was literally the best Starleague player of HotS when SC2 was as it's deepest competitively, and is probably the best Proleague player SC2 ever had.
He also won the MVP of the most recent World Team League, 10 years after first Proleague award). People not caring about longevity is one thing, but you can't deny that other people might appreciate it more.
Serral has his case of being the most dominant and best international player, but Maru has his case to be the best Teamleague and Starleague player, having the greatest longevity, and the best wins against bad balance. To say he doesn't have a solid case at all is silly.
If other people appreciate longevity more, then MVP should not be #4 above Innovation and Dark should not be excluded from a top 10. There's no way to justify putting Maru above Serral if you're going to put MVP above Innovation and Dark. That's why people are saying this list's ranking is bogus. Swap Innovation to above MVP, and put Dark next to Inno/MVP (above or below is fine), and then you can put Maru at #1.
It's really not fair to accuse people of not watching SC2, as if they aren't allowed to have their own opinions. People on TL are clearly putting much more value into Starleagues and Proleagues, but others put less. If a caster feels that Serral's play is great and that beating Maru in a WC has some strong metaphorical meaning, then that's valid. A lot of people see it the same way too. SC2 is on its twilight years now, and we had a relatively strong Maru (coming off 2 GSL wins in 2023) vs a Serral starting a new peak (the most dominant we've ever seen in any SC2 era). Maru got 4-0'd and went home with $80k less.
Even if Maru performed really well in HotS, perhaps better than if a hypothetical Serral tried to compete in KR during HotS, Serral is just outperforming Maru 2018+ for 6 years now. In the now, in the most recent and current era of SC2, Serral is above Maru. You can call it recency bias, but I'd just say that it's reasonable to look at the newest state of things. If a player who continues competing gets eclipsed by another player, then that player has surpassed them. We can look back at the past results before they were surpassed, but the current day is more indicative of the future. Unlike physical sports where your age plays a huge part in your capability, thankfully in this case we don't have to worry about that, as Serral and Maru are nearly the same age anyways.
Well, yeah I agree, there are inconsistencies with the list, you can extend that to TY being above Rain but Dark being below soO. But why the outrage only now when Serral gets placed below another player? We all know why, because he's a foreigner.
People are certainly allowed to have their opinion and Serral being #1 is an absolute legitimate opinion, but calling the list "embarassing" or saying there's no way Maru is above Serral is stupid. If someone doesn't see how both players have a good claim to be #1 then yeah, I think they are biased and/or are not watching sc2
Are you referring to me or people in general? Because I've had huge issues with this list ever since i saw Rain at #10 and been very vocal about it. Then things got sus when I saw Ty make it, and soO above them, and started to think that MVP or Dark would be left out. It only got worse when Inno was #5 because then I started to get afraid that MVP might be put above him - i concluded that it must be Dark because Dark has continued going for years beyond Inno by now. Then it got worse worse when MVP was not only in over Dark, but over Innovation. I got accused of revisionist history for my opinions/memories heh. Then it was even worse with Rogue Serral Maru being the final 3 order. This list has no consistency and therefore no integrity as a ranking unfortunately, while they are nice and well researched articles to read (and nice list of recommended games).
They both have a claim to #1 certainly, but within the context of this list - placing MVP above Innovation and leaving Dark out is a huge mistake, and placing soO above Dark and heckin Rain and TY over Dark are less huge but still whack. All of those things should have led to Rogue Maru Serral being the final order (or possibly Maru Rogue Serral since Rogue had a high peak in a short time that was arguably higher than Maru's, but either way Serral clearly has the highest peak not just for 1-2 years but for 6 years, and should have been #1).
Either way it's pretty unfair and unfounded to just dismiss people's grieviances as foreigner bias.
Regarding statements like "if you don't hold this opinion then you are not watching SC2", there have been countless people saying that Taeja's premiere weekender wins didn't mean much because "he only fought B tier Koreans", "he fought only Code A players", "his KR opponents didn't care much because Proleague was more important". This is a great example of people's memories being off because I went back to check his premiere wins from 2013 to 2015 and he beat Life, Innovation, MC, sOs, MMA, sOs, Jaedong, etc. many times to get those wins, and it wasn't uncommon for the players i mentioned to even drown in pools at those.
So no, if people have a different opinion than you, it doesn't mean that you can assume you watched more SC2 than they did lol
On March 19 2024 01:09 Starcloud wrote: Of course there are nuances and preferences that each individual can value differently. But it starts to be harder and harder to make a solid case for the claim that Maru is the GOAT, especially as he seems to get stomped by Serral in most of the tournaments. And what WombaT said earlier; All the time here people here accuse others for recency bias, although Serral has been at the top for 6 years. Its getting old already (pun intended).
People say recency bias because there are even sc2 casters saying Serral is number 1 because he beat Maru at IEM. It's like they didn't watch sc2 before 2018.
People are also saying Maru has few achievements before then, which just shows they're reading Liquipedia results and never watched Proleague or Korean sc2 during Kespa. Because Maru was literally the best Starleague player of HotS when SC2 was as it's deepest competitively, and is probably the best Proleague player SC2 ever had.
He also won the MVP of the most recent World Team League, 10 years after first Proleague award). People not caring about longevity is one thing, but you can't deny that other people might appreciate it more.
Serral has his case of being the most dominant and best international player, but Maru has his case to be the best Teamleague and Starleague player, having the greatest longevity, and the best wins against bad balance. To say he doesn't have a solid case at all is silly.
If other people appreciate longevity more, then MVP should not be #4 above Innovation and Dark should not be excluded from a top 10. There's no way to justify putting Maru above Serral if you're going to put MVP above Innovation and Dark. That's why people are saying this list's ranking is bogus. Swap Innovation to above MVP, and put Dark next to Inno/MVP (above or below is fine), and then you can put Maru at #1.
It's really not fair to accuse people of not watching SC2, as if they aren't allowed to have their own opinions. People on TL are clearly putting much more value into Starleagues and Proleagues, but others put less. If a caster feels that Serral's play is great and that beating Maru in a WC has some strong metaphorical meaning, then that's valid. A lot of people see it the same way too. SC2 is on its twilight years now, and we had a relatively strong Maru (coming off 2 GSL wins in 2023) vs a Serral starting a new peak (the most dominant we've ever seen in any SC2 era). Maru got 4-0'd and went home with $80k less.
Even if Maru performed really well in HotS, perhaps better than if a hypothetical Serral tried to compete in KR during HotS, Serral is just outperforming Maru 2018+ for 6 years now. In the now, in the most recent and current era of SC2, Serral is above Maru. You can call it recency bias, but I'd just say that it's reasonable to look at the newest state of things. If a player who continues competing gets eclipsed by another player, then that player has surpassed them. We can look back at the past results before they were surpassed, but the current day is more indicative of the future. Unlike physical sports where your age plays a huge part in your capability, thankfully in this case we don't have to worry about that, as Serral and Maru are nearly the same age anyways.
Well, yeah I agree, there are inconsistencies with the list, you can extend that to TY being above Rain but Dark being below soO. But why the outrage only now when Serral gets placed below another player? We all know why, because he's a foreigner.
People are certainly allowed to have their opinion and Serral being #1 is an absolute legitimate opinion, but calling the list "embarassing" or saying there's no way Maru is above Serral is stupid. If someone doesn't see how both players have a good claim to be #1 then yeah, I think they are biased and/or are not watching sc2
Are you referring to me or people in general? Because I've had huge issues with this list ever since i saw Rain at #10 and been very vocal about it to the point i was accused for "revisionist history". Then things got sus when I saw Ty make it, and soO above them, and started to think that MVP or Dark would be left out. It only got worse when Inno was #5 because that meant either MVP or Dark was out. Then it got worse worse when MVP was not only in over Dark, but over Innovation. Then it was even worse with Rogue Serral Maru being the final 3 order. This list has no consistency and therefore no integrity as a ranking unfortunately, while they are nice and well researched articles to read (and nice list of recommended games).
They both have a claim to #1 certainly, but within the context of this list - placing MVP above Innovation and leaving Dark out, placing soO above Dark, playing heckin Rain and TY over Dark... all of that should have led to Rogue Maru Serral being the final order (or possibly Maru Rogue Serral since Rogue had a high peak in a short time that was arguably higher than Maru's, but either way Serral clearly has the highest peak not just for 1-2 years but for 6 years, and should have been #1).
I don't remember what specific users said so obviously I meant in general.
I agree that the list lacks consistency but I'm not sure that's a problem. No matter what the ranking would be, people would still disagree with it and all have their own ranking in their head. I don't think it was ever intended to have "integrity" or authority on what the Goat ranking should be, it's just a (very well researched) opinion of one person, that was supposed to stimulate discussion and pay respects to the players.
On March 19 2024 01:09 Starcloud wrote: Of course there are nuances and preferences that each individual can value differently. But it starts to be harder and harder to make a solid case for the claim that Maru is the GOAT, especially as he seems to get stomped by Serral in most of the tournaments. And what WombaT said earlier; All the time here people here accuse others for recency bias, although Serral has been at the top for 6 years. Its getting old already (pun intended).
People say recency bias because there are even sc2 casters saying Serral is number 1 because he beat Maru at IEM. It's like they didn't watch sc2 before 2018.
People are also saying Maru has few achievements before then, which just shows they're reading Liquipedia results and never watched Proleague or Korean sc2 during Kespa. Because Maru was literally the best Starleague player of HotS when SC2 was as it's deepest competitively, and is probably the best Proleague player SC2 ever had.
He also won the MVP of the most recent World Team League, 10 years after first Proleague award). People not caring about longevity is one thing, but you can't deny that other people might appreciate it more.
Serral has his case of being the most dominant and best international player, but Maru has his case to be the best Teamleague and Starleague player, having the greatest longevity, and the best wins against bad balance. To say he doesn't have a solid case at all is silly.
If other people appreciate longevity more, then MVP should not be #4 above Innovation and Dark should not be excluded from a top 10. There's no way to justify putting Maru above Serral if you're going to put MVP above Innovation and Dark. That's why people are saying this list's ranking is bogus. Swap Innovation to above MVP, and put Dark next to Inno/MVP (above or below is fine), and then you can put Maru at #1.
It's really not fair to accuse people of not watching SC2, as if they aren't allowed to have their own opinions. People on TL are clearly putting much more value into Starleagues and Proleagues, but others put less. If a caster feels that Serral's play is great and that beating Maru in a WC has some strong metaphorical meaning, then that's valid. A lot of people see it the same way too. SC2 is on its twilight years now, and we had a relatively strong Maru (coming off 2 GSL wins in 2023) vs a Serral starting a new peak (the most dominant we've ever seen in any SC2 era). Maru got 4-0'd and went home with $80k less.
Even if Maru performed really well in HotS, perhaps better than if a hypothetical Serral tried to compete in KR during HotS, Serral is just outperforming Maru 2018+ for 6 years now. In the now, in the most recent and current era of SC2, Serral is above Maru. You can call it recency bias, but I'd just say that it's reasonable to look at the newest state of things. If a player who continues competing gets eclipsed by another player, then that player has surpassed them. We can look back at the past results before they were surpassed, but the current day is more indicative of the future. Unlike physical sports where your age plays a huge part in your capability, thankfully in this case we don't have to worry about that, as Serral and Maru are nearly the same age anyways.
Well, yeah I agree, there are inconsistencies with the list, you can extend that to TY being above Rain but Dark being below soO. But why the outrage only now when Serral gets placed below another player? We all know why, because he's a foreigner.
People are certainly allowed to have their opinion and Serral being #1 is an absolute legitimate opinion, but calling the list "embarassing" or saying there's no way Maru is above Serral is stupid. If someone doesn't see how both players have a good claim to be #1 then yeah, I think they are biased and/or are not watching sc2
Are you referring to me or people in general? Because I've had huge issues with this list ever since i saw Rain at #10 and been very vocal about it to the point i was accused for "revisionist history". Then things got sus when I saw Ty make it, and soO above them, and started to think that MVP or Dark would be left out. It only got worse when Inno was #5 because that meant either MVP or Dark was out. Then it got worse worse when MVP was not only in over Dark, but over Innovation. Then it was even worse with Rogue Serral Maru being the final 3 order. This list has no consistency and therefore no integrity as a ranking unfortunately, while they are nice and well researched articles to read (and nice list of recommended games).
They both have a claim to #1 certainly, but within the context of this list - placing MVP above Innovation and leaving Dark out, placing soO above Dark, playing heckin Rain and TY over Dark... all of that should have led to Rogue Maru Serral being the final order (or possibly Maru Rogue Serral since Rogue had a high peak in a short time that was arguably higher than Maru's, but either way Serral clearly has the highest peak not just for 1-2 years but for 6 years, and should have been #1).
I don't remember what specific users said so obviously I meant in general.
I agree that the list lacks consistency but I'm not sure that's a problem. No matter what the ranking would be, people would still disagree with it and all have their own ranking in their head. I don't think it was ever intended to have "integrity" or authority on what the Goat ranking should be, it's just a (very well researched) opinion of one person, that was supposed to stimulate discussion and pay respects to the players.
Aye I'm totally fine with a fun list to celebrate the players they personally feel deserve it. The other issue I have with these articles, that I wonder is maybe also the reason the articles have attracted more negativity than perhaps normal, is that the author often uses authoritative or dismissive language. I understand being frustrated or even angry at people posting negatively or being toxic towards your work or opinions, but even to people not being toxic but simply having different opinions they would be accused for their "revisionist history" (saw it happen to someone else), or having not watched enough SC2, or not having as much or as good data as they found. So these things gave me the vibe that the author felt very confident about the research, statistics, and ranking methodology chosen, and tried to make a serious ranking. Another example that gave me this vibe is criticizing TL's previous GOAT series for being biased, as if the ranking itself was the most important thing and that it wasn't OK for that writer to celebrate the players they wanted to. I think the vibe around the articles is contributing towards the outcry regarding the top 2 placing. Going back to the last TL GOAT list, i don't remember the comments being as inflammatory (and i did go back to check too).
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
He isn’t always the best player, it mostly depends on which Maru shows up. But since Maru is getting a bit old he sometimes slip up a bit. Peak / prime Maru is the best player to have touched the game though, he is basically playing above the human skill ceiling at times it feels like
What do you make of Maru's statement at 2023 Katowice that he was playing the best he's ever played?
This is a very recent argument I've started to read on the forums - that Maru is somehow past his prime. The guy is literally continuing to dominate Korea and "fail" (for his high standards) at international tournaments - he's been doing that for 6 years now.
In the recent interview with Crank Maru said it makes no difference to him if the tournament is in korea or not - his form only depends on the condition of his shoulder issues.
Under this assumption both can be true, that Maru sometimes plays the best he's ever played and othertimes slips up more then when he was younger and had less issues with his shoulder
On March 19 2024 03:53 Poopi wrote:
On March 19 2024 03:42 Pandain wrote:
On March 19 2024 03:00 Poopi wrote:
On March 19 2024 00:45 goldensail wrote:
On March 18 2024 23:45 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
He isn’t always the best player, it mostly depends on which Maru shows up. But since Maru is getting a bit old he sometimes slip up a bit. Peak / prime Maru is the best player to have touched the game though, he is basically playing above the human skill ceiling at times it feels like
What do you make of Maru's statement at 2023 Katowice that he was playing the best he's ever played?
This is a very recent argument I've started to read on the forums - that Maru is somehow past his prime. The guy is literally continuing to dominate Korea and "fail" (for his high standards) at international tournaments - he's been doing that for 6 years now. If Maru, who continues to wreck face against everyone not named Serral, is past his prime, so is Serral, because in 2018 Serral literally didn't lose to anyone for a year.
He is still playing scaringly well (his game on radhuset station vs Serral was some dark magic Terran play), I was mostly talking about mechanical skill, not overall skill. He has gained experience since HotS in several departments, but there is the shoulder issue as mentioned above, and a very slight decay mechanically at this age (which might or might not be preventable, athletes nowadays last longer than in the past, I am pretty sure esport athletes will follow a similar path)
So he is not as consistent as in his prime in maintaining top skill across a tournament
Serral on the other hand is the best at playing near his best consistently
Interesting point, but has he ever said that his shoulder issues are getting worse with time or are you both just assuming that? Because my point is that if Maru had gone on to win Katowice 2024 I'm pretty sure we'd be clearly calling him still in his peak years, so you can't say he's past his prime just because he lost to Serral. There's no reason to actually think he's past his prime. His performances the last year are not really any different than any years before. It's the same pattern.
It's the same Maru as forever. He wins in Korea and does extraordinarily well (but does not win) internationally.
Yeah, in 2020/21 (I think) he said that his shoulder issues have gotten worse and he was seeking treatment for them and that's why he dropped out of a couple tournaments during that time
Super fair, but again I'll highlight that I'm not actually sure his performances are any worse (or better) than they've been historically.
Which has to be expected since other KR players are mostly older than Maru, they might stagnate / decay at a similar rate. Plus most of his competitors aren’t playing anymore or weren’t at their level after military (notably TY in TvT, and Rogue is a big one as well since he managed to get Maru number quite often)
It’s not like his skill dropped off a cliff (except for a few weeks after the patch hit when he didn’t get past group stage in the GSL)
I'm mildly annoyed for the use of 'revisionist history' in this context, as from a point of typical Korean Elitist view it is exactly that. Undermining last 7-8 years Sc2 history (about half of entire history of the game) using age old measuring stick of Kespa era, in a way that almost feel like history ended at latest to Blizzcon 2018, so you must always rewind and revisit to Kespa epoch to say anything about what came after that era. Kind of reversed revisionism where one must always use improper measures of times long gone to evaluate the recent. Nostalgic feelings and constant revision then put folks accuse others for their 'recency bias' because they try look to things using proper measuring sticks for an era.
Korean Elitism built once a mausoleum of frozen recency of bygone era and then they got stuck and locked into it.
No wonder already difficult task of comparing eras becomes... uh... if not impossible, pretty meaningless at least.
On March 19 2024 01:09 Starcloud wrote: Of course there are nuances and preferences that each individual can value differently. But it starts to be harder and harder to make a solid case for the claim that Maru is the GOAT, especially as he seems to get stomped by Serral in most of the tournaments. And what WombaT said earlier; All the time here people here accuse others for recency bias, although Serral has been at the top for 6 years. Its getting old already (pun intended).
People say recency bias because there are even sc2 casters saying Serral is number 1 because he beat Maru at IEM. It's like they didn't watch sc2 before 2018.
People are also saying Maru has few achievements before then, which just shows they're reading Liquipedia results and never watched Proleague or Korean sc2 during Kespa. Because Maru was literally the best Starleague player of HotS when SC2 was as it's deepest competitively, and is probably the best Proleague player SC2 ever had.
He also won the MVP of the most recent World Team League, 10 years after first Proleague award). People not caring about longevity is one thing, but you can't deny that other people might appreciate it more.
Serral has his case of being the most dominant and best international player, but Maru has his case to be the best Teamleague and Starleague player, having the greatest longevity, and the best wins against bad balance. To say he doesn't have a solid case at all is silly.
If other people appreciate longevity more, then MVP should not be #4 above Innovation and Dark should not be excluded from a top 10. There's no way to justify putting Maru above Serral if you're going to put MVP above Innovation and Dark. That's why people are saying this list's ranking is bogus. Swap Innovation to above MVP, and put Dark next to Inno/MVP (above or below is fine), and then you can put Maru at #1.
It's really not fair to accuse people of not watching SC2, as if they aren't allowed to have their own opinions. People on TL are clearly putting much more value into Starleagues and Proleagues, but others put less. If a caster feels that Serral's play is great and that beating Maru in a WC has some strong metaphorical meaning, then that's valid. A lot of people see it the same way too. SC2 is on its twilight years now, and we had a relatively strong Maru (coming off 2 GSL wins in 2023) vs a Serral starting a new peak (the most dominant we've ever seen in any SC2 era). Maru got 4-0'd and went home with $80k less.
Even if Maru performed really well in HotS, perhaps better than if a hypothetical Serral tried to compete in KR during HotS, Serral is just outperforming Maru 2018+ for 6 years now. In the now, in the most recent and current era of SC2, Serral is above Maru. You can call it recency bias, but I'd just say that it's reasonable to look at the newest state of things. If a player who continues competing gets eclipsed by another player, then that player has surpassed them. We can look back at the past results before they were surpassed, but the current day is more indicative of the future. Unlike physical sports where your age plays a huge part in your capability, thankfully in this case we don't have to worry about that, as Serral and Maru are nearly the same age anyways.
Well, yeah I agree, there are inconsistencies with the list, you can extend that to TY being above Rain but Dark being below soO. But why the outrage only now when Serral gets placed below another player? We all know why, because he's a foreigner.
People are certainly allowed to have their opinion and Serral being #1 is an absolute legitimate opinion, but calling the list "embarassing" or saying there's no way Maru is above Serral is stupid. If someone doesn't see how both players have a good claim to be #1 then yeah, I think they are biased and/or are not watching sc2
Are you referring to me or people in general? Because I've had huge issues with this list ever since i saw Rain at #10 and been very vocal about it. Then things got sus when I saw Ty make it, and soO above them, and started to think that MVP or Dark would be left out. It only got worse when Inno was #5 because then I started to get afraid that MVP might be put above him - i concluded that it must be Dark because Dark has continued going for years beyond Inno by now. Then it got worse worse when MVP was not only in over Dark, but over Innovation. I got accused of revisionist history for my opinions/memories heh. Then it was even worse with Rogue Serral Maru being the final 3 order. This list has no consistency and therefore no integrity as a ranking unfortunately, while they are nice and well researched articles to read (and nice list of recommended games).
They both have a claim to #1 certainly, but within the context of this list - placing MVP above Innovation and leaving Dark out is a huge mistake, and placing soO above Dark and heckin Rain and TY over Dark are less huge but still whack. All of those things should have led to Rogue Maru Serral being the final order (or possibly Maru Rogue Serral since Rogue had a high peak in a short time that was arguably higher than Maru's, but either way Serral clearly has the highest peak not just for 1-2 years but for 6 years, and should have been #1).
I feel there are ways to do it. Pure eye test, the numbers route.
Alternatively rather than actually trying to rank a top 10 on exactly equal parameters, you can sorta assign categories and do it that way. Which, for a scene that has shifted in games, structure quite considerably over the years I feel is really the only way I can do it, personally
Whether intentionally or not, Miz’s list lines up pretty similarly to mine, although honestly I wouldn’t try to order all that rigidly.
Just for reference, as to vague categories and example players. Note this isn’t necessarily my top 10, I’m just stacking the categories for illustration’s sake
Scariest peaks/play level versus the competition - Inno, Maru, Serral Innovator, ahead of the curve - Mvp Carpe Diem - $o$, Rogue, Reynor Consistent contenders - Dark, soO, TY Weekender collectors - Taeja, herO, Trap
I mean I just don’t get how you can really have a consistent list because direct comparison becomes so difficult with such varying claims.
I mean to take one example how does one compare an SoS who monster peaked for a few WCs, and gradually fell away in LoTV, to a Trap who was less competitive in the Kespa era but later basically solo carried Protoss for about 2 years? It’s rather tricky! Personally I go for Trap, more consistent, just a better level of play and was consistently winning things. But some will weigh a WC as much more important, which is also a totally fair call.
For me level of play and consistently winning things comes first, and then amongst that bracket of players the WCs take on big value in differentiating those guys.
It’s a bit of a difficult and thankless task this one, glad it’s not me who has Redditors making TL accounts just to have a moan!
"It’s a bit of a difficult and thankless task this one, glad it’s not me who has Redditors making TL accounts just to have a moan!" - WombaT
I think this is prime example of that meme situation were Spiderman points to other Spiderman. It's not like the flow is unidirectional from Reddit to TL.net. Same dudes rant same stuff here and there, and "new dudes" pop up like autumn mushrooms in Reddit too.
One thing no one really comments on is race strength over the years when determining best player of all time. I'm not talking about balance now, but overall zerg have over performed. I think it's no surprise if zerg is receiving constant nerfs every patch they were probably overtuned before. Winning with Toss could arguably be weighted more than with zerg or terran. Is Stats the best toss ever? Maybe maybe not, but he didn't even make this list which I feel like he definitely should have.
(I don't know where else to comment on this since he doesn't have a goat conversation thread, sorry)
Ultimately it comes down to time and consistency. I'm ok with this as of March 2024, but we'll see how the rankings ultimately shape up again in 2027 or so.
Maru has truly withstood the test of time through all of the eras of SC2.
On March 19 2024 11:38 tommey.liang wrote: Ultimately it comes down to time and consistency. I'm ok with this as of March 2024, but we'll see how the rankings ultimately shape up again in 2027 or so.
Maru has truly withstood the test of time through all of the eras of SC2.
By 2027, already moribund GSL is gone extinct by military retirements and wide-spread Kespa era induced broken wrist -syndrome. We will still struggle against then hegemonic, and fully dogmatised and canonised GSL-Golden-wristism, and few 2 tier grandpa pros from Korea still active will remind us all that there was a time when "going full foreigner" meant different thing than it does to new generations of - mostly - Euro players. Serral still plays semi-professionally from the role of player-coach of his own team house at Pornainen, Finland (with healthy wrist ofc, due woodchopping, and for not following Kespa era model of quantity-over-quality in his training). Meanwhile Global cult of Golden Wristers rage in Reddit for the honor of woulda-coulda-shoulda undisputed goat, only if kespyic levels of golden-wristing wouldn't have broke so many wrists, confirmed by the empiric fact that some TL and Reddit guys suffer from same symptoms for entirely different reasons by then...
100 years further and there are 20 tons of mummified relics of Korean wrists at the Global market circulation - all allegedly GOAT Maru's.
Only most knowledgeable Sc2 geeks even recognize the most obscure apocryphal name of Dark, who was written off from The Book of Miz, Codified standard version of history from the times when Sons of Serral sank Atlantis...
On March 19 2024 07:12 CicadaSC wrote: One thing no one really comments on is race strength over the years when determining best player of all time. I'm not talking about balance now, but overall zerg have over performed. I think it's no surprise if zerg is receiving constant nerfs every patch they were probably overtuned before. Winning with Toss could arguably be weighted more than with zerg or terran. Is Stats the best toss ever? Maybe maybe not, but he didn't even make this list which I feel like he definitely should have.
(I don't know where else to comment on this since he doesn't have a goat conversation thread, sorry)
Yeah it's pretty impressive for Trap for example to have accomplished what he did, winning a few GSL branded tournaments when Zerg was still strong (before the creep nerf and removing Transfuse off creep, etc.). He's definitely an underrated Protoss especially when considering that. He also won vs Serral at least once in one of those ESL season finales which is really impressive considering the state of PvZ back then.
Rather than overfitting to Miz's list just because he's been the only one so far with the passion and dedication to write a small master's thesis worth of content, I'd be honestly curious to see everyone's top 10 list, with or without justifications. After all, tons of people here have been watching SC2 and Broodwar since early days (myself included, although I have been off more than on ). Everyone has a list and we have some of the world's best SC2 history experts on this forum. It would be very interesting to see !
On March 19 2024 20:23 MyLovelyLurker wrote: Rather than overfitting to Miz's list just because he's been the only one so far with the passion and dedication to write a small master's thesis worth of content, I'd be honestly curious to see everyone's top 10 list, with or without justifications. After all, tons of people here have been watching SC2 and Broodwar since early days (myself included, although I have been off more than on . Everyone has a list and we have some of the world's SC2 history experts on this forum. It would be very interesting to see !
My list would be:
1. Maru 2. Serral 3. Rogue 4. Inno 5. Zest 6. sOs 7. Life 8. Dark 9. Stats 10. Mvp 11. herO (10 if Life is excluded)
Justification: high emphasis on results when the competition was at its highest + factoring in Proleague, mostly judging top 4 tournament finishes in the biggest events (Katowice, Blizzcon, WESG/gamers8, GSL, GSL super tournament, variants of ESL season finals) with of course much more points for 1st place
1. Serral 2. Maru 3. Innovation 4. Rogue 5. Zest 6. Dark 7. Stats 8. Mvp 9. sOs 10. soO
11-15 in no order: Trap, herO, Ty, Rain, Taeja
I’m going to assume that my 1-4 ordering may be the controversial aspects for me list! None of these factors are entirely independent ofc, often they compound each other. But I tend to rate sheer level of play, dominance and being the outright best very highly, especially over longevity.
Serral it’s the numbers, it’s him being a championship contender for basically every tournament for 6 years and being so consistent that a Ro8 is considered a bad tournament for him. I vividly remember discussions on this very board as to why nobody in SC2 was as numerically dominant as a Flash in BW, or even a Jaedong or Bisu. Common consensus was SC2 being that little less mechanically difficult meant that even the top guys can lose to the merely decent because there’s less of a gap that mechanics can consistently give as an advantage. That the game was just always going to be a little more volatile and you simply wouldn’t see those 70-75% kind of win rates, and I was one of the people who agreed with that at the time. Serral is effectively actually doing something I hadn’t considered as possible, so it’s difficult for me not to give him that top spot
Inno over Rogue it’s probably as simple as I was actively following SC2 when Inno ascended, and wasn’t when Rogue had his incredible year. So I’ve got those residual memories of ‘holy shit this guy is a god’ for The Machine that I don’t for Rogue.
A few mentions of Maru's shoulder issues above - yeah it's unfortunate that Terrans have to wear their arms out with all the micro.
Here's the Kespa Hall of Fame interview with both TY and Maru from '21 (English subtitle available, 06:24) where you can hear Maru mention himself in a 'slump' due to shoulder issues. I do see Maru slowing down a bit when compared to his teenage years. I suppose every great player eventually does, and the fact that he's able to play so well despite his physical condition is testament to his skill and understanding of the game.
P.S. two points not commonly discussed: 1) many people talk about Maru not performing in international tournaments (bear in mind "not performing" is relative, e.g. 2nd places at Katowice 2 years in a row would be considered an accomplishment for basically any other player) - but these "international" tournaments are almost always held in EU (and ocasionally US). European players obviously have a time zone advantage.
How much does this affect players' performance? I'm sure this varies, but for the "other" international tournaments held in China (WESG) which has only 1 hour of time difference vs. Korea, Maru actually did very well (one Championship and one 2nd place), whereas Serral lost to Maru and Innovation respectively in the 2 years he went.
2) In addition, I feel the Kato format which crams quarter/semi/grand finals into one day favors Zerg. Terran players have to micro/multi-task more heavily, and by the end of a long day they would've been more worn out only to play another BO7. GSL is better in this regard i.e. you get proper rest before the final.
On March 19 2024 07:12 CicadaSC wrote: One thing no one really comments on is race strength over the years when determining best player of all time. I'm not talking about balance now, but overall zerg have over performed. I think it's no surprise if zerg is receiving constant nerfs every patch they were probably overtuned before. Winning with Toss could arguably be weighted more than with zerg or terran. Is Stats the best toss ever? Maybe maybe not, but he didn't even make this list which I feel like he definitely should have.
(I don't know where else to comment on this since he doesn't have a goat conversation thread, sorry)
According to Miz, the GPOAT is Zest, which makes sense since he is, well, Best
Probably something like this 1. Zest 2. sOs 3. Stats 4. Rain 5. herO 6. Trap 7. MC 8. Classic 9. Parting 10. Neeb
On March 19 2024 20:23 MyLovelyLurker wrote: Rather than overfitting to Miz's list just because he's been the only one so far with the passion and dedication to write a small master's thesis worth of content, I'd be honestly curious to see everyone's top 10 list, with or without justifications. After all, tons of people here have been watching SC2 and Broodwar since early days (myself included, although I have been off more than on . Everyone has a list and we have some of the world's SC2 history experts on this forum. It would be very interesting to see !
My list would be:
1. Maru 2. Serral 3. Rogue 4. Inno 5. Zest 6. sOs 7. Life 8. Dark 9. Stats 10. Mvp 11. herO (10 if Life is excluded)
Justification: high emphasis on results when the competition was at its highest + factoring in Proleague, mostly judging top 4 tournament finishes in the biggest events (Katowice, Blizzcon, WESG/gamers8, GSL, GSL super tournament, variants of ESL season finals) with of course much more points for 1st place
Think I would have mvp > stats > dark for no justifiable reason, but this is the list.
11 - 15 would probably include herO TaeJa TY Reynor Rain
On March 19 2024 07:12 CicadaSC wrote: One thing no one really comments on is race strength over the years when determining best player of all time. I'm not talking about balance now, but overall zerg have over performed. I think it's no surprise if zerg is receiving constant nerfs every patch they were probably overtuned before. Winning with Toss could arguably be weighted more than with zerg or terran. Is Stats the best toss ever? Maybe maybe not, but he didn't even make this list which I feel like he definitely should have.
(I don't know where else to comment on this since he doesn't have a goat conversation thread, sorry)
According to Miz, the GPOAT is Zest, which makes sense since he is, well, Best
Probably something like this 1. Zest 2. sOs 3. Stats 4. Rain 5. herO 6. Trap 7. MC 8. Classic 9. Parting 10. Neeb
I feel the term should be ‘Proat’, it just scans better!
On March 19 2024 20:23 MyLovelyLurker wrote: Rather than overfitting to Miz's list just because he's been the only one so far with the passion and dedication to write a small master's thesis worth of content, I'd be honestly curious to see everyone's top 10 list, with or without justifications. After all, tons of people here have been watching SC2 and Broodwar since early days (myself included, although I have been off more than on . Everyone has a list and we have some of the world's SC2 history experts on this forum. It would be very interesting to see !
My list would be:
1. Maru 2. Serral 3. Rogue 4. Inno 5. Zest 6. sOs 7. Life 8. Dark 9. Stats 10. Mvp 11. herO (10 if Life is excluded)
Justification: high emphasis on results when the competition was at its highest + factoring in Proleague, mostly judging top 4 tournament finishes in the biggest events (Katowice, Blizzcon, WESG/gamers8, GSL, GSL super tournament, variants of ESL season finals) with of course much more points for 1st place
Think I would have mvp > stats > dark for no justifiable reason, but this is the list.
11 - 15 would probably include herO TaeJa TY Reynor Rain
Aye I haven’t seen anything too outrageous so far!
It’s actually relatively easy to come up with a top 15 pool of players, almost impossible to come up with a consistent way to actually order them
On March 19 2024 20:23 MyLovelyLurker wrote: Rather than overfitting to Miz's list just because he's been the only one so far with the passion and dedication to write a small master's thesis worth of content, I'd be honestly curious to see everyone's top 10 list, with or without justifications. After all, tons of people here have been watching SC2 and Broodwar since early days (myself included, although I have been off more than on ). Everyone has a list and we have some of the world's best SC2 history experts on this forum. It would be very interesting to see !
I tried to do this and found it really hard to make any decisions. Time and memory really distorts how I feel about these players. Like, who do I rate higher, Fruitdealer or Oliveira?
Trying to impose a hierarchy on good times feels like an exercise in misery.
On March 19 2024 05:58 UnLarva wrote: I'm mildly annoyed for the use of 'revisionist history' in this context, as from a point of typical Korean Elitist view it is exactly that. Undermining last 7-8 years Sc2 history (about half of entire history of the game) using age old measuring stick of Kespa era, in a way that almost feel like history ended at latest to Blizzcon 2018, so you must always rewind and revisit to Kespa epoch to say anything about what came after that era. Kind of reversed revisionism where one must always use improper measures of times long gone to evaluate the recent. Nostalgic feelings and constant revision then put folks accuse others for their 'recency bias' because they try look to things using proper measuring sticks for an era.
Korean Elitism built once a mausoleum of frozen recency of bygone era and then they got stuck and locked into it.
No wonder already difficult task of comparing eras becomes... uh... if not impossible, pretty meaningless at least.
It might be "midly annoying"
unfortunately the truth doesnt care about your feelings
On March 19 2024 20:23 MyLovelyLurker wrote: Rather than overfitting to Miz's list just because he's been the only one so far with the passion and dedication to write a small master's thesis worth of content, I'd be honestly curious to see everyone's top 10 list, with or without justifications. After all, tons of people here have been watching SC2 and Broodwar since early days (myself included, although I have been off more than on ). Everyone has a list and we have some of the world's best SC2 history experts on this forum. It would be very interesting to see !
I tried to do this and found it really hard to make any decisions. Time and memory really distorts how I feel about these players. Like, who do I rate higher, Fruitdealer or Oliveira?
Trying to impose a hierarchy on good times feels like an exercise in misery.
Disregard the individual ranking, I think top 3 is undeniable at this point, then 3-4 guys in top 10 are also there quite comfortably. The question would be the rest of of the top 10, like 3-4 spots for 8-9 guys that we can make a good debate for.
On March 19 2024 20:23 MyLovelyLurker wrote: Rather than overfitting to Miz's list just because he's been the only one so far with the passion and dedication to write a small master's thesis worth of content, I'd be honestly curious to see everyone's top 10 list, with or without justifications. After all, tons of people here have been watching SC2 and Broodwar since early days (myself included, although I have been off more than on ). Everyone has a list and we have some of the world's best SC2 history experts on this forum. It would be very interesting to see !
I tried to do this and found it really hard to make any decisions. Time and memory really distorts how I feel about these players. Like, who do I rate higher, Fruitdealer or Oliveira?
Trying to impose a hierarchy on good times feels like an exercise in misery.
Excellent point, beautifully phrased!
Once you get past the top 30 or so, you're basically ranking anyone who has won a WC/Season of Code S regardless of what the rest of their career looks like.
This argument is between people with an objective view of the scene, and the gatekeeping "old guard" who need GSL to be the only tournament that matters so they can retain some level of clout in the starcraft community. It's deranged. I'll get warned or banned for this for the exact same motivation of theirs.
On March 20 2024 02:47 Nasigil wrote: Some other GOAT discussion ideas instead of hanging up on Serral vs Maru all day.
Who's the GOAT for each specific matchup?
What's the GOAT map that yields the most interesting and epic games?
What was the most dominant half year stretch by any player?
etc
ZvP Serral and PvP Zest are the relatively easy ones, IMO anyway. TvZ I think Inno or Maru at various times are the clear favourites. TvP is almost certainly Maru and TvT you’ve got a few good claims
PvNonP is really hard though. It feels Protoss has periods of flux and change and players wax and wane in vT and vZ depending on metas. Most of the top Protoss names are all kinda decent at all matchups overall without being considerably better at one over a career’s length. herO’s PvZ currently is clearly above his PvT, but he’s had times where the latter is stronger.
PvT it’s perhaps recency bias but I do think Trap showed a very strong, very solid PvT for a pretty damn long time. Stylistically I quite liked it too.
PvZ you probably have the worst pool of candidates in terms of matchup specialists in any matchup in the game, it’s tough to think of anyone who truly excelled in it for any kind of elongated period
On March 20 2024 02:47 Nasigil wrote: Some other GOAT discussion ideas instead of hanging up on Serral vs Maru all day.
Who's the GOAT for each specific matchup?
What's the GOAT map that yields the most interesting and epic games?
What was the most dominant half year stretch by any player?
etc
ZvP Serral and PvP Zest are the relatively easy ones, IMO anyway. TvZ I think Inno or Maru at various times are the clear favourites. TvP is almost certainly Maru and TvT you’ve got a few good claims
PvNonP is really hard though. It feels Protoss has periods of flux and change and players wax and wane in vT and vZ depending on metas. Most of the top Protoss names are all kinda decent at all matchups overall without being considerably better at one over a career’s length. herO’s PvZ currently is clearly above his PvT, but he’s had times where the latter is stronger.
PvT it’s perhaps recency bias but I do think Trap showed a very strong, very solid PvT for a pretty damn long time. Stylistically I quite liked it too.
PvZ you probably have the worst pool of candidates in terms of matchup specialists in any matchup in the game, it’s tough to think of anyone who truly excelled in it for any kind of elongated period
Stats imo had the best PvZ by far. In 2016 and 2017 he dominated every Zerg including Dark in the matchup and in late 2018 he came closer to beating Serral than anyone else
Serral Match Winning % against Korean Players Lifetime: 69.23% Since 2023-01-01: 85.71%
Maru Match Winning % against Korean Players Lifetime: 66.97% Since 2023-01-01: 80.41%
Serral Winning % Against Maru : 67.24% in games 77.78% in matches
-- complete domination
You're telling me the GSL effect is strong enough to explain this significant of a disparity in winning percentages?
And not the entire GSL effect (korean players are better than foreigners on average, true), but the effect of location and timing of matches ALONE? In fact, these percentages hold when you stratify by online/offline AND it must be said that the Korean players Serral faces are generally better than the ones Maru faces because Serral plays the top koreans who make it to season finals etc, while Maru will play koreans who do not qualify.
On March 19 2024 21:08 WombaT wrote: 1. Serral 2. Maru 3. Innovation 4. Rogue 5. Zest 6. Dark 7. Stats 8. Mvp 9. sOs 10. soO
11-15 in no order: Trap, herO, Ty, Rain, Taeja
Innovation over Rogue definitely isn't a weird choice ! Rogue's accomplishments were more recent and condensed in a short period of peak strength, but Innovation was so godamn good for so long in the earlier and more competitive years, and racking up less premiere wins and such is fine since the scene was much bigger
My list is probably:
1*) Serral 2/3**) Maru/Rogue (meaning I slightly favor Maru but it goes either way for me)
4) Innovation 5) Life 6/7) Dark/MVP 8/9) Zest/Stats 10) sOs
11) Taeja 12***) soO 13/14) TY/Classic 15/16) Rain/herO 17****) Trap 18) Reynor 19) MC 20) MMA 21/22) Nestea/Polt
*Serral: Has a less a rounded resume compared to Rogue, but the level of his play, the winrate, the consistency make it very clear he's by far the best SC2 player ever, and currently the best player in the most experienced era of SC2. His dominance over a long 6 year period also is sufficient to check any longetivity requirements. When it comes to factors he can control (his level of play and dominance in the era he was able to compete in), he is as maxed out as you can humanly expect someone to be. He also won 2 GSL vs the World out of 2 when SC2 was still in a strong era, a tournament that people often counted as a "real" GSL win for MVP's "4 GSL wins", so Serral's resume is still very well rounded overall.
**Maru/Rogue: Rogue has a very strong claim over Maru considering Rogue had to go to the military first. If we're comparing their careers before Rogue had to leave, and counting Maru's final 3 GSLs very low (due to heavy downsizing, being partially online, the Finals being same day as Semis - and because Maru and Rogue were directly competing against each other over Code S), I would put Rogue over Maru as his resume is much more balanced with WC wins, Code S wins, Supers/weekender wins, he has arguably a higher peak than Maru when Maru was also peaking, and his H2H record and Bo7 statistics indicated he would continue to have the upper hand vs Maru in Code S if he didn't retire. For my ranking, I do value team league performance but I don't value Proleague as highly as others, as I always felt individual leagues had more glory for individual players, whereas team leagues are more about the team and the support the team gave them, even if they might be their team's ace. When you win with a team then your team is winning the glory together, but when you win an individual league you win all the glory for yourself.
***soO: If he had 1 Code S win and 4 Code S 2nd places instead of 6 2nd places, I'd put him below sOs and above Taeja. It just doesn't feel quite right to me to put someone who can't win above Taeja who was very good at winning.
****Trap: Trap is an interesting case because while I find his strength in mid-late LotV very impressive, considering it's a very experienced era of SC2 with a lot of really great players, it's also a weaker era in terms of the level of competition/infrastructure being less than the Kespa era. He had great results in DH/ESL Masters, but they have a bit of a caveat with being online tournaments during COVID. His 3 GSL Super wins are great (especially considering the prize money for 1st is the same as a Code S in the same era), but Supers in that time didn't feel as serious or feel they had as much glory as Code S still. If PvZ was a bit more balanced during Trap's years and he won 2 of the Code S he lost to Dark/Rogue (or maybe 1 Code S + 2 of the DH/ESL Masters he lost to Reynor/Serral), he mighta been the greatest Protoss and right below Dark or next to Zest/Stats.
Also, i feel people might be forgetting Classic among the other Protosses.
On March 19 2024 20:23 MyLovelyLurker wrote: Rather than overfitting to Miz's list just because he's been the only one so far with the passion and dedication to write a small master's thesis worth of content, I'd be honestly curious to see everyone's top 10 list, with or without justifications. After all, tons of people here have been watching SC2 and Broodwar since early days (myself included, although I have been off more than on ). Everyone has a list and we have some of the world's best SC2 history experts on this forum. It would be very interesting to see !
My list would prolly be like:
1. Serral 2. Maru 3. Rogue 4. Inno 5. Dark 6. sOs 7. Soo 8. Zest 9. her0 10.Taeja
"GSL Gatekeeping" becomes most transparent with near systematic, but happily narcotic somnium of misremembering with The GSL vs World tournaments. Serral's entire GSL experience consists those two occasions he actually went onto the Korean soil and won, and that happened during time when Korean scene wasn't yet as lethargic as it soon became. A important part of their gatekeeping is that when they say 'GSL' they actually mean 'Code S'. But because those two GSLs Serral won weren't preparation tournaments they won't count as GSL for Serral's career.
However, even Liguipedia summarily list them under label GSL along with Code S and Super Tournaments, here: Global StarCraft II League
GSL Gatekeepers could do better job with their gate keeping, and actually edit pages accordingly whenever needs to redefine meaning of GSL happens.
On March 20 2024 03:30 TentativePanda wrote: Serral Match Winning % against Korean Players Lifetime: 69.23% Since 2023-01-01: 85.71%
Maru Match Winning % against Korean Players Lifetime: 66.97% Since 2023-01-01: 80.41%
Serral Winning % Against Maru : 67.24% in games 77.78% in matches
-- complete domination
You're telling me the GSL effect is strong enough to explain this significant of a disparity in winning percentages?
And not the entire GSL effect (korean players are better than foreigners on average, true), but the effect of location and timing of matches ALONE? In fact, these percentages hold when you stratify by online/offline AND it must be said that the Korean players Serral faces are generally better than the ones Maru faces because Serral plays the top koreans who make it to season finals etc, while Maru will play koreans who do not qualify.
Edit: funnily there are 5 P/T/Z The main points: Rogue over Serral because Rogue was better than Serral at several point in times (mainly IEM where Serral couldn’t beat the protoss like Classic and Zest whereas Rogue destroyed them), and he was tested in relatively GSL code S. I also think that Rogue has a better shot at being creative when Zerg isn’t simply superior in macro games, compared to Serral who has a better overall macro game but less abilities to pull off clever cheeses. Maru over everyone because 4 code S in a row at the time is simply an incredible feat, great proleague player despite being young, victorious both in HotS during the most competitive era and in LotV being the most dominant KR player, as well as being the only hope for Terran multiple times patch after patch.
Reynor over Life (if we don’t exclude him) because I truly think that Reynor has a style similar to Life, but with better mechanics. Since Reynor is still young, he might climb up the ranking depending on when the scene is truly dead. Similarly, Clem could achieve top 15 if he pulls off a win in Riyadh, otherwise it’s probably too late for him to catch up.
Dark over mvp because he was the best Zerg / player in the world (depending on how you view TvZ balance in 2016, and ZvX balance in 2019) in 2016 and 2019, with still a lot of strong players in the scene. He was also a force in code S.
MC over Rain because MC is a better entertainer, and carried protoss at several points in time. Otherwise I think the list is pretty « vanilla » but I can explain some other choices if they seem weird.
On March 20 2024 02:47 Nasigil wrote: Some other GOAT discussion ideas instead of hanging up on Serral vs Maru all day.
Who's the GOAT for each specific matchup?
What's the GOAT map that yields the most interesting and epic games?
What was the most dominant half year stretch by any player?
etc
ZvP Serral and PvP Zest are the relatively easy ones, IMO anyway. TvZ I think Inno or Maru at various times are the clear favourites. TvP is almost certainly Maru and TvT you’ve got a few good claims
PvNonP is really hard though. It feels Protoss has periods of flux and change and players wax and wane in vT and vZ depending on metas. Most of the top Protoss names are all kinda decent at all matchups overall without being considerably better at one over a career’s length. herO’s PvZ currently is clearly above his PvT, but he’s had times where the latter is stronger.
PvT it’s perhaps recency bias but I do think Trap showed a very strong, very solid PvT for a pretty damn long time. Stylistically I quite liked it too.
PvZ you probably have the worst pool of candidates in terms of matchup specialists in any matchup in the game, it’s tough to think of anyone who truly excelled in it for any kind of elongated period
You can't forget PartinG's PvT. His overall career didn't reach as high as other great Protoss like Zest/Stats/Classic/Trap/herO but his PvT numbers over the years are pretty crazy. Dude has a insane 10 year run from 2012 to 2022 in which he had 70% series PvT winrate against Korean Terran players. Other top Protoss can barely put together this number for one year stretch but PartinG did it on a 10 year span.
On March 20 2024 04:02 UnLarva wrote: "GSL Gatekeeping" becomes most transparent with near systematic, but happily narcotic somnium of misremembering with The GSL vs World tournaments. Serral's entire GSL experience consists those two occasions he actually went onto the Korean soil and won, and that happened during time when Korean scene wasn't yet as lethargic as it soon became. A important part of their gatekeeping is that when they say 'GSL' they actually mean 'Code S'. But because those two GSLs Serral won weren't preparation tournaments they won't count as GSL for Serral's career.
However, even Liguipedia summarily list them under label GSL along with Code S and Super Tournaments, here: Global StarCraft II League
GSL Gatekeepers could do better job with their gate keeping, and actually edit pages accordingly whenever needs to redefine meaning of GSL happens.
I mean Terran just doesnt do well in ST format, not sure why. I think Maru is the only Terran winner in its entire history. And if you value ST as much as a code S, then we need to rewrite the ranking because tons of Protoss and Zerg won that tournament but couldnt snip the code S achievement, mainly Trap. To me, its a damn shame to have a direct elimination bracket in a near 100k event.
On March 20 2024 04:02 UnLarva wrote: "GSL Gatekeeping" becomes most transparent with near systematic, but happily narcotic somnium of misremembering with The GSL vs World tournaments. Serral's entire GSL experience consists those two occasions he actually went onto the Korean soil and won, and that happened during time when Korean scene wasn't yet as lethargic as it soon became. A important part of their gatekeeping is that when they say 'GSL' they actually mean 'Code S'. But because those two GSLs Serral won weren't preparation tournaments they won't count as GSL for Serral's career.
However, even Liguipedia summarily list them under label GSL along with Code S and Super Tournaments, here: Global StarCraft II League
GSL Gatekeepers could do better job with their gate keeping, and actually edit pages accordingly whenever needs to redefine meaning of GSL happens.
Literally vote-ins for half the player pool, half the player pool required to be non-korean, no prep time, no qualifiers. GSL vs the World is not equivalent to a Code S.
On March 20 2024 02:47 Nasigil wrote: Some other GOAT discussion ideas instead of hanging up on Serral vs Maru all day.
Who's the GOAT for each specific matchup?
What's the GOAT map that yields the most interesting and epic games?
What was the most dominant half year stretch by any player?
etc
ZvP Serral and PvP Zest are the relatively easy ones, IMO anyway. TvZ I think Inno or Maru at various times are the clear favourites. TvP is almost certainly Maru and TvT you’ve got a few good claims
PvNonP is really hard though. It feels Protoss has periods of flux and change and players wax and wane in vT and vZ depending on metas. Most of the top Protoss names are all kinda decent at all matchups overall without being considerably better at one over a career’s length. herO’s PvZ currently is clearly above his PvT, but he’s had times where the latter is stronger.
PvT it’s perhaps recency bias but I do think Trap showed a very strong, very solid PvT for a pretty damn long time. Stylistically I quite liked it too.
PvZ you probably have the worst pool of candidates in terms of matchup specialists in any matchup in the game, it’s tough to think of anyone who truly excelled in it for any kind of elongated period
PvZ is hard for sure. I'd say Stats is up there for sure, but Parting with the soul train is more memorable for me. So I'd probably go with Parting
On March 20 2024 03:30 TentativePanda wrote: Serral Match Winning % against Korean Players Lifetime: 69.23% Since 2023-01-01: 85.71%
Maru Match Winning % against Korean Players Lifetime: 66.97% Since 2023-01-01: 80.41%
Serral Winning % Against Maru : 67.24% in games 77.78% in matches
-- complete domination
You're telling me the GSL effect is strong enough to explain this significant of a disparity in winning percentages?
And not the entire GSL effect (korean players are better than foreigners on average, true), but the effect of location and timing of matches ALONE? In fact, these percentages hold when you stratify by online/offline AND it must be said that the Korean players Serral faces are generally better than the ones Maru faces because Serral plays the top koreans who make it to season finals etc, while Maru will play koreans who do not qualify.
There is more data you have to take into consideration then pure win% stats , it does not tell the whole story
On March 20 2024 04:02 UnLarva wrote: "GSL Gatekeeping" becomes most transparent with near systematic, but happily narcotic somnium of misremembering with The GSL vs World tournaments. Serral's entire GSL experience consists those two occasions he actually went onto the Korean soil and won, and that happened during time when Korean scene wasn't yet as lethargic as it soon became. A important part of their gatekeeping is that when they say 'GSL' they actually mean 'Code S'. But because those two GSLs Serral won weren't preparation tournaments they won't count as GSL for Serral's career.
However, even Liguipedia summarily list them under label GSL along with Code S and Super Tournaments, here: Global StarCraft II League
GSL Gatekeepers could do better job with their gate keeping, and actually edit pages accordingly whenever needs to redefine meaning of GSL happens.
I mean Terran just doesnt do well in ST format, not sure why. I think Maru is the only Terran winner in its entire history. And if you value ST as much as a code S, then we need to rewrite the ranking because tons of Protoss and Zerg won that tournament but couldnt snip the code S achievement, mainly Trap. To me, its a damn shame to have a direct elimination bracket in a near 100k event.
Just general note about 'GSL', what all it 'officially' consists, not particularly commenting ST. There are legions of people all around that to this very day think Serral never went to or competed in Korean soil. That argument is intrinsically false, but it stems from false equation of GSL = Code S.
Serral's offline GSL resume on Korean soil is:
2 Premier wins 60000000 Wons 8 Matches (6 Bo5, 2 Bo7) with 100% win rate in Matches, and 74.3% (26-9) in Maps (73.1% (19-7) vs Koreans),
"without preparation during weekender" as they readily say and point out when they even remember.
On March 20 2024 04:45 JJH777 wrote:
Literally vote-ins for half the player pool, half the player pool required to be non-korean, no prep time, no qualifiers. GSL vs the World is not equivalent to a Code S.
Yeah. Nature of the tournament. "Bests" of locked regions compete, you know, The GSL vs The World.
On March 20 2024 02:47 Nasigil wrote: Some other GOAT discussion ideas instead of hanging up on Serral vs Maru all day.
Who's the GOAT for each specific matchup?
What's the GOAT map that yields the most interesting and epic games?
What was the most dominant half year stretch by any player?
etc
ZvP Serral and PvP Zest are the relatively easy ones, IMO anyway. TvZ I think Inno or Maru at various times are the clear favourites. TvP is almost certainly Maru and TvT you’ve got a few good claims
PvNonP is really hard though. It feels Protoss has periods of flux and change and players wax and wane in vT and vZ depending on metas. Most of the top Protoss names are all kinda decent at all matchups overall without being considerably better at one over a career’s length. herO’s PvZ currently is clearly above his PvT, but he’s had times where the latter is stronger.
PvT it’s perhaps recency bias but I do think Trap showed a very strong, very solid PvT for a pretty damn long time. Stylistically I quite liked it too.
PvZ you probably have the worst pool of candidates in terms of matchup specialists in any matchup in the game, it’s tough to think of anyone who truly excelled in it for any kind of elongated period
PvZ is hard for sure. I'd say Stats is up there for sure, but Parting with the soul train is more memorable for me. So I'd probably go with Parting
Soul Train was only working for like a year? Even with that Parting's PvZ numbers are just above average.
Stats won all 5 of his premier championships by slaying Zergs (Dark 3 times, soO once and Solar once) in the finals. He's definitely the PvZ GOAT.
On March 16 2024 07:31 PtitDrogo wrote: Thank you for the wonderful articles ! They have been a joy to read and the research going into it is very nice. But also Serral got robbed + L + ratio + koreaboo
God damnit, my photo is still being used on this site.
I dont know if you can truly compare proleague achievements in peak competitive expansion era in HOTS and pre-proleague disbanding in lotv.
The amount of player pool & competition is just a vastly different landscape than from before; previously, a lot of progamers were considered "past-it" when they were approaching mid-late 20s really just due to sheer difference in amount of injuries/mechanical skill from newer fresher players. Nowadays, it has really been same pool of players from previous years competing;
The situation is really close to BW really. You have old greats coming in that are aging and performing at higher level than before, but in BW, achievements post-proleague era isn't really considered much at all.
On March 19 2024 20:23 MyLovelyLurker wrote: Rather than overfitting to Miz's list just because he's been the only one so far with the passion and dedication to write a small master's thesis worth of content, I'd be honestly curious to see everyone's top 10 list, with or without justifications. After all, tons of people here have been watching SC2 and Broodwar since early days (myself included, although I have been off more than on ). Everyone has a list and we have some of the world's best SC2 history experts on this forum. It would be very interesting to see !
I tried to do this and found it really hard to make any decisions. Time and memory really distorts how I feel about these players. Like, who do I rate higher, Fruitdealer or Oliveira?
Trying to impose a hierarchy on good times feels like an exercise in misery.
Excellent point, beautifully phrased!
Once you get past the top 30 or so, you're basically ranking anyone who has won a WC/Season of Code S regardless of what the rest of their career looks like.
On March 20 2024 02:47 Nasigil wrote: Some other GOAT discussion ideas instead of hanging up on Serral vs Maru all day.
Who's the GOAT for each specific matchup?
What's the GOAT map that yields the most interesting and epic games?
What was the most dominant half year stretch by any player?
etc
ZvP Serral and PvP Zest are the relatively easy ones, IMO anyway. TvZ I think Inno or Maru at various times are the clear favourites. TvP is almost certainly Maru and TvT you’ve got a few good claims
PvNonP is really hard though. It feels Protoss has periods of flux and change and players wax and wane in vT and vZ depending on metas. Most of the top Protoss names are all kinda decent at all matchups overall without being considerably better at one over a career’s length. herO’s PvZ currently is clearly above his PvT, but he’s had times where the latter is stronger.
PvT it’s perhaps recency bias but I do think Trap showed a very strong, very solid PvT for a pretty damn long time. Stylistically I quite liked it too.
PvZ you probably have the worst pool of candidates in terms of matchup specialists in any matchup in the game, it’s tough to think of anyone who truly excelled in it for any kind of elongated period
You can't forget PartinG's PvT. His overall career didn't reach as high as other great Protoss like Zest/Stats/Classic/Trap/herO but his PvT numbers over the years are pretty crazy. Dude has an insane 10 year run from 2012 to 2022 in which he had 70% series PvT winrate against Korean Terran players. Other top Protoss can barely put together this number for one year stretch but PartinG did it on a 10 year span.
That’s higher than I would have thought, when he initially broke out I really loved his PvT style too. Not a bad shout there
On March 19 2024 20:23 MyLovelyLurker wrote: Rather than overfitting to Miz's list just because he's been the only one so far with the passion and dedication to write a small master's thesis worth of content, I'd be honestly curious to see everyone's top 10 list, with or without justifications. After all, tons of people here have been watching SC2 and Broodwar since early days (myself included, although I have been off more than on ). Everyone has a list and we have some of the world's best SC2 history experts on this forum. It would be very interesting to see !
1. Serral 2. Maru 3. Rogue 4. INnoVation 5. Dark 6. Zest 7. TY 8. sOs 9. soO 10. TaeJa (fight me!)
I don't understand why good performace in code S and team league is taken to be evidence for being good at prepping in Maru's case. Surely there's a lot of team effort. Especially considering Maru's two teammates Rogue and sOs are probably the best players at prepping for weekenders. I suspect they must have played a significant part in Maru's performance in Code S and teamleague. At weekenders, Maru doesn't get such help, therefore performs worse and we see more tilt, bad builds and upsets from him.
On the other hand, there was a clip in this year's IEM in which Reynor and Rotti discuss how Serral watches and remembers every replay. Weekenders, like GSL, can be prepped for and Serral is good at it. I can't imagine such a player would do worse when he gets even more time to prep in GSLs.
Considering Maru's record in preparation tournaments it's clear that he was also prepping for his teammates Rogue and sOs.
See how silly that is? Imo it's best not to let in hypotheticals or alternate realities when we try and decide who's the GOAT and just look at their career in and of itself.
On March 19 2024 03:43 _TakeR_ wrote: Interesting that actually winning the most world championships and by far the most premier events, and having the most dominant win record and head-to-head stats vs every player overall, isn't actually enough to be the greatest.
Also the reasoning that accomplishing far more than others have managed, and doing it in LESS time time than the others managed to achieve their more meagre accomplishments, is counted as a black mark against Serral is... also interesting. If only Serral had accomplished all of his superior achievements over a 12 year period rather than just a 7 year one, THEN his uncontestable combined world championships and premier events tally could actually be counted and finally he could be annointed as the true GOAT. Sad.
I will admit Maru has been in the scene longer, and thus 'wins' according to the singular rationale of the article writer.
I will also admit that Maru is definitely the best at winning regional tournaments where Serral is not eligible to participate.
I believe those are the only two metrics where Maru actually beats Serral, and so on that basis, all hail Maru the GOAT!
On March 20 2024 08:46 ktll4c91 wrote: I don't understand why good performace in code S and team league is taken to be evidence for being good at prepping in Maru's case. Surely there's a lot of team effort. Especially considering Maru's two teammates Rogue and sOs are probably the best players at prepping for weekenders. I suspect they must have played a significant part in Maru's performance in Code S and teamleague. At weekenders, Maru doesn't get such help, therefore performs worse and we see more tilt, bad builds and upsets from him.
On the other hand, there was a clip in this year's IEM in which Reynor and Rotti discuss how Serral watches and remembers every replay. Weekenders, like GSL, can be prepped for and Serral is good at it. I can't imagine such a player would do worse when he gets even more time to prep in GSLs.
There are definitely players who were much better in weekenders than prep tournaments. sOs and TaeJa are prime examples. Being good at one does not guarantee being good at the other.
On March 20 2024 08:46 ktll4c91 wrote: I don't understand why good performace in code S and team league is taken to be evidence for being good at prepping in Maru's case. Surely there's a lot of team effort. Especially considering Maru's two teammates Rogue and sOs are probably the best players at prepping for weekenders. I suspect they must have played a significant part in Maru's performance in Code S and teamleague. At weekenders, Maru doesn't get such help, therefore performs worse and we see more tilt, bad builds and upsets from him.
On the other hand, there was a clip in this year's IEM in which Reynor and Rotti discuss how Serral watches and remembers every replay. Weekenders, like GSL, can be prepped for and Serral is good at it. I can't imagine such a player would do worse when he gets even more time to prep in GSLs.
There are definitely players who were much better in weekenders than prep tournaments. sOs and TaeJa are prime examples. Being good at one does not guarantee being good at the other.
This is the biggest copium of all time, Serral played many matches that were set in stage way before they were actually played, such as sOs and Zest on Blizzcon groups, also... for the past 6 years he has been the favourite to every tournament he enteers, are people really not preparing for him if they intended to win? Are SC2 pro players really this dumb?
On March 20 2024 08:46 ktll4c91 wrote: I don't understand why good performace in code S and team league is taken to be evidence for being good at prepping in Maru's case. Surely there's a lot of team effort. Especially considering Maru's two teammates Rogue and sOs are probably the best players at prepping for weekenders. I suspect they must have played a significant part in Maru's performance in Code S and teamleague. At weekenders, Maru doesn't get such help, therefore performs worse and we see more tilt, bad builds and upsets from him.
On the other hand, there was a clip in this year's IEM in which Reynor and Rotti discuss how Serral watches and remembers every replay. Weekenders, like GSL, can be prepped for and Serral is good at it. I can't imagine such a player would do worse when he gets even more time to prep in GSLs.
There are definitely players who were much better in weekenders than prep tournaments. sOs and TaeJa are prime examples. Being good at one does not guarantee being good at the other.
This is the biggest copium of all time, Serral played many matches that were set in stage way before they were actually played, such as sOs and Zest on Blizzcon groups, also... for the past 6 years he has been the favourite to every tournament he enteers, are people really not preparing for him if they intended to win? Are SC2 pro players really this dumb?
A day or two of prep time for several opponents =/= a week or more to deep dive into a single player. Also not sure what copium you're talking about since I think Serral is the GOAT. I just don't agree with every argument put forth about him, or the assumption that someone who is a monster at weekenders will definitely find the same success in GSL. In Serral's case, we'll never know, and speculation about how he could possibly do isn't as strong an argument as what he's actually accomplished.
On March 20 2024 08:46 ktll4c91 wrote: I don't understand why good performace in code S and team league is taken to be evidence for being good at prepping in Maru's case. Surely there's a lot of team effort. Especially considering Maru's two teammates Rogue and sOs are probably the best players at prepping for weekenders. I suspect they must have played a significant part in Maru's performance in Code S and teamleague. At weekenders, Maru doesn't get such help, therefore performs worse and we see more tilt, bad builds and upsets from him.
On the other hand, there was a clip in this year's IEM in which Reynor and Rotti discuss how Serral watches and remembers every replay. Weekenders, like GSL, can be prepped for and Serral is good at it. I can't imagine such a player would do worse when he gets even more time to prep in GSLs.
This has forever been a bugbear of mine, you need partners to do that prep so in some way it’s a team effort.
I also share your theory that Maru is slightly less potent in the weekender format for this very reason. Often his losses are bad choices rather than being mechanically outplayed.
Indeed, some of his heavier losses in big games, sOs in that Blizzcon, Rogue in a Code S final were both at the hands of the very teammates who would otherwise help him prep.
Not that it diminishes Maru as one of the greats but I do think it’s a minus point against him that’s oft-neglected
On March 20 2024 08:46 ktll4c91 wrote: I don't understand why good performace in code S and team league is taken to be evidence for being good at prepping in Maru's case. Surely there's a lot of team effort. Especially considering Maru's two teammates Rogue and sOs are probably the best players at prepping for weekenders. I suspect they must have played a significant part in Maru's performance in Code S and teamleague. At weekenders, Maru doesn't get such help, therefore performs worse and we see more tilt, bad builds and upsets from him.
On the other hand, there was a clip in this year's IEM in which Reynor and Rotti discuss how Serral watches and remembers every replay. Weekenders, like GSL, can be prepped for and Serral is good at it. I can't imagine such a player would do worse when he gets even more time to prep in GSLs.
This has forever been a bugbear of mine, you need partners to do that prep so in some way it’s a team effort.
I also share your theory that Maru is slightly less potent in the weekender format for this very reason. Often his losses are bad choices rather than being mechanically outplayed.
Indeed, some of his heavier losses in big games, sOs in that Blizzcon, Rogue in a Code S final were both at the hands of the very teammates who would otherwise help him prep.
Not that it diminishes Maru as one of the greats but I do think it’s a minus point against him that’s oft-neglected
Wow great points from both of you! I felt similarly, I wouldn't value team league performance super highly because it's... a team victory! For example, just because 1 player racks up lots of ace match wins doesn't necessarily mean that they deserve the credit as an individual. You never know if the teammates/coach simply focused on helping 1 player over another, in order to strategize the best way to win. But I wasn't able to realize that Maru not being able to get the same kind of support may be part of why he's weaker at weekender tournies, and the double whammy that when he's against Rogue/sOs, he's fighting the same people who'd help him prep.
I also agree with the point that while preparation tournaments can in ways lead to the "highest level of SC2 play" being shown, in the end it's all relative to the opponents. Weekenders and prep tournaments are simply different formats, everyone is playing in the same format. You could say that having a whole week to prep for an opponent leads to more polished play and more carefully selected strategies, sure. But you can also say that being able to consistently win weekender tournaments where you have much less time to prepare and are forced in much more uncomfortable situations, is much more impressive than having a ton of time to prepare for each match. And if you're able to somehow be consistent in those, whether you're great at improving, or just have so much experience that you're familiar with more situations than others, or just so good at prepping that you can do so in such a condensed format.
This is part of why I think players like Taeja winning so so many weekender tournaments where other top players would drown in pools is being so undervalued by people in recent years, whereas back in HotS it was common opinion that he ranked very highly on the GOAT list. More prep time leads to the better players winning more consistently, with the caveat that they could get sniped by a well prepared build sure. However, if you're able to consistently win weekender tournaments with much less prep time, then that's really impressive.
There is evidence of players who were great at prep tournaments doing poorly in weekender events, too - for example Nestea. Won 3 Code S, but didn't do very well at tournaments like Iron Squid. Maru is another. There is enough evidence that prep tournaments are not necessarily "harder" than weekender tournaments. They are just different formats and it makes sense that different players excel at different formats.
On March 20 2024 08:46 ktll4c91 wrote: I don't understand why good performace in code S and team league is taken to be evidence for being good at prepping in Maru's case. Surely there's a lot of team effort. Especially considering Maru's two teammates Rogue and sOs are probably the best players at prepping for weekenders. I suspect they must have played a significant part in Maru's performance in Code S and teamleague. At weekenders, Maru doesn't get such help, therefore performs worse and we see more tilt, bad builds and upsets from him.
On the other hand, there was a clip in this year's IEM in which Reynor and Rotti discuss how Serral watches and remembers every replay. Weekenders, like GSL, can be prepped for and Serral is good at it. I can't imagine such a player would do worse when he gets even more time to prep in GSLs.
This has forever been a bugbear of mine, you need partners to do that prep so in some way it’s a team effort.
I also share your theory that Maru is slightly less potent in the weekender format for this very reason. Often his losses are bad choices rather than being mechanically outplayed.
Indeed, some of his heavier losses in big games, sOs in that Blizzcon, Rogue in a Code S final were both at the hands of the very teammates who would otherwise help him prep.
Not that it diminishes Maru as one of the greats but I do think it’s a minus point against him that’s oft-neglected
Yeah, I always hold strong believe that Maru , and Reynor, are two players who can benefit greatly from having the right coaching/prep before any big tournament. Maru has very good build that he will show at a tournament, but then he switch back to the very standard flaky opening of 3CC and a bunch of Helion in TvZ that die to 2 base Roach aggression. I wasnt mad at Maru losing the long, standout game against Serral, I was disappointed as F when he let a couple of Roach and Ravager kill him straight up. And he lost the same way to Dark just a couple weeks before that in the MC7 as well, like why there is no one telling him to play something more aggressive and mix it up. It could be 3 Racks opening, or variation of 2-1-1, ect.
The GSL vs The World maybe bad example for weekender. 2018 it is easy to think that certain level of complacency may have played a part in Korean players' underperformance, when 'The World' was hosted on the home ground. 'Foreign killer' was killed.
However, 2019 was even worse from them. That bad, I suspect the whole tournament format was dropped out from schedule was at least partly because of abysmal 'The GSL' performance. Hard to justify sponsor money if Korean heroes are raggdolled by foreigners fully foreigning. 'Op Zerg' balance argument doesn't work particularly well here either as - you know - there were still rather high profile Korean Zergs participating in these events.
These two events, that do not count, btw, give a good time frame for the rise of Foreign scene. Neeb was there, TIME, Reynor, Elazer, Scarlett... Spearheaded by Serral. And when Korean Zergs failed to make much, Top Korean Protosses hold the flag highest against foreign usurpers.
This is also the time when Korean Elitist narrative 'preparation > weekender' was born in it's modern sense, and when 'GSL' started to mean only Code S.
All in all, from Serral's perspective these tourneys where rather lucrative economically: tourist visa, few days in a hotel without much preparation time while suffering jet lag, and 7.5 million wons per match winnings.
On March 20 2024 08:46 ktll4c91 wrote: I don't understand why good performace in code S and team league is taken to be evidence for being good at prepping in Maru's case. Surely there's a lot of team effort. Especially considering Maru's two teammates Rogue and sOs are probably the best players at prepping for weekenders. I suspect they must have played a significant part in Maru's performance in Code S and teamleague. At weekenders, Maru doesn't get such help, therefore performs worse and we see more tilt, bad builds and upsets from him.
On the other hand, there was a clip in this year's IEM in which Reynor and Rotti discuss how Serral watches and remembers every replay. Weekenders, like GSL, can be prepped for and Serral is good at it. I can't imagine such a player would do worse when he gets even more time to prep in GSLs.
This has forever been a bugbear of mine, you need partners to do that prep so in some way it’s a team effort.
I also share your theory that Maru is slightly less potent in the weekender format for this very reason. Often his losses are bad choices rather than being mechanically outplayed.
Indeed, some of his heavier losses in big games, sOs in that Blizzcon, Rogue in a Code S final were both at the hands of the very teammates who would otherwise help him prep.
Not that it diminishes Maru as one of the greats but I do think it’s a minus point against him that’s oft-neglected
Wow great points from both of you! I felt similarly, I wouldn't value team league performance super highly because it's... a team victory! For example, just because 1 player racks up lots of ace match wins doesn't necessarily mean that they deserve the credit as an individual. You never know if the teammates/coach simply focused on helping 1 player over another, in order to strategize the best way to win. But I wasn't able to realize that Maru not being able to get the same kind of support may be part of why he's weaker at weekender tournies, and the double whammy that when he's against Rogue/sOs, he's fighting the same people who'd help him prep.
I also agree with the point that while preparation tournaments can in ways lead to the "highest level of SC2 play" being shown, in the end it's all relative to the opponents. Weekenders and prep tournaments are simply different formats, everyone is playing in the same format. You could say that having a whole week to prep for an opponent leads to more polished play and more carefully selected strategies, sure. But you can also say that being able to consistently win weekender tournaments where you have much less time to prepare and are forced in much more uncomfortable situations, is much more impressive than having a ton of time to prepare for each match. And if you're able to somehow be consistent in those, whether you're great at improving, or just have so much experience that you're familiar with more situations than others, or just so good at prepping that you can do so in such a condensed format.
This is part of why I think players like Taeja winning so so many weekender tournaments where other top players would drown in pools is being so undervalued by people in recent years, whereas back in HotS it was common opinion that he ranked very highly on the GOAT list. More prep time leads to the better players winning more consistently, with the caveat that they could get sniped by a well prepared build sure. However, if you're able to consistently win weekender tournaments with much less prep time, then that's really impressive.
There is evidence of players who were great at prep tournaments doing poorly in weekender events, too - for example Nestea. Won 3 Code S, but didn't do very well at tournaments like Iron Squid. Maru is another. There is enough evidence that prep tournaments are not necessarily "harder" than weekender tournaments. They are just different formats and it makes sense that different players excel at different formats.
Aye I mean players excel with different races, and indeed even within the same race with different styles, it stands to reason different formats may also suit different skill sets and personalities.
And yeah I don’t consider one or the other particular harder or more prestigious, they’re just different. I mean it’s impressive to plan and practice for an opponent for a week, figure out ways to blindside them and predict what gambits they might employ, and then deliver when you’re on that stage. Just as it is running a gauntlet against other elite players with little prep time and thinking more on your feet.
On March 20 2024 13:36 UnLarva wrote: The GSL vs The World maybe bad example for weekender. 2018 it is easy to think that certain level of complacency may have played a part in Korean players' underperformance, when 'The World' was hosted on the home ground. 'Foreign killer' was killed.
However, 2019 was even worse from them. That bad, I suspect the whole tournament format was dropped out from schedule was at least partly because of abysmal 'The GSL' performance. Hard to justify sponsor money if Korean heroes are raggdolled by foreigners fully foreigning. 'Op Zerg' balance argument doesn't work particularly well here either as - you know - there were still rather high profile Korean Zergs participating in these events.
These two events, that do not count, btw, give a good time frame for the rise of Foreign scene. Neeb was there, TIME, Reynor, Elazer, Scarlett... Spearheaded by Serral. And when Korean Zergs failed to make much, Top Korean Protosses hold the flag highest against foreign usurpers.
This is also the time when Korean Elitist narrative 'preparation > weekender' was born in it's modern sense, and when 'GSL' started to mean only Code S.
All in all, from Serral's perspective these tourneys where rather lucrative economically: tourist visa, few days in a hotel without much preparation time while suffering jet lag, and 7.5 million wons per match winnings.
You’re countering arguments that are very rarely made.
GSL has been shorthand for Code S for absolutely forever, people didn’t change their definition just to deny Serral credit for GSL versus the world or whatever you’re angling.
There was a bit of initial confusion with changing formats, and a Super Tournament or two that was quite different but debate raged if it should be classed as a Code S or not. But aside from those first few years it’s been pretty stable definitionally.
Again, ‘Korean elitists’ have forever valued the prep format highly, I imagine in part because Brood War Starleagues as well as Proleague had a big prep component.
People were saying that Taeja who, last I checked is Korean was overrated well over a decade ago because he couldn’t show his weekender form in Code S.
It’s a gap in Serral’s resume, personally not one large enough for me to stick him at #1, but people by and large haven’t pulled this out of thin air all of a sudden just to try and deny his greatness.
On March 20 2024 08:46 ktll4c91 wrote: I don't understand why good performace in code S and team league is taken to be evidence for being good at prepping in Maru's case. Surely there's a lot of team effort. Especially considering Maru's two teammates Rogue and sOs are probably the best players at prepping for weekenders. I suspect they must have played a significant part in Maru's performance in Code S and teamleague. At weekenders, Maru doesn't get such help, therefore performs worse and we see more tilt, bad builds and upsets from him.
On the other hand, there was a clip in this year's IEM in which Reynor and Rotti discuss how Serral watches and remembers every replay. Weekenders, like GSL, can be prepped for and Serral is good at it. I can't imagine such a player would do worse when he gets even more time to prep in GSLs.
This has forever been a bugbear of mine, you need partners to do that prep so in some way it’s a team effort.
I also share your theory that Maru is slightly less potent in the weekender format for this very reason. Often his losses are bad choices rather than being mechanically outplayed.
Indeed, some of his heavier losses in big games, sOs in that Blizzcon, Rogue in a Code S final were both at the hands of the very teammates who would otherwise help him prep.
Not that it diminishes Maru as one of the greats but I do think it’s a minus point against him that’s oft-neglected
Yeah, I always hold strong believe that Maru , and Reynor, are two players who can benefit greatly from having the right coaching/prep before any big tournament. Maru has very good build that he will show at a tournament, but then he switch back to the very standard flaky opening of 3CC and a bunch of Helion in TvZ that die to 2 base Roach aggression. I wasnt mad at Maru losing the long, standout game against Serral, I was disappointed as F when he let a couple of Roach and Ravager kill him straight up. And he lost the same way to Dark just a couple weeks before that in the MC7 as well, like why there is no one telling him to play something more aggressive and mix it up. It could be 3 Racks opening, or variation of 2-1-1, ect.
Pretty sure if he would play 3 racks openings, 2-1-1, etc and it falls flat people would call him a baboon for not just playing standard 3CC and relying on being better in the macro game (That has actually happened already, e.g. when he got reverse-swept by Reynor).
That's the thing with terran (or Protoss), there isn't a catch all build you can spam every game. That's also why I think Serrals consistency is partly due to his race and wouldn't be replicable with another race.
On March 20 2024 08:46 ktll4c91 wrote: I don't understand why good performace in code S and team league is taken to be evidence for being good at prepping in Maru's case. Surely there's a lot of team effort. Especially considering Maru's two teammates Rogue and sOs are probably the best players at prepping for weekenders. I suspect they must have played a significant part in Maru's performance in Code S and teamleague. At weekenders, Maru doesn't get such help, therefore performs worse and we see more tilt, bad builds and upsets from him.
On the other hand, there was a clip in this year's IEM in which Reynor and Rotti discuss how Serral watches and remembers every replay. Weekenders, like GSL, can be prepped for and Serral is good at it. I can't imagine such a player would do worse when he gets even more time to prep in GSLs.
This has forever been a bugbear of mine, you need partners to do that prep so in some way it’s a team effort.
I also share your theory that Maru is slightly less potent in the weekender format for this very reason. Often his losses are bad choices rather than being mechanically outplayed.
Indeed, some of his heavier losses in big games, sOs in that Blizzcon, Rogue in a Code S final were both at the hands of the very teammates who would otherwise help him prep.
Not that it diminishes Maru as one of the greats but I do think it’s a minus point against him that’s oft-neglected
Yeah, I always hold strong believe that Maru , and Reynor, are two players who can benefit greatly from having the right coaching/prep before any big tournament. Maru has very good build that he will show at a tournament, but then he switch back to the very standard flaky opening of 3CC and a bunch of Helion in TvZ that die to 2 base Roach aggression. I wasnt mad at Maru losing the long, standout game against Serral, I was disappointed as F when he let a couple of Roach and Ravager kill him straight up. And he lost the same way to Dark just a couple weeks before that in the MC7 as well, like why there is no one telling him to play something more aggressive and mix it up. It could be 3 Racks opening, or variation of 2-1-1, ect.
Pretty sure if he would play 3 racks openings, 2-1-1, etc and it falls flat people would call him a baboon for not just playing standard 3CC and relying on being better in the macro game (That has actually happened already, e.g. when he got reverse-swept by Reynor).
That's the thing with terran (or Protoss), there isn't a catch all build you can spam every game. That's also why I think Serrals consistency is partly due to his race and wouldn't be replicable with another race.
Aye although I think the more knowledgable posters here were a bit more critical of what divergence he chose, especially versus Reynor, or when he chose to employ it rather than being purely critical of him mixing it up, which I think most sensible fans assume is necessary especially if you’re playing T and even more so for P. It was that Reynor was just unable to break Maru in late games, he didn’t have the answers and he got to match point and even with some maps remaining that were theoretically even better for that style he abandoned it to get reverse swept.
There is a bit of ‘did it work?’ bias of course. When Maru was proxying and winning all the time it was genius, or Serral mixing in some heavy ravager pressure builds.
I mean the high water mark of that, and hey it was a beautiful moment but Classic’s famous blink DT snipe of Rogue could have just looked awful if Rogue had sniffed it, or even had some blind defence. IIRC Classic even said in interviews later that it wasn’t reliable in practice but he felt he had to pull a Hail Mary.
I mean the critique is also a bit harsh because it’s in the context of the GOAT debate, most other players aren’t put under quite the same scrutiny.
I do generally agree that Zerg can prosper a bit more playing very similarly and reacting, but equally this Katowice we didn’t see Serral just macro it up every game. He had a very clever prepped strategy he used against Dark, and against Maru he mixed it up rather a lot too
On March 19 2024 03:43 _TakeR_ wrote: Interesting that actually winning the most world championships and by far the most premier events, and having the most dominant win record and head-to-head stats vs every player overall, isn't actually enough to be the greatest.
Also the reasoning that accomplishing far more than others have managed, and doing it in LESS time time than the others managed to achieve their more meagre accomplishments, is counted as a black mark against Serral is... also interesting. If only Serral had accomplished all of his superior achievements over a 12 year period rather than just a 7 year one, THEN his uncontestable combined world championships and premier events tally could actually be counted and finally he could be annointed as the true GOAT. Sad.
I will admit Maru has been in the scene longer, and thus 'wins' according to the singular rationale of the article writer.
I will also admit that Maru is definitely the best at winning regional tournaments where Serral is not eligible to participate.
I believe those are the only two metrics where Maru actually beats Serral, and so on that basis, all hail Maru the GOAT!
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
Great post. You can't be the GOAT when you lose tons of mirrors and some of them 0-4.
Not a balance whine, but everybody knows Z has been OP since LOTV. Serral is GREAT, he's truly a phenom, but he's been thriving since LOTV in an era where not just him but tons of other zergs have just dominated.
On March 20 2024 08:46 ktll4c91 wrote: I don't understand why good performace in code S and team league is taken to be evidence for being good at prepping in Maru's case. Surely there's a lot of team effort. Especially considering Maru's two teammates Rogue and sOs are probably the best players at prepping for weekenders. I suspect they must have played a significant part in Maru's performance in Code S and teamleague. At weekenders, Maru doesn't get such help, therefore performs worse and we see more tilt, bad builds and upsets from him.
On the other hand, there was a clip in this year's IEM in which Reynor and Rotti discuss how Serral watches and remembers every replay. Weekenders, like GSL, can be prepped for and Serral is good at it. I can't imagine such a player would do worse when he gets even more time to prep in GSLs.
There are definitely players who were much better in weekenders than prep tournaments. sOs and TaeJa are prime examples. Being good at one does not guarantee being good at the other.
This is the biggest copium of all time, Serral played many matches that were set in stage way before they were actually played, such as sOs and Zest on Blizzcon groups, also... for the past 6 years he has been the favourite to every tournament he enteers, are people really not preparing for him if they intended to win? Are SC2 pro players really this dumb?
A day or two of prep time for several opponents =/= a week or more to deep dive into a single player. Also not sure what copium you're talking about since I think Serral is the GOAT. I just don't agree with every argument put forth about him, or the assumption that someone who is a monster at weekenders will definitely find the same success in GSL. In Serral's case, we'll never know, and speculation about how he could possibly do isn't as strong an argument as what he's actually accomplished.
Blizzcon groups were decided waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before a day or two, it was a month or more before. Zest and sOs specifically said they prepared for Serral, still 4-0'd combined score.
For blizzcon playoffs it was a week before though, still more than a day or two.
There was some other tournament it was decided weeks before too and he 3-0 or 2-0 TY on first match.
It's a ridiculous point, they're still playing SC2, Taeja had issue with nerves on GSL for some reason (and wasn't anywhere as dominant as Serral), Serral is a multiple time world champion and winningest SC2 player ever.
On March 20 2024 13:36 UnLarva wrote: The GSL vs The World maybe bad example for weekender. 2018 it is easy to think that certain level of complacency may have played a part in Korean players' underperformance, when 'The World' was hosted on the home ground. 'Foreign killer' was killed.
However, 2019 was even worse from them. That bad, I suspect the whole tournament format was dropped out from schedule was at least partly because of abysmal 'The GSL' performance. Hard to justify sponsor money if Korean heroes are raggdolled by foreigners fully foreigning. 'Op Zerg' balance argument doesn't work particularly well here either as - you know - there were still rather high profile Korean Zergs participating in these events.
These two events, that do not count, btw, give a good time frame for the rise of Foreign scene. Neeb was there, TIME, Reynor, Elazer, Scarlett... Spearheaded by Serral. And when Korean Zergs failed to make much, Top Korean Protosses hold the flag highest against foreign usurpers.
This is also the time when Korean Elitist narrative 'preparation > weekender' was born in it's modern sense, and when 'GSL' started to mean only Code S.
All in all, from Serral's perspective these tourneys where rather lucrative economically: tourist visa, few days in a hotel without much preparation time while suffering jet lag, and 7.5 million wons per match winnings.
You’re countering arguments that are very rarely made.
GSL has been shorthand for Code S for absolutely forever, people didn’t change their definition just to deny Serral credit for GSL versus the world or whatever you’re angling.
There was a bit of initial confusion with changing formats, and a Super Tournament or two that was quite different but debate raged if it should be classed as a Code S or not. But aside from those first few years it’s been pretty stable definitionally.
Again, ‘Korean elitists’ have forever valued the prep format highly, I imagine in part because Brood War Starleagues as well as Proleague had a big prep component.
People were saying that Taeja who, last I checked is Korean was overrated well over a decade ago because he couldn’t show his weekender form in Code S.
It’s a gap in Serral’s resume, personally not one large enough for me to stick him at #1, but people by and large haven’t pulled this out of thin air all of a sudden just to try and deny his greatness.
Great point on Taeja, I remember those days. People calling him overrated due to not haveing the same success in GSL.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
Great post. You can't be the GOAT when you lose tons of mirrors and some of them 0-4.
Not a balance whine, but everybody knows Z has been OP since LOTV. Serral is GREAT, he's truly a phenom, but he's been thriving since LOTV in an era where not just him but tons of other zergs have just dominated.
Hate to break it to you
but Serral's ZvZ win rate is higher than Maru's TvT, and historically ZvZ has always been the far more volatile mirror matchup than TvT
Only Dark has 4-0 Serral once, Rogue hasn't. Serral holds a winning h2h record against both Dark and Rogue.
Serral earned all his World Champions titles by going through the other best Zerg peers at the time (3-0 Dark and 3-1 Rogue in 2018, 3-0 Rogue and 4-3 Reynor in 2022, 3-1 Dark in 2024). Meanwhile Maru lost 1-4 to fucking Oliveira in the finals
The excuses you guys came up with to prop up Maru and discredit Serral is getting lamer and lamer each day.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
Great post. You can't be the GOAT when you lose tons of mirrors and some of them 0-4.
Not a balance whine, but everybody knows Z has been OP since LOTV. Serral is GREAT, he's truly a phenom, but he's been thriving since LOTV in an era where not just him but tons of other zergs have just dominated.
Hate to break it to you
but Serral's ZvZ win rate is higher than Maru's TvT, and historically ZvZ has always been the far more volatile mirror matchup than TvT
Only Dark has 4-0 Serral once, Rogue hasn't. Serral holds a winning h2h record against both Dark and Rogue.
Serral earned all his World Champions titles by going through the other best Zerg peers at the time (3-0 Dark and 3-1 Rogue in 2018, 3-0 Rogue and 4-3 Reynor in 2022, 3-1 Dark in 2024). Meanwhile Maru lost 1-4 to fucking Oliveira in the finals
The excuses you guys came up with to prop up Maru and discredit Serral is getting lamer and lamer each day.
Not taking a side with this, but Serral lost to Ragnarok in the Ro8 in that tournament. Maru was the one that got embarrassed in the finals, but he walked away with 50k more than Serral did.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
Great post. You can't be the GOAT when you lose tons of mirrors and some of them 0-4.
Not a balance whine, but everybody knows Z has been OP since LOTV. Serral is GREAT, he's truly a phenom, but he's been thriving since LOTV in an era where not just him but tons of other zergs have just dominated.
Hate to break it to you
but Serral's ZvZ win rate is higher than Maru's TvT, and historically ZvZ has always been the far more volatile mirror matchup than TvT
Only Dark has 4-0 Serral once, Rogue hasn't. Serral holds a winning h2h record against both Dark and Rogue.
Serral earned all his World Champions titles by going through the other best Zerg peers at the time (3-0 Dark and 3-1 Rogue in 2018, 3-0 Rogue and 4-3 Reynor in 2022, 3-1 Dark in 2024). Meanwhile Maru lost 1-4 to fucking Oliveira in the finals
The excuses you guys came up with to prop up Maru and discredit Serral is getting lamer and lamer each day.
Not an excuse at all. Maru has never been known to be weaker in TVT through his career since 2011? Serral's weakest matchup by far is definitely mirror. There have been stretches as I recall where Serral would lose mirror after mirror, I think it was Reynor for quite a stretch.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
Great post. You can't be the GOAT when you lose tons of mirrors and some of them 0-4.
Not a balance whine, but everybody knows Z has been OP since LOTV. Serral is GREAT, he's truly a phenom, but he's been thriving since LOTV in an era where not just him but tons of other zergs have just dominated.
Hate to break it to you
but Serral's ZvZ win rate is higher than Maru's TvT, and historically ZvZ has always been the far more volatile mirror matchup than TvT
Only Dark has 4-0 Serral once, Rogue hasn't. Serral holds a winning h2h record against both Dark and Rogue.
Serral earned all his World Champions titles by going through the other best Zerg peers at the time (3-0 Dark and 3-1 Rogue in 2018, 3-0 Rogue and 4-3 Reynor in 2022, 3-1 Dark in 2024). Meanwhile Maru lost 1-4 to fucking Oliveira in the finals
The excuses you guys came up with to prop up Maru and discredit Serral is getting lamer and lamer each day.
Not taking a side with this, but Serral lost to Ragnarok in the Ro8 in that tournament. Maru was the one that got embarrassed in the finals, but he walked away with 50k more than Serral did.
yes the famous series filled with roach pushes off of 30 drones when serral had 54 drones and there was a lot of debate on wether or not he left too early.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
Great post. You can't be the GOAT when you lose tons of mirrors and some of them 0-4.
Not a balance whine, but everybody knows Z has been OP since LOTV. Serral is GREAT, he's truly a phenom, but he's been thriving since LOTV in an era where not just him but tons of other zergs have just dominated.
Hate to break it to you
but Serral's ZvZ win rate is higher than Maru's TvT, and historically ZvZ has always been the far more volatile mirror matchup than TvT
Only Dark has 4-0 Serral once, Rogue hasn't. Serral holds a winning h2h record against both Dark and Rogue.
Serral earned all his World Champions titles by going through the other best Zerg peers at the time (3-0 Dark and 3-1 Rogue in 2018, 3-0 Rogue and 4-3 Reynor in 2022, 3-1 Dark in 2024). Meanwhile Maru lost 1-4 to fucking Oliveira in the finals
The excuses you guys came up with to prop up Maru and discredit Serral is getting lamer and lamer each day.
Not taking a side with this, but Serral lost to Ragnarok in the Ro8 in that tournament. Maru was the one that got embarrassed in the finals, but he walked away with 50k more than Serral did.
How easy to focus on one tournament where Maru did better than Serral and ignore three (or 10 more?) others that Serral did better.
Serral fans will be happy admit that Ragnarok series was a blunder. Because he had enough mirror matchup success on the biggest stages to prove that one series is a more of a fluke than anything. Maru doesn't have such luxury.
But to be fair, I do recognize Maru as one of the greatest TvT players ever. The intention of that reply is to showing how hilarious the argument of "Serral can't be GOAT because he lost 0-4 to Dark once in his career" is.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
Great post. You can't be the GOAT when you lose tons of mirrors and some of them 0-4.
Not a balance whine, but everybody knows Z has been OP since LOTV. Serral is GREAT, he's truly a phenom, but he's been thriving since LOTV in an era where not just him but tons of other zergs have just dominated.
Hate to break it to you
but Serral's ZvZ win rate is higher than Maru's TvT, and historically ZvZ has always been the far more volatile mirror matchup than TvT
Only Dark has 4-0 Serral once, Rogue hasn't. Serral holds a winning h2h record against both Dark and Rogue.
Serral earned all his World Champions titles by going through the other best Zerg peers at the time (3-0 Dark and 3-1 Rogue in 2018, 3-0 Rogue and 4-3 Reynor in 2022, 3-1 Dark in 2024). Meanwhile Maru lost 1-4 to fucking Oliveira in the finals
The excuses you guys came up with to prop up Maru and discredit Serral is getting lamer and lamer each day.
Not an excuse at all. Maru has never been known to be weaker in TVT through his career since 2011? Serral's weakest matchup by far is definitely mirror. There have been stretches as I recall where Serral would lose mirror after mirror, I think it was Reynor for quite a stretch.
there was a small time period where reynor going muta ling gave serral some trouble but it was conceptual. It wasn't clear yet what was the best way to play against that, once it was figured out, that problem disappeared quick.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
Great post. You can't be the GOAT when you lose tons of mirrors and some of them 0-4.
Not a balance whine, but everybody knows Z has been OP since LOTV. Serral is GREAT, he's truly a phenom, but he's been thriving since LOTV in an era where not just him but tons of other zergs have just dominated.
Hate to break it to you
but Serral's ZvZ win rate is higher than Maru's TvT, and historically ZvZ has always been the far more volatile mirror matchup than TvT
Only Dark has 4-0 Serral once, Rogue hasn't. Serral holds a winning h2h record against both Dark and Rogue.
Serral earned all his World Champions titles by going through the other best Zerg peers at the time (3-0 Dark and 3-1 Rogue in 2018, 3-0 Rogue and 4-3 Reynor in 2022, 3-1 Dark in 2024). Meanwhile Maru lost 1-4 to fucking Oliveira in the finals
The excuses you guys came up with to prop up Maru and discredit Serral is getting lamer and lamer each day.
Not an excuse at all. Maru has never been known to be weaker in TVT through his career since 2011? Serral's weakest matchup by far is definitely mirror. There have been stretches as I recall where Serral would lose mirror after mirror, I think it was Reynor for quite a stretch.
there was a small time period where reynor going muta ling gave serral some trouble but it was conceptual. It wasn't clear yet what was the best way to play against that, once it was figured out, that problem disappeared quick.
I don't recall all the games, but I remember the muta issue for Serral was primarily from Dark no?
The series where Reynor was beating him for a stretch from my memory wasn't as muta focused. I could be wrong though.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
Great post. You can't be the GOAT when you lose tons of mirrors and some of them 0-4.
Not a balance whine, but everybody knows Z has been OP since LOTV. Serral is GREAT, he's truly a phenom, but he's been thriving since LOTV in an era where not just him but tons of other zergs have just dominated.
Hate to break it to you
but Serral's ZvZ win rate is higher than Maru's TvT, and historically ZvZ has always been the far more volatile mirror matchup than TvT
Only Dark has 4-0 Serral once, Rogue hasn't. Serral holds a winning h2h record against both Dark and Rogue.
Serral earned all his World Champions titles by going through the other best Zerg peers at the time (3-0 Dark and 3-1 Rogue in 2018, 3-0 Rogue and 4-3 Reynor in 2022, 3-1 Dark in 2024). Meanwhile Maru lost 1-4 to fucking Oliveira in the finals
The excuses you guys came up with to prop up Maru and discredit Serral is getting lamer and lamer each day.
Reynor also beat Serral 4:0 in 2022 KOB3.
Rogue vs. Serral is very close to 50/50 - Rogue actually had an advantage through '21. It was only 2022 when Rogue was phasing into retirement that Serral turned it around.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
Great post. You can't be the GOAT when you lose tons of mirrors and some of them 0-4.
Not a balance whine, but everybody knows Z has been OP since LOTV. Serral is GREAT, he's truly a phenom, but he's been thriving since LOTV in an era where not just him but tons of other zergs have just dominated.
Hate to break it to you
but Serral's ZvZ win rate is higher than Maru's TvT, and historically ZvZ has always been the far more volatile mirror matchup than TvT
Only Dark has 4-0 Serral once, Rogue hasn't. Serral holds a winning h2h record against both Dark and Rogue.
Serral earned all his World Champions titles by going through the other best Zerg peers at the time (3-0 Dark and 3-1 Rogue in 2018, 3-0 Rogue and 4-3 Reynor in 2022, 3-1 Dark in 2024). Meanwhile Maru lost 1-4 to fucking Oliveira in the finals
The excuses you guys came up with to prop up Maru and discredit Serral is getting lamer and lamer each day.
Not an excuse at all. Maru has never been known to be weaker in TVT through his career since 2011? Serral's weakest matchup by far is definitely mirror. There have been stretches as I recall where Serral would lose mirror after mirror, I think it was Reynor for quite a stretch.
See, this is the danger of relying on impression instead of statistics for these kind of discussion. Your brain will always remember the parts where it fits your narrative better than others.
Do you know that both Innovation and TY holds a winning h2h record against Maru in their career? Do you remember for the span of three years from 2017 to 2019, TY and Inno had a combined 10-1 series record against Maru? Obviously you don't.
Meanwhile, Reynor's best year against Serral was in 2020, where he 6-4 Serral in series. Every other year he lost to Serral overall and he only has a 35% h2h career record against Serral.
The reason you will remember Serral's ZvZ as some kind of "weakness" is because he's almost invincible in ZvT and ZvP, therefore making his 78% mirror match win rate somehow feels like a weakness in comparison. But it's still better than any other Zerg's ZvZ other than perhaps soO in his prime.
On March 20 2024 13:36 UnLarva wrote: The GSL vs The World maybe bad example for weekender. 2018 it is easy to think that certain level of complacency may have played a part in Korean players' underperformance, when 'The World' was hosted on the home ground. 'Foreign killer' was killed.
However, 2019 was even worse from them. That bad, I suspect the whole tournament format was dropped out from schedule was at least partly because of abysmal 'The GSL' performance. Hard to justify sponsor money if Korean heroes are raggdolled by foreigners fully foreigning. 'Op Zerg' balance argument doesn't work particularly well here either as - you know - there were still rather high profile Korean Zergs participating in these events.
These two events, that do not count, btw, give a good time frame for the rise of Foreign scene. Neeb was there, TIME, Reynor, Elazer, Scarlett... Spearheaded by Serral. And when Korean Zergs failed to make much, Top Korean Protosses hold the flag highest against foreign usurpers.
This is also the time when Korean Elitist narrative 'preparation > weekender' was born in it's modern sense, and when 'GSL' started to mean only Code S.
All in all, from Serral's perspective these tourneys where rather lucrative economically: tourist visa, few days in a hotel without much preparation time while suffering jet lag, and 7.5 million wons per match winnings.
You’re countering arguments that are very rarely made.
GSL has been shorthand for Code S for absolutely forever, people didn’t change their definition just to deny Serral credit for GSL versus the world or whatever you’re angling.
There was a bit of initial confusion with changing formats, and a Super Tournament or two that was quite different but debate raged if it should be classed as a Code S or not. But aside from those first few years it’s been pretty stable definitionally.
Again, ‘Korean elitists’ have forever valued the prep format highly, I imagine in part because Brood War Starleagues as well as Proleague had a big prep component.
People were saying that Taeja who, last I checked is Korean was overrated well over a decade ago because he couldn’t show his weekender form in Code S.
It’s a gap in Serral’s resume, personally not one large enough for me to stick him at #1, but people by and large haven’t pulled this out of thin air all of a sudden just to try and deny his greatness.
My "thin air" is that why perpetual "weekender form" should be considered somehow bad thing? Why It is possible to Serral to prolong his unprepared weekend to years long domination, when guys who should know better by their merits, cannot? Pattern became visible already during that GSL weekender 2018, and what is also clear Serral was the one who prepared best then, and ever since on average has been the guy who prepared the most. Ironically his biggest hurdles soon became in preparation against Reynor and Clem, not for his Korean peers.
Better half of StarCraft 2 history was one long process of preparation for a match against a Korean Overlord for a top Foreigner.
I do not deny Maru's or any other's greatness, I just defend the greatness of Serral (and Dark!!! o7) against bullshit conceptions. And, you can counter arguments well before they even emerge as standardized mantras, and formalized factoids, something that seems to be a norm at these parts.
A Korean Elite player should always manhandle easily a foreigner in a weekender match, that's the basal assumption because of immeasurably hard and arcane Korean art of preparation of otherworldly and all-encompassing and all-embracing GSL Code S - format (of yesteryears by now), and clearly the reality doesn't fit to that assumption very well, not at least after Serral's strongly demonstrated practical objections.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
Great post. You can't be the GOAT when you lose tons of mirrors and some of them 0-4.
Not a balance whine, but everybody knows Z has been OP since LOTV. Serral is GREAT, he's truly a phenom, but he's been thriving since LOTV in an era where not just him but tons of other zergs have just dominated.
Hate to break it to you
but Serral's ZvZ win rate is higher than Maru's TvT, and historically ZvZ has always been the far more volatile mirror matchup than TvT
Only Dark has 4-0 Serral once, Rogue hasn't. Serral holds a winning h2h record against both Dark and Rogue.
Serral earned all his World Champions titles by going through the other best Zerg peers at the time (3-0 Dark and 3-1 Rogue in 2018, 3-0 Rogue and 4-3 Reynor in 2022, 3-1 Dark in 2024). Meanwhile Maru lost 1-4 to fucking Oliveira in the finals
The excuses you guys came up with to prop up Maru and discredit Serral is getting lamer and lamer each day.
Not taking a side with this, but Serral lost to Ragnarok in the Ro8 in that tournament. Maru was the one that got embarrassed in the finals, but he walked away with 50k more than Serral did.
How easy to focus on one tournament where Maru did better than Serral and ignore three (or 10 more?) others that Serral did better.
Serral fans will be happy admit that Ragnarok series was a blunder. Because he had enough mirror matchup success on the biggest stages to prove that one series is a more of a fluke than anything. Maru doesn't have such luxury.
But to be fair, I do recognize Maru as one of the greatest TvT players ever. The intention of that reply is to showing how hilarious the argument of "Serral can't be GOAT because he lost 0-4 to Dark once in his career" is.
Serral has a 100% match win rate against Rogue in offline matches, including a Katowice Ro4 and a Blizzcon Ro4. But yeah overall they’re pushing basically 50/50
He’s got a 65% win rate against both Reynor and Dark overall. Higher than I expected actually, especially the former so I’m glad I checked! Felt they were kind of trading pretty evenly these last few years.
For comparison Maru is a dead 50/50 against TY, and at a 47.83% against Innovation.
Not a direct equivalence but I feel it’s instructive to do a mirror comparison between Serral and the ‘Big 4’ and Maru and the other great Terrans of the more recent past.
So yeah Zerg have been strong but he’s still coming out on top in mirrors against his peers in general. And minus the odd wax and wane in fortunes and ability he’s been stronger overall in vT/vP as well.
I think there’s some obvious truth to the scene having a bit less depth, so Serral’s raw win rates maybe weren’t doable in the peak days of Kespa, that’s fair enough. But it’s a difficult argument to invoke in favour of Maru or Rogue given they also made a lot of hay in the same span Serral became a championship calibre player.
On March 16 2024 09:04 Branch.AUT wrote: How do you even put maru at #1 after he got SMASHED 4-0 by serral, with 250k on the line? Like how can you think he is better? Is it because he won the Global Starvation League so many times, when all other players were done competeing there???
thats just 1 tournament. serral is in better shape now, but this is about a career.
I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements. It took Maru 11 years from 2012 to 2023 to amass 15 Premier Tournament wins in tournaments with top Korean participation. Serral managed to win 16 in 6 years, while Maru had more chances to do so as GSL is 3 times a year AND he was present in nearly all tournaments that Serral was in.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It’s their own post made in different threads.
And ‘fair fucks’ as we say over here, they put in the groundwork for it!
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
My favorite posts are the factually incorrect ones.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
My favorite posts are the factually incorrect ones.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It’s their own post made in different threads.
And ‘fair fucks’ as we say over here, they put in the groundwork for it!
You do realize you can look all this up in 15 minutes on aligulac right?
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
My favorite posts are the factually incorrect ones.
That explains a lot
Too bad I have an editor so I can't get away with them like an average forum poster. It would make life so much more fun.
Those of us passionate about SC2 tend to have a favorite player. We started out having no particular preference, but over time someone impresses us so much that we think "Jesus this guy is incredible!". When GOAT conversations start, some of us take it upon ourselves to defend our favorite player's legacy and this is completely understandable.
What I find annoying is a group of fans being convinced/vocal that Serral is the GOAT beyond doubt, and they cite his performance record from '18 as undeniable proof. Despite many reasonable arguments having been made in Miz's original article and additional ones in this thread, including game balance, level of competition, etc., they refuse to acknowledge any alternative outcome.
In an Artosis stream perhaps ~6 months ago, NoRegreT is so pro Serral that he denies Rogue to be even in the GOAT conversation. The disrespect is simply hard to stomach. A bit like a teenager insisting LeBron is the GOAT over MJ and Kobe isn't even a contender.
I will quote Artosis in his latest video on the GOAT topic: "there's no undisputed GOAT as much as the fanboys want there to be". 5 years from now, when the game is dead, I know which players' replay I will be watching and no performance record is going to change that.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
My favorite posts are the factually incorrect ones.
That explains a lot
Too bad I have an editor so I can't get away with them like an average forum poster. It would make life so much more fun.
The editor didnt even catch the mistyped 1 in the title of this article though.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It’s their own post made in different threads.
And ‘fair fucks’ as we say over here, they put in the groundwork for it!
You do realize you can look all this up in 15 minutes on aligulac right?
Some of it sure, I feel it’s doing a bit of a disservice to the effort to dig certain tidbits out. It’s a hell of a lot more effort than most posts on these topics go to at least
From personal diggings, mostly for the purposes of discussing things on this list some are easy to find, some are a bit wonkier and take a little more time.
Additionally folks don’t religiously update Liquipedia with feats and tidbits as used to be more common. So just skimming off there isn’t as productive as it may once have been.
To my knowledge there’s no easy way to, for example use Aligulac alone to find something like all-time Code S Ro8+ streaks. I knew it was Trap, and thought he’d made the magic 10 to set a ‘Trap award’ after Nestea’s Ro32 and Parting’s Ro16 10+ streaks but if it wasn’t a stat I already knew it wouldn’t be one I’d just stumble across.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It’s their own post made in different threads.
And ‘fair fucks’ as we say over here, they put in the groundwork for it!
You do realize you can look all this up in 15 minutes on aligulac right?
Some of it sure, I feel it’s doing a bit of a disservice to the effort to dig certain tidbits out. It’s a hell of a lot more effort than most posts on these topics go to at least
From personal diggings, mostly for the purposes of discussing things on this list some are easy to find, some are a bit wonkier and take a little more time.
Additionally folks don’t religiously update Liquipedia with feats and tidbits as used to be more common. So just skimming off there isn’t as productive as it may once have been.
To my knowledge there’s no easy way to, for example use Aligulac alone to find something like all-time Code S Ro8+ streaks. I knew it was Trap, and thought he’d made the magic 10 to set a ‘Trap award’ after Nestea’s Ro32 and Parting’s Ro16 10+ streaks but if it wasn’t a stat I already knew it wouldn’t be one I’d just stumble across.
I do respect the effort, the part I found funny about it was that anybody could do that if they had the inclination, but no one does because it's easier to just say something with no accountability.
As for the Trap stuff and whatever else, I just happen to have a spreadsheet with all of that
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
Yeah those are good arguments.
The arguments Mizenhauer provided in favor of Maru are also good.
As well as Artosis' arguments in favor of Rogue.
It's like Artosis said, there just isn't an undisputed Goat no matter how hard the fanboys want it to be. It all depends on your criteria and how you rate different achievements against each other
On March 21 2024 01:52 goldensail wrote: Those of us passionate about SC2 tend to have a favorite player. We started out having no particular preference, but over time someone impresses us so much that we think "Jesus this guy is incredible!". When GOAT conversations start, some of us take it upon ourselves to defend our favorite player's legacy and this is completely understandable.
What I find annoying is a group of fans being convinced/vocal that Serral is the GOAT beyond doubt, and they cite his performance record from '18 as undeniable proof. Despite many reasonable arguments having been made in Miz's original article and additional ones in this thread, including game balance, level of competition, etc., they refuse to acknowledge any alternative outcome.
In an Artosis stream perhaps ~6 months ago, NoRegreT is so pro Serral that he denies Rogue to be even in the GOAT conversation. The disrespect is simply hard to stomach. A bit like a teenager insisting LeBron is the GOAT over MJ and Kobe isn't even a contender.
I will quote Artosis in his latest video on the GOAT topic: "there's no undisputed GOAT as much as the fanboys want there to be". 5 years from now, when the game is dead, I know which players' replay I will be watching and no performance record is going to change that.
I mean it ain’t just Serral fans, but yes. It is preposterous to be on Reddit or here and claim there’s an undisputed GOAT amongst threads of people very much disputing who is the GOAT.
I’m all down for personal preference but I think it should be in what you’re weighting, not the player themselves. When it comes to the latter is when you start seeing different arguments in different contexts trying to augment the particular player’s claim.
Not a big criticism I have of Miz’s article but you sure as hell see a lot of it in threads like these.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It’s their own post made in different threads.
And ‘fair fucks’ as we say over here, they put in the groundwork for it!
You do realize you can look all this up in 15 minutes on aligulac right?
Some of it sure, I feel it’s doing a bit of a disservice to the effort to dig certain tidbits out. It’s a hell of a lot more effort than most posts on these topics go to at least
From personal diggings, mostly for the purposes of discussing things on this list some are easy to find, some are a bit wonkier and take a little more time.
Additionally folks don’t religiously update Liquipedia with feats and tidbits as used to be more common. So just skimming off there isn’t as productive as it may once have been.
To my knowledge there’s no easy way to, for example use Aligulac alone to find something like all-time Code S Ro8+ streaks. I knew it was Trap, and thought he’d made the magic 10 to set a ‘Trap award’ after Nestea’s Ro32 and Parting’s Ro16 10+ streaks but if it wasn’t a stat I already knew it wouldn’t be one I’d just stumble across.
I do respect the effort, the part I found funny about it was that anybody could do that if they had the inclination, but no one does because it's easier to just say something with no accountability.
As for the Trap stuff and whatever else, I just happen to have a spreadsheet with all of that
Luckier for everyone else I just stuck her on Liquipedia ^_^
Aye I mean anyone can do such things and it’s not some Herculean, but I’ll give props nonetheless. I mean in theory everyone could quite easily be civil on the internet but that’s oft not the case
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It’s their own post made in different threads.
And ‘fair fucks’ as we say over here, they put in the groundwork for it!
You do realize you can look all this up in 15 minutes on aligulac right?
Some of it sure, I feel it’s doing a bit of a disservice to the effort to dig certain tidbits out. It’s a hell of a lot more effort than most posts on these topics go to at least
From personal diggings, mostly for the purposes of discussing things on this list some are easy to find, some are a bit wonkier and take a little more time.
Additionally folks don’t religiously update Liquipedia with feats and tidbits as used to be more common. So just skimming off there isn’t as productive as it may once have been.
To my knowledge there’s no easy way to, for example use Aligulac alone to find something like all-time Code S Ro8+ streaks. I knew it was Trap, and thought he’d made the magic 10 to set a ‘Trap award’ after Nestea’s Ro32 and Parting’s Ro16 10+ streaks but if it wasn’t a stat I already knew it wouldn’t be one I’d just stumble across.
I do respect the effort, the part I found funny about it was that anybody could do that if they had the inclination, but no one does because it's easier to just say something with no accountability.
As for the Trap stuff and whatever else, I just happen to have a spreadsheet with all of that
Luckier for everyone else I just stuck her on Liquipedia ^_^
Aye I mean anyone can do such things and it’s not some Herculean, but I’ll give props nonetheless. I mean in theory everyone could quite easily be civil on the internet but that’s oft not the case
I'm pretty sure 95%+ plus haven't read the articles and just "skipped to the predictions so they can trash them" (a classic preview tactic). You're already in elite company if you managed to make it that far.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
Disagree with the last part, he outperformed the other Zergs in 2018 and 2022-now but between that it was very much contested between Dark, Rogue, Reynor and him
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
That was early in march 2018. So really just a few months after serral went fulltime and only after he won one WCG event, leipzig. He had not yet fully ascended then. he smacked around Dark, Innovation, Stats in august of that year to win GSL vs the World. Not sure where exactly to put the goal post but certainly after becoming the world champ at the end of 2018 he'd the favorite in any GSL.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
I mean if we are talking hypothetical, in a perfectly balanced game with Serral going to the GSL, Maru would beat him almost every time except when unhealthy
Money wise, those from LATAM / NA, and zergs, were quite lucky these last few years.
On March 21 2024 02:57 goldensail wrote: When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
Pretty bad bait. 5/10
In case you are serious, you are of course entitled to have your opinion. It has nothing to do with the reality though.
Then people wonder, how are Serral fans so defensive....Same old crap for 6 years now.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
I mean if we are talking hypothetical, in a perfectly balanced game with Serral going to the GSL, Maru would beat him almost every time except when unhealthy
Money wise, those from LATAM / NA, and zergs, were quite lucky these last few years.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It’s their own post made in different threads.
And ‘fair fucks’ as we say over here, they put in the groundwork for it!
You do realize you can look all this up in 15 minutes on aligulac right?
Some of it sure, I feel it’s doing a bit of a disservice to the effort to dig certain tidbits out. It’s a hell of a lot more effort than most posts on these topics go to at least
From personal diggings, mostly for the purposes of discussing things on this list some are easy to find, some are a bit wonkier and take a little more time.
Additionally folks don’t religiously update Liquipedia with feats and tidbits as used to be more common. So just skimming off there isn’t as productive as it may once have been.
To my knowledge there’s no easy way to, for example use Aligulac alone to find something like all-time Code S Ro8+ streaks. I knew it was Trap, and thought he’d made the magic 10 to set a ‘Trap award’ after Nestea’s Ro32 and Parting’s Ro16 10+ streaks but if it wasn’t a stat I already knew it wouldn’t be one I’d just stumble across.
I do respect the effort, the part I found funny about it was that anybody could do that if they had the inclination, but no one does because it's easier to just say something with no accountability.
As for the Trap stuff and whatever else, I just happen to have a spreadsheet with all of that
Luckier for everyone else I just stuck her on Liquipedia ^_^
Aye I mean anyone can do such things and it’s not some Herculean, but I’ll give props nonetheless. I mean in theory everyone could quite easily be civil on the internet but that’s oft not the case
I'm pretty sure 95%+ plus haven't read the articles and just "skipped to the predictions so they can trash them" (a classic preview tactic). You're already in elite company if you managed to make it that far.
If I had my time as supreme overlord, which would surely end swiftly with me being executed by a mob, one of my first decrees would be to make commenting on unread articles illegal.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
Man what I wouldn’t give to grab a few beers and have an off-record chat with a bunch of top pros, would be fascinating to see what they really feel about various things in a relaxed environment. May need a translator mind as my Korean isn’t too hot.
I think it attests to quite how hard StarCraft is that even top, top pros struggle to have an off-race even within 500 MMR of their main. I think Reynor and Maru’s P are closer than that and good enough to place legit high on the ladder, but exceptions, rules and all that.
I’d actually be curious if anyone knew what kinda level other top players have their off-races, do feel free to post!
Serral is just the complete player, the one doubt I maybe had was would he have the killer instinct to pull the trigger, or take the risks you need to prosper as Protoss, playstyle wise. Something I had zero doubt Rogue could do with his rich history of bullshit fiendishly clever aggression.
Lately even that seems to be something he’s more comfortable with, and executes better.
I do agree Serral would be great regardless of race as would Maru. Obviously each race requires different skills but both of these players are super well rounded.
However maybe a more tangential discussion about how the races have benefitted from meta innovations and also hotkey innovations. Zerg to me benefits the most from rapid fire simplifying their macro mechanics, the injects and creep spread take significantly less effort. Whereas Terran macro still has all the same clunkiness with add-ons, base layout, placing buildings etc.
Obviously toss use rapid fire for warpins, but the feedback change was just reverted. Which I never tested but it did seem like a decent way to help toss vs casters.
Personally I feel like rapid fire takes some of the mechanical challenges out of these mechanics, with apm/attention being a resource, and tilts some of the balance. Maybe this is delusional but as someone who mostly uses default hotkeys Zerg feels like it benefits the most from rapid fire. My other races besides like warp in and snipe don't feel much different
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
I think that someone like Maru should have considered himslef lucky that Serral wasnt born in Korea.
Cus i dont think that Serrals chances would be the same as in premier weekenders.
There's a different type of preparation that GSL requires, which Serral never had much experience with.
My guess is that Serral would take a few GSLs to adapt. But once he did... oh boy, Maru would have a difficult time making money.
One thing can be said. Serral not participaint in GSL made all the difference in Maru's historical accolades.
The contrary cant be said. Cus on all the major accomplishments that made Serral what he is (to Mizen, the #2 GOAT), Maru was there and couldnt stop him.
I mean I don’t think it’s impossible Serral wouldn’t have won GSL if he’d been competing there for 6 years, but equally it’s not impossible that I’d woo and marry Sofia Vegata either.
It may be that his environment and work/life balance given his chosen path are just ideal for the guy, but there’s even the frankly terrifying possibility that a Serral forged in the fires of Korea is even stronger.
Firstly Serral has the best win rate versus Korean opposition ever, and by a decent enough margin. Secondly, he generally is only playing the GSL players towards the upper end, good enough to qualify for the big competitions. If he was regularly playing the lower tiers of Korean pros in GSL it’d be even higher.
Looking at his head-to-head match win rates solely against GSL winners/finalists in this span: Maru - 77% Trap - 82% Dark - 65% Cure - 90% TY - 71% Rogue - 53% Zest - 73% Classic - 80% Stats - 69%
While I think people go crazy overboard and say ridiculous things like Serral would sweep it every season or w/e, it’s almost inconceivable to me that he wouldn’t take even one. Even Reynor who is way more streaky and IMO not quite on the same tier I think would probably pull it off at least once.
As a big fan of the game overall, novelty, a huge fan of the GSL and what it’s given over the years it’s absolutely one of my biggest disappointments that getting a few foreigners who could potentially actually win it is accompanied by those said same not playing it regularly.
On March 21 2024 03:43 WombaT wrote: I mean I don’t think it’s impossible Serral wouldn’t have won GSL if he’d been competing there for 6 years, but equally it’s not impossible that I’d woo and marry Sofia Vegata either.
It may be that his environment and work/life balance given his chosen path are just ideal for the guy, but there’s even the frankly terrifying possibility that a Serral forged in the fires of Korea is even stronger.
Firstly Serral has the best win rate versus Korean opposition ever, and by a decent enough margin. Secondly, he generally is only playing the GSL players towards the upper end, good enough to qualify for the big competitions. If he was regularly playing the lower tiers of Korean pros in GSL it’d be even higher.
Looking at his head-to-head match win rates solely against GSL winners/finalists in this span: Maru - 77% Trap - 82% Dark - 65% Cure - 90% TY - 71% Rogue - 53% Zest - 73% Classic - 80% Stats - 69%
While I think people go crazy overboard and say ridiculous things like Serral would sweep it every season or w/e, it’s almost inconceivable to me that he wouldn’t take even one. Even Reynor who is way more streaky and IMO not quite on the same tier I think would probably pull it off at least once.
As a big fan of the game overall, novelty, a huge fan of the GSL and what it’s given over the years it’s absolutely one of my biggest disappointments that getting a few foreigners who could potentially actually win it is accompanied by those said same not playing it regularly.
I think there's a pretty good chance he wins 3-4 tournaments if he played every Code S from 2018-2023 (especially with the weakened pool in the ones after 2022 or so).
The thing is, people constantly forget how variance heavy SC2 is when they're trying to do predictions or map out these kinds of hypotheticals. Shit like Serral going 1-4 against DRG in a DHM Last chance group or losing to RagnaroK at IEM Katowice, Maru dropping out of Code S RO32 to Scarlett and Solar, Reynor dropping out of RO32 against whoever in Code S happens semi-frequently.
I think the fact that this discussion is taking place during one of Serral's strongest stretches of play is distorting people's view of things—if we had this talk one year before when we were in HIGHEST PARITY ERA EVER™ I feel like people would be making more conservative projections.
On March 18 2024 23:27 CerebrateHector wrote: This is just BS lol. Serral just destroyed everyone at IEM, and has that unstoppable aura that no one else has.
I mean, I can understand being upset that your favourite player is not on top, but this argument (I've heard it quite a bit now) is complete horseshit and shows you don't know what Goat stands for. I honestly don't understand this, you think Serral must be the Goat because he won the latest tournament and is currently the best player?
I wouldn't even say Serral is the best player. He's currently the best Zerg and makes more effective use of OP Zerg units than anyone else - that's the magic of his dominance. But I don't think the ceiling of Zerg's full potential has been reached.
When race advantage is removed (i.e. ZvZ), Serral has been more vulnerable. Dark and Reynor both have 4-0'ed him, Rogue made him look hopeless in TSL8 (not long before retirement), and more recently he's lost to Solar, even Ragnarok.
Skill wise, I still consider Maru superior. Serral just brings a gun to knife fights in ZvT and ZvP.
If one day a Zerg player gets on par with peak Maru's level of play, there's no hope left for anyone else. Serral is not far off, and Reynor has a slim chance to get there esp. if he learns to be humble.
Great post. You can't be the GOAT when you lose tons of mirrors and some of them 0-4.
Not a balance whine, but everybody knows Z has been OP since LOTV. Serral is GREAT, he's truly a phenom, but he's been thriving since LOTV in an era where not just him but tons of other zergs have just dominated.
Hate to break it to you
but Serral's ZvZ win rate is higher than Maru's TvT, and historically ZvZ has always been the far more volatile mirror matchup than TvT
Only Dark has 4-0 Serral once, Rogue hasn't. Serral holds a winning h2h record against both Dark and Rogue.
Serral earned all his World Champions titles by going through the other best Zerg peers at the time (3-0 Dark and 3-1 Rogue in 2018, 3-0 Rogue and 4-3 Reynor in 2022, 3-1 Dark in 2024). Meanwhile Maru lost 1-4 to fucking Oliveira in the finals
The excuses you guys came up with to prop up Maru and discredit Serral is getting lamer and lamer each day.
Not an excuse at all. Maru has never been known to be weaker in TVT through his career since 2011? Serral's weakest matchup by far is definitely mirror. There have been stretches as I recall where Serral would lose mirror after mirror, I think it was Reynor for quite a stretch.
See, this is the danger of relying on impression instead of statistics for these kind of discussion. Your brain will always remember the parts where it fits your narrative better than others.
Do you know that both Innovation and TY holds a winning h2h record against Maru in their career? Do you remember for the span of three years from 2017 to 2019, TY and Inno had a combined 10-1 series record against Maru? Obviously you don't.
Meanwhile, Reynor's best year against Serral was in 2020, where he 6-4 Serral in series. Every other year he lost to Serral overall and he only has a 35% h2h career record against Serral.
The reason you will remember Serral's ZvZ as some kind of "weakness" is because he's almost invincible in ZvT and ZvP, therefore making his 78% mirror match win rate somehow feels like a weakness in comparison. But it's still better than any other Zerg's ZvZ other than perhaps soO in his prime.
I'm sorry I don't have the statistics of win rates for every player by year vs each player.
You're missing the point of my post. Maru may have lost vs his Terran peers through the years, but the overall theme was his TVT was never his weak point.
Serral's ZVZ has definitely been his weakest matchup or at least his most vulnerable.
On March 21 2024 03:43 WombaT wrote: I mean I don’t think it’s impossible Serral wouldn’t have won GSL if he’d been competing there for 6 years, but equally it’s not impossible that I’d woo and marry Sofia Vegata either.
It may be that his environment and work/life balance given his chosen path are just ideal for the guy, but there’s even the frankly terrifying possibility that a Serral forged in the fires of Korea is even stronger.
Firstly Serral has the best win rate versus Korean opposition ever, and by a decent enough margin. Secondly, he generally is only playing the GSL players towards the upper end, good enough to qualify for the big competitions. If he was regularly playing the lower tiers of Korean pros in GSL it’d be even higher.
Looking at his head-to-head match win rates solely against GSL winners/finalists in this span: Maru - 77% Trap - 82% Dark - 65% Cure - 90% TY - 71% Rogue - 53% Zest - 73% Classic - 80% Stats - 69%
While I think people go crazy overboard and say ridiculous things like Serral would sweep it every season or w/e, it’s almost inconceivable to me that he wouldn’t take even one. Even Reynor who is way more streaky and IMO not quite on the same tier I think would probably pull it off at least once.
As a big fan of the game overall, novelty, a huge fan of the GSL and what it’s given over the years it’s absolutely one of my biggest disappointments that getting a few foreigners who could potentially actually win it is accompanied by those said same not playing it regularly.
I think there's a pretty good chance he wins 3-4 tournaments if he played every Code S from 2018-2023 (especially with the weakened pool in the ones after 2022 or so).
The thing is, people constantly forget how variance heavy SC2 is when they're trying to do predictions or map out these kinds of hypotheticals. Shit like Serral going 1-4 against DRG in a DHM Last chance group or losing to RagnaroK at IEM Katowice, Maru dropping out of Code S RO32 to Scarlett and Solar, Reynor dropping out of RO32 against whoever in Code S happens semi-frequently.
I think the fact that this discussion is taking place during one of Serral's strongest stretches of play is distorting people's view of things—if we had this talk one year before when we were in HIGHEST PARITY ERA EVER™ I feel like people would be making more conservative projections.
It's high variance because you're looking at noise (aka who wins the last big tournament - which can go south with 1 bad BO5), Serral has been #1 in Aligulac very consistently, some times with huge leads, he's also always the favourite to every tournament he enters.
If Serral was on GSL I'd expect him to win it more than Maru, as he has been the stronger player from 2018 to 2024, and I'd expect Maru to win more tournaments than Rogue/Dark, because he is the stronger player and so on....
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
I mean if we are talking hypothetical, in a perfectly balanced game with Serral going to the GSL, Maru would beat him almost every time except when unhealthy
Money wise, those from LATAM / NA, and zergs, were quite lucky these last few years.
another balance whiner. Pathetic truly.
Balance matters in those GOAT discussions though. What would have happened if protoss was as strong in LotV as it seemed to be in HotS? (I didn’t follow HotS as closely as WoL or LotV but afaik protoss was kinda good and then OP during blink era) Maybe Zest would be even higher, or depending on the necessary skill set, someone like herO could have won more, or in a differently designed LotV sOs could have kept on shining…
Similarly, I firmly believe that Serral isn’t as creative as Rogue, and maybe even Dark, in coming up with clever plays that might not be optimal on paper but could still work out in your favor. He is extremely good at playing textbook, which makes you win a lot when your race is at worst even, and at best OP. Funnily though, he didn’t win BlizzCon during the worst year of Zerg being OP, 2019.
There is also the match fixing (+ other issues) that accelerated the death of proleague, and the lack of new blood in sc2 due to the game not being as successful as new esport titles.
Either way, there is no consensus GOAT in StarCraft 2. There are three clear contenders (Serral, Rogue, Maru) though, but the fact that the foreign sphere on Reddit and Twitter are this upset and think that Serral is an obvious #1, means that the narrative has been very very foreign biased.
On March 21 2024 03:43 WombaT wrote: I mean I don’t think it’s impossible Serral wouldn’t have won GSL if he’d been competing there for 6 years, but equally it’s not impossible that I’d woo and marry Sofia Vegata either.
It may be that his environment and work/life balance given his chosen path are just ideal for the guy, but there’s even the frankly terrifying possibility that a Serral forged in the fires of Korea is even stronger.
Firstly Serral has the best win rate versus Korean opposition ever, and by a decent enough margin. Secondly, he generally is only playing the GSL players towards the upper end, good enough to qualify for the big competitions. If he was regularly playing the lower tiers of Korean pros in GSL it’d be even higher.
Looking at his head-to-head match win rates solely against GSL winners/finalists in this span: Maru - 77% Trap - 82% Dark - 65% Cure - 90% TY - 71% Rogue - 53% Zest - 73% Classic - 80% Stats - 69%
While I think people go crazy overboard and say ridiculous things like Serral would sweep it every season or w/e, it’s almost inconceivable to me that he wouldn’t take even one. Even Reynor who is way more streaky and IMO not quite on the same tier I think would probably pull it off at least once.
As a big fan of the game overall, novelty, a huge fan of the GSL and what it’s given over the years it’s absolutely one of my biggest disappointments that getting a few foreigners who could potentially actually win it is accompanied by those said same not playing it regularly.
I think there's a pretty good chance he wins 3-4 tournaments if he played every Code S from 2018-2023 (especially with the weakened pool in the ones after 2022 or so).
The thing is, people constantly forget how variance heavy SC2 is when they're trying to do predictions or map out these kinds of hypotheticals. Shit like Serral going 1-4 against DRG in a DHM Last chance group or losing to RagnaroK at IEM Katowice, Maru dropping out of Code S RO32 to Scarlett and Solar, Reynor dropping out of RO32 against whoever in Code S happens semi-frequently.
I think the fact that this discussion is taking place during one of Serral's strongest stretches of play is distorting people's view of things—if we had this talk one year before when we were in HIGHEST PARITY ERA EVER™ I feel like people would be making more conservative projections.
It's high variance because you're looking at noise (aka who wins the last big tournament - which can go south with 1 bad BO5), Serral has been #1 in Aligulac very consistently, some times with huge leads, he's also always the favourite to every tournament he enters.
If Serral was on GSL I'd expect him to win it more than Maru, as he has been the stronger player from 2018 to 2024, and I'd expect Maru to win more tournaments than Rogue/Dark, because he is the stronger player and so on....
So, basically the exact thing that has actually happened if you just removed the names of the tournaments?
On March 21 2024 03:43 WombaT wrote: I mean I don’t think it’s impossible Serral wouldn’t have won GSL if he’d been competing there for 6 years, but equally it’s not impossible that I’d woo and marry Sofia Vegata either.
It may be that his environment and work/life balance given his chosen path are just ideal for the guy, but there’s even the frankly terrifying possibility that a Serral forged in the fires of Korea is even stronger.
Firstly Serral has the best win rate versus Korean opposition ever, and by a decent enough margin. Secondly, he generally is only playing the GSL players towards the upper end, good enough to qualify for the big competitions. If he was regularly playing the lower tiers of Korean pros in GSL it’d be even higher.
Looking at his head-to-head match win rates solely against GSL winners/finalists in this span: Maru - 77% Trap - 82% Dark - 65% Cure - 90% TY - 71% Rogue - 53% Zest - 73% Classic - 80% Stats - 69%
While I think people go crazy overboard and say ridiculous things like Serral would sweep it every season or w/e, it’s almost inconceivable to me that he wouldn’t take even one. Even Reynor who is way more streaky and IMO not quite on the same tier I think would probably pull it off at least once.
As a big fan of the game overall, novelty, a huge fan of the GSL and what it’s given over the years it’s absolutely one of my biggest disappointments that getting a few foreigners who could potentially actually win it is accompanied by those said same not playing it regularly.
I think there's a pretty good chance he wins 3-4 tournaments if he played every Code S from 2018-2023 (especially with the weakened pool in the ones after 2022 or so).
The thing is, people constantly forget how variance heavy SC2 is when they're trying to do predictions or map out these kinds of hypotheticals. Shit like Serral going 1-4 against DRG in a DHM Last chance group or losing to RagnaroK at IEM Katowice, Maru dropping out of Code S RO32 to Scarlett and Solar, Reynor dropping out of RO32 against whoever in Code S happens semi-frequently.
I think the fact that this discussion is taking place during one of Serral's strongest stretches of play is distorting people's view of things—if we had this talk one year before when we were in HIGHEST PARITY ERA EVER™ I feel like people would be making more conservative projections.
It's high variance because you're looking at noise (aka who wins the last big tournament - which can go south with 1 bad BO5), Serral has been #1 in Aligulac very consistently, some times with huge leads, he's also always the favourite to every tournament he enters.
If Serral was on GSL I'd expect him to win it more than Maru, as he has been the stronger player from 2018 to 2024, and I'd expect Maru to win more tournaments than Rogue/Dark, because he is the stronger player and so on....
Aligulac is not very good at telling who the best player in the world is consistently. According to aligulac Polt had that title for quite a while due to beating up on NA players and he was never the best. Serral got it for beating up on EU players. Aligulacs system over rewards beating players who are way worse than you. Serral was already number 1 back in mid 2017 when he had a ~45% winrate vs Koreans during the same time period. If Serral played in Korea regularly he would have spent way less time as number 1. Probably still the most of any player mid 2018 forward but no where near his current streaks.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
My favorite posts are the factually incorrect ones.
I think it's pretty obvious they're referring to Blizzard world championships. I've seen some people value those more over IEM Katowice world championships, which I think is a totally valid view. I would feel more glory winning a Blizzard WC than a IEM WC or any other world circuit not directly hosted by Blizzard.
In the context of the post, giving sOs a very generous evaluation by weighing his 2 Blizz WCs over other WCs makes sense, because the post is saying that even that isn't enough to make him #1. Either way, he's saying sOs isn't #1 because his record isn't good enough.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
It’s kinda unfair to compare him to peak Maru though, as Maru has pushed the skill ceiling above the human threshold multiple times, that’s why he was called the fourth race. I am pretty sure that Zest would be higher in the list if balance went other way in LotV, he is the perfect Protoss
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
It’s kinda unfair to compare him to peak Maru though, as Maru has pushed the skill ceiling above the human threshold multiple times, that’s why he was called the fourth race.
Isn't this just just a WarCraft 3 reference? People give their favorite players all kinds of ridiculous titles.
Still haven't heard a one that's better than Spoon Terran. If we're going by appellations, Thorzain undisputed GOAT.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
It’s kinda unfair to compare him to peak Maru though, as Maru has pushed the skill ceiling above the human threshold multiple times, that’s why he was called the fourth race.
Isn't this just just a WarCraft 3 reference? People give their favorite players all kinds of ridiculous titles.
Still haven't heard a one that's better than Spoon Terran. If we're going by appellations, Thorzain undisputed GOAT.
Yeah Moon was called the fifth race, because how dominant he was.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
It’s kinda unfair to compare him to peak Maru though, as Maru has pushed the skill ceiling above the human threshold multiple times, that’s why he was called the fourth race.
Isn't this just just a WarCraft 3 reference? People give their favorite players all kinds of ridiculous titles.
Still haven't heard a one that's better than Spoon Terran. If we're going by appellations, Thorzain undisputed GOAT.
I’m still impressed that a player who’d long had the nickname of Thorzain had his peak moment coming up with a strategy involving Thors
It’s kinda unfair to compare him to peak Maru though, as Maru has pushed the skill ceiling above the human threshold multiple times, that’s why he was called the fourth race. I am pretty sure that Zest would be higher in the list if balance went other way in LotV, he is the perfect Protoss
I remember watching some of Maru's Proleague and GSL games thinking "whaaaaat! that's not possible!" multiple times so yeah I know exactly what you mean. Young viewers see Maru play more defensively so they might not even know he was called the fourth race or why. Clem reminds me of young Maru sometimes, albeit less well-rounded at the moment.
My memory of Zest is tainted by his humiliating losses to Maru in 2018 GSLs. Considering Classic, Stats, Hero, and Parting didn't make Top 10, I'd say #6 is not a bad place for Zest, but yeah clearly balance had an impact on results e.g. I remember Classic being a big trouble maker for Maru at one point.
On March 21 2024 03:43 WombaT wrote: I mean I don’t think it’s impossible Serral wouldn’t have won GSL if he’d been competing there for 6 years, but equally it’s not impossible that I’d woo and marry Sofia Vegata either.
It may be that his environment and work/life balance given his chosen path are just ideal for the guy, but there’s even the frankly terrifying possibility that a Serral forged in the fires of Korea is even stronger.
Firstly Serral has the best win rate versus Korean opposition ever, and by a decent enough margin. Secondly, he generally is only playing the GSL players towards the upper end, good enough to qualify for the big competitions. If he was regularly playing the lower tiers of Korean pros in GSL it’d be even higher.
Looking at his head-to-head match win rates solely against GSL winners/finalists in this span: Maru - 77% Trap - 82% Dark - 65% Cure - 90% TY - 71% Rogue - 53% Zest - 73% Classic - 80% Stats - 69%
While I think people go crazy overboard and say ridiculous things like Serral would sweep it every season or w/e, it’s almost inconceivable to me that he wouldn’t take even one. Even Reynor who is way more streaky and IMO not quite on the same tier I think would probably pull it off at least once.
As a big fan of the game overall, novelty, a huge fan of the GSL and what it’s given over the years it’s absolutely one of my biggest disappointments that getting a few foreigners who could potentially actually win it is accompanied by those said same not playing it regularly.
I think there's a pretty good chance he wins 3-4 tournaments if he played every Code S from 2018-2023 (especially with the weakened pool in the ones after 2022 or so).
The thing is, people constantly forget how variance heavy SC2 is when they're trying to do predictions or map out these kinds of hypotheticals. Shit like Serral going 1-4 against DRG in a DHM Last chance group or losing to RagnaroK at IEM Katowice, Maru dropping out of Code S RO32 to Scarlett and Solar, Reynor dropping out of RO32 against whoever in Code S happens semi-frequently.
I think the fact that this discussion is taking place during one of Serral's strongest stretches of play is distorting people's view of things—if we had this talk one year before when we were in HIGHEST PARITY ERA EVER™ I feel like people would be making more conservative projections.
It's high variance because you're looking at noise (aka who wins the last big tournament - which can go south with 1 bad BO5), Serral has been #1 in Aligulac very consistently, some times with huge leads, he's also always the favourite to every tournament he enters.
If Serral was on GSL I'd expect him to win it more than Maru, as he has been the stronger player from 2018 to 2024, and I'd expect Maru to win more tournaments than Rogue/Dark, because he is the stronger player and so on....
Aligulac is not very good at telling who the best player in the world is consistently. According to aligulac Polt had that title for quite a while due to beating up on NA players and he was never the best. Serral got it for beating up on EU players. Aligulacs system over rewards beating players who are way worse than you. Serral was already number 1 back in mid 2017 when he had a ~45% winrate vs Koreans during the same time period. If Serral played in Korea regularly he would have spent way less time as number 1. Probably still the most of any player mid 2018 forward but no where near his current streaks.
Serral is #1 because he farmed Koreans and Foreigners alike, yes he started his reign of terror on Aligulac by farming Europeans, but from 2018+ you're on pure copium if you think he wasnt #1, nearly every top Korean player has a god awful record vs Serral.
"If Serral played in Korea regularly he would have spent way less time as number 1."
Why? Korea doesn't seem to be getting better vs Serral, they have been getting consistently dunked on, I think it's the exact opposite Serral would adapt to the players and win at the same rate or higher.
Maru pushed the skill ceiling above the human threshold multiple times? Says who? What is the human threshold? On the other hand, Cure at last year's DH Summer literally said Serral is beyond the human limit.
This talk of how Maru's skill is on a whole other level compared to Serral is ridiculous. I don't care if you think Maru is better in terms of skills but they definitely belong to the same tier at the very least.
Also Serral's creativity and innovations are underappreciated. Nobody else plays ZvP the same way as he does. His late game understanding and knowledge cannot be simply summarized or shown through build order wins. Maru is the only other player on par with him in this department. I would say the rest of the pro players have no idea what they are doing in the late game.
On March 21 2024 05:41 ktll4c91 wrote: Maru pushed the skill ceiling above the human threshold multiple times? Says who? What is the human threshold? On the other hand, Cure at last year's DH Summer literally said Serral is beyond the human limit.
This talk of how Maru's skill is on a whole other level compared to Serral is ridiculous. I don't care if you think Maru is better in terms of skills but they definitely belong to the same tier at the very least.
Also Serral's creativity and innovations are underappreciated. Nobody else plays ZvP the same way as he does. His late game understanding and knowledge cannot be simply summarized or shown through build order wins. Maru is the only other player on par with him in this department. I would say the rest of the pro players have no idea what they are doing in the late game.
You have to look at it on a continuum. Mvp was one of the first players who separated himself from his peers. Dear, Maru and INnoVation did the same a few years later. Zest blew everyone away in early 2016, just like Rogue did in the second half of 2017. Serral raised the bar again in 2018 (that blizzcon run was mindblowing) etc etc. The problem that comes up when people say, "players now are better than before." is that it ignores all the times we saw someone elevate the game to never before seen heights.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
It’s kinda unfair to compare him to peak Maru though, as Maru has pushed the skill ceiling above the human threshold multiple times, that’s why he was called the fourth race. I am pretty sure that Zest would be higher in the list if balance went other way in LotV, he is the perfect Protoss
I am sorry, but nicknames are not valid argument for these kind of discussion. Achievements and statistics are.
Chirs Paul is called Point God but no one will put him as greatest point guard over Magic and Curry. Nicknames are just nicknames.
Maru didn't "push the skill ceiling above human threshold multiple times", he performed better than other Terrans, that's it, just like Serral performs better than other Zergs.
There was a post on Reddit that ran some stats of tournament wins since LotV, Maru has won 42% of Terran's premier championships, while Serral won 39% of Zergs. You could argue that Maru is a slightly bigger outlier for Terran than Serral is for Zerg, but that's about it, they are both huge outliers. 3% is really not a substantial difference that could tip the entire balance between the two.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
I feel similarly. Also Maru being a beast in TvT vs Serral having ZvZ as his worst match-up does not help. Why is Serral not so good when balance is not an issue? The answer is subjective...
On March 21 2024 03:43 WombaT wrote: I mean I don’t think it’s impossible Serral wouldn’t have won GSL if he’d been competing there for 6 years, but equally it’s not impossible that I’d woo and marry Sofia Vegata either.
It may be that his environment and work/life balance given his chosen path are just ideal for the guy, but there’s even the frankly terrifying possibility that a Serral forged in the fires of Korea is even stronger.
Firstly Serral has the best win rate versus Korean opposition ever, and by a decent enough margin. Secondly, he generally is only playing the GSL players towards the upper end, good enough to qualify for the big competitions. If he was regularly playing the lower tiers of Korean pros in GSL it’d be even higher.
Looking at his head-to-head match win rates solely against GSL winners/finalists in this span: Maru - 77% Trap - 82% Dark - 65% Cure - 90% TY - 71% Rogue - 53% Zest - 73% Classic - 80% Stats - 69%
While I think people go crazy overboard and say ridiculous things like Serral would sweep it every season or w/e, it’s almost inconceivable to me that he wouldn’t take even one. Even Reynor who is way more streaky and IMO not quite on the same tier I think would probably pull it off at least once.
As a big fan of the game overall, novelty, a huge fan of the GSL and what it’s given over the years it’s absolutely one of my biggest disappointments that getting a few foreigners who could potentially actually win it is accompanied by those said same not playing it regularly.
I think there's a pretty good chance he wins 3-4 tournaments if he played every Code S from 2018-2023 (especially with the weakened pool in the ones after 2022 or so).
The thing is, people constantly forget how variance heavy SC2 is when they're trying to do predictions or map out these kinds of hypotheticals. Shit like Serral going 1-4 against DRG in a DHM Last chance group or losing to RagnaroK at IEM Katowice, Maru dropping out of Code S RO32 to Scarlett and Solar, Reynor dropping out of RO32 against whoever in Code S happens semi-frequently.
I think the fact that this discussion is taking place during one of Serral's strongest stretches of play is distorting people's view of things—if we had this talk one year before when we were in HIGHEST PARITY ERA EVER™ I feel like people would be making more conservative projections.
Indeed there's a ton of variance. You can perform variance reduction by doing comparables, and regressing to other players over extended periods of time.
If you adjust his winrate down to Maru's differential with the HIGHEST PARITY ERA EVER (tm, thereafter HPEE) - an idea given to me by Wombat - you still find hypothetical Serral to be a bit above prime Innovation. Regress his number of premier wins to Inno's and others, and you'd find he would have won another 15 premiers during the HPEE. Inno himself acts as a lower bound with 12 premiers so that is plausible. Also Inno had 3 GSLs in that period so again that seems a plausible lower bound.
So hypothetically that Serral would be on 30 premier wins if he'd started in 2013 and exhibited similar levels of strength (I'm only counting his current 18 by removing all region-locked ones, which is harsh, but has the Korean factor. Maru is on 21).
I have other calcs around, would need to find time to put graphs into Seaborn if you guys are interested.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
I feel similarly. Also Maru being a beast in TvT vs Serral having ZvZ as his worst match-up does not help. Why is Serral not so good when balance is not an issue? The answer is subjective...
Well, I think an easy way to answer that is just that ZvZ is known to be the most volatile MU in SC2. So naturally for someone who is overall very consistent, they are going to have the toughest time being consistent at a volatile MU.
Even so, Serral stands above the other top Zergs in ZvZs, and Maru stands above the other Terrans in TvT. Even if Serral's ZvZ winrate might be lower than Maru's TvT, they are different races and different MUs, so you can't compare them 1:1 comparatively, only relatively. In the end, Serral wins the most premieres on the biggest stages, so regardless of his individual race winrates, he's outperforming the other Zergs who play the same race, and all Zergs benefit from Zerg being OP if Zerg is OP.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
It’s kinda unfair to compare him to peak Maru though, as Maru has pushed the skill ceiling above the human threshold multiple times, that’s why he was called the fourth race. I am pretty sure that Zest would be higher in the list if balance went other way in LotV, he is the perfect Protoss
Is this the same Zest whose macro is literally a borderline meme?
I mean he’s great because he’s great at so many other things to compensate, and part of what makes StarCraft so great is that you can prosper with different strengths and weaknesses.
Perfect Protoss? Not even close. He’s not got the micro of a herO or a Parting, those macro fundamentals of a Stats, and I think Trap probably out-averages him across those categories.
Whereas Maru? Yeah. He’s got better macro than anyone, he multitasks better than everyone, his micro is better than all but maybe Byun’s (and even then, his late game technical army control is better). His tactical play and decision making are maybe not #1 but close
Serral is as good, or better at every facet of the game as every other Zerg going.
The (human) perfect Terran and Zerg basically already exist. Maybe not 100% but 90%, the perfect Protoss is like an amalgam of 5 different players.
On March 21 2024 03:43 WombaT wrote: I mean I don’t think it’s impossible Serral wouldn’t have won GSL if he’d been competing there for 6 years, but equally it’s not impossible that I’d woo and marry Sofia Vegata either.
It may be that his environment and work/life balance given his chosen path are just ideal for the guy, but there’s even the frankly terrifying possibility that a Serral forged in the fires of Korea is even stronger.
Firstly Serral has the best win rate versus Korean opposition ever, and by a decent enough margin. Secondly, he generally is only playing the GSL players towards the upper end, good enough to qualify for the big competitions. If he was regularly playing the lower tiers of Korean pros in GSL it’d be even higher.
Looking at his head-to-head match win rates solely against GSL winners/finalists in this span: Maru - 77% Trap - 82% Dark - 65% Cure - 90% TY - 71% Rogue - 53% Zest - 73% Classic - 80% Stats - 69%
While I think people go crazy overboard and say ridiculous things like Serral would sweep it every season or w/e, it’s almost inconceivable to me that he wouldn’t take even one. Even Reynor who is way more streaky and IMO not quite on the same tier I think would probably pull it off at least once.
As a big fan of the game overall, novelty, a huge fan of the GSL and what it’s given over the years it’s absolutely one of my biggest disappointments that getting a few foreigners who could potentially actually win it is accompanied by those said same not playing it regularly.
I think there's a pretty good chance he wins 3-4 tournaments if he played every Code S from 2018-2023 (especially with the weakened pool in the ones after 2022 or so).
The thing is, people constantly forget how variance heavy SC2 is when they're trying to do predictions or map out these kinds of hypotheticals. Shit like Serral going 1-4 against DRG in a DHM Last chance group or losing to RagnaroK at IEM Katowice, Maru dropping out of Code S RO32 to Scarlett and Solar, Reynor dropping out of RO32 against whoever in Code S happens semi-frequently.
I think the fact that this discussion is taking place during one of Serral's strongest stretches of play is distorting people's view of things—if we had this talk one year before when we were in HIGHEST PARITY ERA EVER™ I feel like people would be making more conservative projections.
Indeed there's a ton of variance. You can perform variance reduction by doing comparables, and regressing to other players over extended periods of time.
If you adjust his winrate down to Maru's differential with the HIGHEST PARITY ERA EVER (tm, thereafter HPEE) - an idea given to me by Wombat - you still find hypothetical Serral to be a bit above prime Innovation. Regress his number of premier wins to Inno's and others, and you'd find he would have won another 15 premiers during the HPEE. Inno himself acts as a lower bound with 12 premiers so that is plausible. Also Inno had 3 GSLs in that period so again that seems a plausible lower bound.
So hypothetically that Serral would be on 30 premier wins if he'd started in 2013 and exhibited similar levels of strength (I'm only counting his current 18 by removing all region-locked ones, which is harsh, but has the Korean factor. Maru is on 21).
I have other calcs around, would need to find time to put graphs into Seaborn if you guys are interested.
If you use the word hypothetical enough it transforms everything you're saying into a fairy tale.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It’s their own post made in different threads.
And ‘fair fucks’ as we say over here, they put in the groundwork for it!
You do realize you can look all this up in 15 minutes on aligulac right?
Some of it sure, I feel it’s doing a bit of a disservice to the effort to dig certain tidbits out. It’s a hell of a lot more effort than most posts on these topics go to at least
From personal diggings, mostly for the purposes of discussing things on this list some are easy to find, some are a bit wonkier and take a little more time.
Additionally folks don’t religiously update Liquipedia with feats and tidbits as used to be more common. So just skimming off there isn’t as productive as it may once have been.
To my knowledge there’s no easy way to, for example use Aligulac alone to find something like all-time Code S Ro8+ streaks. I knew it was Trap, and thought he’d made the magic 10 to set a ‘Trap award’ after Nestea’s Ro32 and Parting’s Ro16 10+ streaks but if it wasn’t a stat I already knew it wouldn’t be one I’d just stumble across.
I do respect the effort, the part I found funny about it was that anybody could do that if they had the inclination, but no one does because it's easier to just say something with no accountability.
As for the Trap stuff and whatever else, I just happen to have a spreadsheet with all of that
Luckier for everyone else I just stuck her on Liquipedia ^_^
Aye I mean anyone can do such things and it’s not some Herculean, but I’ll give props nonetheless. I mean in theory everyone could quite easily be civil on the internet but that’s oft not the case
I'm pretty sure 95%+ plus haven't read the articles and just "skipped to the predictions so they can trash them" (a classic preview tactic). You're already in elite company if you managed to make it that far.
I bet there's a lot of people who come to comment on these threads without having read the article. However, I also suspect there's a lot of people who read the articles (and possibly some comments), and just appreciate them for what they are, without leaving a comment.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
It’s kinda unfair to compare him to peak Maru though, as Maru has pushed the skill ceiling above the human threshold multiple times, that’s why he was called the fourth race. I am pretty sure that Zest would be higher in the list if balance went other way in LotV, he is the perfect Protoss
I feel like I see you writing almost this exact same comment in so many threads (mostly LR threads and the other threads in the GOAT series), and now you got me curious. Personally I've had a similar feeling when I watch Serral. It seems like if you compare Serral to other WC caliber players there are others who can match his speed. However, his APM economy seems out of this world; any time he has APM to spare he seems to do something useful with it, as if he has an unending mental checklist of tasks to do. Whether it's sending out a burrowed infestor, setting up a runby for next time he attacks or something different - in general he just always seems to do useful things with his actions. Quite a convoluted way to ask this but what part(s) of Maru's play do you think pushes him past the human threshold?
On March 21 2024 03:43 WombaT wrote: I mean I don’t think it’s impossible Serral wouldn’t have won GSL if he’d been competing there for 6 years, but equally it’s not impossible that I’d woo and marry Sofia Vegata either.
It may be that his environment and work/life balance given his chosen path are just ideal for the guy, but there’s even the frankly terrifying possibility that a Serral forged in the fires of Korea is even stronger.
Firstly Serral has the best win rate versus Korean opposition ever, and by a decent enough margin. Secondly, he generally is only playing the GSL players towards the upper end, good enough to qualify for the big competitions. If he was regularly playing the lower tiers of Korean pros in GSL it’d be even higher.
Looking at his head-to-head match win rates solely against GSL winners/finalists in this span: Maru - 77% Trap - 82% Dark - 65% Cure - 90% TY - 71% Rogue - 53% Zest - 73% Classic - 80% Stats - 69%
While I think people go crazy overboard and say ridiculous things like Serral would sweep it every season or w/e, it’s almost inconceivable to me that he wouldn’t take even one. Even Reynor who is way more streaky and IMO not quite on the same tier I think would probably pull it off at least once.
As a big fan of the game overall, novelty, a huge fan of the GSL and what it’s given over the years it’s absolutely one of my biggest disappointments that getting a few foreigners who could potentially actually win it is accompanied by those said same not playing it regularly.
I think there's a pretty good chance he wins 3-4 tournaments if he played every Code S from 2018-2023 (especially with the weakened pool in the ones after 2022 or so).
The thing is, people constantly forget how variance heavy SC2 is when they're trying to do predictions or map out these kinds of hypotheticals. Shit like Serral going 1-4 against DRG in a DHM Last chance group or losing to RagnaroK at IEM Katowice, Maru dropping out of Code S RO32 to Scarlett and Solar, Reynor dropping out of RO32 against whoever in Code S happens semi-frequently.
I think the fact that this discussion is taking place during one of Serral's strongest stretches of play is distorting people's view of things—if we had this talk one year before when we were in HIGHEST PARITY ERA EVER™ I feel like people would be making more conservative projections.
Indeed there's a ton of variance. You can perform variance reduction by doing comparables, and regressing to other players over extended periods of time.
If you adjust his winrate down to Maru's differential with the HIGHEST PARITY ERA EVER (tm, thereafter HPEE) - an idea given to me by Wombat - you still find hypothetical Serral to be a bit above prime Innovation. Regress his number of premier wins to Inno's and others, and you'd find he would have won another 15 premiers during the HPEE. Inno himself acts as a lower bound with 12 premiers so that is plausible. Also Inno had 3 GSLs in that period so again that seems a plausible lower bound.
So hypothetically that Serral would be on 30 premier wins if he'd started in 2013 and exhibited similar levels of strength (I'm only counting his current 18 by removing all region-locked ones, which is harsh, but has the Korean factor. Maru is on 21).
I have other calcs around, would need to find time to put graphs into Seaborn if you guys are interested.
Glad at least one of my ideas landed! Intrigued to see some calculations to
As an aside I do genuinely implore people to go download the reps, and watch the Ragushet [sic] series in the recent Katowice and properly stop/pause, move around between the two players’ perspective at one’s leisure.
Take a wee pause every so often and ponder ‘was that the right decision for that scenario’ for the last 10/15 seconds or whatever, and ‘was that well executed?’ I am sad enough to have done this
And like invariably it’s yes on everything, the level is unbelievable in that set, like actually absurd high level of StarCraft
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
It’s kinda unfair to compare him to peak Maru though, as Maru has pushed the skill ceiling above the human threshold multiple times, that’s why he was called the fourth race. I am pretty sure that Zest would be higher in the list if balance went other way in LotV, he is the perfect Protoss
Is this the same Zest whose macro is literally a borderline meme?
I mean he’s great because he’s great at so many other things to compensate, and part of what makes StarCraft so great is that you can prosper with different strengths and weaknesses.
Perfect Protoss? Not even close. He’s not got the micro of a herO or a Parting, those macro fundamentals of a Stats, and I think Trap probably out-averages him across those categories.
Whereas Maru? Yeah. He’s got better macro than anyone, he multitasks better than everyone, his micro is better than all but maybe Byun’s (and even then, his late game technical army control is better). His tactical play and decision making are maybe not #1 but close
Serral is as good, or better at every facet of the game as every other Zerg going.
The (human) perfect Terran and Zerg basically already exist. Maybe not 100% but 90%, the perfect Protoss is like an amalgam of 5 different players.
A chimera of Maru and Gumiho would be better than Maru IMO. And one of Serral and Rogue better than Serral. The top Protoss I am not so sure, perhaps a chimera of Stats and sOs. Who of those would win in a Maruho vs Serrogue vs StatsOs tournament? Clearly Roguerral.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It’s their own post made in different threads.
And ‘fair fucks’ as we say over here, they put in the groundwork for it!
You do realize you can look all this up in 15 minutes on aligulac right?
Some of it sure, I feel it’s doing a bit of a disservice to the effort to dig certain tidbits out. It’s a hell of a lot more effort than most posts on these topics go to at least
From personal diggings, mostly for the purposes of discussing things on this list some are easy to find, some are a bit wonkier and take a little more time.
Additionally folks don’t religiously update Liquipedia with feats and tidbits as used to be more common. So just skimming off there isn’t as productive as it may once have been.
To my knowledge there’s no easy way to, for example use Aligulac alone to find something like all-time Code S Ro8+ streaks. I knew it was Trap, and thought he’d made the magic 10 to set a ‘Trap award’ after Nestea’s Ro32 and Parting’s Ro16 10+ streaks but if it wasn’t a stat I already knew it wouldn’t be one I’d just stumble across.
I do respect the effort, the part I found funny about it was that anybody could do that if they had the inclination, but no one does because it's easier to just say something with no accountability.
As for the Trap stuff and whatever else, I just happen to have a spreadsheet with all of that
Luckier for everyone else I just stuck her on Liquipedia ^_^
Aye I mean anyone can do such things and it’s not some Herculean, but I’ll give props nonetheless. I mean in theory everyone could quite easily be civil on the internet but that’s oft not the case
I'm pretty sure 95%+ plus haven't read the articles and just "skipped to the predictions so they can trash them" (a classic preview tactic). You're already in elite company if you managed to make it that far.
I bet there's a lot of people who come to comment on these threads without having read the article. However, I also suspect there's a lot of people who read the articles (and possibly some comments), and just appreciate them for what they are, without leaving a comment.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
It’s kinda unfair to compare him to peak Maru though, as Maru has pushed the skill ceiling above the human threshold multiple times, that’s why he was called the fourth race. I am pretty sure that Zest would be higher in the list if balance went other way in LotV, he is the perfect Protoss
I feel like I see you writing almost this exact same comment in so many threads (mostly LR threads and the other threads in the GOAT series), and now you got me curious. Personally I've had a similar feeling when I watch Serral. It seems like if you compare Serral to other WC caliber players there are others who can match his speed. However, his APM economy seems out of this world; any time he has APM to spare he seems to do something useful with it, as if he has an unending mental checklist of tasks to do. Whether it's sending out a burrowed infestor, setting up a runby for next time he attacks or something different - in general he just always seems to do useful things with his actions. Quite a convoluted way to ask this but what part(s) of Maru's play do you think pushes him past the human threshold?
Peak Maru? Multitasking / macro / micro otherworldly, an ability to both play at incredible speed yet perfectly plan what units / sim city / whatever he should do. His defense in general is borderline impossible (so many times where you are like: wut?) but back in the days he was like as fast as Clem but even more precise
There are other players where I was like: « incredible », but not as many times as Maru where my jaw dropped
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It’s their own post made in different threads.
And ‘fair fucks’ as we say over here, they put in the groundwork for it!
You do realize you can look all this up in 15 minutes on aligulac right?
Some of it sure, I feel it’s doing a bit of a disservice to the effort to dig certain tidbits out. It’s a hell of a lot more effort than most posts on these topics go to at least
From personal diggings, mostly for the purposes of discussing things on this list some are easy to find, some are a bit wonkier and take a little more time.
Additionally folks don’t religiously update Liquipedia with feats and tidbits as used to be more common. So just skimming off there isn’t as productive as it may once have been.
To my knowledge there’s no easy way to, for example use Aligulac alone to find something like all-time Code S Ro8+ streaks. I knew it was Trap, and thought he’d made the magic 10 to set a ‘Trap award’ after Nestea’s Ro32 and Parting’s Ro16 10+ streaks but if it wasn’t a stat I already knew it wouldn’t be one I’d just stumble across.
I do respect the effort, the part I found funny about it was that anybody could do that if they had the inclination, but no one does because it's easier to just say something with no accountability.
As for the Trap stuff and whatever else, I just happen to have a spreadsheet with all of that
Luckier for everyone else I just stuck her on Liquipedia ^_^
Aye I mean anyone can do such things and it’s not some Herculean, but I’ll give props nonetheless. I mean in theory everyone could quite easily be civil on the internet but that’s oft not the case
I'm pretty sure 95%+ plus haven't read the articles and just "skipped to the predictions so they can trash them" (a classic preview tactic). You're already in elite company if you managed to make it that far.
I bet there's a lot of people who come to comment on these threads without having read the article. However, I also suspect there's a lot of people who read the articles (and possibly some comments), and just appreciate them for what they are, without leaving a comment.
On March 21 2024 04:41 Poopi wrote:
On March 21 2024 04:35 goldensail wrote:
On March 21 2024 03:02 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 02:57 goldensail wrote:
On March 21 2024 01:58 Comedy wrote:
On March 21 2024 01:15 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
It’s kinda unfair to compare him to peak Maru though, as Maru has pushed the skill ceiling above the human threshold multiple times, that’s why he was called the fourth race. I am pretty sure that Zest would be higher in the list if balance went other way in LotV, he is the perfect Protoss
I feel like I see you writing almost this exact same comment in so many threads (mostly LR threads and the other threads in the GOAT series), and now you got me curious. Personally I've had a similar feeling when I watch Serral. It seems like if you compare Serral to other WC caliber players there are others who can match his speed. However, his APM economy seems out of this world; any time he has APM to spare he seems to do something useful with it, as if he has an unending mental checklist of tasks to do. Whether it's sending out a burrowed infestor, setting up a runby for next time he attacks or something different - in general he just always seems to do useful things with his actions. Quite a convoluted way to ask this but what part(s) of Maru's play do you think pushes him past the human threshold?
Peak Maru? Multitasking / macro / micro otherworldly, an ability to both play at incredible speed yet perfectly plan what units / sim city / whatever he should do. His defense in general is borderline impossible (so many times where you are like: wut?) but back in the days he was like as fast as Clem but even more precise
There are other players where I was like: « incredible », but not as many times as Maru where my jaw dropped
I'll forever remember the Maru vs soO game on Neon Violet Square when the game crashed and soO opted to concede rather than continue the game from the replay.
On March 21 2024 03:43 WombaT wrote: I mean I don’t think it’s impossible Serral wouldn’t have won GSL if he’d been competing there for 6 years, but equally it’s not impossible that I’d woo and marry Sofia Vegata either.
It may be that his environment and work/life balance given his chosen path are just ideal for the guy, but there’s even the frankly terrifying possibility that a Serral forged in the fires of Korea is even stronger.
Firstly Serral has the best win rate versus Korean opposition ever, and by a decent enough margin. Secondly, he generally is only playing the GSL players towards the upper end, good enough to qualify for the big competitions. If he was regularly playing the lower tiers of Korean pros in GSL it’d be even higher.
Looking at his head-to-head match win rates solely against GSL winners/finalists in this span: Maru - 77% Trap - 82% Dark - 65% Cure - 90% TY - 71% Rogue - 53% Zest - 73% Classic - 80% Stats - 69%
While I think people go crazy overboard and say ridiculous things like Serral would sweep it every season or w/e, it’s almost inconceivable to me that he wouldn’t take even one. Even Reynor who is way more streaky and IMO not quite on the same tier I think would probably pull it off at least once.
As a big fan of the game overall, novelty, a huge fan of the GSL and what it’s given over the years it’s absolutely one of my biggest disappointments that getting a few foreigners who could potentially actually win it is accompanied by those said same not playing it regularly.
I think there's a pretty good chance he wins 3-4 tournaments if he played every Code S from 2018-2023 (especially with the weakened pool in the ones after 2022 or so).
The thing is, people constantly forget how variance heavy SC2 is when they're trying to do predictions or map out these kinds of hypotheticals. Shit like Serral going 1-4 against DRG in a DHM Last chance group or losing to RagnaroK at IEM Katowice, Maru dropping out of Code S RO32 to Scarlett and Solar, Reynor dropping out of RO32 against whoever in Code S happens semi-frequently.
I think the fact that this discussion is taking place during one of Serral's strongest stretches of play is distorting people's view of things—if we had this talk one year before when we were in HIGHEST PARITY ERA EVER™ I feel like people would be making more conservative projections.
Indeed there's a ton of variance. You can perform variance reduction by doing comparables, and regressing to other players over extended periods of time.
If you adjust his winrate down to Maru's differential with the HIGHEST PARITY ERA EVER (tm, thereafter HPEE) - an idea given to me by Wombat - you still find hypothetical Serral to be a bit above prime Innovation. Regress his number of premier wins to Inno's and others, and you'd find he would have won another 15 premiers during the HPEE. Inno himself acts as a lower bound with 12 premiers so that is plausible. Also Inno had 3 GSLs in that period so again that seems a plausible lower bound.
So hypothetically that Serral would be on 30 premier wins if he'd started in 2013 and exhibited similar levels of strength (I'm only counting his current 18 by removing all region-locked ones, which is harsh, but has the Korean factor. Maru is on 21).
I have other calcs around, would need to find time to put graphs into Seaborn if you guys are interested.
If you use the word hypothetical enough it transforms everything you're saying into a fairy tale.
Well, it's perfectly acceptable - and in fact standard - scientific practice to 1. posit assumptions and 2. perform scenario analysis or central tendency calcs based on said assumptions. From Wax's post I thought it was clear context that the fun question was 'what would have happened had an equally win-ny Serral landed in Korea circa 2012 rather than going to high school'. You can then make reasonable progress towards variance reduction (not elimination !) and probabilistic lower bounds. In plain English that timeline does not exist and never will; this is orthogonal to your analysis, and does not aim at invalidating it in any shape or form.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It’s their own post made in different threads.
And ‘fair fucks’ as we say over here, they put in the groundwork for it!
You do realize you can look all this up in 15 minutes on aligulac right?
Some of it sure, I feel it’s doing a bit of a disservice to the effort to dig certain tidbits out. It’s a hell of a lot more effort than most posts on these topics go to at least
From personal diggings, mostly for the purposes of discussing things on this list some are easy to find, some are a bit wonkier and take a little more time.
Additionally folks don’t religiously update Liquipedia with feats and tidbits as used to be more common. So just skimming off there isn’t as productive as it may once have been.
To my knowledge there’s no easy way to, for example use Aligulac alone to find something like all-time Code S Ro8+ streaks. I knew it was Trap, and thought he’d made the magic 10 to set a ‘Trap award’ after Nestea’s Ro32 and Parting’s Ro16 10+ streaks but if it wasn’t a stat I already knew it wouldn’t be one I’d just stumble across.
I do respect the effort, the part I found funny about it was that anybody could do that if they had the inclination, but no one does because it's easier to just say something with no accountability.
As for the Trap stuff and whatever else, I just happen to have a spreadsheet with all of that
Luckier for everyone else I just stuck her on Liquipedia ^_^
Aye I mean anyone can do such things and it’s not some Herculean, but I’ll give props nonetheless. I mean in theory everyone could quite easily be civil on the internet but that’s oft not the case
I'm pretty sure 95%+ plus haven't read the articles and just "skipped to the predictions so they can trash them" (a classic preview tactic). You're already in elite company if you managed to make it that far.
I bet there's a lot of people who come to comment on these threads without having read the article. However, I also suspect there's a lot of people who read the articles (and possibly some comments), and just appreciate them for what they are, without leaving a comment.
On March 21 2024 04:41 Poopi wrote:
On March 21 2024 04:35 goldensail wrote:
On March 21 2024 03:02 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 02:57 goldensail wrote:
On March 21 2024 01:58 Comedy wrote:
On March 21 2024 01:15 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
It’s kinda unfair to compare him to peak Maru though, as Maru has pushed the skill ceiling above the human threshold multiple times, that’s why he was called the fourth race. I am pretty sure that Zest would be higher in the list if balance went other way in LotV, he is the perfect Protoss
I feel like I see you writing almost this exact same comment in so many threads (mostly LR threads and the other threads in the GOAT series), and now you got me curious. Personally I've had a similar feeling when I watch Serral. It seems like if you compare Serral to other WC caliber players there are others who can match his speed. However, his APM economy seems out of this world; any time he has APM to spare he seems to do something useful with it, as if he has an unending mental checklist of tasks to do. Whether it's sending out a burrowed infestor, setting up a runby for next time he attacks or something different - in general he just always seems to do useful things with his actions. Quite a convoluted way to ask this but what part(s) of Maru's play do you think pushes him past the human threshold?
Peak Maru? Multitasking / macro / micro otherworldly, an ability to both play at incredible speed yet perfectly plan what units / sim city / whatever he should do. His defense in general is borderline impossible (so many times where you are like: wut?) but back in the days he was like as fast as Clem but even more precise
There are other players where I was like: « incredible », but not as many times as Maru where my jaw dropped
I can definitely agree with his defense being borderline impossible. I've been incredibly impressed with his defensive play more times than I can count. Any chance you remember a game that you can link, illustrating the precision (I'm assuming you mean mouse precision and not build order precision, unit movement, etc.) part? Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention to that specific aspect of his play when watching but I've thought for a long time that Clem had the best mouse precision out of all the pro's.
I think some of the problem presented with debaitng GOAT post-proleageu era is that there is just so much less player pool and competition going on.
in past, when there were tons of players in pro player pool and constant cycle of progamers, a lot of progaming lifespan was over by time progamers were entering mid-20s just from sheer amount of injury/load/new competition difference to newer generation of players. But now, the playerpool has shrunk to point that the younger side of progamers in sc2 are all approaching mid20s and there are no longer new players coming in at least on korean side.
this is same exact issue offered in BW as well, albeit 3-4 years older- and they don't really factor in post-proleague era in GOAT debates precisely due to this problem even if they still maintain a large pro playerpool there. It's closed circuit and no more new cycle coming in.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It’s their own post made in different threads.
And ‘fair fucks’ as we say over here, they put in the groundwork for it!
You do realize you can look all this up in 15 minutes on aligulac right?
Some of it sure, I feel it’s doing a bit of a disservice to the effort to dig certain tidbits out. It’s a hell of a lot more effort than most posts on these topics go to at least
From personal diggings, mostly for the purposes of discussing things on this list some are easy to find, some are a bit wonkier and take a little more time.
Additionally folks don’t religiously update Liquipedia with feats and tidbits as used to be more common. So just skimming off there isn’t as productive as it may once have been.
To my knowledge there’s no easy way to, for example use Aligulac alone to find something like all-time Code S Ro8+ streaks. I knew it was Trap, and thought he’d made the magic 10 to set a ‘Trap award’ after Nestea’s Ro32 and Parting’s Ro16 10+ streaks but if it wasn’t a stat I already knew it wouldn’t be one I’d just stumble across.
I do respect the effort, the part I found funny about it was that anybody could do that if they had the inclination, but no one does because it's easier to just say something with no accountability.
As for the Trap stuff and whatever else, I just happen to have a spreadsheet with all of that
Luckier for everyone else I just stuck her on Liquipedia ^_^
Aye I mean anyone can do such things and it’s not some Herculean, but I’ll give props nonetheless. I mean in theory everyone could quite easily be civil on the internet but that’s oft not the case
I'm pretty sure 95%+ plus haven't read the articles and just "skipped to the predictions so they can trash them" (a classic preview tactic). You're already in elite company if you managed to make it that far.
I bet there's a lot of people who come to comment on these threads without having read the article. However, I also suspect there's a lot of people who read the articles (and possibly some comments), and just appreciate them for what they are, without leaving a comment.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
It’s kinda unfair to compare him to peak Maru though, as Maru has pushed the skill ceiling above the human threshold multiple times, that’s why he was called the fourth race. I am pretty sure that Zest would be higher in the list if balance went other way in LotV, he is the perfect Protoss
I feel like I see you writing almost this exact same comment in so many threads (mostly LR threads and the other threads in the GOAT series), and now you got me curious. Personally I've had a similar feeling when I watch Serral. It seems like if you compare Serral to other WC caliber players there are others who can match his speed. However, his APM economy seems out of this world; any time he has APM to spare he seems to do something useful with it, as if he has an unending mental checklist of tasks to do. Whether it's sending out a burrowed infestor, setting up a runby for next time he attacks or something different - in general he just always seems to do useful things with his actions. Quite a convoluted way to ask this but what part(s) of Maru's play do you think pushes him past the human threshold?
As I’ve recommended prior, grab a replay and properly watch at your own pace.
Serral’s bloody fast, but he’s usually doing something productive, and more often than not it’s the rightproductive thing to be doing. Maru’s also phenomenal in this regard too, although I think a bit is more immediately obvious and flashy just in terms of micro especially.
On March 21 2024 01:15 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: [quote]
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It’s their own post made in different threads.
And ‘fair fucks’ as we say over here, they put in the groundwork for it!
You do realize you can look all this up in 15 minutes on aligulac right?
Some of it sure, I feel it’s doing a bit of a disservice to the effort to dig certain tidbits out. It’s a hell of a lot more effort than most posts on these topics go to at least
From personal diggings, mostly for the purposes of discussing things on this list some are easy to find, some are a bit wonkier and take a little more time.
Additionally folks don’t religiously update Liquipedia with feats and tidbits as used to be more common. So just skimming off there isn’t as productive as it may once have been.
To my knowledge there’s no easy way to, for example use Aligulac alone to find something like all-time Code S Ro8+ streaks. I knew it was Trap, and thought he’d made the magic 10 to set a ‘Trap award’ after Nestea’s Ro32 and Parting’s Ro16 10+ streaks but if it wasn’t a stat I already knew it wouldn’t be one I’d just stumble across.
I do respect the effort, the part I found funny about it was that anybody could do that if they had the inclination, but no one does because it's easier to just say something with no accountability.
As for the Trap stuff and whatever else, I just happen to have a spreadsheet with all of that
Luckier for everyone else I just stuck her on Liquipedia ^_^
Aye I mean anyone can do such things and it’s not some Herculean, but I’ll give props nonetheless. I mean in theory everyone could quite easily be civil on the internet but that’s oft not the case
I'm pretty sure 95%+ plus haven't read the articles and just "skipped to the predictions so they can trash them" (a classic preview tactic). You're already in elite company if you managed to make it that far.
I bet there's a lot of people who come to comment on these threads without having read the article. However, I also suspect there's a lot of people who read the articles (and possibly some comments), and just appreciate them for what they are, without leaving a comment.
On March 21 2024 04:41 Poopi wrote:
On March 21 2024 04:35 goldensail wrote:
On March 21 2024 03:02 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 02:57 goldensail wrote:
On March 21 2024 01:58 Comedy wrote:
On March 21 2024 01:15 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
It’s kinda unfair to compare him to peak Maru though, as Maru has pushed the skill ceiling above the human threshold multiple times, that’s why he was called the fourth race. I am pretty sure that Zest would be higher in the list if balance went other way in LotV, he is the perfect Protoss
I feel like I see you writing almost this exact same comment in so many threads (mostly LR threads and the other threads in the GOAT series), and now you got me curious. Personally I've had a similar feeling when I watch Serral. It seems like if you compare Serral to other WC caliber players there are others who can match his speed. However, his APM economy seems out of this world; any time he has APM to spare he seems to do something useful with it, as if he has an unending mental checklist of tasks to do. Whether it's sending out a burrowed infestor, setting up a runby for next time he attacks or something different - in general he just always seems to do useful things with his actions. Quite a convoluted way to ask this but what part(s) of Maru's play do you think pushes him past the human threshold?
Peak Maru? Multitasking / macro / micro otherworldly, an ability to both play at incredible speed yet perfectly plan what units / sim city / whatever he should do. His defense in general is borderline impossible (so many times where you are like: wut?) but back in the days he was like as fast as Clem but even more precise
There are other players where I was like: « incredible », but not as many times as Maru where my jaw dropped
I can definitely agree with his defense being borderline impossible. I've been incredibly impressed with his defensive play more times than I can count. Any chance you remember a game that you can link, illustrating the precision (I'm assuming you mean mouse precision and not build order precision, unit movement, etc.) part? Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention to that specific aspect of his play when watching but I've thought for a long time that Clem had the best mouse precision out of all the pro's.
I don’t have a specific game in mind, but I guess a replay would be better than nothing, albeit the best would have been to see him play earlier in his career in first PoV with mouse movement. From what you could see in tournaments with PoV on at times, or in his rare streams, he has a low mouse sense and is not doing « twitchy fast » mouse movements but rather very precise / as little movement as possible.
Clem streams more so it’s easier to see him first pov, and what’s pretty impressive is Clem’s ability to very quickly micro efficiently, get his screen back home if needed super quickly then getting back to the micro needs. The main difference (although Clem has improved in this regard) with Maru is more in « what to do / build » to have the perfect setup. Maru seems able to properly assess by himself the necessary buildings to make the defensive style work in TvZ for example, while other terrans like Cure or Clem took more time to manage to do it.
Serral on the other hand is super strong mechanically, but his two main strengths imo are his ability to deeply understand what is the optimal play in most situations (and how to scout properly), and an impressive army control, with or without spell casters, that allows him to take pretty good fights even in match-ups like late game ZvP, which could be tricky.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
I feel similarly. Also Maru being a beast in TvT vs Serral having ZvZ as his worst match-up does not help. Why is Serral not so good when balance is not an issue? The answer is subjective...
Pretty sure that the answer is that Serral is playing his mirrors against Reynor, Rogue and Dark and Maru isn't. No offense to my hype champ Oliveira.
Seriously, if you look back at Maru's LotV career, TvT only becomes his best matchup after Innovation and Ty are gone. Before that his TvZ was stronger than his TvT. As far as I recall, it's Ty who was known as the master of TvT.
Wow this was unexpected... I only watch super majors but in the past x years all I've read is "Serral wins this, Serral wins that" so I thought he would be #1 for sure. But I know Maru won a lot in the beginning, loved his Barracks rushes in the WoL beta.
On March 21 2024 09:49 Freezard wrote: Wow this was unexpected... I only watch super majors but in the past x years all I've read is "Serral wins this, Serral wins that" so I thought he would be #1 for sure. But I know Maru won a lot in the beginning, loved his Barracks rushes in the WoL beta.
I'm sure Maru rushed a lot of Barracks too, but part of me really hopes you've confused him with Maka :D.
I haven't got time for TL lately, but it is really unbelievable. If Maru is the GOAT, then how can you refer to someone who is better than the GOAT? GOAT father? GOAT Serral?
On March 21 2024 12:54 shakigami wrote: I haven't got time for TL lately, but it is really unbelievable. If Maru is the GOAT, then how can you refer to someone who is better than the GOAT? GOAT father? GOAT Serral?
Quote from Adrian Goldsworthy's book In The Name of Rome, following Livy:
[Scipio*] Africanus asked who, in Hannibal's opinion, was the greatest general of all time. Hannibal replied, 'Alexander [The Great*]... because with small force he routed armies of countless numbers, and because he traversed the remotest lands...' Asked whom he placed second, Hannibal said: 'Pyrrhus. He was the first to teach the art of laying out a camp. Besides that, no one has ever shown nicer judgement in choosing his ground, or in disposing his forces. He also had the art of winning men to his side...' When Africanus followed up by asking whom he ranked third, Hannibal unhesitantingly chose himself. Scipio bursts out laughing at this, and said: "What would you be saying if you had defeated me?'
'In that case,' replied Hannibal, 'I should certainly put myself before Alexander and before Pyrrhus - in fact before all other generals!' This reply, with its elaborate Punic subtlety... affected Scipio deeply, because Hannibal had set him apart from the general run of commanders, as one whose worth was beyond calculation.
The story maybe apocryphal, but such a judgement was certainly not undeserved.
Example of Goat debate from over two millenias ago.
On March 21 2024 12:54 shakigami wrote: I haven't got time for TL lately, but it is really unbelievable. If Maru is the GOAT, then how can you refer to someone who is better than the GOAT? GOAT father? GOAT Serral?
Quote from Adrian Goldsworthy's book In The Name of Rome, following Livy:
[Scipio*] Africanus asked who, in Hannibal's opinion, was the greatest general of all time. Hannibal replied, 'Alexander [The Great*]... because with small force he routed armies of countless numbers, and because he traversed the remotest lands...' Asked whom he placed second, Hannibal said: 'Pyrrhus. He was the first to teach the art of laying out a camp. Besides that, no one has ever shown nicer judgement in choosing his ground, or in disposing his forces. He also had the art of winning men to his side...' When Africanus followed up by asking whom he ranked third, Hannibal unhesitantingly chose himself. Scipio bursts out laughing at this, and said: "What would you be saying if you had defeated me?'
'In that case,' replied Hannibal, 'I should certainly put myself before Alexander and before Pyrrhus - in fact before all other generals!' This reply, with its elaborate Punic subtlety... affected Scipio deeply, because Hannibal had set him apart from the general run of commanders, as one whose worth was beyond calculation.
The story maybe apocryphal, but such a judgement was certainly not undeserved.
Example of Goat debate from over two millenias ago.
[*clarifications mine]
Lmao i love whenever you quote/source literature/research and stuff, some of the funniest posts in these threads
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
It seems unfathomable to be of the opinion that serral would not have won gsl if he entered the tournament. He'd have been the #1 favorite to win GSL for any GSL after he rose to prominence, if he had just participated. What the other poster said, someone like maru should actually consider himself lucky that serral did not come to korea to take his lunch money.
When Serral "rose to prominence" in 2018, he lost to Maru 0:3 in WESG semi-finals. So no, he wouldn't have been the #1 favorite back when Maru had the 4-peat.
Nowadays he would be, with the best Koreans aging, injured or retired, and when Zerg's potential is being further exploited.
I quote Rogue from 2019 after winning GSL: "once I amass infestors, there's nothing Protoss can do...I barely practiced but still won so looks like Zerg is OP, map pool is also good for Zerg". Link below (use translator): www.dailyesports.com
The infestor problem persisted and the recent abominations just made it painfully obvious. Why did the balance council not fix them? It has been obvious to me as a mere enthusiast for years and looks like Rogue agrees.
When Zerg has an obvious balance advantage does Serral's performance record count at face value?
So no, I'm not convinced Serral is a better SC2 player than everyone else. He's a very good player who picked the strongest race.
You can disagree, but at least you know where I'm coming from in terms of why Serral's win stats don't convince me, and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I've talked to about half a dozen pros who are of the opinion that Serral translates just fine to the other races. He's one of the fastest players, one of the best multitaskers, one of the best at gathering information and one of the best at decision making.
The idea that Serral gets knocked for being Zerg is pretty comical, especially since he has out performed every Zerg (who have the same advantages he has) since becoming a full-time pro.
I don't deny Serral is "one of the best" at all these things, I'm merely questioning whether he would be dominant had he not had balance in his favor. For example, is he as fast/as good in multi-tasking as peak Maru?
And it's debatable whether he has "out performed every Zerg since becoming full time" - certainly not the case in 2021 vs. Rogue head-to-head (1W5L), and Rogue was older/close to retirement. If Washington Wizards' MJ takes out Kobe one-on-one that would be saying something. I know I'm cherry picking the time period but merely debating the statement.
It is not my intention to push down Serral unfairly. What I do wish, is that there had been better game balance so we could truly see players bring out their best on a level playing field (or hypothetically, if players were required to play random, it would be difficult to argue against results). There would've been less bitterness in these discussions and more celebration, which I imagine is what this series is meant to achieve.
I feel similarly. Also Maru being a beast in TvT vs Serral having ZvZ as his worst match-up does not help. Why is Serral not so good when balance is not an issue? The answer is subjective...
Pretty sure that the answer is that Serral is playing his mirrors against Reynor, Rogue and Dark and Maru isn't. No offense to my hype champ Oliveira.
Seriously, if you look back at Maru's LotV career, TvT only becomes his best matchup after Innovation and Ty are gone. Before that his TvZ was stronger than his TvT. As far as I recall, it's Ty who was known as the master of TvT.
Oh shit you're totally right lol. Yeah TvT vs Cure, Oliveira, Byun etc. just isn't the same thing. Even against Ty and Innovation, the 2 of them aren't as peak as Rogue Dark.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
I posted it both on this and the Serral thread. I also posted it weeks ago on Youtube... the data I collected is all in Excel sheets, so this is definitely written by me
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
My favorite posts are the factually incorrect ones.
Well, everyone makes mistakes, as the #2 post about Serral by TL proved, right Because it was written that Serral went 7-0 at IEM 2024 in games and 17-1 in matches... I texted you guys yesterday and now this part stands corrected. But at this moment, it still says that Serral and Maru never met in an offline final although the post was created after IEM 2024 where Serral beat Maru 4-0.
As I was looking on liquipedia for Premier Tournament wins and it says 5 for sOs over there, so can you please tell me where my notion is false? Or are you referring to the World Champion part? And if this little "mistake" is the only thing you have to disagree on, then I am pretty satisfied with something I researched while having a 40° fever.
And yeah, it is fair to claim Maru is the GOAT. I simply disagree, as - in my opinion - the length of Serral's dominance as well as the scope of it (Aligulac's Hall of Fame is simply ridiculous on that one... 50k to 30k with 3rd place being around 13k) and on top his overall achievements make Serral outperform Maru and Rogue. You put more emphasis on Maru winning GSLs, which is fine. Maru won the bulk of his Premier Tournaments in 2018 and after (iirc only 2 wins before that year) and my point is, that Serral would have taken many Premier Tournaments of Koreans, if he in fact was born over there. This is concluded by his insane win rates versus all of these players. It is simply incredibly unlikely that he would have never won GSLs and thus taken titles away from Rogue, Maru, Inno, etc, given the statistics we have. And as I only counted tournaments with top Korean participation, it is also not very likely that Serral in turn would have won less of the ones he did. We will never know though, as Serral was born in Finland, but in my opinion, his dominance is simply too big to put any other player above him.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
I posted it both on this and the Serral thread. I also posted it weeks ago on Youtube... the data I collected is all in Excel sheets, so this is definitely written by me
Ah my bad, I was thinking of a post made by AdrianHealeyy. Some reason it felt similar but after reading his post (which was also stats-heavy), it's pretty different. I guess I just thought both posts were really good and confused them
"Because it was written that Serral went 7-0 at IEM 2024 in games and 17-1 in matches... I texted you guys yesterday and now this part stands corrected. But at this moment, it still says that Serral and Maru never met in an offline final although the post was created after IEM 2024 where Serral beat Maru 4-0."
Dang nice observations. I honestly dunno how someone can continue to be so snarky when they make mistakes too lol
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
My favorite posts are the factually incorrect ones.
Well, everyone makes mistakes, as the #2 post about Serral by TL proved, right Because it was written that Serral went 7-0 at IEM 2024 in games and 17-1 in matches... I texted you guys yesterday and now this part stands corrected. But at this moment, it still says that Serral and Maru never met in an offline final although the post was created after IEM 2024 where Serral beat Maru 4-0.
As I was looking on liquipedia for Premier Tournament wins and it says 5 for sOs over there, so can you please tell me where my notion is false? Or are you referring to the World Champion part? And if this little "mistake" is the only thing you have to disagree on, then I am pretty satisfied with something I researched while having a 40° fever.
And yeah, it is fair to claim Maru is the GOAT. I simply disagree, as - in my opinion - the length of Serral's dominance as well as the scope of it (Aligulac's Hall of Fame is simply ridiculous on that one... 50k to 30k with 3rd place being around 13k) and on top his overall achievements make Serral outperform Maru and Rogue. You put more emphasis on Maru winning GSLs, which is fine. Maru won the bulk of his Premier Tournaments in 2018 and after (iirc only 2 wins before that year) and my point is, that Serral would have taken many Premier Tournaments of Koreans, if he in fact was born over there. This is concluded by his insane win rates versus all of these players. It is simply incredibly unlikely that he would have never won GSLs and thus taken titles away from Rogue, Maru, Inno, etc, given the statistics we have. And as I only counted tournaments with top Korean participation, it is also not very likely that Serral in turn would have won less of the ones he did. We will never know though, as Serral was born in Finland, but in my opinion, his dominance is simply too big to put any other player above him.
Cheers anyways and thanks for your guys' effort.
Well, the Goat is based on achievements, not on hypotheticals so it doesn't matter what you or I believe how he would've performed in GSL. If we open that can we can also start with what if Mvp stayed injury-free, what if Inno stayed motivated, what if Life didn't get banned, etc.
Also I'm pretty sure if Maru had never participated in a world championship we'd say there's no way he wouldn't have won at least 1. Shows that prediction and reality don't always align.
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
I posted it both on this and the Serral thread. I also posted it weeks ago on Youtube... the data I collected is all in Excel sheets, so this is definitely written by me
Ah my bad, I was thinking of a post made by AdrianHealeyy. Some reason it felt similar but after reading his post (which was also stats-heavy), it's pretty different. I guess I just thought both posts were really good and confused them
"Because it was written that Serral went 7-0 at IEM 2024 in games and 17-1 in matches... I texted you guys yesterday and now this part stands corrected. But at this moment, it still says that Serral and Maru never met in an offline final although the post was created after IEM 2024 where Serral beat Maru 4-0."
Dang nice observations. I honestly dunno how someone can continue to be so snarky when they make mistakes too lol
All good It is pretty easy to mix some things up, especially when calculating percentages... Or when I had to update the lists, I always had to counter-check which matchups I already updated (for example Serral's statistics versus the Koreans after IEM).
I am still not sure where my supposed mistake was in my notion about sOs, but even tif here was something wrong, it wouldn't change my overall sentiment about Maru, Rogue and Serral. Their respective feats are all amazing, but the length and scope of Serral's dominance paired with his achievements close the deal for me
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
My favorite posts are the factually incorrect ones.
Well, everyone makes mistakes, as the #2 post about Serral by TL proved, right Because it was written that Serral went 7-0 at IEM 2024 in games and 17-1 in matches... I texted you guys yesterday and now this part stands corrected. But at this moment, it still says that Serral and Maru never met in an offline final although the post was created after IEM 2024 where Serral beat Maru 4-0.
As I was looking on liquipedia for Premier Tournament wins and it says 5 for sOs over there, so can you please tell me where my notion is false? Or are you referring to the World Champion part? And if this little "mistake" is the only thing you have to disagree on, then I am pretty satisfied with something I researched while having a 40° fever.
And yeah, it is fair to claim Maru is the GOAT. I simply disagree, as - in my opinion - the length of Serral's dominance as well as the scope of it (Aligulac's Hall of Fame is simply ridiculous on that one... 50k to 30k with 3rd place being around 13k) and on top his overall achievements make Serral outperform Maru and Rogue. You put more emphasis on Maru winning GSLs, which is fine. Maru won the bulk of his Premier Tournaments in 2018 and after (iirc only 2 wins before that year) and my point is, that Serral would have taken many Premier Tournaments of Koreans, if he in fact was born over there. This is concluded by his insane win rates versus all of these players. It is simply incredibly unlikely that he would have never won GSLs and thus taken titles away from Rogue, Maru, Inno, etc, given the statistics we have. And as I only counted tournaments with top Korean participation, it is also not very likely that Serral in turn would have won less of the ones he did. We will never know though, as Serral was born in Finland, but in my opinion, his dominance is simply too big to put any other player above him.
Cheers anyways and thanks for your guys' effort.
Well, the Goat is based on achievements, not on hypotheticals so it doesn't matter what you or I believe how he would've performed in GSL. If we open that can we can also start with what if Mvp stayed injury-free, what if Inno stayed motivated, what if Life didn't get banned, etc.
Also I'm pretty sure if Maru had never participated in a world championship we'd say there's no way he wouldn't have won at least 1. Shows that prediction and reality don't always align.
I based my analysis on achievements though. Serral has higher and more win rates vs Top Koreaks, more Premier Tournament wins vs top Koreans, more dominance and a freaking insane positive record vs every GOAT contender.
Plus, Serral has much better stats to support the hypothetical that he could have won GSL, than if we assume the Maru-WorldChampionship-hypo. We also know for a fact that Maru never won a World Championship because he tried several times... but Serral never once played a GSL. This still is a hypothetical in contrast to the other
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
I posted it both on this and the Serral thread. I also posted it weeks ago on Youtube... the data I collected is all in Excel sheets, so this is definitely written by me
Ah my bad, I was thinking of a post made by AdrianHealeyy. Some reason it felt similar but after reading his post (which was also stats-heavy), it's pretty different. I guess I just thought both posts were really good and confused them
"Because it was written that Serral went 7-0 at IEM 2024 in games and 17-1 in matches... I texted you guys yesterday and now this part stands corrected. But at this moment, it still says that Serral and Maru never met in an offline final although the post was created after IEM 2024 where Serral beat Maru 4-0."
Dang nice observations. I honestly dunno how someone can continue to be so snarky when they make mistakes too lol
All good It is pretty easy to mix some things up, especially when calculating percentages... Or when I had to update the lists, I always had to counter-check which matchups I already updated (for example Serral's statistics versus the Koreans after IEM).
I am still not sure where my supposed mistake was in my notion about sOs, but even tif here was something wrong, it wouldn't change my overall sentiment about Maru, Rogue and Serral. Their respective feats are all amazing, but the length and scope of Serral's dominance paired with his achievements close the deal for me
I think they are counting sOs's Kato as a 3rd WC, which most people do. But there are some people who only count Blizzard WCs as official official WCs. So I don't think there was anything exactly incorrect in your post, though most people would consider Kato a WC. Also, technically the article is wrong because Serral never won a 3rd WC. IEM Kato 2024 is a WC-tier tournament, but it is not a world championship this year.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
My favorite posts are the factually incorrect ones.
Well, everyone makes mistakes, as the #2 post about Serral by TL proved, right Because it was written that Serral went 7-0 at IEM 2024 in games and 17-1 in matches... I texted you guys yesterday and now this part stands corrected. But at this moment, it still says that Serral and Maru never met in an offline final although the post was created after IEM 2024 where Serral beat Maru 4-0.
As I was looking on liquipedia for Premier Tournament wins and it says 5 for sOs over there, so can you please tell me where my notion is false? Or are you referring to the World Champion part? And if this little "mistake" is the only thing you have to disagree on, then I am pretty satisfied with something I researched while having a 40° fever.
And yeah, it is fair to claim Maru is the GOAT. I simply disagree, as - in my opinion - the length of Serral's dominance as well as the scope of it (Aligulac's Hall of Fame is simply ridiculous on that one... 50k to 30k with 3rd place being around 13k) and on top his overall achievements make Serral outperform Maru and Rogue. You put more emphasis on Maru winning GSLs, which is fine. Maru won the bulk of his Premier Tournaments in 2018 and after (iirc only 2 wins before that year) and my point is, that Serral would have taken many Premier Tournaments of Koreans, if he in fact was born over there. This is concluded by his insane win rates versus all of these players. It is simply incredibly unlikely that he would have never won GSLs and thus taken titles away from Rogue, Maru, Inno, etc, given the statistics we have. And as I only counted tournaments with top Korean participation, it is also not very likely that Serral in turn would have won less of the ones he did. We will never know though, as Serral was born in Finland, but in my opinion, his dominance is simply too big to put any other player above him.
Cheers anyways and thanks for your guys' effort.
Well, the Goat is based on achievements, not on hypotheticals so it doesn't matter what you or I believe how he would've performed in GSL. If we open that can we can also start with what if Mvp stayed injury-free, what if Inno stayed motivated, what if Life didn't get banned, etc.
Also I'm pretty sure if Maru had never participated in a world championship we'd say there's no way he wouldn't have won at least 1. Shows that prediction and reality don't always align.
There's a difference between "based on Serral's performance at the tournaments he enters, he would probably do well in a smaller and less competitive tournament in a region that he has won 2 out of 2 premiere tournaments at that were also hosted by the same organization" vs "based on Maru's performance at the tournaments he enters, he would probably do well at the biggest and most competitive tournaments on the international stage where he has never really shown great results" vs "based on MVP's results, if we excuse his injury and he magically got a physical buff that no other player gets to have in this hypothetical situation, he would perform better than he had and thus we can move him up the GOAT ranking".
You can apply Serral's results to a smaller, less competitive tournament with less money. You can't apply it to Maru for a bigger tournament with the world's best players with way more money at. Also we don't even need to apply it to Maru, because he's tried and tried and failed and failed to win a WC. Serral doesn't have that stain on his record, instead he has 2 out of 2 premiere GSL tournament wins that he competed at.
The MVP injury thing is a true hypothetical where you would have to unfairly buff one player's abilities/condition in order to try to rank them higher. Innovation losing motivation is a lack of determination/discipline/etc. Life getting banned stripped away the integrity of his achievements, you could say that perhaps he could have done well at this tournament or vs this opponent in his era before he got banned, but you can't extrapolate that he would still be performing well in the modern day. (Hence, I'm of the opinion that MVP is overrated and gets too much benefit of the doubt compared to other players).
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
I posted it both on this and the Serral thread. I also posted it weeks ago on Youtube... the data I collected is all in Excel sheets, so this is definitely written by me
Ah my bad, I was thinking of a post made by AdrianHealeyy. Some reason it felt similar but after reading his post (which was also stats-heavy), it's pretty different. I guess I just thought both posts were really good and confused them
"Because it was written that Serral went 7-0 at IEM 2024 in games and 17-1 in matches... I texted you guys yesterday and now this part stands corrected. But at this moment, it still says that Serral and Maru never met in an offline final although the post was created after IEM 2024 where Serral beat Maru 4-0."
Dang nice observations. I honestly dunno how someone can continue to be so snarky when they make mistakes too lol
All good It is pretty easy to mix some things up, especially when calculating percentages... Or when I had to update the lists, I always had to counter-check which matchups I already updated (for example Serral's statistics versus the Koreans after IEM).
I am still not sure where my supposed mistake was in my notion about sOs, but even tif here was something wrong, it wouldn't change my overall sentiment about Maru, Rogue and Serral. Their respective feats are all amazing, but the length and scope of Serral's dominance paired with his achievements close the deal for me
I think they are counting sOs's Kato as a 3rd WC, which most people do. But there are some people who only count Blizzard WCs as official official WCs. So I don't think there was anything exactly incorrect in your post, though most people would consider Kato a WC.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
My favorite posts are the factually incorrect ones.
Well, everyone makes mistakes, as the #2 post about Serral by TL proved, right Because it was written that Serral went 7-0 at IEM 2024 in games and 17-1 in matches... I texted you guys yesterday and now this part stands corrected. But at this moment, it still says that Serral and Maru never met in an offline final although the post was created after IEM 2024 where Serral beat Maru 4-0.
As I was looking on liquipedia for Premier Tournament wins and it says 5 for sOs over there, so can you please tell me where my notion is false? Or are you referring to the World Champion part? And if this little "mistake" is the only thing you have to disagree on, then I am pretty satisfied with something I researched while having a 40° fever.
And yeah, it is fair to claim Maru is the GOAT. I simply disagree, as - in my opinion - the length of Serral's dominance as well as the scope of it (Aligulac's Hall of Fame is simply ridiculous on that one... 50k to 30k with 3rd place being around 13k) and on top his overall achievements make Serral outperform Maru and Rogue. You put more emphasis on Maru winning GSLs, which is fine. Maru won the bulk of his Premier Tournaments in 2018 and after (iirc only 2 wins before that year) and my point is, that Serral would have taken many Premier Tournaments of Koreans, if he in fact was born over there. This is concluded by his insane win rates versus all of these players. It is simply incredibly unlikely that he would have never won GSLs and thus taken titles away from Rogue, Maru, Inno, etc, given the statistics we have. And as I only counted tournaments with top Korean participation, it is also not very likely that Serral in turn would have won less of the ones he did. We will never know though, as Serral was born in Finland, but in my opinion, his dominance is simply too big to put any other player above him.
Cheers anyways and thanks for your guys' effort.
Well, the Goat is based on achievements, not on hypotheticals so it doesn't matter what you or I believe how he would've performed in GSL. If we open that can we can also start with what if Mvp stayed injury-free, what if Inno stayed motivated, what if Life didn't get banned, etc.
Also I'm pretty sure if Maru had never participated in a world championship we'd say there's no way he wouldn't have won at least 1. Shows that prediction and reality don't always align.
There's a difference between "based on Serral's performance at the tournaments he enters, he would probably do well in a smaller and less competitive tournament in a region that he has won 2 out of 2 premiere tournaments at that were also hosted by the same organization" vs "based on Maru's performance at the tournaments he enters, he would probably do well at the biggest and most competitive tournaments on the international stage where he has never really shown great results" vs "based on MVP's results, if we excuse his injury and he magically got a physical buff that no other player gets to have in this hypothetical situation, he would perform better than he had and thus we can move him up the GOAT ranking".
You can apply Serral's results to a smaller, less competitive tournament with less money. You can't apply it to Maru for a bigger tournament with the world's best players with way more money at. Also we don't even need to apply it to Maru, because he's tried and tried and failed and failed to win a WC. Serral doesn't have that stain on his record, instead he has 2 out of 2 premiere GSL tournament wins that he competed at.
The MVP injury thing is a true hypothetical where you would have to unfairly buff one player's abilities/condition in order to try to rank them higher. Innovation losing motivation is a lack of determination/discipline/etc. Life getting banned stripped away the integrity of his achievements, you could say that perhaps he could have done well at this tournament or vs this opponent in his era before he got banned, but you can't extrapolate that he would still be performing well in the modern day. (Hence, I'm of the opinion that MVP is overrated and gets too much benefit of the doubt compared to other players).
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote: I seriously wonder how much ratios had to be distorted to come up with this conclusion.
While I was lying sick in bed, I was bored and took my time to analyze StarCraft2 data. I made some excel sheets, typed in the numbers and what I saw was absolutely insane at times. So here I share the statistics I found and hope you enjoy this little summary I wrote, after the GOAT debate was settled - at least for me
- There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved (MVP being the other). - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant. - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins - 12th of May 2018 till 6th of October 2018) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place the same player with 18 consecutive wins 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved (The closest is Maru with 76% also in 2023) - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans, which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other players being Maru with 78% in 2023, Serral with 76,76% in 2019 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and overall (25) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved
Here are these player’s records against the top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws):
vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0
And here the records vs some top world players :
vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer.
That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates.
To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He most definitely is the SC GOAT though.
To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements.
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 25 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 16 are with top Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with top Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players.
To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL, I have to reply “So what”? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent for the aforementioned reasons. Plus, Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. He is able to beat these players and he has done so on Korean soil without being Korean. So if all people have to offer is: “Meh, GSL” it simply seems like a last straw to hold on to. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world when they won the Champions League, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. This argument makes no sense at all. All this is not even taking into account that out of the last 6 years, the world champion only came out of Korea 2 times. Meaning yes, Korea still has the broadest and best player base, but at the top, there are several other players from around the world who are able to show them their limits. Serral is also probably the best player to prepare for his opponents as Katowice 2024 has shown yet again. Does anybody in their right mind think that such a format would be worse for Serral?
Plus, one has to keep in mind that Serral did all this without TeamHouses or the Korean infrastructure which was way beyond anything that is even present nowadays in Europe.
Anyways, these are my thoughts.
Share statistics, if you disagree
"Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean?"
To the KR prep elitists, yes.
Also, great post but i think i read this somewhere by another TL user. Did you steal their post or something?
Also, looking at the poll someone started a few pages ago, seems like the votes are in favor of Serral 2:1 so maybe the majority of TL actually agrees with Serral as #1 but it just looks more disputed going by the comments
I posted it both on this and the Serral thread. I also posted it weeks ago on Youtube... the data I collected is all in Excel sheets, so this is definitely written by me
Ah my bad, I was thinking of a post made by AdrianHealeyy. Some reason it felt similar but after reading his post (which was also stats-heavy), it's pretty different. I guess I just thought both posts were really good and confused them
"Because it was written that Serral went 7-0 at IEM 2024 in games and 17-1 in matches... I texted you guys yesterday and now this part stands corrected. But at this moment, it still says that Serral and Maru never met in an offline final although the post was created after IEM 2024 where Serral beat Maru 4-0."
Dang nice observations. I honestly dunno how someone can continue to be so snarky when they make mistakes too lol
All good It is pretty easy to mix some things up, especially when calculating percentages... Or when I had to update the lists, I always had to counter-check which matchups I already updated (for example Serral's statistics versus the Koreans after IEM).
I am still not sure where my supposed mistake was in my notion about sOs, but even tif here was something wrong, it wouldn't change my overall sentiment about Maru, Rogue and Serral. Their respective feats are all amazing, but the length and scope of Serral's dominance paired with his achievements close the deal for me
I think they are counting sOs's Kato as a 3rd WC, which most people do. But there are some people who only count Blizzard WCs as official official WCs. So I don't think there was anything exactly incorrect in your post, though most people would consider Kato a WC.
On March 21 2024 16:59 Charoisaur wrote:
On March 21 2024 16:21 PremoBeats wrote:
On March 21 2024 01:27 Mizenhauer wrote:
On March 21 2024 01:07 PremoBeats wrote:
To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance.
My favorite posts are the factually incorrect ones.
Well, everyone makes mistakes, as the #2 post about Serral by TL proved, right Because it was written that Serral went 7-0 at IEM 2024 in games and 17-1 in matches... I texted you guys yesterday and now this part stands corrected. But at this moment, it still says that Serral and Maru never met in an offline final although the post was created after IEM 2024 where Serral beat Maru 4-0.
As I was looking on liquipedia for Premier Tournament wins and it says 5 for sOs over there, so can you please tell me where my notion is false? Or are you referring to the World Champion part? And if this little "mistake" is the only thing you have to disagree on, then I am pretty satisfied with something I researched while having a 40° fever.
And yeah, it is fair to claim Maru is the GOAT. I simply disagree, as - in my opinion - the length of Serral's dominance as well as the scope of it (Aligulac's Hall of Fame is simply ridiculous on that one... 50k to 30k with 3rd place being around 13k) and on top his overall achievements make Serral outperform Maru and Rogue. You put more emphasis on Maru winning GSLs, which is fine. Maru won the bulk of his Premier Tournaments in 2018 and after (iirc only 2 wins before that year) and my point is, that Serral would have taken many Premier Tournaments of Koreans, if he in fact was born over there. This is concluded by his insane win rates versus all of these players. It is simply incredibly unlikely that he would have never won GSLs and thus taken titles away from Rogue, Maru, Inno, etc, given the statistics we have. And as I only counted tournaments with top Korean participation, it is also not very likely that Serral in turn would have won less of the ones he did. We will never know though, as Serral was born in Finland, but in my opinion, his dominance is simply too big to put any other player above him.
Cheers anyways and thanks for your guys' effort.
Well, the Goat is based on achievements, not on hypotheticals so it doesn't matter what you or I believe how he would've performed in GSL. If we open that can we can also start with what if Mvp stayed injury-free, what if Inno stayed motivated, what if Life didn't get banned, etc.
Also I'm pretty sure if Maru had never participated in a world championship we'd say there's no way he wouldn't have won at least 1. Shows that prediction and reality don't always align.
There's a difference between "based on Serral's performance at the tournaments he enters, he would probably do well in a smaller and less competitive tournament in a region that he has won 2 out of 2 premiere tournaments at that were also hosted by the same organization" vs "based on Maru's performance at the tournaments he enters, he would probably do well at the biggest and most competitive tournaments on the international stage where he has never really shown great results" vs "based on MVP's results, if we excuse his injury and he magically got a physical buff that no other player gets to have in this hypothetical situation, he would perform better than he had and thus we can move him up the GOAT ranking".
You can apply Serral's results to a smaller, less competitive tournament with less money. You can't apply it to Maru for a bigger tournament with the world's best players with way more money at. Also we don't even need to apply it to Maru, because he's tried and tried and failed and failed to win a WC. Serral doesn't have that stain on his record, instead he has 2 out of 2 premiere GSL tournament wins that he competed at.
The MVP injury thing is a true hypothetical where you would have to unfairly buff one player's abilities/condition in order to try to rank them higher. Innovation losing motivation is a lack of determination/discipline/etc. Life getting banned stripped away the integrity of his achievements, you could say that perhaps he could have done well at this tournament or vs this opponent in his era before he got banned, but you can't extrapolate that he would still be performing well in the modern day. (Hence, I'm of the opinion that MVP is overrated and gets too much benefit of the doubt compared to other players).
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
That's true and I agree, though I think that you can extrapolate more for Serral that it's more likely he'd do well in a smaller tournament with a different format, than you could say for Maru at a bigger tournament with a different format (if Maru hypothetically never tried a WC).
Not to confuse this with, just outright rewarding someone with a win that they didn't actually try to compete for and win, of course. But just looking at Serral's performance, dominance, etc. and what evidence is there. What his record implies. We don't need to guess whether Serral would do well in a prep tournament in a NA premiere tournament for example, if that was a thing. Maybe he'd compete there and get upset. But he probably wouldn't because he's already proven himself able to do much more impressive and difficult things, so if the loss isn't proven there's no need to deduct points (which I feel people arguing "Serral never won a Code S so he can't be #1" are doing). Meanwhile Maru has proven he can't win a WC so far so points need to be deducted. Players must be judged based on the tournaments they choose to compete at, and Serral has the best performance in the biggest tournaments.
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
With all respect that rusty bucket argument doesn't seem to hold much water in case of Serral. Like Serral would be somehow strikingly evidently unable to prepare. There are probably good reasons why we do not see him in Weeklies populated by other pros. Maybe he uses his time better. For preparation, maybe. It's also pretty clear that teammates talking about his encyclopedic match memory, didn't pull those talks out from their hats.
Nice little clip what it looks like when Serral run a library search in his mind palace.
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.
Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.
Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.
Hypotheticals, yes, but in these kind scenarios I think adaptation and acclimatisation to Korean culture and living probably in a City environment would significantly impact also to his game. At least for some time. We must remember that Serral comes from peaceful rural environment, and doesn't enjoy spending time in bigger Cities (even by Finnish standards). As semi-hermetic outdoors man of rural community he would likely suffer from culture-shock in transition to everyday life in Korea... and that would likely show also in his gaming, regardless of requirements of preparation.
Even being Serral fanboi, I try my best not to make Serral superhuman, and as a fellow Finn I 'feel' Serral's basic mental landscape well as a part of common Finnish collective consciousness and mental landscape to make statement like this. But that feeling is also one of reason why I love what he does, and how he conducts himself. I suspect that hypothetical transition to Korea would be relatively difficult to him. Regardless of skill, insight, and effort in the game, those things happen in the life, and if life environment changes dramatically, that would almost inevitably become visible also in his gaming.
Anyway, its waste of time to bonder such things. It won't be simply rational to even think moving to Korea to be able to beat nearly death horse personally. GSL trophy post-2024 wouldn't hold much weight anyway. We also know that even if Serral would somehow win few GSLs, TL.net horde of Korean Elitists would only regress the comparison onto level of relative values of this and that GSL win.
Foreign Serral fans try all they can to discourage Serral from making such stupid move (unless hyper rich Saudi Prince put few mils to Korean scene). Me included.
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.
Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.
Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.
Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons), but the point stands.
To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75) TY (6.25), Zest (6.0). It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.
Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.
Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.
Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.
To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.
But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.
And I think you missed my former reply:
"Well, everyone makes mistakes, as the #2 post about Serral by TL proved, right Because it was written that Serral went 7-0 at IEM 2024 in games and 17-1 in matches... I texted you guys yesterday and now this part stands corrected. But at this moment, it still says that Serral and Maru never met in an offline final although the post was created after IEM 2024 where Serral beat Maru 4-0.
As I was looking on liquipedia for Premier Tournament wins and it says 5 for sOs over there, so can you please tell me where my notion is false? Or are you referring to the World Champion part? And if this little "mistake" is the only thing you have to disagree on, then I am pretty satisfied with something I researched while having a 40° fever.
And yeah, it is fair to claim Maru is the GOAT. I simply disagree, as - in my opinion - the length of Serral's dominance as well as the scope of it (Aligulac's Hall of Fame is simply ridiculous on that one... 50k to 30k with 3rd place being around 13k) and on top his overall achievements make Serral outperform Maru and Rogue. You put more emphasis on Maru winning GSLs, which is fine. Maru won the bulk of his Premier Tournaments in 2018 and after (iirc only 2 wins before that year) and my point is, that Serral would have taken many Premier Tournaments of Koreans, if he in fact was born over there. This is concluded by his insane win rates versus all of these players. It is simply incredibly unlikely that he would have never won GSLs and thus taken titles away from Rogue, Maru, Inno, etc, given the statistics we have. And as I only counted tournaments with top Korean participation, it is also not very likely that Serral in turn would have won less of the ones he did. We will never know though, as Serral was born in Finland, but in my opinion, his dominance is simply too big to put any other player above him.
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Yeah in this alternate reality Serral would likely be the Goat, but as I already said, being the Goat is not based on hypotheticals.
If Harry Kane had played his entire career at Man City there would also be a 0% chance he'd still be at 0 titles but as it is he has 0 titles and that affects his legacy.
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Yeah in this alternate reality Serral would likely be the Goat, but as I already said, being the Goat is not based on hypotheticals.
If Harry Kane had played his entire career at Man City there would also be a 0% chance he'd still be at 0 titles but as it is he has 0 titles and that affects his legacy.
It really shouldn’t in a team game, but I don’t want to go too off-topic!
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.
Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.
Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.
Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons), but the point stands.
To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75) TY (6.25), Zest (6.0). It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.
Factor relative value of the expected XWins/[season: Code S] as a function of Level of competition Lvl[Comp] multiplied by income per win XIncome-Expense, sqrt Swag-Factor divided by number of Military retirees per Military returnees Swag[MReti/MrRetu], plus GSL Golden Standard Y[GS->GSL] constant, all of that to the exponent^ of health factor Brkn_Shldr'n'Wrst ('Broken Shoulder&Wrist}...
Results: No measurable Career net gain of any kind of relevancy for Serral.
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.
Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.
Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.
Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.
To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.
But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.
Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.
This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.
I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.
Yeah in this alternate reality Serral would likely be the Goat, but as I already said, being the Goat is not based on hypotheticals.
If Harry Kane had played his entire career at Man City there would also be a 0% chance he'd still be at 0 titles but as it is he has 0 titles and that affects his legacy.
The thing is, that I don't even think that it is adequate to deny Serral the GOAT title even without these alternate reality, as I wrote extensively in my initial post here.
He was/is the most dominant, he won internationally as well as in Korea, he has achieved no one else can (only positive win rates vs top Koreans he played regularly) and the wildest win rates vs Koreans in several given years.
That he never won a GSL is the only thing which prevents him from being the GOAT in a crystal clear sense. But even without it, imo, he is above Maru for the reasons stated in my initial post. The hypothetical only expresses that his GOAT status shouldn't be a question as him winning GSL should be obvious because of the statistics and logic behind it.
Yeah in this alternate reality Serral would likely be the Goat, but as I already said, being the Goat is not based on hypotheticals.
If Harry Kane had played his entire career at Man City there would also be a 0% chance he'd still be at 0 titles but as it is he has 0 titles and that affects his legacy.
The thing is, that I don't even think that it is adequate to deny Serral the GOAT title even without these alternate reality, as I wrote extensively in my initial post here.
He was/is the most dominant, he won internationally as well as in Korea, he has achieved no one else can (only positive win rates vs top Koreans he played regularly) and the wildest win rates vs Koreans in several given years.
That he never won a GSL is the only thing which prevents him from being the GOAT in a crystal clear sense. But even without it, imo, he is above Maru for the reasons stated in my initial post. The hypothetical only expresses that his GOAT status shouldn't be a question as him winning GSL should be obvious because of the statistics and logic behind it.
Yeah but that are just the metrics you personally deem the most important. Maru has also done lots of things nobody else has done - Consistently a top player since 2013 (includes success during the most competitive era), most Starleagues by far, best single Proleague season, won during times when terran was really weak. There isn't an undisputed Goat, it all depends on how you rate different achievements against each other
Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.
This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.
That addresses Maru's side, but not the hypothetical of Serral being in GSL at the same time, potentially taking wins of Maru and adding them for himself. I guess we won't find common ground on this GOAT discussion because of different weightings but I sincerely appreciate the effort you guys made to establish this list.
And this quote still needs a correction, as the article "#2: Serral - Greatest Players of All Time " was published on 15th of March and Serral beat Maru 4:0 on 11th of February 2024 at the offline event in Katowice: "And, while we never got an offline final between the two, they did play at GSL vs The World as part of the team competition."
It was stated by Miz that series of articles timeframe ended BEFORE Katowice 2024, and that was said BEFORE that tournament.
Ofc, one can question immediately the meaning of 'GOAT' in such context, but for editorial reasons I understand why that limitation was made.
Even I can accept Maru as GOAT (albeit grudgingly) BEFORE Katowice 24. But things change as time goes on, second by second for everyone, and thus GOAT discussion never ends. Discussion itself is very interesting, and entertaining.
Let's see how things look like when both Maru and Serral are retired. :D
It was stated by Miz that series of articles timeframe ended BEFORE Katowice 2024, and that was said BEFORE that tournament.
Ofc, one can question immediately the meaning of 'GOAT' in such context, but for editorial reasons I understand why that limitation was made.
Even I can accept Maru as GOAT (albeit grudgingly) BEFORE Katowice 24. But things change as time goes on, second by second for everyone, and thus GOAT discussion never ends. Discussion itself is very interesting, and entertaining.
Let's see how things look like when both Maru and Serral are retired. :D
It's a very weird choice to say the least to not edit a few sentences to make your article correct for the date it was released, also ending the "timeframe" of the article right before a world championship is very weird as well.
It was stated by Miz that series of articles timeframe ended BEFORE Katowice 2024, and that was said BEFORE that tournament.
Ofc, one can question immediately the meaning of 'GOAT' in such context, but for editorial reasons I understand why that limitation was made.
Even I can accept Maru as GOAT (albeit grudgingly) BEFORE Katowice 24. But things change as time goes on, second by second for everyone, and thus GOAT discussion never ends. Discussion itself is very interesting, and entertaining.
Let's see how things look like when both Maru and Serral are retired. :D
Mizenhauer stated that the result of Katowice 2024 wouldn’t change the rating anyways.
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.
Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.
Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.
Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.
To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.
But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.
Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.
This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.
I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.
"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."
I mean Taeja was winning lots of things, he seemed to be doing fine as Terran. He beat players like Zest, Jaedong, Solar, HerO, Life, MMA, and MC in 3 premieres first half of 2014. 4 of those players made the GOAT SC2 / GOAT HotS lists on TL back then. I think it's also best to not take balance too much into account. We can't excuse lack of results due to balance.
"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."
Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.
What if we simply now have players who are more dominant in their respective eras than past players in past eras? What if the skill gap between say, Serral and the rest, is higher than Maru/Life/Taeja and the rest back in 2013-2015? Defining 2 KIL as dominant simply because it's the highest # of KIL someone won during HotS feels unnatural. There isn't necessarily always a dominant player in an era.
It was stated by Miz that series of articles timeframe ended BEFORE Katowice 2024, and that was said BEFORE that tournament.
Ofc, one can question immediately the meaning of 'GOAT' in such context, but for editorial reasons I understand why that limitation was made.
Even I can accept Maru as GOAT (albeit grudgingly) BEFORE Katowice 24. But things change as time goes on, second by second for everyone, and thus GOAT discussion never ends. Discussion itself is very interesting, and entertaining.
Let's see how things look like when both Maru and Serral are retired. :D
Mizenhauer stated that the result of Katowice 2024 wouldn’t change the rating anyways.
Ah, ok. I recalled the statement incorrectly then.
So, GOAT is locked forever then with these articles. That's not how definition of GOAT works, sadly. If the World ends tomorrow, then yes maybe, but even then with damn big asterisk added.
For disclaimer (again), I appreciate Miz's work, but I do not agree with the weightings and the ultimate conclusion, and exclusion of Dark, being more angry about that than subjective ordering of all time greats.
Me, you, and everyone else can just pick their own Date-of-Expiration for their own needs in determination for what time exactly is included to 'all time'. Needless to say, we don't have any real meaningful discussion about GOAT then.
A distant future data-archeologist dig a copy of the game from some scrap CD or corroded hard drive 1000 years from now and organize funny little retro-gaming SC2 tourney with his collagues, that then forms a seed for explosive interest to play competitively that amazing master piece of ancient game programming...
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.
Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.
Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.
Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.
To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.
But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.
Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.
This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.
I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.
"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."
Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.
"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."
Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.
Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.
And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.
Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.
Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.
Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.
To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.
But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.
Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.
This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.
I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.
What if we simply now have players who are more dominant in their respective eras than past players in past eras? What if the skill gap between say, Serral and the rest, is higher than Maru/Life/Taeja and the rest back in 2013-2015? Defining 2 KIL as dominant simply because it's the highest # of KIL someone won during HotS feels unnatural. There isn't necessarily always a dominant player in an era.
That's actually a fact but it doesn't work in favor of this era. The skill gap is higher because lots of top competitors had to leave and thus there are fewer championship contenders left. Obviously it's easier to be dominant in a scene with 30 full time players and 5 championship contenders than in a scene with 150 full time players and 12+ championship contenders
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.
Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.
Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.
Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.
To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.
But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.
Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.
This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.
I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.
"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."
Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.
"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."
Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.
Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.
And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.
Just look at Maru's GSL victory, it was the exact same "ridiculous balance". The only difference was that instead of having 60% of Protoss, they were 60% of Terrans.
Maru started winning when the GSL had already lost its meaning of best league in the world and when the winner was basically the best TvT player.
Saying Serral is not the GOAT because he has never competed in the GSL (even though everytime he went to Korea he just crushed the competition) is completely delusional.
Maru is fighting over 2nd place with Rogue (and he's not the one winning) overall Rogue has a better career than Maru whose only achievement is winning a tier-2 tournament multiple times (yes, GSL is tier 2 after 2016, the Blizzcon/IEM/DH are tier 1).
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.
Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.
Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.
Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.
To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.
But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.
Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.
This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.
I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.
"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."
Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.
"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."
Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.
Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.
And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.
Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.
Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.
Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.
Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.
To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.
But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.
Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.
This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.
I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.
"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."
Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.
"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."
Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.
Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.
And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.
Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.
Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.
Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.
Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.
To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.
But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.
Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.
This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.
I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.
"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."
Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.
"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."
Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.
Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.
And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.
Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.
Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol
They called it PvProleague for a reason.
We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.
Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.
Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.
Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.
Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.
To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.
But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.
Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.
This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.
I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.
"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."
Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.
"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."
Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.
Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.
And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.
Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.
Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol
They called it PvProleague for a reason.
We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.
Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.
Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.
Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.
Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.
To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.
But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.
Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.
This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.
I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.
"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."
Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.
"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."
Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.
Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.
And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.
Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.
Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol
They called it PvProleague for a reason.
We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.
Outside of Maru, terrans were winning basically peanuts money in 2018-2019. Terran was doing pretty bad already in 2018, especially in macro game TvP (and TvZ). There was no hope for Terran to win tournaments if Maru didn’t perform
On March 21 2024 19:13 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: [quote]
Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.
Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.
Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.
To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.
But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.
Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.
This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.
I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.
"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."
Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.
"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."
Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.
Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.
And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.
Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.
Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol
They called it PvProleague for a reason.
We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.
Outside of Maru, terrans were winning basically peanuts money in 2018-2019. Terran was doing pretty bad already in 2018, especially in macro game TvP (and TvZ). There was no hope for Terran to win tournaments if Maru didn’t perform
I beg to differ, Terran were winning almost as much as Protoss during those days, even without Maru. I actually did some stats a little while ago to look at the race distribution in Premier Tournaments victories since the beginning of SC2. I did it with every Premier Tournaments then I removed the top 3 best performers for each race to see which race was actually being "saved" by a small hand of players. And guess what, the results were quite the same.
Maru didn't have as much as an impact as Serral had, and by far. Serral single handedly took Zerg to the greatest highs.
(First pic is including every premier tournaments, second one is without the top 3 performers of each race).
Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.
To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.
But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.
Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.
This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.
I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.
"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."
Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.
"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."
Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.
Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.
And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.
Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.
Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol
They called it PvProleague for a reason.
We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.
Outside of Maru, terrans were winning basically peanuts money in 2018-2019. Terran was doing pretty bad already in 2018, especially in macro game TvP (and TvZ). There was no hope for Terran to win tournaments if Maru didn’t perform
I beg to differ, Terran were winning almost as much as Protoss during those days, even without Maru. I actually did some stats a little while ago to look at the race distribution in Premier Tournaments victories since the beginning of SC2. I did it with every Premier Tournaments then I removed the top 3 best performers for each race to see which race was actually being "saved" by a small hand of players. And guess what, the results were quite the same.
Maru didn't have as much as an impact as Serral had, and by far. Serral single handedly took Zerg to the greatest highs.
(First pic is including every premier tournaments, second one is without the top 3 performers of each race).
Interesting. What is the y axis in this plot? Can you share the raw data? How did you decide what are the 3 best performers?
Your graph literally show Terran would won NOTHING without Maru in 2018, but his impact is not that great? And your flaw is that if that player is removed from the equation, who is the one would win that title? So in Maru case, if he wasnt winning all those title, would it just "disappear" or it should have gone to the runner up? Same case with Serral, how many of his Final win was ZvZ? Meaning even if he didnt win, it would have been any other Zerg? And why you remove 3 top players from each race? Not 2 or just 1? I thought you want to test the impact of the one player. Zerg is known to be top-heavy AF during LOTV. Dark-Serral-Rogue-Reynor probably winning 70% of the Zerg premiere title combined, so you remove 3 of them from any top tournaments, Zerg medals counts will drop considerably.
I asked my girlfriend, who doesn't know about the articles, "Who is SC2 goat?" She has been watching Sc2 for ~9 years, so she knows a ton of players.
- "A bear cub" - she answered with a couple of seconds of hesitation. She often calls Maru like this. - Why? - He could come back from the deepest shithole and win the game against the odds.
I would agree. When Serral wins, it's like "all happened according to plan, when needed, no rush, calculated."
When Maru wins, sometimes it's like, "MAN, HOW YOU DID IT?!?" Just play like Maru, we all know the key to success.
And that's only one of many points I would have against Serral as the goat and for Maru top-1.
Maru started winning when the GSL had already lost its meaning of best league in the world and when the winner was basically the best TvT player.
Saying Serral is not the GOAT because he has never competed in the GSL (even though everytime he went to Korea he just crushed the competition) is completely delusional.
Maru is fighting over 2nd place with Rogue (and he's not the one winning) overall Rogue has a better career than Maru whose only achievement is winning a tier-2 tournament multiple times (yes, GSL is tier 2 after 2016, the Blizzcon/IEM/DH are tier 1).
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.
To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.
But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.
Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.
This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.
I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.
"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."
Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.
"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."
Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.
Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.
And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.
Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.
Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol
They called it PvProleague for a reason.
We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.
Outside of Maru, terrans were winning basically peanuts money in 2018-2019. Terran was doing pretty bad already in 2018, especially in macro game TvP (and TvZ). There was no hope for Terran to win tournaments if Maru didn’t perform
I beg to differ, Terran were winning almost as much as Protoss during those days, even without Maru. I actually did some stats a little while ago to look at the race distribution in Premier Tournaments victories since the beginning of SC2. I did it with every Premier Tournaments then I removed the top 3 best performers for each race to see which race was actually being "saved" by a small hand of players. And guess what, the results were quite the same.
Maru didn't have as much as an impact as Serral had, and by far. Serral single handedly took Zerg to the greatest highs.
(First pic is including every premier tournaments, second one is without the top 3 performers of each race).
Maru is #2 and the 2nd Terran who won the most money is at #10, it’s SpeCial, helped by the fact that he is in a very weak region that still gives money
Statistics/2019 INno won big money with WESG, but otherwise it’s just Maru that is winning money with Terran in 2019 (the race as a whole won a little less than protoss, and obviously far less than Zerg since it was the most OP race by far in 2019)
On March 21 2024 20:05 PremoBeats wrote: [quote] But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.
Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.
This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.
I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.
"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."
Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.
"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."
Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.
Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.
And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.
Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.
Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol
They called it PvProleague for a reason.
We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.
Outside of Maru, terrans were winning basically peanuts money in 2018-2019. Terran was doing pretty bad already in 2018, especially in macro game TvP (and TvZ). There was no hope for Terran to win tournaments if Maru didn’t perform
I beg to differ, Terran were winning almost as much as Protoss during those days, even without Maru. I actually did some stats a little while ago to look at the race distribution in Premier Tournaments victories since the beginning of SC2. I did it with every Premier Tournaments then I removed the top 3 best performers for each race to see which race was actually being "saved" by a small hand of players. And guess what, the results were quite the same.
Maru didn't have as much as an impact as Serral had, and by far. Serral single handedly took Zerg to the greatest highs.
(First pic is including every premier tournaments, second one is without the top 3 performers of each race).
Interesting. What is the y axis in this plot? Can you share the raw data? How did you decide what are the 3 best performers?
The y axis is just the number of premier tournaments won. I took all the datas on Liquipedia statistics page. I decided the 3 best performers in terms of most premier tournaments won.
Maru started winning when the GSL had already lost its meaning of best league in the world and when the winner was basically the best TvT player.
Saying Serral is not the GOAT because he has never competed in the GSL (even though everytime he went to Korea he just crushed the competition) is completely delusional.
Maru is fighting over 2nd place with Rogue (and he's not the one winning) overall Rogue has a better career than Maru whose only achievement is winning a tier-2 tournament multiple times (yes, GSL is tier 2 after 2016, the Blizzcon/IEM/DH are tier 1).
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
PiG just released a video about this that I watched just after making this post and he says the exact same things I did. Is it enough for you?
Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.
This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.
I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.
"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."
Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.
"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."
Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.
Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.
And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.
Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.
Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol
They called it PvProleague for a reason.
We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.
Outside of Maru, terrans were winning basically peanuts money in 2018-2019. Terran was doing pretty bad already in 2018, especially in macro game TvP (and TvZ). There was no hope for Terran to win tournaments if Maru didn’t perform
I beg to differ, Terran were winning almost as much as Protoss during those days, even without Maru. I actually did some stats a little while ago to look at the race distribution in Premier Tournaments victories since the beginning of SC2. I did it with every Premier Tournaments then I removed the top 3 best performers for each race to see which race was actually being "saved" by a small hand of players. And guess what, the results were quite the same.
Maru didn't have as much as an impact as Serral had, and by far. Serral single handedly took Zerg to the greatest highs.
(First pic is including every premier tournaments, second one is without the top 3 performers of each race).
Interesting. What is the y axis in this plot? Can you share the raw data? How did you decide what are the 3 best performers?
The y axis is just the number of premier tournaments won. I took all the datas on Liquipedia statistics page. I decided the 3 best performers in terms of most premier tournaments won.
Thanks, I am curious why you decided to remove the top3 and not just top1. Also curious to see the same graphs with top 1, top 2 and top 3 (and so on if you like but I think that will be good enough) removed alongside of the name of the players removed.
Maru started winning when the GSL had already lost its meaning of best league in the world and when the winner was basically the best TvT player.
Saying Serral is not the GOAT because he has never competed in the GSL (even though everytime he went to Korea he just crushed the competition) is completely delusional.
Maru is fighting over 2nd place with Rogue (and he's not the one winning) overall Rogue has a better career than Maru whose only achievement is winning a tier-2 tournament multiple times (yes, GSL is tier 2 after 2016, the Blizzcon/IEM/DH are tier 1).
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
PiG just released a video about this that I watched just after making this post and he says the exact same things I did. Is it enough for you?
That's just an appeal to authority. You were given legitimate reasons why your points were wrong. Relying on pig for support doesn't insulate your points
Maru started winning when the GSL had already lost its meaning of best league in the world and when the winner was basically the best TvT player.
Saying Serral is not the GOAT because he has never competed in the GSL (even though everytime he went to Korea he just crushed the competition) is completely delusional.
Maru is fighting over 2nd place with Rogue (and he's not the one winning) overall Rogue has a better career than Maru whose only achievement is winning a tier-2 tournament multiple times (yes, GSL is tier 2 after 2016, the Blizzcon/IEM/DH are tier 1).
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
PiG just released a video about this that I watched just after making this post and he says the exact same things I did. Is it enough for you?
That's just an appeal to authority. You were given legitimate reasons why your points were wrong. Relying on pig for support doesn't insulate your points
I give credit to Pig for reading some (Artosis didn't even open the article, kinda depressing to see someone who I looked up to become a react andy who puts no effort into talking about a game he is such a big part of) , sadly he got derailed about 500 words into a 7.5k+ word article and never actually covered the case for Maru.
Fwiw pig has been calling Serral the goat for about 5 years lol. So I don't think he was going to reach a different conclusion regardless of evidence or argumentation
On March 22 2024 03:59 Moonerz wrote: Fwiw pig has been calling Serral the goat for about 5 years lol. So I don't think he was going to reach a different conclusion regardless of evidence or argumentation
On March 21 2024 23:22 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: [quote]
"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."
Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.
"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."
Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.
Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.
And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.
Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.
Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol
They called it PvProleague for a reason.
We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.
Outside of Maru, terrans were winning basically peanuts money in 2018-2019. Terran was doing pretty bad already in 2018, especially in macro game TvP (and TvZ). There was no hope for Terran to win tournaments if Maru didn’t perform
I beg to differ, Terran were winning almost as much as Protoss during those days, even without Maru. I actually did some stats a little while ago to look at the race distribution in Premier Tournaments victories since the beginning of SC2. I did it with every Premier Tournaments then I removed the top 3 best performers for each race to see which race was actually being "saved" by a small hand of players. And guess what, the results were quite the same.
Maru didn't have as much as an impact as Serral had, and by far. Serral single handedly took Zerg to the greatest highs.
(First pic is including every premier tournaments, second one is without the top 3 performers of each race).
Interesting. What is the y axis in this plot? Can you share the raw data? How did you decide what are the 3 best performers?
The y axis is just the number of premier tournaments won. I took all the datas on Liquipedia statistics page. I decided the 3 best performers in terms of most premier tournaments won.
Thanks, I am curious why you decided to remove the top3 and not just top1. Also curious to see the same graphs with top 1, top 2 and top 3 (and so on if you like but I think that will be good enough) removed alongside of the name of the players removed.
I removed the top 3 because of Protoss. There isn't a clear Protoss GOAT, even Zest isn't quite as dominant for Protoss as Serral or Maru are for Zerg and Terran in terms of tournaments won.
You can clearly notice that if you look at the global earnings with Zest being only slightly above sOs, Stats and Neeb and behind an army of Terran and Zerg players. If I only removed the top 1 of each race, it would have favored Protoss too much.
On March 22 2024 03:59 Moonerz wrote: Fwiw pig has been calling Serral the goat for about 5 years lol. So I don't think he was going to reach a different conclusion regardless of evidence or argumentation
PiG has also looked down on Maru for the last 4 years as well. On one hand he still acknowledge Maru as the best lategame Terran in the world (noted: lategame, not best overall). On the other hand he has repeatedly not giving Maru a chance to win at offline even tournament in his prediction. Instead gave his vote to Clem, Cure, Gumiho or even Byun, while simply saying "Maru never win outside of KR". But it never happen for him to admit that its Maru who has been the best Terran in offline international tournament in the past 4 years.
Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.
And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.
Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.
Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol
They called it PvProleague for a reason.
We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.
Outside of Maru, terrans were winning basically peanuts money in 2018-2019. Terran was doing pretty bad already in 2018, especially in macro game TvP (and TvZ). There was no hope for Terran to win tournaments if Maru didn’t perform
I beg to differ, Terran were winning almost as much as Protoss during those days, even without Maru. I actually did some stats a little while ago to look at the race distribution in Premier Tournaments victories since the beginning of SC2. I did it with every Premier Tournaments then I removed the top 3 best performers for each race to see which race was actually being "saved" by a small hand of players. And guess what, the results were quite the same.
Maru didn't have as much as an impact as Serral had, and by far. Serral single handedly took Zerg to the greatest highs.
(First pic is including every premier tournaments, second one is without the top 3 performers of each race).
Interesting. What is the y axis in this plot? Can you share the raw data? How did you decide what are the 3 best performers?
The y axis is just the number of premier tournaments won. I took all the datas on Liquipedia statistics page. I decided the 3 best performers in terms of most premier tournaments won.
Thanks, I am curious why you decided to remove the top3 and not just top1. Also curious to see the same graphs with top 1, top 2 and top 3 (and so on if you like but I think that will be good enough) removed alongside of the name of the players removed.
I removed the top 3 because of Protoss. There isn't a clear Protoss GOAT, even Zest isn't quite as dominant for Protoss as Serral or Maru are for Zerg and Terran in terms of tournaments won.
You can clearly notice that if you look at the global earnings with Zest being only slightly above sOs, Stats and Neeb and behind an army of Terran and Zerg players. If I only removed the top 1 of each race, it would have favored Protoss too much.
But thats the point, Zest being the GOAT for Protoss doesnt mean he was that much of a clear-cut choice, because his contribution wasnt "over-shadowing" the rest of the race. But I have heard nothing but about how Serral clearly hold the Zerg by himself and remove him ALONE would make the whole race drop like fly. So thats more of a reason to remove the top1 and 2 and 3 things.
Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.
Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol
They called it PvProleague for a reason.
We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.
Outside of Maru, terrans were winning basically peanuts money in 2018-2019. Terran was doing pretty bad already in 2018, especially in macro game TvP (and TvZ). There was no hope for Terran to win tournaments if Maru didn’t perform
I beg to differ, Terran were winning almost as much as Protoss during those days, even without Maru. I actually did some stats a little while ago to look at the race distribution in Premier Tournaments victories since the beginning of SC2. I did it with every Premier Tournaments then I removed the top 3 best performers for each race to see which race was actually being "saved" by a small hand of players. And guess what, the results were quite the same.
Maru didn't have as much as an impact as Serral had, and by far. Serral single handedly took Zerg to the greatest highs.
(First pic is including every premier tournaments, second one is without the top 3 performers of each race).
Interesting. What is the y axis in this plot? Can you share the raw data? How did you decide what are the 3 best performers?
The y axis is just the number of premier tournaments won. I took all the datas on Liquipedia statistics page. I decided the 3 best performers in terms of most premier tournaments won.
Thanks, I am curious why you decided to remove the top3 and not just top1. Also curious to see the same graphs with top 1, top 2 and top 3 (and so on if you like but I think that will be good enough) removed alongside of the name of the players removed.
I removed the top 3 because of Protoss. There isn't a clear Protoss GOAT, even Zest isn't quite as dominant for Protoss as Serral or Maru are for Zerg and Terran in terms of tournaments won.
You can clearly notice that if you look at the global earnings with Zest being only slightly above sOs, Stats and Neeb and behind an army of Terran and Zerg players. If I only removed the top 1 of each race, it would have favored Protoss too much.
But thats the point, Zest being the GOAT for Protoss doesnt mean he was that much of a clear-cut choice, because his contribution wasnt "over-shadowing" the rest of the race. But I have heard nothing but about how Serral clearly hold the Zerg by himself and remove him ALONE would make the whole race drop like fly. So thats more of a reason to remove the top1 and 2 and 3 things.
I'll try doing the top 1 and 2 then, just wait an hour or two.
Without looking it up, this has to be the heavy rain map pool right? God that was a nightmare as a Terran it felt like every map was screaming please blink into my main.
Edit: yup that's the map pool. Lol
They called it PvProleague for a reason.
We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.
Outside of Maru, terrans were winning basically peanuts money in 2018-2019. Terran was doing pretty bad already in 2018, especially in macro game TvP (and TvZ). There was no hope for Terran to win tournaments if Maru didn’t perform
I beg to differ, Terran were winning almost as much as Protoss during those days, even without Maru. I actually did some stats a little while ago to look at the race distribution in Premier Tournaments victories since the beginning of SC2. I did it with every Premier Tournaments then I removed the top 3 best performers for each race to see which race was actually being "saved" by a small hand of players. And guess what, the results were quite the same.
Maru didn't have as much as an impact as Serral had, and by far. Serral single handedly took Zerg to the greatest highs.
(First pic is including every premier tournaments, second one is without the top 3 performers of each race).
Interesting. What is the y axis in this plot? Can you share the raw data? How did you decide what are the 3 best performers?
The y axis is just the number of premier tournaments won. I took all the datas on Liquipedia statistics page. I decided the 3 best performers in terms of most premier tournaments won.
Thanks, I am curious why you decided to remove the top3 and not just top1. Also curious to see the same graphs with top 1, top 2 and top 3 (and so on if you like but I think that will be good enough) removed alongside of the name of the players removed.
I removed the top 3 because of Protoss. There isn't a clear Protoss GOAT, even Zest isn't quite as dominant for Protoss as Serral or Maru are for Zerg and Terran in terms of tournaments won.
You can clearly notice that if you look at the global earnings with Zest being only slightly above sOs, Stats and Neeb and behind an army of Terran and Zerg players. If I only removed the top 1 of each race, it would have favored Protoss too much.
But thats the point, Zest being the GOAT for Protoss doesnt mean he was that much of a clear-cut choice, because his contribution wasnt "over-shadowing" the rest of the race. But I have heard nothing but about how Serral clearly hold the Zerg by himself and remove him ALONE would make the whole race drop like fly. So thats more of a reason to remove the top1 and 2 and 3 things.
Here's the graph without the top 1 best performers (Serral/Maru/Zest)
We can see that even without Maru Terran outperforms Protoss at 100% strenght while Zerg without Serral goes from fragile top 2 to clear top 1 with him. His impact is considerable.
I noticed it was already the top 2 and not the top 3 I had done on the previous graph (kind of forgot since it was a long time ago I assumed I did top 3) so I'm making without the top 3 now.
We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.
Outside of Maru, terrans were winning basically peanuts money in 2018-2019. Terran was doing pretty bad already in 2018, especially in macro game TvP (and TvZ). There was no hope for Terran to win tournaments if Maru didn’t perform
I beg to differ, Terran were winning almost as much as Protoss during those days, even without Maru. I actually did some stats a little while ago to look at the race distribution in Premier Tournaments victories since the beginning of SC2. I did it with every Premier Tournaments then I removed the top 3 best performers for each race to see which race was actually being "saved" by a small hand of players. And guess what, the results were quite the same.
Maru didn't have as much as an impact as Serral had, and by far. Serral single handedly took Zerg to the greatest highs.
(First pic is including every premier tournaments, second one is without the top 3 performers of each race).
Interesting. What is the y axis in this plot? Can you share the raw data? How did you decide what are the 3 best performers?
The y axis is just the number of premier tournaments won. I took all the datas on Liquipedia statistics page. I decided the 3 best performers in terms of most premier tournaments won.
Thanks, I am curious why you decided to remove the top3 and not just top1. Also curious to see the same graphs with top 1, top 2 and top 3 (and so on if you like but I think that will be good enough) removed alongside of the name of the players removed.
I removed the top 3 because of Protoss. There isn't a clear Protoss GOAT, even Zest isn't quite as dominant for Protoss as Serral or Maru are for Zerg and Terran in terms of tournaments won.
You can clearly notice that if you look at the global earnings with Zest being only slightly above sOs, Stats and Neeb and behind an army of Terran and Zerg players. If I only removed the top 1 of each race, it would have favored Protoss too much.
But thats the point, Zest being the GOAT for Protoss doesnt mean he was that much of a clear-cut choice, because his contribution wasnt "over-shadowing" the rest of the race. But I have heard nothing but about how Serral clearly hold the Zerg by himself and remove him ALONE would make the whole race drop like fly. So thats more of a reason to remove the top1 and 2 and 3 things.
Here's the graph without the top 1 best performers (Serral/Maru/Zest)
We can see that even without Maru Terran outperforms Protoss at 100% strenght while Zerg without Serral goes from fragile top 2 to clear top 1 with him. His impact is considerable.
I noticed it was already the top 2 and not the top 3 I had done on the previous graph (kind of forgot since it was a long time ago I assumed I did top 3) so I'm making without the top 3 now.
So when you remove the top1/2/3 tournament wins of each race, what are you measuring? non top1/2/3 tournament wings of each race? I am a bit puzzled by the barplot as well. But when focusing on the line plot some of the data points do not make sense. For example in 2011 without maru (red dot) terran won ~25 tourneys, with maru however terran (pinky dot) won less than 20. That makes no sense at all. I am getting this wrong?
This is why I think labeling the y axis will make sense (also given that you put a barplot and a line plot you need two y axes).
Alternatively you could share the raw data. As it is is hard to judge and draw any conclusions.
I'm not surprised but am a little disappointed by how much of a debate and the type of debate there is.
Do the Serral/Maru stans in this thread refuse to acknowledge that their player might not be the GOAT under certain criteria? That's a bit of insanity. Balance whining, hypotheticals, stat cherry picking. Ugh. I guess I deserve it for opening the thread.
We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.
Outside of Maru, terrans were winning basically peanuts money in 2018-2019. Terran was doing pretty bad already in 2018, especially in macro game TvP (and TvZ). There was no hope for Terran to win tournaments if Maru didn’t perform
I beg to differ, Terran were winning almost as much as Protoss during those days, even without Maru. I actually did some stats a little while ago to look at the race distribution in Premier Tournaments victories since the beginning of SC2. I did it with every Premier Tournaments then I removed the top 3 best performers for each race to see which race was actually being "saved" by a small hand of players. And guess what, the results were quite the same.
Maru didn't have as much as an impact as Serral had, and by far. Serral single handedly took Zerg to the greatest highs.
(First pic is including every premier tournaments, second one is without the top 3 performers of each race).
Interesting. What is the y axis in this plot? Can you share the raw data? How did you decide what are the 3 best performers?
The y axis is just the number of premier tournaments won. I took all the datas on Liquipedia statistics page. I decided the 3 best performers in terms of most premier tournaments won.
Thanks, I am curious why you decided to remove the top3 and not just top1. Also curious to see the same graphs with top 1, top 2 and top 3 (and so on if you like but I think that will be good enough) removed alongside of the name of the players removed.
I removed the top 3 because of Protoss. There isn't a clear Protoss GOAT, even Zest isn't quite as dominant for Protoss as Serral or Maru are for Zerg and Terran in terms of tournaments won.
You can clearly notice that if you look at the global earnings with Zest being only slightly above sOs, Stats and Neeb and behind an army of Terran and Zerg players. If I only removed the top 1 of each race, it would have favored Protoss too much.
But thats the point, Zest being the GOAT for Protoss doesnt mean he was that much of a clear-cut choice, because his contribution wasnt "over-shadowing" the rest of the race. But I have heard nothing but about how Serral clearly hold the Zerg by himself and remove him ALONE would make the whole race drop like fly. So thats more of a reason to remove the top1 and 2 and 3 things.
Here's the graph without the top 1 best performers (Serral/Maru/Zest)
We can see that even without Maru Terran outperforms Protoss at 100% strenght while Zerg without Serral goes from fragile top 2 to clear top 1 with him. His impact is considerable.
I noticed it was already the top 2 and not the top 3 I had done on the previous graph (kind of forgot since it was a long time ago I assumed I did top 3) so I'm making without the top 3 now.
I'm getting super tripped up by your analysis because around a month someone posted on reddit their own statistical analysis (premier tournaments) and found maru was a bigger outlier than serral, whereas you seem to imply the opposite. Can you post the raw data? Alternatively, would you want me to link the article and you can explain why they're wrong and you're right?
On March 22 2024 05:31 kaos00 wrote: I'm not surprised but am a little disappointed by how much of a debate and the type of debate there is.
This is exactly my feeling. I don't understand how people refuse to realise their opinion is just their opinion, and the author has a right to have his own. It's absolutely ok to disagree with it but if you say "this is BS" - know that the only BS here is you because you cannot accept that someone might have a different opinion or different criteria, and this is just pathetic.
On March 22 2024 05:31 kaos00 wrote: I'm not surprised but am a little disappointed by how much of a debate and the type of debate there is.
Do the Serral/Maru stans in this thread refuse to acknowledge that their player might not be the GOAT under certain criteria? That's a bit of insanity. Balance whining, hypotheticals, stat cherry picking. Ugh. I guess I deserve it for opening the thread.
We must be analyzing the thread wrong because for the most part, maru "stans" both here and reddit seem to consistently acknowledge it's subjective based on the criteria/methodology you choose. Heck let's include artosis' take of rogue being the goat and you get the same result. By and large what I've noticed is serral fans refusing to acknowledge anyone but serral has a shot at being the goat
On March 22 2024 01:35 imData wrote: [quote] We're calling the GSL from 2018 to nowadays GomTvT for a reason.
Outside of Maru, terrans were winning basically peanuts money in 2018-2019. Terran was doing pretty bad already in 2018, especially in macro game TvP (and TvZ). There was no hope for Terran to win tournaments if Maru didn’t perform
I beg to differ, Terran were winning almost as much as Protoss during those days, even without Maru. I actually did some stats a little while ago to look at the race distribution in Premier Tournaments victories since the beginning of SC2. I did it with every Premier Tournaments then I removed the top 3 best performers for each race to see which race was actually being "saved" by a small hand of players. And guess what, the results were quite the same.
Maru didn't have as much as an impact as Serral had, and by far. Serral single handedly took Zerg to the greatest highs.
(First pic is including every premier tournaments, second one is without the top 3 performers of each race).
Interesting. What is the y axis in this plot? Can you share the raw data? How did you decide what are the 3 best performers?
The y axis is just the number of premier tournaments won. I took all the datas on Liquipedia statistics page. I decided the 3 best performers in terms of most premier tournaments won.
Thanks, I am curious why you decided to remove the top3 and not just top1. Also curious to see the same graphs with top 1, top 2 and top 3 (and so on if you like but I think that will be good enough) removed alongside of the name of the players removed.
I removed the top 3 because of Protoss. There isn't a clear Protoss GOAT, even Zest isn't quite as dominant for Protoss as Serral or Maru are for Zerg and Terran in terms of tournaments won.
You can clearly notice that if you look at the global earnings with Zest being only slightly above sOs, Stats and Neeb and behind an army of Terran and Zerg players. If I only removed the top 1 of each race, it would have favored Protoss too much.
But thats the point, Zest being the GOAT for Protoss doesnt mean he was that much of a clear-cut choice, because his contribution wasnt "over-shadowing" the rest of the race. But I have heard nothing but about how Serral clearly hold the Zerg by himself and remove him ALONE would make the whole race drop like fly. So thats more of a reason to remove the top1 and 2 and 3 things.
Here's the graph without the top 1 best performers (Serral/Maru/Zest)
We can see that even without Maru Terran outperforms Protoss at 100% strenght while Zerg without Serral goes from fragile top 2 to clear top 1 with him. His impact is considerable.
I noticed it was already the top 2 and not the top 3 I had done on the previous graph (kind of forgot since it was a long time ago I assumed I did top 3) so I'm making without the top 3 now.
I'm getting super tripped up by your analysis because around a month someone posted on reddit their own statistical analysis (premier tournaments) and found maru was a bigger outlier than serral, whereas you seem to imply the opposite. Can you post the raw data? Alternatively, would you want me to link the article and you can explain why they're wrong and you're right?
I'm just taking the datas from Liquipedia then add them by myself on Canva.
On March 22 2024 05:31 kaos00 wrote: I'm not surprised but am a little disappointed by how much of a debate and the type of debate there is.
Do the Serral/Maru stans in this thread refuse to acknowledge that their player might not be the GOAT under certain criteria? That's a bit of insanity. Balance whining, hypotheticals, stat cherry picking. Ugh. I guess I deserve it for opening the thread.
We must be analyzing the thread wrong because for the most part, maru "stans" both here and reddit seem to consistently acknowledge it's subjective based on the criteria/methodology you choose. Heck let's include artosis' take of rogue being the goat and you get the same result. By and large what I've noticed is serral fans refusing to acknowledge anyone but serral has a shot at being the goat
Imo it's because if you're new to scene it probably would be wild to you if someone else was considered the goat. All you've seen in Serral be the best or at worst top 3 player for most of that span. That's where I think a lot of the vitriol comes from on that side.
Anyone who thinks Maru is the goat probably has changed their opinion at least once or twice over the course of sc2 and maybe is less indignant about other opinions. But then there are others who just won't move off the opinion that non kr sc is trash.
On March 22 2024 01:53 Poopi wrote: [quote] Outside of Maru, terrans were winning basically peanuts money in 2018-2019. Terran was doing pretty bad already in 2018, especially in macro game TvP (and TvZ). There was no hope for Terran to win tournaments if Maru didn’t perform
I beg to differ, Terran were winning almost as much as Protoss during those days, even without Maru. I actually did some stats a little while ago to look at the race distribution in Premier Tournaments victories since the beginning of SC2. I did it with every Premier Tournaments then I removed the top 3 best performers for each race to see which race was actually being "saved" by a small hand of players. And guess what, the results were quite the same.
Maru didn't have as much as an impact as Serral had, and by far. Serral single handedly took Zerg to the greatest highs.
(First pic is including every premier tournaments, second one is without the top 3 performers of each race).
Interesting. What is the y axis in this plot? Can you share the raw data? How did you decide what are the 3 best performers?
The y axis is just the number of premier tournaments won. I took all the datas on Liquipedia statistics page. I decided the 3 best performers in terms of most premier tournaments won.
Thanks, I am curious why you decided to remove the top3 and not just top1. Also curious to see the same graphs with top 1, top 2 and top 3 (and so on if you like but I think that will be good enough) removed alongside of the name of the players removed.
I removed the top 3 because of Protoss. There isn't a clear Protoss GOAT, even Zest isn't quite as dominant for Protoss as Serral or Maru are for Zerg and Terran in terms of tournaments won.
You can clearly notice that if you look at the global earnings with Zest being only slightly above sOs, Stats and Neeb and behind an army of Terran and Zerg players. If I only removed the top 1 of each race, it would have favored Protoss too much.
But thats the point, Zest being the GOAT for Protoss doesnt mean he was that much of a clear-cut choice, because his contribution wasnt "over-shadowing" the rest of the race. But I have heard nothing but about how Serral clearly hold the Zerg by himself and remove him ALONE would make the whole race drop like fly. So thats more of a reason to remove the top1 and 2 and 3 things.
Here's the graph without the top 1 best performers (Serral/Maru/Zest)
We can see that even without Maru Terran outperforms Protoss at 100% strenght while Zerg without Serral goes from fragile top 2 to clear top 1 with him. His impact is considerable.
I noticed it was already the top 2 and not the top 3 I had done on the previous graph (kind of forgot since it was a long time ago I assumed I did top 3) so I'm making without the top 3 now.
I'm getting super tripped up by your analysis because around a month someone posted on reddit their own statistical analysis (premier tournaments) and found maru was a bigger outlier than serral, whereas you seem to imply the opposite. Can you post the raw data? Alternatively, would you want me to link the article and you can explain why they're wrong and you're right?
I'm just taking the datas from Liquipedia then add them by myself on Canva.
On March 22 2024 05:31 kaos00 wrote: I'm not surprised but am a little disappointed by how much of a debate and the type of debate there is.
Do the Serral/Maru stans in this thread refuse to acknowledge that their player might not be the GOAT under certain criteria? That's a bit of insanity. Balance whining, hypotheticals, stat cherry picking. Ugh. I guess I deserve it for opening the thread.
We must be analyzing the thread wrong because for the most part, maru "stans" both here and reddit seem to consistently acknowledge it's subjective based on the criteria/methodology you choose. Heck let's include artosis' take of rogue being the goat and you get the same result. By and large what I've noticed is serral fans refusing to acknowledge anyone but serral has a shot at being the goat
Imo it's because if you're new to scene it probably would be wild to you if someone else was considered the goat. All you've seen in Serral be the best or at worst top 3 player for most of that span. That's where I think a lot of the vitriol comes from on that side.
Anyone who thinks Maru is the goat probably has changed their opinion at least once or twice over the course of sc2 and maybe is less indignant about other opinions. But then there are others who just won't move off the opinion that non kr sc is trash.
I think I can say I'm not far from the truth if I assume most of us here are long runners of SC2.
Personally I've started following the scene in 2011 and never have I considered Maru as the GOAT. Sure he's a great player but he's never been above top 3. My GOAT from WoL up to 2017 was Mvp, then from 2017 to 2022 it was Rogue then from 2022 I started considering Serral as the GOAT.
Before 2018 Maru wasn't even top 5 in my book, then in 2018 he came in top 3 behind Inno that he surpassed in 2020 but by that time Serral was already ahead of him as the top 2, then since 2022 he's battling with Rogue over that 2nd place, Serral being the one and only GOAT.
On March 22 2024 02:51 imData wrote: [quote] I beg to differ, Terran were winning almost as much as Protoss during those days, even without Maru. I actually did some stats a little while ago to look at the race distribution in Premier Tournaments victories since the beginning of SC2. I did it with every Premier Tournaments then I removed the top 3 best performers for each race to see which race was actually being "saved" by a small hand of players. And guess what, the results were quite the same.
Maru didn't have as much as an impact as Serral had, and by far. Serral single handedly took Zerg to the greatest highs.
(First pic is including every premier tournaments, second one is without the top 3 performers of each race).
Interesting. What is the y axis in this plot? Can you share the raw data? How did you decide what are the 3 best performers?
The y axis is just the number of premier tournaments won. I took all the datas on Liquipedia statistics page. I decided the 3 best performers in terms of most premier tournaments won.
Thanks, I am curious why you decided to remove the top3 and not just top1. Also curious to see the same graphs with top 1, top 2 and top 3 (and so on if you like but I think that will be good enough) removed alongside of the name of the players removed.
I removed the top 3 because of Protoss. There isn't a clear Protoss GOAT, even Zest isn't quite as dominant for Protoss as Serral or Maru are for Zerg and Terran in terms of tournaments won.
You can clearly notice that if you look at the global earnings with Zest being only slightly above sOs, Stats and Neeb and behind an army of Terran and Zerg players. If I only removed the top 1 of each race, it would have favored Protoss too much.
But thats the point, Zest being the GOAT for Protoss doesnt mean he was that much of a clear-cut choice, because his contribution wasnt "over-shadowing" the rest of the race. But I have heard nothing but about how Serral clearly hold the Zerg by himself and remove him ALONE would make the whole race drop like fly. So thats more of a reason to remove the top1 and 2 and 3 things.
Here's the graph without the top 1 best performers (Serral/Maru/Zest)
We can see that even without Maru Terran outperforms Protoss at 100% strenght while Zerg without Serral goes from fragile top 2 to clear top 1 with him. His impact is considerable.
I noticed it was already the top 2 and not the top 3 I had done on the previous graph (kind of forgot since it was a long time ago I assumed I did top 3) so I'm making without the top 3 now.
I'm getting super tripped up by your analysis because around a month someone posted on reddit their own statistical analysis (premier tournaments) and found maru was a bigger outlier than serral, whereas you seem to imply the opposite. Can you post the raw data? Alternatively, would you want me to link the article and you can explain why they're wrong and you're right?
I'm just taking the datas from Liquipedia then add them by myself on Canva.
looking at this numbers is obvious you are not just using premiers as you stated before, you are also using ESL weekly tourneys I guess?
Nope I'm only using premiers, if I used weeklies and other smaller tournaments there would be thousands of wins for each race (5901 for P, 5226 for T, and 6555 for Z).
when will "#0: Dark- Greatest Players of All Time" be released? in a week or two? i'm curious. Dark is one of the most versatile players and he's had GSL/international success and he's been playing for a long time.
On March 22 2024 07:37 jack_less wrote: when will "#0: Dark- Greatest Players of All Time" be released? in a week or two? i'm curious. Dark is one of the most versatile players and he's had GSL/international success and he's been playing for a long time.
#0 should be left to the original alfa-testers, just use decimal values: maybe Dark #4.5 or Dark #5.2, or then expand to negative integer numbers. Whole new set of neglected all time greats would be happy for that.
You can also use two different but equal notations for each integers, for example Serral #0.9999... and Maru #1, Maru #1.999... and Serral #2 and so on. If there are still all time greats left outside from these sets of numbers, just use transcendental decimal numbers and expand to imaginary numbers if even that doesn't help to fit everyone to the list.
If Rogue is ln or e, maybe Dark could be Pi or 2Pi.
But, there are lot of numbers between 0 and 1, infinitely many, so bigger difficulties in reassignments should not appear.
On March 22 2024 02:51 imData wrote: [quote] I beg to differ, Terran were winning almost as much as Protoss during those days, even without Maru. I actually did some stats a little while ago to look at the race distribution in Premier Tournaments victories since the beginning of SC2. I did it with every Premier Tournaments then I removed the top 3 best performers for each race to see which race was actually being "saved" by a small hand of players. And guess what, the results were quite the same.
Maru didn't have as much as an impact as Serral had, and by far. Serral single handedly took Zerg to the greatest highs.
(First pic is including every premier tournaments, second one is without the top 3 performers of each race).
Interesting. What is the y axis in this plot? Can you share the raw data? How did you decide what are the 3 best performers?
The y axis is just the number of premier tournaments won. I took all the datas on Liquipedia statistics page. I decided the 3 best performers in terms of most premier tournaments won.
Thanks, I am curious why you decided to remove the top3 and not just top1. Also curious to see the same graphs with top 1, top 2 and top 3 (and so on if you like but I think that will be good enough) removed alongside of the name of the players removed.
I removed the top 3 because of Protoss. There isn't a clear Protoss GOAT, even Zest isn't quite as dominant for Protoss as Serral or Maru are for Zerg and Terran in terms of tournaments won.
You can clearly notice that if you look at the global earnings with Zest being only slightly above sOs, Stats and Neeb and behind an army of Terran and Zerg players. If I only removed the top 1 of each race, it would have favored Protoss too much.
But thats the point, Zest being the GOAT for Protoss doesnt mean he was that much of a clear-cut choice, because his contribution wasnt "over-shadowing" the rest of the race. But I have heard nothing but about how Serral clearly hold the Zerg by himself and remove him ALONE would make the whole race drop like fly. So thats more of a reason to remove the top1 and 2 and 3 things.
Here's the graph without the top 1 best performers (Serral/Maru/Zest)
We can see that even without Maru Terran outperforms Protoss at 100% strenght while Zerg without Serral goes from fragile top 2 to clear top 1 with him. His impact is considerable.
I noticed it was already the top 2 and not the top 3 I had done on the previous graph (kind of forgot since it was a long time ago I assumed I did top 3) so I'm making without the top 3 now.
I'm getting super tripped up by your analysis because around a month someone posted on reddit their own statistical analysis (premier tournaments) and found maru was a bigger outlier than serral, whereas you seem to imply the opposite. Can you post the raw data? Alternatively, would you want me to link the article and you can explain why they're wrong and you're right?
I'm just taking the datas from Liquipedia then add them by myself on Canva.
That's actually a fact but it doesn't work in favor of this era. The skill gap is higher because lots of top competitors had to leave and thus there are fewer championship contenders left. Obviously it's easier to be dominant in a scene with 30 full time players and 5 championship contenders than in a scene with 150 full time players and 12+ championship contenders
Well this can be debatable. Of course it is generally true, that its easier to dominate with lesser field of players. But it is still kinda impossible to say, that Serral wouldnt have dominated as well or nearly as well as he does today. There would be of course more contestants, but in reality how many of them could challenge him for trophies ? With the performance he showed at this IEM or some of the other tournaments he has absolutely dominated, im not sure there would be many more than Maru/Inno/Life/Reynor and maybe Rogue that could challenge him if they would play their absolute best. And if im honest, propably its only Maru or Life maybe, but that could be just my bias.
Here's the graph without the top 1 best performers (Serral/Maru/Zest)
1. To support your narrative, removing the top performer in each race is the right methodology, since you're trying to compare Maru/Serral's respective impact on the game. For Protoss you should just use an objective measure of which Protoss won the most over the duration of your timeline. 2. Looking at the chart, I'm curious which ~7 premier events (I'm eyeballing it) non-Maru Terran players won in '22? I only remember 2 DHs by Clem? 3. Cumulatively through '23, Terran overall vs. without Maru has only a difference of ~6 premier wins? Also why did the gap between all Terran and Terran-without-Maru lines narrow from '21 to '22 (this shouldn't happen since your lines are cumulative and Maru cannot "unwin"). These don't seem correct? 4. Assuming the analysis *is* done correctly, readers can draw the conclusion that Serral had a huge impact on Zerg. Readers can also see that post 2018, Zergs' win record, even without Serral, had a big uptick and significantly outperformed other races i.e. the gaps in the 3 lines with top 1 removed clearly narrowed. This supports my argument, which is Zerg has been OP since '18 and Serral is the best at abusing that strength.
Here's the graph without the top 1 best performers (Serral/Maru/Zest)
1. To support your narrative, removing the top performer in each race is the right methodology, since you're trying to compare Maru/Serral's respective impact on the game. For Protoss you should just use an objective measure of which Protoss won the most over the duration of your timeline. 2. Looking at the chart, I'm curious which ~7 premier events (I'm eyeballing it) non-Maru Terran players won in '22? I only remember 2 DHs by Clem? 3. Cumulatively through '23, Terran overall vs. without Maru has only a difference of ~6 premier wins? Also why did the gap between all Terran and Terran-without-Maru lines narrow from '21 to '22 (this shouldn't happen since your lines are cumulative and Maru cannot "unwin"). These don't seem correct? 4. Assuming the analysis *is* done correctly, readers can draw the conclusion that Serral had a huge impact on Zerg. Readers can also see that post 2018, Zergs' win record, even without Serral, had a big uptick and significantly outperformed other races i.e. the gaps in the 3 lines with top 1 removed clearly narrowed. This supports my argument, which is Zerg has been OP since '18 and Serral is the best at abusing that strength.
I'm not sure the data was collected or parsed correctly, since the "zerg" line diverges from the "w/o Serral" line back in 2014, while Serral didn't win his first premier until 2018.
Also, the "Terran" and "w/o Maru" gap narrows until they almost touch at some point, which should never happen in a cumulative graph. The distance between "X race" and "X race w/o their best player" can only grow or remain constant, so something funky is going on here.
Yes the whole discussion about this data is pointless. The data is obviously bad and even if it were correct what is the disagreement even? Both players are huge outliers for their race. If one is more than the other, it's not that much and figuring out who comes out on top of this argument is not going to change anybody's mind.
If anyone's mind is ever going to be changed, the discussion should be about the criteria. It's about longevity (though mainly across expansions and formats since at this point, Serral has general longevity as well) and how you weight GSL and top 4 finishes.
My belief about this whole list is either Serral is too high (if we're really biasing for GSL/pro-league) and/or Dark is just an enormous snub - though he's a snub on any criteria possible except if you give a huge penalty for inconsistency.
Or Serral should be #1 which made sense to me when the list was counting down. MVP passing INnoVation really made me think Serral would top this list. MVP played in GomTvT era, didn't have longevity, and didn't play vs the other best players. Looking forward to the justification for snubbing Dark though. I don't think I'll ever be convinced but I am interested in the data and weird criteria Miz has in store.
edit: I will add that if the criteria is a mix of penalizing inconsistency without rewarding consistency and a moderate bias for GSL and proleague, it makes almost every ranking make more sense. Still Dark is snubbed but that would make him 6-10 I guess.
That's actually a fact but it doesn't work in favor of this era. The skill gap is higher because lots of top competitors had to leave and thus there are fewer championship contenders left. Obviously it's easier to be dominant in a scene with 30 full time players and 5 championship contenders than in a scene with 150 full time players and 12+ championship contenders
Well this can be debatable. Of course it is generally true, that its easier to dominate with lesser field of players. But it is still kinda impossible to say, that Serral wouldnt have dominated as well or nearly as well as he does today. There would be of course more contestants, but in reality how many of them could challenge him for trophies ? With the performance he showed at this IEM or some of the other tournaments he has absolutely dominated, im not sure there would be many more than Maru/Inno/Life/Reynor and maybe Rogue that could challenge him if they would play their absolute best. And if im honest, propably its only Maru or Life maybe, but that could be just my bias.
If Maru/Inno/Life could challenge him then peak PartinG, Rain, Zest, herO, Classic, soO, ByuL, Flash, sOs, Dear would be able too as they were almost at the skill level of them (in some cases you can cross the almost)
Interesting. What is the y axis in this plot? Can you share the raw data? How did you decide what are the 3 best performers?
The y axis is just the number of premier tournaments won. I took all the datas on Liquipedia statistics page. I decided the 3 best performers in terms of most premier tournaments won.
Thanks, I am curious why you decided to remove the top3 and not just top1. Also curious to see the same graphs with top 1, top 2 and top 3 (and so on if you like but I think that will be good enough) removed alongside of the name of the players removed.
I removed the top 3 because of Protoss. There isn't a clear Protoss GOAT, even Zest isn't quite as dominant for Protoss as Serral or Maru are for Zerg and Terran in terms of tournaments won.
You can clearly notice that if you look at the global earnings with Zest being only slightly above sOs, Stats and Neeb and behind an army of Terran and Zerg players. If I only removed the top 1 of each race, it would have favored Protoss too much.
But thats the point, Zest being the GOAT for Protoss doesnt mean he was that much of a clear-cut choice, because his contribution wasnt "over-shadowing" the rest of the race. But I have heard nothing but about how Serral clearly hold the Zerg by himself and remove him ALONE would make the whole race drop like fly. So thats more of a reason to remove the top1 and 2 and 3 things.
Here's the graph without the top 1 best performers (Serral/Maru/Zest)
We can see that even without Maru Terran outperforms Protoss at 100% strenght while Zerg without Serral goes from fragile top 2 to clear top 1 with him. His impact is considerable.
I noticed it was already the top 2 and not the top 3 I had done on the previous graph (kind of forgot since it was a long time ago I assumed I did top 3) so I'm making without the top 3 now.
I'm getting super tripped up by your analysis because around a month someone posted on reddit their own statistical analysis (premier tournaments) and found maru was a bigger outlier than serral, whereas you seem to imply the opposite. Can you post the raw data? Alternatively, would you want me to link the article and you can explain why they're wrong and you're right?
I'm just taking the datas from Liquipedia then add them by myself on Canva.
looking at this numbers is obvious you are not just using premiers as you stated before, you are also using ESL weekly tourneys I guess?
It was slightly confusing to me at first too, until you realize the line graph is totalling all tournaments cumulatively.
As pointed out, if cumulative, then it cannot be any decreases in Y as X increases and there are. Weird graphs and no raw data hard to draw any conclusions.
Arguments are jumping left and right, going from perceived skill, results, level of domination, tournament results, balance & of course a great deal of favoritism.
The main arguments appear to be revolving around Serral not playing in the most competitive environment & lacking GSL titles.
However, excluding Serral's lack of GSL participation, wherever he has been competing he's been the most dominant player for the last 6 years by far. He also played Maru plenty of times with an 80% win rate & is sporting a 70%+ win rate vs the best players in GSL. Won tournaments with GSL champion participation. Wherever Serral competes, he's as dominant as Flash in BW. In his incredible 20-1 Katowice run he's shown to be the best player out there, at the very least at this moment. Being the current best player of course is not equivalent to carrying the GOAT crown.
There are several points that could be made to justify Serral's lack of presence in GSL & the fact that Maru potentially wouldn't have been able to achieve similar results if Serral did participate in GSL. In the end this however is all hypothetically speaking and will never happen.
So the question is; what are the requirements that would crown Serral as the (majorly) undisputed GOAT? Or is this an impossible feat. without GSL participation?
On March 23 2024 00:28 Smorrie wrote: Arguments are jumping left and right, going from perceived skill, results, level of domination, tournament results, balance & of course a great deal of favoritism.
The main arguments appear to be revolving around Serral not playing in the most competitive environment & lacking GSL titles.
However, excluding Serral's lack of GSL participation, wherever he has been competing he's been the most dominant player for the last 6 years by far. He also played Maru plenty of times with an 80% win rate & is sporting a 70%+ win rate vs the best players in GSL. Won tournaments with GSL champion participation. Wherever Serral competes, he's as dominant as Flash in BW. In his incredible 20-1 Katowice run he's shown to be the best player out there, at the very least at this moment. Being the current best player of course is not equivalent to carrying the GOAT crown.
There are several points that could be made to justify Serral's lack of presence in GSL & the fact that Maru potentially wouldn't have been able to achieve similar results if Serral did participate in GSL. In the end this however is all hypothetically speaking and will never happen.
So the question is; what are the requirements that would crown Serral as the (majorly) undisputed GOAT? Or is this an impossible feat. without GSL participation?
It's pretty clear that everyone who is reasonable is of the opinion that not playing in Code S in no way tarnishes Serral's record. He has played Koreans in a boat load of Global Events and has performed favorably against them. I personally don't care if Serral never plays in Code S. If he keeps this level going for another few years I think he's the undisputed GOAT. For now, however, Maru has been hyper competitive for a decade. He won OSL in 2013 and Code S in 2023. He was one of the best players in Proleague and WTL. That's the one thing Serral can't claim and it's why I currently have Maru ahead of him. Saying that, I'd be very interested in seeing how my rankings evolve if I were to update them 12 months from now.
On March 23 2024 00:28 Smorrie wrote: Arguments are jumping left and right, going from perceived skill, results, level of domination, tournament results, balance & of course a great deal of favoritism.
The main arguments appear to be revolving around Serral not playing in the most competitive environment & lacking GSL titles.
However, excluding Serral's lack of GSL participation, wherever he has been competing he's been the most dominant player for the last 6 years by far. He also played Maru plenty of times with an 80% win rate & is sporting a 70%+ win rate vs the best players in GSL. Won tournaments with GSL champion participation. Wherever Serral competes, he's as dominant as Flash in BW. In his incredible 20-1 Katowice run he's shown to be the best player out there, at the very least at this moment. Being the current best player of course is not equivalent to carrying the GOAT crown.
There are several points that could be made to justify Serral's lack of presence in GSL & the fact that Maru potentially wouldn't have been able to achieve similar results if Serral did participate in GSL. In the end this however is all hypothetically speaking and will never happen.
So the question is; what are the requirements that would crown Serral as the (majorly) undisputed GOAT? Or is this an impossible feat. without GSL participation?
Having a hard time believing serral was "the most dominant player for the last 6 years by far" when soO won iem, Innovation won wesg and Dark won wcs in 2019; Rogue won iem in 2020; Reynor won iem in 2021; and Reynor won G8 in 2023. Increase the search beyond just iem, wesg, and G8 and you get even more championships from maru and the other zergs not named serral.
Also having a hard time with the serral/Flash equivalence. Flash wasn't propped by racial balance his whole career (shown by Flash dominating regardless of his terran counterparts). Bringing Flash into the equation only helps maru's case (consistently at the top regardless of how other terrans have performed, and sick proleague scores)
E: and let's not forget that when maru bopped serral in wesg very soon after terran got nerfed
On March 23 2024 00:28 Smorrie wrote: Arguments are jumping left and right, going from perceived skill, results, level of domination, tournament results, balance & of course a great deal of favoritism.
The main arguments appear to be revolving around Serral not playing in the most competitive environment & lacking GSL titles.
However, excluding Serral's lack of GSL participation, wherever he has been competing he's been the most dominant player for the last 6 years by far. He also played Maru plenty of times with an 80% win rate & is sporting a 70%+ win rate vs the best players in GSL. Won tournaments with GSL champion participation. Wherever Serral competes, he's as dominant as Flash in BW. In his incredible 20-1 Katowice run he's shown to be the best player out there, at the very least at this moment. Being the current best player of course is not equivalent to carrying the GOAT crown.
There are several points that could be made to justify Serral's lack of presence in GSL & the fact that Maru potentially wouldn't have been able to achieve similar results if Serral did participate in GSL. In the end this however is all hypothetically speaking and will never happen.
So the question is; what are the requirements that would crown Serral as the (majorly) undisputed GOAT? Or is this an impossible feat. without GSL participation?
Having a hard time believing serral was "the most dominant player for the last 6 years by far" when soO won iem, Innovation won wesg and Dark won wcs in 2019; Rogue won iem in 2020; Reynor won iem in 2021; and Reynor won G8 in 2023. Increase the search beyond just iem, wesg, and G8 and you get even more championships from maru and the other zergs not named serral.
Also having a hard time with the serral/Flash equivalence. Flash wasn't propped by racial balance his whole career (shown by Flash dominating regardless of his terran counterparts). Bringing Flash into the equation only helps maru's case (consistently at the top regardless of how other terrans have performed, and sick proleague scores)
E: and let's not forget that when maru bopped serral in wesg very soon after terran got nerfed
Serral won 24 Liquipedia-rated Premier events since 2018. Just for comparison, that is more than Marus finals appearances (not wins) in LotV (21, 11 wins, 10 losses). Even if you combine the Premier wins of the next two most succesful players in LotV (Rogue and Maru) it still doesn't catch up to Serral. With that, Serral outperforms every other player in the history of this game, including those who have played all three iterations, by a landslide.
So while you might argue about the competitive value of tournaments since whatever arbitrary line you might want to draw, if you ask "who was the most dominant player in the last six years" this numbers alone tell you "Serral" without competition. Yes, of course, he had stretches of winning less. Yes, of course, other players have won big tournaments. But to go back to Flash: It is not like he won every OSL and MSL ever, he actually had fair stretches where he didn't win neither.
But going by your logic, you are ready to discard the highest winning player of the last six years because he didn't win always everything and then choose the guy who didn't win half of the other players titles instead? Not to mention the clear difference in World Championship titles in the exact same timespan.
Usually when people put Maru ahead of Serral, it is because of Marus longer career and Proleague results. But if you seriously want to argue the best player of LotV/the last six years...c'mon
On March 23 2024 00:28 Smorrie wrote: Arguments are jumping left and right, going from perceived skill, results, level of domination, tournament results, balance & of course a great deal of favoritism.
The main arguments appear to be revolving around Serral not playing in the most competitive environment & lacking GSL titles.
However, excluding Serral's lack of GSL participation, wherever he has been competing he's been the most dominant player for the last 6 years by far. He also played Maru plenty of times with an 80% win rate & is sporting a 70%+ win rate vs the best players in GSL. Won tournaments with GSL champion participation. Wherever Serral competes, he's as dominant as Flash in BW. In his incredible 20-1 Katowice run he's shown to be the best player out there, at the very least at this moment. Being the current best player of course is not equivalent to carrying the GOAT crown.
There are several points that could be made to justify Serral's lack of presence in GSL & the fact that Maru potentially wouldn't have been able to achieve similar results if Serral did participate in GSL. In the end this however is all hypothetically speaking and will never happen.
So the question is; what are the requirements that would crown Serral as the (majorly) undisputed GOAT? Or is this an impossible feat. without GSL participation?
Having a hard time believing serral was "the most dominant player for the last 6 years by far" when soO won iem, Innovation won wesg and Dark won wcs in 2019; Rogue won iem in 2020; Reynor won iem in 2021; and Reynor won G8 in 2023. Increase the search beyond just iem, wesg, and G8 and you get even more championships from maru and the other zergs not named serral.
Also having a hard time with the serral/Flash equivalence. Flash wasn't propped by racial balance his whole career (shown by Flash dominating regardless of his terran counterparts). Bringing Flash into the equation only helps maru's case (consistently at the top regardless of how other terrans have performed, and sick proleague scores)
E: and let's not forget that when maru bopped serral in wesg very soon after terran got nerfed
Serral won 24 Liquipedia-rated Premier events since 2018. Just for comparison, that is more than Marus finals appearances (not wins) in LotV (21, 11 wins, 10 losses). Even if you combine the Premier wins of the next two most succesful players in LotV (Rogue and Maru) it still doesn't catch up to Serral. With that, Serral outperforms every other player in the history of this game, including those who have played all three iterations, by a landslide.
So while you might argue about the competitive value of tournaments since whatever arbitrary line you might want to draw, if you ask "who was the most dominant player in the last six years" this numbers alone tell you "Serral" without competition. Yes, of course, he had stretches of winning less. Yes, of course, other players have won big tournaments. But to go back to Flash: It is not like he won every OSL and MSL ever, he actually had fair stretches where he didn't win neither.
But going by your logic, you are ready to discard the highest winning player of the last six years because he didn't win always everything and then choose the guy who didn't win half of the other players titles instead? Not to mention the clear difference in World Championship titles in the exact same timespan.
Usually when people put Maru ahead of Serral, it is because of Marus longer career and Proleague results. But if you seriously want to argue the best player of LotV/the last six years...c'mon
And 9 of those wins came in region locked events Maru couldn't play in. You could just compare the numbers from events in which they both participated (Serral again holds the lead), but it's easier to use shoddy methods to support your narrative.
On March 23 2024 01:09 Balnazza wrote: But to go back to Flash: It is not like he won every OSL and MSL ever, he actually had fair stretches where he didn't win neither.
Yeah, at the time Flash was not the undisputed goat, since NaDa/iloveoov had similar achievements. But what really sealed the deal is the ASL wins he got after the golden era. So it's kind of a similar situation with Serral/Maru, whoever wins more in the future will surely out edge the other.
On March 23 2024 01:09 Balnazza wrote: But to go back to Flash: It is not like he won every OSL and MSL ever, he actually had fair stretches where he didn't win neither.
Yeah, at the time Flash was not the undisputed goat, since NaDa/iloveoov had similar achievements. But what really sealed the deal is the ASL wins he got after the golden era. So it's kind of a similar situation with Serral/Maru, whoever wins more in the future will surely out edge the other.
Let's be real, if the last year wasn't enough for someone to feel Serral holds the lead now, then you could find reasons to make another year or two of Serral coming out ahead not be enough too. Dude's been absolutely crushing it for 6 years, with three more world championships than Maru in that time. In a short career he's out-earned and out-trophied Maru's long one. Maru had his shot to stay ahead of the conversation, and he lost it 0-4.
On March 23 2024 00:28 Smorrie wrote: Arguments are jumping left and right, going from perceived skill, results, level of domination, tournament results, balance & of course a great deal of favoritism.
The main arguments appear to be revolving around Serral not playing in the most competitive environment & lacking GSL titles.
However, excluding Serral's lack of GSL participation, wherever he has been competing he's been the most dominant player for the last 6 years by far. He also played Maru plenty of times with an 80% win rate & is sporting a 70%+ win rate vs the best players in GSL. Won tournaments with GSL champion participation. Wherever Serral competes, he's as dominant as Flash in BW. In his incredible 20-1 Katowice run he's shown to be the best player out there, at the very least at this moment. Being the current best player of course is not equivalent to carrying the GOAT crown.
There are several points that could be made to justify Serral's lack of presence in GSL & the fact that Maru potentially wouldn't have been able to achieve similar results if Serral did participate in GSL. In the end this however is all hypothetically speaking and will never happen.
So the question is; what are the requirements that would crown Serral as the (majorly) undisputed GOAT? Or is this an impossible feat. without GSL participation?
Having a hard time believing serral was "the most dominant player for the last 6 years by far" when soO won iem, Innovation won wesg and Dark won wcs in 2019; Rogue won iem in 2020; Reynor won iem in 2021; and Reynor won G8 in 2023. Increase the search beyond just iem, wesg, and G8 and you get even more championships from maru and the other zergs not named serral.
Also having a hard time with the serral/Flash equivalence. Flash wasn't propped by racial balance his whole career (shown by Flash dominating regardless of his terran counterparts). Bringing Flash into the equation only helps maru's case (consistently at the top regardless of how other terrans have performed, and sick proleague scores)
E: and let's not forget that when maru bopped serral in wesg very soon after terran got nerfed
Serral won 24 Liquipedia-rated Premier events since 2018. Just for comparison, that is more than Marus finals appearances (not wins) in LotV (21, 11 wins, 10 losses). Even if you combine the Premier wins of the next two most succesful players in LotV (Rogue and Maru) it still doesn't catch up to Serral. With that, Serral outperforms every other player in the history of this game, including those who have played all three iterations, by a landslide.
So while you might argue about the competitive value of tournaments since whatever arbitrary line you might want to draw, if you ask "who was the most dominant player in the last six years" this numbers alone tell you "Serral" without competition. Yes, of course, he had stretches of winning less. Yes, of course, other players have won big tournaments. But to go back to Flash: It is not like he won every OSL and MSL ever, he actually had fair stretches where he didn't win neither.
But going by your logic, you are ready to discard the highest winning player of the last six years because he didn't win always everything and then choose the guy who didn't win half of the other players titles instead? Not to mention the clear difference in World Championship titles in the exact same timespan.
Usually when people put Maru ahead of Serral, it is because of Marus longer career and Proleague results. But if you seriously want to argue the best player of LotV/the last six years...c'mon
I guess the point is that while Serral overall was the most succesful player in the last 6 years, he wasn't the best from 2018-21. During that period it was close between him, Rogue and Maru and also Dark, Reynor and Trap had periods where they were regarded the best player in the world. It was only from 2022 on that Serral truly seperated himself from the rest of the field
On March 23 2024 00:28 Smorrie wrote: Arguments are jumping left and right, going from perceived skill, results, level of domination, tournament results, balance & of course a great deal of favoritism.
The main arguments appear to be revolving around Serral not playing in the most competitive environment & lacking GSL titles.
However, excluding Serral's lack of GSL participation, wherever he has been competing he's been the most dominant player for the last 6 years by far. He also played Maru plenty of times with an 80% win rate & is sporting a 70%+ win rate vs the best players in GSL. Won tournaments with GSL champion participation. Wherever Serral competes, he's as dominant as Flash in BW. In his incredible 20-1 Katowice run he's shown to be the best player out there, at the very least at this moment. Being the current best player of course is not equivalent to carrying the GOAT crown.
There are several points that could be made to justify Serral's lack of presence in GSL & the fact that Maru potentially wouldn't have been able to achieve similar results if Serral did participate in GSL. In the end this however is all hypothetically speaking and will never happen.
So the question is; what are the requirements that would crown Serral as the (majorly) undisputed GOAT? Or is this an impossible feat. without GSL participation?
Having a hard time believing serral was "the most dominant player for the last 6 years by far" when soO won iem, Innovation won wesg and Dark won wcs in 2019; Rogue won iem in 2020; Reynor won iem in 2021; and Reynor won G8 in 2023. Increase the search beyond just iem, wesg, and G8 and you get even more championships from maru and the other zergs not named serral.
Also having a hard time with the serral/Flash equivalence. Flash wasn't propped by racial balance his whole career (shown by Flash dominating regardless of his terran counterparts). Bringing Flash into the equation only helps maru's case (consistently at the top regardless of how other terrans have performed, and sick proleague scores)
E: and let's not forget that when maru bopped serral in wesg very soon after terran got nerfed
Serral won 24 Liquipedia-rated Premier events since 2018. Just for comparison, that is more than Marus finals appearances (not wins) in LotV (21, 11 wins, 10 losses). Even if you combine the Premier wins of the next two most succesful players in LotV (Rogue and Maru) it still doesn't catch up to Serral. With that, Serral outperforms every other player in the history of this game, including those who have played all three iterations, by a landslide.
So while you might argue about the competitive value of tournaments since whatever arbitrary line you might want to draw, if you ask "who was the most dominant player in the last six years" this numbers alone tell you "Serral" without competition. Yes, of course, he had stretches of winning less. Yes, of course, other players have won big tournaments. But to go back to Flash: It is not like he won every OSL and MSL ever, he actually had fair stretches where he didn't win neither.
But going by your logic, you are ready to discard the highest winning player of the last six years because he didn't win always everything and then choose the guy who didn't win half of the other players titles instead? Not to mention the clear difference in World Championship titles in the exact same timespan.
Usually when people put Maru ahead of Serral, it is because of Marus longer career and Proleague results. But if you seriously want to argue the best player of LotV/the last six years...c'mon
And 9 of those wins came in region locked events Maru couldn't play in. You could just compare the numbers from events in which they both participated (Serral again holds the lead), but it's easier to use shoddy methods to support your narrative.
No, I used those numbers because I actually have those numbers at hand, since I keep a record of Premier events finals participations. If you have a problem with the European Regional Finals being classified as "Premier events", please take that up with the Liquipedia-Admins. But then again, going by Prizepool alone it would make much more sense to strike GSL out of that Tier, but anyway.
On March 23 2024 00:28 Smorrie wrote: Arguments are jumping left and right, going from perceived skill, results, level of domination, tournament results, balance & of course a great deal of favoritism.
The main arguments appear to be revolving around Serral not playing in the most competitive environment & lacking GSL titles.
However, excluding Serral's lack of GSL participation, wherever he has been competing he's been the most dominant player for the last 6 years by far. He also played Maru plenty of times with an 80% win rate & is sporting a 70%+ win rate vs the best players in GSL. Won tournaments with GSL champion participation. Wherever Serral competes, he's as dominant as Flash in BW. In his incredible 20-1 Katowice run he's shown to be the best player out there, at the very least at this moment. Being the current best player of course is not equivalent to carrying the GOAT crown.
There are several points that could be made to justify Serral's lack of presence in GSL & the fact that Maru potentially wouldn't have been able to achieve similar results if Serral did participate in GSL. In the end this however is all hypothetically speaking and will never happen.
So the question is; what are the requirements that would crown Serral as the (majorly) undisputed GOAT? Or is this an impossible feat. without GSL participation?
Having a hard time believing serral was "the most dominant player for the last 6 years by far" when soO won iem, Innovation won wesg and Dark won wcs in 2019; Rogue won iem in 2020; Reynor won iem in 2021; and Reynor won G8 in 2023. Increase the search beyond just iem, wesg, and G8 and you get even more championships from maru and the other zergs not named serral.
Also having a hard time with the serral/Flash equivalence. Flash wasn't propped by racial balance his whole career (shown by Flash dominating regardless of his terran counterparts). Bringing Flash into the equation only helps maru's case (consistently at the top regardless of how other terrans have performed, and sick proleague scores)
E: and let's not forget that when maru bopped serral in wesg very soon after terran got nerfed
Serral won 24 Liquipedia-rated Premier events since 2018. Just for comparison, that is more than Marus finals appearances (not wins) in LotV (21, 11 wins, 10 losses). Even if you combine the Premier wins of the next two most succesful players in LotV (Rogue and Maru) it still doesn't catch up to Serral. With that, Serral outperforms every other player in the history of this game, including those who have played all three iterations, by a landslide.
So while you might argue about the competitive value of tournaments since whatever arbitrary line you might want to draw, if you ask "who was the most dominant player in the last six years" this numbers alone tell you "Serral" without competition. Yes, of course, he had stretches of winning less. Yes, of course, other players have won big tournaments. But to go back to Flash: It is not like he won every OSL and MSL ever, he actually had fair stretches where he didn't win neither.
But going by your logic, you are ready to discard the highest winning player of the last six years because he didn't win always everything and then choose the guy who didn't win half of the other players titles instead? Not to mention the clear difference in World Championship titles in the exact same timespan.
Usually when people put Maru ahead of Serral, it is because of Marus longer career and Proleague results. But if you seriously want to argue the best player of LotV/the last six years...c'mon
And 9 of those wins came in region locked events Maru couldn't play in. You could just compare the numbers from events in which they both participated (Serral again holds the lead), but it's easier to use shoddy methods to support your narrative.
No, I used those numbers because I actually have those numbers at hand, since I keep a record of Premier events finals participations. If you have a problem with the European Regional Finals being classified as "Premier events", please take that up with the Liquipedia-Admins. But then again, going by Prizepool alone it would make much more sense to strike GSL out of that Tier, but anyway.
Furthermore, Serral has never been lower than #2 since the list 202, unlike above listed players. His rise through the Aligulac ranks can be described as "meteoric", while his staying power at the top of the lists "monolithic". Also, particularly during last year his gap to #2 has been consistently increasing. Current list: 368
Sample size isn't anymore that small. HHoF feels broken. Broken by Serral.
On March 23 2024 04:27 UnLarva wrote: Just for curiosity. Serral has been now #1 on Aligulac lists 119 times, since list 203 when he first time took the spot on Dec. 6. 2017.
Ever since some other player has held #1 only 40 times as following:
Furthermore, Serral has never been lower than #2 since the list 202, unlike above listed players. His rise through the Aligulac ranks can be described as "meteoric", while his staying power at the top of the lists "monolithic". Also, particularly during last year his gap to #2 has been consistently increasing. Current list: 368
Sample size isn't anymore that small. HHoF feels broken. Broken by Serral.
Yea I'm pretty sure (99.9% sure) you can run aligulac algorithm giving huge bias to Koreans (like 1000 extra starting rating) and Serral would still be by far be the #1 player in the world, even when comparing to top5 of race Serral would still be #1 by a lot.
The fact he did this w/o strong Terrans/Protosses to practice against in 2017/2018 makes it even more ridiculous.
On March 23 2024 02:59 Mmakorea wrote: Finally finished reading all 10 articles. Fun list even though there are lots of questionable choices
Not sure why all the heated debates are going on. At the end of the day it’s ONE person’s opinion (even though it’s in the minority)
His opinion literally holds the same weight as someone who make their own list and say Zest is the goat
Just have fun with it.
Thanks OP for taking the time to write these article and help kill some down time
One can argue over inconsistencies in regards to the criteria within the logic the writer used. For example: a. When you say at one time that it was a super close call between Serral and Maru how - at the same time - can you say that IEM 2024 would not make a difference? Or put differently: How many more tournaments, in which both players are active, need to be played to tilt the scale in Serral's favor if IEM was not enough, but both are supposedly close in the GOAT debate? b. Then there is the argumentation of longevity versus peak performance. In MVP's article it is described that he placed above Innovation because he was so dominant, even if not for long. On the contrary in Maru's article, it is stated that Serral has higher peak performances but Maru is hailed for his "otherworldly longevity". If you want to stay consistent, you have to choose between one, but cannot switch based on the player you like better, as it seems to be the case here. Defining criteria is fine... but you have to stick to them, otherwise the whole endeavor is arbitrary.
But I agree. It is one person's opinion. But that doesn't stop me from voicing mine either And I think the author raises valid points for Maru's GOAT status, don't get me wrong. It was also nice to dwell in nostalgia while reading through the well written essays. But it is also the case that one's reasoning when establishing such a list should be on point, otherwise the scent of arbitrary metrics is too strong.
I, for example, looked at the following metrics to have people as GOAT contenders and only one of them had to be achieved to play a role in my further analysis: 1. Minimum 4 years of having a an over 60% win rate versus top Korean players (to accommodate for longevity) 2. Having won at least 10 Premier Tournaments (Also longevity but also the skill to persist and win) 3. Having at least won 2 World Championships (As the highest peak where the best of the world congregate) These metrics can be fulfilled by every player who plays a role internationally and they were the entrance point to my evaluation.
I further looked (only against top Korean competition to prevent people from claiming that non Koreans had it easier) at longest winning streaks, peak win rates, amount of peak win rates, win records of top contenders versus top Koreans and versus each other. These win rates/streaks were adjusted (meaning I took the win rates versus Koreans and added the respective player's win rate versus Serral, as he was also compared to everyone else) to include the only non Korean player in the list, which is Serral. And the evaluation of the raw data was pretty obvious. By any standard metric that can be applied to every player who plays internationally, Serral is the best.
- He is one of two players to achieve the Triple Crown twice (Only MVP achieved the same) - He has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant - In three out of these years (2018, 2020, 2023) he achieved an over 85% (!!) match win rate vs Koreans. No other player ever came over 79%. Maru is 2nd at 78%, Serral 3rd at 76,76% and herO fourth with 74%. The win rates of Serral outperform those of Flash in his most dominant years. - In 2023 his game win rate is 73,24% making him the only player to ever break the 70% game win rate barrier... 2nd closest is Serral with 69,86% and Maru 3rd with 69,44%. - Serral holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place also Serral with 18 consecutive wins from 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - Serral, among two others, won the most World Championships - Serral has the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and he achieved this in 6 years, whereas it took Maru 10 years to accumulate 15, although GSL is 3 times per year.
But the most amazing feat I encountered while analyzing the data: - Serral has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved. This stat is absolutely incredible and I cannot emphasize how much Serral distances the competition. But here are his stats versus the other contenders and other respected players:
vs Maru: 14:4:2 vs Dark: 9:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0 vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
Now there are softer things that need consideration like eras, competition, impact, resilience to patches, etc and I think the author did a pretty fair job at evaluating these. But to me, it comes down to two things. First, Maru's inability to conquer the World Championship. Yes, he accomplished phenomenal feats in GSL, StarLeague and the other grand Korean Tournaments, but he never delivered when it everyone from around the world gathered. Second, the peak dominance. Serral's stats are simply nuts... his win rates, tournament wins and the time in which he did it (only 6 years) is absolutely terrifying and excels EVERY OTHER player on this list in EVERY aspect. And it is not like Serral never played the top contenders from the past. Zest, Innovation, stats, Trap, Cure, Solar, Dark, herO, Maru, Byun are all names that were also active in the peak era of 2013-2015 and that Serral faced multiple times. Plus there are players like Clem, Reynor, MaxPax that older players haven't faced so the argument goes both ways.
On March 23 2024 04:27 UnLarva wrote: Just for curiosity. Serral has been now #1 on Aligulac lists 119 times, since list 203 when he first time took the spot on Dec. 6. 2017.
Ever since some other player has held #1 only 40 times as following:
Furthermore, Serral has never been lower than #2 since the list 202, unlike above listed players. His rise through the Aligulac ranks can be described as "meteoric", while his staying power at the top of the lists "monolithic". Also, particularly during last year his gap to #2 has been consistently increasing. Current list: 368
Sample size isn't anymore that small. HHoF feels broken. Broken by Serral.
Exactly... the Hall of Fame which is in essence a dominance algorithm is absurdly in favor of Serral. Serral sits at 50k points, Maru at 30k and the 3rd and 4th place at around 13k. Meaning Maru has more than double than 3rd and 4th place and Serral over 50% more than Maru. Simply absurd.
On March 23 2024 04:27 UnLarva wrote: Just for curiosity. Serral has been now #1 on Aligulac lists 119 times, since list 203 when he first time took the spot on Dec. 6. 2017.
Ever since some other player has held #1 only 40 times as following:
Furthermore, Serral has never been lower than #2 since the list 202, unlike above listed players. His rise through the Aligulac ranks can be described as "meteoric", while his staying power at the top of the lists "monolithic". Also, particularly during last year his gap to #2 has been consistently increasing. Current list: 368
Sample size isn't anymore that small. HHoF feels broken. Broken by Serral.
Yea I'm pretty sure (99.9% sure) you can run aligulac algorithm giving huge bias to Koreans (like 1000 extra starting rating) and Serral would still be by far be the #1 player in the world, even when comparing to top5 of race Serral would still be #1 by a lot.
The fact he did this w/o strong Terrans/Protosses to practice against in 2017/2018 makes it even more ridiculous.
Yep. We need also remember that Serral doesn't usually match up against players lower than about Top 30-40, because he do not hobby with low tier tournaments, weeklies etc. His rating is continuously 'tested' as much as possible against the best the game can offer. In certain general sense region locked GSL filter only absolute Korean elite against him, while top foreigners (i.e. Reynor and Clem) have been his worst nemesis rating wise, "by stealing hard earned Korean rating points" from Serral's own, celestial rating bubble. That alleged "Bubble" is very much negligible when you watch evolution of his ratings sides by side with his sheet of progression of winning percentages vs players, Koreans and what not.
On March 23 2024 02:59 Mmakorea wrote: Finally finished reading all 10 articles. Fun list even though there are lots of questionable choices
Not sure why all the heated debates are going on. At the end of the day it’s ONE person’s opinion (even though it’s in the minority)
His opinion literally holds the same weight as someone who make their own list and say Zest is the goat
Just have fun with it.
Thanks OP for taking the time to write these article and help kill some down time
One can argue over inconsistencies in regards to the criteria within the logic the writer used. For example: a. When you say at one time that it was a super close call between Serral and Maru how - at the same time - can you say that IEM 2024 would not make a difference? Or put differently: How many more tournaments, in which both players are active, need to be played to tilt the scale in Serral's favor if IEM was not enough, but both are supposedly close in the GOAT debate? b. Then there is the argumentation of longevity versus peak performance. In MVP's article it is described that he placed above Innovation because he was so dominant, even if not for long. On the contrary in Maru's article, it is stated that Serral has higher peak performances but Maru is hailed for his "otherworldly longevity". If you want to stay consistent, you have to choose between one, but cannot switch based on the player you like better, as it seems to be the case here. Defining criteria is fine... but you have to stick to them, otherwise the whole endeavor is arbitrary.
But I agree. It is one person's opinion. But that doesn't stop me from voicing mine either And I think the author raises valid points for Maru's GOAT status, don't get me wrong. It was also nice to dwell in nostalgia while reading through the well written essays. But it is also the case that one's reasoning when establishing such a list should be on point, otherwise the scent of arbitrary metrics is too strong.
I, for example, looked at the following metrics to have people as GOAT contenders and only one of them had to be achieved to play a role in my further analysis: 1. Minimum 4 years of having a an over 60% win rate versus top Korean players (to accommodate for longevity) 2. Having won at least 10 Premier Tournaments (Also longevity but also the skill to persist and win) 3. Having at least won 2 World Championships (As the highest peak where the best of the world congregate) These metrics can be fulfilled by every player who plays a role internationally and they were the entrance point to my evaluation.
I further looked (only against top Korean competition to prevent people from claiming that non Koreans had it easier) at longest winning streaks, peak win rates, amount of peak win rates, win records of top contenders versus top Koreans and versus each other. These win rates/streaks were adjusted (meaning I took the win rates versus Koreans and added the respective player's win rate versus Serral, as he was also compared to everyone else) to include the only non Korean player in the list, which is Serral. And the evaluation of the raw data was pretty obvious. By any standard metric that can be applied to every player who plays internationally, Serral is the best.
- He is one of two players to achieve the Triple Crown twice (Only MVP achieved the same) - He has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant - In three out of these years (2018, 2020, 2023) he achieved an over 85% (!!) match win rate vs Koreans. No other player ever came over 79%. Maru is 2nd at 78%, Serral 3rd at 76,76% and herO fourth with 74%. The win rates of Serral outperform those of Flash in his most dominant years. - In 2023 his game win rate is 73,24% making him the only player to ever break the 70% game win rate barrier... 2nd closest is Serral with 69,86% and Maru 3rd with 69,44%. - Serral holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place also Serral with 18 consecutive wins from 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - Serral, among two others, won the most World Championships - Serral has the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and he achieved this in 6 years, whereas it took Maru 10 years to accumulate 15, although GSL is 3 times per year.
But the most amazing feat I encountered while analyzing the data: - Serral has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved. This stat is absolutely incredible and I cannot emphasize how much Serral distances the competition. But here are his stats versus the other contenders and other respected players:
vs Maru: 14:4:2 vs Dark: 9:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0 vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
Now there are softer things that need consideration like eras, competition, impact, resilience to patches, etc and I think the author did a pretty fair job at evaluating these. But to me, it comes down to two things. First, Maru's inability to conquer the World Championship. Yes, he accomplished phenomenal feats in GSL, StarLeague and the other grand Korean Tournaments, but he never delivered when it everyone from around the world gathered. Second, the peak dominance. Serral's stats are simply nuts... his win rates, tournament wins and the time in which he did it (only 6 years) is absolutely terrifying and excels EVERY OTHER player on this list in EVERY aspect. And it is not like Serral never played the top contenders from the past. Zest, Innovation, stats, Trap, Cure, Solar, Dark, herO, Maru, Byun are all names that were also active in the peak era of 2013-2015 and that Serral faced multiple times. Plus there are players like Clem, Reynor, MaxPax that older players haven't faced so the argument goes both ways.
Anyways, these are my two cents on this issue.
Thanks for taking the time to provide additional stats!
It’s safe to say that the majority of the people do have Serral as the Goat. OP is just making his own case for Maru (which is fine) even though there are lots of inconsistencies in his approach like you mentioned.
Personally to me, Maru was never the best player in any era that he played. MVP was better in WOL, Life and innovations achievements trumps Maru during the so called “hardest era of sc2”. Sure Maru won a SSL but that’s hardly newsworthy compare to his peers. Even Dear and Classic won GSL during that period. Lots of his peers has a better resume than Maru by the end of HOTS. LOTV era was basically all Serral and Rogue
Now the only thing that Maru has is that he competed in “pro league”, but if you look at his record. It’s not that impressive at all. Again this is my own opinion, I really don’t value pro league high at all since it’s already proven to be a “match fixed league” (due to the convicted parties). Who knows which games are legit or not so I basically toss any result from that league out the window. Similar to how ppl want to say WCS doesn’t mean anything since Koreans were locked out from competing in it
It’s doesn’t matter how much data and prove you provide to either the diehard fans of Maru and Serral. Nothing will change their goat opinion since it’s already cemented.
On March 23 2024 02:59 Mmakorea wrote: Finally finished reading all 10 articles. Fun list even though there are lots of questionable choices
Not sure why all the heated debates are going on. At the end of the day it’s ONE person’s opinion (even though it’s in the minority)
His opinion literally holds the same weight as someone who make their own list and say Zest is the goat
Just have fun with it.
Thanks OP for taking the time to write these article and help kill some down time
One can argue over inconsistencies in regards to the criteria within the logic the writer used. For example: a. When you say at one time that it was a super close call between Serral and Maru how - at the same time - can you say that IEM 2024 would not make a difference? Or put differently: How many more tournaments, in which both players are active, need to be played to tilt the scale in Serral's favor if IEM was not enough, but both are supposedly close in the GOAT debate? b. Then there is the argumentation of longevity versus peak performance. In MVP's article it is described that he placed above Innovation because he was so dominant, even if not for long. On the contrary in Maru's article, it is stated that Serral has higher peak performances but Maru is hailed for his "otherworldly longevity". If you want to stay consistent, you have to choose between one, but cannot switch based on the player you like better, as it seems to be the case here. Defining criteria is fine... but you have to stick to them, otherwise the whole endeavor is arbitrary.
But I agree. It is one person's opinion. But that doesn't stop me from voicing mine either And I think the author raises valid points for Maru's GOAT status, don't get me wrong. It was also nice to dwell in nostalgia while reading through the well written essays. But it is also the case that one's reasoning when establishing such a list should be on point, otherwise the scent of arbitrary metrics is too strong.
I, for example, looked at the following metrics to have people as GOAT contenders and only one of them had to be achieved to play a role in my further analysis: 1. Minimum 4 years of having a an over 60% win rate versus top Korean players (to accommodate for longevity) 2. Having won at least 10 Premier Tournaments (Also longevity but also the skill to persist and win) 3. Having at least won 2 World Championships (As the highest peak where the best of the world congregate) These metrics can be fulfilled by every player who plays a role internationally and they were the entrance point to my evaluation.
I further looked (only against top Korean competition to prevent people from claiming that non Koreans had it easier) at longest winning streaks, peak win rates, amount of peak win rates, win records of top contenders versus top Koreans and versus each other. These win rates/streaks were adjusted (meaning I took the win rates versus Koreans and added the respective player's win rate versus Serral, as he was also compared to everyone else) to include the only non Korean player in the list, which is Serral. And the evaluation of the raw data was pretty obvious. By any standard metric that can be applied to every player who plays internationally, Serral is the best.
- He is one of two players to achieve the Triple Crown twice (Only MVP achieved the same) - He has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant - In three out of these years (2018, 2020, 2023) he achieved an over 85% (!!) match win rate vs Koreans. No other player ever came over 79%. Maru is 2nd at 78%, Serral 3rd at 76,76% and herO fourth with 74%. The win rates of Serral outperform those of Flash in his most dominant years. - In 2023 his game win rate is 73,24% making him the only player to ever break the 70% game win rate barrier... 2nd closest is Serral with 69,86% and Maru 3rd with 69,44%. - Serral holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place also Serral with 18 consecutive wins from 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - Serral, among two others, won the most World Championships - Serral has the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and he achieved this in 6 years, whereas it took Maru 10 years to accumulate 15, although GSL is 3 times per year.
But the most amazing feat I encountered while analyzing the data: - Serral has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved. This stat is absolutely incredible and I cannot emphasize how much Serral distances the competition. But here are his stats versus the other contenders and other respected players:
vs Maru: 14:4:2 vs Dark: 9:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0 vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
Now there are softer things that need consideration like eras, competition, impact, resilience to patches, etc and I think the author did a pretty fair job at evaluating these. But to me, it comes down to two things. First, Maru's inability to conquer the World Championship. Yes, he accomplished phenomenal feats in GSL, StarLeague and the other grand Korean Tournaments, but he never delivered when it everyone from around the world gathered. Second, the peak dominance. Serral's stats are simply nuts... his win rates, tournament wins and the time in which he did it (only 6 years) is absolutely terrifying and excels EVERY OTHER player on this list in EVERY aspect. And it is not like Serral never played the top contenders from the past. Zest, Innovation, stats, Trap, Cure, Solar, Dark, herO, Maru, Byun are all names that were also active in the peak era of 2013-2015 and that Serral faced multiple times. Plus there are players like Clem, Reynor, MaxPax that older players haven't faced so the argument goes both ways.
Anyways, these are my two cents on this issue.
Thanks for taking the time to provide additional stats!
It’s safe to say that the majority of the people do have Serral as the Goat. OP is just making his own case for Maru (which is fine) even though there are lots of inconsistencies in his approach like you mentioned.
Personally to me, Maru was never the best player in any era that he played. MVP was better in WOL, Life and innovations achievements trumps Maru during the so called “hardest era of sc2”. Sure Maru won a SSL but that’s hardly newsworthy compare to his peers. Even Dear and Classic won GSL during that period. Lots of his peers has a better resume than Maru by the end of HOTS. LOTV era was basically all Serral and Rogue
Now the only thing that Maru has is that he competed in “pro league”, but if you look at his record. It’s not that impressive at all. Again this is my own opinion, I really don’t value pro league high at all since it’s already proven to be a “match fixed league” (due to the convicted parties). Who knows which games are legit or not so I basically toss any result from that league out the window. Similar to how ppl want to say WCS doesn’t mean anything since Koreans were locked out from competing in it
It’s doesn’t matter how much data and prove you provide to either the diehard fans of Maru and Serral. Nothing will change their goat opinion since it’s already cemented.
You make it sound like the GSLs Dear and Classic won were any different to the OSL Maru won
On March 23 2024 02:59 Mmakorea wrote: Finally finished reading all 10 articles. Fun list even though there are lots of questionable choices
Not sure why all the heated debates are going on. At the end of the day it’s ONE person’s opinion (even though it’s in the minority)
His opinion literally holds the same weight as someone who make their own list and say Zest is the goat
Just have fun with it.
Thanks OP for taking the time to write these article and help kill some down time
One can argue over inconsistencies in regards to the criteria within the logic the writer used. For example: a. When you say at one time that it was a super close call between Serral and Maru how - at the same time - can you say that IEM 2024 would not make a difference? Or put differently: How many more tournaments, in which both players are active, need to be played to tilt the scale in Serral's favor if IEM was not enough, but both are supposedly close in the GOAT debate? b. Then there is the argumentation of longevity versus peak performance. In MVP's article it is described that he placed above Innovation because he was so dominant, even if not for long. On the contrary in Maru's article, it is stated that Serral has higher peak performances but Maru is hailed for his "otherworldly longevity". If you want to stay consistent, you have to choose between one, but cannot switch based on the player you like better, as it seems to be the case here. Defining criteria is fine... but you have to stick to them, otherwise the whole endeavor is arbitrary.
But I agree. It is one person's opinion. But that doesn't stop me from voicing mine either And I think the author raises valid points for Maru's GOAT status, don't get me wrong. It was also nice to dwell in nostalgia while reading through the well written essays. But it is also the case that one's reasoning when establishing such a list should be on point, otherwise the scent of arbitrary metrics is too strong.
I, for example, looked at the following metrics to have people as GOAT contenders and only one of them had to be achieved to play a role in my further analysis: 1. Minimum 4 years of having a an over 60% win rate versus top Korean players (to accommodate for longevity) 2. Having won at least 10 Premier Tournaments (Also longevity but also the skill to persist and win) 3. Having at least won 2 World Championships (As the highest peak where the best of the world congregate) These metrics can be fulfilled by every player who plays a role internationally and they were the entrance point to my evaluation.
I further looked (only against top Korean competition to prevent people from claiming that non Koreans had it easier) at longest winning streaks, peak win rates, amount of peak win rates, win records of top contenders versus top Koreans and versus each other. These win rates/streaks were adjusted (meaning I took the win rates versus Koreans and added the respective player's win rate versus Serral, as he was also compared to everyone else) to include the only non Korean player in the list, which is Serral. And the evaluation of the raw data was pretty obvious. By any standard metric that can be applied to every player who plays internationally, Serral is the best.
- He is one of two players to achieve the Triple Crown twice (Only MVP achieved the same) - He has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant - In three out of these years (2018, 2020, 2023) he achieved an over 85% (!!) match win rate vs Koreans. No other player ever came over 79%. Maru is 2nd at 78%, Serral 3rd at 76,76% and herO fourth with 74%. The win rates of Serral outperform those of Flash in his most dominant years. - In 2023 his game win rate is 73,24% making him the only player to ever break the 70% game win rate barrier... 2nd closest is Serral with 69,86% and Maru 3rd with 69,44%. - Serral holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place also Serral with 18 consecutive wins from 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - Serral, among two others, won the most World Championships - Serral has the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and he achieved this in 6 years, whereas it took Maru 10 years to accumulate 15, although GSL is 3 times per year.
But the most amazing feat I encountered while analyzing the data: - Serral has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved. This stat is absolutely incredible and I cannot emphasize how much Serral distances the competition. But here are his stats versus the other contenders and other respected players:
vs Maru: 14:4:2 vs Dark: 9:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0 vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
Now there are softer things that need consideration like eras, competition, impact, resilience to patches, etc and I think the author did a pretty fair job at evaluating these. But to me, it comes down to two things. First, Maru's inability to conquer the World Championship. Yes, he accomplished phenomenal feats in GSL, StarLeague and the other grand Korean Tournaments, but he never delivered when it everyone from around the world gathered. Second, the peak dominance. Serral's stats are simply nuts... his win rates, tournament wins and the time in which he did it (only 6 years) is absolutely terrifying and excels EVERY OTHER player on this list in EVERY aspect. And it is not like Serral never played the top contenders from the past. Zest, Innovation, stats, Trap, Cure, Solar, Dark, herO, Maru, Byun are all names that were also active in the peak era of 2013-2015 and that Serral faced multiple times. Plus there are players like Clem, Reynor, MaxPax that older players haven't faced so the argument goes both ways.
Anyways, these are my two cents on this issue.
Thanks for taking the time to provide additional stats!
It’s safe to say that the majority of the people do have Serral as the Goat. OP is just making his own case for Maru (which is fine) even though there are lots of inconsistencies in his approach like you mentioned.
Personally to me, Maru was never the best player in any era that he played. MVP was better in WOL, Life and innovations achievements trumps Maru during the so called “hardest era of sc2”. Sure Maru won a SSL but that’s hardly newsworthy compare to his peers. Even Dear and Classic won GSL during that period. Lots of his peers has a better resume than Maru by the end of HOTS. LOTV era was basically all Serral and Rogue
Now the only thing that Maru has is that he competed in “pro league”, but if you look at his record. It’s not that impressive at all. Again this is my own opinion, I really don’t value pro league high at all since it’s already proven to be a “match fixed league” (due to the convicted parties). Who knows which games are legit or not so I basically toss any result from that league out the window. Similar to how ppl want to say WCS doesn’t mean anything since Koreans were locked out from competing in it
It’s doesn’t matter how much data and prove you provide to either the diehard fans of Maru and Serral. Nothing will change their goat opinion since it’s already cemented.
Yet time and time again maru fans will acknowledge that who is the goat is up for debate. Only one group of people are entrenched in their position to the exclusion of everyone else. Note that it doesn't matter if the debate is serral v. maru or serral v. rogue. No matter what serral is the goat and every other opinion is unreasonable. That group is not maru fans.
On March 23 2024 02:59 Mmakorea wrote: Finally finished reading all 10 articles. Fun list even though there are lots of questionable choices
Not sure why all the heated debates are going on. At the end of the day it’s ONE person’s opinion (even though it’s in the minority)
His opinion literally holds the same weight as someone who make their own list and say Zest is the goat
Just have fun with it.
Thanks OP for taking the time to write these article and help kill some down time
One can argue over inconsistencies in regards to the criteria within the logic the writer used. For example: a. When you say at one time that it was a super close call between Serral and Maru how - at the same time - can you say that IEM 2024 would not make a difference? Or put differently: How many more tournaments, in which both players are active, need to be played to tilt the scale in Serral's favor if IEM was not enough, but both are supposedly close in the GOAT debate? b. Then there is the argumentation of longevity versus peak performance. In MVP's article it is described that he placed above Innovation because he was so dominant, even if not for long. On the contrary in Maru's article, it is stated that Serral has higher peak performances but Maru is hailed for his "otherworldly longevity". If you want to stay consistent, you have to choose between one, but cannot switch based on the player you like better, as it seems to be the case here. Defining criteria is fine... but you have to stick to them, otherwise the whole endeavor is arbitrary.
But I agree. It is one person's opinion. But that doesn't stop me from voicing mine either And I think the author raises valid points for Maru's GOAT status, don't get me wrong. It was also nice to dwell in nostalgia while reading through the well written essays. But it is also the case that one's reasoning when establishing such a list should be on point, otherwise the scent of arbitrary metrics is too strong.
I, for example, looked at the following metrics to have people as GOAT contenders and only one of them had to be achieved to play a role in my further analysis: 1. Minimum 4 years of having a an over 60% win rate versus top Korean players (to accommodate for longevity) 2. Having won at least 10 Premier Tournaments (Also longevity but also the skill to persist and win) 3. Having at least won 2 World Championships (As the highest peak where the best of the world congregate) These metrics can be fulfilled by every player who plays a role internationally and they were the entrance point to my evaluation.
I further looked (only against top Korean competition to prevent people from claiming that non Koreans had it easier) at longest winning streaks, peak win rates, amount of peak win rates, win records of top contenders versus top Koreans and versus each other. These win rates/streaks were adjusted (meaning I took the win rates versus Koreans and added the respective player's win rate versus Serral, as he was also compared to everyone else) to include the only non Korean player in the list, which is Serral. And the evaluation of the raw data was pretty obvious. By any standard metric that can be applied to every player who plays internationally, Serral is the best.
- He is one of two players to achieve the Triple Crown twice (Only MVP achieved the same) - He has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant - In three out of these years (2018, 2020, 2023) he achieved an over 85% (!!) match win rate vs Koreans. No other player ever came over 79%. Maru is 2nd at 78%, Serral 3rd at 76,76% and herO fourth with 74%. The win rates of Serral outperform those of Flash in his most dominant years. - In 2023 his game win rate is 73,24% making him the only player to ever break the 70% game win rate barrier... 2nd closest is Serral with 69,86% and Maru 3rd with 69,44%. - Serral holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place also Serral with 18 consecutive wins from 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - Serral, among two others, won the most World Championships - Serral has the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and he achieved this in 6 years, whereas it took Maru 10 years to accumulate 15, although GSL is 3 times per year.
But the most amazing feat I encountered while analyzing the data: - Serral has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved. This stat is absolutely incredible and I cannot emphasize how much Serral distances the competition. But here are his stats versus the other contenders and other respected players:
vs Maru: 14:4:2 vs Dark: 9:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0 vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
Now there are softer things that need consideration like eras, competition, impact, resilience to patches, etc and I think the author did a pretty fair job at evaluating these. But to me, it comes down to two things. First, Maru's inability to conquer the World Championship. Yes, he accomplished phenomenal feats in GSL, StarLeague and the other grand Korean Tournaments, but he never delivered when it everyone from around the world gathered. Second, the peak dominance. Serral's stats are simply nuts... his win rates, tournament wins and the time in which he did it (only 6 years) is absolutely terrifying and excels EVERY OTHER player on this list in EVERY aspect. And it is not like Serral never played the top contenders from the past. Zest, Innovation, stats, Trap, Cure, Solar, Dark, herO, Maru, Byun are all names that were also active in the peak era of 2013-2015 and that Serral faced multiple times. Plus there are players like Clem, Reynor, MaxPax that older players haven't faced so the argument goes both ways.
Anyways, these are my two cents on this issue.
Thanks for taking the time to provide additional stats!
It’s safe to say that the majority of the people do have Serral as the Goat. OP is just making his own case for Maru (which is fine) even though there are lots of inconsistencies in his approach like you mentioned.
Personally to me, Maru was never the best player in any era that he played. MVP was better in WOL, Life and innovations achievements trumps Maru during the so called “hardest era of sc2”. Sure Maru won a SSL but that’s hardly newsworthy compare to his peers. Even Dear and Classic won GSL during that period. Lots of his peers has a better resume than Maru by the end of HOTS. LOTV era was basically all Serral and Rogue
Now the only thing that Maru has is that he competed in “pro league”, but if you look at his record. It’s not that impressive at all. Again this is my own opinion, I really don’t value pro league high at all since it’s already proven to be a “match fixed league” (due to the convicted parties). Who knows which games are legit or not so I basically toss any result from that league out the window. Similar to how ppl want to say WCS doesn’t mean anything since Koreans were locked out from competing in it
It’s doesn’t matter how much data and prove you provide to either the diehard fans of Maru and Serral. Nothing will change their goat opinion since it’s already cemented.
You make it sound like the GSLs Dear and Classic won were any different to the OSL Maru won
"Even Dear and Classic won GSL during that period."
"Lots of his peers has a better resume than Maru by the end of HOTS."
I'm pretty sure these 2 sentences are not referring to the same players. He mentioned Innovation and Life as having better achievements than Maru during HotS. He's exactly saying that because even players like Dear and Classic won GSL, Maru winning an OSL isn't that special.
I don't think that starcraft2 has a "goat". People mentioned flash a bit of context here :
2009-10 season, the height of StarCraft Proleague and KeSPA; 12 teams, two Proleague matches a week, 3 OSLs and MSLs in a year, happening concurrently. Teams like SKT or KT or Samsung you know not teams consisting of 1 man with money somewhere in china who like esport (and we thanks him for that) (provocative but you get the idea)
Flash’s results?
GOMTV Averatec-Intel Classic 3 = 1st, 2009 NATE MSL = 2nd, 2009 EVER OSL = 1st, Korean Air OSL Season 1 = 2nd, Hana Daetoo Securities MSL = 1st, WCG Korea - 2nd, Bigfile MSL - 1st, Korean Air OSL Season 2 - 1st, WCG World Championship - 1st, Proleague - 57-16 as his appearance patterns were super predictable so sniping him was easy.
Serral’s competition is very good and I do think he's certainly the best for years now. However and for me this is important and we should be honest about that : the scene is so damn small, no new players etc... I like this game very much and will continue to watch but let's not kid ourselves there : The rest of esport has moved on. The level of professionalism is barely there, top teams in LOL or counter strike are huge and the competition is massive.
Not the fault of Serral though he's the best since 2018 that's for sure. But his achievements are not comparable to what Flash has done, it would maybe if he did that between 2013 and 2015 but he was not there, not his fault too nobody has done that.
On March 23 2024 02:59 Mmakorea wrote: Finally finished reading all 10 articles. Fun list even though there are lots of questionable choices
Not sure why all the heated debates are going on. At the end of the day it’s ONE person’s opinion (even though it’s in the minority)
His opinion literally holds the same weight as someone who make their own list and say Zest is the goat
Just have fun with it.
Thanks OP for taking the time to write these article and help kill some down time
One can argue over inconsistencies in regards to the criteria within the logic the writer used. For example: a. When you say at one time that it was a super close call between Serral and Maru how - at the same time - can you say that IEM 2024 would not make a difference? Or put differently: How many more tournaments, in which both players are active, need to be played to tilt the scale in Serral's favor if IEM was not enough, but both are supposedly close in the GOAT debate? b. Then there is the argumentation of longevity versus peak performance. In MVP's article it is described that he placed above Innovation because he was so dominant, even if not for long. On the contrary in Maru's article, it is stated that Serral has higher peak performances but Maru is hailed for his "otherworldly longevity". If you want to stay consistent, you have to choose between one, but cannot switch based on the player you like better, as it seems to be the case here. Defining criteria is fine... but you have to stick to them, otherwise the whole endeavor is arbitrary.
But I agree. It is one person's opinion. But that doesn't stop me from voicing mine either And I think the author raises valid points for Maru's GOAT status, don't get me wrong. It was also nice to dwell in nostalgia while reading through the well written essays. But it is also the case that one's reasoning when establishing such a list should be on point, otherwise the scent of arbitrary metrics is too strong.
I, for example, looked at the following metrics to have people as GOAT contenders and only one of them had to be achieved to play a role in my further analysis: 1. Minimum 4 years of having a an over 60% win rate versus top Korean players (to accommodate for longevity) 2. Having won at least 10 Premier Tournaments (Also longevity but also the skill to persist and win) 3. Having at least won 2 World Championships (As the highest peak where the best of the world congregate) These metrics can be fulfilled by every player who plays a role internationally and they were the entrance point to my evaluation.
I further looked (only against top Korean competition to prevent people from claiming that non Koreans had it easier) at longest winning streaks, peak win rates, amount of peak win rates, win records of top contenders versus top Koreans and versus each other. These win rates/streaks were adjusted (meaning I took the win rates versus Koreans and added the respective player's win rate versus Serral, as he was also compared to everyone else) to include the only non Korean player in the list, which is Serral. And the evaluation of the raw data was pretty obvious. By any standard metric that can be applied to every player who plays internationally, Serral is the best.
- He is one of two players to achieve the Triple Crown twice (Only MVP achieved the same) - He has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant - In three out of these years (2018, 2020, 2023) he achieved an over 85% (!!) match win rate vs Koreans. No other player ever came over 79%. Maru is 2nd at 78%, Serral 3rd at 76,76% and herO fourth with 74%. The win rates of Serral outperform those of Flash in his most dominant years. - In 2023 his game win rate is 73,24% making him the only player to ever break the 70% game win rate barrier... 2nd closest is Serral with 69,86% and Maru 3rd with 69,44%. - Serral holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place also Serral with 18 consecutive wins from 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - Serral, among two others, won the most World Championships - Serral has the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and he achieved this in 6 years, whereas it took Maru 10 years to accumulate 15, although GSL is 3 times per year.
But the most amazing feat I encountered while analyzing the data: - Serral has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved. This stat is absolutely incredible and I cannot emphasize how much Serral distances the competition. But here are his stats versus the other contenders and other respected players:
vs Maru: 14:4:2 vs Dark: 9:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0 vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
Now there are softer things that need consideration like eras, competition, impact, resilience to patches, etc and I think the author did a pretty fair job at evaluating these. But to me, it comes down to two things. First, Maru's inability to conquer the World Championship. Yes, he accomplished phenomenal feats in GSL, StarLeague and the other grand Korean Tournaments, but he never delivered when it everyone from around the world gathered. Second, the peak dominance. Serral's stats are simply nuts... his win rates, tournament wins and the time in which he did it (only 6 years) is absolutely terrifying and excels EVERY OTHER player on this list in EVERY aspect. And it is not like Serral never played the top contenders from the past. Zest, Innovation, stats, Trap, Cure, Solar, Dark, herO, Maru, Byun are all names that were also active in the peak era of 2013-2015 and that Serral faced multiple times. Plus there are players like Clem, Reynor, MaxPax that older players haven't faced so the argument goes both ways.
Anyways, these are my two cents on this issue.
Thanks for taking the time to provide additional stats!
It’s safe to say that the majority of the people do have Serral as the Goat. OP is just making his own case for Maru (which is fine) even though there are lots of inconsistencies in his approach like you mentioned.
Personally to me, Maru was never the best player in any era that he played. MVP was better in WOL, Life and innovations achievements trumps Maru during the so called “hardest era of sc2”. Sure Maru won a SSL but that’s hardly newsworthy compare to his peers. Even Dear and Classic won GSL during that period. Lots of his peers has a better resume than Maru by the end of HOTS. LOTV era was basically all Serral and Rogue
Now the only thing that Maru has is that he competed in “pro league”, but if you look at his record. It’s not that impressive at all. Again this is my own opinion, I really don’t value pro league high at all since it’s already proven to be a “match fixed league” (due to the convicted parties). Who knows which games are legit or not so I basically toss any result from that league out the window. Similar to how ppl want to say WCS doesn’t mean anything since Koreans were locked out from competing in it
It’s doesn’t matter how much data and prove you provide to either the diehard fans of Maru and Serral. Nothing will change their goat opinion since it’s already cemented.
You make it sound like the GSLs Dear and Classic won were any different to the OSL Maru won
"Even Dear and Classic won GSL during that period."
"Lots of his peers has a better resume than Maru by the end of HOTS."
I'm pretty sure these 2 sentences are not referring to the same players. He mentioned Innovation and Life as having better achievements than Maru during HotS. He's exactly saying that because even players like Dear and Classic won GSL, Maru winning an OSL isn't that special.
Yea man even Dear and classic those scrubs could win a gsl where one of them had one of the highest protoss peaks we've known until then and the other is one of the most overlooked protosses with actually really good achievements and surely a case for the upper echelons of protoss players.
The ONLY one in the entire world to have a G5L trophy.
The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
Yet, I acknowledge that Rogue, or Serral, could be considered GOAT above Maru (because of his lack of official WC titles, so WESG doesn’t count). It’s crazy to me that people are so biased by the foreign casters / players (who have been heavily biased towards Serral, and Rogue in the case of Artosis) that they think Maru at #1 is ridiculous. It’s not the only option for #1 goat, but it’s not a dumb or ridiculous take.
Anyways, this whole list got a lot of activity back on the forum, it was pretty effing cool.
On March 23 2024 02:59 Mmakorea wrote: Finally finished reading all 10 articles. Fun list even though there are lots of questionable choices
Not sure why all the heated debates are going on. At the end of the day it’s ONE person’s opinion (even though it’s in the minority)
His opinion literally holds the same weight as someone who make their own list and say Zest is the goat
Just have fun with it.
Thanks OP for taking the time to write these article and help kill some down time
One can argue over inconsistencies in regards to the criteria within the logic the writer used. For example: a. When you say at one time that it was a super close call between Serral and Maru how - at the same time - can you say that IEM 2024 would not make a difference? Or put differently: How many more tournaments, in which both players are active, need to be played to tilt the scale in Serral's favor if IEM was not enough, but both are supposedly close in the GOAT debate? b. Then there is the argumentation of longevity versus peak performance. In MVP's article it is described that he placed above Innovation because he was so dominant, even if not for long. On the contrary in Maru's article, it is stated that Serral has higher peak performances but Maru is hailed for his "otherworldly longevity". If you want to stay consistent, you have to choose between one, but cannot switch based on the player you like better, as it seems to be the case here. Defining criteria is fine... but you have to stick to them, otherwise the whole endeavor is arbitrary.
But I agree. It is one person's opinion. But that doesn't stop me from voicing mine either And I think the author raises valid points for Maru's GOAT status, don't get me wrong. It was also nice to dwell in nostalgia while reading through the well written essays. But it is also the case that one's reasoning when establishing such a list should be on point, otherwise the scent of arbitrary metrics is too strong.
I, for example, looked at the following metrics to have people as GOAT contenders and only one of them had to be achieved to play a role in my further analysis: 1. Minimum 4 years of having a an over 60% win rate versus top Korean players (to accommodate for longevity) 2. Having won at least 10 Premier Tournaments (Also longevity but also the skill to persist and win) 3. Having at least won 2 World Championships (As the highest peak where the best of the world congregate) These metrics can be fulfilled by every player who plays a role internationally and they were the entrance point to my evaluation.
I further looked (only against top Korean competition to prevent people from claiming that non Koreans had it easier) at longest winning streaks, peak win rates, amount of peak win rates, win records of top contenders versus top Koreans and versus each other. These win rates/streaks were adjusted (meaning I took the win rates versus Koreans and added the respective player's win rate versus Serral, as he was also compared to everyone else) to include the only non Korean player in the list, which is Serral. And the evaluation of the raw data was pretty obvious. By any standard metric that can be applied to every player who plays internationally, Serral is the best.
- He is one of two players to achieve the Triple Crown twice (Only MVP achieved the same) - He has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant - In three out of these years (2018, 2020, 2023) he achieved an over 85% (!!) match win rate vs Koreans. No other player ever came over 79%. Maru is 2nd at 78%, Serral 3rd at 76,76% and herO fourth with 74%. The win rates of Serral outperform those of Flash in his most dominant years. - In 2023 his game win rate is 73,24% making him the only player to ever break the 70% game win rate barrier... 2nd closest is Serral with 69,86% and Maru 3rd with 69,44%. - Serral holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place also Serral with 18 consecutive wins from 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - Serral, among two others, won the most World Championships - Serral has the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and he achieved this in 6 years, whereas it took Maru 10 years to accumulate 15, although GSL is 3 times per year.
But the most amazing feat I encountered while analyzing the data: - Serral has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved. This stat is absolutely incredible and I cannot emphasize how much Serral distances the competition. But here are his stats versus the other contenders and other respected players:
vs Maru: 14:4:2 vs Dark: 9:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0 vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
Now there are softer things that need consideration like eras, competition, impact, resilience to patches, etc and I think the author did a pretty fair job at evaluating these. But to me, it comes down to two things. First, Maru's inability to conquer the World Championship. Yes, he accomplished phenomenal feats in GSL, StarLeague and the other grand Korean Tournaments, but he never delivered when it everyone from around the world gathered. Second, the peak dominance. Serral's stats are simply nuts... his win rates, tournament wins and the time in which he did it (only 6 years) is absolutely terrifying and excels EVERY OTHER player on this list in EVERY aspect. And it is not like Serral never played the top contenders from the past. Zest, Innovation, stats, Trap, Cure, Solar, Dark, herO, Maru, Byun are all names that were also active in the peak era of 2013-2015 and that Serral faced multiple times. Plus there are players like Clem, Reynor, MaxPax that older players haven't faced so the argument goes both ways.
Anyways, these are my two cents on this issue.
Thank you for that. I have enphazied Serral's head 2 head win vs ALL in other posts. Its absurd.
The only thing Maru has against Serral is basically having won 2 premiers in Korean soil prior to 2017.
All the 7 GSLs simply dont count, cus Serral wanst there (when comparing just the 2 of them).
You just cant say that Maru is greater in SCII than Serral, you just cant.
Serrral graduated from School in june 2017... We know what came after.
On March 23 2024 02:59 Mmakorea wrote: Finally finished reading all 10 articles. Fun list even though there are lots of questionable choices
Not sure why all the heated debates are going on. At the end of the day it’s ONE person’s opinion (even though it’s in the minority)
His opinion literally holds the same weight as someone who make their own list and say Zest is the goat
Just have fun with it.
Thanks OP for taking the time to write these article and help kill some down time
One can argue over inconsistencies in regards to the criteria within the logic the writer used. For example: a. When you say at one time that it was a super close call between Serral and Maru how - at the same time - can you say that IEM 2024 would not make a difference? Or put differently: How many more tournaments, in which both players are active, need to be played to tilt the scale in Serral's favor if IEM was not enough, but both are supposedly close in the GOAT debate? b. Then there is the argumentation of longevity versus peak performance. In MVP's article it is described that he placed above Innovation because he was so dominant, even if not for long. On the contrary in Maru's article, it is stated that Serral has higher peak performances but Maru is hailed for his "otherworldly longevity". If you want to stay consistent, you have to choose between one, but cannot switch based on the player you like better, as it seems to be the case here. Defining criteria is fine... but you have to stick to them, otherwise the whole endeavor is arbitrary.
But I agree. It is one person's opinion. But that doesn't stop me from voicing mine either And I think the author raises valid points for Maru's GOAT status, don't get me wrong. It was also nice to dwell in nostalgia while reading through the well written essays. But it is also the case that one's reasoning when establishing such a list should be on point, otherwise the scent of arbitrary metrics is too strong.
I, for example, looked at the following metrics to have people as GOAT contenders and only one of them had to be achieved to play a role in my further analysis: 1. Minimum 4 years of having a an over 60% win rate versus top Korean players (to accommodate for longevity) 2. Having won at least 10 Premier Tournaments (Also longevity but also the skill to persist and win) 3. Having at least won 2 World Championships (As the highest peak where the best of the world congregate) These metrics can be fulfilled by every player who plays a role internationally and they were the entrance point to my evaluation.
I further looked (only against top Korean competition to prevent people from claiming that non Koreans had it easier) at longest winning streaks, peak win rates, amount of peak win rates, win records of top contenders versus top Koreans and versus each other. These win rates/streaks were adjusted (meaning I took the win rates versus Koreans and added the respective player's win rate versus Serral, as he was also compared to everyone else) to include the only non Korean player in the list, which is Serral. And the evaluation of the raw data was pretty obvious. By any standard metric that can be applied to every player who plays internationally, Serral is the best.
- He is one of two players to achieve the Triple Crown twice (Only MVP achieved the same) - He has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant - In three out of these years (2018, 2020, 2023) he achieved an over 85% (!!) match win rate vs Koreans. No other player ever came over 79%. Maru is 2nd at 78%, Serral 3rd at 76,76% and herO fourth with 74%. The win rates of Serral outperform those of Flash in his most dominant years. - In 2023 his game win rate is 73,24% making him the only player to ever break the 70% game win rate barrier... 2nd closest is Serral with 69,86% and Maru 3rd with 69,44%. - Serral holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place also Serral with 18 consecutive wins from 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - Serral, among two others, won the most World Championships - Serral has the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and he achieved this in 6 years, whereas it took Maru 10 years to accumulate 15, although GSL is 3 times per year.
But the most amazing feat I encountered while analyzing the data: - Serral has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved. This stat is absolutely incredible and I cannot emphasize how much Serral distances the competition. But here are his stats versus the other contenders and other respected players:
vs Maru: 14:4:2 vs Dark: 9:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0 vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
Now there are softer things that need consideration like eras, competition, impact, resilience to patches, etc and I think the author did a pretty fair job at evaluating these. But to me, it comes down to two things. First, Maru's inability to conquer the World Championship. Yes, he accomplished phenomenal feats in GSL, StarLeague and the other grand Korean Tournaments, but he never delivered when it everyone from around the world gathered. Second, the peak dominance. Serral's stats are simply nuts... his win rates, tournament wins and the time in which he did it (only 6 years) is absolutely terrifying and excels EVERY OTHER player on this list in EVERY aspect. And it is not like Serral never played the top contenders from the past. Zest, Innovation, stats, Trap, Cure, Solar, Dark, herO, Maru, Byun are all names that were also active in the peak era of 2013-2015 and that Serral faced multiple times. Plus there are players like Clem, Reynor, MaxPax that older players haven't faced so the argument goes both ways.
Anyways, these are my two cents on this issue.
Thank you for that. I have enphazied Serral's head 2 head win vs ALL in other posts. Its absurd.
The only thing Maru has against Serral is basically having won 2 premiers in Korean soil prior to 2017.
All the 7 GSLs simply dont count, cus Serral wanst there (when comparing just the 2 of them).
You just cant say that Maru is greater in SCII than Serral, you just cant.
Serrral graduated from School in june 2017... We know what came after.
2 Korean Premier prior to that (in how many participated??) just dont justify calling Maru > Serral.
The ONLY one in the entire world to have a G5L trophy.
Wow. Did he get the piece of hardware already pre-forged for Mvp (or whom ever it was)? Last two are worth of effort, you know. Not much.
When Maruboys of Reddit side got finally triggered, This must be the place to play the personality card.
Who of those two you think would be the one who descends among us mere mortals and decide this shit for our behalf.
[unfortunately I have limited privileges on this Site, because I've broken some rules when drunken-fighting against corruption, so I cannot post a vid about the topic on behalf of my beloved wannabe Pig-farmer of the last century. Someone must do that instead of me. I'm one of most broken guys of Serral's Fan army, and also one of those who can defend or attack against an ego.]
Ultimately it comes down to the earth, and to a level of the person, values, insights, and philosophy, thinking, doing, living. A ton of hardware means a little. Statistics are always blind. Opinions and attitudes change. Takes are hot or cold, now and then, but they all will dissolve to a flows of the entropy of time and matter. Texts are written for a recent, but their most interested, loyal, and intellectual readers will be always found among those rare who microscope beyond a subtext, into the hazy letters of a palimpsest, written under the pergaments of dogma of the current hegemony, and it's thinking.
Moose hunting, log chopping, golf playing, self-made man with capability to feel the Zen, and be nice, humble guy to other human beings, from Pornainen, Finland, won't ever come here to say anything about this ongoing debate, but exactly because of that High-Quality of the character and his healthy ego, me and many of my more informed fellow fans, psychologically more coherent, more knowledgeable with better wit, and fitted with better understanding about how StarCraft 2 sociology functions on the edge, in it's entirety and as a whole, will form a camp here in this petty hill.
Don't expect easy war path. We all soldiers of Serral fan army, we are just place holders. Petty, mere mortals, insignificant place holders.
On March 23 2024 02:59 Mmakorea wrote: Finally finished reading all 10 articles. Fun list even though there are lots of questionable choices
Not sure why all the heated debates are going on. At the end of the day it’s ONE person’s opinion (even though it’s in the minority)
His opinion literally holds the same weight as someone who make their own list and say Zest is the goat
Just have fun with it.
Thanks OP for taking the time to write these article and help kill some down time
One can argue over inconsistencies in regards to the criteria within the logic the writer used. For example: a. When you say at one time that it was a super close call between Serral and Maru how - at the same time - can you say that IEM 2024 would not make a difference? Or put differently: How many more tournaments, in which both players are active, need to be played to tilt the scale in Serral's favor if IEM was not enough, but both are supposedly close in the GOAT debate? b. Then there is the argumentation of longevity versus peak performance. In MVP's article it is described that he placed above Innovation because he was so dominant, even if not for long. On the contrary in Maru's article, it is stated that Serral has higher peak performances but Maru is hailed for his "otherworldly longevity". If you want to stay consistent, you have to choose between one, but cannot switch based on the player you like better, as it seems to be the case here. Defining criteria is fine... but you have to stick to them, otherwise the whole endeavor is arbitrary.
But I agree. It is one person's opinion. But that doesn't stop me from voicing mine either And I think the author raises valid points for Maru's GOAT status, don't get me wrong. It was also nice to dwell in nostalgia while reading through the well written essays. But it is also the case that one's reasoning when establishing such a list should be on point, otherwise the scent of arbitrary metrics is too strong.
I, for example, looked at the following metrics to have people as GOAT contenders and only one of them had to be achieved to play a role in my further analysis: 1. Minimum 4 years of having a an over 60% win rate versus top Korean players (to accommodate for longevity) 2. Having won at least 10 Premier Tournaments (Also longevity but also the skill to persist and win) 3. Having at least won 2 World Championships (As the highest peak where the best of the world congregate) These metrics can be fulfilled by every player who plays a role internationally and they were the entrance point to my evaluation.
I further looked (only against top Korean competition to prevent people from claiming that non Koreans had it easier) at longest winning streaks, peak win rates, amount of peak win rates, win records of top contenders versus top Koreans and versus each other. These win rates/streaks were adjusted (meaning I took the win rates versus Koreans and added the respective player's win rate versus Serral, as he was also compared to everyone else) to include the only non Korean player in the list, which is Serral. And the evaluation of the raw data was pretty obvious. By any standard metric that can be applied to every player who plays internationally, Serral is the best.
- He is one of two players to achieve the Triple Crown twice (Only MVP achieved the same) - He has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant - In three out of these years (2018, 2020, 2023) he achieved an over 85% (!!) match win rate vs Koreans. No other player ever came over 79%. Maru is 2nd at 78%, Serral 3rd at 76,76% and herO fourth with 74%. The win rates of Serral outperform those of Flash in his most dominant years. - In 2023 his game win rate is 73,24% making him the only player to ever break the 70% game win rate barrier... 2nd closest is Serral with 69,86% and Maru 3rd with 69,44%. - Serral holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place also Serral with 18 consecutive wins from 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - Serral, among two others, won the most World Championships - Serral has the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and he achieved this in 6 years, whereas it took Maru 10 years to accumulate 15, although GSL is 3 times per year.
But the most amazing feat I encountered while analyzing the data: - Serral has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved. This stat is absolutely incredible and I cannot emphasize how much Serral distances the competition. But here are his stats versus the other contenders and other respected players:
vs Maru: 14:4:2 vs Dark: 9:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0 vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
Now there are softer things that need consideration like eras, competition, impact, resilience to patches, etc and I think the author did a pretty fair job at evaluating these. But to me, it comes down to two things. First, Maru's inability to conquer the World Championship. Yes, he accomplished phenomenal feats in GSL, StarLeague and the other grand Korean Tournaments, but he never delivered when it everyone from around the world gathered. Second, the peak dominance. Serral's stats are simply nuts... his win rates, tournament wins and the time in which he did it (only 6 years) is absolutely terrifying and excels EVERY OTHER player on this list in EVERY aspect. And it is not like Serral never played the top contenders from the past. Zest, Innovation, stats, Trap, Cure, Solar, Dark, herO, Maru, Byun are all names that were also active in the peak era of 2013-2015 and that Serral faced multiple times. Plus there are players like Clem, Reynor, MaxPax that older players haven't faced so the argument goes both ways.
Anyways, these are my two cents on this issue.
Thanks for taking the time to provide additional stats!
It’s safe to say that the majority of the people do have Serral as the Goat. OP is just making his own case for Maru (which is fine) even though there are lots of inconsistencies in his approach like you mentioned.
Personally to me, Maru was never the best player in any era that he played. MVP was better in WOL, Life and innovations achievements trumps Maru during the so called “hardest era of sc2”. Sure Maru won a SSL but that’s hardly newsworthy compare to his peers. Even Dear and Classic won GSL during that period. Lots of his peers has a better resume than Maru by the end of HOTS. LOTV era was basically all Serral and Rogue
Now the only thing that Maru has is that he competed in “pro league”, but if you look at his record. It’s not that impressive at all. Again this is my own opinion, I really don’t value pro league high at all since it’s already proven to be a “match fixed league” (due to the convicted parties). Who knows which games are legit or not so I basically toss any result from that league out the window. Similar to how ppl want to say WCS doesn’t mean anything since Koreans were locked out from competing in it
It’s doesn’t matter how much data and prove you provide to either the diehard fans of Maru and Serral. Nothing will change their goat opinion since it’s already cemented.
You make it sound like the GSLs Dear and Classic won were any different to the OSL Maru won
"Even Dear and Classic won GSL during that period."
"Lots of his peers has a better resume than Maru by the end of HOTS."
I'm pretty sure these 2 sentences are not referring to the same players. He mentioned Innovation and Life as having better achievements than Maru during HotS. He's exactly saying that because even players like Dear and Classic won GSL, Maru winning an OSL isn't that special.
Thank you for clarifying my statements
Maru OSL isn’t that special, it’s just annoying when their fans try to pump that title up. It holds the same weight as any other GSL that was won during that period aka Classic and Dears. It’s safe to say you can put 5-8 players having bettter resume than Maru during HoTS
On March 23 2024 02:59 Mmakorea wrote: Finally finished reading all 10 articles. Fun list even though there are lots of questionable choices
Not sure why all the heated debates are going on. At the end of the day it’s ONE person’s opinion (even though it’s in the minority)
His opinion literally holds the same weight as someone who make their own list and say Zest is the goat
Just have fun with it.
Thanks OP for taking the time to write these article and help kill some down time
One can argue over inconsistencies in regards to the criteria within the logic the writer used. For example: a. When you say at one time that it was a super close call between Serral and Maru how - at the same time - can you say that IEM 2024 would not make a difference? Or put differently: How many more tournaments, in which both players are active, need to be played to tilt the scale in Serral's favor if IEM was not enough, but both are supposedly close in the GOAT debate? b. Then there is the argumentation of longevity versus peak performance. In MVP's article it is described that he placed above Innovation because he was so dominant, even if not for long. On the contrary in Maru's article, it is stated that Serral has higher peak performances but Maru is hailed for his "otherworldly longevity". If you want to stay consistent, you have to choose between one, but cannot switch based on the player you like better, as it seems to be the case here. Defining criteria is fine... but you have to stick to them, otherwise the whole endeavor is arbitrary.
But I agree. It is one person's opinion. But that doesn't stop me from voicing mine either And I think the author raises valid points for Maru's GOAT status, don't get me wrong. It was also nice to dwell in nostalgia while reading through the well written essays. But it is also the case that one's reasoning when establishing such a list should be on point, otherwise the scent of arbitrary metrics is too strong.
I, for example, looked at the following metrics to have people as GOAT contenders and only one of them had to be achieved to play a role in my further analysis: 1. Minimum 4 years of having a an over 60% win rate versus top Korean players (to accommodate for longevity) 2. Having won at least 10 Premier Tournaments (Also longevity but also the skill to persist and win) 3. Having at least won 2 World Championships (As the highest peak where the best of the world congregate) These metrics can be fulfilled by every player who plays a role internationally and they were the entrance point to my evaluation.
I further looked (only against top Korean competition to prevent people from claiming that non Koreans had it easier) at longest winning streaks, peak win rates, amount of peak win rates, win records of top contenders versus top Koreans and versus each other. These win rates/streaks were adjusted (meaning I took the win rates versus Koreans and added the respective player's win rate versus Serral, as he was also compared to everyone else) to include the only non Korean player in the list, which is Serral. And the evaluation of the raw data was pretty obvious. By any standard metric that can be applied to every player who plays internationally, Serral is the best.
- He is one of two players to achieve the Triple Crown twice (Only MVP achieved the same) - He has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant - In three out of these years (2018, 2020, 2023) he achieved an over 85% (!!) match win rate vs Koreans. No other player ever came over 79%. Maru is 2nd at 78%, Serral 3rd at 76,76% and herO fourth with 74%. The win rates of Serral outperform those of Flash in his most dominant years. - In 2023 his game win rate is 73,24% making him the only player to ever break the 70% game win rate barrier... 2nd closest is Serral with 69,86% and Maru 3rd with 69,44%. - Serral holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place also Serral with 18 consecutive wins from 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - Serral, among two others, won the most World Championships - Serral has the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and he achieved this in 6 years, whereas it took Maru 10 years to accumulate 15, although GSL is 3 times per year.
But the most amazing feat I encountered while analyzing the data: - Serral has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved. This stat is absolutely incredible and I cannot emphasize how much Serral distances the competition. But here are his stats versus the other contenders and other respected players:
vs Maru: 14:4:2 vs Dark: 9:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0 vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
Now there are softer things that need consideration like eras, competition, impact, resilience to patches, etc and I think the author did a pretty fair job at evaluating these. But to me, it comes down to two things. First, Maru's inability to conquer the World Championship. Yes, he accomplished phenomenal feats in GSL, StarLeague and the other grand Korean Tournaments, but he never delivered when it everyone from around the world gathered. Second, the peak dominance. Serral's stats are simply nuts... his win rates, tournament wins and the time in which he did it (only 6 years) is absolutely terrifying and excels EVERY OTHER player on this list in EVERY aspect. And it is not like Serral never played the top contenders from the past. Zest, Innovation, stats, Trap, Cure, Solar, Dark, herO, Maru, Byun are all names that were also active in the peak era of 2013-2015 and that Serral faced multiple times. Plus there are players like Clem, Reynor, MaxPax that older players haven't faced so the argument goes both ways.
Anyways, these are my two cents on this issue.
Thanks for taking the time to provide additional stats!
It’s safe to say that the majority of the people do have Serral as the Goat. OP is just making his own case for Maru (which is fine) even though there are lots of inconsistencies in his approach like you mentioned.
Personally to me, Maru was never the best player in any era that he played. MVP was better in WOL, Life and innovations achievements trumps Maru during the so called “hardest era of sc2”. Sure Maru won a SSL but that’s hardly newsworthy compare to his peers. Even Dear and Classic won GSL during that period. Lots of his peers has a better resume than Maru by the end of HOTS. LOTV era was basically all Serral and Rogue
Now the only thing that Maru has is that he competed in “pro league”, but if you look at his record. It’s not that impressive at all. Again this is my own opinion, I really don’t value pro league high at all since it’s already proven to be a “match fixed league” (due to the convicted parties). Who knows which games are legit or not so I basically toss any result from that league out the window. Similar to how ppl want to say WCS doesn’t mean anything since Koreans were locked out from competing in it
It’s doesn’t matter how much data and prove you provide to either the diehard fans of Maru and Serral. Nothing will change their goat opinion since it’s already cemented.
You make it sound like the GSLs Dear and Classic won were any different to the OSL Maru won
"Even Dear and Classic won GSL during that period."
"Lots of his peers has a better resume than Maru by the end of HOTS."
I'm pretty sure these 2 sentences are not referring to the same players. He mentioned Innovation and Life as having better achievements than Maru during HotS. He's exactly saying that because even players like Dear and Classic won GSL, Maru winning an OSL isn't that special.
Yea man even Dear and classic those scrubs could win a gsl where one of them had one of the highest protoss peaks we've known until then and the other is one of the most overlooked protosses with actually really good achievements and surely a case for the upper echelons of protoss players.
I think you're misinterpreting and taking things a bit out of context xD I didn't say or imply any of that, look at the comment I was clarifying. It wasn't about whether Dear/Classic has or doesn't have better achievements than Maru. It was simply that Mmakorea was saying Maru's OSL wasn't more special than others' KIL wins.
On March 23 2024 02:59 Mmakorea wrote: Finally finished reading all 10 articles. Fun list even though there are lots of questionable choices
Not sure why all the heated debates are going on. At the end of the day it’s ONE person’s opinion (even though it’s in the minority)
His opinion literally holds the same weight as someone who make their own list and say Zest is the goat
Just have fun with it.
Thanks OP for taking the time to write these article and help kill some down time
One can argue over inconsistencies in regards to the criteria within the logic the writer used. For example: a. When you say at one time that it was a super close call between Serral and Maru how - at the same time - can you say that IEM 2024 would not make a difference? Or put differently: How many more tournaments, in which both players are active, need to be played to tilt the scale in Serral's favor if IEM was not enough, but both are supposedly close in the GOAT debate? b. Then there is the argumentation of longevity versus peak performance. In MVP's article it is described that he placed above Innovation because he was so dominant, even if not for long. On the contrary in Maru's article, it is stated that Serral has higher peak performances but Maru is hailed for his "otherworldly longevity". If you want to stay consistent, you have to choose between one, but cannot switch based on the player you like better, as it seems to be the case here. Defining criteria is fine... but you have to stick to them, otherwise the whole endeavor is arbitrary.
But I agree. It is one person's opinion. But that doesn't stop me from voicing mine either And I think the author raises valid points for Maru's GOAT status, don't get me wrong. It was also nice to dwell in nostalgia while reading through the well written essays. But it is also the case that one's reasoning when establishing such a list should be on point, otherwise the scent of arbitrary metrics is too strong.
I, for example, looked at the following metrics to have people as GOAT contenders and only one of them had to be achieved to play a role in my further analysis: 1. Minimum 4 years of having a an over 60% win rate versus top Korean players (to accommodate for longevity) 2. Having won at least 10 Premier Tournaments (Also longevity but also the skill to persist and win) 3. Having at least won 2 World Championships (As the highest peak where the best of the world congregate) These metrics can be fulfilled by every player who plays a role internationally and they were the entrance point to my evaluation.
I further looked (only against top Korean competition to prevent people from claiming that non Koreans had it easier) at longest winning streaks, peak win rates, amount of peak win rates, win records of top contenders versus top Koreans and versus each other. These win rates/streaks were adjusted (meaning I took the win rates versus Koreans and added the respective player's win rate versus Serral, as he was also compared to everyone else) to include the only non Korean player in the list, which is Serral. And the evaluation of the raw data was pretty obvious. By any standard metric that can be applied to every player who plays internationally, Serral is the best.
- He is one of two players to achieve the Triple Crown twice (Only MVP achieved the same) - He has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant - In three out of these years (2018, 2020, 2023) he achieved an over 85% (!!) match win rate vs Koreans. No other player ever came over 79%. Maru is 2nd at 78%, Serral 3rd at 76,76% and herO fourth with 74%. The win rates of Serral outperform those of Flash in his most dominant years. - In 2023 his game win rate is 73,24% making him the only player to ever break the 70% game win rate barrier... 2nd closest is Serral with 69,86% and Maru 3rd with 69,44%. - Serral holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place also Serral with 18 consecutive wins from 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - Serral, among two others, won the most World Championships - Serral has the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and he achieved this in 6 years, whereas it took Maru 10 years to accumulate 15, although GSL is 3 times per year.
But the most amazing feat I encountered while analyzing the data: - Serral has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved. This stat is absolutely incredible and I cannot emphasize how much Serral distances the competition. But here are his stats versus the other contenders and other respected players:
vs Maru: 14:4:2 vs Dark: 9:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0 vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
Now there are softer things that need consideration like eras, competition, impact, resilience to patches, etc and I think the author did a pretty fair job at evaluating these. But to me, it comes down to two things. First, Maru's inability to conquer the World Championship. Yes, he accomplished phenomenal feats in GSL, StarLeague and the other grand Korean Tournaments, but he never delivered when it everyone from around the world gathered. Second, the peak dominance. Serral's stats are simply nuts... his win rates, tournament wins and the time in which he did it (only 6 years) is absolutely terrifying and excels EVERY OTHER player on this list in EVERY aspect. And it is not like Serral never played the top contenders from the past. Zest, Innovation, stats, Trap, Cure, Solar, Dark, herO, Maru, Byun are all names that were also active in the peak era of 2013-2015 and that Serral faced multiple times. Plus there are players like Clem, Reynor, MaxPax that older players haven't faced so the argument goes both ways.
Anyways, these are my two cents on this issue.
Thank you for that. I have enphazied Serral's head 2 head win vs ALL in other posts. Its absurd.
The only thing Maru has against Serral is basically having won 2 premiers in Korean soil prior to 2017.
All the 7 GSLs simply dont count, cus Serral wanst there (when comparing just the 2 of them).
You just cant say that Maru is greater in SCII than Serral, you just cant.
Serrral graduated from School in june 2017... We know what came after.
Completely agree. The sheer dominance of Serral's statistics doesn't even only put him only at first place in many metrics. For example he occupies 5 of the 13 StarCraft II years in win rates versus top Korean players (2018, 2019, 2020 and 2023) and all of them are as well the 5 highest win rates EVER achieved.
I also never understood this whole "Serral never won GSL"-argument. Yes, we cannot know if Serral could have won a GSL for sure, it is a mere hypothetical according to his insane match win rates of sometimes over 85% versus the top Koreans. But what we know for a fact is, that Maru never won the World Championship despite trying several times. In my opinion it is crystal-clear that Serral would have easily conquered GSL and at the same time taken away trophies from other players who could now sport them. Or simply imagine Serral's dominance if he had the Korean infrastructure support. Team Houses, prize money, etc... How anyone is able to call someone other than him GOAT is simply not understandable for me. You can make fair points for many people, but Serral has it all: Longevity, peak performance, having played many of the best of the peak era, World Championship titles, Premier Tournaments titles with top Korean participation, win rates, winning streaks and all of that, DESPITE being non Korean.. there is literally nothing he lacks in comparison to other players.
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
Agreed, people say GSL isn't what it used to be and use that against Maru - while the statement is true now, back in '18-'19 the top Koreans (many of whom in the top 10 GOAT list) were very much still active. Rogue, Dark, Innovation, Classic, Zest, TY... were all chamionship level players back then. Maru's 4-peat then has been the most impressive accomplishment IMO of any SC2 player, particularly because Terran overall did not have an edge.
I've been watching some old games and plan to post a small collection of Maru games at some point. Two things come to mind during viewing: 1) I suffer from recency bias just like everyone else and have forgotten how good the old players were. Watch a game from '13 or '14, and it becomes obvious to me that the players were as good as those today. Current players have better adapted to the tools they have available now, but on a level playing field they are not necessarily *better*. There was also so much depth - plenty of talent among RO32 players. 2) Maru was lightning fast and has definitely slowed down in recent years. This is as expected as he ages, especially for Terran who bears a heavier burden when it comes to mechanics. But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
On March 23 2024 02:59 Mmakorea wrote: Finally finished reading all 10 articles. Fun list even though there are lots of questionable choices
Not sure why all the heated debates are going on. At the end of the day it’s ONE person’s opinion (even though it’s in the minority)
His opinion literally holds the same weight as someone who make their own list and say Zest is the goat
Just have fun with it.
Thanks OP for taking the time to write these article and help kill some down time
One can argue over inconsistencies in regards to the criteria within the logic the writer used. For example: a. When you say at one time that it was a super close call between Serral and Maru how - at the same time - can you say that IEM 2024 would not make a difference? Or put differently: How many more tournaments, in which both players are active, need to be played to tilt the scale in Serral's favor if IEM was not enough, but both are supposedly close in the GOAT debate? b. Then there is the argumentation of longevity versus peak performance. In MVP's article it is described that he placed above Innovation because he was so dominant, even if not for long. On the contrary in Maru's article, it is stated that Serral has higher peak performances but Maru is hailed for his "otherworldly longevity". If you want to stay consistent, you have to choose between one, but cannot switch based on the player you like better, as it seems to be the case here. Defining criteria is fine... but you have to stick to them, otherwise the whole endeavor is arbitrary.
But I agree. It is one person's opinion. But that doesn't stop me from voicing mine either And I think the author raises valid points for Maru's GOAT status, don't get me wrong. It was also nice to dwell in nostalgia while reading through the well written essays. But it is also the case that one's reasoning when establishing such a list should be on point, otherwise the scent of arbitrary metrics is too strong.
I, for example, looked at the following metrics to have people as GOAT contenders and only one of them had to be achieved to play a role in my further analysis: 1. Minimum 4 years of having a an over 60% win rate versus top Korean players (to accommodate for longevity) 2. Having won at least 10 Premier Tournaments (Also longevity but also the skill to persist and win) 3. Having at least won 2 World Championships (As the highest peak where the best of the world congregate) These metrics can be fulfilled by every player who plays a role internationally and they were the entrance point to my evaluation.
I further looked (only against top Korean competition to prevent people from claiming that non Koreans had it easier) at longest winning streaks, peak win rates, amount of peak win rates, win records of top contenders versus top Koreans and versus each other. These win rates/streaks were adjusted (meaning I took the win rates versus Koreans and added the respective player's win rate versus Serral, as he was also compared to everyone else) to include the only non Korean player in the list, which is Serral. And the evaluation of the raw data was pretty obvious. By any standard metric that can be applied to every player who plays internationally, Serral is the best.
- He is one of two players to achieve the Triple Crown twice (Only MVP achieved the same) - He has the highest win rate vs top Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023) - by far the most dominant - In three out of these years (2018, 2020, 2023) he achieved an over 85% (!!) match win rate vs Koreans. No other player ever came over 79%. Maru is 2nd at 78%, Serral 3rd at 76,76% and herO fourth with 74%. The win rates of Serral outperform those of Flash in his most dominant years. - In 2023 his game win rate is 73,24% making him the only player to ever break the 70% game win rate barrier... 2nd closest is Serral with 69,86% and Maru 3rd with 69,44%. - Serral holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins 17th of May 2023 till 3rd of August 2023; 2nd place also Serral with 18 consecutive wins from 4th of August 2018 till 1st of May 2019) - Serral, among two others, won the most World Championships - Serral has the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (16) and he achieved this in 6 years, whereas it took Maru 10 years to accumulate 15, although GSL is 3 times per year.
But the most amazing feat I encountered while analyzing the data: - Serral has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved. This stat is absolutely incredible and I cannot emphasize how much Serral distances the competition. But here are his stats versus the other contenders and other respected players:
vs Maru: 14:4:2 vs Dark: 9:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:6:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0 vs Reynor: 31:16:0 vs MaxPax: 18:4:0 vs Heromarine: 26:4:0
Now there are softer things that need consideration like eras, competition, impact, resilience to patches, etc and I think the author did a pretty fair job at evaluating these. But to me, it comes down to two things. First, Maru's inability to conquer the World Championship. Yes, he accomplished phenomenal feats in GSL, StarLeague and the other grand Korean Tournaments, but he never delivered when it everyone from around the world gathered. Second, the peak dominance. Serral's stats are simply nuts... his win rates, tournament wins and the time in which he did it (only 6 years) is absolutely terrifying and excels EVERY OTHER player on this list in EVERY aspect. And it is not like Serral never played the top contenders from the past. Zest, Innovation, stats, Trap, Cure, Solar, Dark, herO, Maru, Byun are all names that were also active in the peak era of 2013-2015 and that Serral faced multiple times. Plus there are players like Clem, Reynor, MaxPax that older players haven't faced so the argument goes both ways.
Anyways, these are my two cents on this issue.
Thank you for that. I have enphazied Serral's head 2 head win vs ALL in other posts. Its absurd.
The only thing Maru has against Serral is basically having won 2 premiers in Korean soil prior to 2017.
All the 7 GSLs simply dont count, cus Serral wanst there (when comparing just the 2 of them).
You just cant say that Maru is greater in SCII than Serral, you just cant.
Serrral graduated from School in june 2017... We know what came after.
Completely agree. The sheer dominance of Serral's statistics doesn't even only put him only at first place in many metrics. For example he occupies 5 of the 13 StarCraft II years in win rates versus top Korean players (2018, 2019, 2020 and 2023) and all of them are as well the 5 highest win rates EVER achieved.
I also never understood this whole "Serral never won GSL"-argument. Yes, we cannot know if Serral could have won a GSL for sure, it is a mere hypothetical according to his insane match win rates of sometimes over 85% versus the top Koreans. But what we know for a fact is, that Maru never won the World Championship despite trying several times. In my opinion it is crystal-clear that Serral would have easily conquered GSL and at the same time taken away trophies from other players who could now sport them. Or simply imagine Serral's dominance if he had the Korean infrastructure support. Team Houses, prize money, etc... How anyone is able to call someone other than him GOAT is simply not understandable for me. You can make fair points for many people, but Serral has it all: Longevity, peak performance, having played many of the best of the peak era, World Championship titles, Premier Tournaments titles with top Korean participation, win rates, winning streaks and all of that, DESPITE being non Korean.. there is literally nothing he lacks in comparison to other players.
The elephant in the room is just the competiveness of the scene. I know foreign casters don't want to acknowledge that because their job is to hype up the current scene but I think it's ridicolous to pretend that winning a tournament/dominating in 2024 when there are maybe 30 fulltime players and 5 championship contenders left and the majority of fellow Goat contenders are retired (Maru and Serral are the only ones left out of this top 10 list) is the same as when there were 150 fulltime players, 15 championship contenders left and they are practicing in teamhouses with coaches and analysts.
I saw a post on reddit that I resonated with (doesn't happen often, I know) that said the last great player was always bound to have the longest/most dominant run because he has to deal with the least amount of new talent, balance shakeups via patches and the competition would slowly fade out.
So yes, by the pure numbers Serral would probably be the undisputed Goat but I don't think you can ignore the circumstances when they are so blatantly in his favor compared to the other Goat contenders
To all the math wizards out there, it seems there's one analysis missing (or at least I haven't come across it yet, although I have seen a condensed version of expected finals appearances). Perhaps one of you would like to take on this challenge?
Here's the TL;DR:
Given a certain winning probability, is it theoretically possible to never win a GSL based on mathematical probability calculations?
Explanation: While there's a non-zero chance one could win the lottery ten times in a row, it's so incredibly slim that, for practical purposes, we consider it zero. So, if we consider Serral's win rate against Korean pros and the tournament format requiring a certain number of wins in each round, we can calculate a figure that might be insightful and settle the argument of "not having won a GSL."
Assumptions can be made about whether Serral's winning probability would increase or decrease if he were to compete in the GSL. One might argue it would decrease due to adjusting to a new living environment or opponents specifically training to counter him. Conversely, it could be argued it would increase because Serral might dedicate more time to training. Thus, by averaging these scenarios along with his win rate against Korean players, the expected number of ZvZ matches, and so forth, there's room for a statistical analysis.
By the way, big thanks to Mizenhauer for your hard work and the excellent reads. Premobeats and imData, thank you for your insightful analyses and crazy statistics too! Cheers, guys!
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
It's from back like 10 years ago when Terran was hardly present in GSL yet Maru would continue to put up decent performances.
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
That just says you have not been around at the peak of Korean SC2, because it was born around then since Maru's TvP ability on those ridiculous map pools really did not look like a TvP.
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
thanks. I was very active all of 2014 and 2015 and had never heard anyone call him that. Maybe just in the foreign scene we never called him that.
It's kind of weird though. Back in those days innovation was regarded as the best terran player. A large part of the reason why Terrans didn't place for a bit in 2014 might be because MMA, Polt, Taeja, Bomber, and Jjakji were all competing abroad.
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
well specifically for creativity, it's just a ripoff of moon's nickname in wc3, The Fifth Race (He did a lot to earn the nickname - which is surprising anyone would call maru the 4th race in 2014)
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
Worse sure, but I gotta disagree with "less creative". Ripping off Moon's moniker is not creative.
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
"The Night King" is fitting, creative and actually lines up with previous famous nicknames like "The Emperor" (BoxeR), "The Tyrant" (Jaedong) or simply "God" (Flash). Though sure, no one will ever be able to beat "The Creator Of All Things" (NesTea). "The Fourth Race" is just a poor switch-up from Moon, who actually deserved his nickname "The Fifth Race" because of the way he played his certainly not weak race in WC3.
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
"The Night King" is fitting, creative and actually lines up with previous famous nicknames like "The Emperor" (BoxeR), "The Tyrant" (Jaedong) or simply "God" (Flash). Though sure, no one will ever be able to beat "The Creator Of All Things" (NesTea). "The Fourth Race" is just a poor switch-up from Moon, who actually deserved his nickname "The Fifth Race" because of the way he played his certainly not weak race in WC3.
By the same logic, the night king was stolen from a character on a tv show which isn't even in the books. Garbo nickname.
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
"The Night King" is fitting, creative and actually lines up with previous famous nicknames like "The Emperor" (BoxeR), "The Tyrant" (Jaedong) or simply "God" (Flash). Though sure, no one will ever be able to beat "The Creator Of All Things" (NesTea). "The Fourth Race" is just a poor switch-up from Moon, who actually deserved his nickname "The Fifth Race" because of the way he played his certainly not weak race in WC3.
By the same logic, the night king was stolen from a character on a tv show which isn't even in the books. Garbo nickname.
It wasn't? What did they call the main White Walker in the book? ...is there even a "main White Walker"? Anyway.
Of course you can re-use nicknames, especially over different games. It just feels like there is such a big discrepancy between Moon and Maru when it comes to how fitting the name is. I will admit though: I am right now extremly pissed that Maru isn't Protoss. "Marude Psistorm" would have been such a great nickname...
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
"The Night King" is fitting, creative and actually lines up with previous famous nicknames like "The Emperor" (BoxeR), "The Tyrant" (Jaedong) or simply "God" (Flash). Though sure, no one will ever be able to beat "The Creator Of All Things" (NesTea). "The Fourth Race" is just a poor switch-up from Moon, who actually deserved his nickname "The Fifth Race" because of the way he played his certainly not weak race in WC3.
By the same logic, the night king was stolen from a character on a tv show which isn't even in the books. Garbo nickname.
It wasn't? What did they call the main White Walker in the book? ...is there even a "main White Walker"? Anyway.
Of course you can re-use nicknames, especially over different games. It just feels like there is such a big discrepancy between Moon and Maru when it comes to how fitting the name is. I will admit though: I am right now extremly pissed that Maru isn't Protoss. "Marude Psistorm" would have been such a great nickname...
No main white walker and the term white walker is rarely used in the books compared to their more common name "the Others".
From the wiki: "There are notable differences between the Others in the novels and HBO's television adaptation, Game of Thrones. In the television adaptation, the Others are known only as White Walkers."
The easiest way to explain Maru's situation in 2014 is to read this article which covers his 2014 campaign.
"Terrans won a mere 42 games during the first two seasons of Code S, with Maru responsible for over half of them at 23 (in terms of matches, he won nine out of Terran's sixteen)."
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
"The Night King" is fitting, creative and actually lines up with previous famous nicknames like "The Emperor" (BoxeR), "The Tyrant" (Jaedong) or simply "God" (Flash). Though sure, no one will ever be able to beat "The Creator Of All Things" (NesTea). "The Fourth Race" is just a poor switch-up from Moon, who actually deserved his nickname "The Fifth Race" because of the way he played his certainly not weak race in WC3.
By the same logic, the night king was stolen from a character on a tv show which isn't even in the books. Garbo nickname.
It wasn't? What did they call the main White Walker in the book? ...is there even a "main White Walker"? Anyway.
Of course you can re-use nicknames, especially over different games. It just feels like there is such a big discrepancy between Moon and Maru when it comes to how fitting the name is. I will admit though: I am right now extremly pissed that Maru isn't Protoss. "Marude Psistorm" would have been such a great nickname...
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
"The Night King" is fitting, creative and actually lines up with previous famous nicknames like "The Emperor" (BoxeR), "The Tyrant" (Jaedong) or simply "God" (Flash). Though sure, no one will ever be able to beat "The Creator Of All Things" (NesTea). "The Fourth Race" is just a poor switch-up from Moon, who actually deserved his nickname "The Fifth Race" because of the way he played his certainly not weak race in WC3.
By the same logic, the night king was stolen from a character on a tv show which isn't even in the books. Garbo nickname.
It wasn't? What did they call the main White Walker in the book? ...is there even a "main White Walker"? Anyway.
Of course you can re-use nicknames, especially over different games. It just feels like there is such a big discrepancy between Moon and Maru when it comes to how fitting the name is. I will admit though: I am right now extremly pissed that Maru isn't Protoss. "Marude Psistorm" would have been such a great nickname...
The easiest way to explain Maru's situation in 2014 is to read this article which covers his 2014 campaign.
"Terrans won a mere 42 games during the first two seasons of Code S, with Maru responsible for over half of them at 23 (in terms of matches, he won nine out of Terran's sixteen)."
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
"The Night King" is fitting, creative and actually lines up with previous famous nicknames like "The Emperor" (BoxeR), "The Tyrant" (Jaedong) or simply "God" (Flash). Though sure, no one will ever be able to beat "The Creator Of All Things" (NesTea). "The Fourth Race" is just a poor switch-up from Moon, who actually deserved his nickname "The Fifth Race" because of the way he played his certainly not weak race in WC3.
By the same logic, the night king was stolen from a character on a tv show which isn't even in the books. Garbo nickname.
It wasn't? What did they call the main White Walker in the book? ...is there even a "main White Walker"? Anyway.
Of course you can re-use nicknames, especially over different games. It just feels like there is such a big discrepancy between Moon and Maru when it comes to how fitting the name is. I will admit though: I am right now extremly pissed that Maru isn't Protoss. "Marude Psistorm" would have been such a great nickname...
No main white walker and the term white walker is rarely used in the books compared to their more common name "the Others".
From the wiki: "There are notable differences between the Others in the novels and HBO's television adaptation, Game of Thrones. In the television adaptation, the Others are known only as White Walkers."
The easiest way to explain Maru's situation in 2014 is to read this article which covers his 2014 campaign.
"Terrans won a mere 42 games during the first two seasons of Code S, with Maru responsible for over half of them at 23 (in terms of matches, he won nine out of Terran's sixteen)."
Like I said though, it's a bit lopsided because the only other competitive terran in the region at the time was innovation and he was going through one of his slumps at the start of 2014. At the WCG 2014 blizzcon global finals there are 6 terrans, 6 protoss, 4 zerg. Two terrans in the top4. Both not playing in GSL. The best terrans in the world are missing in GSL to some degree in 2014. (Taeja, Bomber, Polt, MMA.)
IEM Katowice 2014 has 3 terrans in the top8, 2 terrans in the top4. All of them not from the KR Region.
Both Dreamhack winter and summer are won by terrans, all not from the kr region.
And innovation wins gsl season 3 in 2014 after he awakens from his slumber. Nobody even thought of maru as the best terran in 2014, let alone being worthy of the nickname the fourth race.
In the TL.net awards for best korean terrans in 2014, maru isn't even mentioned. Taeja wins it, innovation, bomber, polt and forgg are mentioned too, and rightfully so.
On March 23 2024 16:32 goldensail wrote: [quote] But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
"The Night King" is fitting, creative and actually lines up with previous famous nicknames like "The Emperor" (BoxeR), "The Tyrant" (Jaedong) or simply "God" (Flash). Though sure, no one will ever be able to beat "The Creator Of All Things" (NesTea). "The Fourth Race" is just a poor switch-up from Moon, who actually deserved his nickname "The Fifth Race" because of the way he played his certainly not weak race in WC3.
By the same logic, the night king was stolen from a character on a tv show which isn't even in the books. Garbo nickname.
It wasn't? What did they call the main White Walker in the book? ...is there even a "main White Walker"? Anyway.
Of course you can re-use nicknames, especially over different games. It just feels like there is such a big discrepancy between Moon and Maru when it comes to how fitting the name is. I will admit though: I am right now extremly pissed that Maru isn't Protoss. "Marude Psistorm" would have been such a great nickname...
No main white walker and the term white walker is rarely used in the books compared to their more common name "the Others".
From the wiki: "There are notable differences between the Others in the novels and HBO's television adaptation, Game of Thrones. In the television adaptation, the Others are known only as White Walkers."
The easiest way to explain Maru's situation in 2014 is to read this article which covers his 2014 campaign.
"Terrans won a mere 42 games during the first two seasons of Code S, with Maru responsible for over half of them at 23 (in terms of matches, he won nine out of Terran's sixteen)."
Like I said though, it's a bit lopsided because the only other competitive terran in the region at the time was innovation and he was going through one of his slumps at the start of 2014. At the WCG 2014 blizzcon global finals there are 6 terrans, 6 protoss, 4 zerg. Two terrans in the top4. Both not playing in GSL. The best terrans in the world are missing in GSL to some degree in 2014. (Taeja, Bomber, Polt, MMA.)
IEM Katowice 2014 has 3 terrans in the top8, 2 terrans in the top4. All of them not from the KR Region.
Both Dreamhack winter and summer are won by terrans, all not from the kr region.
And innovation wins gsl season 3 in 2014 after he awakens from his slumber. Nobody even thought of maru as the best terran in 2014, let alone being worthy of the nickname the fourth race.
In the TL.net awards for best korean terrans in 2014, maru isn't even mentioned. Taeja wins it, innovation, bomber, polt and forgg are mentioned too, and rightfully so.
The notion that there just weren't any good terran is bullshit, the representation was a direct result of patches. Also Inno won season 3 after terran was buffed.
TaeJa missing is a valid point but Polt, Bomber and MMA weren't necessarily better than Flash, Bbbyong, Gumiho, Cure, TY, Dream, they were just competing in an easier region
Nobody even thought of maru as the best terran in 2014, let alone being worthy of the nickname the fourth race.
On March 23 2024 16:32 goldensail wrote: [quote] But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
"The Night King" is fitting, creative and actually lines up with previous famous nicknames like "The Emperor" (BoxeR), "The Tyrant" (Jaedong) or simply "God" (Flash). Though sure, no one will ever be able to beat "The Creator Of All Things" (NesTea). "The Fourth Race" is just a poor switch-up from Moon, who actually deserved his nickname "The Fifth Race" because of the way he played his certainly not weak race in WC3.
By the same logic, the night king was stolen from a character on a tv show which isn't even in the books. Garbo nickname.
It wasn't? What did they call the main White Walker in the book? ...is there even a "main White Walker"? Anyway.
Of course you can re-use nicknames, especially over different games. It just feels like there is such a big discrepancy between Moon and Maru when it comes to how fitting the name is. I will admit though: I am right now extremly pissed that Maru isn't Protoss. "Marude Psistorm" would have been such a great nickname...
The easiest way to explain Maru's situation in 2014 is to read this article which covers his 2014 campaign.
"Terrans won a mere 42 games during the first two seasons of Code S, with Maru responsible for over half of them at 23 (in terms of matches, he won nine out of Terran's sixteen)."
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
"The Night King" is fitting, creative and actually lines up with previous famous nicknames like "The Emperor" (BoxeR), "The Tyrant" (Jaedong) or simply "God" (Flash). Though sure, no one will ever be able to beat "The Creator Of All Things" (NesTea). "The Fourth Race" is just a poor switch-up from Moon, who actually deserved his nickname "The Fifth Race" because of the way he played his certainly not weak race in WC3.
By the same logic, the night king was stolen from a character on a tv show which isn't even in the books. Garbo nickname.
It wasn't? What did they call the main White Walker in the book? ...is there even a "main White Walker"? Anyway.
Of course you can re-use nicknames, especially over different games. It just feels like there is such a big discrepancy between Moon and Maru when it comes to how fitting the name is. I will admit though: I am right now extremly pissed that Maru isn't Protoss. "Marude Psistorm" would have been such a great nickname...
The easiest way to explain Maru's situation in 2014 is to read this article which covers his 2014 campaign.
"Terrans won a mere 42 games during the first two seasons of Code S, with Maru responsible for over half of them at 23 (in terms of matches, he won nine out of Terran's sixteen)."
Wait, that article's from 2019.
And written by you!
I'm not even mad, that's amazing.
Been putting that work in since 2017.
And I am grateful for your work!
But in this case, I was amazed that you were citing yourself as supporting argument .
Nobody even thought of maru as the best terran in 2014, let alone being worthy of the nickname the fourth race.
Yeah, you're just wrong
Yeah no, even the TL.net awards of 2014 agree with me. Some of those terrans you mentioned probably belonged in code s, but if you look at who they lost to, it's not that weird either. Terrans like Polt, MMA, Bomber, Taeja were definitely considered a league above the guys you just mentioned.
Gumiho didnt become a complete player till way later, in lotv. TY, Cure, Dream were all very talented players but didn't reach their later level at all yet in 2014.
Taeja slammed Life to win dreamhack winter 2013 on the same patch that GSL season 1 2014 was played on.
The only patch there was was a widow mine nerf, which then widow mines get a buff again later in the year.
On March 24 2024 02:14 Comedy wrote: Like I said though, it's a bit lopsided because the only other competitive terran in the region at the time was innovation and he was going through one of his slumps at the start of 2014. At the WCG 2014 blizzcon global finals there are 6 terrans, 6 protoss, 4 zerg. Two terrans in the top4. Both not playing in GSL. The best terrans in the world are missing in GSL to some degree in 2014. (Taeja, Bomber, Polt, MMA.)
IEM Katowice 2014 has 3 terrans in the top8, 2 terrans in the top4. All of them not from the KR Region.
Both Dreamhack winter and summer are won by terrans, all not from the kr region.
And innovation wins gsl season 3 in 2014 after he awakens from his slumber. Nobody even thought of maru as the best terran in 2014, let alone being worthy of the nickname the fourth race.
In the TL.net awards for best korean terrans in 2014, maru isn't even mentioned. Taeja wins it, innovation, bomber, polt and forgg are mentioned too, and rightfully so.
I don't usually like to use harsh words, but for someone who claims he's been following the game for a long time but thought I "made up" Maru's famous Fourth Race nickname, you should just stop embarassing yourself.
Here's a video from 2014 GSL S2 where Maru's the only Terran who made it to RO8, after he took out Soulkey in a great series you can hear Artosis referring to him as "the Terran to lead them all" at 15:09. www.youtube.com
Obviously he also took out Innovation 4:0 and won OSL the year before. So Maru was certainly already one of the best Terrans when he was only 16 years old.
Please watch some games from that period before you type a response.
On March 24 2024 02:14 Comedy wrote: Like I said though, it's a bit lopsided because the only other competitive terran in the region at the time was innovation and he was going through one of his slumps at the start of 2014. At the WCG 2014 blizzcon global finals there are 6 terrans, 6 protoss, 4 zerg. Two terrans in the top4. Both not playing in GSL. The best terrans in the world are missing in GSL to some degree in 2014. (Taeja, Bomber, Polt, MMA.)
IEM Katowice 2014 has 3 terrans in the top8, 2 terrans in the top4. All of them not from the KR Region.
Both Dreamhack winter and summer are won by terrans, all not from the kr region.
And innovation wins gsl season 3 in 2014 after he awakens from his slumber. Nobody even thought of maru as the best terran in 2014, let alone being worthy of the nickname the fourth race.
In the TL.net awards for best korean terrans in 2014, maru isn't even mentioned. Taeja wins it, innovation, bomber, polt and forgg are mentioned too, and rightfully so.
I don't usually like to use harsh words, but for someone who claims he's been following the game for a long time but thought I "made up" Maru's famous Fourth Race nickname, you should just stop embarassing yourself.
Here's a video from 2014 GSL S2 where Maru's the only Terran who made it to RO8, after he took out Soulkey in a great series you can hear Artosis referring to him as "the Terran to lead them all" at 15:09. www.youtube.com
Obviously he also took out Innovation 4:0 the year before. So while there was no consensus at the time, Maru was certainly already one of the best Terrans when he was only 16 years old.
Please watch some games from that period before you type a response.
I'm talking about community sentiment. It's entirely possible that people who followed only the korean scene thought of maru as the best terran, but that wasn't exactly the sentiment in the entire scene at the time. Maru was a good terran but he was by no means seperating himself from the other terrans winning tons of tournaments all year around, notably Taeja. The nickname is ridiculous when you compare it to moon and what he did to earn that nickname.
He may have been the leading terran in GSL, but he wasn't the leading terran in the world.
On March 24 2024 02:14 Comedy wrote: Like I said though, it's a bit lopsided because the only other competitive terran in the region at the time was innovation and he was going through one of his slumps at the start of 2014. At the WCG 2014 blizzcon global finals there are 6 terrans, 6 protoss, 4 zerg. Two terrans in the top4. Both not playing in GSL. The best terrans in the world are missing in GSL to some degree in 2014. (Taeja, Bomber, Polt, MMA.)
IEM Katowice 2014 has 3 terrans in the top8, 2 terrans in the top4. All of them not from the KR Region.
Both Dreamhack winter and summer are won by terrans, all not from the kr region.
And innovation wins gsl season 3 in 2014 after he awakens from his slumber. Nobody even thought of maru as the best terran in 2014, let alone being worthy of the nickname the fourth race.
In the TL.net awards for best korean terrans in 2014, maru isn't even mentioned. Taeja wins it, innovation, bomber, polt and forgg are mentioned too, and rightfully so.
I don't usually like to use harsh words, but for someone who claims he's been following the game for a long time but thought I "made up" Maru's famous Fourth Race nickname, you should just stop embarassing yourself.
Here's a video from 2014 GSL S2 where Maru's the only Terran who made it to RO8, after he took out Soulkey in a great series you can hear Artosis referring to him as "the Terran to lead them all" at 15:09. www.youtube.com
Obviously he also took out Innovation 4:0 the year before. So while there was no consensus at the time, Maru was certainly already one of the best Terrans when he was only 16 years old.
Please watch some games from that period before you type a response.
I'm talking about community sentiment. It's entirely possible that people who followed only the korean scene thought of maru as the best terran, but that wasn't exactly the sentiment in the entire scene at the time. Maru was a good terran but he was by no means seperating himself from the other terrans winning tons of tournaments all year around, notably Taeja. The nickname is ridiculous when you compare it to moon and what he did to earn that nickname.
He may have been the leading terran in GSL, but he wasn't the leading terran in the world.
I've been also following the scene for quite a while and I remember this term being used a bunch. So no idea why you didn't. The more I see your points the more I think you're a relatively new spectator because for most of the game's history, and specifically at the germane times for this discussion, gsl was THE tournament to win.
The taeja point is funny considering he wasn't known for winning "all year round." Did you also not hear about the "summer of taeja?"
It's funny that the evidence for Maru being strong in a period of Terran weakness in 2014 is the exact opposite of that same argument in 2018, yet the conclusion remains the same.
On March 24 2024 03:39 Fanatic-Templar wrote: It's funny that the evidence for Maru being strong in a period of Terran weakness in 2014 is the exact opposite of that same argument in 2018, yet the conclusion remains the same.
I mean he was the only terran in the ro8 in the first gsl of 2018
On March 24 2024 03:39 Fanatic-Templar wrote: It's funny that the evidence for Maru being strong in a period of Terran weakness in 2014 is the exact opposite of that same argument in 2018, yet the conclusion remains the same.
I mean he was the only terran in the ro8 in the first gsl of 2018
True, but that's balanced out by Terran doing very well (or alternatively, Zerg doing terrible) in the other two. I've added up the number of players by race in 2018 for any given round of GSL, and Terran is not the least represented in any of them.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
"The Night King" is fitting, creative and actually lines up with previous famous nicknames like "The Emperor" (BoxeR), "The Tyrant" (Jaedong) or simply "God" (Flash). Though sure, no one will ever be able to beat "The Creator Of All Things" (NesTea). "The Fourth Race" is just a poor switch-up from Moon, who actually deserved his nickname "The Fifth Race" because of the way he played his certainly not weak race in WC3.
By the same logic, the night king was stolen from a character on a tv show which isn't even in the books. Garbo nickname.
It wasn't? What did they call the main White Walker in the book? ...is there even a "main White Walker"? Anyway.
Of course you can re-use nicknames, especially over different games. It just feels like there is such a big discrepancy between Moon and Maru when it comes to how fitting the name is. I will admit though: I am right now extremly pissed that Maru isn't Protoss. "Marude Psistorm" would have been such a great nickname...
No main white walker and the term white walker is rarely used in the books compared to their more common name "the Others".
From the wiki: "There are notable differences between the Others in the novels and HBO's television adaptation, Game of Thrones. In the television adaptation, the Others are known only as White Walkers."
The easiest way to explain Maru's situation in 2014 is to read this article which covers his 2014 campaign.
"Terrans won a mere 42 games during the first two seasons of Code S, with Maru responsible for over half of them at 23 (in terms of matches, he won nine out of Terran's sixteen)."
Like I said though, it's a bit lopsided because the only other competitive terran in the region at the time was innovation and he was going through one of his slumps at the start of 2014. At the WCG 2014 blizzcon global finals there are 6 terrans, 6 protoss, 4 zerg. Two terrans in the top4. Both not playing in GSL. The best terrans in the world are missing in GSL to some degree in 2014. (Taeja, Bomber, Polt, MMA.)
IEM Katowice 2014 has 3 terrans in the top8, 2 terrans in the top4. All of them not from the KR Region.
Both Dreamhack winter and summer are won by terrans, all not from the kr region.
And innovation wins gsl season 3 in 2014 after he awakens from his slumber. Nobody even thought of maru as the best terran in 2014, let alone being worthy of the nickname the fourth race.
In the TL.net awards for best korean terrans in 2014, maru isn't even mentioned. Taeja wins it, innovation, bomber, polt and forgg are mentioned too, and rightfully so.
The notion that there just weren't any good terran is bullshit, the representation was a direct result of patches. Also Inno won season 3 after terran was buffed.
TaeJa missing is a valid point but Polt, Bomber and MMA weren't necessarily better than Flash, Bbbyong, Gumiho, Cure, TY, Dream, they were just competing in an easier region
Nobody even thought of maru as the best terran in 2014, let alone being worthy of the nickname the fourth race.
Yeah, you're just wrong
lol this is just pure lie.
Cure was not good at all in 2014. Bbbyong is better than Polt bomber and mma? I know you are a diehard Maru fan but come on now, some of these statement are just pure lie and a disservice to the old terran legends. Bbbyong should not even be mentioned in the same sentence as those guys.
Yes no one mentioned Maru as the best terran in any period of time pre 2018. It’s just a nickname the fanbase use to boost their fav Maru
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
"The Night King" is fitting, creative and actually lines up with previous famous nicknames like "The Emperor" (BoxeR), "The Tyrant" (Jaedong) or simply "God" (Flash). Though sure, no one will ever be able to beat "The Creator Of All Things" (NesTea). "The Fourth Race" is just a poor switch-up from Moon, who actually deserved his nickname "The Fifth Race" because of the way he played his certainly not weak race in WC3.
By the same logic, the night king was stolen from a character on a tv show which isn't even in the books. Garbo nickname.
It wasn't? What did they call the main White Walker in the book? ...is there even a "main White Walker"? Anyway.
Of course you can re-use nicknames, especially over different games. It just feels like there is such a big discrepancy between Moon and Maru when it comes to how fitting the name is. I will admit though: I am right now extremly pissed that Maru isn't Protoss. "Marude Psistorm" would have been such a great nickname...
No main white walker and the term white walker is rarely used in the books compared to their more common name "the Others".
From the wiki: "There are notable differences between the Others in the novels and HBO's television adaptation, Game of Thrones. In the television adaptation, the Others are known only as White Walkers."
The easiest way to explain Maru's situation in 2014 is to read this article which covers his 2014 campaign.
"Terrans won a mere 42 games during the first two seasons of Code S, with Maru responsible for over half of them at 23 (in terms of matches, he won nine out of Terran's sixteen)."
Like I said though, it's a bit lopsided because the only other competitive terran in the region at the time was innovation and he was going through one of his slumps at the start of 2014. At the WCG 2014 blizzcon global finals there are 6 terrans, 6 protoss, 4 zerg. Two terrans in the top4. Both not playing in GSL. The best terrans in the world are missing in GSL to some degree in 2014. (Taeja, Bomber, Polt, MMA.)
IEM Katowice 2014 has 3 terrans in the top8, 2 terrans in the top4. All of them not from the KR Region.
Both Dreamhack winter and summer are won by terrans, all not from the kr region.
And innovation wins gsl season 3 in 2014 after he awakens from his slumber. Nobody even thought of maru as the best terran in 2014, let alone being worthy of the nickname the fourth race.
In the TL.net awards for best korean terrans in 2014, maru isn't even mentioned. Taeja wins it, innovation, bomber, polt and forgg are mentioned too, and rightfully so.
The notion that there just weren't any good terran is bullshit, the representation was a direct result of patches. Also Inno won season 3 after terran was buffed.
TaeJa missing is a valid point but Polt, Bomber and MMA weren't necessarily better than Flash, Bbbyong, Gumiho, Cure, TY, Dream, they were just competing in an easier region
Nobody even thought of maru as the best terran in 2014, let alone being worthy of the nickname the fourth race.
Yeah, you're just wrong
lol this is just pure lie.
Cure was not good at all in 2014. Bbbyong is better than Polt bomber and mma? I know you are a diehard Maru fan but come on now, some of these statement are just pure lie and a disservice to the old terran legends. Bbbyong should not even be mentioned in the same sentence as those guys.
Yes no one mentioned Maru as the best terran in any period of time pre 2018. It’s just a nickname the fanbase use to boost their fav Maru
People sleep on Bomber a bit, in 2013 he made a top 4 in OSL, won the subsequent WCS Season Finals and made the top 4 in that year's Blizzcon.
He was still a very strong player I think a little longer than people realise. Innovation did it very quickly, or a Rain but it actually took quite some time for the Kespa field overall to equal/surpass the field of top players from the time they transitioned, and not everyone did.
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
I second the opinion that Serral's nickname absolutely sucks. I died a little inside every time I heard "The Finnisher"
Chinese sc2 fans had a fantastic nickname for Serral tho: "The Overmind". Because they think Serral's scouting, control and multitasking are so good it feels like he's just directly controlling every Zerg units with shared hivemind like the Overmind itself.
Every time Serral got defeated and comeback stronger, they joke that the Overmind was just temporarily back to the Evolve Chamber.
On March 23 2024 21:23 jack_less wrote: [quote] maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
"The Night King" is fitting, creative and actually lines up with previous famous nicknames like "The Emperor" (BoxeR), "The Tyrant" (Jaedong) or simply "God" (Flash). Though sure, no one will ever be able to beat "The Creator Of All Things" (NesTea). "The Fourth Race" is just a poor switch-up from Moon, who actually deserved his nickname "The Fifth Race" because of the way he played his certainly not weak race in WC3.
By the same logic, the night king was stolen from a character on a tv show which isn't even in the books. Garbo nickname.
It wasn't? What did they call the main White Walker in the book? ...is there even a "main White Walker"? Anyway.
Of course you can re-use nicknames, especially over different games. It just feels like there is such a big discrepancy between Moon and Maru when it comes to how fitting the name is. I will admit though: I am right now extremly pissed that Maru isn't Protoss. "Marude Psistorm" would have been such a great nickname...
No main white walker and the term white walker is rarely used in the books compared to their more common name "the Others".
From the wiki: "There are notable differences between the Others in the novels and HBO's television adaptation, Game of Thrones. In the television adaptation, the Others are known only as White Walkers."
The easiest way to explain Maru's situation in 2014 is to read this article which covers his 2014 campaign.
"Terrans won a mere 42 games during the first two seasons of Code S, with Maru responsible for over half of them at 23 (in terms of matches, he won nine out of Terran's sixteen)."
Like I said though, it's a bit lopsided because the only other competitive terran in the region at the time was innovation and he was going through one of his slumps at the start of 2014. At the WCG 2014 blizzcon global finals there are 6 terrans, 6 protoss, 4 zerg. Two terrans in the top4. Both not playing in GSL. The best terrans in the world are missing in GSL to some degree in 2014. (Taeja, Bomber, Polt, MMA.)
IEM Katowice 2014 has 3 terrans in the top8, 2 terrans in the top4. All of them not from the KR Region.
Both Dreamhack winter and summer are won by terrans, all not from the kr region.
And innovation wins gsl season 3 in 2014 after he awakens from his slumber. Nobody even thought of maru as the best terran in 2014, let alone being worthy of the nickname the fourth race.
In the TL.net awards for best korean terrans in 2014, maru isn't even mentioned. Taeja wins it, innovation, bomber, polt and forgg are mentioned too, and rightfully so.
The notion that there just weren't any good terran is bullshit, the representation was a direct result of patches. Also Inno won season 3 after terran was buffed.
TaeJa missing is a valid point but Polt, Bomber and MMA weren't necessarily better than Flash, Bbbyong, Gumiho, Cure, TY, Dream, they were just competing in an easier region
Nobody even thought of maru as the best terran in 2014, let alone being worthy of the nickname the fourth race.
Yeah, you're just wrong
lol this is just pure lie.
Cure was not good at all in 2014. Bbbyong is better than Polt bomber and mma? I know you are a diehard Maru fan but come on now, some of these statement are just pure lie and a disservice to the old terran legends. Bbbyong should not even be mentioned in the same sentence as those guys.
Yes no one mentioned Maru as the best terran in any period of time pre 2018. It’s just a nickname the fanbase use to boost their fav Maru
People sleep on Bomber a bit, in 2013 he made a top 4 in OSL, won the subsequent WCS Season Finals and made the top 4 in that year's Blizzcon.
He was still a very strong player I think a little longer than people realise. Innovation did it very quickly, or a Rain but it actually took quite some time for the Kespa field overall to equal/surpass the field of top players from the time they transitioned, and not everyone did.
I remember Bomber as having some brilliant games or streaks of games to the point where he had the briefest flashes of looking like he could be the best in the world when he was on his A-Game. The problem was that incarnation of Bomber showed up to tournaments less often than choking/slumping Bomber did.
Lol good catch. I guess during that little stretch where he played that famous final at IEM Taipei vs Life and then won SSL directly after, he had a decent argument to be the best terran for a month or 2 pre-2018. Too bad it was very short lived and for all of 2015 those are his only results other than a top4 in code s at the end of the year. He then did nothing in 2016 and 2017 also besides a top2 at wesg and a top4 at gsl losing to gumiho.
Lol good catch. I guess during that little stretch where he played that famous final at IEM Taipei vs Life and then won SSL directly after, he had a decent argument to be the best terran for a month or 2 pre-2018. Too bad it was very short lived and for all of 2015 those are his only results other than a top4 in code s at the end of the year. He then did nothing in 2016 and 2017 also besides a top2 at wesg and a top4 at gsl losing to gumiho.
In my opinion, the current stretches of dominance we see nowadays are a product of two things, a much shallower competition than in 2013-2016 and more sparser tournaments (so there is no new data points to reevaluate the power relation between players).
So, short-lived periods of dominance in peak HOTS I would say are comparable to much longer periods of dominance nowadays.
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
"The Night King" is fitting, creative and actually lines up with previous famous nicknames like "The Emperor" (BoxeR), "The Tyrant" (Jaedong) or simply "God" (Flash). Though sure, no one will ever be able to beat "The Creator Of All Things" (NesTea). "The Fourth Race" is just a poor switch-up from Moon, who actually deserved his nickname "The Fifth Race" because of the way he played his certainly not weak race in WC3.
By the same logic, the night king was stolen from a character on a tv show which isn't even in the books. Garbo nickname.
It wasn't? What did they call the main White Walker in the book? ...is there even a "main White Walker"? Anyway.
Of course you can re-use nicknames, especially over different games. It just feels like there is such a big discrepancy between Moon and Maru when it comes to how fitting the name is. I will admit though: I am right now extremly pissed that Maru isn't Protoss. "Marude Psistorm" would have been such a great nickname...
Among all the coal in this tread we unearthed a diamond
Lol good catch. I guess during that little stretch where he played that famous final at IEM Taipei vs Life and then won SSL directly after, he had a decent argument to be the best terran for a month or 2 pre-2018. Too bad it was very short lived and for all of 2015 those are his only results other than a top4 in code s at the end of the year. He then did nothing in 2016 and 2017 also besides a top2 at wesg and a top4 at gsl losing to gumiho.
In my opinion, the current stretches of dominance we see nowadays are a product of two things, a much shallower competition than in 2013-2016 and more sparser tournaments (so there is no new data points to reevaluate the power relation between players).
So, short-lived periods of dominance in peak HOTS I would say are comparable to much longer periods of dominance nowadays.
There's a strong argument that Korean tournaments were a lot harder back in the day, but like world finals probably wouldn't be much harder than what they are now, it's not like the Korean players that retired were much superior (if at all) to what Serral keeps dunking on.
Lol good catch. I guess during that little stretch where he played that famous final at IEM Taipei vs Life and then won SSL directly after, he had a decent argument to be the best terran for a month or 2 pre-2018. Too bad it was very short lived and for all of 2015 those are his only results other than a top4 in code s at the end of the year. He then did nothing in 2016 and 2017 also besides a top2 at wesg and a top4 at gsl losing to gumiho.
In my opinion, the current stretches of dominance we see nowadays are a product of two things, a much shallower competition than in 2013-2016 and more sparser tournaments (so there is no new data points to reevaluate the power relation between players).
So, short-lived periods of dominance in peak HOTS I would say are comparable to much longer periods of dominance nowadays.
There's a strong argument that Korean tournaments were a lot harder back in the day, but like world finals probably wouldn't be much harder than what they are now, it's not like the Korean players that retired were much superior (if at all) to what Serral keeps dunking on.
Korean tournaments were harder than world finals tho back then which is the big thing, they were way more competitive and while the absolute skill level went up massively since then you dont know about the relative skill level.
Lol good catch. I guess during that little stretch where he played that famous final at IEM Taipei vs Life and then won SSL directly after, he had a decent argument to be the best terran for a month or 2 pre-2018. Too bad it was very short lived and for all of 2015 those are his only results other than a top4 in code s at the end of the year. He then did nothing in 2016 and 2017 also besides a top2 at wesg and a top4 at gsl losing to gumiho.
In my opinion, the current stretches of dominance we see nowadays are a product of two things, a much shallower competition than in 2013-2016 and more sparser tournaments (so there is no new data points to reevaluate the power relation between players).
So, short-lived periods of dominance in peak HOTS I would say are comparable to much longer periods of dominance nowadays.
There's a strong argument that Korean tournaments were a lot harder back in the day, but like world finals probably wouldn't be much harder than what they are now, it's not like the Korean players that retired were much superior (if at all) to what Serral keeps dunking on.
Just to make sure not to take away anything from Serral, as he's just a phenomenal player, but let's pretend he came up during the fiercer eras of competition in Korea, I strongly believe that teams would have trained specifically to beat this guy both in team- and individual leagues and chances are fair there would have been a handful of kryptonite builds prepared specifically for him, I think he would have been less dominant overall, but now with the rather small pool of overall remaining players, esp Korea's SC2 pro scene in shambles, the gap seems to be artificially-widened due to little to no influx of new players.
The biggest loser is Dark, I definitely expected him to place in one of the top 10s for GOAT, if not the top 5.
When Maru first started playing in 2010~12, I basically thought of him as "MKP Jr.", cheesy and aggressive but super fun to watch. MKP retired pretty early and I was a bit doubtful that Maru could take over the baton, but he did a lot better than I could ever expect.
Though he might not be the best player today (losing 0-4 to Serral at Katowice), I agree that he is the GOAT with his longevity (winning for more than a decade), ability to defy fate in terrain-disadvantaged eras (the 4th race), ability to captivate the audience to watch the game (he was one of the key reasons I kept watching SC2 during periods/trajectories of a downward trend for the game), and his humility (shows through so many of his interviews).
Really sad that the pro scene is at a terrible place rn, but hoping for some change of biz structure and new supporters (Saudi +?), so we can see a few more years of this great player competing and perhaps solidifying his GOAT status further - winning at an IEM world championship (if we have one of those next year).
Thanks, Miz, for the detailed write-up! Nice to read it all and relive those exciting days.
Lol good catch. I guess during that little stretch where he played that famous final at IEM Taipei vs Life and then won SSL directly after, he had a decent argument to be the best terran for a month or 2 pre-2018. Too bad it was very short lived and for all of 2015 those are his only results other than a top4 in code s at the end of the year. He then did nothing in 2016 and 2017 also besides a top2 at wesg and a top4 at gsl losing to gumiho.
Only top4 at GSL when the competition in Korea was fierce is a respectable accomplishment. Runner-up WESG also great result.
Sounds like just nitpicking at this point. Maru doesn't have to win everything for a decade to be considered a GOAT over Serral.
Unbelieveable that this triggers me so much. I am not even such a big Serral fanboy. But almost 15 years here i never disagreed something so from my heart. I mean look at aligulac and compare Maru and Serral. This really feels disrespectful to the finnish Phenom...
On April 09 2024 07:33 UglyGnu wrote: Unbelieveable that this triggers me so much. I am not even such a big Serral fanboy. But almost 15 years here i never disagreed something so from my heart. I mean look at aligulac and compare Maru and Serral. This really feels disrespectful to the finnish Phenom...
Oh fuck Miz. You triggered UglyGnu. How could you.
On April 09 2024 07:48 UglyGnu wrote: Enough to register an account after all this years... What is your opinion about that? You compared them on aligulac?
Aligulac is fraught with problems, even those who conceived it concede them.
Personally Serral gets my vote but others have a very good claim too.
On April 09 2024 07:48 UglyGnu wrote: Enough to register an account after all this years... What is your opinion about that? You compared them on aligulac?
Aligulac is fraught with problems, even those who conceived it concede them.
Personally Serral gets my vote but others have a very good claim too.
What are those problems? How would you improve Aligulac accuracy?
On April 09 2024 07:48 UglyGnu wrote: Enough to register an account after all this years... What is your opinion about that? You compared them on aligulac?
Aligulac is fraught with problems, even those who conceived it concede them.
Personally Serral gets my vote but others have a very good claim too.
What are those problems? How would you improve Aligulac accuracy?
Make it so points are only awarded/taken away for the matchup you actually played. Get rid of the overall rating (can still keep an average rating column which is all the overall rating should be anyways, no clue why they tried to make it something else). Lower the number of points you get for beating someone when the point gap is past a certain percentage threshold, effectively making it near 0 when the gap is big enough. That would improve it significantly. I know the latter is already done but I don't think it's severe enough as shown by Serral claiming #1 in 2017 when he was still <50% vs Koreans.
Still wouldn't be perfect, no ELO system is. SC2 is especially hard because top players were split in 3 different circuits that barely had any cross over for most of the games life. Plus the volatility of PvP has always resulted in Toss players being underrated even at times where Toss was clearly the best race they usually didn't dominate aligulac. Though my first suggestion would help with that quite a bit.
On March 20 2024 08:46 ktll4c91 wrote: I don't understand why good performace in code S and team league is taken to be evidence for being good at prepping in Maru's case. Surely there's a lot of team effort. Especially considering Maru's two teammates Rogue and sOs are probably the best players at prepping for weekenders. I suspect they must have played a significant part in Maru's performance in Code S and teamleague. At weekenders, Maru doesn't get such help, therefore performs worse and we see more tilt, bad builds and upsets from him.
On the other hand, there was a clip in this year's IEM in which Reynor and Rotti discuss how Serral watches and remembers every replay. Weekenders, like GSL, can be prepped for and Serral is good at it. I can't imagine such a player would do worse when he gets even more time to prep in GSLs.
This has forever been a bugbear of mine, you need partners to do that prep so in some way it’s a team effort.
I also share your theory that Maru is slightly less potent in the weekender format for this very reason. Often his losses are bad choices rather than being mechanically outplayed.
Indeed, some of his heavier losses in big games, sOs in that Blizzcon, Rogue in a Code S final were both at the hands of the very teammates who would otherwise help him prep.
Not that it diminishes Maru as one of the greats but I do think it’s a minus point against him that’s oft-neglected
Wow great points from both of you! I felt similarly, I wouldn't value team league performance super highly because it's... a team victory! For example, just because 1 player racks up lots of ace match wins doesn't necessarily mean that they deserve the credit as an individual. You never know if the teammates/coach simply focused on helping 1 player over another, in order to strategize the best way to win. But I wasn't able to realize that Maru not being able to get the same kind of support may be part of why he's weaker at weekender tournies, and the double whammy that when he's against Rogue/sOs, he's fighting the same people who'd help him prep.
I also agree with the point that while preparation tournaments can in ways lead to the "highest level of SC2 play" being shown, in the end it's all relative to the opponents. Weekenders and prep tournaments are simply different formats, everyone is playing in the same format. You could say that having a whole week to prep for an opponent leads to more polished play and more carefully selected strategies, sure. But you can also say that being able to consistently win weekender tournaments where you have much less time to prepare and are forced in much more uncomfortable situations, is much more impressive than having a ton of time to prepare for each match. And if you're able to somehow be consistent in those, whether you're great at improving, or just have so much experience that you're familiar with more situations than others, or just so good at prepping that you can do so in such a condensed format.
This is part of why I think players like Taeja winning so so many weekender tournaments where other top players would drown in pools is being so undervalued by people in recent years, whereas back in HotS it was common opinion that he ranked very highly on the GOAT list. More prep time leads to the better players winning more consistently, with the caveat that they could get sniped by a well prepared build sure. However, if you're able to consistently win weekender tournaments with much less prep time, then that's really impressive.
There is evidence of players who were great at prep tournaments doing poorly in weekender events, too - for example Nestea. Won 3 Code S, but didn't do very well at tournaments like Iron Squid. Maru is another. There is enough evidence that prep tournaments are not necessarily "harder" than weekender tournaments. They are just different formats and it makes sense that different players excel at different formats.
I've had this feeling as well that Maru has benefited greatly from the Jin Air crew, though his success continues to today, so it might not be true. But a team of Rogue, sOs and Maru definitely seems a powerful team for preparation based tournaments for all involved. It was the same in the beginning of WoL with NesteA and MVP on the same team, it seems they were just leagues ahead on how to think about the game.
On March 21 2024 03:43 WombaT wrote: I mean I don’t think it’s impossible Serral wouldn’t have won GSL if he’d been competing there for 6 years, but equally it’s not impossible that I’d woo and marry Sofia Vegata either.
It may be that his environment and work/life balance given his chosen path are just ideal for the guy, but there’s even the frankly terrifying possibility that a Serral forged in the fires of Korea is even stronger.
Firstly Serral has the best win rate versus Korean opposition ever, and by a decent enough margin. Secondly, he generally is only playing the GSL players towards the upper end, good enough to qualify for the big competitions. If he was regularly playing the lower tiers of Korean pros in GSL it’d be even higher.
Looking at his head-to-head match win rates solely against GSL winners/finalists in this span: Maru - 77% Trap - 82% Dark - 65% Cure - 90% TY - 71% Rogue - 53% Zest - 73% Classic - 80% Stats - 69%
While I think people go crazy overboard and say ridiculous things like Serral would sweep it every season or w/e, it’s almost inconceivable to me that he wouldn’t take even one. Even Reynor who is way more streaky and IMO not quite on the same tier I think would probably pull it off at least once.
As a big fan of the game overall, novelty, a huge fan of the GSL and what it’s given over the years it’s absolutely one of my biggest disappointments that getting a few foreigners who could potentially actually win it is accompanied by those said same not playing it regularly.
I wonder who would have the bigger shot, Serral taking a GSL, or Maru taking a WCS.
Counter-argument: The GSL is a prep-based tournament which requires a different skillset than the tournaments Serral has won. Historically we have seen multiple players doing well in the biggest weekend tournaments but doing significantly worse in GSL (sOs, Reynor, Solar for the longest time)
A couple of things: 1. Serral is widely considered to be the best strategic player and his preparation skills have always been way above average. This, if anything, should give him no disadvantage in GSL, but rather the opposite. Serral is used to playing against cheese, as most lower tier Pros try to get him uncomfortable anyways, as that is their "only" chance of defeating him. He further is the only player who has a positive win record versus ALL players he played regularly (at least 10 games) with records that are at least in the 60% win ratios, some - for example against Maru or herO - even in the 70%.
2. From now on, when I talk about Premier Tournaments, I only talk about those with top Korean participation. Maru has won 15 of those, Serral 16. Out of the 16 Serral won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, including Maru. Out of the 15 Maru won, the highest skilled Koreans were present, but not Serral.
3. From 2018-2023 he could have played in 18 GSLs. Now we can make assumptions about several hypotheticals. a. Let's say Serral would have won 3 out of the 18 possible attempts (very low assumption I know, but let's just go with this number). That would put him at 19 PT wins and Maru still at 15. But this is only true if Serral wouldn't have been responsible for kicking Maru out in group stage or any of the final rounds. b. Because if he did, Maru's score would drop. This would make the results even more glaringly obvious.
Meaning: 4. We know that Maru never won a World Championship. And the assumption that Serral would have never won a GSL is extremely unlikely. And it is very much in the scope of probability that Serral would have kicked out Maru in any of his attempts.
5. All of the above is taking into account that high tier players will be kicked out by lower tier players in the GSL, as well as in any other tournament. BUT: This is still an uproar. If it wasn't, it would be norm and no one would talk about it. So yes, this could happen to Serral too (and also did before, for example at IEM 2023), but that still does not mean that he probably never would have won a GSL.
So to get to the core of these thoughts... Even if Serral only won 2 or 3 GSL, it would make it utterly obvious that he could have won each format and he would outrank Maru even more on PT wins with top Korean participation. What argument would be left against Serral being the GOAT, if he won even 2 GSLs? And... Do you seriously believe that Serral would have never won a GSL looking at his records, dominance and overall statistics versus the players of GSL?
Maru reaches the finals of Code S every 3.4 Seasons. I think you could expect a similar number from Serral.
Similar yes, better probably too. His record has proven we could expect that much at worst.
Even the most extreme cases like sOs who won an insane 3 WCs reached the Code S finals a couple times, and we know Serral has far superior achievements/winrate/dominance/H2H/etc.
Had to make a few changes due to shoddy math (Maru makes the finals every 3.2 seasons) but the point stands.
To add some context, 3.2 is a total aberration. Mvp is the only player to match Maru's mark (he made the finals every 3.2 seasons in an entirely different era of the game) You can insist that Serral would surpass Maru, but Maru's record is already lightyears above Rogue (6.5), Dark (6.4), soO (4.5), INnoVation (6.75), TY (6.25), Zest (6.0) (all of whom are roughly around 1 final appearance every 6 season), It would be unrealistic to expect anything much lower than 3.2. Even from Serral.
But wouldn't it be more adequate to compare Maru's dominant years starting from 2018? Those would be 18 GSLs and Maru reached the finals 10 times, winning 7. That would be a final participation rate of 55%. These were also Serral's strongest years... so if he would have participated in GSL it would be rather reasonable to assume he would have won in that time too and even kicking Maru out at one of those 7 wins, even if he won not himself afterwards.
Maru was plenty dominant before 2018. He won OSL and SSL which was tied for the most KIL titles during HotS (they were on the same level as Code S). He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance. He had the best Proleague season of all time in 2016 (he won mvp that year). He was rookie of the year in his first year with Jin Air and was one of the best Proleague players, period.
This is why a lot of people point to 2013-2015 as the most competitive era. The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played. If I add in SSL/OSL to the Code S numbers he makes the finals once every three seasons. AKA his performances in Heart of the Swarm actually set him further apart from everyone else.
I'm on board with Serral reaching the finals approximately once every three seasons and, thankfully, we have a good metric to get a sense of this. Serral has played in 14 World Championships in his career. He has reached the finals of four. That's once every 3.5 world championships. Lines up pretty well with what Maru has done and what I'd expect of Serral.
"He was best Korean Terran for the first half of 2014, but never had a shot at winning due to balance."
Are we considering balance now for GOATs? Or is this just an opinion separate from the articles' ranking criteria.
"The definition of dominant was just different back then. Maru has a claim for best player of the period and he won a KIL once in every eight seasons he played."
Just to entertain this point a bit, if you assume that that's what dominance looks like, then you can define 2 KIL wins during HotS to be dominant as you said. But that feels a bit backwards to me to define that as dominant, if someone was only able to win a couple tournaments out of many. Isn't dominant supposed to be... much more impressive than that? A clear cut above the other players? Rain also won 2 KIL during HotS. Meanwhile Taeja is winning a bunch of international weekenders and making lots of money that way. Life as well, but he also won 2 GSL and a WC (revoked). sOs won 3 WCs. All of these players' accomplishments during HotS were great. I'm not sure if I would call Maru "dominant". He is tied for the most KIL wins during HotS, sure, but not exactly above his peers in that regard.
Dominance was not the best word choice (something in the vein of superiority or a catch all like "tier one player" fits better). It's fair to say, however, that he outperformed pretty much everyone outside of a group of ten or so player with which he was relatively even. Where he fell within that group is harder to figure out than the GOAT rankings, if I'm being honest.
And, yes, balance actually was ridiculous in 2014. There are a large number of people who discredit Serral's achievements because Zerg was good (one of the stupidest things I've ever heard). Maru never won Code S in 2014, but you can't look at the top 16 of Season 1 and 2 in good faith and say there's nothing ridiculous going on as far as Terran representation.
It's hard to know how much balance is weighted in this, there is mention of BL/Inf in WoL and Infested Terrans (LotV) and now this about Terran being underpowered vs. Protoss. How much does this affect Serral, Rogue and Dark in the ranking?
IMO it's better not to think about, or you would have to go into it all the way. For instance, and I mean this in earnest, you could argue that from 2018 Protoss have been non-existence, and so this actually hugely impacts the integrity of this time. How competitive is it rly, when a 3rd of the player base is made irrelevant barring a short time on the last few patches by Blizzard, before the cabal seized control. Then we also have the #4 MVP which is strange when he only dominated a 1 year period and one where Terran was strongest and benefiting from being a TvT specialist. Rain only fairing well in the Protoss golden age etc..
On March 23 2024 00:28 Smorrie wrote: Arguments are jumping left and right, going from perceived skill, results, level of domination, tournament results, balance & of course a great deal of favoritism.
The main arguments appear to be revolving around Serral not playing in the most competitive environment & lacking GSL titles.
However, excluding Serral's lack of GSL participation, wherever he has been competing he's been the most dominant player for the last 6 years by far. He also played Maru plenty of times with an 80% win rate & is sporting a 70%+ win rate vs the best players in GSL. Won tournaments with GSL champion participation. Wherever Serral competes, he's as dominant as Flash in BW. In his incredible 20-1 Katowice run he's shown to be the best player out there, at the very least at this moment. Being the current best player of course is not equivalent to carrying the GOAT crown.
There are several points that could be made to justify Serral's lack of presence in GSL & the fact that Maru potentially wouldn't have been able to achieve similar results if Serral did participate in GSL. In the end this however is all hypothetically speaking and will never happen.
So the question is; what are the requirements that would crown Serral as the (majorly) undisputed GOAT? Or is this an impossible feat. without GSL participation?
Having a hard time believing serral was "the most dominant player for the last 6 years by far" when soO won iem, Innovation won wesg and Dark won wcs in 2019; Rogue won iem in 2020; Reynor won iem in 2021; and Reynor won G8 in 2023. Increase the search beyond just iem, wesg, and G8 and you get even more championships from maru and the other zergs not named serral.
Also having a hard time with the serral/Flash equivalence. Flash wasn't propped by racial balance his whole career (shown by Flash dominating regardless of his terran counterparts). Bringing Flash into the equation only helps maru's case (consistently at the top regardless of how other terrans have performed, and sick proleague scores)
E: and let's not forget that when maru bopped serral in wesg very soon after terran got nerfed
Serral won 24 Liquipedia-rated Premier events since 2018. Just for comparison, that is more than Marus finals appearances (not wins) in LotV (21, 11 wins, 10 losses). Even if you combine the Premier wins of the next two most succesful players in LotV (Rogue and Maru) it still doesn't catch up to Serral. With that, Serral outperforms every other player in the history of this game, including those who have played all three iterations, by a landslide.
So while you might argue about the competitive value of tournaments since whatever arbitrary line you might want to draw, if you ask "who was the most dominant player in the last six years" this numbers alone tell you "Serral" without competition. Yes, of course, he had stretches of winning less. Yes, of course, other players have won big tournaments. But to go back to Flash: It is not like he won every OSL and MSL ever, he actually had fair stretches where he didn't win neither.
But going by your logic, you are ready to discard the highest winning player of the last six years because he didn't win always everything and then choose the guy who didn't win half of the other players titles instead? Not to mention the clear difference in World Championship titles in the exact same timespan.
Usually when people put Maru ahead of Serral, it is because of Marus longer career and Proleague results. But if you seriously want to argue the best player of LotV/the last six years...c'mon
And 9 of those wins came in region locked events Maru couldn't play in. You could just compare the numbers from events in which they both participated (Serral again holds the lead), but it's easier to use shoddy methods to support your narrative.
No, I used those numbers because I actually have those numbers at hand, since I keep a record of Premier events finals participations. If you have a problem with the European Regional Finals being classified as "Premier events", please take that up with the Liquipedia-Admins. But then again, going by Prizepool alone it would make much more sense to strike GSL out of that Tier, but anyway.
Ppl totally dismiss the WCS titles which is not fair, because let's say that Serral didn't manage to win a single one, then that would absolutely be used against him! I think the HSCs that he won, can almost entirely be dismissed because these were invite tournaments, unlike many other HSCs. These tournaments were what put Serral as the favourite to win the very first GSL vs. the World that he entered. Rightly you could say that he hadn't proven himself yet, but it was very evident to see in the level of play alone that he was playing at another level from even the Koreans.
On March 23 2024 06:41 Pentarp wrote: 7 GSLS.
The ONLY one in the entire world to have a G5L trophy.
This is really the argument for Maru. If you see sc2 as an extension of sc1 and thus have this belief that in historical context all that matters are Korean preparation based tournaments, then yes, he can be #1 and Serral was never even in the race to begin with. If your sense of history starts from sc2, then weekend style tournaments would probably be seen as the common style tournament and thus, Korean tournaments should not be put on a pedestal.
On March 23 2024 07:30 Poopi wrote: The most crazy thing though imo is the 4 GSL in a row, that’s a crazy feat especially as early as 2018-2019 where Terran wasn’t particularly strong. The most done in a row was 2, which is already impressive given how cut throat GSL was back in the days. TY was almost able to do three in a row but he did 2 in a year which is already a good feat, and even then he was relatively lucky to do it in 2020 short after Zerg nerfs / lots of TvT his best match-up.
The fact that every group (even those that are not labeled as group of death) in the GSL could eliminate a WC / GSL champion, like it happened to Rogue and so many others (or Reynor after he won WC…), is what makes the 4 victories in a row incredible.
Not only that, but Maru had to clutch a 4-3 victory against TvT master TY (present in this GOAT list at a very respectable spot) in an epic finals to even do 3 in a row. And his 4th in a row was also impressive, because Classic was just murdering terrans left and right in this period iirc, with like 16w-1l record in the matchup.
But watching him play Terran like Zerg was mesmerizing and remind you why he was called the Fourth Race.
ive never heard anyone call maru the fourth race. is this just completly made up?
He got the nickname in 2014 because Terran was dogshit. It's because of this nickname and his success relative to other Terrans that SSL used the "Y the last man" as his image for Season 3 of SSL in 2015.
maru is called "Fourth Race". but what is Serral called? i think it starts with "go" and ends with " at". i just can't figure it out. maybe someone knows.
Liquipedia lists the following monikers for Serral: The Finnisher, Finnish Phenom, The Night King and Lord of The Curcuit, all of which are demonstrably worse and less creative than the fourth race.
I second the opinion that Serral's nickname absolutely sucks. I died a little inside every time I heard "The Finnisher"
Chinese sc2 fans had a fantastic nickname for Serral tho: "The Overmind". Because they think Serral's scouting, control and multitasking are so good it feels like he's just directly controlling every Zerg units with shared hivemind like the Overmind itself.
Every time Serral got defeated and comeback stronger, they joke that the Overmind was just temporarily back to the Evolve Chamber.
It should be the default nickname for Serral.
The finnish phenom is a great name, but it belongs to Welmu. I like Serral Angel.
On April 09 2024 07:48 UglyGnu wrote: Enough to register an account after all this years... What is your opinion about that? You compared them on aligulac?
Aligulac is fraught with problems, even those who conceived it concede them.
Personally Serral gets my vote but others have a very good claim too.
What are those problems? How would you improve Aligulac accuracy?
I don’t think there is a way to account for separate regions and differentiate between tournaments of various levels of prestige and things like online cups and bigger offline tournies. Also general rating inflation.
It’s no criticism of Aligulac I mean I really don’t feel there is a a way to accurately account for the intangibles of the SC2 scene via any kind of ELO or ELO-influenced methodology. It’s still great for many things as a database and predictor
MaxPax is currently the second best player in the world via Aligulac, if that doesn’t illustrate some of the issues with Aligulac ratings I’m not sure what does
On April 09 2024 07:48 UglyGnu wrote: Enough to register an account after all this years... What is your opinion about that? You compared them on aligulac?
Aligulac is fraught with problems, even those who conceived it concede them.
Personally Serral gets my vote but others have a very good claim too.
What are those problems? How would you improve Aligulac accuracy?
I don’t think there is a way to account for separate regions and differentiate between tournaments of various levels of prestige and things like online cups and bigger offline tournies. Also general rating inflation.
It’s no criticism of Aligulac I mean I really don’t feel there is a a way to accurately account for the intangibles of the SC2 scene via any kind of ELO or ELO-influenced methodology. It’s still great for many things as a database and predictor
MaxPax is currently the second best player in the world via Aligulac, if that doesn’t illustrate some of the issues with Aligulac ratings I’m not sure what does
I wonder if Aligulac could add an option to toggle an offline vs both ELO. I know there are much fewer offline matches played so the ELO might not be accurate, but it would be nice to see how well/different players perform in the offline tournament setting, which is usually either Premier tournaments or local LANs.
Some more salt for this topic. Since almost 15 years Maru is a top SC 2 player and he achieved many great success and a brilliant career. But in this long time he also become known for getting tilted and loosing big finals (vs. roaches e.g.). He never was the best SC 2 player at any longer time period - at least not uncontested. And his winrates vs other top player are not as good as many Maru fanboys think.
Serral vs Maru 39 - 19 TY vs Maru 34 - 31 PartingG vs Maru 22 - 18 Trap vs Maru 36 - 35 sOs vs Maru 22 - 21
So imho one of the best SC2 players but not the GOAT.
On April 14 2024 11:52 UglyGnu wrote: Since almost 15 years Maru is a top SC 2 player and he achieved many great success and a brilliant career. But in this long time he also become known for getting tilted and loosing big finals (vs. roaches e.g.).
I agree, and I think this is another one of the somewhat overlooked aspects in the GoaT debate.
Although it is just one criterion besides many others, I think the ability to perform consistently and to bring the best play in high-pressure, high-stakes situations should be expected of any GoaT candidate. And Maru, while obviously operating at an absurdly high level, is notorious for falling short in this respect, to the point that even his biggest fans have devoted an entire thread to his throws and tilts. For example, despite the beauty of Oliveira's Cinderella story, it should never have happened. The WC title was handed to Maru on a silver platter, and he failed to capitalize on it.
In my view, this is unfitting for the title of the GoaT. Imagine someone told you about another sport: "Yeah, so-and-so is the greatest player of all time. Oh and by the way, he is famous for crumbling when it matters most."
Serral, in contrast, is the epitome of consistency. He almost never loses against weaker players, and he never repeats strategies that do not work. To the contrary, there are several series where you can observe in real time how he adapts and fixes his play based on previous outcomes. Maru in turn occasionally replays and replays strategies proved ineffective in the same series. Of course, Serral too can lose, but he essentially never just implodes. His single greatest tilt is probably that early gg against Ragnarok.
On April 14 2024 11:52 UglyGnu wrote: Since almost 15 years Maru is a top SC 2 player and he achieved many great success and a brilliant career. But in this long time he also become known for getting tilted and loosing big finals (vs. roaches e.g.).
I agree, and I think this is another one of the somewhat overlooked aspects in the GoaT debate.
Although it is just one criterion besides many others, I think the ability to perform consistently and to bring the best play in high-pressure, high-stakes situations should be expected of any GoaT candidate. And Maru, while obviously operating at an absurdly high level, is notorious for falling short in this respect, to the point that even his biggest fans have devoted an entire thread to his throws and tilts. For example, despite the beauty of Oliveira's Cinderella story, it should never have happened. The WC title was handed to Maru on a silver platter, and he failed to capitalize on it.
In my view, this is unfitting for the title of the GoaT. Imagine someone told you about another sport: "Yeah, so-and-so is the greatest player of all time. Oh and by the way, he is famous for crumbling when it matters most."
Serral, in contrast, is the epitome of consistency. He almost never loses against weaker players, and he never repeats strategies that do not work. To the contrary, there are several series where you can observe in real time how he adapts and fixes his play based on previous outcomes. Maru in turn occasionally replays and replays strategies proved ineffective in the same series. Of course, Serral too can lose, but he essentially never just implodes. His single greatest tilt is probably that early gg against Ragnarok.
Shameless link to an article I wrote that just happens to be about this topic...
On April 14 2024 11:52 UglyGnu wrote: Since almost 15 years Maru is a top SC 2 player and he achieved many great success and a brilliant career. But in this long time he also become known for getting tilted and loosing big finals (vs. roaches e.g.).
I agree, and I think this is another one of the somewhat overlooked aspects in the GoaT debate.
Although it is just one criterion besides many others, I think the ability to perform consistently and to bring the best play in high-pressure, high-stakes situations should be expected of any GoaT candidate. And Maru, while obviously operating at an absurdly high level, is notorious for falling short in this respect, to the point that even his biggest fans have devoted an entire thread to his throws and tilts. For example, despite the beauty of Oliveira's Cinderella story, it should never have happened. The WC title was handed to Maru on a silver platter, and he failed to capitalize on it.
In my view, this is unfitting for the title of the GoaT. Imagine someone told you about another sport: "Yeah, so-and-so is the greatest player of all time. Oh and by the way, he is famous for crumbling when it matters most."
Serral, in contrast, is the epitome of consistency. He almost never loses against weaker players, and he never repeats strategies that do not work. To the contrary, there are several series where you can observe in real time how he adapts and fixes his play based on previous outcomes. Maru in turn occasionally replays and replays strategies proved ineffective in the same series. Of course, Serral too can lose, but he essentially never just implodes. His single greatest tilt is probably that early gg against Ragnarok.
Serral was pretty tilted when he lost to Zest in IEM, his hand was literally shaking. And he has his fair share of getting 0-4/0-3 by other top players in ZvZ as well. Rogue literally cheesed him to 4-1 in less than 20 minutes a couple years ago. Obviously hes still the most consistent player in the world and nothing can be taken away from that. People just like to "sweep away" all those times Serral struggle and act like he has NEVER lost a big series/tournament in 6 years or something. Somehow Maru losing a WC to the hottest player in the tournament, partly because of his own blunder, are supposed to kept him away from GOAT conversation forever, but Serral lost doesnt count. Dont get me wrong, I dont think Maru is ahead of Serral, but they are not worlds apart like you or someone else like to claim.
Maru is a monster in his own living room (aka GSL), just not anywhere else. It's crazy he was there when SC2 started and probably will be there until the end, winning.
Somehow Maru losing a WC to the hottest player in the tournament, partly because of his own blunder, are supposed to kept him away from GOAT conversation forever
No like mentioned there are several reasons keeping him away from the GOAT title and the strongest in my opinion is that he has a negative win rate against at least five other players. So how could he be then GOAT?
I just read your article https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/532653-i-was-wrong-about-maru a nice one , and it makes me feel better in a way. Somehow i could not believe that a professional TL writer really can think about someone else than Serral as GOAT. So i think i assume some bad itentions - sorry. Maru really deserves all your love and i remember noticing him first playing vs my favourite player at that time (life - a shame).
It's crazy he was there when SC2 started and probably will be there until the end, winning.
I have now five post at TL - this is enough for me. And finally - thank you TL, here I learned about SC and esports in general. I will return to my watching place.
Somehow Maru losing a WC to the hottest player in the tournament, partly because of his own blunder, are supposed to kept him away from GOAT conversation forever
No like mentioned there are several reasons keeping him away from the GOAT title and the strongest in my opinion is that he has a negative win rate against at least five other players. So how could he be then GOAT?
Zest has a negative winrate against Impact, does that make Impact a more accomplished player?
Somehow Maru losing a WC to the hottest player in the tournament, partly because of his own blunder, are supposed to kept him away from GOAT conversation forever
No like mentioned there are several reasons keeping him away from the GOAT title and the strongest in my opinion is that he has a negative win rate against at least five other players. So how could he be then GOAT?
Zest has a negative winrate against Impact, does that make Impact a more accomplished player?
No, but it probably does count for at least something when your main competitor in the GOAT stakes has a winning H2H against basically everyone. I wouldn’t say that means Serral > Maru at all, too may other factors to consider, but it isn’t nothing either
Somehow Maru losing a WC to the hottest player in the tournament, partly because of his own blunder, are supposed to kept him away from GOAT conversation forever
No like mentioned there are several reasons keeping him away from the GOAT title and the strongest in my opinion is that he has a negative win rate against at least five other players. So how could he be then GOAT?
Zest has a negative winrate against Impact, does that make Impact a more accomplished player?
No, but it probably does count for at least something when your main competitor in the GOAT stakes has a winning H2H against basically everyone. I wouldn’t say that means Serral > Maru at all, too may other factors to consider, but it isn’t nothing either
I agree it's not a bad argument FOR Serral, but having nemeses shouldn't be counted AGAINST Maru. Nearly every player has unexplainable, consistent losses to other players. Other than Serral, who had some "nemeses" but it never lasted, which is why I don't disagree with the people arguing for his case with it. But yeah, I don't think it's an argument to use against someone. Head to head against your peers is an achievement, but one amongst many, a very impressive one in the case of Serral, but it's an achievement just as impressive as a tournament win. Or, dare I say, just as impressive as Maru's Proleague records. "Lack of" isn't a good argument for anything and especially not when only one person has said achievement.
Also, does Maru really have that many losing records against his peers ? (especially since 2018 since SC2 obviously didn't exist before then) A quick glance at Aligulac tells me it's only Serral at -20, and then 4 retired players (and the 2nd best is at -7). We're far from the "5 other players", unless you wanna count Jaedong for Serral as well
Somehow Maru losing a WC to the hottest player in the tournament, partly because of his own blunder, are supposed to kept him away from GOAT conversation forever
No like mentioned there are several reasons keeping him away from the GOAT title and the strongest in my opinion is that he has a negative win rate against at least five other players. So how could he be then GOAT?
Zest has a negative winrate against Impact, does that make Impact a more accomplished player?
No, but it probably does count for at least something when your main competitor in the GOAT stakes has a winning H2H against basically everyone. I wouldn’t say that means Serral > Maru at all, too may other factors to consider, but it isn’t nothing either
I agree it's not a bad argument FOR Serral, but having nemeses shouldn't be counted AGAINST Maru. Nearly every player has unexplainable, consistent losses to other players. Other than Serral, who had some "nemeses" but it never lasted, which is why I don't disagree with the people arguing for his case with it. But yeah, I don't think it's an argument to use against someone. Head to head against your peers is an achievement, but one amongst many, a very impressive one in the case of Serral, but it's an achievement just as impressive as a tournament win. Or, dare I say, just as impressive as Maru's Proleague records. "Lack of" isn't a good argument for anything and especially not when only one person has said achievement.
Also, does Maru really have that many losing records against his peers ? (especially since 2018 since SC2 obviously didn't exist before then) A quick glance at Aligulac tells me it's only Serral at -20, and then 4 retired players (and the 2nd best is at -7). We're far from the "5 other players", unless you wanna count Jaedong for Serral as well
For me, the head to head records and the tournaments Serral has won with those players in attendance illustrates what we're trying to get at. It's the pair of the two that really separates him from Maru and Rogue in those "categories".
I rarely used head to head results in the articles, but looking at the events in which Serral+Koreans was an undeniably effective way at comparing them directly.
Yes, Maru can tilt very quickly. Serral is also an emotional player. And from memory, innovation and rogue tilt as well. Funnily enough, I think the kong, SoO actually has a very strong fight-back mentality
On April 16 2024 17:49 ejozl wrote: Yes, Maru can tilt very quickly. Serral is also an emotional player. And from memory, innovation and rogue tilt as well. Funnily enough, I think the kong, SoO actually has a very strong fight-back mentality
Now that’s a hot take right there! Although to some degree I do think a Kong can also be pretty clutch too!
Hell a player who’s never won a big tournament, or ever will, but always punches above their usual results when it comes to a Blizzcon can I think be said to be very good on the mentality side.
I definitely give Serral the edge over Maru here at least. Not that he’s invincible or never has a bad day, but when he does lose it’s often tight and he’s usually playing his game and it doesn’t quite work out.
Whereas Maru’s biggest flubs on the big stage are when he’s not playing his game, and making atypical decisions and whatnot. When Reynor made that comeback or Oliveira won his WC it wasn’t that they were playing out of their minds (although very well), but that Maru didn’t play his usual/made terrible build choices under pressure.
I guess to me the difference between a choke, or a throw is when your fans are going ‘noooo why did you do this person I was rooting for?’ Whereas if they just get outplayed on the day it’ll be a mix of ‘fair play x wa better’ plus of course lots of balance whine! Plenty of the former with a few of Maru’s WC exits
Hey Maru has plenty of his clutch moments too don’t get me wrong, I’m just judging him by GOAT rather than regular standards.
On April 16 2024 17:49 ejozl wrote: Yes, Maru can tilt very quickly. Serral is also an emotional player. And from memory, innovation and rogue tilt as well. Funnily enough, I think the kong, SoO actually has a very strong fight-back mentality
Now that’s a hot take right there! Although to some degree I do think a Kong can also be pretty clutch too!
Hell a player who’s never won a big tournament, or ever will, but always punches above their usual results when it comes to a Blizzcon can I think be said to be very good on the mentality side.
I definitely give Serral the edge over Maru here at least. Not that he’s invincible or never has a bad day, but when he does lose it’s often tight and he’s usually playing his game and it doesn’t quite work out.
Whereas Maru’s biggest flubs on the big stage are when he’s not playing his game, and making atypical decisions and whatnot. When Reynor made that comeback or Oliveira won his WC it wasn’t that they were playing out of their minds (although very well), but that Maru didn’t play his usual/made terrible build choices under pressure.
I guess to me the difference between a choke, or a throw is when your fans are going ‘noooo why did you do this person I was rooting for?’ Whereas if they just get outplayed on the day it’ll be a mix of ‘fair play x wa better’ plus of course lots of balance whine! Plenty of the former with a few of Maru’s WC exits
Hey Maru has plenty of his clutch moments too don’t get me wrong, I’m just judging him by GOAT rather than regular standards.
This what it triggers me a little, people often refers to the massive Maru throw against Olivera in Katowice, but fails to acknowledge how tilt and frustrated Serral was when he lost against Ragnarok in the very same tournament but in the quarterfinals.
On April 16 2024 17:49 ejozl wrote: Yes, Maru can tilt very quickly. Serral is also an emotional player. And from memory, innovation and rogue tilt as well. Funnily enough, I think the kong, SoO actually has a very strong fight-back mentality
Now that’s a hot take right there! Although to some degree I do think a Kong can also be pretty clutch too!
Hell a player who’s never won a big tournament, or ever will, but always punches above their usual results when it comes to a Blizzcon can I think be said to be very good on the mentality side.
I definitely give Serral the edge over Maru here at least. Not that he’s invincible or never has a bad day, but when he does lose it’s often tight and he’s usually playing his game and it doesn’t quite work out.
Whereas Maru’s biggest flubs on the big stage are when he’s not playing his game, and making atypical decisions and whatnot. When Reynor made that comeback or Oliveira won his WC it wasn’t that they were playing out of their minds (although very well), but that Maru didn’t play his usual/made terrible build choices under pressure.
I guess to me the difference between a choke, or a throw is when your fans are going ‘noooo why did you do this person I was rooting for?’ Whereas if they just get outplayed on the day it’ll be a mix of ‘fair play x wa better’ plus of course lots of balance whine! Plenty of the former with a few of Maru’s WC exits
Hey Maru has plenty of his clutch moments too don’t get me wrong, I’m just judging him by GOAT rather than regular standards.
This what it triggers me a little, people often refers to the massive Maru throw against Olivera in Katowice, but fails to acknowledge how tilt and frustrated Serral was when he lost against Ragnarok in the very same tournament but in the quarterfinals.
I guess because Maru had this kind of performance (or lack thereof) pretty regular while for Serral this is the absolute exception. Maru even has had an alter ego for this named Mary
On April 16 2024 17:49 ejozl wrote: Yes, Maru can tilt very quickly. Serral is also an emotional player. And from memory, innovation and rogue tilt as well. Funnily enough, I think the kong, SoO actually has a very strong fight-back mentality
Now that’s a hot take right there! Although to some degree I do think a Kong can also be pretty clutch too!
Hell a player who’s never won a big tournament, or ever will, but always punches above their usual results when it comes to a Blizzcon can I think be said to be very good on the mentality side.
I definitely give Serral the edge over Maru here at least. Not that he’s invincible or never has a bad day, but when he does lose it’s often tight and he’s usually playing his game and it doesn’t quite work out.
Whereas Maru’s biggest flubs on the big stage are when he’s not playing his game, and making atypical decisions and whatnot. When Reynor made that comeback or Oliveira won his WC it wasn’t that they were playing out of their minds (although very well), but that Maru didn’t play his usual/made terrible build choices under pressure.
I guess to me the difference between a choke, or a throw is when your fans are going ‘noooo why did you do this person I was rooting for?’ Whereas if they just get outplayed on the day it’ll be a mix of ‘fair play x wa better’ plus of course lots of balance whine! Plenty of the former with a few of Maru’s WC exits
Hey Maru has plenty of his clutch moments too don’t get me wrong, I’m just judging him by GOAT rather than regular standards.
This what it triggers me a little, people often refers to the massive Maru throw against Olivera in Katowice, but fails to acknowledge how tilt and frustrated Serral was when he lost against Ragnarok in the very same tournament but in the quarterfinals.
Serral had to show this emotion or he would have legally been classified as an android and become property of the Finnish state.
I mean aye he was clearly a bit rattled and frustrated, equally I do think he still played alright, not peak Serral and lost a tight series. Whereas rattled Maru kind of loses in daft and frustrating ways by making bad calls, be it build choices or tactical in-game moves that he doesn’t normally do.
But not every loss is a choke either (see, soO). I wouldn’t consider Maru’s probably two biggest defeats of note in recent times, Rogue in GSL and Serral in Katowice to be evidence of a bad mentality. Rogue had the better gameplan and Maru couldn’t pivot enough. Serral played very well and had prepped very well, and together they probably played the game of the year from a pure quality of StarCraft standpoint. Map balance aside it was a phenomenal display from them both. I don’t think I can say Maru didn’t turn up given IMO that was probably the best game played in a losing cause all year, at least in a high-stakes tourney
On April 16 2024 17:49 ejozl wrote: Yes, Maru can tilt very quickly. Serral is also an emotional player. And from memory, innovation and rogue tilt as well. Funnily enough, I think the kong, SoO actually has a very strong fight-back mentality
Now that’s a hot take right there! Although to some degree I do think a Kong can also be pretty clutch too!
Hell a player who’s never won a big tournament, or ever will, but always punches above their usual results when it comes to a Blizzcon can I think be said to be very good on the mentality side.
I definitely give Serral the edge over Maru here at least. Not that he’s invincible or never has a bad day, but when he does lose it’s often tight and he’s usually playing his game and it doesn’t quite work out.
Whereas Maru’s biggest flubs on the big stage are when he’s not playing his game, and making atypical decisions and whatnot. When Reynor made that comeback or Oliveira won his WC it wasn’t that they were playing out of their minds (although very well), but that Maru didn’t play his usual/made terrible build choices under pressure.
I guess to me the difference between a choke, or a throw is when your fans are going ‘noooo why did you do this person I was rooting for?’ Whereas if they just get outplayed on the day it’ll be a mix of ‘fair play x wa better’ plus of course lots of balance whine! Plenty of the former with a few of Maru’s WC exits
Hey Maru has plenty of his clutch moments too don’t get me wrong, I’m just judging him by GOAT rather than regular standards.
This what it triggers me a little, people often refers to the massive Maru throw against Olivera in Katowice, but fails to acknowledge how tilt and frustrated Serral was when he lost against Ragnarok in the very same tournament but in the quarterfinals.
I guess because Maru had this kind of performance (or lack thereof) pretty regular while for Serral this is the absolute exception. Maru even has had an alter ego for this named Mary
It just appears more regular because he has a longer career
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
"Hardest tournament"...StarWars has a stronger field of contestants than this GSL... And can we retire the "prep tournament"-blabla already? It's not like nobody preps for weekenders and everyone who wants to win the tournament preps against Serral.
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
"Hardest tournament"...StarWars has a stronger field of contestants than this GSL... And can we retire the "prep tournament"-blabla already? It's not like nobody preps for weekenders and everyone who wants to win the tournament preps against Serral.
You can't really believe that starwars has a stronger field. That's just not a good take. People also prep against reynor, given he's a world champion and all, and yet he still didn't do too well last time he played there
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
nah, preparing for opponents is a skill in and of itself. its an extra layer.
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
nah, preparing for opponents is a skill in and of itself. its an extra layer.
So is coming up with something with a limited amount of time - btw the exact metric most 1v1 (E)Sports use, including Chess (except for the World Championship, but that is an entirely different beast compared to GSL).
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
"Hardest tournament"...StarWars has a stronger field of contestants than this GSL... And can we retire the "prep tournament"-blabla already? It's not like nobody preps for weekenders and everyone who wants to win the tournament preps against Serral.
You can't really believe that starwars has a stronger field. That's just not a good take. People also prep against reynor, given he's a world champion and all, and yet he still didn't do too well last time he played there
Both tournaments miss Serral, Clem and Reynor (though he is less impactful right now). Both tournaments have Maru, herO and GuMiho (again, last of the three is less impactful) SW misses Cure, SHIN and ByuN. Every other GSL-Korean feels mostly "meh" right now (Solar is in a big slump, Dark feels already gone. Stats might be the exception here) SW however has ShowTime, Firefly and Oliveira, who are all in great shape right now. Also Skillous and Spirit, who I would put in the same category as Stats.
So yes, I personally would say that StarWars has a more competitive field than GSL S1. If Serral or Clem would have (tried to) qualify aswell, I would easily put it above. And yes, that is a take you can disagree with, which I would understand. But the fact that you can even make this argument kind of proves that "GSL is the hardest tournament" is a take that doesn't hold up anymore - hasn't for years tbh.
On April 16 2024 17:49 ejozl wrote: Yes, Maru can tilt very quickly. Serral is also an emotional player. And from memory, innovation and rogue tilt as well. Funnily enough, I think the kong, SoO actually has a very strong fight-back mentality
Now that’s a hot take right there! Although to some degree I do think a Kong can also be pretty clutch too!
Hell a player who’s never won a big tournament, or ever will, but always punches above their usual results when it comes to a Blizzcon can I think be said to be very good on the mentality side.
I definitely give Serral the edge over Maru here at least. Not that he’s invincible or never has a bad day, but when he does lose it’s often tight and he’s usually playing his game and it doesn’t quite work out.
Whereas Maru’s biggest flubs on the big stage are when he’s not playing his game, and making atypical decisions and whatnot. When Reynor made that comeback or Oliveira won his WC it wasn’t that they were playing out of their minds (although very well), but that Maru didn’t play his usual/made terrible build choices under pressure.
I guess to me the difference between a choke, or a throw is when your fans are going ‘noooo why did you do this person I was rooting for?’ Whereas if they just get outplayed on the day it’ll be a mix of ‘fair play x wa better’ plus of course lots of balance whine! Plenty of the former with a few of Maru’s WC exits
Hey Maru has plenty of his clutch moments too don’t get me wrong, I’m just judging him by GOAT rather than regular standards.
This what it triggers me a little, people often refers to the massive Maru throw against Olivera in Katowice, but fails to acknowledge how tilt and frustrated Serral was when he lost against Ragnarok in the very same tournament but in the quarterfinals.
I guess because Maru had this kind of performance (or lack thereof) pretty regular while for Serral this is the absolute exception. Maru even has had an alter ego for this named Mary
It just appears more regular because he has a longer career
I don't think so. People expect Maru to win every tournament he enters only since ~2018. Before that he was ofc still very good but not above everyone else. And he crashed and burned a bunch since then and that is what people are refering to IMO
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Sorry it's just not the hardest tournament. It hasn't been for a long time. And prepping makes things not harder, just different. Both sides can prepare, you know
Sorry it's just not the hardest tournament. It hasn't been for a long time. And prepping makes things not harder, just different. Both sides can prepare, you know
This isn't the most competitive SC2 environment. It hasn't been for a long time. Being the biggest fish in an ever contracting pond doesn't make someone (in this case Serral) the GOAT.
EDIT:
Article idea.
"Elephant in the Room 2: The standard of competition since the collapse of Korean team-houses has been a farce."
Sorry it's just not the hardest tournament. It hasn't been for a long time. And prepping makes things not harder, just different. Both sides can prepare, you know
This isn't the most competitive SC2 environment. It hasn't been for a long time. Being the biggest fish in an ever contracting pond doesn't make someone the GOAT.
EDIT:
Article idea.
"Elephant in the Room 2: The standard of competition since the collapse of Korean team-houses has been a farce."
I don't see how you can't apply that same argument for Serral. He's clearly the best player in his region (just like Maru is in Korea), but the majority of the top 10 players are still Korean. I don't think you can really put anyone but Reynor and Clem with Serral in the top 10 (I'm excluding Maxpax for obvious reasons) since you need to make room for Maru, herO, Cure, Dark, ByuN, Stats, Solar, GuMiho and Ragnarok for that 1-15 range
Sorry it's just not the hardest tournament. It hasn't been for a long time. And prepping makes things not harder, just different. Both sides can prepare, you know
This isn't the most competitive SC2 environment. It hasn't been for a long time. Being the biggest fish in an ever contracting pond doesn't make someone the GOAT.
EDIT:
Article idea.
"Elephant in the Room 2: The standard of competition since the collapse of Korean team-houses has been a farce."
Considering serral literally won nothing of value nor placed deep in any tournaments prior to the collapse of Korean team-houses, your framework would exclude serral from any goat lists altogether. At least maru has his deep runs, osl and ssl golds, and proleague records
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
This is absolutely the correct take. The more time you have, the more you can prepare, the more you can compensate for a skill gap between you and your opponent, especially when it's possible that opponent is preparing less for you than you are for them.
Weekender tournaments with a limited amount of time to prepare between matches naturally lead to a much higher skill ceiling, because the amount of time/preparation is constrained. Anything constrained becomes harder.
GSL and preparation tournaments were hard not because it's the highest skill format, it's because people can prepare to snipe you, even people who are considered much less skilled than you. If you win a prep tournament, it is a good testament to your skill that you survived the potential of many people trying their best to overcome the skill gap and snipe you, but the tournament format itself does not lead to the highest skill ceiling possible.
It's the age old meme question of "can Batman defeat X with years of preparation?" The preparation is making up for their lack of skill and strength. No one thinks Batman is stronger than Superman for example.
This is also why Taeja is underrated these days (at least according to the active posters on TL these days). He was specifically very consistent at winning premiere weekender tournaments, the hardest kind of tournament to be consistent in, and while defeating top HotS players like Innovation, Life, MMA, MC, Zest, sOs, etc. (Some of which would sometimes drown in pools! You don't see them being knocked out Round 1 of GSL do you?)
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
This is absolutely the correct take. The more time you have, the more you can prepare, the more you can compensate for a skill gap between you and your opponent, especially when it's possible that opponent is preparing less for you than you are for them.
Weekender tournaments with a limited amount of time to prepare between matches naturally lead to a much higher skill ceiling, because the amount of time/preparation is constrained. Anything constrained becomes harder.
GSL and preparation tournaments were hard not because it's the highest skill format, it's because people can prepare to snipe you, even people who are considered much less skilled than you. If you win a prep tournament, it is a good testament to your skill that you survived the potential of many people trying their best to overcome the skill gap and snipe you, but the tournament format itself does not lead to the highest skill ceiling possible.
It's the age old meme question of "can Batman defeat X with years of preparation?" The preparation is making up for their lack of skill and strength. No one thinks Batman is stronger than Superman for example.
This is also why Taeja is underrated these days (at least according to the active posters on TL these days). He was specifically very consistent at winning premiere weekender tournaments, the hardest kind of tournament to be consistent in, and while defeating top HotS players like Innovation, Life, MMA, MC, Zest, sOs, etc. (Some of which would sometimes drown in pools! You don't see them being knocked out Round 1 of GSL do you?)
That's only true if you don't consider the ability to prepare well a skill. I do.
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
This is absolutely the correct take. The more time you have, the more you can prepare, the more you can compensate for a skill gap between you and your opponent, especially when it's possible that opponent is preparing less for you than you are for them.
Weekender tournaments with a limited amount of time to prepare between matches naturally lead to a much higher skill ceiling, because the amount of time/preparation is constrained. Anything constrained becomes harder.
GSL and preparation tournaments were hard not because it's the highest skill format, it's because people can prepare to snipe you, even people who are considered much less skilled than you. If you win a prep tournament, it is a good testament to your skill that you survived the potential of many people trying their best to overcome the skill gap and snipe you, but the tournament format itself does not lead to the highest skill ceiling possible.
It's the age old meme question of "can Batman defeat X with years of preparation?" The preparation is making up for their lack of skill and strength. No one thinks Batman is stronger than Superman for example.
This is also why Taeja is underrated these days (at least according to the active posters on TL these days). He was specifically very consistent at winning premiere weekender tournaments, the hardest kind of tournament to be consistent in, and while defeating top HotS players like Innovation, Life, MMA, MC, Zest, sOs, etc. (Some of which would sometimes drown in pools! You don't see them being knocked out Round 1 of GSL do you?)
One could also easily argue that since Code S takes place over a number of weeks/months that it is more difficult to be consistent because you need to maintain your form for such a long time. Or you can just make definitive statements without any evidence. That's fine as well.
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
This is absolutely the correct take. The more time you have, the more you can prepare, the more you can compensate for a skill gap between you and your opponent, especially when it's possible that opponent is preparing less for you than you are for them.
Weekender tournaments with a limited amount of time to prepare between matches naturally lead to a much higher skill ceiling, because the amount of time/preparation is constrained. Anything constrained becomes harder.
GSL and preparation tournaments were hard not because it's the highest skill format, it's because people can prepare to snipe you, even people who are considered much less skilled than you. If you win a prep tournament, it is a good testament to your skill that you survived the potential of many people trying their best to overcome the skill gap and snipe you, but the tournament format itself does not lead to the highest skill ceiling possible.
It's the age old meme question of "can Batman defeat X with years of preparation?" The preparation is making up for their lack of skill and strength. No one thinks Batman is stronger than Superman for example.
This is also why Taeja is underrated these days (at least according to the active posters on TL these days). He was specifically very consistent at winning premiere weekender tournaments, the hardest kind of tournament to be consistent in, and while defeating top HotS players like Innovation, Life, MMA, MC, Zest, sOs, etc. (Some of which would sometimes drown in pools! You don't see them being knocked out Round 1 of GSL do you?)
And yet pretty much every competition worth anything is played with a prep format.
Prep gives players the opportunity to play at their peak. Finding holes in the other person's play is part of it (but not a part Maru is particularly good at anyways) but the bigger thing is optimizing your own play. No weekend tournament bo5/bo7 is going to have a player who plays a completely different heavily optimized build on every map. It just doesn't happen in weekend events. Meanwhile it happens (or at least used to when GSL paid more) all the time in GSL.
Prep provides the opportunity for peak condition/optimization. Weekend tournaments is the best you can do within poor circumstances. Peak vs peak is far more interesting.
And yet pretty much every competition worth anything is played with a prep format.
Do you mean in SC2, Esports or in general sports? Because in all three cases you are mostly incorrect.
SC2: GSL is basically the only "prep" tournament (or as I would call it "tournament that is stretched out for months for no real purpose anymore"). Katowice, World Championships, even the regionals that give out double+ the money of GSL as of now are not that stretched.
Esports: LoL stretches later rounds in its competition, but mostly so that the important matches are on the weekend. Most other Esports however use a weekender or otherwise "compact" system.
General sports: Teamsports are, depending on the sport, more stretched out than others, but that is less of a preparation-thing and again has more to do with hype and good slots and less with preparation. There is also the logistics part, teams need to travel and often play in multiple leagues at the same time. Or there is some kind of "Best-Of-X"-System in play (like in US-Sports). What are the biggest solo 1v1 sports? Anything Fighting related (which is, if we ignore the big "showy" sports, tournament-based), Chess and Tennis. Well, guess what, Chess and Tennis are also weekenders/week-long tournaments, except for the Chess World Championship. That is the only "prep-tournament" I would compare to GSL, but compared to that GSL looks kind of like a weekender again.
Lastly, just as a funfact: The timespan between the 2nd GSL round and the Final 4 day is 14 days in GSL '24 S1. The timespan between the start of the playoffs in Europe '23 S3 and the Grand Finals are ten days. This year, GSL is only two weeks-ish longer than the European Regional in total. That's...nothing? So what, European Regional is a prep tournament now?
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
This is absolutely the correct take. The more time you have, the more you can prepare, the more you can compensate for a skill gap between you and your opponent, especially when it's possible that opponent is preparing less for you than you are for them.
Weekender tournaments with a limited amount of time to prepare between matches naturally lead to a much higher skill ceiling, because the amount of time/preparation is constrained. Anything constrained becomes harder.
GSL and preparation tournaments were hard not because it's the highest skill format, it's because people can prepare to snipe you, even people who are considered much less skilled than you. If you win a prep tournament, it is a good testament to your skill that you survived the potential of many people trying their best to overcome the skill gap and snipe you, but the tournament format itself does not lead to the highest skill ceiling possible.
It's the age old meme question of "can Batman defeat X with years of preparation?" The preparation is making up for their lack of skill and strength. No one thinks Batman is stronger than Superman for example.
This is also why Taeja is underrated these days (at least according to the active posters on TL these days). He was specifically very consistent at winning premiere weekender tournaments, the hardest kind of tournament to be consistent in, and while defeating top HotS players like Innovation, Life, MMA, MC, Zest, sOs, etc. (Some of which would sometimes drown in pools! You don't see them being knocked out Round 1 of GSL do you?)
That's only true if you don't consider the ability to prepare well a skill. I do.
Preparing well is a skill yes, but preparing is still part of a weekender tournament format too. You just have to prepare in advance and have less time to prepare between matches during the tournament, making it much harder of a format. Having a lot of skill, knowledge, builds, etc. memorized is advantageous for weekender formats where you don't have ample time to comfortably prepare.
If you gave everyone 1 year to prepare for every match, and the first round was a group stage of only Bo3, then wouldn't it increase the chances of lower level players to beat higher level players? I think that means that constraining the amount of prep time you have means there is a higher skill ceiling.
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
This is absolutely the correct take. The more time you have, the more you can prepare, the more you can compensate for a skill gap between you and your opponent, especially when it's possible that opponent is preparing less for you than you are for them.
Weekender tournaments with a limited amount of time to prepare between matches naturally lead to a much higher skill ceiling, because the amount of time/preparation is constrained. Anything constrained becomes harder.
GSL and preparation tournaments were hard not because it's the highest skill format, it's because people can prepare to snipe you, even people who are considered much less skilled than you. If you win a prep tournament, it is a good testament to your skill that you survived the potential of many people trying their best to overcome the skill gap and snipe you, but the tournament format itself does not lead to the highest skill ceiling possible.
It's the age old meme question of "can Batman defeat X with years of preparation?" The preparation is making up for their lack of skill and strength. No one thinks Batman is stronger than Superman for example.
This is also why Taeja is underrated these days (at least according to the active posters on TL these days). He was specifically very consistent at winning premiere weekender tournaments, the hardest kind of tournament to be consistent in, and while defeating top HotS players like Innovation, Life, MMA, MC, Zest, sOs, etc. (Some of which would sometimes drown in pools! You don't see them being knocked out Round 1 of GSL do you?)
And yet pretty much every competition worth anything is played with a prep format.
Prep gives players the opportunity to play at their peak. Finding holes in the other person's play is part of it (but not a part Maru is particularly good at anyways) but the bigger thing is optimizing your own play. No weekend tournament bo5/bo7 is going to have a player who plays a completely different heavily optimized build on every map. It just doesn't happen in weekend events. Meanwhile it happens (or at least used to when GSL paid more) all the time in GSL.
Prep provides the opportunity for peak condition/optimization. Weekend tournaments is the best you can do within poor circumstances. Peak vs peak is far more interesting.
Yep very fair points. I don't disagree at all that people enjoy watching people be able to play closer to their peaks to be clear. Coming up with optimized strategies and pulling out builds for a weekender format naturally results in a higher possible ceiling than when everyone has more time to play near their peak however. It doesn't mean it can't be done, it's just harder with less time. But a theoretical person could do that and stand above the rest.
An example is if you played chess and each player had an infinite amount of time to make their move. It would suck watching a chess game like that where you have to watch the players think and prepare, and thankfully with a SC2 prep format like GSL you only have to watch them when they've prepped and are ready to play. But i think everyone would agree that chess played with a timer would lead to a higher skill ceiling because the amount of time you have to think and prepare is constrained. The more skilled and experienced players would win.
(Btw though WCS, IEM Kato, etc. are all worth something for sure, and for a long time in SC2 smaller weekender tournies were also worth something as shown by the viewership, audience, hype, and glory those tournaments got. They had smaller prize pools sure but you also can win that money in much less time than a prep tourny, so it's pretty proportional).
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
This is absolutely the correct take. The more time you have, the more you can prepare, the more you can compensate for a skill gap between you and your opponent, especially when it's possible that opponent is preparing less for you than you are for them.
Weekender tournaments with a limited amount of time to prepare between matches naturally lead to a much higher skill ceiling, because the amount of time/preparation is constrained. Anything constrained becomes harder.
GSL and preparation tournaments were hard not because it's the highest skill format, it's because people can prepare to snipe you, even people who are considered much less skilled than you. If you win a prep tournament, it is a good testament to your skill that you survived the potential of many people trying their best to overcome the skill gap and snipe you, but the tournament format itself does not lead to the highest skill ceiling possible.
It's the age old meme question of "can Batman defeat X with years of preparation?" The preparation is making up for their lack of skill and strength. No one thinks Batman is stronger than Superman for example.
This is also why Taeja is underrated these days (at least according to the active posters on TL these days). He was specifically very consistent at winning premiere weekender tournaments, the hardest kind of tournament to be consistent in, and while defeating top HotS players like Innovation, Life, MMA, MC, Zest, sOs, etc. (Some of which would sometimes drown in pools! You don't see them being knocked out Round 1 of GSL do you?)
One could also easily argue that since Code S takes place over a number of weeks/months that it is more difficult to be consistent because you need to maintain your form for such a long time. Or you can just make definitive statements without any evidence. That's fine as well.
While that's a fair argument, how difficult it is to be consistent over a long period (and how that might make it harder to win a Code S), is different from the point I was trying to make specifically about what tournament format allows for the highest possible skill ceiling. I'd like to be careful to avoid conflating them. A superman fighting 100 batmans with 50 years of preparation over a span of 10 years may be hard, but no one is going to think that the batmans are better than the superman, even if one of them defeats the superman. It would be very impressive for the superman to come out on top sure, but that's a separate point. I think that's a pretty understandable concept and isn't really any kind of "definitive statement". Also, I didn't know we had to include evidence with each post or opinion we share on this forum, if so your post seems to be missing evidence as well
On your point though, I think one could also argue that maintaining your form to peak during a small period of 2-3 days that others are trying to also bring their best form to, could also be as difficult as it is to maintain your form consistently over a couple months that others are also trying to maintain their form consistently. Constraining it to a smaller period brings more volatility.
And yet pretty much every competition worth anything is played with a prep format.
Do you mean in SC2, Esports or in general sports? Because in all three cases you are mostly incorrect.
SC2: GSL is basically the only "prep" tournament (or as I would call it "tournament that is stretched out for months for no real purpose anymore"). Katowice, World Championships, even the regionals that give out double+ the money of GSL as of now are not that stretched.
Esports: LoL stretches later rounds in its competition, but mostly so that the important matches are on the weekend. Most other Esports however use a weekender or otherwise "compact" system.
General sports: Teamsports are, depending on the sport, more stretched out than others, but that is less of a preparation-thing and again has more to do with hype and good slots and less with preparation. There is also the logistics part, teams need to travel and often play in multiple leagues at the same time. Or there is some kind of "Best-Of-X"-System in play (like in US-Sports). What are the biggest solo 1v1 sports? Anything Fighting related (which is, if we ignore the big "showy" sports, tournament-based), Chess and Tennis. Well, guess what, Chess and Tennis are also weekenders/week-long tournaments, except for the Chess World Championship. That is the only "prep-tournament" I would compare to GSL, but compared to that GSL looks kind of like a weekender again.
Lastly, just as a funfact: The timespan between the 2nd GSL round and the Final 4 day is 14 days in GSL '24 S1. The timespan between the start of the playoffs in Europe '23 S3 and the Grand Finals are ten days. This year, GSL is only two weeks-ish longer than the European Regional in total. That's...nothing? So what, European Regional is a prep tournament now?
I was talking in general in competition. Obviously not in SC2. At least since proleague ended. Team sports you already conceded though with caveats I don't fully agree with. They want strategy to be a big part of it and the only way that's possible is with prep. It's not just about time slots/hype/logistics. They definitely believe (correctly imo) prep leads to better play. Chess also has prep outside of the world championship. The tournament that chooses the challenger for the world champion is only 8 players and 3 weeks long. That's longer than the top 8 of GSL. Most major chess tournaments are at least 2 weeks long. The qualifiers may be the brutal SC2 structure but in the tournaments themselves they give prep time. While it's not as long as GSL that's far different than the typical 3 days for SC2 tournaments. Tennis is the same again multiple weeks long at least for all the major events.
It’s odd now I think of it, seems pretty obvious. Myself included, we talk about the various on-paper positives of each format
What about the games in actuality? Is this prep actually resulting in higher level StarCraft? I’d argue not really at all, and I don’t think it has in quite a while now.
I mean I’d say Serral pulled more tailored plans out of the pocket in his Katowice done (that gold/roach build versus Dark was especially nice) than we saw in the GSL finals day.
If we consider a combination of a lesser overall field of real contenders, much of the field being confirmed way, way out for the tournament, and the prize pool.
I mean you’re probably seeing far more prep for that tournament than GSL these days. People have months to gain an edge
Maru did have that prep build in TvT where he mass Viking Tanks into BC against Cure. The final wasnt much of a prep build although Maru constantly went early aggression againts herO was not fully expected.
On April 18 2024 11:57 JJH777 wrote: Tennis is the same again multiple weeks long at least for all the major events.
Tennis Grand Slams are 2 weeks long which is as short as can be without fatigue of players beeing too big a thing. Also there are hundreds of players competing, not 16. Tennis has been the pinnacle of 1v1 competition for the last decade by a lot of metrics: money, reach, fans, viewers
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
This is absolutely the correct take. The more time you have, the more you can prepare, the more you can compensate for a skill gap between you and your opponent, especially when it's possible that opponent is preparing less for you than you are for them.
Weekender tournaments with a limited amount of time to prepare between matches naturally lead to a much higher skill ceiling, because the amount of time/preparation is constrained. Anything constrained becomes harder.
GSL and preparation tournaments were hard not because it's the highest skill format, it's because people can prepare to snipe you, even people who are considered much less skilled than you. If you win a prep tournament, it is a good testament to your skill that you survived the potential of many people trying their best to overcome the skill gap and snipe you, but the tournament format itself does not lead to the highest skill ceiling possible.
It's the age old meme question of "can Batman defeat X with years of preparation?" The preparation is making up for their lack of skill and strength. No one thinks Batman is stronger than Superman for example.
This is also why Taeja is underrated these days (at least according to the active posters on TL these days). He was specifically very consistent at winning premiere weekender tournaments, the hardest kind of tournament to be consistent in, and while defeating top HotS players like Innovation, Life, MMA, MC, Zest, sOs, etc. (Some of which would sometimes drown in pools! You don't see them being knocked out Round 1 of GSL do you?)
I think there is a bit of a contradiction here, or at least it's only a half truth, like most things. I agree in the sense that if Scarlett takes out Rogue, it might mean that I play Scarlett instead of Rogue, but I'm not sure that makes it easier. Because at the same time, why did Rogue lose to Scarlett, because the tournament is harder to be consistent in, but in another way. Because a less powerful player can construct a plan to beat a more powerful one. And as long as the rules don't change, like the Semi Finals and the Finals being played on the same day in the GSL, then the better preparing player, can continue to prepare better as that player progresses. In the end both players play each other, or should play each other under the same restrictions, so there isn't one type of tournament that is harder than another, though being able to win under any circumstance should constitute the best player. A Leenock type of player who can play an entire weekend event playing at a span of over 12 hours a day, should be recognized for his skill set. And the same with the preparation type player, and even being able to play without their own keyboard and mouse, or playing from home. In the end the player that wins, is the more skilled at winning, and that should be all that matters. And being able to handle jet lag, or taking responsibility of getting there early, so as to not suffer from jet lag is included in this skill set. Personally, I really like preparation style, but it's in no way a superior format, I wish that we can see many differently run tournaments and in that way have different players shine, showcasing these skill sets.
And yet pretty much every competition worth anything is played with a prep format.
Do you mean in SC2, Esports or in general sports? Because in all three cases you are mostly incorrect.
SC2: GSL is basically the only "prep" tournament (or as I would call it "tournament that is stretched out for months for no real purpose anymore"). Katowice, World Championships, even the regionals that give out double+ the money of GSL as of now are not that stretched.
Esports: LoL stretches later rounds in its competition, but mostly so that the important matches are on the weekend. Most other Esports however use a weekender or otherwise "compact" system.
General sports: Teamsports are, depending on the sport, more stretched out than others, but that is less of a preparation-thing and again has more to do with hype and good slots and less with preparation. There is also the logistics part, teams need to travel and often play in multiple leagues at the same time. Or there is some kind of "Best-Of-X"-System in play (like in US-Sports). What are the biggest solo 1v1 sports? Anything Fighting related (which is, if we ignore the big "showy" sports, tournament-based), Chess and Tennis. Well, guess what, Chess and Tennis are also weekenders/week-long tournaments, except for the Chess World Championship. That is the only "prep-tournament" I would compare to GSL, but compared to that GSL looks kind of like a weekender again.
Lastly, just as a funfact: The timespan between the 2nd GSL round and the Final 4 day is 14 days in GSL '24 S1. The timespan between the start of the playoffs in Europe '23 S3 and the Grand Finals are ten days. This year, GSL is only two weeks-ish longer than the European Regional in total. That's...nothing? So what, European Regional is a prep tournament now?
I was talking in general in competition. Obviously not in SC2. At least since proleague ended. Team sports you already conceded though with caveats I don't fully agree with. They want strategy to be a big part of it and the only way that's possible is with prep. It's not just about time slots/hype/logistics. They definitely believe (correctly imo) prep leads to better play. Chess also has prep outside of the world championship. The tournament that chooses the challenger for the world champion is only 8 players and 3 weeks long. That's longer than the top 8 of GSL. Most major chess tournaments are at least 2 weeks long. The qualifiers may be the brutal SC2 structure but in the tournaments themselves they give prep time. While it's not as long as GSL that's far different than the typical 3 days for SC2 tournaments. Tennis is the same again multiple weeks long at least for all the major events.
Tennis Grand Slams are two weeks long because you have a massive field of players you physically need to place onto courts that then proceed to play two to three hour long games that are physically draining. I'm of course not saying that SC2 isn't physically draining, but I think we can all agree that going five sets against Djokovic will leave you in a much worse physical state than going five maps against Serral or Maru. Or in other terms: If you said to a Tennis player he had to play Katowice-Style, aka. the entire Ro8 on one day, six out of eight players would probably be collaps before the finals and/or leave the tournament with some kind of injury.
With teamsports, it is kind of the same. Sure, US-Sports have generally more preptime, but if needed, they will easily cram as much gameplay as possible in a very short amount of time. To give one example: The European Handball Champions League, THE Handball tournament in the world, plays out their finals in a Final 4 on one weekend. Saturday is the Ro4, Sunday is the Small and Grand Final. World and Europe Cup for nations have the same system.
90% of "prep-time" in general sports comes from the physical challenges and "problems" that come with non-esports. Regeneration, travel, ticket sales and media presentation. Which, if we are honest, is the only reason koreans have this kind of "prep league" in the first place: When the first OSL came around in what, 2001 or something, no one thought "it would be so cool if we gave players enough time to prepare!". The general sound was most likely "sooo...hooow do we stretch this thing out long enough that we can actually fill a TV schedule with it?"
On April 18 2024 12:52 WombaT wrote: It’s odd now I think of it, seems pretty obvious. Myself included, we talk about the various on-paper positives of each format
What about the games in actuality? Is this prep actually resulting in higher level StarCraft? I’d argue not really at all, and I don’t think it has in quite a while now.
I mean I’d say Serral pulled more tailored plans out of the pocket in his Katowice done (that gold/roach build versus Dark was especially nice) than we saw in the GSL finals day.
If we consider a combination of a lesser overall field of real contenders, much of the field being confirmed way, way out for the tournament, and the prize pool.
I mean you’re probably seeing far more prep for that tournament than GSL these days. People have months to gain an edge
I mean pretty much exactly this. People will save their builds and order them by tournament importance. We will probably see vicious competition and pocket builds for Gamers8. That's absolutely the rational thing to do.
In practice another case in point everyone remembers : Classic's blink DTs vs Rogue at Blizzcon 2019.
In neutral fashion I honestly think we see the highest level of play at large prizepool tournaments Koreans care about, if only because Reynor and Serral are in there as well on top of all the usual suspects. Then it's GSL, but the difference is minuscule anyway.
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
This is absolutely the correct take. The more time you have, the more you can prepare, the more you can compensate for a skill gap between you and your opponent, especially when it's possible that opponent is preparing less for you than you are for them.
Weekender tournaments with a limited amount of time to prepare between matches naturally lead to a much higher skill ceiling, because the amount of time/preparation is constrained. Anything constrained becomes harder.
GSL and preparation tournaments were hard not because it's the highest skill format, it's because people can prepare to snipe you, even people who are considered much less skilled than you. If you win a prep tournament, it is a good testament to your skill that you survived the potential of many people trying their best to overcome the skill gap and snipe you, but the tournament format itself does not lead to the highest skill ceiling possible.
It's the age old meme question of "can Batman defeat X with years of preparation?" The preparation is making up for their lack of skill and strength. No one thinks Batman is stronger than Superman for example.
This is also why Taeja is underrated these days (at least according to the active posters on TL these days). He was specifically very consistent at winning premiere weekender tournaments, the hardest kind of tournament to be consistent in, and while defeating top HotS players like Innovation, Life, MMA, MC, Zest, sOs, etc. (Some of which would sometimes drown in pools! You don't see them being knocked out Round 1 of GSL do you?)
I think there is a bit of a contradiction here, or at least it's only a half truth, like most things. I agree in the sense that if Scarlett takes out Rogue, it might mean that I play Scarlett instead of Rogue, but I'm not sure that makes it easier. Because at the same time, why did Rogue lose to Scarlett, because the tournament is harder to be consistent in, but in another way. Because a less powerful player can construct a plan to beat a more powerful one. And as long as the rules don't change, like the Semi Finals and the Finals being played on the same day in the GSL, then the better preparing player, can continue to prepare better as that player progresses. In the end both players play each other, or should play each other under the same restrictions, so there isn't one type of tournament that is harder than another, though being able to win under any circumstance should constitute the best player. A Leenock type of player who can play an entire weekend event playing at a span of over 12 hours a day, should be recognized for his skill set. And the same with the preparation type player, and even being able to play without their own keyboard and mouse, or playing from home. In the end the player that wins, is the more skilled at winning, and that should be all that matters. And being able to handle jet lag, or taking responsibility of getting there early, so as to not suffer from jet lag is included in this skill set. Personally, I really like preparation style, but it's in no way a superior format, I wish that we can see many differently run tournaments and in that way have different players shine, showcasing these skill sets.
Yep both tourny formats are hard in their ways and definitely have different skill sets.
I do think prep tournies are harder to win because everyone has more time to prep more and play closer to their peak for those games, and thus lower level players could theoretically close the gap. Weekender tournies are harder to win if you're a lower level player cus the gap will just be wide.
In that sense, if you're a top pro, you will have the advantage in a weekender tournament where it's harder for lower level players to snipe you. However, the nature of the tourny also leads to more volatility in general, because everyone will be less prepared and less practiced and less rested between matches, so there is that unique aspect giving lower level players a chance to make an upset.
On April 18 2024 12:52 WombaT wrote: It’s odd now I think of it, seems pretty obvious. Myself included, we talk about the various on-paper positives of each format
What about the games in actuality? Is this prep actually resulting in higher level StarCraft? I’d argue not really at all, and I don’t think it has in quite a while now.
I mean I’d say Serral pulled more tailored plans out of the pocket in his Katowice done (that gold/roach build versus Dark was especially nice) than we saw in the GSL finals day.
If we consider a combination of a lesser overall field of real contenders, much of the field being confirmed way, way out for the tournament, and the prize pool.
I mean you’re probably seeing far more prep for that tournament than GSL these days. People have months to gain an edge
I mean pretty much exactly this. People will save their builds and order them by tournament importance. We will probably see vicious competition and pocket builds for Gamers8. That's absolutely the rational thing to do.
In practice another case in point everyone remembers : Classic's blink DTs vs Rogue at Blizzcon 2019.
In neutral fashion I honestly think we see the highest level of play at large prizepool tournaments Koreans care about, if only because Reynor and Serral are in there as well on top of all the usual suspects. Then it's GSL, but the difference is minuscule anyway.
Great examples. As sad as it makes me, the last GSL finals of hero vs Maru was really disappointing. It didn't feel like it had the level of preparation/polish from other player. It just felt like a GSL Ro8 match. Watching the Creator vs Rogue finals was really hype and intense to me in contrast, for example. Like the game when Creator went adepts vs Rogue, and they just kept fighting back and forth, it was so close and it felt every little micro move had so much weight. The play and unit control was just so cool to watch. It felt like both players were just super confident and prepared.
I know this is part of it being played on the same day as the semifinals, and cus GSL has much less on the line with the reduced prizepool and dwindling interest/glory. Just makes me sad that for all the buildup of a GSL season, we're not getting the treat of a week of prep for the GSL finals. And with the smaller prize pool, i guess that might just be OK. It's been a good run
To me, the superiority of GSL style tournaments wasn't so much about the preparation - as everyone has said, you can prepare for weekenders, but more so about the fact that players had more rest time, simple as that. You're more likely to play at your best when you can fully rest in between matches, to me. Of course you can argue the opposite and say players need to "warm up" to put on their best, and players are used to playing 50 games a day anyway.
I'll also add that the perceived superiority of prep (which is an opinion I share, not throwing any shade here) is a little biased nowadays, due to 1) prep style tournaments having the stronger field of players overall for the longest time, and 2) old weekenders had strange formats, remember bo3 semis and bo5 finals ? Yeah that wasn't great, of course you'd feel that it's harder to win a decisive 4-1 in GSL semis, rather than a "random" 2-0 for a dreamhack, and that feeling kinda stayed over the years. And a small 3) for proleague, which was undeniably a priority for korean players, a remnant of Broodwar. And then you also had weekenders that were "fun" like HSC, not taken as seriously. And last but not least, but weekenders also used to have a lower prize pool overall, other than the IEM circuit finals (now known as Katowice) and Blizzcon. All little things that contribute to this feeling of "not as skilled / prestigious" that persists to this day.
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
nah, preparing for opponents is a skill in and of itself. its an extra layer.
Yes, an extra layer that doesn't have to depend on players' skills and thus can skew the outcome.
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
nah, preparing for opponents is a skill in and of itself. its an extra layer.
Yes, an extra layer that doesn't have to depend on players' skills and thus can skew the outcome.
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
nah, preparing for opponents is a skill in and of itself. its an extra layer.
Yes, an extra layer that doesn't have to depend on players' skills and thus can skew the outcome.
Only if you deny the S in RTS.
Read the thread, instead of writing a snarky reply. It doesn't have to depend, because you can outsource to other people the moment you have actual time to prepare. If you have infrastructure behind you like a team, a coach, training partners playing that style etc. you have a clear advantage against someone on his own that you wouldn't have (or to a far smaller degree) in a "normal" tourney. Thus it depends less on your own skill than tournaments where you can't use that infrastructure.
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
nah, preparing for opponents is a skill in and of itself. its an extra layer.
Yes, an extra layer that doesn't have to depend on players' skills and thus can skew the outcome.
Only if you deny the S in RTS.
Read the thread, instead of writing a snarky reply. It doesn't have to depend, because you can outsource to other people the moment you have actual time to prepare. If you have infrastructure behind you like a team, a coach, training partners playing that style etc. you have a clear advantage against someone on his own that you wouldn't have (or to a far smaller degree) in a "normal" tourney. Thus it depends less on your own skill than tournaments where you can't use that infrastructure.
Uhmm you can do that in every tournament, what about Lambo giving Reynor builds and advice between the games
I thought this was a pretty accepted train of thought but I guess maybe not. Prep favors T/P more than Zerg because standard games favor Zerg typically since they want to scout and react.
So for example by the time a protoss has made the finals they've shown most of their tricks and don't have much time to plan new builds, the stuff they've been using gets scouted and dealt with.
Personally I find prep tournaments more interesting because you are more likely to see cool/unique uses of the map features or strategies instead of fairly standard games
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
nah, preparing for opponents is a skill in and of itself. its an extra layer.
Yes, an extra layer that doesn't have to depend on players' skills and thus can skew the outcome.
Only if you deny the S in RTS.
Read the thread, instead of writing a snarky reply. It doesn't have to depend, because you can outsource to other people the moment you have actual time to prepare. If you have infrastructure behind you like a team, a coach, training partners playing that style etc. you have a clear advantage against someone on his own that you wouldn't have (or to a far smaller degree) in a "normal" tourney. Thus it depends less on your own skill than tournaments where you can't use that infrastructure.
TIL that skill is only about how fast and accurate you can click on thinks.
Strategy is also an skill, its not just about mindlessly clicking on things, player like sOs and Gumiho have become champions by mastering that specific skill.
The argument that Maru relied on the preparation of his team mates to do so well in GSL is the most annoying and dumb argument against him imo. It's just so obviously not true if you watch basically any Maru series that it's infuriating people keep making it. Maru almost never wins series through good build order choices or predicting what his opponent is going to do which are the main things team based preparation would help with. If anything it's the exact opposite. Maru often makes poor build choices and gets read like a book by his opponents but he's so much better in other ways that it doesn't matter.
Does anyone really think that in a world where everyone played standard every game Maru wouldn't do even better than he already does? Most off his losses especially the big ones are when his opponents predict and hard counter his build choice.
His lack of international weekender success is unrelated to his teams preparing stuff for him. That argument doesn't make any sense at all if you watch the games.
On April 16 2024 21:20 Pentarp wrote: The copium from Serral fans is hilarious.
And what might you be refering too exactly?
The people who think he's the best? Maru showing once again how consistent he is in the hardest tournament. Reynor Neeb and all these other guys show time and time again how much harder code s is than these weekend tournaments. It's a whole other beast when your opponents can prep for you.
Having time to prepare for an opponent means it's LESS skilled based, because you can bring in outside resources that you couldn't otherwise. If you have a team analyzing your opponents play-style/weaknesses and training partners playing that style you have a clear advantage against someone on his own.
nah, preparing for opponents is a skill in and of itself. its an extra layer.
Yes, an extra layer that doesn't have to depend on players' skills and thus can skew the outcome.
Only if you deny the S in RTS.
Read the thread, instead of writing a snarky reply. It doesn't have to depend, because you can outsource to other people the moment you have actual time to prepare. If you have infrastructure behind you like a team, a coach, training partners playing that style etc. you have a clear advantage against someone on his own that you wouldn't have (or to a far smaller degree) in a "normal" tourney. Thus it depends less on your own skill than tournaments where you can't use that infrastructure.
Uhmm you can do that in every tournament, what about Lambo giving Reynor builds and advice between the games
Sure, but it's not on the same level. If a single player acting as a coach for minutes-hours is already an advantage against players on their own, an entire team for days-weeks for sure is.
On April 25 2024 04:02 Lexender wrote: TIL that skill is only about how fast and accurate you can click on thinks.
Strategy is also an skill, its not just about mindlessly clicking on things, player like sOs and Gumiho have become champions by mastering that specific skill.
I have explained it numerous times, if you ignore that for emotional reasons, whatever.
i was watching reynors stream and he ran into a 6.8k unranked terran,,, said it was maru. why does maru not play ranked? my initial thought was that it was so people cant find his account and see what builds hes playing etc but if u match him, it becomes obvious its him anyway and can just keep note of the account. so anyway... yeah... is there a purpose of unranked that im missing?
On April 25 2024 04:28 JJH777 wrote: The argument that Maru relied on the preparation of his team mates to do so well in GSL is the most annoying and dumb argument against him imo. It's just so obviously not true if you watch basically any Maru series that it's infuriating people keep making it. Maru almost never wins series through good build order choices or predicting what his opponent is going to do which are the main things team based preparation would help with. If anything it's the exact opposite. Maru often makes poor build choices and gets read like a book by his opponents but he's so much better in other ways that it doesn't matter.
Does anyone really think that in a world where everyone played standard every game Maru wouldn't do even better than he already does? Most off his losses especially the big ones are when his opponents predict and hard counter his build choice.
His lack of international weekender success is unrelated to his teams preparing stuff for him. That argument doesn't make any sense at all if you watch the games.
Maru does well in the GSL for the same reason Serral is successful in most tournaments he enters. They are just (through talent / environment / training etc.) above their peers, so they will usually do better than their peers. As simple as that. Sometimes people don't practice with you (example being Serral losing to RagnaroK in 2023 because the EU zergs didn't want to practice ZvZ, and sometimes shadow starcraft is not enough), or you are sick (various players at the DH that Clem won), or your mother died or you are depressed, etc.
But ultimately, as Jaedong said in his WCS series about probably Rogue or another great zerg: winners gonna win, or something along those lines.
On April 28 2024 01:29 Poopi wrote: ...Maru does well in the GSL for the same reason Serral is successful in most tournaments he enters.
Correction:
Maru does well in GSL because he's better than his peers, and because Serral wasnt born in Korea.
That excuse would only work if foreigners/non-Koreans were banned from participating in the GSL. They're not banned, and they've participated in the GSL, even if they weren't born in Korea. If Serral doesn't want to compete in the GSL, then he doesn't have to, but don't put down the GSL players just because Serral doesn't join them.
On April 28 2024 01:29 Poopi wrote: ...Maru does well in the GSL for the same reason Serral is successful in most tournaments he enters.
Correction:
Maru does well in GSL because he's better than his peers, and because Serral wasnt born in Korea.
And Serral only won as much as he's won because many SC2 tournaments have outright banned or artificially limited KR participation.
Im not talking about ESL Europe.
Im talking about the fact that in all the premiers Serral and Maru have both participated, Serral has won double the times Maru won.
Simple as that.
Facts are really interesting when you ignore half the context. KR sc2 esports started to really die due to a combination of the life match fixing(and subsequent kespa pull out) + EU and NA region locking making it impossible for the majority of Korean players to make a living. This isn't Serral's fault, nor is it his fault he wasn't born sooner to play a more active role in that period of time. Korea of today is not the Korea of 2017 or 2015. Perhaps Serral would still be churning out GOAT-worthy performances in that time but I'm not sure I'm convinced by that argument.
On April 28 2024 01:29 Poopi wrote: ...Maru does well in the GSL for the same reason Serral is successful in most tournaments he enters.
Correction:
Maru does well in GSL because he's better than his peers, and because Serral wasnt born in Korea.
And Serral only won as much as he's won because many SC2 tournaments have outright banned or artificially limited KR participation.
Im not talking about ESL Europe.
Im talking about the fact that in all the premiers Serral and Maru have both participated, Serral has won double the times Maru won.
Simple as that.
Facts are really interesting when you ignore half the context. KR sc2 esports started to really die due to a combination of the life match fixing(and subsequent kespa pull out) + EU and NA region locking making it impossible for the majority of Korean players to make a living. This isn't Serral's fault, nor is it his fault he wasn't born sooner to play a more active role in that period of time. Korea of today is not the Korea of 2017 or 2015. Perhaps Serral would still be churning out GOAT-worthy performances in that time but I'm not sure I'm convinced by that argument.
Agreed. It's weird to me when someone thinks that a player deserves credit for probably winning a hypothetical scenario that didn't actually happen. Like, if GSL didn't specifically ban Serral from competing (which was never a rule), then Serral would have won a bunch of GSLs (hypothetically), so let's pretend to add those non-existent wins to Serral's list of accomplishments.
On April 28 2024 01:29 Poopi wrote: ...Maru does well in the GSL for the same reason Serral is successful in most tournaments he enters.
Correction:
Maru does well in GSL because he's better than his peers, and because Serral wasnt born in Korea.
And Serral only won as much as he's won because many SC2 tournaments have outright banned or artificially limited KR participation.
Im not talking about ESL Europe.
Im talking about the fact that in all the premiers Serral and Maru have both participated, Serral has won double the times Maru won.
Simple as that.
That doesn't support your original statement. You said that if Serral was in Korea Maru wouldn't do well in GSL. Serral winning more internationals where they both attended doesn't have much of anything to do with that statement because in the vast majority of those events the player who eliminated Maru wasn't Serral. In fact the vast majority of the time it was another Korean. Maru's lack of international success has almost nothing to do with Serral. Him playing in GSL would not make much difference to Maru's success because in the vast majority of GSLs they wouldn't even meet.
This is also vastly different than Serral's situation because most of his wins with the exception of like 4-5 were missing 10+ top Koreans that he'd have a very high likelihood of having to play at some point and all would have at least a ~20-30% chance of beating him. Missing 1 player makes less difference than 10+ even if that 1 is the best because no matter how good he is the median outcome of a tournament still has Maru and Serral missing each other but Serral isn't going to miss the addition of 10+ top players.
On April 28 2024 01:29 Poopi wrote: ...Maru does well in the GSL for the same reason Serral is successful in most tournaments he enters.
Correction:
Maru does well in GSL because he's better than his peers, and because Serral wasnt born in Korea.
I mean on a pure "talent" level, Maru is above every other player. The guy is just an alien. Serral works smartly and is very talented, but not as "out of this world" as Maru is. Serral is a demigod while Maru is a tier above. That's why we are discussing on this thread where there is #1 before Maru's name
On April 28 2024 01:29 Poopi wrote: ...Maru does well in the GSL for the same reason Serral is successful in most tournaments he enters.
Correction:
Maru does well in GSL because he's better than his peers, and because Serral wasnt born in Korea.
And Serral only won as much as he's won because many SC2 tournaments have outright banned or artificially limited KR participation.
Im not talking about ESL Europe.
Im talking about the fact that in all the premiers Serral and Maru have both participated, Serral has won double the times Maru won.
Simple as that.
That doesn't support your original statement. You said that if Serral was in Korea Maru wouldn't do well in GSL. Serral winning more internationals where they both attended doesn't have much of anything to do with that statement because in the vast majority of those events the player who eliminated Maru wasn't Serral. In fact the vast majority of the time it was another Korean. Maru's lack of international success has almost nothing to do with Serral. Him playing in GSL would not make much difference to Maru's success because in the vast majority of GSLs they wouldn't even meet.
This is also vastly different than Serral's situation because most of his wins with the exception of like 4-5 were missing 10+ top Koreans that he'd have a very high likelihood of having to play at some point and all would have at least a ~20-30% chance of beating him. Missing 1 player makes less difference than 10+ even if that 1 is the best because no matter how good he is the median outcome of a tournament still has Maru and Serral missing each other but Serral isn't going to miss the addition of 10+ top players.
This is such an important point about tournament format that people seem to have a hard time grasping. Thanks for laying it out so clearly.
On April 29 2024 18:27 tigera6 wrote: In the mind of some Serral fan, him winning 2 GSL vs. World = winning most GSL Code S in the past 6 years.
There were also a handful of those `world championship' things you've conveniently left off, much like Maru has conveniently left them off his trophy shelf.
On April 29 2024 18:27 tigera6 wrote: In the mind of some Serral fan, him winning 2 GSL vs. World = winning most GSL Code S in the past 6 years.
There were also a handful of those `world championship' things you've conveniently left off, much like Maru has conveniently left them off his trophy shelf.
Oh I am just talking in context of winning GSL in KR. Obviously Serral accomplishment is way more than just GSL, then again Byun has won 1 World Title, Dark has also won 1 and they combined have won "only" 3 GSL code S, so the "world championship" doesnt always equate to winning GSL, just saying.
One of the better arguments about "who is the best" is usually how the other players perceive one another. On the other hand, you have to remember that there are circle of friends among the progamers. For example, some say HM is not well loved by other progamers because he is too "blunt" (probably too german in his way of thinking I guess? just honest). But usually he is pretty honest and has good takes in terms of player skills etc. compared to his own level.
And he played a bunch of players. There is his personal bias (for example he struggled with Zest a lot, but according to him he is the perfect protoss, similarly to Maru for terran most of the time, or Serral most of the time, etc.), but there is probably some truth to it.
In one HSC, ShoWTimE said that Serral "felt" stronger than Maru after losing vs both, but you have to take into perspective the state of PvT vs PvZ. If you struggle more in one match-up than another, or if the match-up is simply intrinsically easier (which was at the time I believe, PvT was easier to play overall than PvZ), it will affect your judgement, so it will affect what you say about each player strength. But it won't tell the "truth" (which is by definition very difficult to gauge) about player's strength, just your perception at the time.
I knew Serral was the real deal around 2017 iirc, before Serral really won anything, because he was a beast on ladder and HeroMarine spoke highly of him (like oh I lost but it was to be expected because it's Serral). Since HM usually speaks his mind and usually gauges players skill well regardless of race (because he doesn't just view the TvX perspective, but the overall perspective), I think he is a good proxy to "gauge" any progamer skill / level at any given time.
Still, you have to ask the other players too, as well as the casters, the crowd, use statistics like aligulac ; history like liquipedia, etc.
This whole GOAT list is of such high quality that it will take months for most of the community to realize it's not just "an opinion", but a very elaborated representation of Starcraft 2 esports history up to like 2023 / 2024 (when it was frozen and not taken into account for the list)
On April 29 2024 19:32 Poopi wrote: One of the better arguments about "who is the best" is usually how the other players perceive one another. On the other hand, you have to remember that there are circle of friends among the progamers. For example, some say HM is not well loved by other progamers because he is too "blunt" (probably too german in his way of thinking I guess? just honest). But usually he is pretty honest and has good takes in terms of player skills etc. compared to his own level.
And he played a bunch of players. There is his personal bias (for example he struggled with Zest a lot, but according to him he is the perfect protoss, similarly to Maru for terran most of the time, or Serral most of the time, etc.), but there is probably some truth to it.
In one HSC, ShoWTimE said that Serral "felt" stronger than Maru after losing vs both, but you have to take into perspective the state of PvT vs PvZ. If you struggle more in one match-up than another, or if the match-up is simply intrinsically easier (which was at the time I believe, PvT was easier to play overall than PvZ), it will affect your judgement, so it will affect what you say about each player strength. But it won't tell the "truth" (which is by definition very difficult to gauge) about player's strength, just your perception at the time.
I knew Serral was the real deal around 2017 iirc, before Serral really won anything, because he was a beast on ladder and HeroMarine spoke highly of him (like oh I lost but it was to be expected because it's Serral). Since HM usually speaks his mind and usually gauges players skill well regardless of race (because he doesn't just view the TvX perspective, but the overall perspective), I think he is a good proxy to "gauge" any progamer skill / level at any given time.
Still, you have to ask the other players too, as well as the casters, the crowd, use statistics like aligulac ; history like liquipedia, etc.
This whole GOAT list is of such high quality that it will take months for most of the community to realize it's not just "an opinion", but a very elaborated representation of Starcraft 2 esports history up to like 2023 / 2024 (when it was frozen and not taken into account for the list)
Don’t need to go with Heromarine, plenty of the top Korean dogs all pretty much say Serral is the guy.
Hell after Katowice in his interview with Crank Maru himself said he’s got a 50/50 shot in his opinion if he’s bringing his A game. Granted this is Maru who’ll play one of the greatest series you’ll ever see and still say he’s not playing that well, so I may filter that through Maru generally being a negative Nancy.
I think the daunting thing about Serral is he basically never tanks a series, his decision making is usually on-point and even his B game is good enough to beat most. So for a lot of the field they have to bring their absolute best, hope Serral is bringing his B game and it’s still likely to go to a rubber match.
Maru in god mode, yeah that’s bloody terrifying but Serral on your average day is very bloody difficult to beat.
On April 29 2024 19:32 Poopi wrote: One of the better arguments about "who is the best" is usually how the other players perceive one another. On the other hand, you have to remember that there are circle of friends among the progamers. For example, some say HM is not well loved by other progamers because he is too "blunt" (probably too german in his way of thinking I guess? just honest). But usually he is pretty honest and has good takes in terms of player skills etc. compared to his own level.
The GSL group selection is an excellent demonstration of how players evaluate one another. In 2017, soO choose to play the "worst" Protoss in the tournament in his opening match of Seasons 2 and 3 (Trust and Hush) respectively.
On April 29 2024 19:32 Poopi wrote:
And he played a bunch of players. There is his personal bias (for example he struggled with Zest a lot, but according to him he is the perfect protoss, similarly to Maru for terran most of the time, or Serral most of the time, etc.), but there is probably some truth to it.
When I asked soO who was harder to play against, Maru (who soO has had no real success against in Lotv) or Serral (who soO beat in some really high profile matches) and he said Serral is better.
On April 29 2024 19:32 Poopi wrote:
In one HSC, ShoWTimE said that Serral "felt" stronger than Maru after losing vs both, but you have to take into perspective the state of PvT vs PvZ. If you struggle more in one match-up than another, or if the match-up is simply intrinsically easier (which was at the time I believe, PvT was easier to play overall than PvZ), it will affect your judgement, so it will affect what you say about each player strength. But it won't tell the "truth" (which is by definition very difficult to gauge) about player's strength, just your perception at the time.
This ties back to soO wanting to play against he "worst" Protoss. soO's worst matchup has historically been ZvT, while he was quite good at ZvP back in 2017. This doesn't mean Hush or Trust were worse than the objectively "worst" Terran in the event, but these matchups need to be evaluated on a case by case basis.
Also, soO once remarked that sOs described soO's peak ZvP as "he [soO] always has more stuff than other Zergs". How it feels to play against someone matters a lot, even if you can't quantify it.
On April 29 2024 19:32 Poopi wrote:
I knew Serral was the real deal around 2017 iirc, before Serral really won anything, because he was a beast on ladder and HeroMarine spoke highly of him (like oh I lost but it was to be expected because it's Serral). Since HM usually speaks his mind and usually gauges players skill well regardless of race (because he doesn't just view the TvX perspective, but the overall perspective), I think he is a good proxy to "gauge" any progamer skill / level at any given time.
I like to call 2017 Serral StarCraft II's worst kept secret. Every pro knew he was going to take a big jump when he went full time pro.
Still, you have to ask the other players too, as well as the casters, the crowd, use statistics like aligulac ; history like liquipedia, etc.
On April 29 2024 19:32 Poopi wrote:
This whole GOAT list is of such high quality that it will take months for most of the community to realize it's not just "an opinion", but a very elaborated representation of Starcraft 2 esports history up to like 2023 / 2024 (when it was frozen and not taken into account for the list)
That's interesting though, Serral aims to be better, so he will sometimes play "boring" options that are more optimal, while Maru (consciously or unconsciously) will sometimes make decisions that bite him in the ass (example being his vs Reynor game3 iirc during Katowice 2024), but will manage to still stabilize with godlike defense / micro that makes the game an epic one.
Since esports is not just competition but also entertainment, I find more enjoyable the players who manage to come back from sub optimal decisions through sheer godlike skill, rather than players who will do their best to win even if it's not flashy.
We call it "le beau jeu" in French :D
So I am not surprised soO finds Serral better. Maru is greater though (and can be better than anyone else when he is at his best)
As for the "feeling" a player, as a player in the past myself that played versus numerous pros during WoL, I can agree to that feeling. Happy had an insane micro to every tiny interaction: it was not necessarily the most optimal move, but everytime you had to fight his units, you could sense he was just doing slightly better things. Unfortunately for him, that skill set is not as suited to Starcraft as it is to Warcraft.
Similarly for LucifroN: he was the terran other than Happy who had the most insane micro management I ever played in WoL. Polt on the other hand, you felt like he knew everything in advance. Like you have a plan, but somehow he managed to read your thoughts: sure, it could be "build order luck", but is it really? The guy is "relatively" slow albeit clean for a progamer, but he is pretty smart. That's why he is successful nowadays as a coach for T1 and stuff.
Stephano was ahead of its time during his prime, he seemed to always have an eye on the minimap and he managed runbyes / counter attacks better than other zergs at the time, unfortunately he was a bit cocky so he did not bother to scout in ZvT properly and it cost him his series versus INnoVation.
On April 29 2024 19:32 Poopi wrote: One of the better arguments about "who is the best" is usually how the other players perceive one another. On the other hand, you have to remember that there are circle of friends among the progamers. For example, some say HM is not well loved by other progamers because he is too "blunt" (probably too german in his way of thinking I guess? just honest). But usually he is pretty honest and has good takes in terms of player skills etc. compared to his own level.
The GSL group selection is an excellent demonstration of how players evaluate one another. In 2017, soO choose to play the "worst" Protoss in the tournament in his opening match of Seasons 2 and 3 (Trust and Hush) respectively.
And he played a bunch of players. There is his personal bias (for example he struggled with Zest a lot, but according to him he is the perfect protoss, similarly to Maru for terran most of the time, or Serral most of the time, etc.), but there is probably some truth to it.
When I asked soO who was harder to play against, Maru (who soO has had no real success against in Lotv) or Serral (who soO beat in some really high profile matches) and he said Serral is better.
In one HSC, ShoWTimE said that Serral "felt" stronger than Maru after losing vs both, but you have to take into perspective the state of PvT vs PvZ. If you struggle more in one match-up than another, or if the match-up is simply intrinsically easier (which was at the time I believe, PvT was easier to play overall than PvZ), it will affect your judgement, so it will affect what you say about each player strength. But it won't tell the "truth" (which is by definition very difficult to gauge) about player's strength, just your perception at the time.
This ties back to soO wanting to play against he "worst" Protoss. soO's worst matchup has historically been ZvT, while he was quite good at ZvP back in 2017. This doesn't mean Hush or Trust were worse than the objectively "worst" Terran in the event, but these matchups need to be evaluated on a case by case basis.
Also, soO once remarked that sOs described soO's peak ZvP as "he [soO] always has more stuff than other Zergs". How it feels to play against someone matters a lot, even if you can't quantify it.
I knew Serral was the real deal around 2017 iirc, before Serral really won anything, because he was a beast on ladder and HeroMarine spoke highly of him (like oh I lost but it was to be expected because it's Serral). Since HM usually speaks his mind and usually gauges players skill well regardless of race (because he doesn't just view the TvX perspective, but the overall perspective), I think he is a good proxy to "gauge" any progamer skill / level at any given time.
I like to call 2017 Serral StarCraft II's worst kept secret. Every pro knew he was going to take a big jump when he went full time pro.
Still, you have to ask the other players too, as well as the casters, the crowd, use statistics like aligulac ; history like liquipedia, etc.
This whole GOAT list is of such high quality that it will take months for most of the community to realize it's not just "an opinion", but a very elaborated representation of Starcraft 2 esports history up to like 2023 / 2024 (when it was frozen and not taken into account for the list)
How kind.
I guess soO is very familiar with Maru, they have been battling during all their careers, soO has had the upper hand many times also and has been watching Maru grow as a player. Whereas for Serral he has only meet the "final product".
mizzenhauer and his followers just ignore simple statistics, like head2head, tournaments won, money won, winrates, mapscores, performance vs the other topplayers and so on than totaly overvalue gsl and its "preparation" and also think they know better than betting sides and all the other pro gamers who (90%) of them self think serral is the goat
how you call people who ignore facts, and think they know better than the people who makes money out of s2 and thinks they know better than the actual gamers who breathe and live and play this game vs those players in question for years
Maru is greater though (and can be better than anyone else when he is at his best)
Can we please put emphasis on the fact that this is purely your personal opinion, never in any way, shape or form proven by statistics or arguments? Don't mean that as an attack, but you constantly throw that statement around like it is some kind of unwritten law of Starcraft 2 that everyone is aware of. It isn't. In fact, you yourself contradict that statement right after Katowice, when you exclaimed Maru "played like a God" during the finals...which he lost 4:0. If that was Maru at his absolute best, then why didn't he win atleast a map?
And I know, I also stated in the past that Serral is the best player in terms of skill and potential - in my opinion. Because it is mostly an opinion- or even feeling-based statement. Peak Serral feels untouchable, like he never even misplaces a unit. Every Zergling is exactly where it should be at all times and even when the opponent blocks the first, second and third attack, there is always a "yes, but..." with him.
I kind of get where you are coming from, since I would also attest that Marus greatest strength is his raw level of skill - but that is basically the only thing going for him, as weird as that seems. Which for me (again, just by personal feeling), proves that he can't be "better than anyone else at full potential", because his thing is literally that he can beat most people below him consistently, but can't punch above his paygrade. If he was the most gifted and best in terms of raw skill, he never would need to punch above said paygrade, because there wouldn't be anyone there to punch.
Anyway. Just wanted to clarifiy that point about him being "the greatest". Argue with statistics, overhype the GSL format if you need to, because that is based on statistics and arguments. But "he is the best because he is my favorite player and I like terran" isn't exactly an argument to throw around.
I know a perfect thread for Serral's fans to post in about his greatness - it's called #2: Serral
For some reason this thread has 34 pages after 1.5 months and Serral's thread has 8 pages with last post being from a month ago. How about posting about Serral in a thread about Serral, wouldn't it be more fitting?
On April 30 2024 01:56 ZeroByte13 wrote: I know a perfect thread for Serral's fans to post in about his greatness - it's called #2: Serral
For some reason this thread has 34 pages after 1.5 months and Serral's thread has 8 pages with last post being from a month ago. How about posting about Serral in a thread about Serral, wouldn't it be more fitting?
I guess that just proves that Serral's thread simply isn't the greatest of all time.
On April 30 2024 01:56 ZeroByte13 wrote: I know a perfect thread for Serral's fans to post in about his greatness - it's called #2: Serral
For some reason this thread has 34 pages after 1.5 months and Serral's thread has 8 pages with last post being from a month ago. How about posting about Serral in a thread about Serral, wouldn't it be more fitting?
"I disagree with Maru being the Greatest Player of All Time. If you want to know who I would pick instead, please read my post in the other thread. But I guess you could also make a point about a third player, but I've written that in yet another thread"
I'm pretty sure we heard all possible disagreements here by now - which change absolutely nothing, of course. Mizenhauer made his choice, it will not change - just like opinions of Maru and Serral fans will not change. But when people start repeating themselves, same arguments going round and round, it just looks sad, IMO.
Many here don't just write "I don't agree but ok" - they seemingly cannot live in peace with the fact that someone else might have a different opinion.
Maru is greater though (and can be better than anyone else when he is at his best)
Can we please put emphasis on the fact that this is purely your personal opinion, never in any way, shape or form proven by statistics or arguments? Don't mean that as an attack, but you constantly throw that statement around like it is some kind of unwritten law of Starcraft 2 that everyone is aware of. It isn't. In fact, you yourself contradict that statement right after Katowice, when you exclaimed Maru "played like a God" during the finals...which he lost 4:0. If that was Maru at his absolute best, then why didn't he win atleast a map?
And I know, I also stated in the past that Serral is the best player in terms of skill and potential - in my opinion. Because it is mostly an opinion- or even feeling-based statement. Peak Serral feels untouchable, like he never even misplaces a unit. Every Zergling is exactly where it should be at all times and even when the opponent blocks the first, second and third attack, there is always a "yes, but..." with him.
I kind of get where you are coming from, since I would also attest that Marus greatest strength is his raw level of skill - but that is basically the only thing going for him, as weird as that seems. Which for me (again, just by personal feeling), proves that he can't be "better than anyone else at full potential", because his thing is literally that he can beat most people below him consistently, but can't punch above his paygrade. If he was the most gifted and best in terms of raw skill, he never would need to punch above said paygrade, because there wouldn't be anyone there to punch.
Anyway. Just wanted to clarifiy that point about him being "the greatest". Argue with statistics, overhype the GSL format if you need to, because that is based on statistics and arguments. But "he is the best because he is my favorite player and I like terran" isn't exactly an argument to throw around.
You can’t prove anything that subjective with statistics though. There is no truth to it, it’s just a narrative that you have to push. Obviously, some players are not in the conversation.
And when speaking about GOAT, individual games are not that important. About the Katowice game in question, it’s difficult to analyze how godlike each player played because the cameraman could not keep up, and post games analysis are biased because players might misremember their thoughts / actions etc.
This whole GOAT thing between Maru and Serral is not about « best » or whatever, it’s about legacy and history. It not just about cold statistics, but about emotions. Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
This whole GOAT thing between Maru and Serral is not about « best » or whatever, it’s about legacy and history. It not just about cold statistics, but about emotions. Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
is this really the argument you think puts Maru over Serral?
Serral holding the 2018 finals trophy holds more emotion and drama than most of Maru's career put together.
Serral broke a two-decade long precedent in StarCraft history, and has 3 world championships. The tournaments that draw the greatest audience, have the highest emotions, and do the most to cement legacy. Maru has none. He was the guy who lost to make Oliveira's miracle run I guess. He was the guy who lost to finish this debate in the minds of many viewers.
If you want to make an argument for Maru, this is not it.
This whole GOAT thing between Maru and Serral is not about « best » or whatever, it’s about legacy and history. It not just about cold statistics, but about emotions. Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
is this really the argument you think puts Maru over Serral?
Serral holding the 2018 finals trophy holds more emotion and drama than most of Maru's career put together.
Serral broke a two-decade long precedent in StarCraft history, and has 3 world championships. The tournaments that draw the greatest audience, have the highest emotions, and do the most to cement legacy. Maru has none. He was the guy who lost to make Oliveira's miracle run I guess. He was the guy who lost to finish this debate in the minds of many viewers.
If you want to make an argument for Maru, this is not it.
I don't want to convince people that Maru is the goat, I want to persuade them. And Maru doesn't need me to defend himself as the GOAT, he is noted as #1 atm. Mvp was #1 in the latest community list, now it's Maru. Whoever will be next will probably be the guy who is not fed up with the game and keeps competing, like Happy is nowadays in wc3.
This whole GOAT thing between Maru and Serral is not about « best » or whatever, it’s about legacy and history. It not just about cold statistics, but about emotions. Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
Serral broke a two-decade long precedent in StarCraft history, and has 3 world championships.
Hmm I count 2 (2018 blizzcon and one iem when it counted as a world championship). What's the other one I'm missing?
Every time I see this thread on the sidebar I'm reminded that Mizenhauer actively chose to be objectively wrong in their subjective ranking and I get sad.
Rogue has completed resume of more world championships titles (Blizcon 2017, Katowice 2018,2020) and did so before Serral finally made his own in 2024, but we didn't make drama like Serral's zealot fans trying to belittle Maru's achievements since 2012.
Serral broke a two-decade long precedent in StarCraft history, and has 3 world championships.
This is purely emotional statement, not factual one.
This whole GOAT thing between Maru and Serral is not about « best » or whatever, it’s about legacy and history. It not just about cold statistics, but about emotions. Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
Serral broke a two-decade long precedent in StarCraft history, and has 3 world championships.
Hmm I count 2 (2018 blizzcon and one iem when it counted as a world championship). What's the other one I'm missing?
Counting the last one, Katowice 2024, as a WC. It has the full year regional seeding and a 150K 1st place prize. But if one wants to not have it in that category, it's still 0 - 2 + WhateverKato2024 is in terms of that tier of international event in Serral's favor.
On April 30 2024 04:01 swarminfestor wrote:
This is purely emotional statement, not factual one.
Can you find me another non-korean, SC1 or SC2, who achieved the results Serral has? Particularly one who did it first? This is a not a matter some intangible - players like Jinro, Stephano and Neeb cracked the precedent a bit, but Serral shattered it.
On April 30 2024 04:01 swarminfestor wrote: Rogue has completed resume of more world championships titles (Blizcon 2017, Katowice 2018,2020) and did so before Serral finally made his own in 2024
That's a good point, and it's not the first time that someone has brought up Rogue's amazing list of accomplishments. Maybe we should make another GoaT list where Serral gets bumped down to #3.
This whole GOAT thing between Maru and Serral is not about « best » or whatever, it’s about legacy and history. It not just about cold statistics, but about emotions. Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
Serral broke a two-decade long precedent in StarCraft history, and has 3 world championships.
Hmm I count 2 (2018 blizzcon and one iem when it counted as a world championship). What's the other one I'm missing?
Counting the last one, Katowice 2024, as a WC. It has the full year regional seeding and a 150K 1st place prize. But if one wants to not have it in that category, it's still 0 - 2 + WhateverKato2024 is in terms of that tier of international event in Serral's favor.
This is purely emotional statement, not factual one.
Can you find me another non-korean, SC1 or SC2, who achieved the results Serral has? Particularly one who did it first? This is a not a matter some intangible - players like Jinro, Stephano and Neeb cracked the precedent a bit, but Serral shattered it.
In terms of GSL: Jinro, Naniwa, IdrA, etc. They've all succeeded in performing well in GSLs. Unfortunately, Serral hasn't attempted a GSL run, so all of those foreigners have had more impressive results than Serral when it comes to just the GSL.
On April 30 2024 04:01 swarminfestor wrote: Rogue has completed resume of more world championships titles (Blizcon 2017, Katowice 2018,2020) and did so before Serral finally made his own in 2024
That's a good point, and it's not the first time that someone has brought up Rogue's amazing list of accomplishments. Maybe we should make another GoaT list where Serral gets bumped down to #3.
Mizenhaur knew this, citing inconsistency for the reason not putting Rogue over Serral even though Rogue made the complete resume first, won multiple Code S and almost perfect offline Bo7 results. I tried to reason out whether Rogue's absence over the last two years could impact his ranking. I just agree to disagree as a matter of respect for his article.
But during Rogue's absence over the last two years, Serral finally made his third world championship title. This is also true.
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
On April 30 2024 04:01 swarminfestor wrote: Rogue has completed resume of more world championships titles (Blizcon 2017, Katowice 2018,2020) and did so before Serral finally made his own in 2024, but we didn't make drama like Serral's zealot fans trying to belittle Maru's achievements since 2012.
Serral broke a two-decade long precedent in StarCraft history, and has 3 world championships.
This is purely emotional statement, not factual one.
How is it not factual?
Whether one wishes to weigh in particularly highly or not is down to subjective valuation, and emotions come into play there. But it’s not really disputable that Serral broke a long-established glass ceiling to become one of the best players in the world and win tournaments of a level that Koreans had had a monopoly on for decades.
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
People knowing naniwa and huk more than maru are not the people you would ask if you had any desire to actually find out about the communities view on legends lol. No disrespect to either of those players but they haven't been relevant for quite some time now. And how could you have watched sc from that era to now even casually and not know maru?
If anything it points to what you're actually saying. Europe and NA obviously relate much more to an English speaking European which is totally fine and normal therefore these players tend to be the most well known.
And lol at saying maru is boring like serral isn't also an extremely boring interview generally.
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
On April 30 2024 02:10 ZeroByte13 wrote: I'm pretty sure we heard all possible disagreements here by now - which change absolutely nothing, of course. Mizenhauer made his choice, it will not change - just like opinions of Maru and Serral fans will not change. But when people start repeating themselves, same arguments going round and round, it just looks sad, IMO.
Many here don't just write "I don't agree but ok" - they seemingly cannot live in peace with the fact that someone else might have a different opinion.
Thank you for informing me how my opinion will develop with time. I was really worried about how I was gonna handle that.
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Flash has been great in BW, but « bad » at sc2 and would have been eaten alive by INno sooner or later. Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
No disrespect to Flash, but even though he was the obvious goat for some time, what he does outside the game matters as well for that conversation.
It’s like super smash bros melee. People were so focused on the « five » gods, that they forgot that they were just human, they just needed another human to show other players the way (it was Leffen ultimately), then everyone would follow.
It’s the same for Flash, BW is still going strong since it’s an absolute great game, and some players keep honing their legacy inside and outside the game.
Betting / crypto affinity in KR is problematic because it can prevent you from playing / appearing in public etc, so you need to take that into account for your legacy, not just your in game achievements (see Life).
And « of all time » is kinda biased, because it actually evolves over time, but it makes for great discussions.
EDIT: read clarification on my opinion at post #715 if you are interested
On April 30 2024 06:52 Mizenhauer wrote: Thank you for informing me how my opinion will develop with time. I was really worried about how I was gonna handle that.
Beside the fact that this is my opinion/view - which I am allowed to have, I suppose? - I also meant changing ranking in this specific series of articles, not your opinion in future in general. Or do you plan to update this series and move players around?
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Flash has been great in BW, but « bad » at sc2 and would have been eaten alive by INno sooner or later. Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
No disrespect to Flash, but even though he was the obvious goat for some time, what he does outside the game matters as well for that conversation.
It’s like super smash bros melee. People were so focused on the « five » gods, that they forgot that they were just human, they just needed another human to show other players the way (it was Leffen ultimately), then everyone would follow.
It’s the same for Flash, BW is still going strong since it’s an absolute great game, and some players keep honing their legacy inside and outside the game.
Betting / crypto affinity in KR is problematic because it can prevent you from playing / appearing in public etc, so you need to take that into account for your legacy, not just your in game achievements (see Life).
And « of all time » is kinda biased, because it actually evolves over time, but it makes for great discussions.
Flash wasnt bad at SC2, he had a good PL record, some decent placements and actually won a Premier tournament.
And he’s just absurdly good at BW, to a ridiculous degree. Even other top, top pros frame it as Flash and then everyone else.
I think one can make an argument that somebody like Rain is the gold standard if we’re talking somebody who was top tier in 2 big RTS games sure. But Maru did absolutely jack in any other game so why bring that into the discussion in the first place?
In BW if anyone suggests anybody but Flash as the GOAT they’re not taken too seriously, whereas in SC2 it’s not a sign of latent insanity to put forward a name that isn’t Maru.
Basically undisputed GOATs are rare across competitive activities of all kinds. Wayne Gretzky in ice hockey is one such example, hard to argue against Usain Bolt and Flash is in that very select club. Maru is not because you need a legacy that’s so far away from the competition that it’s basically not possible to sensibly argue against.
On April 30 2024 09:02 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Mizenhauer, next time please rank Serral at, like, number seven or something. Just to make a few people's heads explode.
This would be glorious trolling indeed. We'd have a lot of activity on the forum for ages.
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Uhm...Messi has won a WC though? Granted, he basically needed his entire career for it, but still, he has won the biggest trophy there is. And even now people will dispute him, put Ronaldo before him or go even further back and bring the likes of Pele and Maradona into the discussion. And honestly: When someone hyped up Messi before Qatar, rarely did anyone say "his story is so interesting, like will he ever win a WC?". There was enough excitement around him you could talk about. Not particularly an attribute I would assign to Maru...
People knowing naniwa and huk more than maru are not the people you would ask if you had any desire to actually find out about the communities view on legends lol. No disrespect to either of those players but they haven't been relevant for quite some time now. And how could you have watched sc from that era to now even casually and not know maru?
Please note that I said "if you ask people who at any point were fans of SC2" - I think we can all agree that our scene is far beyond the height of its peak, so of course the fanbase has shrunk considerably. But if someone proclaims with such confidence "Maru is Starcraft 2!" then the name should definetly carry far beyond the current community.
Which, now that I think about it, is ironically a thing you could attribute to Serral (not that I would ever say "he is THE legend of SC2"). Just because of the "Foreigner beats Koreans"-narrative, Serrals name has far more traction into general Esports compared to Maru. Successes at Katowice and BlizzCon also probably travel farther just through the nature of these events. So Esports-fans not living in the HLTV-bubble (last community on the planet to learn how the EWC works apparently...) probably are more likely familiar with Serral than with Maru.
And lol at saying maru is boring like serral isn't also an extremely boring interview generally.
I think he definetly got more entertaining over the years, but sure, that is definetly not a defining quality of his. But with "boring" I didn't particularly mean personality-wise, but "legacy and story"-wise. Personally I couldn't even attest to Marus level of entertainment in interviews, since I usually don't watch translated interviews, so no idea.
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
CR7?
Besides, football is a team sport, and if Messi came from San Marino then he'd never win a World Cup. People who take the World Cup into consideration discussing the football GOAT aren't being very bright.
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Flash has been great in BW, but « bad » at sc2 and would have been eaten alive by INno sooner or later. Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
what an abomination, to even write this and actually be a writer. If you don't know anything about a topic, it's useful to remain silent about it.
Just absolute insanity.
This is what happens in history too, people distort reality and before you know it everything is remembered incorrectly and wrongfully. 20 years from now some guy will stumble upon these articles and convince himself maru was the goat, when everyone who has actually watched sc2 in the last 6 years knows there knows that Serral is better. At the very least since 2018 when he peaked.
People start putting maru in the same level as flash, when flash has dominated so hard, maru can't even tie flash shoes, its incredible to make a statement like this. Really holy shit
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Uhm...Messi has won a WC though? Granted, he basically needed his entire career for it, but still, he has won the biggest trophy there is. And even now people will dispute him, put Ronaldo before him or go even further back and bring the likes of Pele and Maradona into the discussion. And honestly: When someone hyped up Messi before Qatar, rarely did anyone say "his story is so interesting, like will he ever win a WC?". There was enough excitement around him you could talk about. Not particularly an attribute I would assign to Maru...
People knowing naniwa and huk more than maru are not the people you would ask if you had any desire to actually find out about the communities view on legends lol. No disrespect to either of those players but they haven't been relevant for quite some time now. And how could you have watched sc from that era to now even casually and not know maru?
Please note that I said "if you ask people who at any point were fans of SC2" - I think we can all agree that our scene is far beyond the height of its peak, so of course the fanbase has shrunk considerably. But if someone proclaims with such confidence "Maru is Starcraft 2!" then the name should definetly carry far beyond the current community.
Which, now that I think about it, is ironically a thing you could attribute to Serral (not that I would ever say "he is THE legend of SC2"). Just because of the "Foreigner beats Koreans"-narrative, Serrals name has far more traction into general Esports compared to Maru. Successes at Katowice and BlizzCon also probably travel farther just through the nature of these events. So Esports-fans not living in the HLTV-bubble (last community on the planet to learn how the EWC works apparently...) probably are more likely familiar with Serral than with Maru.
And lol at saying maru is boring like serral isn't also an extremely boring interview generally.
I think he definetly got more entertaining over the years, but sure, that is definetly not a defining quality of his. But with "boring" I didn't particularly mean personality-wise, but "legacy and story"-wise. Personally I couldn't even attest to Marus level of entertainment in interviews, since I usually don't watch translated interviews, so no idea.
Serral’s name maybe has slightly more traction because general eSport or eSport-adjacent content creators will make vids or articles about him breaking the Korean stranglehold. Flash may appear in a ‘greatest gamers of all time’ that non-SC fans will get exposed to, I’ve watched a rather entertaining video for a more general audience about Flash’s ASL random run too.
Which Maru generally doesn’t, but that doesn’t really mean all that much. David Beckham was a bloody phenomenal footballer too, and almost underrated by virtue of being a kind of recognisable, crossover celebrity footballer, but that status doesn’t mean all that much when weighted against what actual football fans who follow it closely think.
I only push back against ridiculous claims that Maru is considered SC2’s Flash, because he isn’t.
If he was, we wouldn’t have pages upon pages of debate, it’d simply be ‘yeah Maru’s the GOAT let’s sort the order of the remaining candidates’
Can one argue they don’t personally like Taylor Swift’s output all that much? Of course, opinions, arseholes and all that! Can one argue that Taylor Swift isn’t popular? No, you can’t that’s preposterous.
Poopi claiming that Maru is some consensus THE SC2 guy is in that preposterous territory
None of the players before or after KESPA entered mattered for any GOAT discussion. Right after Kespa players entered, GSL was pretty much all Kespa players forcing ESF players to go compete outside of Korea. Right after team houses imploded, suddenly some random no name American Protoss wins against koreans? This was between 2013-2016. Any other title before or after that doesn't count.
Right after the forced switch to SC2, Killer and Sea were pretty much the only BW players that stayed, dominating everyone else by a large margin. I would not even have Killer or Sea in the GOAT BW player discussion because they dominated 2013, when there were only 2 pro players left and hundreds of amateurs?
To even have Serral in the conversation for top 100 is just copium by the SC2 community. If the NBA was abandoned tomorrow and only some bunch of college basketball player were left, I would not call some random kid that never played pro basketball the GOAT over Michael Jordan just because the kid has better stats playing against other random kids.
On May 02 2024 19:44 Expensive-Law-9830 wrote: None of the players before or after KESPA entered mattered for any GOAT discussion. Right after Kespa players entered, GSL was pretty much all Kespa players forcing ESF players to go compete outside of Korea. Right after team houses imploded, suddenly some random no name American Protoss wins against koreans? This was between 2013-2016. Any other title before or after that doesn't count.
Right after the forced switch to SC2, Killer and Sea were pretty much the only BW players that stayed, dominating everyone else by a large margin. I would not even have Killer or Sea in the GOAT BW player discussion because they dominated 2013, when there were only 2 pro players left and hundreds of amateurs?
To even have Serral in the conversation for top 100 is just copium by the SC2 community. If the NBA was abandoned tomorrow and only some bunch of college basketball player were left, I would not call some random kid that never played pro basketball the GOAT over Michael Jordan just because the kid has better stats playing against other random kids.
You know trolling only works if it’s not obviously trolling right?
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Uhm...Messi has won a WC though? Granted, he basically needed his entire career for it, but still, he has won the biggest trophy there is. And even now people will dispute him, put Ronaldo before him or go even further back and bring the likes of Pele and Maradona into the discussion. And honestly: When someone hyped up Messi before Qatar, rarely did anyone say "his story is so interesting, like will he ever win a WC?". There was enough excitement around him you could talk about. Not particularly an attribute I would assign to Maru...
People knowing naniwa and huk more than maru are not the people you would ask if you had any desire to actually find out about the communities view on legends lol. No disrespect to either of those players but they haven't been relevant for quite some time now. And how could you have watched sc from that era to now even casually and not know maru?
Please note that I said "if you ask people who at any point were fans of SC2" - I think we can all agree that our scene is far beyond the height of its peak, so of course the fanbase has shrunk considerably. But if someone proclaims with such confidence "Maru is Starcraft 2!" then the name should definetly carry far beyond the current community.
Which, now that I think about it, is ironically a thing you could attribute to Serral (not that I would ever say "he is THE legend of SC2"). Just because of the "Foreigner beats Koreans"-narrative, Serrals name has far more traction into general Esports compared to Maru. Successes at Katowice and BlizzCon also probably travel farther just through the nature of these events. So Esports-fans not living in the HLTV-bubble (last community on the planet to learn how the EWC works apparently...) probably are more likely familiar with Serral than with Maru.
And lol at saying maru is boring like serral isn't also an extremely boring interview generally.
I think he definetly got more entertaining over the years, but sure, that is definetly not a defining quality of his. But with "boring" I didn't particularly mean personality-wise, but "legacy and story"-wise. Personally I couldn't even attest to Marus level of entertainment in interviews, since I usually don't watch translated interviews, so no idea.
Serral’s name maybe has slightly more traction because general eSport or eSport-adjacent content creators will make vids or articles about him breaking the Korean stranglehold. Flash may appear in a ‘greatest gamers of all time’ that non-SC fans will get exposed to, I’ve watched a rather entertaining video for a more general audience about Flash’s ASL random run too.
Which Maru generally doesn’t, but that doesn’t really mean all that much. David Beckham was a bloody phenomenal footballer too, and almost underrated by virtue of being a kind of recognisable, crossover celebrity footballer, but that status doesn’t mean all that much when weighted against what actual football fans who follow it closely think.
I only push back against ridiculous claims that Maru is considered SC2’s Flash, because he isn’t.
If he was, we wouldn’t have pages upon pages of debate, it’d simply be ‘yeah Maru’s the GOAT let’s sort the order of the remaining candidates’
Can one argue they don’t personally like Taylor Swift’s output all that much? Of course, opinions, arseholes and all that! Can one argue that Taylor Swift isn’t popular? No, you can’t that’s preposterous.
Poopi claiming that Maru is some consensus THE SC2 guy is in that preposterous territory
" It's infact such a crazy statement that everything this guy says should be taken with a grain of salt. Who in their right mind, who knows and follows both games, would say something like that.
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
It's like you didn't spend the last 15 years watching Brood War or Flash. It's not really worth the energy to arguing your opinion, but I will just say I disagree wholeheartedly.
Only thing I will add, is that in SC2 there's a legitimate discussion as to who is #1. In Brood War, it doesn't come close. It's Flash by miles and then a fight for who is #2. So if you put Maru far above Flash, then it feels like the argument is less about the players and more about your opinion as to the difficulty of each game.
OnGameNet Starleague (OSL): - Bacchus OSL (2008) - Batoo OSL (2009) - Korean Air OSL Season 1 (2010) - Korean Air OSL Season 2 (2010) - Jin Air OSL (2011)
MBCGame StarCraft League (MSL): - Arena MSL (2008) - Nate MSL (2009) - NATE MSL (2010) - Bigfile MSL (2012)
World Cyber Games: - World Cyber Games 2010 - World Cyber Games 2011
GOMTV Star Invitational (2008)
Incruit StarCraft League (2008)
AfreecaTV Starleague (ASL): - ASL Season 2 (2016) - ASL Season 4 (2017) - ASL Season 6 (2018) - ASL Season 9 (2020)
Second Place Finishes:
OnGameNet Starleague (OSL): - EVER OSL (2007)
MBCGame StarCraft League (MSL): - GOMTV MSL Season 4 (2008) - PDPop MSL (2009)
AfreecaTV Starleague (ASL): - ASL Season 3 (2017) - ASL Season 5 (2017) - ASL Season 7 (2019)
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
It's like you didn't spend the last 15 years watching Brood War or Flash. It's not really worth the energy to arguing your opinion, but I will just say I disagree wholeheartedly.
Only thing I will add, is that in SC2 there's a legitimate discussion as to who is #1. In Brood War, it doesn't come close. It's Flash by miles and then a fight for who is #2. So if you put Maru far above Flash, then it feels like the argument is less about the players and more about your opinion as to the difficulty of each game.
My point is not that Maru is a better candidate for GOAT at SC2 than Flash is for BW. Flash is the obvious BW GOAT.
My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
But once again, "talent" is a difficult thing to gauge, it's a matter of feeling. And after watching various esports since around 2004, with "gods" level talents such as the OGRES / Final Boss in Halo, the five gods in Super Smash Bros Melee and the recent scene, the various eras of League of Legends, Overwatch, a bit of Counter-Strike, etc. I have never seen someone as "alien" like talent wise as Maru.
Sure, he didn't live up to this potential. But it is pretty difficult to live up to such a potential when there are other monsters around, and that you know your potential is incredible.
Imho, and I emphasize this, it's merely an opinion, Maru failing to live up to the expectations placed on him are akin to William James Sidis failing to meet up the expectations of his IQ. It's lonely at the top.
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Flash has been great in BW, but « bad » at sc2 and would have been eaten alive by INno sooner or later. Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
what an abomination, to even write this and actually be a writer. If you don't know anything about a topic, it's useful to remain silent about it.
Just absolute insanity.
This is what happens in history too, people distort reality and before you know it everything is remembered incorrectly and wrongfully. 20 years from now some guy will stumble upon these articles and convince himself maru was the goat, when everyone who has actually watched sc2 in the last 6 years knows there knows that Serral is better. At the very least since 2018 when he peaked.
People start putting maru in the same level as flash, when flash has dominated so hard, maru can't even tie flash shoes, its incredible to make a statement like this. Really holy shit
Hello, I have added an edit on my original post so people can get back to this post #715 if they want to know what I actually had in mind. BisuDagger also added appendix about Flash achievements, so future readers should have a more accurate idea of the whole thing.
About the writer thing, that just means that I write articles that are then edited by Waxangel to curate / improve the quality, and then posted as content on tl.net.
So you should have in mind that Poopi posting stuff in a thread is like any other user of the forum, just an user. Sure, ideally I would try to behave in a more PR and unbiased way, and I try to do that when I post.
But as a sc2 fan / user of tl.net, I have my own biases. As long as these biases don't affect my Poopi the writer work too negatively, and that I behave as well as tolerated for regular users in my Poopi the user posts, all should be good.
2nd edit: I will finally add, that as an human being, I, Poopi, am also subject to health (and notably mental health) issues, so whenever someone reads stuff on the internet written by a human, they should remember that human are flawed and sometimes do things when their state of mind is not the best.
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
It's like you didn't spend the last 15 years watching Brood War or Flash. It's not really worth the energy to arguing your opinion, but I will just say I disagree wholeheartedly.
Only thing I will add, is that in SC2 there's a legitimate discussion as to who is #1. In Brood War, it doesn't come close. It's Flash by miles and then a fight for who is #2. So if you put Maru far above Flash, then it feels like the argument is less about the players and more about your opinion as to the difficulty of each game.
My point is not that Maru is a better candidate for GOAT at SC2 than Flash is for BW. Flash is the obvious BW GOAT.
My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
But once again, "talent" is a difficult thing to gauge, it's a matter of feeling. And after watching various esports since around 2004, with "gods" level talents such as the OGRES / Final Boss in Halo, the five gods in Super Smash Bros Melee and the recent scene, the various eras of League of Legends, Overwatch, a bit of Counter-Strike, etc. I have never seen someone as "alien" like talent wise as Maru.
Sure, he didn't live up to this potential. But it is pretty difficult to live up to such a potential when there are other monsters around, and that you know your potential is incredible.
Imho, and I emphasize this, it's merely an opinion, Maru failing to live up to the expectations placed on him are akin to William James Sidis failing to meet up the expectations of his IQ.
Flash, more dominant in his chosen game. So good at that game that he managed to get a 3rd place playing random. At his second game he was still a very solid pro, with a good Proleague record, some decent Starleague placements. Also was putting in results at the same/younger age than Maru.
Maru’s very good at the obvious, flashy aspects of the game. Flash is the complete RTS package. Maru is probably closer to being a deluxe Clem than SC2’s Flash.
Not meant as a diss at any of these phenomenal players, but it’s way more obvious to us mortals that what Maru can do mechanically is on another level, and he’s not massively lacking in other aspects of the game. Flash both has mechanics for days but also probably the keenest StarCraft brain going.
Hey it’s subjective opinion and talent is notoriously hard to gauge, I think Flash edges it myself but that’s just me.
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
It's like you didn't spend the last 15 years watching Brood War or Flash. It's not really worth the energy to arguing your opinion, but I will just say I disagree wholeheartedly.
Only thing I will add, is that in SC2 there's a legitimate discussion as to who is #1. In Brood War, it doesn't come close. It's Flash by miles and then a fight for who is #2. So if you put Maru far above Flash, then it feels like the argument is less about the players and more about your opinion as to the difficulty of each game.
My point is not that Maru is a better candidate for GOAT at SC2 than Flash is for BW. Flash is the obvious BW GOAT.
My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
But once again, "talent" is a difficult thing to gauge, it's a matter of feeling. And after watching various esports since around 2004, with "gods" level talents such as the OGRES / Final Boss in Halo, the five gods in Super Smash Bros Melee and the recent scene, the various eras of League of Legends, Overwatch, a bit of Counter-Strike, etc. I have never seen someone as "alien" like talent wise as Maru.
Sure, he didn't live up to this potential. But it is pretty difficult to live up to such a potential when there are other monsters around, and that you know your potential is incredible.
Imho, and I emphasize this, it's merely an opinion, Maru failing to live up to the expectations placed on him are akin to William James Sidis failing to meet up the expectations of his IQ.
Flash, more dominant in his chosen game. So good at that game that he managed to get a 3rd place playing random. At his second game he was still a very solid pro, with a good Proleague record, some decent Starleague placements. Also was putting in results at the same/younger age than Maru.
Maru’s very good at the obvious, flashy aspects of the game. Flash is the complete RTS package. Maru is probably closer to being a deluxe Clem than SC2’s Flash.
Not meant as a diss at any of these phenomenal players, but it’s way more obvious to us mortals that what Maru can do mechanically is on another level, and he’s not massively lacking in other aspects of the game. Flash both has mechanics for days but also probably the keenest StarCraft brain going.
Hey it’s subjective opinion and talent is notoriously hard to gauge, I think Flash edges it myself but that’s just me.
I agree with your take here. Maru is still the greatest SC2 player, but I don't think he even remotely compares to Flash and Flash's dominance in BW.
When taking into account all of the competitive e-sports over the years, Flash may very well be one of the best competitive gamers of all time, given his unrivaled mastery of one of the most difficult games to have ever existed. Perhaps there are other gamers out there who can compete at such a high level at their game of choice, for just as long as Flash has at Brood War, but I can't imagine there are too many who have the kind of longevity and record that Flash has.
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
It's like you didn't spend the last 15 years watching Brood War or Flash. It's not really worth the energy to arguing your opinion, but I will just say I disagree wholeheartedly.
Only thing I will add, is that in SC2 there's a legitimate discussion as to who is #1. In Brood War, it doesn't come close. It's Flash by miles and then a fight for who is #2. So if you put Maru far above Flash, then it feels like the argument is less about the players and more about your opinion as to the difficulty of each game.
My point is not that Maru is a better candidate for GOAT at SC2 than Flash is for BW. Flash is the obvious BW GOAT.
My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
But once again, "talent" is a difficult thing to gauge, it's a matter of feeling. And after watching various esports since around 2004, with "gods" level talents such as the OGRES / Final Boss in Halo, the five gods in Super Smash Bros Melee and the recent scene, the various eras of League of Legends, Overwatch, a bit of Counter-Strike, etc. I have never seen someone as "alien" like talent wise as Maru.
Sure, he didn't live up to this potential. But it is pretty difficult to live up to such a potential when there are other monsters around, and that you know your potential is incredible.
Imho, and I emphasize this, it's merely an opinion, Maru failing to live up to the expectations placed on him are akin to William James Sidis failing to meet up the expectations of his IQ.
Flash, more dominant in his chosen game. So good at that game that he managed to get a 3rd place playing random. At his second game he was still a very solid pro, with a good Proleague record, some decent Starleague placements. Also was putting in results at the same/younger age than Maru.
Maru’s very good at the obvious, flashy aspects of the game. Flash is the complete RTS package. Maru is probably closer to being a deluxe Clem than SC2’s Flash.
Not meant as a diss at any of these phenomenal players, but it’s way more obvious to us mortals that what Maru can do mechanically is on another level, and he’s not massively lacking in other aspects of the game. Flash both has mechanics for days but also probably the keenest StarCraft brain going.
Hey it’s subjective opinion and talent is notoriously hard to gauge, I think Flash edges it myself but that’s just me.
I think it's the fact that Flash is so good outside mechanics that he never gets credit for macro or micro like other players who are good at just that "one thing". Very rarely has anyone actually ever out micro-ed Flash.
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
It's like you didn't spend the last 15 years watching Brood War or Flash. It's not really worth the energy to arguing your opinion, but I will just say I disagree wholeheartedly.
Only thing I will add, is that in SC2 there's a legitimate discussion as to who is #1. In Brood War, it doesn't come close. It's Flash by miles and then a fight for who is #2. So if you put Maru far above Flash, then it feels like the argument is less about the players and more about your opinion as to the difficulty of each game.
My point is not that Maru is a better candidate for GOAT at SC2 than Flash is for BW. Flash is the obvious BW GOAT.
My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
But once again, "talent" is a difficult thing to gauge, it's a matter of feeling. And after watching various esports since around 2004, with "gods" level talents such as the OGRES / Final Boss in Halo, the five gods in Super Smash Bros Melee and the recent scene, the various eras of League of Legends, Overwatch, a bit of Counter-Strike, etc. I have never seen someone as "alien" like talent wise as Maru.
Sure, he didn't live up to this potential. But it is pretty difficult to live up to such a potential when there are other monsters around, and that you know your potential is incredible.
Imho, and I emphasize this, it's merely an opinion, Maru failing to live up to the expectations placed on him are akin to William James Sidis failing to meet up the expectations of his IQ.
Flash, more dominant in his chosen game. So good at that game that he managed to get a 3rd place playing random. At his second game he was still a very solid pro, with a good Proleague record, some decent Starleague placements. Also was putting in results at the same/younger age than Maru.
Maru’s very good at the obvious, flashy aspects of the game. Flash is the complete RTS package. Maru is probably closer to being a deluxe Clem than SC2’s Flash.
Not meant as a diss at any of these phenomenal players, but it’s way more obvious to us mortals that what Maru can do mechanically is on another level, and he’s not massively lacking in other aspects of the game. Flash both has mechanics for days but also probably the keenest StarCraft brain going.
Hey it’s subjective opinion and talent is notoriously hard to gauge, I think Flash edges it myself but that’s just me.
I think it's the fact that Flash is so good outside mechanics that he never gets credit for macro or micro like other players who are good at just that "one thing". Very rarely has anyone actually ever out micro-ed Flash.
Yeah if we were playing StarCraft Top Trumps and splitting up versions skills there’s a lot of 10s and 9s there.
Hell I love Bisu, in all likelihood not as much as you but he’s my favourite BW pro. What’s even he, such a phenomenal player better than Flash at?
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
It's like you didn't spend the last 15 years watching Brood War or Flash. It's not really worth the energy to arguing your opinion, but I will just say I disagree wholeheartedly.
Only thing I will add, is that in SC2 there's a legitimate discussion as to who is #1. In Brood War, it doesn't come close. It's Flash by miles and then a fight for who is #2. So if you put Maru far above Flash, then it feels like the argument is less about the players and more about your opinion as to the difficulty of each game.
My point is not that Maru is a better candidate for GOAT at SC2 than Flash is for BW. Flash is the obvious BW GOAT.
My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
But once again, "talent" is a difficult thing to gauge, it's a matter of feeling. And after watching various esports since around 2004, with "gods" level talents such as the OGRES / Final Boss in Halo, the five gods in Super Smash Bros Melee and the recent scene, the various eras of League of Legends, Overwatch, a bit of Counter-Strike, etc. I have never seen someone as "alien" like talent wise as Maru.
Sure, he didn't live up to this potential. But it is pretty difficult to live up to such a potential when there are other monsters around, and that you know your potential is incredible.
Imho, and I emphasize this, it's merely an opinion, Maru failing to live up to the expectations placed on him are akin to William James Sidis failing to meet up the expectations of his IQ.
Flash, more dominant in his chosen game. So good at that game that he managed to get a 3rd place playing random. At his second game he was still a very solid pro, with a good Proleague record, some decent Starleague placements. Also was putting in results at the same/younger age than Maru.
Maru’s very good at the obvious, flashy aspects of the game. Flash is the complete RTS package. Maru is probably closer to being a deluxe Clem than SC2’s Flash.
Not meant as a diss at any of these phenomenal players, but it’s way more obvious to us mortals that what Maru can do mechanically is on another level, and he’s not massively lacking in other aspects of the game. Flash both has mechanics for days but also probably the keenest StarCraft brain going.
Hey it’s subjective opinion and talent is notoriously hard to gauge, I think Flash edges it myself but that’s just me.
I agree with your take here. Maru is still the greatest SC2 player, but I don't think he even remotely compares to Flash and Flash's dominance in BW.
When taking into account all of the competitive e-sports over the years, Flash may very well be one of the best competitive gamers of all time, given his unrivaled mastery of one of the most difficult games to have ever existed. Perhaps there are other gamers out there who can compete at such a high level at their game of choice, for just as long as Flash has at Brood War, but I can't imagine there are too many who have the kind of longevity and record that Flash has.
I was thinking about that today. If you would make a Top 10 "Greatest Esports Players of All Time", Flash would most defintly be on that list - the placement of course depending on the exact criteria. But I'm not sure if I would put Serral on that list...and I definetly wouldn't put Maru on it. In fact, the only other player I would put on that list from the top of my head in any case is Faker - and maybe Moon? If I had to name a RTS-player who is more or atleast equally as dominant as Flash, the only one coming to mind is TheViper, who dominated AoE2 for like eight years or something like that? But of course there is a huge discrepancy in scale between prime BroodWar and Age of Empires 2, so you definetly should take that comparison with a lot of humbleness.
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
It's like you didn't spend the last 15 years watching Brood War or Flash. It's not really worth the energy to arguing your opinion, but I will just say I disagree wholeheartedly.
Only thing I will add, is that in SC2 there's a legitimate discussion as to who is #1. In Brood War, it doesn't come close. It's Flash by miles and then a fight for who is #2. So if you put Maru far above Flash, then it feels like the argument is less about the players and more about your opinion as to the difficulty of each game.
My point is not that Maru is a better candidate for GOAT at SC2 than Flash is for BW. Flash is the obvious BW GOAT.
My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
But once again, "talent" is a difficult thing to gauge, it's a matter of feeling. And after watching various esports since around 2004, with "gods" level talents such as the OGRES / Final Boss in Halo, the five gods in Super Smash Bros Melee and the recent scene, the various eras of League of Legends, Overwatch, a bit of Counter-Strike, etc. I have never seen someone as "alien" like talent wise as Maru.
Sure, he didn't live up to this potential. But it is pretty difficult to live up to such a potential when there are other monsters around, and that you know your potential is incredible.
Imho, and I emphasize this, it's merely an opinion, Maru failing to live up to the expectations placed on him are akin to William James Sidis failing to meet up the expectations of his IQ.
Flash, more dominant in his chosen game. So good at that game that he managed to get a 3rd place playing random. At his second game he was still a very solid pro, with a good Proleague record, some decent Starleague placements. Also was putting in results at the same/younger age than Maru.
Maru’s very good at the obvious, flashy aspects of the game. Flash is the complete RTS package. Maru is probably closer to being a deluxe Clem than SC2’s Flash.
Not meant as a diss at any of these phenomenal players, but it’s way more obvious to us mortals that what Maru can do mechanically is on another level, and he’s not massively lacking in other aspects of the game. Flash both has mechanics for days but also probably the keenest StarCraft brain going.
Hey it’s subjective opinion and talent is notoriously hard to gauge, I think Flash edges it myself but that’s just me.
I agree with your take here. Maru is still the greatest SC2 player, but I don't think he even remotely compares to Flash and Flash's dominance in BW.
When taking into account all of the competitive e-sports over the years, Flash may very well be one of the best competitive gamers of all time, given his unrivaled mastery of one of the most difficult games to have ever existed. Perhaps there are other gamers out there who can compete at such a high level at their game of choice, for just as long as Flash has at Brood War, but I can't imagine there are too many who have the kind of longevity and record that Flash has.
I was thinking about that today. If you would make a Top 10 "Greatest Esports Players of All Time", Flash would most defintly be on that list - the placement of course depending on the exact criteria. But I'm not sure if I would put Serral on that list...and I definetly wouldn't put Maru on it. In fact, the only other player I would put on that list from the top of my head in any case is Faker - and maybe Moon? If I had to name a RTS-player who is more or atleast equally as dominant as Flash, the only one coming to mind is TheViper, who dominated AoE2 for like eight years or something like that? But of course there is a huge discrepancy in scale between prime BroodWar and Age of Empires 2, so you definetly should take that comparison with a lot of humbleness.
Fatal1ty had success in a bunch of games if memory serves. Perhaps in an era before eSports really matured but worth a mention I feel.
Daigo Umehara is pretty legendary!
I think for like a greatest eSports players you almost have to somewhat transcend your chosen game a bit. Like other nerds may not follow your scene, but many will have heard of you nonetheless.
I dunno what my rough weighing and criteria would be as to factors, but I think you need a bit of:
1. Dominate a popular game with a very deep and cutthroat scene. 2. If your game is a bit more niche, dominate it for a very long period, or be massively ahead of the competition. 3. Bonus points/compensatory for a lack of 1/2, rise to the top of multiple games over a long period. 4. Ultimate bonus points, dominate games across multiple genres.
I can’t think of too many who hit point 4 actually! And by not too many I mean none.
You’d probably have a fair few speedrunners too, if we extended it to greatest gamers rather than just eSports
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
It's like you didn't spend the last 15 years watching Brood War or Flash. It's not really worth the energy to arguing your opinion, but I will just say I disagree wholeheartedly.
Only thing I will add, is that in SC2 there's a legitimate discussion as to who is #1. In Brood War, it doesn't come close. It's Flash by miles and then a fight for who is #2. So if you put Maru far above Flash, then it feels like the argument is less about the players and more about your opinion as to the difficulty of each game.
My point is not that Maru is a better candidate for GOAT at SC2 than Flash is for BW. Flash is the obvious BW GOAT.
My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
But once again, "talent" is a difficult thing to gauge, it's a matter of feeling. And after watching various esports since around 2004, with "gods" level talents such as the OGRES / Final Boss in Halo, the five gods in Super Smash Bros Melee and the recent scene, the various eras of League of Legends, Overwatch, a bit of Counter-Strike, etc. I have never seen someone as "alien" like talent wise as Maru.
Sure, he didn't live up to this potential. But it is pretty difficult to live up to such a potential when there are other monsters around, and that you know your potential is incredible.
Imho, and I emphasize this, it's merely an opinion, Maru failing to live up to the expectations placed on him are akin to William James Sidis failing to meet up the expectations of his IQ.
Flash, more dominant in his chosen game. So good at that game that he managed to get a 3rd place playing random. At his second game he was still a very solid pro, with a good Proleague record, some decent Starleague placements. Also was putting in results at the same/younger age than Maru.
Maru’s very good at the obvious, flashy aspects of the game. Flash is the complete RTS package. Maru is probably closer to being a deluxe Clem than SC2’s Flash.
Not meant as a diss at any of these phenomenal players, but it’s way more obvious to us mortals that what Maru can do mechanically is on another level, and he’s not massively lacking in other aspects of the game. Flash both has mechanics for days but also probably the keenest StarCraft brain going.
Hey it’s subjective opinion and talent is notoriously hard to gauge, I think Flash edges it myself but that’s just me.
I agree with your take here. Maru is still the greatest SC2 player, but I don't think he even remotely compares to Flash and Flash's dominance in BW.
When taking into account all of the competitive e-sports over the years, Flash may very well be one of the best competitive gamers of all time, given his unrivaled mastery of one of the most difficult games to have ever existed. Perhaps there are other gamers out there who can compete at such a high level at their game of choice, for just as long as Flash has at Brood War, but I can't imagine there are too many who have the kind of longevity and record that Flash has.
I was thinking about that today. If you would make a Top 10 "Greatest Esports Players of All Time", Flash would most defintly be on that list - the placement of course depending on the exact criteria. But I'm not sure if I would put Serral on that list...and I definetly wouldn't put Maru on it. In fact, the only other player I would put on that list from the top of my head in any case is Faker - and maybe Moon? If I had to name a RTS-player who is more or atleast equally as dominant as Flash, the only one coming to mind is TheViper, who dominated AoE2 for like eight years or something like that? But of course there is a huge discrepancy in scale between prime BroodWar and Age of Empires 2, so you definetly should take that comparison with a lot of humbleness.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
It's like you didn't spend the last 15 years watching Brood War or Flash. It's not really worth the energy to arguing your opinion, but I will just say I disagree wholeheartedly.
Only thing I will add, is that in SC2 there's a legitimate discussion as to who is #1. In Brood War, it doesn't come close. It's Flash by miles and then a fight for who is #2. So if you put Maru far above Flash, then it feels like the argument is less about the players and more about your opinion as to the difficulty of each game.
My point is not that Maru is a better candidate for GOAT at SC2 than Flash is for BW. Flash is the obvious BW GOAT.
My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
But once again, "talent" is a difficult thing to gauge, it's a matter of feeling. And after watching various esports since around 2004, with "gods" level talents such as the OGRES / Final Boss in Halo, the five gods in Super Smash Bros Melee and the recent scene, the various eras of League of Legends, Overwatch, a bit of Counter-Strike, etc. I have never seen someone as "alien" like talent wise as Maru.
Sure, he didn't live up to this potential. But it is pretty difficult to live up to such a potential when there are other monsters around, and that you know your potential is incredible.
Imho, and I emphasize this, it's merely an opinion, Maru failing to live up to the expectations placed on him are akin to William James Sidis failing to meet up the expectations of his IQ.
Flash, more dominant in his chosen game. So good at that game that he managed to get a 3rd place playing random. At his second game he was still a very solid pro, with a good Proleague record, some decent Starleague placements. Also was putting in results at the same/younger age than Maru.
Maru’s very good at the obvious, flashy aspects of the game. Flash is the complete RTS package. Maru is probably closer to being a deluxe Clem than SC2’s Flash.
Not meant as a diss at any of these phenomenal players, but it’s way more obvious to us mortals that what Maru can do mechanically is on another level, and he’s not massively lacking in other aspects of the game. Flash both has mechanics for days but also probably the keenest StarCraft brain going.
Hey it’s subjective opinion and talent is notoriously hard to gauge, I think Flash edges it myself but that’s just me.
I agree with your take here. Maru is still the greatest SC2 player, but I don't think he even remotely compares to Flash and Flash's dominance in BW.
When taking into account all of the competitive e-sports over the years, Flash may very well be one of the best competitive gamers of all time, given his unrivaled mastery of one of the most difficult games to have ever existed. Perhaps there are other gamers out there who can compete at such a high level at their game of choice, for just as long as Flash has at Brood War, but I can't imagine there are too many who have the kind of longevity and record that Flash has.
I was thinking about that today. If you would make a Top 10 "Greatest Esports Players of All Time", Flash would most defintly be on that list - the placement of course depending on the exact criteria. But I'm not sure if I would put Serral on that list...and I definetly wouldn't put Maru on it. In fact, the only other player I would put on that list from the top of my head in any case is Faker - and maybe Moon? If I had to name a RTS-player who is more or atleast equally as dominant as Flash, the only one coming to mind is TheViper, who dominated AoE2 for like eight years or something like that? But of course there is a huge discrepancy in scale between prime BroodWar and Age of Empires 2, so you definetly should take that comparison with a lot of humbleness.
Fatal1ty had success in a bunch of games if memory serves. Perhaps in an era before eSports really matured but worth a mention I feel.
Daigo Umehara is pretty legendary!
I think for like a greatest eSports players you almost have to somewhat transcend your chosen game a bit. Like other nerds may not follow your scene, but many will have heard of you nonetheless.
I dunno what my rough weighing and criteria would be as to factors, but I think you need a bit of:
1. Dominate a popular game with a very deep and cutthroat scene. 2. If your game is a bit more niche, dominate it for a very long period, or be massively ahead of the competition. 3. Bonus points/compensatory for a lack of 1/2, rise to the top of multiple games over a long period. 4. Ultimate bonus points, dominate games across multiple genres.
I can’t think of too many who hit point 4 actually! And by not too many I mean none.
You’d probably have a fair few speedrunners too, if we extended it to greatest gamers rather than just eSports
I can actually give you two examples for the fourth one: The Moreno-Brothers They were really good in Warcraft 3, they were Top-Foreigners in Wings of Liberty, they dominated the early Heroes of the Storm scene, they are still both in the Top ~8 of AoE IV and apparently they both crushed the ladder in Stormgate aswell?
I haven't followed enough of the general e-sports scene to have any idea who ought to be in a top ten list with Flash.
You can see how subjective this list alone is by the fact that not a single SC2-pro is on it (okay, technically Flash, Jaedong, Grubby, Moon and BoxeR are all SC2-pros, but we know this isn't why they are on that list). Cool to see Grubby so high btw. Probably besides Moon the 2nd WC3 player I would put on my Top 10 - but if I made that list, I would probably forget a bunch of DotA2-players, so who knows.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
It's like you didn't spend the last 15 years watching Brood War or Flash. It's not really worth the energy to arguing your opinion, but I will just say I disagree wholeheartedly.
Only thing I will add, is that in SC2 there's a legitimate discussion as to who is #1. In Brood War, it doesn't come close. It's Flash by miles and then a fight for who is #2. So if you put Maru far above Flash, then it feels like the argument is less about the players and more about your opinion as to the difficulty of each game.
My point is not that Maru is a better candidate for GOAT at SC2 than Flash is for BW. Flash is the obvious BW GOAT.
My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
But once again, "talent" is a difficult thing to gauge, it's a matter of feeling. And after watching various esports since around 2004, with "gods" level talents such as the OGRES / Final Boss in Halo, the five gods in Super Smash Bros Melee and the recent scene, the various eras of League of Legends, Overwatch, a bit of Counter-Strike, etc. I have never seen someone as "alien" like talent wise as Maru.
Sure, he didn't live up to this potential. But it is pretty difficult to live up to such a potential when there are other monsters around, and that you know your potential is incredible.
Imho, and I emphasize this, it's merely an opinion, Maru failing to live up to the expectations placed on him are akin to William James Sidis failing to meet up the expectations of his IQ.
Flash, more dominant in his chosen game. So good at that game that he managed to get a 3rd place playing random. At his second game he was still a very solid pro, with a good Proleague record, some decent Starleague placements. Also was putting in results at the same/younger age than Maru.
Maru’s very good at the obvious, flashy aspects of the game. Flash is the complete RTS package. Maru is probably closer to being a deluxe Clem than SC2’s Flash.
Not meant as a diss at any of these phenomenal players, but it’s way more obvious to us mortals that what Maru can do mechanically is on another level, and he’s not massively lacking in other aspects of the game. Flash both has mechanics for days but also probably the keenest StarCraft brain going.
Hey it’s subjective opinion and talent is notoriously hard to gauge, I think Flash edges it myself but that’s just me.
I agree with your take here. Maru is still the greatest SC2 player, but I don't think he even remotely compares to Flash and Flash's dominance in BW.
When taking into account all of the competitive e-sports over the years, Flash may very well be one of the best competitive gamers of all time, given his unrivaled mastery of one of the most difficult games to have ever existed. Perhaps there are other gamers out there who can compete at such a high level at their game of choice, for just as long as Flash has at Brood War, but I can't imagine there are too many who have the kind of longevity and record that Flash has.
I was thinking about that today. If you would make a Top 10 "Greatest Esports Players of All Time", Flash would most defintly be on that list - the placement of course depending on the exact criteria. But I'm not sure if I would put Serral on that list...and I definetly wouldn't put Maru on it. In fact, the only other player I would put on that list from the top of my head in any case is Faker - and maybe Moon? If I had to name a RTS-player who is more or atleast equally as dominant as Flash, the only one coming to mind is TheViper, who dominated AoE2 for like eight years or something like that? But of course there is a huge discrepancy in scale between prime BroodWar and Age of Empires 2, so you definetly should take that comparison with a lot of humbleness.
I haven't followed enough of the general e-sports scene to have any idea who ought to be in a top ten list with Flash.
Faker is probably above Flash because LoL has been the most competitive esport across the world this past decade I guess? His comeback Worlds win while being "old" probably sets him above Flash. BW might be one of the most difficult games skill wise, but the scene is only "KR" compared to LoL having also Europe, NA and China investing millions of dollars in their ecosystem to try and take down the KR powerhouses.
Still, Flash and Faker should be in the list. Other games would be difficult to judge though? It becomes too subjective at some point
On April 30 2024 06:09 Poopi wrote: [quote] Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
It's like you didn't spend the last 15 years watching Brood War or Flash. It's not really worth the energy to arguing your opinion, but I will just say I disagree wholeheartedly.
Only thing I will add, is that in SC2 there's a legitimate discussion as to who is #1. In Brood War, it doesn't come close. It's Flash by miles and then a fight for who is #2. So if you put Maru far above Flash, then it feels like the argument is less about the players and more about your opinion as to the difficulty of each game.
My point is not that Maru is a better candidate for GOAT at SC2 than Flash is for BW. Flash is the obvious BW GOAT.
My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
But once again, "talent" is a difficult thing to gauge, it's a matter of feeling. And after watching various esports since around 2004, with "gods" level talents such as the OGRES / Final Boss in Halo, the five gods in Super Smash Bros Melee and the recent scene, the various eras of League of Legends, Overwatch, a bit of Counter-Strike, etc. I have never seen someone as "alien" like talent wise as Maru.
Sure, he didn't live up to this potential. But it is pretty difficult to live up to such a potential when there are other monsters around, and that you know your potential is incredible.
Imho, and I emphasize this, it's merely an opinion, Maru failing to live up to the expectations placed on him are akin to William James Sidis failing to meet up the expectations of his IQ.
Flash, more dominant in his chosen game. So good at that game that he managed to get a 3rd place playing random. At his second game he was still a very solid pro, with a good Proleague record, some decent Starleague placements. Also was putting in results at the same/younger age than Maru.
Maru’s very good at the obvious, flashy aspects of the game. Flash is the complete RTS package. Maru is probably closer to being a deluxe Clem than SC2’s Flash.
Not meant as a diss at any of these phenomenal players, but it’s way more obvious to us mortals that what Maru can do mechanically is on another level, and he’s not massively lacking in other aspects of the game. Flash both has mechanics for days but also probably the keenest StarCraft brain going.
Hey it’s subjective opinion and talent is notoriously hard to gauge, I think Flash edges it myself but that’s just me.
I agree with your take here. Maru is still the greatest SC2 player, but I don't think he even remotely compares to Flash and Flash's dominance in BW.
When taking into account all of the competitive e-sports over the years, Flash may very well be one of the best competitive gamers of all time, given his unrivaled mastery of one of the most difficult games to have ever existed. Perhaps there are other gamers out there who can compete at such a high level at their game of choice, for just as long as Flash has at Brood War, but I can't imagine there are too many who have the kind of longevity and record that Flash has.
I was thinking about that today. If you would make a Top 10 "Greatest Esports Players of All Time", Flash would most defintly be on that list - the placement of course depending on the exact criteria. But I'm not sure if I would put Serral on that list...and I definetly wouldn't put Maru on it. In fact, the only other player I would put on that list from the top of my head in any case is Faker - and maybe Moon? If I had to name a RTS-player who is more or atleast equally as dominant as Flash, the only one coming to mind is TheViper, who dominated AoE2 for like eight years or something like that? But of course there is a huge discrepancy in scale between prime BroodWar and Age of Empires 2, so you definetly should take that comparison with a lot of humbleness.
I haven't followed enough of the general e-sports scene to have any idea who ought to be in a top ten list with Flash.
Faker is probably above Flash because LoL has been the most competitive esport across the world this past decade I guess? His comeback Worlds win while being "old" probably sets him above Flash. BW might be one of the most difficult games skill wise, but the scene is only "KR" compared to LoL having also Europe, NA and China investing millions of dollars in their ecosystem to try and take down the KR powerhouses.
Still, Flash and Faker should be in the list. Other games would be difficult to judge though? It becomes too subjective at some point
Imagine thinking NA is even remotely relevant in LoL And even the non korean teams almost always have 1-2 korean players
On April 30 2024 02:21 Poopi wrote: Maru is Starcraft 2. People will remember StarCraft 2 with Maru as the legend.
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
It's like you didn't spend the last 15 years watching Brood War or Flash. It's not really worth the energy to arguing your opinion, but I will just say I disagree wholeheartedly.
Only thing I will add, is that in SC2 there's a legitimate discussion as to who is #1. In Brood War, it doesn't come close. It's Flash by miles and then a fight for who is #2. So if you put Maru far above Flash, then it feels like the argument is less about the players and more about your opinion as to the difficulty of each game.
My point is not that Maru is a better candidate for GOAT at SC2 than Flash is for BW. Flash is the obvious BW GOAT.
My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
But once again, "talent" is a difficult thing to gauge, it's a matter of feeling. And after watching various esports since around 2004, with "gods" level talents such as the OGRES / Final Boss in Halo, the five gods in Super Smash Bros Melee and the recent scene, the various eras of League of Legends, Overwatch, a bit of Counter-Strike, etc. I have never seen someone as "alien" like talent wise as Maru.
Sure, he didn't live up to this potential. But it is pretty difficult to live up to such a potential when there are other monsters around, and that you know your potential is incredible.
Imho, and I emphasize this, it's merely an opinion, Maru failing to live up to the expectations placed on him are akin to William James Sidis failing to meet up the expectations of his IQ.
Flash, more dominant in his chosen game. So good at that game that he managed to get a 3rd place playing random. At his second game he was still a very solid pro, with a good Proleague record, some decent Starleague placements. Also was putting in results at the same/younger age than Maru.
Maru’s very good at the obvious, flashy aspects of the game. Flash is the complete RTS package. Maru is probably closer to being a deluxe Clem than SC2’s Flash.
Not meant as a diss at any of these phenomenal players, but it’s way more obvious to us mortals that what Maru can do mechanically is on another level, and he’s not massively lacking in other aspects of the game. Flash both has mechanics for days but also probably the keenest StarCraft brain going.
Hey it’s subjective opinion and talent is notoriously hard to gauge, I think Flash edges it myself but that’s just me.
I think it's the fact that Flash is so good outside mechanics that he never gets credit for macro or micro like other players who are good at just that "one thing". Very rarely has anyone actually ever out micro-ed Flash.
Yeah if we were playing StarCraft Top Trumps and splitting up versions skills there’s a lot of 10s and 9s there.
Hell I love Bisu, in all likelihood not as much as you but he’s my favourite BW pro. What’s even he, such a phenomenal player better than Flash at?
Early Movements and Setup: - The battle opens with both players strategically positioning their forces. Flash, known for his meticulous playstyle, deploys his Siege Tanks in a defensive formation. These tanks are interspersed with Vultures, which lay Spider Mines to create a protective barrier against direct assaults. The Marines are scattered, offering quick response capabilities and ranged support.
Protoss Response: - Bisu, leveraging the mobility of Protoss Dragoons, maneuvers around the map’s terrain. The Dragoons, heavy ranged units, are positioned to challenge the Terran defenses. Their goal is to exploit the Tanks' immobility, using their superior range to poke and prod at Flash’s setup.
Engagement Dynamics: - As the confrontation escalates, we see the first major engagements. Bisu initiates attacks, directing his Dragoons to focus fire on isolated Tanks. The Dragoons advance cautiously, trying to avoid the fields of Spider Mines. Meanwhile, Flash reacts by repositioning his Tanks into siege mode, where they can unleash devastating area damage.
Terran Counter-Moves: - With precise control, Flash commands his Marines to support the Tanks, targeting advancing Dragoons and warding off the Protoss. The Vultures dart in and out, redeploying Mines to adjust to the shifting lines of battle. This reactive play is crucial to holding off Bisu's aggressive maneuvers.
Protoss Adjustments and Micro: - Bisu, not deterred by the initial resistance, begins micro-managing his Dragoons with increased intensity. He executes hit-and-run tactics: firing at the Terran units and retreating before the Tanks can lock on their targets effectively. The goal is to whittle down the Terran forces while minimizing losses.
Climactic Clashes: - The tension peaks as both players engage in a micro-intensive battle. Every move and counter-move has significant implications. Bisu attempts a decisive push, leveraging a temporary advantage in numbers as he catches some of Flash's Tanks off-guard during repositioning.
Outcome and Strategic Repercussions: - As the dust settles from the skirmishes, the effectiveness of Bisu's micro against Flash’s strategic placement becomes apparent. Each lost unit for Flash means a weakening of his defensive line, potentially opening up opportunities for Bisu to exploit. Conversely, Flash's ability to inflict maximum damage while losing minimal units could lead to a stronger mid-game position, bolstering his chances for a counter-attack or economic expansion.
This battle is a classic showcase of strategy, precision, and quick decision-making that defines high-level StarCraft play. Each player's actions reflect their broader game plans, with Flash focusing on territorial control and Bisu aiming to disrupt and dismantle these defenses through superior unit management.
On April 30 2024 06:09 Poopi wrote: [quote] Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
It's like you didn't spend the last 15 years watching Brood War or Flash. It's not really worth the energy to arguing your opinion, but I will just say I disagree wholeheartedly.
Only thing I will add, is that in SC2 there's a legitimate discussion as to who is #1. In Brood War, it doesn't come close. It's Flash by miles and then a fight for who is #2. So if you put Maru far above Flash, then it feels like the argument is less about the players and more about your opinion as to the difficulty of each game.
My point is not that Maru is a better candidate for GOAT at SC2 than Flash is for BW. Flash is the obvious BW GOAT.
My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
But once again, "talent" is a difficult thing to gauge, it's a matter of feeling. And after watching various esports since around 2004, with "gods" level talents such as the OGRES / Final Boss in Halo, the five gods in Super Smash Bros Melee and the recent scene, the various eras of League of Legends, Overwatch, a bit of Counter-Strike, etc. I have never seen someone as "alien" like talent wise as Maru.
Sure, he didn't live up to this potential. But it is pretty difficult to live up to such a potential when there are other monsters around, and that you know your potential is incredible.
Imho, and I emphasize this, it's merely an opinion, Maru failing to live up to the expectations placed on him are akin to William James Sidis failing to meet up the expectations of his IQ.
Flash, more dominant in his chosen game. So good at that game that he managed to get a 3rd place playing random. At his second game he was still a very solid pro, with a good Proleague record, some decent Starleague placements. Also was putting in results at the same/younger age than Maru.
Maru’s very good at the obvious, flashy aspects of the game. Flash is the complete RTS package. Maru is probably closer to being a deluxe Clem than SC2’s Flash.
Not meant as a diss at any of these phenomenal players, but it’s way more obvious to us mortals that what Maru can do mechanically is on another level, and he’s not massively lacking in other aspects of the game. Flash both has mechanics for days but also probably the keenest StarCraft brain going.
Hey it’s subjective opinion and talent is notoriously hard to gauge, I think Flash edges it myself but that’s just me.
I agree with your take here. Maru is still the greatest SC2 player, but I don't think he even remotely compares to Flash and Flash's dominance in BW.
When taking into account all of the competitive e-sports over the years, Flash may very well be one of the best competitive gamers of all time, given his unrivaled mastery of one of the most difficult games to have ever existed. Perhaps there are other gamers out there who can compete at such a high level at their game of choice, for just as long as Flash has at Brood War, but I can't imagine there are too many who have the kind of longevity and record that Flash has.
I was thinking about that today. If you would make a Top 10 "Greatest Esports Players of All Time", Flash would most defintly be on that list - the placement of course depending on the exact criteria. But I'm not sure if I would put Serral on that list...and I definetly wouldn't put Maru on it. In fact, the only other player I would put on that list from the top of my head in any case is Faker - and maybe Moon? If I had to name a RTS-player who is more or atleast equally as dominant as Flash, the only one coming to mind is TheViper, who dominated AoE2 for like eight years or something like that? But of course there is a huge discrepancy in scale between prime BroodWar and Age of Empires 2, so you definetly should take that comparison with a lot of humbleness.
Fatal1ty had success in a bunch of games if memory serves. Perhaps in an era before eSports really matured but worth a mention I feel.
Daigo Umehara is pretty legendary!
I think for like a greatest eSports players you almost have to somewhat transcend your chosen game a bit. Like other nerds may not follow your scene, but many will have heard of you nonetheless.
I dunno what my rough weighing and criteria would be as to factors, but I think you need a bit of:
1. Dominate a popular game with a very deep and cutthroat scene. 2. If your game is a bit more niche, dominate it for a very long period, or be massively ahead of the competition. 3. Bonus points/compensatory for a lack of 1/2, rise to the top of multiple games over a long period. 4. Ultimate bonus points, dominate games across multiple genres.
I can’t think of too many who hit point 4 actually! And by not too many I mean none.
You’d probably have a fair few speedrunners too, if we extended it to greatest gamers rather than just eSports
I can actually give you two examples for the fourth one: The Moreno-Brothers They were really good in Warcraft 3, they were Top-Foreigners in Wings of Liberty, they dominated the early Heroes of the Storm scene, they are still both in the Top ~8 of AoE IV and apparently they both crushed the ladder in Stormgate aswell?
I haven't followed enough of the general e-sports scene to have any idea who ought to be in a top ten list with Flash.
You can see how subjective this list alone is by the fact that not a single SC2-pro is on it (okay, technically Flash, Jaedong, Grubby, Moon and BoxeR are all SC2-pros, but we know this isn't why they are on that list). Cool to see Grubby so high btw. Probably besides Moon the 2nd WC3 player I would put on my Top 10 - but if I made that list, I would probably forget a bunch of DotA2-players, so who knows.
I feel I’d stick them in a sorta sub-category of ‘most naturally talented’ or something. Good shout though!
They get really good at all sorts, but never really to the ‘great’ level when it counts. Like they can get to a relative level of where Harstem is in SC2 in any game they seriously pick up with relative ease, but not much beyond that into true greatness. This isn’t a diss Harstem is an excellent StarCraft 2 player btw.
I’m still mystified as to Lucifron actually getting worse as a full-time SC2 player than while studying, I really thought he’d step up a level.
They also seem better at new games, which I don’t hold against them indeed I feel it’s something that’s very underrated in the RTS scene.
Almost without fail one or both of them figures something out that’s pretty impactful in the games they play, perhaps in a world of more closed information they’d be able to make their strategic brains count for a little more.
Maru may be the #1 GOAT, but Serral is the Flash of SC2 in terms of "the best I could do is 3-2 him" sheer intimidation, whereas Maru doesn't project that aura, at least in global international tournaments.
On May 03 2024 01:49 argonautdice wrote: Maru may be the #1 GOAT, but Serral is the Flash of SC2 in terms of "the best I could do is 3-2 him" sheer intimidation, whereas Maru doesn't project that aura, at least in global international tournaments.
He’s probably the closest just in terms of being that complete package and having no real weaknesses. But his relative strengths aren’t quite at Flash’s level.
I wonder who Maru’s best BW analogue is, got all the skills and occasionally can make your jaw drop like no other, but prone to maybe the odd frustrating misstep.
Adding my usual caveat that the frequency of Maru’s missteps are still a lot less than a hell of a lot of the field, but this is judging by GOAT standards
On May 03 2024 01:49 argonautdice wrote: Maru may be the #1 GOAT, but Serral is the Flash of SC2 in terms of "the best I could do is 3-2 him" sheer intimidation, whereas Maru doesn't project that aura, at least in global international tournaments.
The whole GSL prize pool is 14k, which is what a very low viewership BW streamer with 50 viewers earns in 3 months through donations alone.
This is the 'competition' that fears Serral now.
I find it funny how much delulu this community has about the level of competition post team houses/proleague 2016, and how much hyperboles are thrown around.
The question is: If team houses would have still existed, would Serral even take 1 game from some random korean at WCS? Probably not. Serral belongs in the same category as the best random foreigners in BSL nobody really cares about. He is as GOAT as Dewalt, who would get 0-100 by Soulkey
On May 03 2024 01:49 argonautdice wrote: Maru may be the #1 GOAT, but Serral is the Flash of SC2 in terms of "the best I could do is 3-2 him" sheer intimidation, whereas Maru doesn't project that aura, at least in global international tournaments.
He’s probably the closest just in terms of being that complete package and having no real weaknesses. But his relative strengths aren’t quite at Flash’s level.
I wonder who Maru’s best BW analogue is, got all the skills and occasionally can make your jaw drop like no other, but prone to maybe the odd frustrating misstep.
Adding my usual caveat that the frequency of Maru’s missteps are still a lot less than a hell of a lot of the field, but this is judging by GOAT standards
Serral dominates because there is no competition. Is it either because he is good or the rest simply moved on from this dead end of a game, where 90 percent is funded by Saudi money, which is still below what top 5 streamers in BW get.
On April 30 2024 06:28 WombaT wrote: [quote] Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
It's like you didn't spend the last 15 years watching Brood War or Flash. It's not really worth the energy to arguing your opinion, but I will just say I disagree wholeheartedly.
Only thing I will add, is that in SC2 there's a legitimate discussion as to who is #1. In Brood War, it doesn't come close. It's Flash by miles and then a fight for who is #2. So if you put Maru far above Flash, then it feels like the argument is less about the players and more about your opinion as to the difficulty of each game.
My point is not that Maru is a better candidate for GOAT at SC2 than Flash is for BW. Flash is the obvious BW GOAT.
My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
But once again, "talent" is a difficult thing to gauge, it's a matter of feeling. And after watching various esports since around 2004, with "gods" level talents such as the OGRES / Final Boss in Halo, the five gods in Super Smash Bros Melee and the recent scene, the various eras of League of Legends, Overwatch, a bit of Counter-Strike, etc. I have never seen someone as "alien" like talent wise as Maru.
Sure, he didn't live up to this potential. But it is pretty difficult to live up to such a potential when there are other monsters around, and that you know your potential is incredible.
Imho, and I emphasize this, it's merely an opinion, Maru failing to live up to the expectations placed on him are akin to William James Sidis failing to meet up the expectations of his IQ.
Flash, more dominant in his chosen game. So good at that game that he managed to get a 3rd place playing random. At his second game he was still a very solid pro, with a good Proleague record, some decent Starleague placements. Also was putting in results at the same/younger age than Maru.
Maru’s very good at the obvious, flashy aspects of the game. Flash is the complete RTS package. Maru is probably closer to being a deluxe Clem than SC2’s Flash.
Not meant as a diss at any of these phenomenal players, but it’s way more obvious to us mortals that what Maru can do mechanically is on another level, and he’s not massively lacking in other aspects of the game. Flash both has mechanics for days but also probably the keenest StarCraft brain going.
Hey it’s subjective opinion and talent is notoriously hard to gauge, I think Flash edges it myself but that’s just me.
I agree with your take here. Maru is still the greatest SC2 player, but I don't think he even remotely compares to Flash and Flash's dominance in BW.
When taking into account all of the competitive e-sports over the years, Flash may very well be one of the best competitive gamers of all time, given his unrivaled mastery of one of the most difficult games to have ever existed. Perhaps there are other gamers out there who can compete at such a high level at their game of choice, for just as long as Flash has at Brood War, but I can't imagine there are too many who have the kind of longevity and record that Flash has.
I was thinking about that today. If you would make a Top 10 "Greatest Esports Players of All Time", Flash would most defintly be on that list - the placement of course depending on the exact criteria. But I'm not sure if I would put Serral on that list...and I definetly wouldn't put Maru on it. In fact, the only other player I would put on that list from the top of my head in any case is Faker - and maybe Moon? If I had to name a RTS-player who is more or atleast equally as dominant as Flash, the only one coming to mind is TheViper, who dominated AoE2 for like eight years or something like that? But of course there is a huge discrepancy in scale between prime BroodWar and Age of Empires 2, so you definetly should take that comparison with a lot of humbleness.
I haven't followed enough of the general e-sports scene to have any idea who ought to be in a top ten list with Flash.
Faker is probably above Flash because LoL has been the most competitive esport across the world this past decade I guess? His comeback Worlds win while being "old" probably sets him above Flash. BW might be one of the most difficult games skill wise, but the scene is only "KR" compared to LoL having also Europe, NA and China investing millions of dollars in their ecosystem to try and take down the KR powerhouses.
Still, Flash and Faker should be in the list. Other games would be difficult to judge though? It becomes too subjective at some point
Imagine thinking NA is even remotely relevant in LoL And even the non korean teams almost always have 1-2 korean players
I know that NA are "bad" at LoL, but they still influence the whole ecosystem. KR is still overall superior in LoL, but CN aggressively buying KR players to boost their own scene and managing to win World Titles (while EU was able to reach finals multiple times) pushed the scene to a whole new level of competitiveness.
Funnily enough, the first time I heard this theory of "the GOAT of esport is the GOAT of the most popular esport title imo, so it should be Faker" was at an Underdogs Ogaming party. It was Lilbow (yeah, the infamous Lilbow who prepared for Starcraft 3 before leaving for Overwatch ) who said it, and I can see where he is coming from, albeit I am also of the opinion that the intrinsic difficulty of a game should be considered (ergo why BW and Flash is also a good candidate)
The whole GSL prize pool is 14k, which is what a very low viewership BW streamer with 50 viewers earns in 3 months through donations alone.
This is the 'competition' that fears Serral now.
I find it funny how much delulu this community has about the level of competition post team houses/proleague 2016, and how much hyperboles are thrown around.
The question is: If team houses would have still existed, would Serral even take 1 game from some random korean at WCS? Probably not. Serral belongs in the same category as the best random foreigners in BSL nobody really cares about. He is as GOAT as Dewalt, who would get 0-100 by Soulkey
I mean, if you want to troll, you should probably up your game In terms of pure skill, if we say that the best players peaked at 100 in the various categories of skills that are useful in Starcraft 2, Serral would have an average of like 97-98. Sure, Clem and Reynor might be a tiny bit faster, ByuN might be a little bit more resilient, Maru might defend a little bit better, Rogue might be more creative, Dark might be a little bit better at certain caster interactions, herO or MaxPax might have better micro in certain aspects, etc. But overall, Serral kind of evolved into the ultimate perfect Starcraft 2 player and it's almost a "fact" at this point
On May 03 2024 01:49 argonautdice wrote: Maru may be the #1 GOAT, but Serral is the Flash of SC2 in terms of "the best I could do is 3-2 him" sheer intimidation, whereas Maru doesn't project that aura, at least in global international tournaments.
The whole GSL prize pool is 14k, which is what a very low viewership BW streamer with 50 viewers earns in 3 months through donations alone.
This is the 'competition' that fears Serral now.
I find it funny how much delulu this community has about the level of competition post team houses/proleague 2016, and how much hyperboles are thrown around.
The question is: If team houses would have still existed, would Serral even take 1 game from some random korean at WCS? Probably not. Serral belongs in the same category as the best random foreigners in BSL nobody really cares about. He is as GOAT as Dewalt, who would get 0-100 by Soulkey
On May 03 2024 01:49 argonautdice wrote: Maru may be the #1 GOAT, but Serral is the Flash of SC2 in terms of "the best I could do is 3-2 him" sheer intimidation, whereas Maru doesn't project that aura, at least in global international tournaments.
He’s probably the closest just in terms of being that complete package and having no real weaknesses. But his relative strengths aren’t quite at Flash’s level.
I wonder who Maru’s best BW analogue is, got all the skills and occasionally can make your jaw drop like no other, but prone to maybe the odd frustrating misstep.
Adding my usual caveat that the frequency of Maru’s missteps are still a lot less than a hell of a lot of the field, but this is judging by GOAT standards
Serral dominates because there is no competition. Is it either because he is good or the rest simply moved on from this dead end of a game, where 90 percent is funded by Saudi money, which is still below what top 5 streamers in BW get.
Makes you wonder why not one single Proleague-Topplayer just swoops in and takes the EWC money. Shouldn't take the likes of Rain and co. not more than a weeks practice to beat todays noobs.
On May 03 2024 01:49 argonautdice wrote: Maru may be the #1 GOAT, but Serral is the Flash of SC2 in terms of "the best I could do is 3-2 him" sheer intimidation, whereas Maru doesn't project that aura, at least in global international tournaments.
The whole GSL prize pool is 14k, which is what a very low viewership BW streamer with 50 viewers earns in 3 months through donations alone.
This is the 'competition' that fears Serral now.
I find it funny how much delulu this community has about the level of competition post team houses/proleague 2016, and how much hyperboles are thrown around.
The question is: If team houses would have still existed, would Serral even take 1 game from some random korean at WCS? Probably not. Serral belongs in the same category as the best random foreigners in BSL nobody really cares about. He is as GOAT as Dewalt, who would get 0-100 by Soulkey
On May 03 2024 01:58 WombaT wrote:
On May 03 2024 01:49 argonautdice wrote: Maru may be the #1 GOAT, but Serral is the Flash of SC2 in terms of "the best I could do is 3-2 him" sheer intimidation, whereas Maru doesn't project that aura, at least in global international tournaments.
He’s probably the closest just in terms of being that complete package and having no real weaknesses. But his relative strengths aren’t quite at Flash’s level.
I wonder who Maru’s best BW analogue is, got all the skills and occasionally can make your jaw drop like no other, but prone to maybe the odd frustrating misstep.
Adding my usual caveat that the frequency of Maru’s missteps are still a lot less than a hell of a lot of the field, but this is judging by GOAT standards
Serral dominates because there is no competition. Is it either because he is good or the rest simply moved on from this dead end of a game, where 90 percent is funded by Saudi money, which is still below what top 5 streamers in BW get.
Makes you wonder why not one single Proleague-Topplayer just swoops in and takes the EWC money. Shouldn't take the likes of Rain and co. not more than a weeks practice to beat todays noobs.
Rain might be the one player not to sarcastically mention. His raw talent is amazing.
On May 03 2024 01:49 argonautdice wrote: Maru may be the #1 GOAT, but Serral is the Flash of SC2 in terms of "the best I could do is 3-2 him" sheer intimidation, whereas Maru doesn't project that aura, at least in global international tournaments.
He’s probably the closest just in terms of being that complete package and having no real weaknesses. But his relative strengths aren’t quite at Flash’s level.
I wonder who Maru’s best BW analogue is, got all the skills and occasionally can make your jaw drop like no other, but prone to maybe the odd frustrating misstep.
Adding my usual caveat that the frequency of Maru’s missteps are still a lot less than a hell of a lot of the field, but this is judging by GOAT standards
I'm probably missing something but I have a hard time believing that serral is the closest to sc1 Flash. Serral's analog is probably one of the sc1 dragoons, emphasis on the s since there were multiple doing well.
Flash wasn't just dominant in one specific format, he was dominant in proleague as well. That reminds me of maru, not serral.
Flash was winning or that top for over a decade (when he initially played and then when he came back). That reminds me of maru, not serral.
Flash was dominant regardless of how his terran peers were doing. That again reminds me of maru, not serral. I can't remember a single time in serral's career where he single handedly carried his race. I really hope this doesn't get misinterpreted as balance whine, but carrying your race has to matter.
On May 03 2024 01:49 argonautdice wrote: Maru may be the #1 GOAT, but Serral is the Flash of SC2 in terms of "the best I could do is 3-2 him" sheer intimidation, whereas Maru doesn't project that aura, at least in global international tournaments.
That's such a weird, subjective, and arbitrary way to try to connect Serral to Flash's greatness. They're simply not comparable. No one in SC2 parallels Flash.
On May 03 2024 01:49 argonautdice wrote: Maru may be the #1 GOAT, but Serral is the Flash of SC2 in terms of "the best I could do is 3-2 him" sheer intimidation, whereas Maru doesn't project that aura, at least in global international tournaments.
He’s probably the closest just in terms of being that complete package and having no real weaknesses. But his relative strengths aren’t quite at Flash’s level.
I wonder who Maru’s best BW analogue is, got all the skills and occasionally can make your jaw drop like no other, but prone to maybe the odd frustrating misstep.
Adding my usual caveat that the frequency of Maru’s missteps are still a lot less than a hell of a lot of the field, but this is judging by GOAT standards
I'm probably missing something but I have a hard time believing that serral is the closest to sc1 Flash. Serral's analog is probably one of the sc1 dragoons, emphasis on the s since there were multiple doing well.
Flash wasn't just dominant in one specific format, he was dominant in proleague as well. That reminds me of maru, not serral.
Flash was winning or that top for over a decade (when he initially played and then when he came back). That reminds me of maru, not serral.
Flash was dominant regardless of how his terran peers were doing. That again reminds me of maru, not serral. I can't remember a single time in serral's career where he single handedly carried his race. I really hope this doesn't get misinterpreted as balance whine, but carrying your race has to matter.
So Maru is 19-39 in games and 4-14 in series against Serral. Which of the sc1 dragoons did Flash have a 33% win rate against in over 50 games?
If you ask the majority of people who at some point in time have been fans of SC2, most of them probably can't even remember who Maru is. HuK and Naniwa would probably get more "that is SC2"-answers than Maru. If we only focus on the remaining people who are still interested in SC2, there is a split between Serral, Maru and Rogue, though from feeling I would say the quantities go Serral > Maru > Rogue.
So no, Maru isn't Starcraft 2. And people will remember him as "A legend", not "THE legend". If you want to see how it looks when someone is "The Legend" of a game, look at TheViper in AoE2. Even now, when he is clearly not the best player in the world anymore, he is still considered to be the biggest legend, just from his legacy, his skill, the way he innovated the game, his dominance, but also the impact he had on the community. Compared to that, Maru is just an extremly boring player who is good. Sure, very good, extremly good, but that's it. His most exciting storyline is "can't win a World Championship to save his life"...what a legend...
Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
It's like you didn't spend the last 15 years watching Brood War or Flash. It's not really worth the energy to arguing your opinion, but I will just say I disagree wholeheartedly.
Only thing I will add, is that in SC2 there's a legitimate discussion as to who is #1. In Brood War, it doesn't come close. It's Flash by miles and then a fight for who is #2. So if you put Maru far above Flash, then it feels like the argument is less about the players and more about your opinion as to the difficulty of each game.
My point is not that Maru is a better candidate for GOAT at SC2 than Flash is for BW. Flash is the obvious BW GOAT.
My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
But once again, "talent" is a difficult thing to gauge, it's a matter of feeling. And after watching various esports since around 2004, with "gods" level talents such as the OGRES / Final Boss in Halo, the five gods in Super Smash Bros Melee and the recent scene, the various eras of League of Legends, Overwatch, a bit of Counter-Strike, etc. I have never seen someone as "alien" like talent wise as Maru.
Sure, he didn't live up to this potential. But it is pretty difficult to live up to such a potential when there are other monsters around, and that you know your potential is incredible.
Imho, and I emphasize this, it's merely an opinion, Maru failing to live up to the expectations placed on him are akin to William James Sidis failing to meet up the expectations of his IQ.
Flash, more dominant in his chosen game. So good at that game that he managed to get a 3rd place playing random. At his second game he was still a very solid pro, with a good Proleague record, some decent Starleague placements. Also was putting in results at the same/younger age than Maru.
Maru’s very good at the obvious, flashy aspects of the game. Flash is the complete RTS package. Maru is probably closer to being a deluxe Clem than SC2’s Flash.
Not meant as a diss at any of these phenomenal players, but it’s way more obvious to us mortals that what Maru can do mechanically is on another level, and he’s not massively lacking in other aspects of the game. Flash both has mechanics for days but also probably the keenest StarCraft brain going.
Hey it’s subjective opinion and talent is notoriously hard to gauge, I think Flash edges it myself but that’s just me.
I think it's the fact that Flash is so good outside mechanics that he never gets credit for macro or micro like other players who are good at just that "one thing". Very rarely has anyone actually ever out micro-ed Flash.
Yeah if we were playing StarCraft Top Trumps and splitting up versions skills there’s a lot of 10s and 9s there.
Hell I love Bisu, in all likelihood not as much as you but he’s my favourite BW pro. What’s even he, such a phenomenal player better than Flash at?
Early Movements and Setup: - The battle opens with both players strategically positioning their forces. Flash, known for his meticulous playstyle, deploys his Siege Tanks in a defensive formation. These tanks are interspersed with Vultures, which lay Spider Mines to create a protective barrier against direct assaults. The Marines are scattered, offering quick response capabilities and ranged support.
Protoss Response: - Bisu, leveraging the mobility of Protoss Dragoons, maneuvers around the map’s terrain. The Dragoons, heavy ranged units, are positioned to challenge the Terran defenses. Their goal is to exploit the Tanks' immobility, using their superior range to poke and prod at Flash’s setup.
Engagement Dynamics: - As the confrontation escalates, we see the first major engagements. Bisu initiates attacks, directing his Dragoons to focus fire on isolated Tanks. The Dragoons advance cautiously, trying to avoid the fields of Spider Mines. Meanwhile, Flash reacts by repositioning his Tanks into siege mode, where they can unleash devastating area damage.
Terran Counter-Moves: - With precise control, Flash commands his Marines to support the Tanks, targeting advancing Dragoons and warding off the Protoss. The Vultures dart in and out, redeploying Mines to adjust to the shifting lines of battle. This reactive play is crucial to holding off Bisu's aggressive maneuvers.
Protoss Adjustments and Micro: - Bisu, not deterred by the initial resistance, begins micro-managing his Dragoons with increased intensity. He executes hit-and-run tactics: firing at the Terran units and retreating before the Tanks can lock on their targets effectively. The goal is to whittle down the Terran forces while minimizing losses.
Climactic Clashes: - The tension peaks as both players engage in a micro-intensive battle. Every move and counter-move has significant implications. Bisu attempts a decisive push, leveraging a temporary advantage in numbers as he catches some of Flash's Tanks off-guard during repositioning.
Outcome and Strategic Repercussions: - As the dust settles from the skirmishes, the effectiveness of Bisu's micro against Flash’s strategic placement becomes apparent. Each lost unit for Flash means a weakening of his defensive line, potentially opening up opportunities for Bisu to exploit. Conversely, Flash's ability to inflict maximum damage while losing minimal units could lead to a stronger mid-game position, bolstering his chances for a counter-attack or economic expansion.
This battle is a classic showcase of strategy, precision, and quick decision-making that defines high-level StarCraft play. Each player's actions reflect their broader game plans, with Flash focusing on territorial control and Bisu aiming to disrupt and dismantle these defenses through superior unit management.
God, I love peak Brood War so much. So many details in these battles, it was just spectacular.
On April 30 2024 06:09 Poopi wrote: [quote] Maru's storyline with WC is the same as Messi storyline in football though. Guess who is the soccer goat?
Not Messi? I mean he’d get my vote but it’s a rather highly disputed one.
Maru’s got a great claim, but he’s not Flash. A significant proportion of the community don’t consider him the dude
Flash is not Maru either, not anywhere near as talented (semi joking, it’s close but Maru really is out of this world). Since he got caught in the crypto scandal, his legacy will probably be ternished a bit and a player like Rain who has been incredibly good in both StarCraft and different eras will probably have a better claim at GOAT than Flash.
It's like you didn't spend the last 15 years watching Brood War or Flash. It's not really worth the energy to arguing your opinion, but I will just say I disagree wholeheartedly.
Only thing I will add, is that in SC2 there's a legitimate discussion as to who is #1. In Brood War, it doesn't come close. It's Flash by miles and then a fight for who is #2. So if you put Maru far above Flash, then it feels like the argument is less about the players and more about your opinion as to the difficulty of each game.
My point is not that Maru is a better candidate for GOAT at SC2 than Flash is for BW. Flash is the obvious BW GOAT.
My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
But once again, "talent" is a difficult thing to gauge, it's a matter of feeling. And after watching various esports since around 2004, with "gods" level talents such as the OGRES / Final Boss in Halo, the five gods in Super Smash Bros Melee and the recent scene, the various eras of League of Legends, Overwatch, a bit of Counter-Strike, etc. I have never seen someone as "alien" like talent wise as Maru.
Sure, he didn't live up to this potential. But it is pretty difficult to live up to such a potential when there are other monsters around, and that you know your potential is incredible.
Imho, and I emphasize this, it's merely an opinion, Maru failing to live up to the expectations placed on him are akin to William James Sidis failing to meet up the expectations of his IQ.
Flash, more dominant in his chosen game. So good at that game that he managed to get a 3rd place playing random. At his second game he was still a very solid pro, with a good Proleague record, some decent Starleague placements. Also was putting in results at the same/younger age than Maru.
Maru’s very good at the obvious, flashy aspects of the game. Flash is the complete RTS package. Maru is probably closer to being a deluxe Clem than SC2’s Flash.
Not meant as a diss at any of these phenomenal players, but it’s way more obvious to us mortals that what Maru can do mechanically is on another level, and he’s not massively lacking in other aspects of the game. Flash both has mechanics for days but also probably the keenest StarCraft brain going.
Hey it’s subjective opinion and talent is notoriously hard to gauge, I think Flash edges it myself but that’s just me.
I think it's the fact that Flash is so good outside mechanics that he never gets credit for macro or micro like other players who are good at just that "one thing". Very rarely has anyone actually ever out micro-ed Flash.
Yeah if we were playing StarCraft Top Trumps and splitting up versions skills there’s a lot of 10s and 9s there.
Hell I love Bisu, in all likelihood not as much as you but he’s my favourite BW pro. What’s even he, such a phenomenal player better than Flash at?
Early Movements and Setup: - The battle opens with both players strategically positioning their forces. Flash, known for his meticulous playstyle, deploys his Siege Tanks in a defensive formation. These tanks are interspersed with Vultures, which lay Spider Mines to create a protective barrier against direct assaults. The Marines are scattered, offering quick response capabilities and ranged support.
Protoss Response: - Bisu, leveraging the mobility of Protoss Dragoons, maneuvers around the map’s terrain. The Dragoons, heavy ranged units, are positioned to challenge the Terran defenses. Their goal is to exploit the Tanks' immobility, using their superior range to poke and prod at Flash’s setup.
Engagement Dynamics: - As the confrontation escalates, we see the first major engagements. Bisu initiates attacks, directing his Dragoons to focus fire on isolated Tanks. The Dragoons advance cautiously, trying to avoid the fields of Spider Mines. Meanwhile, Flash reacts by repositioning his Tanks into siege mode, where they can unleash devastating area damage.
Terran Counter-Moves: - With precise control, Flash commands his Marines to support the Tanks, targeting advancing Dragoons and warding off the Protoss. The Vultures dart in and out, redeploying Mines to adjust to the shifting lines of battle. This reactive play is crucial to holding off Bisu's aggressive maneuvers.
Protoss Adjustments and Micro: - Bisu, not deterred by the initial resistance, begins micro-managing his Dragoons with increased intensity. He executes hit-and-run tactics: firing at the Terran units and retreating before the Tanks can lock on their targets effectively. The goal is to whittle down the Terran forces while minimizing losses.
Climactic Clashes: - The tension peaks as both players engage in a micro-intensive battle. Every move and counter-move has significant implications. Bisu attempts a decisive push, leveraging a temporary advantage in numbers as he catches some of Flash's Tanks off-guard during repositioning.
Outcome and Strategic Repercussions: - As the dust settles from the skirmishes, the effectiveness of Bisu's micro against Flash’s strategic placement becomes apparent. Each lost unit for Flash means a weakening of his defensive line, potentially opening up opportunities for Bisu to exploit. Conversely, Flash's ability to inflict maximum damage while losing minimal units could lead to a stronger mid-game position, bolstering his chances for a counter-attack or economic expansion.
This battle is a classic showcase of strategy, precision, and quick decision-making that defines high-level StarCraft play. Each player's actions reflect their broader game plans, with Flash focusing on territorial control and Bisu aiming to disrupt and dismantle these defenses through superior unit management.
God, I love peak Brood War so much. So many details in these battles, it was just spectacular.
On May 03 2024 01:49 argonautdice wrote: Maru may be the #1 GOAT, but Serral is the Flash of SC2 in terms of "the best I could do is 3-2 him" sheer intimidation, whereas Maru doesn't project that aura, at least in global international tournaments.
He’s probably the closest just in terms of being that complete package and having no real weaknesses. But his relative strengths aren’t quite at Flash’s level.
I wonder who Maru’s best BW analogue is, got all the skills and occasionally can make your jaw drop like no other, but prone to maybe the odd frustrating misstep.
Adding my usual caveat that the frequency of Maru’s missteps are still a lot less than a hell of a lot of the field, but this is judging by GOAT standards
I'm probably missing something but I have a hard time believing that serral is the closest to sc1 Flash. Serral's analog is probably one of the sc1 dragoons, emphasis on the s since there were multiple doing well.
Flash wasn't just dominant in one specific format, he was dominant in proleague as well. That reminds me of maru, not serral.
Flash was winning or that top for over a decade (when he initially played and then when he came back). That reminds me of maru, not serral.
Flash was dominant regardless of how his terran peers were doing. That again reminds me of maru, not serral. I can't remember a single time in serral's career where he single handedly carried his race. I really hope this doesn't get misinterpreted as balance whine, but carrying your race has to matter.
So Maru is 19-39 in games and 4-14 in series against Serral. Which of the sc1 dragoons did Flash have a 33% win rate against in over 50 games?
Effort has a winning a record against Flash. So serral is not one of the dragoons, he's Effort. Got it
On May 03 2024 01:49 argonautdice wrote: Maru may be the #1 GOAT, but Serral is the Flash of SC2 in terms of "the best I could do is 3-2 him" sheer intimidation, whereas Maru doesn't project that aura, at least in global international tournaments.
He’s probably the closest just in terms of being that complete package and having no real weaknesses. But his relative strengths aren’t quite at Flash’s level.
I wonder who Maru’s best BW analogue is, got all the skills and occasionally can make your jaw drop like no other, but prone to maybe the odd frustrating misstep.
Adding my usual caveat that the frequency of Maru’s missteps are still a lot less than a hell of a lot of the field, but this is judging by GOAT standards
I'm probably missing something but I have a hard time believing that serral is the closest to sc1 Flash. Serral's analog is probably one of the sc1 dragoons, emphasis on the s since there were multiple doing well.
Flash wasn't just dominant in one specific format, he was dominant in proleague as well. That reminds me of maru, not serral.
Flash was winning or that top for over a decade (when he initially played and then when he came back). That reminds me of maru, not serral.
Flash was dominant regardless of how his terran peers were doing. That again reminds me of maru, not serral. I can't remember a single time in serral's career where he single handedly carried his race. I really hope this doesn't get misinterpreted as balance whine, but carrying your race has to matter.
On May 02 2024 21:11 Poopi wrote: My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
No. Flash is the clear #1 in his game and was really good at another. Maru is neither and I'd argue Maru is not even the most talented Sc2 player...
On May 02 2024 21:11 Poopi wrote: My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
No. Flash is the clear #1 in his game and was really good at another. Maru is neither and I'd argue Maru is not even the most talented Sc2 player...
Who do you think would be the most talented sc2 player then? I am curious to hear this My take on this would be, in no particular order: INno, Serral, Maru, Zest, sOs and Rogue (post kespa switch) It's a difficult thing to gauge as said multiple times so thinking Serral, Reynor, Clem or any other KR player is the most talented sc2 player is a reasonable take imho. Seeing your signature I guess you think it's Serral, which is a pretty popular take and imo very reasonable
As for Flash, I am pretty sure Maru would be good as well in BW, Flash had a disappointing sc2 career compared to his BW pedigree so that's not a fair comparison to make imo.
On May 02 2024 21:11 Poopi wrote: My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
No. Flash is the clear #1 in his game and was really good at another. Maru is neither and I'd argue Maru is not even the most talented Sc2 player...
Who do you think would be the most talented sc2 player then? I am curious to hear this My take on this would be, in no particular order: INno, Serral, Maru, Zest, sOs and Rogue (post kespa switch) It's a difficult thing to gauge as said multiple times so thinking Serral, Reynor, Clem or any other KR player is the most talented sc2 player is a reasonable take imho. Seeing your signature I guess you think it's Serral, which is a pretty popular take and imo very reasonable
As for Flash, I am pretty sure Maru would be good as well in BW, Flash had a disappointing sc2 career compared to his BW pedigree so that's not a fair comparison to make imo.
While I get what you mean, I don't think anyone can be "more talented" after the Kespa-switch than before. Either you are talented or you are not. You can get better, hard work can carry you to the heighest heights, but that doesn't equal talent. My pick would also be Serral, mostly because of the fact that he closed the gap to people that have trained in the harshed enviroment there was in SC2 - and he apparently did that without excessive grinding? I think a year before I would have said Reynor, though apparently he is much more of a grinder than I though. In the end, you are ofc correct and talent can't be gauged. There is a good chance you are right and it is Maru. Though I wouldn't say he is "alien" as you said before to anyone else in the game.
As for your last point, I would speculate this: Maru could have a good career in BW aswell - but he couldn't now. Flash could have possibly become the SC2-GOAT - if he was born later and didn't play BW. Same could be said about Grubby for example: Maybe he would have destroyed the Koreans in SC2 as he did in WC3 - if he never had his WC3-career. BW and SC2 are of course closer to each other than WC3 and SC2 and some players managed to have good careers in both, but no one truely reached the highest top consistently in both, even though Jaedon and especially Fantasy/Rain became close
What I meant is that most original WoL / esF players are too far back in the past memories for me to really evaluate their talent, compared to the more recent players.
So for example MMA, Mvp, NesTea etc were talented as well but it is difficult for me to properly remember what I felt when watching them
As for Serral, he has the same problem as Happy in WC3 imo. Is Happy the goat of wc3 because he became the best player of all time after the game’s prime competitive era? Or is it MooN because he was obvious goat during the glory days of wc3?
In Halo, the OGRE twins were absolute monsters. They were invincible in 2v2, and reigned supreme in the most competitive mode of 4v4 in both Halo 1 and 2. However, OGRE1, who was perceived at the time as the absolute best, decided to stop his pro gaming career at the start of Halo 3 because he found the game too easy / not skillful enough and went to Australia to live another life.
Despite there being less money in the scene during Halo1/2/3, those were the « glory » days of competition because it was proportionally one of the biggest esports titles with MLG.
Otoh, the later Halo days with Reach, Halo 4, Halo 5 had more money because esports bubble exploded, but comparatively the aspiring pro gamers were spread out in A LOT more titles: moba, console FPS, PC fps, RTS, etc. Some players dominated in this era like Lethul, winning more money.
A GOAT list was made for Halo, OGRE2 had the #1 spot which was understandable since he kept playing and winning on several more extensions / halo games.
However, OGRE1 funnily got #11 because of huge recency bias from the panel.
For those like me who followed esports since basically its near inception, who was watching during the Halo glory days and also knew that during Halo 5 era a lot of gamer talents were playing other titles, seeing Lethul at #2 in a GOAT list and OGRE1 at #11 was ridiculous. But that’s also why these sort of lists should be taken with a grain of salt, and why the combination of good storytelling / narrative and ACCURATE facts are important.
Tl;dr: I don’t remember WoL era enough to accurately assess old gen sc2 pros talent.
On May 02 2024 21:11 Poopi wrote: My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
No. Flash is the clear #1 in his game and was really good at another. Maru is neither and I'd argue Maru is not even the most talented Sc2 player...
Who do you think would be the most talented sc2 player then? I am curious to hear this My take on this would be, in no particular order: INno, Serral, Maru, Zest, sOs and Rogue (post kespa switch) It's a difficult thing to gauge as said multiple times so thinking Serral, Reynor, Clem or any other KR player is the most talented sc2 player is a reasonable take imho. Seeing your signature I guess you think it's Serral, which is a pretty popular take and imo very reasonable
As for Flash, I am pretty sure Maru would be good as well in BW, Flash had a disappointing sc2 career compared to his BW pedigree so that's not a fair comparison to make imo.
The fact that one can argue in GOOD faith about who is the most talented player in SC2 shows that Maru is not above. Personally I put Serral above Maru but I can see why one would favor Maru. In BW there is IMO no (good faith) argument to be had. It's Flash. Period. Don't know anything about Halo WC3 can be argued but I think most would vote for Moon as Goat LoL is Faker I guess?. I don't know anything about LoL but I know the name Faker. Gotta mean something. CS:GO is somewhere between Dev1ce and S1mple? S1mple as the most raw talent, Dev1ce for titles and longevity
On May 03 2024 01:49 argonautdice wrote: Maru may be the #1 GOAT, but Serral is the Flash of SC2 in terms of "the best I could do is 3-2 him" sheer intimidation, whereas Maru doesn't project that aura, at least in global international tournaments.
He’s probably the closest just in terms of being that complete package and having no real weaknesses. But his relative strengths aren’t quite at Flash’s level.
I wonder who Maru’s best BW analogue is, got all the skills and occasionally can make your jaw drop like no other, but prone to maybe the odd frustrating misstep.
Adding my usual caveat that the frequency of Maru’s missteps are still a lot less than a hell of a lot of the field, but this is judging by GOAT standards
I'm probably missing something but I have a hard time believing that serral is the closest to sc1 Flash. Serral's analog is probably one of the sc1 dragoons, emphasis on the s since there were multiple doing well.
Flash wasn't just dominant in one specific format, he was dominant in proleague as well. That reminds me of maru, not serral.
Flash was winning or that top for over a decade (when he initially played and then when he came back). That reminds me of maru, not serral.
Flash was dominant regardless of how his terran peers were doing. That again reminds me of maru, not serral. I can't remember a single time in serral's career where he single handedly carried his race. I really hope this doesn't get misinterpreted as balance whine, but carrying your race has to matter.
So Maru is 19-39 in games and 4-14 in series against Serral. Which of the sc1 dragoons did Flash have a 33% win rate against in over 50 games?
Effort has a winning a record against Flash. So serral is not one of the dragoons, he's Effort. Got it
Sorry, but Flash is 11-12 in games and 4-6 in series against Efforts according to Liquipedia, so it's close to parity and it's not even close to 33% win rate in over 50 games.
On May 02 2024 21:11 Poopi wrote: My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
No. Flash is the clear #1 in his game and was really good at another. Maru is neither and I'd argue Maru is not even the most talented Sc2 player...
Who do you think would be the most talented sc2 player then? I am curious to hear this My take on this would be, in no particular order: INno, Serral, Maru, Zest, sOs and Rogue (post kespa switch) It's a difficult thing to gauge as said multiple times so thinking Serral, Reynor, Clem or any other KR player is the most talented sc2 player is a reasonable take imho. Seeing your signature I guess you think it's Serral, which is a pretty popular take and imo very reasonable
As for Flash, I am pretty sure Maru would be good as well in BW, Flash had a disappointing sc2 career compared to his BW pedigree so that's not a fair comparison to make imo.
The fact that one can argue in GOOD faith about who is the most talented player in SC2 shows that Maru is not above. Personally I put Serral above Maru but I can see why one would favor Maru. In BW there is IMO no (good faith) argument to be had. It's Flash. Period. Don't know anything about Halo WC3 can be argued but I think most would vote for Moon as Goat LoL is Faker I guess?. I don't know anything about LoL but I know the name Faker. Gotta mean something. CS:GO is somewhere between Dev1ce and S1mple? S1mple as the most raw talent, Dev1ce for titles and longevity
I don't think that's a good proof. Imo the fact that KR players destroyed the hopes and dream of the foreign scene for so long (progamers then became casters or other community figures), made this foreign scene pretty biased afterwards. No new blood came in the KR scene left in ashes post proleague, and Serral / Reynor / Clem gave hope to the foreign scene (region lock yada yada) + most casual foreign viewers don't watch GSL since it's become kinda niche for some time.
That KR bias vs EU bias + the various eras of sc2 (and the fact that there is more variance + patches in sc2 than BW) is why there is more of a debate about who is the sc2 goat.
On May 02 2024 21:11 Poopi wrote: My point is that Maru is a more talented gamer than Flash, as in his natural ability is imho out of this world. BW and SC2 have different skillsets, Flash would probably be a better protoss in sc2 than terran, so I guess he should have switched race.
No. Flash is the clear #1 in his game and was really good at another. Maru is neither and I'd argue Maru is not even the most talented Sc2 player...
Who do you think would be the most talented sc2 player then? I am curious to hear this My take on this would be, in no particular order: INno, Serral, Maru, Zest, sOs and Rogue (post kespa switch) It's a difficult thing to gauge as said multiple times so thinking Serral, Reynor, Clem or any other KR player is the most talented sc2 player is a reasonable take imho. Seeing your signature I guess you think it's Serral, which is a pretty popular take and imo very reasonable
As for Flash, I am pretty sure Maru would be good as well in BW, Flash had a disappointing sc2 career compared to his BW pedigree so that's not a fair comparison to make imo.
The fact that one can argue in GOOD faith about who is the most talented player in SC2 shows that Maru is not above. Personally I put Serral above Maru but I can see why one would favor Maru. In BW there is IMO no (good faith) argument to be had. It's Flash. Period. Don't know anything about Halo WC3 can be argued but I think most would vote for Moon as Goat LoL is Faker I guess?. I don't know anything about LoL but I know the name Faker. Gotta mean something. CS:GO is somewhere between Dev1ce and S1mple? S1mple as the most raw talent, Dev1ce for titles and longevity
I don't think that's a good proof. Imo the fact that KR players destroyed the hopes and dream of the foreign scene for so long (progamers then became casters or other community figures), made this foreign scene pretty biased afterwards. No new blood came in the KR scene left in ashes post proleague, and Serral / Reynor / Clem gave hope to the foreign scene (region lock yada yada) + most casual foreign viewers don't watch GSL since it's become kinda niche for some time.
That KR bias vs EU bias + the various eras of sc2 (and the fact that there is more variance + patches in sc2 than BW) is why there is more of a debate about who is the sc2 goat.
I mean, you could also say the same the other way around: If Serral was Korean, a lot of people would suddenly put him higher. And as I often mention: When you remove the "later stages" of SC2 or say they aren't worth as much, Maru drops aswell. Pre-2018 Maru was good, but you would never have put him on the #1 place, he was miles and miles off that.
Is Happy the goat of wc3 because he became the best player of all time after the game’s prime competitive era? Or is it MooN because he was obvious goat during the glory days of wc3?
People sometimes compare Happy and Serral, but that is just bad faith or a lack of understanding. Just to make this comparison: Last year, the biggest WC3 event in terms of prize-money was TP League S1, with an overall prizepool of roughly 22K. ESWC 2007, which was a year in which WC3 was still going strong but started to decline, had a prizepool of 19K (though knowing ESWC they probably never paid that out lol). And it wasn't even the biggest event of that year, just picked it because I remember it well. Some tournaments (like IEM) got up to over 50K - in 2007. 2007 had like 20-ish Tier 1 events listed on Liquipedia (however accurate that may be 17 years later), 2023 has three.
Compare that to SC2, where the overall money also declined over the years, but we still have massive prizepools. The winner of the current Europe Regional gets almost as much as the entire TP League offered. SC2 still provides enough money for a good chunk of fulltime progamer.
With WC3, that is not the case. The available money of tournaments is basically concentrated on a select few players, the rest isn't even semi-pro. At best they stream a lot. Happy is clearly the best player in the Reforged-era, there can't be any argument. But for me, that doesn't qualify him as a GOAT, because he was a fulltime pro in the competitive era and he wasn't even the best russian, let alone Undead. But if you made a top 10 list of the best players in the competitive era of WC3 (so basically until the release of SC2 I would say), Happy wouldn't even be an honorable mention.
Hope you can see how that is a very unfair comparison to say "Serral suffers the same problem". Serral still plays in a competitive field of fulltime pros, they play for big money still.
On May 03 2024 18:55 Ciaus237 wrote: There is only one correct answer to the most talented SC2 player: It's Life. And it isn't close.
Is he the greatest? On character - he is clearly disqualified. On accomplishment, no. But raw talent? Life was an anomaly among anomalies.
There are good reasons why we are hush hush about this, but this is the correct answer. Had Life not done what he had there is no question in my mind he'd be the GOAT, and there cannot be a legit conversation on this topic that doesn't acknowledge the context he provides to the discussion.
The field isn't super competitive though? In Europe, MaxPax is good in the small online stuff but barely makes a dent in the staked online stuff. Other than Clem and Reynor, the rest of the playerpool can't do much vs the big three. In Korea, there are still a lot more players that can be competitive, but most of them are past their prime.
The amount of money doesn't change the fact that only a select few are truly competitive in the scene, while the rest enjoy streaming / doing coaching for other pros / trying to qualify for the cool events because it's a nice experience, but they don't really hope to win the big tournaments they enter.
And yes, Happy was not as competitive in the earlier days of WC3, because he hadn't evolved into the final Happy product. That's the same for Serral, before going full time, he was super promising, but not has dominant. It's not a certainty that you become better after going full time (like it's not certain young prodigies like Life, Maru and Creator would have a career as impressive as their precocity promised).
There are too many "what if" in those sort of things though: what if Serral was KR? Maybe he would have crumbled versus the KR competition. What if Maru was European? Maybe he couldn't have thrived as well in such an environment. We only know what actually happened.
On May 03 2024 18:55 Ciaus237 wrote: There is only one correct answer to the most talented SC2 player: It's Life. And it isn't close.
Is he the greatest? On character - he is clearly disqualified. On accomplishment, no. But raw talent? Life was an anomaly among anomalies.
There are good reasons why we are hush hush about this, but this is the correct answer. Had Life not done what he had there is no question in my mind he'd be the GOAT, and there cannot be a legit conversation on this topic that doesn't acknowledge the context he provides to the discussion.
There is no doubt in your mind but the problem isn't what he did, the problem is he had a mental health problem and couldn't follow the path he might have followed.
Similarly, I see often people praising MaxPax as the best protoss in the world, because he displays great potential in minor tournaments versus Clem every week. Sure, but if he has mental health issues that prevent him for reaching to his potential in the actually important tournaments (namely, offline high stakes tournaments -> online high stakes > offline low stakes > online low stakes), it doesn't really matter.
Maru has shown his potential in basically every setting / country / format.
Additional note: the most interesting thing about these tales, players getting their wrists / shoulder / whatever destroyed, or mental health issues, basically boils down to health. Those that paved the way of esports didn't have as much knowledge / environment to allow them to compete in the safest manner possible, while the newer generation has more information available to take better care of themselves while competing. Similarly to sports where in the past athletes couldn't hope to really compete after 30, it's highly possible esport players might have longer careers.
- Happy was still fulltime for years in WC3 Prime, before switching to SC2 and then coming back to WC3 (mostly for money-reasons I believe, he was remarkable honest about that). He probably got better than he was before, but that is still no comparison to "I was a kid and not fulltime yet"-Serral. Professional AoE 2 is honestly more competitive than WC3 today and evne that is still miles off SC2. - Again, if we pretend Serrals era (which casually makes up half the games lifespan) isn't worth much, then neither is Marus. Case closed, we are all wrong, GOAT is probably Innovation. - In my opinion, Life owns his entire legacy to his stupidity. If he didn't do what he did, he would have crumbled over the years considerably and today we would remember him as that guy who was really good and then lost his edge. The only reason why people talk about him is because his journey got cut short through his own idiocracy
- Again, if we pretend Serrals era (which casually makes up half the games lifespan) isn't worth much, then neither is Marus. Case closed, we are all wrong, GOAT is probably Innovation.
Completely false, as if there would be no other opinion between the two extremes "everything after 2016 doesn't count" and "results in every year of the games lifespan should be worth the same, regardless of the level of competition".
- In my opinion, Life owns his entire legacy to his stupidity. If he didn't do what he did, he would have crumbled over the years considerably and today we would remember him as that guy who was really good and then lost his edge. The only reason why people talk about him is because his journey got cut short through his own idiocracy
Worst take in this thread, he won 10 premier tournaments at the age of 18 and half a million prizemoney. In his last tournament he barely lost blizzcon 3-4 to sOs. There's absolutely nothing that indicates he would have crumbled, he's the most talented player ever and apparently he didn't even need to practice that much to maintain his skill level.
We will never know, signs were there iirc that Life was somewhat on the wane (indeed it probably explains/is linked to why he was sucked in to do what he did)
The rock star that dies tragically at 27 is probably the best analogue I can think of. The veteran 70 year old ensemble is judged by their decades of waxing and waning, the former in one/two outstanding works and the thought of what might have been.
Let’s say Innovation had to stop playing after his first two years, years I still remember with awed reverence as maybe the scariest player I’ve seen relative to the competition. We’d probably judge him in a similar light versus what actually happened which was him dropping to merely being amongst the absolute best players, then a few years of being pretty mediocre.
Not that I’m disputing Life’s talent but his departure somewhat ruined his reputation as a person, but it forever solidified his reputation as a player, like an ancient insect trapped in amber.
I’ll add Taeja into the conversation as amongst the most talented players we’ve seen. He didn’t really come through the school of eSF/Kespa team houses but yet he was going toe to toe with those lads. He traded blows pretty equally with peak Life in some of the best series of the era, bested a peak Innovation in one of the all-time great games and his feats at IPL TAC were insane.
Maybe lacks a few elements to stick him high up in the GOAT pantheon, although I’d rate him relatively highly, but as an absolute raw talent he was top tier
- Again, if we pretend Serrals era (which casually makes up half the games lifespan) isn't worth much, then neither is Marus. Case closed, we are all wrong, GOAT is probably Innovation.
Completely false, as if there would be no other opinion between the two extremes "everything after 2016 doesn't count" and "results in every year of the games lifespan should be worth the same, regardless of the level of competition".
- In my opinion, Life owns his entire legacy to his stupidity. If he didn't do what he did, he would have crumbled over the years considerably and today we would remember him as that guy who was really good and then lost his edge. The only reason why people talk about him is because his journey got cut short through his own idiocracy
Worst take in this thread, he won 10 premier tournaments at the age of 18 and half a million prizemoney. In his last tournament he barely lost blizzcon 3-4 to sOs. There's absolutely nothing that indicates he would have crumbled, he's the most talented player ever and apparently he didn't even need to practice that much to maintain his skill level.
Yes, I know, usually it gets filtered between "did Maru win? Then it counts and is the most impressive win ever" and "Did Serral win? Lol, ded gaem".
Guy was so unstable, he would have most definetly crumbled. Maybe he would have been able to win something big again before it happened and he would go up the ladder, but otherwise...nah, not really. Though now that you mention it, Mvp somehow snuck into the Top 5 of the GOAT-list, so maybe you are right...
Just going to throw in Nada as the most talented SC progamer ever (even more than Flash, Maru, Serral, etc).
Flash had innate talent, but worked his absolute ass off as well, and we've seen times when his performance is rusty (like right now), leading to early exits out of tournaments like ASL 1.
Nada was at the top of the world, winning the golden mouse (3rd OSL championship), but according to Flash, literally just played Sudden Attack leading up to the finals, and just copied a build he saw once and won.
On May 04 2024 04:45 ruhtraeel wrote: Just going to throw in Nada as the most talented SC progamer ever (even more than Flash, Maru, Serral, etc).
Flash had innate talent, but worked his absolute ass off as well, and we've seen times when his performance is rusty (like right now), leading to early exits out of tournaments like ASL 1.
Nada was at the top of the world, winning the golden mouse (3rd OSL championship), but according to Flash, literally just played Sudden Attack leading up to the finals, and just copied a build he saw once and won.
You aren't wrong about peak Nada's talent. The huge difference is that Flash has survived every era of the game since he started. Nada tried to come back in the ASL and couldn't.
One thing to ponder, did Serral has ever brought his team to win official pro-league tournament? (Not something like one day team event) Basilisk has participated WTL tournament three times so far with heavily favorite to win, but cannot do that under Serral as one of his member. I knew these are also other teammate responsibilities but still why Maru or Rogue can manhandle their team to win the trophy but not Serral?
Maru brought Prime, JinairGreenwings, Team NV and Onsyde to win most of the official pro league trophies ever introduced while Rogue brought JinairGreenwings and DPG to win WTL later. Even in the lesser prestigious, ie War chest Team League (three weeks pro-league tournament handle by the casters), his team lost to TY's team in the final. Is anything happens that lead to Serral shoulder the most responsibilities causing the other members of his team to contributes lesser? Or Serral just choose the wrong team or very late in participating the WTL proleague event?
Since everyone talked much about Maru's individualistic proleague career in 2012-2016, there should be clear distinctions between how Maru can manhandle his team to win proleague team event transcending over a decade and how he triumphed as member of team in any of the proleague matches.
On May 05 2024 22:57 swarminfestor wrote: One thing to ponder, did Serral has ever brought his team to win official pro-league tournament? (Not something like one day team event) Basilisk has participated WTL tournament three times so far with heavily favorite to win, but cannot do that under Serral as one of his member. I knew these are also other teammate responsibilities but still why Maru or Rogue can manhandle their team to win the trophy but not Serral?
What is there to ponder?
Serral's performance in WTL, like most of his performances, has been stellar. It was Maru's teammates who simply performed better than Serral's teammates in those leagues, relatively speaking. Trigger, while showing potential, is simply not at the level of an S-tier player, and Reynor's 50/50 statistics have become a literal meme.
For instance, Serral has literally been awarded the Regular Season MVP in the Summer 2023 season. Later on in the playoffs, he all-killed the third-best team of WTL Code S, Abydos. On that particular day, he also continued to go on a 9-0 win streak, before losing a single ZvZ series against Solar. In fact, his wins on that day also included a 2-0 over Maru, as so often. If anyone's contribution to the Onsyde victory on the finals day stood out, it was Solar's, not Maru's, which is why Solar also got the Playoffs MVP, not Maru.
Besides, while not as prestigious, it is worth noting that Serral single-handedly brought Finland, out of all coutries, to win Nation Wars 2019 against, yes, South Korea in the finals.
On May 05 2024 22:57 swarminfestor wrote: One thing to ponder, did Serral has ever brought his team to win official pro-league tournament? (Not something like one day team event) Basilisk has participated WTL tournament three times so far with heavily favorite to win, but cannot do that under Serral as one of his member. I knew these are also other teammate responsibilities but still why Maru or Rogue can manhandle their team to win the trophy but not Serral?
What is there to ponder?
Serral's performance in WTL, like most of his performances, has been stellar. It was Maru's teammates who simply performed better than Serral's teammates in those leagues, relatively speaking. Trigger, while showing potential, is simply not at the level of an S-tier player, and Reynor's 50/50 statistics have become a literal meme.
For instance, Serral has literally been awared the Regular Season MVP in the Summer 2023 season. Later on in the playoffs, he all-killed the third-best team of WTL Code S, Abydos. On that particular day, he also continued to go on a 9-0 win streak, before losing a single ZvZ series against Solar. In fact, his wins on that day also included a 2-0 over Maru, as so often. If anyone's contribution to the Onsyde victory on the finals day stood out, it was Solar's, not Maru's, which is why Solar also got the Playoffs MVP, not Maru.
Besides, while not as prestigious, it is worth noting that Serral single-handedly brought Finland, out of all coutries, to win Nation Wars 2019 against, yes, South Korea in the finals.
Last season Maru record was better than Serral. Serral lost 4 games, 2 that cost his team points (against Wayne and Maru), 2 that covered by his teammates (against Dark and Firefly). And yes his teammate isnt as stable is Maru, although not by a huge margin imo, Serral still didnt "do his job" in those instances. And in the playoff, Serral simply got demoralized by Clem (so did Maru) so they were just equally as "bad" in the playoff.
On May 05 2024 22:57 swarminfestor wrote: One thing to ponder, did Serral has ever brought his team to win official pro-league tournament? (Not something like one day team event) Basilisk has participated WTL tournament three times so far with heavily favorite to win, but cannot do that under Serral as one of his member. I knew these are also other teammate responsibilities but still why Maru or Rogue can manhandle their team to win the trophy but not Serral?
What is there to ponder?
Serral's performance in WTL, like most of his performances, has been stellar. It was Maru's teammates who simply performed better than Serral's teammates in those leagues, relatively speaking. Trigger, while showing potential, is simply not at the level of an S-tier player, and Reynor's 50/50 statistics have become a literal meme.
For instance, Serral has literally been awared the Regular Season MVP in the Summer 2023 season. Later on in the playoffs, he all-killed the third-best team of WTL Code S, Abydos. On that particular day, he also continued to go on a 9-0 win streak, before losing a single ZvZ series against Solar. In fact, his wins on that day also included a 2-0 over Maru, as so often. If anyone's contribution to the Onsyde victory on the finals day stood out, it was Solar's, not Maru's, which is why Solar also got the Playoffs MVP, not Maru.
Besides, while not as prestigious, it is worth noting that Serral single-handedly brought Finland, out of all coutries, to win Nation Wars 2019 against, yes, South Korea in the finals.
Last season Maru record was better than Serral. Serral lost 4 games, 2 that cost his team points (against Wayne and Maru), 2 that covered by his teammates (against Dark and Firefly). And yes his teammate isnt as stable is Maru, although not by a huge margin imo, Serral still didnt "do his job" in those instances. And in the playoff, Serral simply got demoralized by Clem (so did Maru) so they were just equally as "bad" in the playoff.
Yes, and now what?
Both Serral's and Maru's performances in WTL have been far ahead of those of the rest of the players, with Serral having been the best in Summer 2023 and Maru slightly overtaking him in Winter 2023 by but a few maps. And yes, both of them were beaten by Clem at the end of that season, who was on fire at that time (as he is right now), but they both were still by far the best players in the whole league.
The point is that Serral has been consistently delivering in WTL, as he essentially always does in every tournament and league he participates in, to an even greater degree than Maru. But in team leagues, teammates matter, and Maru's teammates happen to have performed better than Serral's.
Generally speaking TL apart from Proleague haven't been taken as seriously and have been far more prone to random upsets and team kills (Sheth, Marinelord etc)
Maru does have an argument for best sc2 proleague player which is probably one of the strongest defenses for him (as it also justifies his lack of results pre-2017, he focused more on Proleague).
The argument that Maru had better teammates is also inarguable. sOs was a premier sniper and Rogue was solid even when he was Savage. Add in Cure, Trap, Creator...Jin Air was nearly always a top tier menance and Maru was just part of that equation.
On May 05 2024 22:57 swarminfestor wrote: One thing to ponder, did Serral has ever brought his team to win official pro-league tournament? (Not something like one day team event) Basilisk has participated WTL tournament three times so far with heavily favorite to win, but cannot do that under Serral as one of his member. I knew these are also other teammate responsibilities but still why Maru or Rogue can manhandle their team to win the trophy but not Serral?
What is there to ponder?
Serral's performance in WTL, like most of his performances, has been stellar. It was Maru's teammates who simply performed better than Serral's teammates in those leagues, relatively speaking. Trigger, while showing potential, is simply not at the level of an S-tier player, and Reynor's 50/50 statistics have become a literal meme.
For instance, Serral has literally been awared the Regular Season MVP in the Summer 2023 season. Later on in the playoffs, he all-killed the third-best team of WTL Code S, Abydos. On that particular day, he also continued to go on a 9-0 win streak, before losing a single ZvZ series against Solar. In fact, his wins on that day also included a 2-0 over Maru, as so often. If anyone's contribution to the Onsyde victory on the finals day stood out, it was Solar's, not Maru's, which is why Solar also got the Playoffs MVP, not Maru.
Besides, while not as prestigious, it is worth noting that Serral single-handedly brought Finland, out of all coutries, to win Nation Wars 2019 against, yes, South Korea in the finals.
Last season Maru record was better than Serral. Serral lost 4 games, 2 that cost his team points (against Wayne and Maru), 2 that covered by his teammates (against Dark and Firefly). And yes his teammate isnt as stable is Maru, although not by a huge margin imo, Serral still didnt "do his job" in those instances. And in the playoff, Serral simply got demoralized by Clem (so did Maru) so they were just equally as "bad" in the playoff.
Yes, and now what?
Both Serral's and Maru's performances in WTL have been far ahead of those of the rest of the players, with Serral having been the best in Summer 2023 and Maru slightly overtaking him in Winter 2023 by but a few maps.
Interesting way to frame this when in wtl summer serral went 23-1 and maru 21-2. They've both been ahead in wtl of everyone else but funny how when maru edges serral we get the qualifier of "slightly overtaking and just by a few maps" but we don't get the same qualifier when serral edges maru
On May 05 2024 22:57 swarminfestor wrote: One thing to ponder, did Serral has ever brought his team to win official pro-league tournament? (Not something like one day team event) Basilisk has participated WTL tournament three times so far with heavily favorite to win, but cannot do that under Serral as one of his member. I knew these are also other teammate responsibilities but still why Maru or Rogue can manhandle their team to win the trophy but not Serral?
What is there to ponder?
Serral's performance in WTL, like most of his performances, has been stellar. It was Maru's teammates who simply performed better than Serral's teammates in those leagues, relatively speaking. Trigger, while showing potential, is simply not at the level of an S-tier player, and Reynor's 50/50 statistics have become a literal meme.
For instance, Serral has literally been awared the Regular Season MVP in the Summer 2023 season. Later on in the playoffs, he all-killed the third-best team of WTL Code S, Abydos. On that particular day, he also continued to go on a 9-0 win streak, before losing a single ZvZ series against Solar. In fact, his wins on that day also included a 2-0 over Maru, as so often. If anyone's contribution to the Onsyde victory on the finals day stood out, it was Solar's, not Maru's, which is why Solar also got the Playoffs MVP, not Maru.
Besides, while not as prestigious, it is worth noting that Serral single-handedly brought Finland, out of all coutries, to win Nation Wars 2019 against, yes, South Korea in the finals.
Last season Maru record was better than Serral. Serral lost 4 games, 2 that cost his team points (against Wayne and Maru), 2 that covered by his teammates (against Dark and Firefly). And yes his teammate isnt as stable is Maru, although not by a huge margin imo, Serral still didnt "do his job" in those instances. And in the playoff, Serral simply got demoralized by Clem (so did Maru) so they were just equally as "bad" in the playoff.
Yes, and now what?
Both Serral's and Maru's performances in WTL have been far ahead of those of the rest of the players, with Serral having been the best in Summer 2023 and Maru slightly overtaking him in Winter 2023 by but a few maps.
Interesting way to frame this when in wtl summer serral went 23-1 and maru 21-2. They've both been ahead in wtl of everyone else but funny how when maru edges serral we get the qualifier of "slightly overtaking and just by a few maps" but we don't get the same qualifier when serral edges maru
This is because of the original post I responded to, which you may want to read. But I'll happily spell it out for you: Serral slightly outperformed Maru by just a few maps in WTL Summer 2023.
On May 04 2024 04:45 ruhtraeel wrote: Just going to throw in Nada as the most talented SC progamer ever (even more than Flash, Maru, Serral, etc).
Flash had innate talent, but worked his absolute ass off as well, and we've seen times when his performance is rusty (like right now), leading to early exits out of tournaments like ASL 1.
Nada was at the top of the world, winning the golden mouse (3rd OSL championship), but according to Flash, literally just played Sudden Attack leading up to the finals, and just copied a build he saw once and won.
You aren't wrong about peak Nada's talent. The huge difference is that Flash has survived every era of the game since he started. Nada tried to come back in the ASL and couldn't.
Flash has always just worked insanely hard. Relying on talent only carries you so far and people are eventually going to catch up, but it's impressive how Nada became so dominant for such a long time based off of talent alone
On May 05 2024 22:57 swarminfestor wrote: One thing to ponder, did Serral has ever brought his team to win official pro-league tournament? (Not something like one day team event) Basilisk has participated WTL tournament three times so far with heavily favorite to win, but cannot do that under Serral as one of his member. I knew these are also other teammate responsibilities but still why Maru or Rogue can manhandle their team to win the trophy but not Serral?
What is there to ponder?
Serral's performance in WTL, like most of his performances, has been stellar. It was Maru's teammates who simply performed better than Serral's teammates in those leagues, relatively speaking. Trigger, while showing potential, is simply not at the level of an S-tier player, and Reynor's 50/50 statistics have become a literal meme.
For instance, Serral has literally been awared the Regular Season MVP in the Summer 2023 season. Later on in the playoffs, he all-killed the third-best team of WTL Code S, Abydos. On that particular day, he also continued to go on a 9-0 win streak, before losing a single ZvZ series against Solar. In fact, his wins on that day also included a 2-0 over Maru, as so often. If anyone's contribution to the Onsyde victory on the finals day stood out, it was Solar's, not Maru's, which is why Solar also got the Playoffs MVP, not Maru.
Besides, while not as prestigious, it is worth noting that Serral single-handedly brought Finland, out of all coutries, to win Nation Wars 2019 against, yes, South Korea in the finals.
Last season Maru record was better than Serral. Serral lost 4 games, 2 that cost his team points (against Wayne and Maru), 2 that covered by his teammates (against Dark and Firefly). And yes his teammate isnt as stable is Maru, although not by a huge margin imo, Serral still didnt "do his job" in those instances. And in the playoff, Serral simply got demoralized by Clem (so did Maru) so they were just equally as "bad" in the playoff.
Sorry but that is some next level desperation argument cherry picking.
On May 05 2024 22:57 swarminfestor wrote: One thing to ponder, did Serral has ever brought his team to win official pro-league tournament? (Not something like one day team event) Basilisk has participated WTL tournament three times so far with heavily favorite to win, but cannot do that under Serral as one of his member. I knew these are also other teammate responsibilities but still why Maru or Rogue can manhandle their team to win the trophy but not Serral?
What is there to ponder?
Serral's performance in WTL, like most of his performances, has been stellar. It was Maru's teammates who simply performed better than Serral's teammates in those leagues, relatively speaking. Trigger, while showing potential, is simply not at the level of an S-tier player, and Reynor's 50/50 statistics have become a literal meme.
For instance, Serral has literally been awared the Regular Season MVP in the Summer 2023 season. Later on in the playoffs, he all-killed the third-best team of WTL Code S, Abydos. On that particular day, he also continued to go on a 9-0 win streak, before losing a single ZvZ series against Solar. In fact, his wins on that day also included a 2-0 over Maru, as so often. If anyone's contribution to the Onsyde victory on the finals day stood out, it was Solar's, not Maru's, which is why Solar also got the Playoffs MVP, not Maru.
Besides, while not as prestigious, it is worth noting that Serral single-handedly brought Finland, out of all coutries, to win Nation Wars 2019 against, yes, South Korea in the finals.
Last season Maru record was better than Serral. Serral lost 4 games, 2 that cost his team points (against Wayne and Maru), 2 that covered by his teammates (against Dark and Firefly). And yes his teammate isnt as stable is Maru, although not by a huge margin imo, Serral still didnt "do his job" in those instances. And in the playoff, Serral simply got demoralized by Clem (so did Maru) so they were just equally as "bad" in the playoff.
Sorry but that is some next level desperation argument cherry picking.
Well, at this level of GOAT debate, everything is about nitpicking, so yeah. If you saying that both Serral and Maru are miles ahead of the rest of players in team league, I am totally fine with that also.
On May 05 2024 22:57 swarminfestor wrote: One thing to ponder, did Serral has ever brought his team to win official pro-league tournament? (Not something like one day team event) Basilisk has participated WTL tournament three times so far with heavily favorite to win, but cannot do that under Serral as one of his member. I knew these are also other teammate responsibilities but still why Maru or Rogue can manhandle their team to win the trophy but not Serral?
What is there to ponder?
Serral's performance in WTL, like most of his performances, has been stellar. It was Maru's teammates who simply performed better than Serral's teammates in those leagues, relatively speaking. Trigger, while showing potential, is simply not at the level of an S-tier player, and Reynor's 50/50 statistics have become a literal meme.
For instance, Serral has literally been awared the Regular Season MVP in the Summer 2023 season. Later on in the playoffs, he all-killed the third-best team of WTL Code S, Abydos. On that particular day, he also continued to go on a 9-0 win streak, before losing a single ZvZ series against Solar. In fact, his wins on that day also included a 2-0 over Maru, as so often. If anyone's contribution to the Onsyde victory on the finals day stood out, it was Solar's, not Maru's, which is why Solar also got the Playoffs MVP, not Maru.
Besides, while not as prestigious, it is worth noting that Serral single-handedly brought Finland, out of all coutries, to win Nation Wars 2019 against, yes, South Korea in the finals.
Last season Maru record was better than Serral. Serral lost 4 games, 2 that cost his team points (against Wayne and Maru), 2 that covered by his teammates (against Dark and Firefly). And yes his teammate isnt as stable is Maru, although not by a huge margin imo, Serral still didnt "do his job" in those instances. And in the playoff, Serral simply got demoralized by Clem (so did Maru) so they were just equally as "bad" in the playoff.
Sorry but that is some next level desperation argument cherry picking.
On May 05 2024 22:57 swarminfestor wrote: One thing to ponder, did Serral has ever brought his team to win official pro-league tournament? (Not something like one day team event) Basilisk has participated WTL tournament three times so far with heavily favorite to win, but cannot do that under Serral as one of his member. I knew these are also other teammate responsibilities but still why Maru or Rogue can manhandle their team to win the trophy but not Serral?
What is there to ponder?
Serral's performance in WTL, like most of his performances, has been stellar. It was Maru's teammates who simply performed better than Serral's teammates in those leagues, relatively speaking. Trigger, while showing potential, is simply not at the level of an S-tier player, and Reynor's 50/50 statistics have become a literal meme.
For instance, Serral has literally been awared the Regular Season MVP in the Summer 2023 season. Later on in the playoffs, he all-killed the third-best team of WTL Code S, Abydos. On that particular day, he also continued to go on a 9-0 win streak, before losing a single ZvZ series against Solar. In fact, his wins on that day also included a 2-0 over Maru, as so often. If anyone's contribution to the Onsyde victory on the finals day stood out, it was Solar's, not Maru's, which is why Solar also got the Playoffs MVP, not Maru.
Besides, while not as prestigious, it is worth noting that Serral single-handedly brought Finland, out of all coutries, to win Nation Wars 2019 against, yes, South Korea in the finals.
Last season Maru record was better than Serral. Serral lost 4 games, 2 that cost his team points (against Wayne and Maru), 2 that covered by his teammates (against Dark and Firefly). And yes his teammate isnt as stable is Maru, although not by a huge margin imo, Serral still didnt "do his job" in those instances. And in the playoff, Serral simply got demoralized by Clem (so did Maru) so they were just equally as "bad" in the playoff.
Sorry but that is some next level desperation argument cherry picking.
I believe that the one time Serral barely lost to Ragnarok in IEM whereas Maru keeps 4-0'ing him in GSL proves that Maru > Serral once and for all. These are absolutely not two different cherry-picked statistics about Ragnarok, nope nope.
On May 05 2024 22:57 swarminfestor wrote: One thing to ponder, did Serral has ever brought his team to win official pro-league tournament? (Not something like one day team event) Basilisk has participated WTL tournament three times so far with heavily favorite to win, but cannot do that under Serral as one of his member. I knew these are also other teammate responsibilities but still why Maru or Rogue can manhandle their team to win the trophy but not Serral?
What is there to ponder?
Serral's performance in WTL, like most of his performances, has been stellar. It was Maru's teammates who simply performed better than Serral's teammates in those leagues, relatively speaking. Trigger, while showing potential, is simply not at the level of an S-tier player, and Reynor's 50/50 statistics have become a literal meme.
For instance, Serral has literally been awared the Regular Season MVP in the Summer 2023 season. Later on in the playoffs, he all-killed the third-best team of WTL Code S, Abydos. On that particular day, he also continued to go on a 9-0 win streak, before losing a single ZvZ series against Solar. In fact, his wins on that day also included a 2-0 over Maru, as so often. If anyone's contribution to the Onsyde victory on the finals day stood out, it was Solar's, not Maru's, which is why Solar also got the Playoffs MVP, not Maru.
Besides, while not as prestigious, it is worth noting that Serral single-handedly brought Finland, out of all coutries, to win Nation Wars 2019 against, yes, South Korea in the finals.
Last season Maru record was better than Serral. Serral lost 4 games, 2 that cost his team points (against Wayne and Maru), 2 that covered by his teammates (against Dark and Firefly). And yes his teammate isnt as stable is Maru, although not by a huge margin imo, Serral still didnt "do his job" in those instances. And in the playoff, Serral simply got demoralized by Clem (so did Maru) so they were just equally as "bad" in the playoff.
Sorry but that is some next level desperation argument cherry picking.
I believe that the one time Serral barely lost to Ragnarok in IEM whereas Maru keeps 4-0'ing him in GSL proves that Maru > Serral once and for all. These are absolutely not two different cherry-picked statistics about Ragnarok, nope nope.
Not only does it prove that Maru > Serral but it also proves Maru is more than 4 times as good as Serral obviously
On May 05 2024 22:57 swarminfestor wrote: One thing to ponder, did Serral has ever brought his team to win official pro-league tournament? (Not something like one day team event) Basilisk has participated WTL tournament three times so far with heavily favorite to win, but cannot do that under Serral as one of his member. I knew these are also other teammate responsibilities but still why Maru or Rogue can manhandle their team to win the trophy but not Serral?
What is there to ponder?
Serral's performance in WTL, like most of his performances, has been stellar. It was Maru's teammates who simply performed better than Serral's teammates in those leagues, relatively speaking. Trigger, while showing potential, is simply not at the level of an S-tier player, and Reynor's 50/50 statistics have become a literal meme.
For instance, Serral has literally been awared the Regular Season MVP in the Summer 2023 season. Later on in the playoffs, he all-killed the third-best team of WTL Code S, Abydos. On that particular day, he also continued to go on a 9-0 win streak, before losing a single ZvZ series against Solar. In fact, his wins on that day also included a 2-0 over Maru, as so often. If anyone's contribution to the Onsyde victory on the finals day stood out, it was Solar's, not Maru's, which is why Solar also got the Playoffs MVP, not Maru.
Besides, while not as prestigious, it is worth noting that Serral single-handedly brought Finland, out of all coutries, to win Nation Wars 2019 against, yes, South Korea in the finals.
Last season Maru record was better than Serral. Serral lost 4 games, 2 that cost his team points (against Wayne and Maru), 2 that covered by his teammates (against Dark and Firefly). And yes his teammate isnt as stable is Maru, although not by a huge margin imo, Serral still didnt "do his job" in those instances. And in the playoff, Serral simply got demoralized by Clem (so did Maru) so they were just equally as "bad" in the playoff.
Sorry but that is some next level desperation argument cherry picking.
I mean you have Serral in your signature and I have Maru, aren't we biased?
On May 05 2024 22:57 swarminfestor wrote: One thing to ponder, did Serral has ever brought his team to win official pro-league tournament? (Not something like one day team event) Basilisk has participated WTL tournament three times so far with heavily favorite to win, but cannot do that under Serral as one of his member. I knew these are also other teammate responsibilities but still why Maru or Rogue can manhandle their team to win the trophy but not Serral?
What is there to ponder?
Serral's performance in WTL, like most of his performances, has been stellar. It was Maru's teammates who simply performed better than Serral's teammates in those leagues, relatively speaking. Trigger, while showing potential, is simply not at the level of an S-tier player, and Reynor's 50/50 statistics have become a literal meme.
For instance, Serral has literally been awared the Regular Season MVP in the Summer 2023 season. Later on in the playoffs, he all-killed the third-best team of WTL Code S, Abydos. On that particular day, he also continued to go on a 9-0 win streak, before losing a single ZvZ series against Solar. In fact, his wins on that day also included a 2-0 over Maru, as so often. If anyone's contribution to the Onsyde victory on the finals day stood out, it was Solar's, not Maru's, which is why Solar also got the Playoffs MVP, not Maru.
Besides, while not as prestigious, it is worth noting that Serral single-handedly brought Finland, out of all coutries, to win Nation Wars 2019 against, yes, South Korea in the finals.
Last season Maru record was better than Serral. Serral lost 4 games, 2 that cost his team points (against Wayne and Maru), 2 that covered by his teammates (against Dark and Firefly). And yes his teammate isnt as stable is Maru, although not by a huge margin imo, Serral still didnt "do his job" in those instances. And in the playoff, Serral simply got demoralized by Clem (so did Maru) so they were just equally as "bad" in the playoff.
Sorry but that is some next level desperation argument cherry picking.
I mean you have Serral in your signature and I have Maru, aren't we biased?
On May 05 2024 22:57 swarminfestor wrote: One thing to ponder, did Serral has ever brought his team to win official pro-league tournament? (Not something like one day team event) Basilisk has participated WTL tournament three times so far with heavily favorite to win, but cannot do that under Serral as one of his member. I knew these are also other teammate responsibilities but still why Maru or Rogue can manhandle their team to win the trophy but not Serral?
What is there to ponder?
Serral's performance in WTL, like most of his performances, has been stellar. It was Maru's teammates who simply performed better than Serral's teammates in those leagues, relatively speaking. Trigger, while showing potential, is simply not at the level of an S-tier player, and Reynor's 50/50 statistics have become a literal meme.
For instance, Serral has literally been awared the Regular Season MVP in the Summer 2023 season. Later on in the playoffs, he all-killed the third-best team of WTL Code S, Abydos. On that particular day, he also continued to go on a 9-0 win streak, before losing a single ZvZ series against Solar. In fact, his wins on that day also included a 2-0 over Maru, as so often. If anyone's contribution to the Onsyde victory on the finals day stood out, it was Solar's, not Maru's, which is why Solar also got the Playoffs MVP, not Maru.
Besides, while not as prestigious, it is worth noting that Serral single-handedly brought Finland, out of all coutries, to win Nation Wars 2019 against, yes, South Korea in the finals.
Last season Maru record was better than Serral. Serral lost 4 games, 2 that cost his team points (against Wayne and Maru), 2 that covered by his teammates (against Dark and Firefly). And yes his teammate isnt as stable is Maru, although not by a huge margin imo, Serral still didnt "do his job" in those instances. And in the playoff, Serral simply got demoralized by Clem (so did Maru) so they were just equally as "bad" in the playoff.
Sorry but that is some next level desperation argument cherry picking.
Well, at this level of GOAT debate, everything is about nitpicking, so yeah. If you saying that both Serral and Maru are miles ahead of the rest of players in team league, I am totally fine with that also.
You have to nitpick like this a lot more if you want to argue for Maru though
Bro the goat; Greatest Of All Time = The MOST SKILLED player of all time; considering Serral has consistently beat Maru and Maru has admitted this in interviews... your whole post is simple WRONG! Confirmed by Maru himself! If ur gonna put this much effort into something you might wanna look into your biases cuz the problem begins and ends there and this has very little to do with any goats
On May 09 2024 18:12 Furaijin wrote: this guy has LOST THE PLOT entirely! Holy damn!
Bro the goat; Greatest Of All Time = The MOST SKILLED player of all time; considering Serral has consistently beat Maru and Maru has admitted this in interviews... your whole post is simple WRONG! Confirmed by Maru himself! If ur gonna put this much effort into something you might wanna look into your biases cuz the problem begins and ends there and this has very little to do with any goats
Sorry what did Maru admit? I'd like to watch that interview.
On May 09 2024 18:12 Furaijin wrote: this guy has LOST THE PLOT entirely! Holy damn!
Bro the goat; Greatest Of All Time = The MOST SKILLED player of all time; considering Serral has consistently beat Maru and Maru has admitted this in interviews... your whole post is simple WRONG! Confirmed by Maru himself! If ur gonna put this much effort into something you might wanna look into your biases cuz the problem begins and ends there and this has very little to do with any goats
Most skilled of all time is such a boring goat definition. It changes every month and the end answer will most likely be some kid who's currently playing SC2 and will peak after the scene is truly dead without anyone knowing who he is.
Btw since many of the latest posts are about "talent" let me add to this topic.
I think most of us can agree that talent is an illusive, subjective concept. For me, it comes down to "Who took this game to new heights? Who did things I've never seen before? Who had the wow factor?".
I won't go into who is "most" talented, or whether Maru is as talented as Flash, but I do think it'll be difficult to argue in good faith that Maru didn't shine in these criteria. Maru showed us since his early years that Terran could be played like Zerg, that it can be an offensive race, that it's possible to mirco units like THAT, that you can claw back against top tier competitors when you're down 60 supply...and he has pretty consistently exceled through the darkest days for Terran.
Does Serral give me that feeling? No. Serral optimizes his builds and is a very balanced player, but he follows a script and he executes very well.
I know if you're a Serral fan you probably find his play the most exciting ever, so I'm merely presenting my case - I'm too old to think I can convince others with different opinion.
I'll leave you with one question: in soccer I've heard people call Messi the artist for his brilliance and Ronaldo the engineer for his efficiency (no offense to Ronaldo, as I'm actually a bigger fan of the latter) - between Maru and Serral, who would be the artist, and who the engineer?
Also to everyone who thinks Life is the most talented player ever and should've been the GOAT, here's a game between Maru and Life from 2015. I find it interesting not just because of the result, but also the pre-game predictions (I won't spoil it) www.youtube.com
On May 09 2024 18:12 Furaijin wrote: this guy has LOST THE PLOT entirely! Holy damn!
Bro the goat; Greatest Of All Time = The MOST SKILLED player of all time; considering Serral has consistently beat Maru and Maru has admitted this in interviews... your whole post is simple WRONG! Confirmed by Maru himself! If ur gonna put this much effort into something you might wanna look into your biases cuz the problem begins and ends there and this has very little to do with any goats
He consistently beat Maru from 2022-2024, before that they hardly faced each other. As you said yourself GOAT is greatest of ALL TIME so Serral being better than Maru for 2 years out of Marus 14 year career doesn't disprove anything.
On May 10 2024 11:02 goldensail wrote: Btw since many of the latest posts are about "talent" let me add to this topic.
I think most of us can agree that talent is an illusive, subjective concept. For me, it comes down to "Who took this game to new heights? Who did things I've never seen before? Who had the wow factor?".
I won't go into who is "most" talented, or whether Maru is as talented as Flash, but I do think it'll be difficult to argue in good faith that Maru didn't shine in these criteria. Maru showed us since his early years that Terran could be played like Zerg, that it can be an offensive race, that it's possible to mirco units like THAT, that you can claw back against top tier competitors when you're down 60 supply...and he has pretty consistently exceled through the darkest days for Terran.
Does Serral give me that feeling? No. Serral optimizes his builds and is a very balanced player, but he follows a script and he executes very well.
I know if you're a Serral fan you probably find his play the most exciting ever, so I'm merely presenting my case - I'm too old to think I can convince others with different opinion.
I'll leave you with one question: in soccer I've heard people call Messi the artist for his brilliance and Ronaldo the engineer for his efficiency (no offense to Ronaldo, as I'm actually a bigger fan of the latter) - between Maru and Serral, who would be the artist, and who the engineer?
It’s not a bad comparison but ultimately they have a didn’t set of tools to play with. Flashy micro feats impress many more than basically the entirety of the other skills needed in the game, hence why I think this perception that Terran is the most demanding race on skill is so pervasive (and totally not annoying ).
The Messi artist/Ronaldo engineer comparison exists because folks think Messi was just prenaturally gifted and Ronaldo had to work his ass off. I don’t think that perception is particularly accurate but if we were to go with it as a comparison, if anything Serral is the Messi, not Maru. As the bloke who got to that level doing his own thing rather than hothoused via team houses
The difficulty of Terran in terms of mechanics is not micro per se, but rather the macro is more demanding in terms of inputs / attention than the other races, yet the micro is still demanding, so it’s very difficult to do properly especially when playing bio.
It has been debated ad nauseam though, but it doesn’t really matter in the goat debate which race has been more difficult over the years / patches
On March 19 2024 09:12 Kitai wrote: Ok, someone's gotta do it at this point. The list is done, everyone has read the articles and listened to the forum arguments. So here we go!
Because I don't want to keep posting GOAT stuff in the GSL thread, just going to point out that it's pretty clear the majority of the community thinks Serral is the GOAT. Which is completely fine because it's a legitimate take. And although this poll says 60%, I think it's pretty safe to say that we at tl.net are going to skew more korean-focused than the community overall. And this poll was in the middle of the thread, so like the real die-hard tl.neters. The real percentage is likely at least 70% and possibly significantly higher.
I mean this was a controversial post for a reason. And Miz himself said he kept going back and forth on it.
Separately, do we know what koreans think on the GOAT debate? Does it tend to roughly match the foreign community, are they more Maru focused, or even something else?
Miz, I remember you said you asked soO about who the GOAT was - what did he say? Sorry if you posted it before it's a long thread now.
Afaik soO thought it was Serral. Some users pointed out that soO only met Serral the final product while he played Maru for basically their entire common sc2 career.
On March 19 2024 09:12 Kitai wrote: Ok, someone's gotta do it at this point. The list is done, everyone has read the articles and listened to the forum arguments. So here we go!
Because I don't want to keep posting GOAT stuff in the GSL thread, just going to point out that it's pretty clear the majority of the community thinks Serral is the GOAT. Which is completely fine because it's a legitimate take. And although this poll says 60%, I think it's pretty safe to say that we at tl.net are going to skew more korean-focused than the community overall. And this poll was in the middle of the thread, so like the real die-hard tl.neters. The real percentage is likely at least 70% and possibly significantly higher.
I mean this was a controversial post for a reason. And Miz himself said he kept going back and forth on it.
Separately, do we know what koreans think on the GOAT debate? Does it tend to roughly match the foreign community, are they more Maru focused, or even something else?
Miz, I remember you said you asked soO about who the GOAT was - what did he say? Sorry if you posted it before it's a long thread now.
I remember at gamers8 they had a section where they asked the players who they think the Goat is and while the foreigners all said Serral the koreans were pretty much 50/50 between Serral and Maru.
Also to your point that the tl community is more korean favored I might add that the general foreign community is definitely more likely to be foreigner biased due to casters always hyping them up etc. Also not really an objective take. It's like asking portuguese people who they think the football Goat is and taking that as proof CR7 is above Messi
On May 11 2024 14:43 Poopi wrote: Afaik soO thought it was Serral. Some users pointed out that soO only met Serral the final product while he played Maru for basically their entire common sc2 career.
Yeah that probably played a role in his assessment. Judging only results from 2018 on he's 1-10 in series against Maru (the win being a bo1 in teamleague) and 3-8 vs Serral (2 of those wins are bo1s in teamleagues). But he was doing pretty well against Maru before that
On March 19 2024 09:12 Kitai wrote: Ok, someone's gotta do it at this point. The list is done, everyone has read the articles and listened to the forum arguments. So here we go!
Because I don't want to keep posting GOAT stuff in the GSL thread, just going to point out that it's pretty clear the majority of the community thinks Serral is the GOAT. Which is completely fine because it's a legitimate take. And although this poll says 60%, I think it's pretty safe to say that we at tl.net are going to skew more korean-focused than the community overall. And this poll was in the middle of the thread, so like the real die-hard tl.neters. The real percentage is likely at least 70% and possibly significantly higher.
I mean this was a controversial post for a reason. And Miz himself said he kept going back and forth on it.
Separately, do we know what koreans think on the GOAT debate? Does it tend to roughly match the foreign community, are they more Maru focused, or even something else?
Miz, I remember you said you asked soO about who the GOAT was - what did he say? Sorry if you posted it before it's a long thread now.
Interesting. I wish there were an official poll like this so we can observe how the community sentiment has evolved over the history of the game.
I do want to point out that this measures sentiment, which is heavily influenced by recent results, and in turn, game balance.
I also find it interesting that Rogue receives so few votes. In a post match interview of Maru ('22 ish), PiG provocatively asked "recently Rogue said he's the GOAT, what do you think?" to which Maru answered "yeah he's still the GOAT since he won so many titles". Of course Maru might be a bit biased since they were teammates at Jin Air and Maru had always held Rogue in high regard. Now it seems people have all but forgotten him.
Edit: I forgot to mention - this poll is done on an English forum, where I suspect readership is primarily EU/Americas based (i.e. more "foreigners"). Would it generate similar results if the poll had more representation from Korea, China etc.? Also are there more Zergs voting for Serral vs. Terran voting for Maru and vice versa? I don't purport to know the answer but food for thought.
Much of the community was already calling Serral the goat in 2019. He was objectively not the goat at that point. There is a clear bias towards him that continues to be true to this day even though he has a strong argument now. Point being I don't think overall fan sentiment can be taken seriously when it's definitely motivated by him being the first non Korean to become the best in the world along with the way casters used to over hype him.